Mathematicians under the Nazis by Sanford L. Segal (PDF)

Description

Contrary to popular belief–and despite the expulsion, emigration, or death of many German mathematicians–substantial mathematics was produced in Germany during 1933-1945. In this landmark social history of the mathematics community in Nazi Germany, Sanford Segal examines how the Nazi years affected the personal and academic lives of those German mathematicians who continued to work in Germany. The effects of the Nazi regime on the lives of mathematicians ranged from limitations on foreign contact to power struggles that rattled entire institutions, from changed work patterns to military draft, deportation, and death. Based on extensive archival research, Mathematicians under the Nazis shows how these mathematicians, variously motivated, reacted to the period’s intense political pressures. It details the consequences of their actions on their colleagues and on the practice and organs of German mathematics, including its curricula, institutions, and journals. Throughout, Segal’s focus is on the biographies of individuals, including mathematicians who resisted the injection of ideology into their profession, some who worked in concentration camps, and others (such as Ludwig Bieberbach) who used the “Aryanization” of their profession to further their own agendas. Some of the figures are no longer well known; others still tower over the field. All lived lives complicated by Nazi power. Presenting a wealth of previously unavailable information, this book is a large contribution to the history of mathematics–as well as a unique view of what it was like to live and work in Nazi Germany.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Professor Segal taught me Complex Variables my first semester in graduate school. Over the years, I saw him as a mathematician, educator as well as a careful and enthusiastic scholar.Mathematicians Under the Nazis was as I expected; thoroughly researched, engagingly written and clearly enunciated as to what conclusions were and were not reached.This book was especially provocative for me, knowing at least some of the individuals within its pages.

⭐the book’s condition was as advertised, very good and the price was also very good.

⭐Just a bit boring

⭐This is not a history of mathematics in German universities during the Nazi regime. It is a history of politics among German mathematicians during the Nazi regime. The names are here but the mathematics is not. I began to read it, then abandoned it and reverted to skimming each page when it became clear in the fourth chapter what little the book had to do with mathematics per se. The author could just as well be talking about German academic basket weavers for all it matters that the discussion refers to mathematicians. My rating of it gives it the benefit of the doubt that for those readers who care about the subject it may indeed be a valuable book.

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