Deutsche Mathematik
The German mathematics was the attempt of the mathematician Ludwig Bieberbach in the Third Reich, to make the math again vividly conceived basics. Modern mathematics has been doing recently rejected as "Jewish". German mathematics is also the title of a 1936 by Ludwig Bieberbach, founded and edited by Theodor Vahlen magazine, which was set in 1945.
As with the phenomenon of German physics took place in the mathematical basic research around the turn of the century a fundamental shift, causing a rift between the mathematicians in supporters and opponents. The structure of thinking prevailed, as the axiomatic penetration of algebraic structures with basic terms such as " body ", " group" or " ideal", the contents of which are beyond the concrete intuition. With the amount of teaching modern mathematics won a formal, not back cross to the perception foundation that prevailed between the two world wars.
Ludwig Bieberbach rejected the formalist mathematics and developed in 1934 an anti-Semitic " theory of types " based on the integration typology of Marburg psychologist Erich Rudolf Jaensch. This intellectual character types are treated as that of the unstable, weak and baseless " opposite type " or "S - type ", which show a tendency to confuse symbol relationships with real contexts. In contrast, an "Aryan" " J- type stated " whose strength his will, character, and action are manifestations of life, " from the depths come ". This Bieberbach took the " Intuitionismusstreit " on. The intuitionists appealed to the geometric- ideological foundations of mathematics, the formalists stressed structure thinking and axiomatics, with the view the formal system must not influence. In the "German mathematics " the formalists were pushed into the negative S- type. As his theses platform founded Bieberbach 1936, the magazine " German mathematics ", which he chaired until the cessation in 1945 as editor. Co-editor was the mathematician Theodor Vahlen (1869-1945), who attempted to describe mathematics as " the mirror of the races."
Jaensch as Bieberbach differentiated between " J " types, between artistic (eg Felix Klein), scientific (Carl Friedrich Gauss, Johannes Kepler ) and soldierly types ( David Hilbert, Karl Weierstrass ). Among the " S-type" also representatives of the French school were called abstract ( Augustin Louis Cauchy, Henri Poincaré ).
For the seemingly occult phenomenon of German mathematics there are several causes. So applied for after the collapse of the German Empire in almost all areas of basic science, the old intellectual elites against the modernity par excellence, which the formalist mathematics was connected. In the 20s new occupations of the insurance and the economy mathematician came up, who pushed mathematics as a fundamental discipline in the background. In the 1930s, finally broke through the low-birth of the First World War and the expulsion of Jewish scientists, student numbers threatening one, mathematics as a basic discipline was threatened.
Bieberbach used his anti-Semitic theory of types in National Socialism in order to give the it represents intuitionistic mathematics disciplinary greater weight and scientific organization to promote mathematics as a basis for discipline. A typical argument aimed for example at the educational value for the " nation as a whole " from:
"But this is far more important educational value that follows from the connectedness of mind of mathematics with the Third Reich. The basic attitude of both the Heroic. [ ... ] Both require the service: the mathematics the service of truth, sincerity, accuracy. [ ... ] Both are anti- materialistic. [ ... ] They both want to order, discipline, both combat chaos, arbitrariness. "
The highlight of the debate about the German mathematics was reached in 1938, they finally reached no scientific meaning and settled as the German physics in the tension between politics and science.
From the DC circuit in the Third Reich and the mathematics was affected: from the universities a third of the scientific intelligentsia had to leave their positions. Thus, the Göttingen mathematician David Hilbert replied an anecdote according to the question of the Minister of Science Bernhard Rust whether the mathematics in Göttingen by the DC circuit ( who moved to the momentous forced emigration of Jewish professors ) has really suffered so much:
" Suffered? Dat has nich Suffered, Minister. Dat jibt it but Janich more! "
Main representative
- Ludwig Bieberbach (1886-1982)
- Vahlen Theodor (1869-1945)
- Oswald Teichmüller (1913-1943)
- Erhard Tornier (1894-1982)
- Sweet William (1895-1958)
- Gustav Doetsch (1892-1977)
- Max plug-in (1907-1971)