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A Math Lesson From Hitler’s Germany (2017)

149 points by perihelions

by timthorn

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The Lost Scientists of WWII is a good read telling the stories of a number of scientists who applied to the British for asylum but who didn't make it: https://worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/q0436

by tlogan

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One lesser-known and deeply unsettling fact from academic history is that a significant number of professors at major German universities supported the Nazi regime during its rise to power. Far from being passive bystanders, many actively embraced Nazi ideology, joined the party, or participated in the purge of Jewish and politically dissident faculty.
A detailed exploration of this phenomenon can be found in the books “Complicity in the Holocaust: Churches and Universities in Nazi Germany” by Robert P. Ericksen and “Deutsche Geschichtswissenschaft und der Nationalsozialismus” by Richard J. Evans. An accessible summary is also available via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-role-o...
This isn’t just a historical footnote—it’s a sobering reminder of how institutions of knowledge can be wrong.

by ccorcos

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The most recent Veritasium video touched on this — Emmy Noether worked under Hilbert and made significant contributions to general relativity, worked at University of Göttingen (Jewish, and first woman professor) until 1933.
https://youtu.be/lcjdwSY2AzM?si=qVZdS1QTBgmMTX9r

by hackandthink

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Mathematics at Göttingen under the Nazis
Saunders Mac Lane
"Now in retrospect, the whole development is a decisive demonstration of the damage done to academic and mathematical life by any subor- dination to populism, political pressure and pro- posed political principles."
https://www.ams.org/notices/199510/maclane.pdf

by nonrandomstring

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This quote stood out:
```
  "It’s not so much that people are persecuted because of their
  beliefs, but there is a certain trend where careful reasoning, the
  search for truth, all the delicacies of having a balanced point of
  view, acting on facts, being honest about what you do and don’t
  know, your uncertainty, all these values we have in science and
  scholarship are at risk."
```
Isn't this epistemic crisis [0]. I think mistrust in the world increased to the extent the it got digital, but taking advantage of crisis, even conjuring untruth, mistrust and polycrisis [1] as a smokescreen strategy for taking control is also a basic Machiavelli thing, right?. This (epistemic injury) is more easily done to already traumatised people. Germans of 1930s, already reeling from recent war, were vulnerable to a rampage of anti-intellectualism and a bonfire of knowledge.
[0] https://academic.oup.com/book/26406/chapter/194768451
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20210209-the-greatest-s...

by thadt

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"It is impossible to engage in intellectual discourse with National Socialism because it is not an intellectually defensible program. It is false to speak of a National Socialist philosophy, for if there were such an entity, one would have to try be means of analysis and discussion either to prove its validity or to combat it. In actuality, however, we face a totally different situation. At its very inception this movement depended on the deception and betrayal of one’s fellow man; even at that time it was inwardly corrupt and could support itself only by constant lies. After all, Hitler states in an early edition of “his” book (a book written in the worst German I have ever read, in spite of the fact that it has been elevated to the position of the Bible in this nation of poets and thinkers): "It is unbelievable, to what extent one must betray a people in order to rule it." If at the start, the cancerous growth in the nation was not particularly noticeable, it was only because there were still enough forces at work that operated for the good, so that it was kept under control. As it grew larger, however, and finally in an ultimate spurt of growth attained ruling power, the tumor broke open, as it were, and infected the whole body. The greater part of its former opponents went into hiding. The German intellectuals fled to their cellars, there, like plants struggling in the dark, away from light and sun, gradually choked to death."
- Hans Scholl
Medical student, philosopher, WW2 medic, patriot.
For these words (among others), beheaded at the age of 25, along with his sister Sophie (22), and friend Christoph (24).

by achenet

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> About a year later, Hilbert attended a banquet and was seated next to the new Minister of Education, Bernhard Rust. Rust asked whether "the Mathematical Institute really suffered so much because of the departure of the Jews." Hilbert replied, "Suffered? It doesn't exist any longer, does it?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hilbert

by hintymad

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Math lessons from Red China between 1960s and 1980s send their regards. Joke aside, it's interesting to see how different political beliefs lead to opposite viewpoints for the same experience.
Due to deeply scarring experiences in communist China, some Chinese immigrants in America are extremely wary of the Democratic Party, believing they've been following in the footsteps of the Communist Party by substituting morality for rules and narratives for truth. These immigrates are like those Cuban immigrant: they turned red (I read somewhere that some research showed that most Chinese immigrants started with blue as they really believed in liberalism) and voted Trump.
On the other hand, some other Chinese immigrants with the same experience reached the opposite conclusions. Their painful experiences made them suspicious of Trump's Republican Party, which they view as resembling authoritarian movements by prioritizing ideology over facts. These immigrants typically became more blue and supported Kamala Harris and Democratic candidates.

by dirtyhippiefree

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——> Worth mentioning that this is the result of Operation Paperclip. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
The scientists came here or were kidnapped by the Soviet Union.

by holtkam2

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“ It’s going to take most of our lifetimes to redo what’s going to get undone in the next four years,” Ault says
Honest question; why does everyone seem to assume the Trump administration will only be another 4 years? Is it hard to imagine him getting a 3rd term, or 4th or 5th?
The reason I ask is because I’m genuinely puzzled by this, not trying to make a political statement. I can’t imagine any incentive for trump to relinquish power so I’d assume he’ll attempt to hold onto it as he did at the end of his last term. Why does no one else acknowledge this nonzero probability? It seems everyone is taking for granted it’s only another 4 years and that makes me wonder if I’m crazy or if everyone else is just saying that because they haven’t thought it through.

by photochemsyn

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The excellent mathematical history "The Music of the Primes" by Marcus du Sautoy covers this period:
"Within the space of a few weeks, Hitler had destroyed the great Gottingen tradition forged by Gauss, Riemann, Dirichlet and Hilbert. One commentator wrote that it was 'one of the greatest tragedies experienced by human culture since the time of the Renaissance'. Gottingen (and some might argue, German mathematics itself) has never recovered from its destruction by Nazi Germany during the thirties. Hilbert died on St. Valentine's Day in 1943... his death marked the end of the city's position as the Mecca of mathematics."
The central rational for the initial Nazi assault on the Gottingen department of mathematics was its Marxist leanings, with Nazi street protests decrying the 'fortress of Marxism'. Note that 'Landau, who was Jewish, was allowed to stay because he had been appointed before the outbreak of the First World War. The non-Aryan clause in the civil-service law of April 1933 did not apply to long-serving professors or those who had fought in the war.' Later Landau was targeted for his Jewishness, forced to resign, and died in 1938 in Germany after a bried exodus to Britain.
People should be somewhat cautious in applying these historical examples to the USA today - indeed, the corruption of the American academic system began long ago in the 1980s, when Bayh-Dole legislation initiated the corporatization of research via the exclusive licensing of tax-payer funded research to private interests, who then stopped financing their own proprietary industrial research centers like Bell Labs. Now American universities are packed with shady entrepreneurs who routinely cook data and found startups in the hope of large financial payouts via acquistion by large corporations. This has lead to rampant fraud, a culture of secrecy and distrust, and various other ills.

by iterance

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Many of my academic colleagues are considering emigration. A nontrivial fraction have already begun (or in certain prescient cases completed) the process. It is sad to say, but it is difficult to imagine a career in science in the US right now. I am also considering whether that future for myself is best pursued elsewhere. Or, I'm sadder to say, whether the opportunity has been foreclosed upon for good. There is no way to know yet what the future truly holds, but the rhyme history offers for our times is an unpleasant one to imagine.

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by tonetheman

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by TotalPilpul

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by MaxPock

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