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Memorial Day 2014 at the University of Bremen

On 27 January 2014 the University of Bremen will once again hold a Day of Remembrance for victims of the Nazi regime. This year’s theme: What was the role of mathematics under the Nazis?

As early as 1933, mathematics became one of the academic disciplines to fall under the influence of Nazi economic policy. Mass dismissals of so-called “non-Arians” and political dissidents resulted in about one third of all mathematics professors leaving Germany. By the outbreak of war the regime had begun to instrumentalize mathematics research and involve mathematicians in war research. Dr. Ulf Hashagen will be dealing with this topic in a lecture entitled “The Self-mobilization and Instrumentalization of Applied Mathematics in the National Socialist State”. The lecture will be held at 4pm in HörsaalgebäudeGW1 (opposite the Universum) and is also open to members of the public.

“Unpolitical” mathematicians were particularly useful for war research

On the basis of case studies, Ulf Hashagen illustrates how under Nazi pressure and a certain willingness to adapt to the Third Reich by representatives of the discipline, the realm of mathematics in Germany was fundamentally changed. Paradoxically, research outcomes in the area of applied mathematics on the part of self-proclaimed “unpolitical” mathematicians proved to be extremely useful for war research and the stability of the Nazi regime. One aspect was that the mathematicians, who felt above all committed only to their subject, made their expertise available to military research in the Third Reich and in return received generous resources for their own research. Some of the leading mathematicians and physicists became involved in war research projects commissioned by the SS. They even utilized the forced labor of their non-German colleagues in the interest of mathematical war research.

Dr. Ulf Hashagen is leader of the Research Institute for Technology and Science History at the LMU in Munich, where his main focus is on the history of Mathematics and Informatics in the 19th and 20th centuries, but also on the development of the German science system.

You can find further information on the events taking place during the Memorial Day for victims of National Socialism at the University and in the town of Bremen in the detailed press release in German.