Abstract
In this chapter we look at one of the most important documents that I unearthed, Van der Waerden’s “Defense” of his behavior in the Third Reich, 1933–1945.
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Notes
- 1.
June 1, 2004 [Bru8].
- 2.
It consisted of Jonkheer Mr. Dr L.H.N. Bosch ridder van Rosenthal, president (and also former president, 1930–1940, until he was dismissed during the war by the German authorities); Dr. H.W. Stenvers; Dr. A.J. Boekelman; and Miss Marie-Anne Tellegen as an extra member, who must have combined this appointment with her job as director of the Queen’s Cabinet. The Utrecht College van Herstel en Zuivering was converted into the (normal) College van Curatoren in June 1946.
- 3.
It consisted of the neurologist Prof. C. T. van Valkenburg, who during the German occupation initiated the resistance of general doctors and medical specialists; the architect Wieger Bruin who had been an active member of the resistance movement among artists; and Gijs van Hall, a fundraiser and banker for the resistance, who later became mayor of Amsterdam. It was to investigate staff against whom suspicion had risen, but in fact it did so only in cases of doubt and then very superficially due to its acting at the same time as the College van Curatoren. It was converted and extended into the College van Curatoren on May 19, 1947.
- 4.
As we have seen in Chapters 15 and 16, Van der Waerden spoke against firing of Leipzig’s Jewish professors in May 1935, and published papers of Jewish authors in the Annalen until 1940. I have found no evidence of him protecting “Jewish and left wing students” and no statement by Van der Waerden himself to this effect.
- 5.
Dr Knegtmans [Kne2] refers to the April 17, 1946 letter from B. en W. of Amsterdam to CvH, Archief Curatoren nr 369, which says that “the [Van der Waerden’s] appointment did not go through also because the Minister had told the City Council beforehand that he would not ratify it.”
- 6.
On August 14, 1945, the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Utrecht University forwarded this document to de Commissie tot Herstel en Zuivering, when they recommended van der Waerden as their first choice for J. A. Barrau’s position. Utrecht University, Archive of the Faculty of Mathematics, Correspondence, 1945.
- 7.
Handwritten two-page document in Dutch; Utrecht University, Archive of the Faculty of Mathematics, Correspondence, 1945. This was an important document for Dr. Van der Waerden: even half a year later, on January 22, 1946, he included a copy of “The Defense” in a letter to his friend Hans Freudenthal. Another copy of this document is held at RANH, Papers of Hans Freudenthal, mathematician, 1906–1990, inv. nr. 89.
- 8.
True, but it took place in May 1935, see Chapter 15.
- 9.
This must be the last name of an official in the Saxon Government.
- 10.
In this Dutch document, this Nazi term for people of Jewish and Aryan mixed blood, appears in German in quotation marks.
- 11.
True, but this brave publication in Mathematische Annalen took place in 1935: Vol. 111, pp. 469–474.
- 12.
Actually, he was first asked in December 1942.
- 13.
As we have seen, Mrs. Camilla Van der Waerden is identified by her husband sometimes as Austrian, other times as German. Let us clarify these attributions. She was born in Austria. When Austria was annexed into the Third Reich on 12 March 1938, under the so-called Anschluss Österreichs, Mrs. Van der Waerden became a citizen of the Third Reich, and in that sense, a German.
References
Bruijn, N. G. de, e-mail to A. Soifer, June 1, 2004.
Knegtmans, P. J., Een Kweetsbaar Centrum van de Geest: De Universiteit van Amsterdam tussen 1935 en 1950, Amsterdam University Press, 1998.
Knegtmans, P. J., e-mail to A. Soifer, May 26, 2004.
Knegtmans, P. J., e-mail to A. Soifer, May 28, 2004.
Soifer, A., In Search of Van der Waerden, Leipzig and Amsterdam, 1931–1951. Part II: Amsterdam, 1945, Geombinatorics XIV(2), 2004, 72–102.
Struik, D., Letter to A. Soifer, March 3, 1995.
Waerden, B. L. van der, Undated letter to Soifer, A., (Swiss Post Office seal April 24, 1995).
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Soifer, A. (2015). “The Defense”. In: The Scholar and the State: In Search of Van der Waerden. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-0712-8_25
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