Abstract
Otto Neugebauer visited Copenhagen twice, on Harald Bohr’s invitation. The first visit, during the year 1924/1925, resulted in two papers, one of which is the only paper on pure mathematics that Neugebauer ever wrote. Later, as Neugebauer had to leave Germany due to severe problems with the Nazi regime, he obtained a sponsored professorship during the years 1934–1939. This paper covers Neugebauer’s first sojourn in Copenhagen and describes how his situation in Göttingen became unbearable and forced him to leave Germany. It also reports on the Bohr brothers’ assistance for scientists who had to flee from Germany and on Neugebauer’s friendship with Harald Bohr. Finally it focuses on Neugebauer’s activities in Copenhagen during the years 1934–1939: his research and collaboration with Danish Egyptologists, his teaching, and his relationship to his first doctoral student, Olaf Schmidt, who was my teacher.
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- 1.
On the biography of Harald Bohr see Ramskov 1995.
- 2.
For a comprehensive study of the German mathematicians during the Nazi regime, see Siegmund-Schultze 2009.
- 3.
For a detailed biography of Otto Neugebauer, see Swerdlow 1993.
- 4.
In 1915 Bohr had become a professor at the Technical University of Copenhagen (Den polytekniske Læreanstalt), a position he kept until, finally, a professorship was created for him at Copenhagen University in 1930.
- 5.
Neugebauer 1925.
- 6.
Bohr and Neugebauer 1926.
- 7.
Ramskov 2004, 254. Strangely, this letter is missing in files sent to me by Tage Gutmann Madsen whom I thank cordially for scanning material in Copenhagen and sending it to me.
- 8.
For the disastrous impact of the Nazis on the University of Göttingen, see Becker et al. 1998.
- 9.
Neugebauer 1930.
- 10.
For more details see Schappacher 1998.
- 11.
See also Swerdlow 1993, 145 and Pyenson 1995. As noted above, Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze’s stirring book, Siegmund-Schultze 2009, provides a detailed study of the situation of mathematicians living in or fleeing from Nazi Germany, in which many individual fates are treated, letters and other documents from the time are reproduced, and the global impact of the immigrating mathematicians is analyzed. Appendix 1 lists those 145 German-speaking mathematicians who emigrated during the Nazi period, and those 27 who were murdered or driven to suicide by the Nazis. It was not without risk to resist or criticize the new government, so colleagues from outside Germany tried to step in and help. Appendix 3.1 reproduces a report compiled by Harald Bohr “together with different German friends” on the conditions in German Universities.
- 12.
Excerpts from such letters to friends and colleagues in Sweden, Norway, England, and the USA, are quoted in Ramskov 1995.
- 13.
Much more on refugees in Denmark, and on those who helped them can be found in Steffensen 1986. Steffen Steffensen (1908–1984) was a professor in German literature at the University of Copenhagen. Through many years he collected a comprehensive material on the exile of German speaking intellectuals in Denmark, scholars as well as artists and politically engaged persons. One goal of his project was to illustrate what a richness these refugees brought to their host country Denmark. After his death in 1984, it was decided to conclude the project and publish those articles which were already finished or were planned by Steffensen. The book (only existing in Danish, though the German-language Dähnhardt and Nielsen 1993 is largely based on it) begins with a description of the situation in Denmark concerning the refugees fleeing from Nazi Germany followed by the presentation of different help organizations. Then the fates of persons, who could stay in Denmark for at least some time, are presented in essays. The essays are organized according to their field: Scientists, Humanities, Psychologists, Philosophers, Artists, Musicians, and Writers. Børge Jessen (1907–1993) wrote the contribution on the mathematicians who worked for some time in Denmark (Jessen 1986, also in German translation as Jessen 1993). These are Otto Neugebauer, Werner Fenchel (1905–1988) and his wife Käte (born Sperling, 1905–1983), Herbert Busemann (1905–1994), and Willy Feller (1905–1970). Jessen held a chair as a professor at the mathematical institute of the Copenhagen University; later Fenchel also became a professorship at the mathematical Institute, where both he and Jessen were my teachers. In 1929 Jessen had stayed in Göttingen for one semester, visiting Landau and Hilbert.
- 14.
Neugebauer 1952.
- 15.
The Rask-Ørsted-Fonden was establish after the first world war for supporting the scientific exchange and collaboration between Danish and foreign scientists.
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
All papers and books which were publications published from Copenhagen can be found in Sachs and Toomer 1979.
- 19.
- 20.
Neugebauer 1939.
- 21.
Information on the collection and its history is at http://pcarlsberg.ku.dk.
- 22.
See Schmidt 1950.
- 23.
Different explanations are proposed in Ginzel 1909, 176–177.
- 24.
Neugebauer and Volten 1938.
- 25.
Lange and Neugebauer 1940.
- 26.
Neugebauer 1942, 200.
- 27.
The lecture notes “Vorlesungen über babylonische Astronomie Teil II, Die Theorie der Finsternisse”, Kopenhagen 1937, consist of pages numbered -1, 0, and 1-31 plus tables and corrigenda on pages numbered I-V.
- 28.
Neugebauer 1938a.
- 29.
Neugebauer 1936. The editors’ introduction mentions the good attendance of the lectures which Neugebauer had held in the spring semester of 1934 which became his Vorlesungen über Geschichte der antiken mathematischen Wissenschaften.
- 30.
Neugebauer 1938b.
- 31.
Schmidt 1950, 128.
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Brack-Bernsen, L. (2016). Otto Neugebauer’s Visits to Copenhagen and His Connection to Denmark. In: Jones, A., Proust, C., Steele, J. (eds) A Mathematician's Journeys. Archimedes, vol 45. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25865-2_3
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