Ernst August Weiß (or Weiss; 5 May 1900 in

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...

– 9 February 1942 in a Nazi

field hospital A field hospital is a temporary hospital or mobile medical unit that takes care of casualties on-site before they can be safely transported to more permanent facilities. This term was initially used in military medicine (such as the Mobile A ...

near

Lake Ilmen Lake Ilmen ( rus, И́льмень, p=ˈilʲmʲɪnʲ) is a large lake in the Novgorod Oblast of Russia. A historically important lake, it formed a vital part of the medieval trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks. The city of Novgorod - wh ...

) was a German mathematician.

Early life and education

Since 1906, he attended the Lyceum in

Metz Metz ( , , lat, Divodurum Mediomatricorum, then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers. Metz is the prefecture of the Moselle department and the seat of the parliament of the Grand E ...

, the Luther school and (1910–1912) Schiller gymnasium in

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...

, and 1912–1917 the Mommsen-Gymnasium in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, where he passed the Notabitur. He volunteered for the German

military engineers Military engineering is loosely defined as the art, science, and practice of designing and building military works and maintaining lines of military transport and military communications. Military engineers are also responsible for logistics be ...

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, participated in the

attrition warfare Attrition warfare is a military strategy consisting of belligerent attempts to win a war by wearing down the enemy to the point of collapse through continuous losses in personnel and materiel. The word ''attrition'' comes from the Latin root , m ...

near

Reims Reims ( , , ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne. Founded by ...

and Soissons and was captured 26 September 1918 during the tank battle near

Cheppy Cheppy () is a commune in the Meuse department in Grand Est in northeastern France. It was a site of fighting during World War I. An American monument sculpted by Nancy Coonsman was erected there by the State of Missouri after the war to honor t ...

by American soldiers. After his release in September 1919 he studied mathematics at

Leibniz University Hannover Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz University Hannover (german: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität), also known as the University of Hannover, is a public research university located in Hanover, Germany. Founded on 2 May 1831 as Higher Vocational Sc ...

and (1920–1924)

Bonn University The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...

, where he obtained a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in March 1924 and a

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

in May 1926. In August 1926, he married the physicist Eva Renate Bidder.

Work in SA

Weiß joined an SA storm in

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr r ...

in 1933, and got promoted up to an

Obertruppführer Obertruppführer (, "senior troop leader") was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party that was used between the years of 1932 and 1945. The rank is most closely associated with the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA), but also was an early rank of the ''Schu ...

. He directed the Bonn

Studentenwerk A Studentenwerk (plural: ''Studentenwerke'') or Studierendenwerk is a state-run non-profit organization for student affairs in Germany. Each ''Studentenwerk'' is organized at the local level so that it covers one or more universities. The umbrella o ...

. He created the Mathematical Work Camps ("Mathematische Arbeitslager") in Kronenburg "as a new form of mathematical university teaching and collaboration of professors and students", which took place 1—15 March 1934, 15—29 October 1934, 17 February–3 March 1935, 23 February–7 March 1936, and 17—31 October 1938. Segal (1992) examined Weiß' camps from a pedagogical point of view, "as one example of how mathematics and Nazi ideology would interact". Weiß was a permanent editor of the journal ''

Deutsche Mathematik ''Deutsche Mathematik'' (German Mathematics) was a mathematics journal founded in 1936 by Ludwig Bieberbach and Theodor Vahlen. Vahlen was publisher on behalf of the German Research Foundation (DFG), and Bieberbach was chief editor. Other editors w ...

''. A list of his publications is given in Blaschke (1942).

Death

In 1941, Weiß took part in

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...

company commander A company commander is the commanding officer of a company, a military unit which typically consists of 100 to 250 soldiers, often organized into three or four smaller units called platoons. The exact organization of a company varies by country, ...

of an

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

unit; during the Demyansk Pocket he was mortally wounded in close combat in Lukinn.

Selected works

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weiss, Ernst August 20th-century German mathematicians University of Bonn alumni German Army personnel of World War I German Army personnel killed in World War II Sturmabteilung personnel 1900 births 1942 deaths German prisoners of war in World War I Scientists from Strasbourg University of Hanover alumni