Hans Freudenthal

Hans Freudenthal (17 September 1905 – 13 October 1990) was a German-born Dutch mathematician. He made substantial contributions to algebraic topology and also took an interest in literature, philosophy, history and mathematics education.

Freudenthal was born in Luckenwalde, Brandenburg, on 17 September 1905, the son of a Jewish teacher. He was interested in both mathematics and literature as a child, and studied mathematics at the University of Berlin beginning in 1923. He met Brouwer in 1927, when Brouwer came to Berlin to give a lecture, and in the same year Freudenthal also visited the University of Paris. He completed his thesis work with Heinz Hopf at Berlin, defended a thesis on the ends of topological groups in 1930, and was officially awarded a degree in October 1931. After defending his thesis in 1930, he moved to Amsterdam to take up a position as assistant to Brouwer. In this pre-war period in Amsterdam, he was promoted to lecturer at the University of Amsterdam, and married his wife, Suus Lutter, a Dutch teacher.

Although he was a German Jew, Freudenthal's position in the Netherlands insulated him from the anti-Jewish laws that had been passed in Germany beginning with the Nazi rise to power in 1933. However, in 1940 the Germans invaded the Netherlands, following which Freudenthal was suspended from duties at the University of Amsterdam by the Nazis. In 1943 Freudenthal was sent to a labor camp in the village of Havelte in the Netherlands, but with the help of his wife (who, as a non-Jew, had not been deported) he escaped in 1944 and went into hiding with his family in occupied Amsterdam. During this period Freudenthal occupied his time in literary pursuits, including winning first prize under a false name in a novel-writing contest.

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