Gerhard Gentzen
| Gerhard Gentzen | |
|---|---|
Gerhard Gentzen in Prague, 1945.
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| Born |
November 24, 1909 Greifswald, Germany |
| Died | August 4, 1945 (aged 35) Prague, Czechoslovakia |
| Nationality | German |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Alma mater | University of Göttingen |
| Doctoral advisor | Paul Bernays |
Gerhard Karl Erich Gentzen (November 24, 1909 – August 4, 1945) was a German mathematician and logician. He made major contributions to the foundations of mathematics, proof theory, especially on natural deduction and sequent calculus. He died in 1945 after the Second World War, because he was deprived of food after being arrested in Prague.
Gentzen was a student of Paul Bernays at the University of Göttingen. Bernays was fired as "non-Aryan" in April 1933 and therefore Hermann Weyl formally acted as his supervisor. Gentzen joined the Sturmabteilung in November 1933 although he was by no means compelled to do so. Nevertheless he kept in contact with Bernays until the beginning of the Second World War. In 1935, he corresponded with Abraham Fraenkel in Jerusalem and was implicated by the Nazi teachers' union as one who "keeps contacts to the Chosen People." In 1935 and 1936, Hermann Weyl, head of the Göttingen mathematics department in 1933 until his resignation under Nazi pressure, made strong efforts to bring him to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.
Between November 1935 and 1939 he was an assistant of David Hilbert in Göttingen. Gentzen joined the Nazi Party in 1937. In April 1939 Gentzen swore the oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler as part of his academic appointment. From 1943 he was a teacher at the University of Prague. Under a contract from the SS Gentzen evidently worked for the V-2 project.
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