Ludwig Berwald (8 December 1883 – 20 April 1942) was a German

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

best known for his contributions to

differential geometry Differential geometry is a Mathematics, mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of Calculus, single variable calculus, vector calculus, lin ...

, especially Finsler geometry. He taught in

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

and

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

for 32 years, publishing 54 papers, before being deported by the Nazi SS to the Łódź Jewish Ghetto, where he and his wife Hedwig died within a year.

Biography

Ludwig was one of three children of Max Berwald, an East Prussian owner of a famous bookstore, and Friedericke Fischel. They were "

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

with Max coming from

East Prussia East Prussia was a Provinces of Prussia, province of the Kingdom of Prussia from 1772 to 1829 and again from 1878 (with the Kingdom itself being part of the German Empire from 1871); following World War I it formed part of the Weimar Republic's ...

and his wife being a native of

." In 1900, the family moved to Munich, where Ludwig matriculated at

Ludwig Maximilian University The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke Ludwig IX of Bav ...

in 1902. There he studied mathematics under

Aurel Voss Aurel Voss (7 December 1845 – 19 April 1931) was a German mathematician, best known today for his contributions to geometry and mechanics. He served as president of the German Mathematical Society for the 1898 term. He was a professor at the Uni ...

, alongside notable mathematicians Hugo Dingler and Fritz Noether, and received his PhD in 1908 for his thesis entitled ''Über die Krümmungseigenschaften der Brennflächen eines geradlinigen Strahlsystems und der in ihm enthaltenen Regelflächen'' (''On the properties of curvature on the internal surfaces of rectilinear systems, and surfaces contained therein''). Due to sanatorium treatment for pulmonary illness, he was unable to continue his work in Munich. Through friends, he eventually became a lecturer at the German University (now

Charles University Charles University (CUNI; , UK; ; ), or historically as the University of Prague (), is the largest university in the Czech Republic. It is one of the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest universities in the world in conti ...

) back in Prague, achieving full professorship in 1924. There, he developed friendships and successful collaborations with fellow mathematicians Georg Pick, Paul Funk, and

Élie Cartan Élie Joseph Cartan (; 9 April 1869 – 6 May 1951) was an influential French mathematician who did fundamental work in the theory of Lie groups, differential systems (coordinate-free geometric formulation of PDEs), and differential geometry. He ...

, publishing some 54 articles which significantly advanced the field of Finsler geometry, pioneering important concepts which still bear his name such as Berwald curvature, Berwald spray, and the Berwald–Moór metric function. For extending the concept of Riemann curvature to Finsler spaces, Berwald has been credited as the founder of differential geometry of Finsler spaces. On 22 October 1941, the day after submitting his last article, the sickly 57-year-old Berwald was deported to the

Łódź Ghetto The Łódź Ghetto or Litzmannstadt Ghetto (after the Nazi German name for Łódź) was a Nazi ghetto established by the German authorities for Polish Jews and Roma following the Invasion of Poland. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of ...

in Poland in the third transportation of Jews by the German secret police. The Berwalds were two of 55 people who lived in 48 Maryśinska Street in a one-room approximately with no beds. Hedwig, eight years older than her husband, died 27 March 1942; Ludwig followed 23 days later. Clary, David C. (2024)
''The Lost Scientists of World War II.''
World Scientific Publishing, ISBN 9781800614918.

Selected works

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berwald, Ludwig German people of Czech-Jewish descent 20th-century German mathematicians 1883 births 1942 deaths Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni Academic staff of Charles University German Jews who died in the Holocaust