by This is a report about a foundation installed at the University of Bonn on 27 December 2021. The information is summarized from the webpage of the Mathematical Institute. I thank Walter Purkert for informing me about this important new funding of research in history of mathematics. The foundation was named after Otto Toeplitz, because he contributed important studies to the history of Ancient Greek mathematics, held since 1928 a professorship for mathematics at the University of Bonn, and co-founded the journal Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik, Astronomie und Physik. In 1935, Toeplitz became one of the many victims of Nazi racist jurisdiction and was dismissed from his position at the university. He emigrated to Palestine where he died in 1940.
During the last thirty years, the department was home to the internationally recognized edition of Felix Hausdorf’s works, another German Jewish mathematician who became a victim of the Nazi terror. Under the leadership of Walter Purkert and in close cooperation with Egbert Brieskorn (1936 – 2013), Stefan Hildebrandt (1936 – 2015), and Friedrich Hirzebruch (1927 – 2012), this acclaimed project published ten volumes and a substantial biography (for the latter see here under Walter Purkert).
The Otto Toeplitz Memorial Foundation, whose sponsor is the Munich entrepreneur Gert Purkert, aims to support high-quality research in history of mathematics and to teach this discipline’s complex history to future teachers of mathematics.
https://www.math.uni-bonn.de/ag/didaktik/Toeplitz_Fonds.htmpl?language=en
