Vita Mathematica

20

Renate Tobies

Felix Klein
Visions for Mathematics,
Applications, and Education
Vita Mathematica

Volume 20

Edited by
Martin MattmRuller

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/4834

Renate Tobies

Felix Klein
Visions for Mathematics, Applications,
and Education

Revised by the Author and Translated by Valentine A. Pakis

Renate Tobies
Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena
Jena, Germany

Translated by
Valentine A. Pakis
Saint Paul, MN, USA

Originally published in German under the title: Felix Klein: Visionen für Mathematik, Anwendungen
und Unterricht. Berlin: Springer Spektrum, 2019.

ISSN 1013-0330 ISSN 2504-3706 (electronic)

Vita Mathematica
ISBN 978-3-030-75784-7 ISBN 978-3-030-75785-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75785-4

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Book layout: Stefan Tobies

Cover illustration: Felix Klein, 1875, Private Estate Hillebrand, Scheeßel

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 Figure 1: Felix Klein, 1875 [Hillebrand].

“Whoever shall live on in the memory of the wide world

must have had an impact on that world.”

(BLUMENTHAL 1928, p. 2)
 PREFACE

Richard Courant spoke euphorically about Felix Klein (1849-1925): “His life was
full of intellectual vigor and the will to act, both spurred by a brilliant imagination
that was always contriving more and more new designs. He was entirely the sort
of wise man and ruler described in Plato’s Republic.”1 With his Erlangen Pro-
gram, Klein convincingly redefined geometry: geometric properties as invariants
of transformation groups. He systematized mathematical theories by recognizing
and explaining the interrelations between different disciplines. His visionary pro-
grams concerned mathematics and its applications, but also history, philosophy,
and pedagogy from kindergarten through higher education. He was extraordinarily
engaged, as his admirers would say, in raising awareness for the “eminent cultural
significance of mathematics and its applications.”2
In 1892, the famous Austrian theoretical physicist Ludwig Boltzmann ex-
tolled Klein’s all-encompassing activity:
[…] Klein’s work encompasses almost all areas of mathematics. Especially noteworthy are
his contributions to the following areas:
1 Algebra and its application to the theory of algebraic forms, number theory, geometry,
the resolution of higher equations.
2 General theory of functions, theory of elliptic, Abelian, θ-functions and of Riemann sur-
faces;
3 Theory of differential equations;
4 Foundations of geometry, curvature and other shape relations of curves and surfaces, also
newer geometry and projectivity, the application of geometry to mechanics.3

The present book deals with Klein’s multifaceted programs and the development
of his works. It sheds light on how Klein became a scientist who was able to
attract students – male and female alike – to follow his visions.
In 1870, Klein became the first German mathematician to seek personal con-
tact with French mathematicians since Plücker, Dirichlet, and Jacobi had done this
some decades before. Klein traveled several times to the British Isles, to Italy, to
the United States, etc. He was at the center of the first international congresses of
mathematicians and was elected the first chairman of the International Commis-
sion on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI) in 1908. In Germany, Felix Klein
steered the fortunes of the German Mathematical Society three times as its chair-
man and, as a professor emeritus, he was still considered the “foreign minister” of
mathematics. In the 1890s, the French mathematician Charles Hermite gushingly

1 COURANT 1926, p. 211.

2 [UAG] Math.-Nat. Fak. 25, Valentiner (report from July 19, 1924).
3 Quoted from HÖFLECHNER 1994, pp. 173–74 (Boltzmann to Paul von Groth). – Regarding the
context, see Section 6.5.2.

vii
viii Preface

referred to Klein as “a new Joshua in the promised land.”4 Klein became a citizen
of the world, explicitly condemning national chauvinism (see Section 8.4).
A precocious student, Klein had completed secondary school at the age of
sixteen, earned a doctoral degree at the age of nineteen, and completed his post-
doctorate (Habilitation) at the age of twenty-one. He was offered his first full pro-
fessorship at the age of twenty-three, at the University of Erlangen (1872). This
was followed by positions at the Polytechnikum in Munich (1875), the University
of Leipzig (1880), and the University of Göttingen (as of 1886).
More than just focusing on Klein’s professional achievements, this book will
also be concerned with Klein as a person. At the age of twenty-six, he married
Anna Hegel, the granddaughter of the great philosopher. Her extant letters to Felix
Klein document their good relationship and demonstrate that she was often in-
volved in his academic work. Of their four children (one son, three daughters),
their son would go on to pursue a technical career. Their youngest daughter stud-
ied mathematics, physics, and English in Göttingen and at Bryn Mawr College in
the United States. She achieved a distinguished career as a teacher and school
principal until 1932; later, she was demoted during the Nazi regime.
Klein cultivated a cooperative working style. At the age of twenty, he found
his most important partner in the Norwegian Sophus Lie. Klein wanted to work
together, not in competition. Nevertheless, he had to deal with opponents, com-
petitors, different views and interests. David Hilbert, who, on the occasion of
Klein’s sixtieth birthday in 1909 also invited Henri Poincaré and Gösta Mittag-
Leffler to Göttingen, referred in his speech then to Klein’s opponents and sup-
porters and expressed his own affinity for Klein.5
Klein was not, from the outset, the “Zeus enthroned above the other Olympi-
ans,” as Max Born experienced him during his own years as a student (“He was
known among us as ‘the Great Felix’,” Born went on, “and he controlled our des-
tinies”).6 We will instead encounter a mathematician who was often plagued by
self-doubt and who worried that he might not be able to live up to his own high
standards. Early translations of his work and his efforts as the chief editor of the
journal Mathematische Annalen brought him fame and influence.
With his finger on the pulse of international trends, Klein left a lasting mark
on many areas of mathematics, its applications, and organization in Germany. In
an astounding number of areas, he was in fact a pioneer.7 At the University of
Göttingen, Klein had laid the foundation for a new golden era and had pointed the
way ahead, as Hilbert put it (see Appendix 12). This meant that he appointed the
best scientists (among them Hilbert, Hermann Minkowski, Carl Runge, Ludwig
Prandtl, Edmund Landau) to work beside him, that he found new ways to retain
them in Göttingen, and that he established new institutes by acquiring funds from
industry – inspired by the example of American universities.

4 For the context of this quotation, see Section 8.2.2 of this book.
5 See TOBIES 2019b, pp. 513–14, Engl. trans. in ROWE 2018a, pp. 198–99.
6 BORN/BORN 1969, p. 16.
7 For a summary of Klein’s pioneering achievements, see Section 10.2.
 Preface ix

Right up into old age, Klein was open to new mathematical, scientific, and
technical theories. Thus he also identified open problems in the fields of fluid dy-
namics and statics. In partial collaboration with Emmy Noether, he made signifi-
cant contributions to the theory of relativity, acknowledged by Albert Einstein.
Klein recognized the specific talents of his students with great foresight. He
promoted gifted persons regardless of their religion, nationality, and gender. He
guided more than fifty doctoral students, including two women (an Englishwoman
and an American) as well as further students from abroad, to new results.
During his lifetime, he received numerous honors, and his versatility is still
widely recognized today. Since the year 2000, the European Mathematical Society
has awarded a “Felix Klein Prize” to young scientists for outstanding research in
applied mathematics (this award was initiated by the Fraunhofer Institute for In-
dustrial Mathematics in Kaiserslautern). Since 2003, moreover, the ICMI has pre-
sented a “Felix Klein Award” for lifetime achievements in the field of mathemati-
cal pedagogy. In Germany, several institutions have been named after him. There
is a Felix Klein Lecture Hall and a Felix Klein Colloquium at the Heinrich Heine
University in Düsseldorf (Klein’s birthplace) and at the University of Leipzig as
well. There is a Felix Klein building at the University of Erlangen and a Felix
Klein program at the Technische University in Munich (including a “Felix Klein
Teaching Prize”). In Göttingen, there is a secondary school named after Felix
Klein, and the meeting room of the Mathematical Institute of the University is
adorned by the original Max Liebermann portrait of Klein. The names of the
donors who funded this painting are an expression of Klein’s worldwide network,
which extended as far as India and Japan.8
After the late Leipzig historian of mathematics Hans Wußing had encouraged
me to study the life and work of Felix Klein, it was the American historian of
mathematics David E. Rowe who first enabled me – when Germany was still di-
vided – to study the archival materials pertaining to Klein in Göttingen. The
mathematician Helmut Neunzert invited me to give lectures at the University of
Kaiserslautern with the following words: “We like to use Klein’s arguments to
promote the applications of mathematics even today!” A Felix Klein Center was
established there in 2008.
Robert Fricke, the mathematician and erstwhile rector of the Technische
Hochschule in Braunschweig, aptly compared Felix Klein (an uncle of Fricke’s
wife) to a triptych, the central panel of which should be devoted to Klein the
researcher, while the two flanking panels should depict him as an academic
teacher and an outstanding organizer.9 The goal of this book is to put this triptych
into words and enrich it with a human dimension.

Jena, March of 2021 Renate Tobies

8 See Section 8.5.2, and Appendix 10, Fig. 43. – The portrait of Hilbert in the same room was
painted in 1928 by Eugen Spiro, who was forced to emigrate in 1935. On Hilbert, see in
particular Sections 6.3.7.3 and 7.9 in this book.
9 FRICKE 1919, p. 275. – See the genealogy in Figure 2.
x Preface

Figure 2: An excerpt from the Klein-Hegel Family Tree (my own design, from [Hillebrand])
 CONTENTS

Preface................................................................................................................... vii
List of Tables ......................................................................................................xviii
List of Figures .....................................................................................................xviii

1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 1
1.1 The State of Research ................................................................................... 3
1.2 Guiding Questions......................................................................................... 8
1.3 Editorial Remarks ....................................................................................... 13

2 Formative Groups ............................................................................................. 17

2.1 The Klein–Kayser Family ........................................................................... 17
2.1.1 A Royalist and Frugal Westphalian Upbringing .............................. 17
2.1.2 Talent in School and Wide Interests as Gifts from His Mother’s
Side ................................................................................................. 20
2.1.3 Felix Klein and His Siblings ............................................................ 21
2.2 School Years in Düsseldorf......................................................................... 22
2.2.1 Earning His Abitur from a Gymnasium at the Age of Sixteen ........ 23
2.2.2 Examination Questions in Mathematics .......................................... 25
2.2.3 Interests in Natural Science During His School Years .................... 26
2.3 Studies and Doctorate in Bonn.................................................................... 28
2.3.1 Coursework and Seminar Awards.................................................... 29
2.3.2 Assistantship and a Reward for Winning a Physics Contest ........... 34
2.3.3 Assisting Julius Plücker’s Research in Geometry............................ 36
2.3.4 Doctoral Procedure .......................................................................... 40
2.4 Joining Alfred Clebsch’s Thought Community .......................................... 45
2.4.1 The Clebsch School ......................................................................... 47
2.4.2 The Journal Mathematische Annalen ............................................... 53
2.4.3 Articles on Line Geometry, 1869 ..................................................... 58
2.5 Broadening His Horizons in Berlin ............................................................. 61
2.5.1 The Professors in Berlin and Felix Klein ......................................... 62
2.5.2 Acquaintances from the Mathematical Union: Kiepert, Lie, Stolz .. 66
2.5.3 Cayley’s Metric and Klein’s Non-Euclidean Interpretation ............ 71
2.6 In Paris with Sophus Lie ............................................................................. 73
2.6.1 Felix Klein and French Mathematicians .......................................... 74
2.6.2 Collaborative Work with Sophus Lie............................................... 78
2.6.2.1 Notes on W-Configurations 78

xi
xii Contents

2.6.2.2 Principal Tangent Curves of the Kummer Surface 80

2.6.3 A Report on Mathematics in Paris ................................................... 82
2.7 The Franco-Prussian War and Klein’s Habilitation ................................... 83
2.7.1 Wartime Service as a Paramedic and Its Effects.............................. 84
2.7.2 Habilitation....................................................................................... 88
2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen........................................................... 90
2.8.1 Klein’s Teaching Activity and Its Context ...................................... 91
2.8.2 An Overview of Klein’s Research Results as a Privatdozent .......... 98
2.8.3 Discussion Groups ......................................................................... 110
2.8.3.1 A Three-Man Club with Clebsch and Riecke 110
2.8.3.2 The Mathematical and Natural-Scientific Student
Union 113
2.8.3.3 A Scientific Circle: Eskimo 115
2.8.3.4 The “Social Activity” of Bringing Mathematicians
Together 117

3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen ............................................. 123

3.1 Research Trends and Doctoral Students ................................................... 125
3.1.1 The Vision of the Erlangen Program ............................................ 126
3.1.2 Klein’s Students in Erlangen.......................................................... 132
3.1.3 New Research Trends .................................................................... 138
3.1.3.1 On a New Type of Riemann Surface 139
3.1.3.2 The Theory of Equations 143
3.2 Inaugural Lecture: A Plan For Mathematical Education .......................... 144
3.3 First Trip to Great Britain, 1873 ............................................................... 147
3.4 Trips to Italy .............................................................................................. 153
3.5 Developing the Mathematical Institution .................................................. 158
3.6 Family Matters .......................................................................................... 160
3.6.1 His Friends Marry and Klein Follows Suit .................................... 161
3.6.2 Klein’s Father-in-Law, the Historian Karl Hegel .......................... 164
3.6.3 Anna Hegel, Felix Klein, and Their Family................................... 166

4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich ....................................... 171

4.1 A New Institute and New Teaching Activity ............................................ 173
4.1.1 Creating a Mathematical Institute .................................................. 174
4.1.2 Reorganizing the Curriculum ......................................................... 176
4.2 Developing His Mathematical Individuality ............................................. 178
4.2.1 The Icosahedron Equation ............................................................. 179
4.2.2 Number Theory .............................................................................. 183
4.2.3 Elliptic Modular Functions ............................................................ 184
4.2.4 Klein’s Circle of Students in Munich ............................................ 191
4.2.4.1 Phase I: 1875–1876 191
4.2.4.2 Phase II: 1876–1880 193
4.3 Discussion Groups in Munich ................................................................... 201
 Contents xiii

4.3.1 A Mathematical Discussion Group with Engineers and Natural

Scientists ...................................................................................... 201
4.3.2 The Mathematical Student Union and the Mathematical Society.. 204
4.3.3 The Meeting of Natural Scientists in Munich, 1877 ...................... 205
4.4 “Ready Again for a University in a Small City” ....................................... 208

5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig ..................................................... 213

5.1 Klein’s Start in Leipzig and His Inaugural Address ................................. 215
5.2 Creating a New Mathematical Institution ................................................. 218
5.3 Teaching Program ..................................................................................... 221
5.3.1 Lectures: Organization, Reorientation, and Deviation from the
Plan ............................................................................................... 221
5.3.2 The Mathematical Colloquium / Exercises / Seminar ................... 227
5.4 The Kleinian “Flock” ................................................................................ 232
5.4.1 Post-Doctoral Mathematicians ....................................................... 233
5.4.2 Klein’s Foreign Students in Leipzig .............................................. 243
5.4.2.1 The First Frenchman and the First Briton 244
5.4.2.2 The First Americans 245
5.4.2.3 The Italians 246
5.4.2.4 Mathematicians from Switzerland and Austria-
Hungary 248
5.4.2.5 Russian and Other Eastern European Contacts 250
5.5 Fields of Research ..................................................................................... 252
5.5.1 Mathematical Physics / Physical Mathematics .............................. 253
5.5.1.1 Lamé’s Function, Potential Theory, and Carl Neumann 253
5.5.1.2 On Riemann’s Theory of Algebraic Functions and
Their Integrals 255
5.5.2 Looking Toward Berlin .................................................................. 260
5.5.2.1 Gathering Sources 260
5.5.2.2 The Dirichlet Principle 261
5.5.2.3 Klein’s Seminar on the Theory of Abelian Functions
(1882) 264
5.5.2.4 Openness vs. Partiality 266
5.5.3 Looking Toward France ................................................................. 267
5.5.3.1 French Contributors to Mathematische Annalen 267
5.5.3.2 Klein’s Correspondence with Poincaré 269
5.5.4 Three Fundamental Theorems ....................................................... 272
5.5.4.1 The Loop-Cut Theorem (Rückkehrschnitttheorem) 273
5.5.4.2 Theorem of the Limit-Circle (Grenzkreistheorem) 273
5.5.4.3 The (General) Fundamental Theorem 277
5.5.4.4 Remarks on the Proofs 279
5.5.5 The Polemic about and with Lazarus Fuchs .................................. 282
5.5.6 The Icosahedron Book ................................................................... 286
5.5.7 A Book on the Theory of Elliptic Modular Functions ................... 291
xiv Contents

5.5.7.1 Supplementing the Theory 291

5.5.7.2 Who Should Be the Editor? – Georg Pick 294
5.5.8 Hyperelliptic and Abelian Functions ............................................. 298
5.6 Felix Klein and Alfred Ackermann-Teubner ............................................ 300
5.7 Felix Klein in Leipzig’s Intellectual Communities ................................... 307
5.7.1 A Mathematicians’ Circle .............................................................. 308
5.7.2 The Societas Jablonoviana ............................................................ 308
5.7.3 The Royal Saxon Society of Sciences in Leipzig .......................... 310
5.8 Turning His Back on Leipzig .................................................................... 314
5.8.1 Weighing Offers from Oxford and Johns Hopkins ........................ 314
5.8.2 The Physicist Eduard Riecke Arranges Klein’s Move to
Göttingen ...................................................................................... 316
5.8.3 The Appointment of Sophus Lie as Klein’s Successor – and
the Reactions ................................................................................ 320

6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892 ...................... 325

6.1 Family Considerations .............................................................................. 326
6.2 Dealing with Colleagues, Teaching, and Curriculum Planning ................ 328
6.2.1 The Relationship Between Klein and Schwarz .............................. 328
6.2.2 The Göttingen Privatdozenten Hölder and Schoenflies ................. 329
6.2.3 Klein’s Teaching in Context .......................................................... 332
6.3 Independent and Collaborative Research .................................................. 337
6.3.1 The Theory of Finite Groups of Linear Substitutions:
The Theory of Solving Equations of Higher Degree ................... 337
6.3.2 Hyperelliptic and Abelian Functions ............................................. 339
6.3.3 The Theory of Elliptic Modular Functions (Monograph) .............. 341
6.3.4 The Theory of Automorphic Functions (Monograph) ................... 343
6.3.5 The Theory of Lamé Functions and Potential Theory ................... 344
6.3.6 Refreshing His Work on Geometry ............................................... 347
6.3.7 Visions: Internationality, Crystallography, Hilbert’s Invariant
Theory .......................................................................................... 352
6.3.7.1 An Eye on Developments Abroad 352
6.3.7.2 Arthur Schoenflies and Crystallography 356
6.3.7.3 Felix Klein and Hilbert’s Invariant Theory 357
6.4 Bringing People and Institutions Together ............................................... 361
6.4.1 The Professorium in Göttingen ...................................................... 361
6.4.2 A Proposal to Relocate the Technische Hochschule in Hanover
to Göttingen .................................................................................. 362
6.4.3 The Idea of Reorganizing the Göttingen Society of Sciences ....... 364
6.4.4 Felix Klein and the Founding of the German Mathematical
Society .......................................................................................... 367
6.5 The Pivotal Year of 1892 .......................................................................... 373
6.5.1 Refilling Vacant Professorships in Prussia .................................... 373
 Contents xv

6.5.1.1 Berlin, Breslau, and Klein’s System for Classifying

Styles of Thought 373
6.5.1.2 Hiring a Successor for H.A. Schwarz in Göttingen 377
6.5.2 A Job Offer from the University of Munich and the
Consequences ............................................................................... 379

7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895 .................................................................. 383

7.1 Klein’s Assistants and His Principles for Choosing Them ....................... 385
7.2 The Göttingen Mathematical Society........................................................ 392
7.3 Turning to Secondary School Teachers .................................................... 397
7.4 A Trip to the United States ....................................................................... 401
7.4.1 The World’s Fair in Chicago and the Mathematical Congress ...... 401
7.4.2 Twelve Lectures by Klein: The Evanston Colloquium .................. 404
7.4.3 Traveling from University to University ....................................... 406
7.4.4 Repercussions................................................................................. 407
7.5 The Beginnings of Women Studying Mathematics .................................. 411
7.6 Actuarial Mathematics as a Course of Study ............................................ 418
7.7 Contacting Engineers and Industrialists .................................................... 421
7.8 The Encyklopädie Project ......................................................................... 425
7.9 Klein Succeeds in Hiring David Hilbert ................................................... 434

8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913 ...................................................... 437

8.1 A Center for Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Technology ................ 438
8.1.1 The Göttingen Association............................................................. 439
8.1.2 Applied Mathematics in the New Examination Regulations
and the Consequences .................................................................. 445
8.1.3 Aeronautical Research ................................................................... 450
8.2 Maintaining His Scientific Reputation ...................................................... 454
8.2.1 Automorphic Functions (Monograph) ........................................... 455
8.2.2 Geometric Number Theory ............................................................ 457
8.2.3 A Monograph on the Theory of the Spinning Top......................... 461
8.2.4 Inspiring Ideas in the Fields of Mathematical Physics and
Technology ................................................................................... 465
8.2.4.1 Hydrodynamics / Hydraulics 466
8.2.4.2 Statics 468
8.2.4.3 The Theory of Friction 471
8.2.4.4 The Special Theory of Relativity 472
8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of
Mathematics ............................................................................................ 474
8.3.1 The History of Mathematics .......................................................... 477
8.3.2 Philosophical Aspects .................................................................... 481
8.3.3 Psychological-Epistemological Classifications ............................. 490
8.3.4 The “Kleinian” Educational Reform .............................................. 493
8.3.4.1 Suggestions for Reform 500
xvi Contents

8.3.4.2 A Polemic about the Teaching of Analysis at the

University 508
8.4 International Scientific Cooperation ......................................................... 510
8.5 Early Retirement and Honors .................................................................... 514
8.5.1 Recovering and Working in the Hahnenklee Sanatorium .............. 515
8.5.2 Max Liebermann’s Portrait of Felix Klein ..................................... 519
8.5.3 The Successors to Klein’s Professorship ....................................... 522

9 The First World War and the Postwar Period............................................. 525

9.1 Political Activity During the First World War.......................................... 526
9.1.1 The Vows of Allegiance of German Professors to Militarism....... 527
9.1.2 A Plea for Studying Abroad ........................................................... 531
9.2 History of Mathematics, the “Cry for Help of Modern Physics,” and
Edition Projects ....................................................................................... 534
9.2.1 Remarks on Klein’s Historical Lectures ........................................ 536
9.2.2 Felix Klein and the General Theory of Relativity.......................... 538
9.2.3 The Golden Anniversary of Klein’s Doctorate, and Edition
Projects ......................................................................................... 545
9.3 Mathematical Education – International and National ............................. 548
9.3.1 The International Commission on Mathematical Instruction ........ 549
9.3.2 Countering the Restriction of Mathematics and the Natural
Sciences ........................................................................................ 551
9.4 Support for Research ................................................................................. 556
9.4.1 The Emergency Association of German Science ........................... 557
9.4.2 The Gauss-Weber / Helmholtz Society .......................................... 560
9.5 End of Life ................................................................................................ 564

10 Concluding Remarks .................................................................................... 569

10.1 A Summary of Findings .......................................................................... 570
On the Continuity of Klein’s Field of Research ...................................... 570
Creating Favorable Conditions for Good Scientific Work ..................... 572
Focusing on Problems of Mathematical Instruction at Schools ............. 573
Klein’s Handling of His Health Problems .............................................. 573
A Summary of the Aspects that Guided the Research for the Present
Biography ..................................................................................... 574
10.2 A Pioneer................................................................................................. 585
 Contents xvii

Appendix: A Selection of Documents ............................................................... 593

1) A letter from Felix Klein to Heinrich von Mühler, the Prussian
Minister of Religious, Educational, and Medical Affairs (Minister of
Culture). .................................................................................................. 593
2) An application submitted by Felix Klein to the Academic Senate of the
University of Erlangen for funding to improve the collection of the
University Library’s mathematical section (November 15, 1872). ........ 594
3) Nomination of Dr. Felix Klein, full professor of mathematics at the
Technische Hochschule in Munich, to be made an extraordinary
member of the mathematical-physical class of the Royal Bavarian
Academy of Sciences, June 7, 1879. ....................................................... 597
4) A report by the Philosophical Faculty at the University of Göttingen
concerning its decision to propose Felix Klein as the successor to
Moritz Abraham Stern, along with separate opinions by the profes-
sors Ernst Schering and Hermann Amandus Schwarz (January
1885). ...................................................................................................... 598
5) On the scientific polemic between Felix Klein and Lazarus Fuchs. An
excerpt of a letter (in draft form) from Felix Klein to Wilhelm
Förster (a professor of astronomy at the University of Berlin),
January 15, 1892. .................................................................................... 603
6) Letters concerning the potential successor to H.A. Schwarz’s full
professorship at the University of Göttingen. ......................................... 605
7) Felix Klein on the draft of Ludwig Bieberbach’s dissertation, which
was supervised by the Privatdozent Paul Koebe at the University of
Göttingen. ................................................................................................ 607
8) Dr. Klaus, a neurologist at the Sanatorium for Neurology and Internal
Medicine in Hahnenklee: two reports on the state of Felix Klein’s
health. ...................................................................................................... 608
9) Nomination of Felix Klein to be made a corresponding member of the
Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, February 27, 1913. ..... 609
10) Speeches given on May 25, 1913 upon the presentation of Max
Liebermann’s portrait to Felix Klein. ..................................................... 611
11) Virgil Snyder from Ithaca (New York) to Felix Klein, a letter, dated
July 4, 1924, concerning the International Congress of Mathema-
ticians in Toronto, Canada from 11 August to 16 August 1924. ............ 618
12) David Hilbert’s eulogy for Felix Klein, delivered at the session of the
Göttingen Mathematical Society held on June 23, 1925, one day
after Klein’s death. .................................................................................. 621

Bibliography ....................................................................................................... 623

Index of Names ................................................................................................... 655

xviii Contents

LIST OF TABLES

Table Title Page

Number
1 Evaluations of Felix Klein’s achievements from his Abitur diploma (August 3, 24
1865).
2 Examination questions in mathematics (1865). 26
3 Courses attended by Felix Klein at the University of Bonn (1865–1868). 31
4 A list of course offerings in mathematics, physics, and astronomy at the 93
University of Göttingen for the summer semester of 1871.
5 On the Erlangen Program. 127
6 Participants in Klein’s Research Seminars, 1880/81–1885/86. 230
7 Lectures at the Göttingen Mathematical Society, 1892/93. 392
8 Applied Mathematics in the Prussian Examination Regulation for Teaching 446
Candidates at Secondary Schools as of 1898.
9 Members of the Commission for Education in the Upper House (Herrenhaus) 500
of the Prussian Parliament, formed on March 19, 1909.
10 Felix Klein’s Courses and Other Activity, 1914–1922. 535

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Title Page

Number
1 Felix Klein, 1875. v
2 An excerpt from the Klein – Hegel Family Tree. x
3 An excerpt of a letter from Felix Klein to Sophus Lie dated April 1, 1872. 16
4 Felix Klein at the age of two (unknown illustrator). 18
5 Felix Klein’s Doctoral Certificate, December 12, 1868. 43
6 Alfred Clebsch. 46
7 The title page of volume 6 of Mathematische Annalen (1873). 55
8 A Kummer surface with 16 real nodes. 60
9 A title page of the Bulletin des Sciences Mathématiques et Astronomiques. 76
10 An excerpt of a letter from Klein to Lie dated July 29, 1870, including a sketch 85
of the asymptotic curves between two double points on a Kummer surface.
11 Clebsch’s diagonal surface, the first model of a cubic surface on which all of 106
its 27 lines are real.
12 An illustration of a cubic surface with four real nodes. 109
13 Eduard Riecke. 112
14 The title page of Klein’s Erlangen Program (October 1872). 122
 Contents xix

15 Klein’s circle in Erlangen, 1873. Felix Klein (on the right) with Ferdinand 134
Lindemann, Wilhelm Bretschneider, Siegmund Günther, Adolf Weiler, and
Ludwig Wedekind.
16 Charles Xavier Thomas’s arithmometer. Serial No. 759, built in 1868; 146
dimensions (mm): 460 long, 180 wide, 93 high.
17 Felix Klein’s certification as a foreign member of the London Mathematical 152
Society, 1875, and the De Morgan Medal, which he became the fourth
mathematician (after Cayley, Sylvester, and Rayleigh) to receive in 1893.
18 Anna Hegel and Felix Klein’s engagement announcement – January 9, 1875. 162
19 A photograph from Anna and Felix Klein’s silver wedding anniversary – 167
Sunday, August 19, 1900.
20 Klein’s modular figure, derived from Dedekind. 185
21 Klein’s “main figure” (Hauptfigur) with 2 × 168 circular arc triangles. 187
22 Adolf Hurwitz. 197
23 Carl Linde, 1872. 202
24 The Klein bottle. 257
25 The title page of Klein’s book On Riemann’s Theory of Algebraic Functions 259
and Their Integrals.
26 An excerpt of Klein’s drafted letter to A. Ackermann-Teubner, December 31, 304
1899.
27 Felix Klein’s home in Göttingen, Wilhelm-Weber-Straße 3. 326
28 Rohns Tavern on the Hainberg. 327
29 The founding members of the German Mathematical Society 370
(Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung, DMV), September 18, 1890.
30 Felix Klein’s certification as a foreign member of the Società Italiana delle 382
Scienze, 1896.
31 The Göttingen Mathematical Society, 1902. 394
32 Grace Chisholm and Luise Klein. 414
33 An ENCYKLOPÄDIE trip to Wales. Felix Klein (seated in the middle) and Arnold 432
Sommerfeld (left) with George Hartley Bryan (standing in the middle) and
Bryan’s family.
34 The Göttingen Association for the Promotion of Applied Physics and 441
Mathematics. An invitation to the celebration of its tenth anniversary, February
22, 1908.
35 The title page of the French edition of Riemann’s Collected Works (1898), 464
including Felix Klein’s speech (discours) on Riemann, KLEIN 1894.
36 Klein’s updated plan for the volume Die mathematische Wissenschaften of the 476
project Die Kultur der Gegenwart [The Culture of the Present], August 1912.
37 The title page of the first issue of the journal L’Enseignement mathématique 495
(1899), which has been the journal of the ICMI since 1908.
38 Committees (etc.) in which Klein discussed educational issues. 497
39 Bockswiese-Hahnenklee in the Harz mountains, a view of the sanatorium. 515
40 Max Liebermann’s portrait of Felix Klein (1912). 521
xx Contents

41 Felix Klein, a drawing by Leonard Nelson. 568

42 Felix Klein’s diploma for his honory doctorate from the Jagiellonian 592
University of Krakow (Uniwersytet Jagiellonski w Krakowie), 1900.
43 A list of donors who sponsored Max Liebermann’s painting of Klein’s portrait 614
in 1912.
44 The certification of Felix Klein’s election as a foreign associate of the National 620
Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, April 21, 1898.
45 Felix and Anna Klein’s gravestone in Göttingen’s old city cemetery. 622
46 Felix Klein’s diploma for his honory doctorate (doctoris rerum politicarum 654
dignitatem et ornamenta) from the University of Berlin, April 25, 1924.
 1 INTRODUCTION

Perhaps it would also benefit all mathematicians to a great degree if someone would endeavor
to synthesize the drastically divergent branches of mathematics into a comprehensive whole
while maintaining what is particular to each.1

In the letter quoted above to the Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie, Felix
Klein reported, among other things, about his attempt to combine Kummer surfa-
ces with hyperelliptic functions. He did not yet have, however, a sufficient un-
derstanding of the latter. Klein’s ambition to understand and combine as many
research areas as possible led to the further development of mathematical theories
and to the establishment of new disciplines. These efforts, along with his “incom-
parable prophetic vision,”2 provided him with an overview of the disciplines that
also enabled him to oversee the edition of the comprehensive Encyklopädie der
mathematischen Wissenschaften mit Einschluss ihrer Anwendungen [Encyclope-
dia of the Mathematical Sciences, Including Their Applications] (1898–1935).3
Klein experienced and influenced several transformational processes in the
field of mathematics. As a young mathematician, he himself was involved in
transforming geometry. He attempted to penetrate into other areas as well. As a
middle-aged man, he also promoted the study of set theory, ultimately accepting
Hilbert’s axiomatic approach to constructing theories and making significant
contributions of his own to the expansion of peripheral areas of mathematics: its
applications in branches of theoretical physics and technology, and the history,
didactics, and philosophy of mathematics.
The period of disciplinary change in the field of geometry had a strong effect
on Klein’s mathematical thinking as a young man. Erhard SCHOLZ (1980) has
described this process in his history of the concept of manifolds: a retreat from the
dominance of Euclidean geometry, the spread of new approaches to the field (non-
Euclidean geometries, higher-dimensional geometry), and the synthesis of various
research areas. The use of analytic methods had led to differential geometry (a
preliminary high point in this regard was Gauss’s work from 1828). On the basis
of algebraic methods, Jean-Victor Poncelet’s projective geometry (with synthetic
and analytic methods) was further developed into algebraic geometry. Projective
algebraic geometry in turn gave rise to the approaches of higher-dimensional ge-
ometry. The latter acquired a particular shape with the publication of Hermann

1 [Oslo] A letter from Felix Klein to Sophus Lie, dated December 25, 1873.
2 CARATHÉODORY 1925, p. 2.
3 Hereafter referred to as the ENCYKLOPÄDIE. This reference work consists of six volumes in
German. Some but not all of the volumes also appeared in a revised French edition; see
TOBIES 1994; GISPERT 1999; and Section 7.8 below.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 1

R. Tobies, Felix Klein, Vita Mathematica 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75785-4_1
2 1 Introduction

Graßmann’s Ausdehnungslehre [Theory of Extension] in 1844. Today, Graß-

mann’s book is recognized as one of the first attempts to formulate the abstract
concept of vector space. Bernhard Riemann initiated a geometric research pro-
gram whose guiding ideas would have effects beyond the nineteenth century and
are still reflected in mathematical disciplines such as topology, geometric function
theory, modern differential geometry, and the general theory of relativity, among
others.
As a young student under Julius Plücker, Felix Klein delved into what was
then called “newer geometry” (neuere Geometrie). His orientation was broadened
by Alfred Clebsch’s algebraic-geometric school, and he ultimately became an
active contributor to these new developments. Hermann Weyl described Klein’s
methodology as follows:
The most prominent characteristic of his scientific methodology is his passion for mixing and
folding things together, thus allowing a wide variety of disciplines to permeate one another.
His mathematical brilliance is based on his ability to recognize internal connections and
relations between concepts whose foundations are entirely distinct.4

As a student, Klein experienced the disputes between various mathematical

schools and sensed the disadvantage of having a one-sided orientation. He saw
that every method can have advantages and disadvantages. Regarding the conflict
between analytic and synthetic methods in geometry, he held the following opi-
nion: “A healthy development will use both methods and enjoy the fruits of their
interaction.”5 Thus, from early on, he attempted to familiarize himself with a
broad range of mathematical branches. The physiologist Carl Ludwig once told
Klein that the best way not to be absorbed by a single school of thought was to
travel about 600 kilometers away from one’s home and then reexamine the
situation from that remove. “One will certainly be astonished,” Ludwig said, “to
find that so many seemingly obvious views simply fall away.”6
Klein’s efforts to systematize and synthesize methods and disciplines in-
volved reconceptualizing mathematical patterns of order. He reclassified geometry
and function theory, for instance, by the group-theoretical approach to geometry
and his principle of level separation (Stufentheorie) within the theory of elliptic
functions.7 Klein always tried to see the complete picture and, looking back at his
career, he considered himself to have been a “romantic, not a classicist” (accor-
ding to Wilhelm Ostwald’s distinction between the two).8 Unlike a quietly rumi-
nating classicist, who works on a single field in detail “with classical soberness”
and sometimes never finishes this task, Klein numbered himself among the “re-

4 Weyl, Obituary of Felix Klein, 1928 ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 117).
5 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 104.
6 Ibid., p. 105. See also Section 5.7.3 below.
7 On mathematics as a science of potential patterns of order, see NEUNZERT and ROSENBERGER
1991, p. 130. Regarding the scientific practice of classification, see LÊ and PAUMIER 2016.
8 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1.22 (notes dated December 12, 1918). Regarding the distinction
between romantics and classicists in science, see OSTWALD 1909.
 1.1 The State of Research 3

volutionaries” in science who possess a “romantic spirit of conquest” and who are
blessed with an overabundance of ideas, plans, and quick reactions. His creed was
as follows:
Certainly the keystone of every mathematical structure is to furnish compelling proof for all
its assertions. Certainly mathematics condemns itself if it renounces compelling proofs. Yet
the secret of the productivity of genius will always lie in posing new questions and divining
new theorems that shall disclose valuable results and connections. Without the creation of
new points of view, without new goals being set up, mathematics, for all the rigor of its
proofs, would soon exhaust itself and begin to stagnate.9

Klein was happy to let others work out the concrete details of his ideas. That said,
he was also especially proud when he devised a convincing proof on his own. A
clear example of this is his successful proof, first formulated in 1876, of one of
Kronecker’s theorems (see Section 4.2.1). Klein’s famous book on the icosa-
hedron would in fact culminate in the proof of this theorem (see 5.5.6).10
This biography will pay special attention to Klein’s manner of posing new
questions, his recognition of new connections between fields, and his ability to
identify fresh talents and new collaborators to advance many of his ideas. The
remainder of this introduction will cast light on the state of research, highlight
certain central questions, and describe my methodological approach and use of
sources.

1.1 THE STATE OF RESEARCH

Klein wrote a short autobiography,11 and his brother Alfred left behind a family
chronicle. The twenty-nine volumes of preserved protocols from Klein’s seminars
are a unique source that has yet to be analyzed in detail.12 These volumes, which
are available online, range from the first seminar that Klein co-taught with
Clebsch in the summer of 1872 all the way up to the year 1912. Klein himself was
still able and resilient enough to furnish his collected mathematical writings –
Gesammelte mathematische Abhandlungen (GMA, 1921–23) – with addenda and
commentary; vol. 3 contains an appendix, including (chronological) lists: of his
lectures, seminars, supervised doctoral theses, assistants, articles, and books.13
Even when some of his expositions no longer withstand critical scrutiny, they are
still valuable sources that reveal his motives, points of departure, and the connec-
tions that he made. This is also true of his lecture courses, in which he often clas-
sified topics historically. His lectures on the development of mathematics in the
nineteenth century (Vorlesungen über die Entwicklung der Mathematik im 19.

9 KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 254–55.

10 See KLEIN 1884 (the first English edition of this book appeared in 1888).
11 KLEIN 1923a.
12 See CHISLENKO/TSCHINKEL 2007; TOBIES 2014; HELLER 2015; and ECKERT 2019b.
13 See online: https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/PPN237839962.
4 1 Introduction

Jahrhundert, 1926–27)14 were edited after his death; however, some of the texts
Klein prepared are missing there. The occasion of Klein’s seventieth birthday was
celebrated with the publication of a special issue of the journal Die Naturwissen-
schaften with contributions from R. Fricke, A. Voss [Voß], W. Wirtinger, A.
Schoenflies, C. Carathéodory, A. Sommerfeld, H.E. Timerding, and L. Prandtl.
Mostly free of hagiography, this issue reflects the spectrum of Klein’s producti-
vity in an abbreviated form. Obituaries complete the picture.
In the mentioned ENCYKLOPÄDIE, which Klein directed, a number of his earlier
judgements and scholarly disputes (with Camille Jordan or Lazarus Fuchs,15 for
instance) are smoothed over, relativized, or not mentioned at all. Typically, inter-
national experts present the state of research at the time. Here, as well as in later
works of this sort,16 one finds numerous references to concepts that were either
named after or coined by Klein. Without a doubt, Klein used the ENCYKLOPÄDIE to
disseminate and classify his own findings. However, his correspondence with
Henri Poincaré (see Section 5.5.5) and with Wilhelm Killing (see Section 3.3) are
good examples of the facts that Klein strove for historical accuracy in his
depictions of mathematical developments and that he never wanted his name to be
associated with concepts or ideas originally formulated by others.
Of the numerous mathematical concepts conceived by Klein and discussed at
length in encyclopedia entries, some of the most significant should be listed here:
Klein’s line coordinates (see Section 2.3.3); the Cayley-Klein metric (see Section
2.5.3); Klein’s Erlanger Programm, known in English as the Erlangen Program,
which grew from his earlier research (see Sections 2.8.2 and 3.1.1); the problem
of Clifford-Klein space forms (Section 3.3); Klein-Riemann surfaces (see Sections
4.2.3 and 5.5.1.2); Klein’s (homogeneous) space;17 Klein’s level theory for classi-
fying the theory of (elliptic) modular functions (see Section 4.2.4.2);18 the Klein
bottle (Section 5.5.1.2); Klein’s so-called “four-group” and his Formenproblem
(Section 5.5.6); Klein’s fundamental theorems, later known as uniformization
theorems (see Section 5.5.4); Klein’s (transcendental) prime form;19 and Klein’s
oscillation theorem (see Sections 5.5.1.1 and 6.3.5).

14 There is only an English edition of the first volume, 1979.

15 Regarding a conflict between Klein and Jordan, see especially BRECHENMACHER 2011. On
the polemic between Klein and Fuchs, see Section 5.5.5 and Appendix 5 in this book.
16 See NAAS/SCHMIDT 1961/1984; WEISSTEIN 2003, etc.
17 Klein space (Kleinscher Raum) is another name for a homogeneous space. Klein’s Erlangen
Program interprets geometry as a theory of certain homogeneous spaces. A topological space
X is called homogeneous if there is a topological transformation group G that transitively acts
on X. This means that for every points x, y from X there is a transformation g from G such
that gx = y. Intuitively, a homogeneous space X looks the same everywhere; observers of any
of its points will see the same picture.
18 See the article by Robert Fricke in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. 2.2 (1913).
19 See the article by Franz Meyer on “Invariantentheorie” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. 1, p. 297
(1899); and by Wilhelm Wirtinger on “Algebraische Funktionen und ihre Integrale” in ibid.,
vol. 2.2, pp. 115–75 (1901). Klein’s ideas on this topic were first published in his article “Zur
Theorie der Abel’schen Functionen,” Math. Ann. 36 (1890), pp. 1–83.
 1.1 The State of Research 5

Klein’s work is multifaceted, inspiring, and fascinating, and so it comes as no

surprise that a great many (male and female) mathematicians and historians of
mathematics, science, technology, and education have written about various as-
pects of his activity. Thomas Hawkins, an American historian of mathematics, has
earned accolades for his studies of Klein’s contributions. HAWKINS (1984) deser-
ves special mention because it places Klein’s Erlangen Program in its proper
context and analyzes its reception. I.M. YAGLOM (1988) examines Klein’s role in
the evolution of the concept of symmetry. In 2015, Lizhen LI and Athanase
PAPADOPOULOS published an anthology of articles devoted to investigating the
impact of the Erlangen Program in various branches of physics and mathematics.
Peter SLODOWY (1993, Engl. 2019) provides a new edition of Klein’s book on the
icosahedron (KLEIN 1884), together with a commentary from a modern perspec-
tive. In 1986, Gerd FISCHER published a two-volume collection of mathematical
models that were relevant to Klein’s research approach (this book was reprinted in
2018). FISCHER (1985) is an edition of Klein’s Abitur examinations in the field of
mathematics. Regarding the topic of mathematical models, contributions by David
E. ROWE (2013, 2017, 2019b) and Anja SATTELMACHER’s dissertation (2017) de-
serve special mention. Recently, too, the Spanish mathematician Roberto RODRÍ-
GUEZ DEL RÍO (2017) has written a book about Klein’s new vision for geometry;
his book has already been translated into Italian and French.20
SCHOLZ’s aforementioned dissertation from 1980 is not only an excellent his-
tory of the manifold concept from Riemann to Poincaré; it also includes a detailed
discussion of Klein’s contributions to this area of study. SCHOLZ’s 1989 Habilita-
tion thesis, which focuses on the group concept, and some of his other studies are
likewise relevant to our topic. Regarding the history of the group concept, refe-
rence should also be made to the work of Hans WUßING (1969, 1984, 2007).
ZIEGLER (1985) analyzes Plückerian line geometry and its further develop-
ment by Klein and his student Ferdinand Lindemann within the framework of the
history of projective geometry and geometric mechanics. More recent studies –
BIOESMAT-MARTAGNON (2010) and PLUMP (2014) – have refined Ziegler’s work.
In the middle of the 1980s, David E. Rowe, one of the foremost authorities on
the mathematics of Felix Klein, began to publish articles on Klein’s work, and at
the University of Mainz, he encouraged some students to focus on Klein as well.
One noteworthy result of this encouragement is the Habilitation thesis by Moritz
EPPLE (1999), which is concerned with knot theory. ROWE (2018a) is a convenient
collection of the author’s earlier essays, and ROWE (2019a) offers a clear analysis
of the early works of Klein and Sophus Lie and their mutual influence.
Thirty years earlier, David E. Rowe had organized an international sympo-
sium on the history of mathematics,21 the proceedings of which were published in

20 Unfortunately, it is not very reliable in numerous details.

21 The symposium was held between June 20th and 24th in 1988 at Vassar College (Poughkeep-
sie, New York). In the published proceedings (ROWE/MCCLEARY 1989), it is falsely stated
that the conference took place in 1989.
6 1 Introduction

three volumes as History of Modern Mathematics. Around that same time, Rowe
began to publish his first studies on Klein and Sophus Lie’s early collaborative
work in the field of geometry (see ROWE 1989), a topic that Eldar Straume
(Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet, Trondheim) and Leslie Kay
(Virginia Tech) have also been working on for some years.
At the symposium in 1988, Jeremy J. Gray gave a talk about algebraic ge-
ometry in the nineteenth century. Additional studies by Gray on Lazarus Fuchs
and his theory of differential equations (1984), on Poincaré (2013),22 and his re-
cent argument (2019) that Klein helped to create the twentieth-century definition
of Galois theory are important to understanding Klein’s mathematical influence.
There are also many pertinent works by French historians of mathematics, in-
cluding Frédéric BRECHENMACHER’s studies of Camille Jordan and related areas,
a number of contributions by Hélène Gispert, with whom I co-authored an article
in which we compared the mathematical societies in France and Germany
(GISPERT/TOBIES 1996). Noteworthy, too, are Catherine GOLDSTEIN’s 2011 study
of Charles Hermite, Barnabé CROIZAT’s 2016 doctoral thesis on Gaston Darboux,
and several papers by François LÊ – particularly his 2015 study of Alfred
Clebsch’s diagonal surface, a topic that held Klein’s interest for many years.23 For
her MA thesis at the University of Jena, Tina RICHTER (2015) translated and
annotated the correspondence that Darboux addressed to Klein. On the basis of
additional sources, it has been possible to study Klein’s relationship with French
mathematicians in greater detail (see TOBIES 2016).
Konrad JACOBS (1977) published a selection of facsimiles and transcriptions
from Klein’s substantial Nachlass, which is carefully archived at the Göttingen
State and University Library. Only a small portion of Klein’s vast correspondence
has been edited for publication. The letters exchanged by Klein and Hilbert were
edited by FREI (1985). TOBIES and ROWE (1990) contains Klein’s correspondence
with Adolph Mayer, where the main topic of discussion is the activity of editing
the journal Mathematische Annalen. Smaller editions of Klein’s correspondence –
between Klein and Otto Stolz (BINDER 1989), Klein and E.S. Fedorov (BURCK-
HARDT 1972), Klein and A. Gutzmer (TOBIES 1988), Klein and A.A. Markov
(TOBIES 2018), Klein and Paul Koebe (TOBIES 2021a) – round out this picture.
Umberto Bottazzini has written at length about Riemann’s influence on Italian
mathematicians. Together with Jeremy Gray, he analyzed the development of
complex function theory (BOTTAZZINI/GRAY 2013). Bottazzini and other Italian
historians of mathematics have done much to reveal the close connections that
Klein had with the Italian algebraic-geometric school of thought. Of particular
interest are two collections of articles, one on mathematicians in Bologna (COEN
2012) and the other on the work of Corrado Segre (CASNATI et al. 2016). Several

22 This biography focuses primarily on Poincaré’s most significant publications; see the review
by Scott A. Walter in Historia Mathematica 44 (2017), pp. 425–35.
23 On the occasion of Klein’s 150th birthday, a ceramic model of this surface (1.4 meters wide
and 2.5 meters high) was installed at the University of Düsseldorf (see KAENDERS 1999).
 1.1 The State of Research 7

editions of correspondence, moreover, document the fact that Klein maintained a

close relationship with mathematicians in Italy ever since his first trip there in
1874 (see CREMONA 1992–99, LUCIANO/ROERO 2012, and ISRAEL 2017). I was
personally able to examine a collection of Klein’s letters held in Pisa.
Since the publication of his dissertation in 1986, Klaus VOLKERT has made
several contributions to topics that are relevant to this study (the history of An-
schauung, non-Euclidean geometry, etc.). Karen PARSHALL and David E. ROWE’s
book from 1994 not only illuminates the prominent role that Klein played in the
emergence of the American mathematical research community; it also provides a
lucid outline of Klein’s most significant mathematical findings. Reinhard SIEG-
MUND-SCHULTZE has published a number of books and articles that I have drawn
upon, including his work on Richard von Mises, who – recognized by Klein –
enhanced the domain of applied mathematics. Ulf HASHAGEN’s thesis on Walther
Dyck (2003) and Michael ECKERT’s studies on Arnold Sommerfeld (2013) and
Ludwig Prandtl (2017, Engl. 2019a) are also rich and reliable sources for Klein’s
biography.
There have only been a few assessments of Klein’s political positions. The
role of Jewish mathematicians in German-speaking academic culture is the topic
of BERGMANN et al. (2012), and the prominence of Jewish mathematicians in
Göttingen during Klein’s years there was discussed as early as ROWE (1986).
Cordula TOLLMIEN’s detailed analysis (1993) has made it possible to reinterpret
the fact that Klein’s signature appears on the nationalistic “Manifesto of the Ni-
nety-Three” from 1914. The older study by Karl-Heinz MANEGOLD (1970) in-
vestigated the main aspects of Klein’s activity as an organizer of scientific re-
search. Susann HENSEL et al. (1989) analyzed the anti-mathematical attitude of
German engineers in the nineteenth century – an attitude that Klein was ultimately
able to overcome. Bernhard vom BROCKE (1991) is an insightful collection of ar-
ticles on the so-called “Althoff system” that prevailed at the Prussian Ministry of
Culture, which would turn increasingly to Klein as a reliable adviser.
Several scholars have written about Klein’s contributions to reforming ma-
thematical education. Here I should refer in particular to the pioneering studies by
Gert SCHUBRING and the recent translation of Klein’s book series Elementary
Mathematics from a Higher Standpoint by Schubring, Martha Menghini, and
Anna Baccaglini-Frank in 2016. WEIGAND et al. (2019) brings together a variety
of international research approaches; the book arose from a series of panels de-
voted to the “legacy of Felix Klein” at the 13th International Congress on Mathe-
matical Education, which was held in Hamburg in 2016. Masami ISODA’s contri-
bution in the latter book – along with Harald KÜMMERLE’s excellent doctoral dis-
sertation (2018), published as a book in 2021 – have shed light on the extent to
which Klein’s influence reached as far as Japan (see also DAUBEN/SCRIBA 2002).
Finally, this book is the culmination of many years of archival research, and it
draws upon much of my own earlier work on a broad spectrum of topics (see the
Bibliography).
8 1 Introduction

1.2 GUIDING QUESTIONS

In order for this book to remain readable, I have necessarily had to limit the scope
of my presentation. Each of the scholars cited above understandably approached
the topic of Klein’s biography from a particular perspective. As I learned as a
young historian of mathematics and education, however, a proper assessment of a
problem or a scientist should ideally take all sides into account. Even though it
would of course be impossible in this biography to write a detailed history of all
the disciplines to which Klein contributed, my attempt at an omnivorous approach
has enabled me to reach new conclusions about Felix Klein as a mathematician
and as a person.
My thesis is that Klein’s way of working was characterized, above all, by its
continuity. This is counter to the prevailing opinion that his approach changed
drastically in 1882 (because of health problems) and in 1895 (when Hilbert joined
the faculty in Göttingen).
It will be shown that during the early stages of his career, when his research
primarily concerned geometry, algebra, function theory, and number theory, Klein
had already developed a consistent attitude toward applied mathematics, social
issues, educational policy, and scientific administration. Conversely, during his
later years, when his focus shifted to so-called peripheral areas of mathematics,
Klein did not cease from promoting works of pure mathematics. It will also be
necessary to reevaluate Klein’s health-related issues and his political attitude.
The aspects that have guided my research for this biography are the follo-
wing:
First: I will examine how and by what means Felix Klein became an interna-
tionally recognized mathematician who significantly influenced the development
of mathematics, its applications, and education during his lifetime.
Second: Klein’s manner of conducting research and leading people was based
on cooperation. He brought students and young researchers from numerous count-
ries within his fold. I will show who his most important collaborators were for his
research programs and projects during specific periods of his life, and I will also
discuss when and why competition happened to arise instead of cooperation.
Third: Klein’s lifetime coincided with the German Empire and the beginning
of the Weimar Republic. He was briefly a paramedic during the Franco-Prussian
War, and he experienced the First World War. He secured financial backing from
industry and also from the military in order to build up his teaching and research
programs in Göttingen. I intend to discuss the political attitude that underlay his
pursuits.
In my efforts to ascertain the structural features of Felix Klein’s career, Lud-
wik Fleck’s concept of the “thought collective” has proven to be especially useful.
Fleck’s work is recognized today as a precursor to Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure
of Scientific Revolutions. In 1935, and thus long before Kuhn, Fleck – a Polish-
Jewish microbiologist, physician, and theorist of science – analyzed the genesis
and structure of research communities, which he referred to as thought collectives.
 1.2 Guiding Questions 9

To characterize the views that prevail within a thought collective (Denkkollektiv),

he coined the term “thought style” or “style of thinking” (Denkstil):
If we define a “thought collective” as a community of persons mutually exchanging ideas or
maintaining intellectual interaction, we will find by implication that it also provides the spe-
cial “carrier” for the historical development of any field of thought, as well as for the given
stock of knowledge and level of culture. This we have termed a “thought style.”24

Fleck referred both to the group-formational and social effect of commonly shared
views and concepts and to the special role that such collectives play in introducing
young researchers to a given area of study. Group norms experienced in one’s
youth can often be formational throughout one’s life. At the same time, acquiring
experiences in one area and trying them out in other communities can be points of
departure for becoming a member of a special thought collective or for forming a
collective on one’s own. According to Fleck, too, each member of such a collec-
tive can simultaneously belong to other communities (scientific, political, cultu-
ral) and thus introduce varying points of view.
At this point, it can be said that one of Klein’s major characteristics was his
willingness and ability to form, manage, and lead associations or groups. His
work ethic was based on the values of his family and early education. His con-
nection to the internationally networked Plücker and Clebsch allowed him to be-
come a member of a community associated with “newer geometry,” which still
had to be formed on the national level. The early deaths of Plücker and Clebsch
contributed to the fact that Klein was able to become the head of a thought
collective that aimed to carry out Riemann’s agenda in the field of geometry. At
the time, Leo Koenigsberger, who was Karl Weierstrass’s first prominent student,
sensed that a shift in the predominant style of thinking was taking place:
Even we younger mathematicians all felt at the time as though the Riemannian views and
methods did not belong to the strict mathematics of Euler, Lagrange, Gauß, Jacobi, Dirichlet,
and others – as always seems to be the case when science is penetrated by a great new idea,
which at first needs time to be processed in the minds of the living generation. Thus the
achievements of the Göttingen school were not appreciated by many of us (or at least not by
most of us) as much as their great significance deserved, and we seldom gave this work the
place of distinction that science would soon award it.25

Klein remained rooted in this geometric style of thinking, even though he would
go on to integrate the methods of other orientations into his concepts. Thus, nearly
at the age of sixty, he ultimately accepted the axiomatic style of thinking that,
thanks above all to David Hilbert, came to prevail in Germany.26 Although Klein
supported Hilbert’s new approach to invariant theory, he was at first not fully on
board with the latter’s “abstract” number theory. Surprisingly, sources reveal that
Klein’s much-discussed talk on “arithmeticization” (1895) had originally been

24 FLECK 1979 [1935], p. 39. See also TOBIES 2012, pp. 7–8.
25 KOENIGSBERGER 2004 [1919], p. 29
(http://histmath-heidelberg.de/txt/koenigsberger/leben.pdf).
26 In this regard, see also Klein’s notes on Hilbert’s problems (1900) in Section 10.1.
10 1 Introduction

directed against Hilbert’s new “abstract” approach, something that Klein later, in
1908, himself referred to as subjective (see Sections 6.3.7.3, 8.2.2, 8.3.2).
Contrary to Herbert MEHRTENS’s (1990) classification of mathematicians as
either modern (Hilbert et al.) or anti-modern (Klein et al.),27 it seems to me as
though, in Klein’s case, it is possible to speak of a particular sort of modernity on
whose basis new domains such as modern numerical analysis, actuarial mathe-
matics, and financial mathematics were able to develop. These would later give
rise to fields such as engineering mathematics and business mathematics.28
In order to establish the necessary institutional and personnel resources for the
study of mathematical applications in technical fields, Klein sought and acquired
new sources of funding by following the example of the Carl Zeiss Foundation in
Jena and that of American universities. Mitchell Ash has underscored, as a scienti-
fic-historical concept, the extent which the availability of “financial, […] cogni-
tive, instrumental, personnel, institutional, or rhetorical” resources have influen-
ced the development of science.29 This concept of resources provides a fitting way
to understand Klein’s efforts to secure and utilize financial support – from all
available sources (the state, industry, the military) – for teaching, research, in-
struments, and institutes. Conversely, the interest of donors can be seen as an inte-
rest in scientific results. At the same time, this need for resources does much to
explain Klein’s activity as a non-partisan representative of the University of Göt-
tingen in the Prussian Upper House of Lords (Herrenhaus, the first chamber of the
Prussian parliament) as well as his rhetoric and approval of declarations during
the First World War (see Sections 8.3.4 and 9.1).
Ash’s concept also fits well with Klein’s approach to hiring personnel. Klein
always sought out the best candidate for a specific job in question, without regard
to gender, nationality, or religious affiliation. This is evidenced by his (hitherto
unknown) engagement on behalf of Georg Pick (see 5.5.2.4) and his support for
the careers and publications of Max and Emmy Noether, Adolf Hurwitz, Arthur
Schoenflies, Georges Brunel, Gino Fano, Irving W. Stringham, and many others.
In order to present all of this information in a readable fashion, I have orga-
nized this book around the following three points (I to III):
I. Arranging the book according to the stages of Klein’s life and career has
made it possible to best represent the early-established diversity of his activity.
Chapter 2 thus examines the formative communities of which he was a part.
The latter include his childhood family and school years, which formed the basis
of his prodigious work ethic. This period was followed by his time as a university
student (in Bonn, Göttingen, Berlin, and Paris), when he met influential teachers
(Plücker, Clebsch) who opened up opportunities for him to join international
communities of intellectuals and who made it easier for him to find collaborative
partners. Klein’s time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen, where he was part of

27 For a critical view of this classification, see also ROWE 1997 and BAIR et al. 2017.
28 See NEUNZERT/PRÄTZEL-WOLTERS 2015 and FRAUNHOFER ITWM 2018.
29 ASH 2002, p. 32. See also ASH 2016.
 1.2 Guiding Questions 11

Clebsch’s tight community, ultimately had the effect that, as the youngest member
of Clebsch’s circle, he was able to carry on, with the greatest intensity, the latter’s
program of bringing together disciplines and people, and that he was even able to
promote the careers of older members of the group.
Chapters 3, 4, and 5 are devoted to Klein’s activity as a full professor at the
University of Erlangen (1872–75), at the Polytechnikum in Munich (1875–80; the
latter institution was designated a Technische Hochschule in 1877), and at the
University of Leipzig (1880–86). In 1886, Klein transferred to the University of
Göttingen, and his range of activity there is treated in four chapters (6 through 9),
which warrant summaries of their own.
Chapter 6 covers the years 1886 to 1892. These years in Göttingen were made
difficult by the fact that Klein had been hired against the wishes of the two profes-
sors of mathematics who were already on the faculty there, H.A. Schwarz and E.
Schering (see Section 5.8.2 and Appendix 4) – a fact that long went unrecognized.
Klein cultivated contacts within the overall framework of the university, within
the national framework of mathematicians, and abroad. In Göttingen, he concen-
trated on his academic work and sent memoranda with wide-reaching aims to the
Prussian Ministry of Culture. It was not until 1892, when Schwarz accepted a new
position in Berlin and Klein rejected an invitation to move to the University of
Munich, that Klein was able to realize many of his goals.
Chapter 7 concerns the years 1892 to 1895. Supported by Heinrich Weber and
oriented toward foreign – particularly American – examples (Klein’s first trip to
the United States was in 1893), Klein was able to form the basis for his success in
the coming years. During this brief period, his most significant accomplishments
included hiring, for the first time, mathematical assistants at Göttingen; founding
the Göttingen Mathematical Society; establishing contact with secondary-school
teachers and industrial leaders; supporting the right of women to study at the uni-
versity level; creating an official course of study for actuarial mathematics; begin-
ning the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project; and, finally, hiring Hilbert in April of 1895.
Chapter 8, which treats the period from 1895 to 1913, examines the fruits of
Klein’s previously determined course of action and illuminates the interrelated
nature of his projects. During this time, he completed his monograph on auto-
morphic functions (FRICKE/KLEIN) and worked on a book about the spinning top
theory (KLEIN/SOMMERFELD; Klein’s interest in this topic can be dated back to his
second stay in Paris in 1887). Within the framework of his intensively managed
program for mathematical physics and mechanics (an idea he formulated as early
as 1881; see Section 5.5), Klein became a significant originator of ideas for young
researchers (see Section 8.2.4). He was able to forge alliances between Göttingen
scientists and industrialists, and he was also able to convince the latter that it was
in their interest to provide financial support. Moreover, this support was meant to
assist not only research but also educational reform, which Klein coordinated and
promoted both nationally and internationally.
It should become clear from this chapter that Klein’s practical committee
work (regionally, nationally, and internationally) was closely interrelated both to
his research-oriented teaching and to his theoretical work on book projects such as
12 1 Introduction

the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, the Abhandlungen über den mathematischen Unterricht

(KLEIN 1909–16), and Kultur der Gegenwart (KLEIN 1912–14). Klein’s early idea
to prepare an (ultimately unrealized) final volume for the ENCYKLOPÄDIE meant
that he devoted considerable energy to intensively studying the history, philo-
sophy, psychology, and didactics of mathematics (see Section 8.3).
Chapter 9 concerns Klein’s time as an emeritus professor (1913–25), a period
that also includes the years of the First World War. After a respite spent in a
sanatorium, he continued to manage committees, teaching, and editorial projects.
He made substantial contributions to the general theory of relativity and he re-
mained, in the words of Abraham Fraenkel, the “foreign minister” (Außenminis-
ter) of German mathematics.30 It should be stressed that Klein’s term as a repre-
sentative of the University of Göttingen in the Prussian parliament, 1908–18 (see
Sections 8.3.4 and 9.1.2), where he focused on educational policy, and his imme-
diate action after the November Revolution of 1918 can be seen as a remarkable
example of continuity across periods of political upheaval. The extent of these
activities, which concerned research funding, issues of hiring, and new educa-
tional reforms, will be discussed at length here for the first time.
Chapter 10 will revisit the guiding questions of this book and summarize the
many pioneering aspects of Klein’s work.
The Appendix of this book contains a selection of important primary sources.
In order to help the reader work through the book, I decided to make the Index of
Names more comprehensive than is customarily the case. There, in addition to
including biographical dates, I have also indicated whether a given person con-
ducted doctoral research under Klein, contributed to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, or be-
came member of the German Mathematical Society (DMV).
II. At the beginning of each chapter, I provide a brief overview of Klein’s ac-
tivity during the timeframe under discussion, with respect to how this activity re-
lated to research topics, teaching, committees, or to new local, national, and inter-
national processes. References in the book to previous or later developments are
meant to facilitate the recognition of broader contexts and continuities.
III. Topics that remained relevant across extended periods of time are dis-
cussed at greater length upon their first mention. Topics of this sort include, for
instance, the members of Clebsch’s intellectual community (Section 2.4.1); the
role of the journal Mathematische Annalen and Klein’s position on its editorial
board (Section 2.4.2); the members of Klein’s family (Section 3.6); Klein’s advi-
sory position for the B.G. Teubner publishing house and his influence over its
publications (Section 5.6); Klein’s work for and within the German Mathematical
Society (Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung, DMV; Section 6.4.4); the ENCY-
KLOPÄDIE project, which began as an idea proposed by Franz Meyer (Section 7.8);
and other innovations that I discuss in Chapter 7. This approach made it possible
for me to concentrate, in Chapters 8 and 9, on the new activities that Klein began
to undertake during his later years.

30 FRAENKEL 2016 [1967], p. 138.

 1.3 Editorial Remarks 13

1.3 EDITORIAL REMARKS

This section provides an overview of my treatment of sources, my citation style,

and other editorial issues. On the basis of TOBIES (1981a), the late Emil Fellmann
asked me in 1982 to prepare a comprehensive biography devoted to Felix Klein
for his series Vita Mathematica. Due to the political and territorial divide in Ger-
many, however, I was unable to accomplish this at the time, mainly because I had
yet to study Klein’s comprehensive Nachlass in Göttingen. In 1985, David E.
Rowe made it possible for me, for the first time, to spend four weeks examining
this archive. Since then, a number of additional works have been published. Our
edition of Klein’s correspondence (TOBIES/ROWE 1990), for instance, was the
result of fruitful collaboration. In the summer of 2015, Annika Denkert of Sprin-
ger Spektrum in Heidelberg invited me to write a biography of Felix Klein for her
Portfolio series (TOBIES 2019). At that point, I asked David E. Rowe if he might
be willing to co-author such a book with me, but his other obligations regrettably
prevented him from doing so.
In the present book, I have made an effort to allow Felix Klein to speak for
himself as often as possible. One of my primary aims has been to examine over-
looked or infrequently analyzed sources in order to discover the reasoning behind
Klein’s decisions, to expose the origins of his approaches, and to present the ar-
guments and opinions of his contemporaries.
Over the years, I have had the opportunity to study and analyze numerous
primary sources. These include countless letters by and to Klein, for the latter do-
cuments possess the highest degree of authenticity. It was Klein’s custom to write
and save drafts of his most important letters. Typically, these drafts differ little
from the letters that he ultimately sent, as a quick comparison of his correspon-
dence with the Prussian Ministry of Culture shows [StA Berlin]. The drafts of his
letters are archived in Klein’s Nachlass in Göttingen [UBG].
In October of 1878, however, Klein burned all of his previous correspondence
in an “impetuous act of foolishness,” as he explained to Max Noether in 1899.31 In
order to assess matters before this time, therefore, the letters to his correspondence
partners that survive elsewhere (Oslo, Paris, Pisa, St. Petersburg, etc.) are espe-
cially important. Beyond this, documents preserved in additional Nachlässe (Fer-
dinand Lindemann’s, Robert Fricke’s, among others), the private estate of Mei-
nolf Hillebrand’s family (Hillebrand was one of Klein’s great-grandsons), and
materials housed at Klein’s Gymnasium in Düsseldorf have been extremely valu-
able. Another excellent source is the unedited correspondence between Klein and
Adolf Hurwitz; this entire collection of letters is archived in Göttingen. Revealing,
too, is the correspondence between H.A. Schwarz and Karl Weierstrass [BBAW],
for the two had much to say about Klein. An overview of the primary sources that
I have consulted can be found in the list of archives at the beginning of this book’s
bibliography.

31 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 12: 651 (a letter from Klein to M. Noether dated March 1, 1899).
14 1 Introduction

Abbreviated references in my footnotes are spelled out in full in the biblio-

graphy. Citations in [square] brackets refer to archival sources, while the names of
authors in SMALL CAPITALS refer to works of scholarship. Certain secondary sour-
ces, which are relevant only to a specific context, have been cited in full in the
footnotes and not added to the bibliography. The transliteration of Cyrillic names
is not always consistent, for the simple reason that they appear in different forms
in different sources.

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to thank the editors at the Birkhäuser/Springer
publishing house in Basel/Cham (Switzerland) – Thomas Hempfling, Sarah Goob,
Sabrina Hoecklin, and Martin Mattmüller – for including this book in the series
Vita Mathematica. The editor of this series, Martin Mattmüller, read the entire
manuscript diligently, and the author is deeply grateful for his helpful advice.
I would like to continue by emphasizing that I am deeply indebted to the di-
rectors and staff of the numerous archives whose sources I have already been able
to use for the German version of this biography. Special thanks go to Mrs. Bärbel
Mund, Head of the Manuscript Department at the University Library of Göttin-
gen, for her ongoing support. I am also indebted to numerous colleagues who read
the original German edition of this book and have since shared and discussed ad-
ditional insights with me in a wide variety of settings: at the Max Planck Institute
for Mathematics in the Sciences (Leipzig), the Polish Mathematical Society and at
the Institute of the History of Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences in
Warsaw, and the Mathematical Institute of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków,
at meetings of the German Mathematical Society and the Austrian Mathematical
Society, at the Kepler Symposium hosted by the Johannes Kepler University in
Linz, at the Toeplitz Colloquium organized by the University of Bonn, at a lecture
held at the Felix Klein Center in Kaiserslautern (organized by the Fraunhofer
Institute for Industrial Mathematics) – among other places.
This book could not have been written without the help and collaboration of
my international colleagues. David E. Rowe deserves special thanks for his early
support and for providing numerous valuable references for the English edition.
For many years of fruitful cooperation and for his many fundamental contributi-
ons to this book, I owe special thanks to Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze (Kristian-
sand, Norway). As far back as 1992, the mathematician Tito M. Tonietti (Pisa)
enabled me to have access to the archives at the Scuola Normale. Christa Binder
(Vienna) kindly made her transcriptions of the correspondence between Klein and
Otto Stolz available to me. I sincerely thank Frédéric Brechenmacher for sending
me his publications as well as letters from Felix Klein to Camille Jordan. For their
collaboration on several projects, my gratitude extends to Hélène Gispert, Marie-
José Durand-Richard, and Dominique Tournès. Marie-José Durand-Richard also
went above and beyond to ensure that I could acquire copies of Klein’s letters
held in the Darboux Nachlass in Paris. An effort to assist Eldar Straume (Trond-
 1.3 Editorial Remarks 15

heim, Norway) and Leslie Kay (Virginia Tech) with their project of editing
Klein’s letters to Sophus Lie provided me with an occasion to study archival
material in Oslo, and I have to thank Eldar Straume for kindly inviting me (after
my work in Olso) to deliver a lecture in Trondheim, and also Reinhard Siegmund-
Schultze, who invited me to Kristiansand. Without the help of Sergei S. Demidov
in Moscow, my work at the archive of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg
would have been far less successful. Danuta Ciesielska (Warsaw/Kraków) gener-
ously made her analyses of the work of Polish mathematicians in Göttingen avail-
able to me, and she supported my research by inviting me to give lectures.
Martina Bečvářová (Prague), who has published important works on Czech
mathematicians, brought many new ideas to my attention at a workshop on
“Women and Mathematics” hosted by the Oberwolfach Institute for Mathematics.
I had the pleasure of organizing the latter event with Nicola Oswald (Wuppertal)
and Tinne Hoff Kjeldsen (Denmark). I would also like to express my sincere
thanks to Elisabeth Mühlhausen (Göttingen) and Cordula Tollmien (Hann.
Münden) for their valuable collaboration in this field of research.
Harald Kümmerle (Halle) familiarized me with his latest results on Japanese
mathematicians who studied with Felix Klein. I would like to thank Michael
Rahnfeld (Weddingstedt) and Henning Heller (Vienna) for comments on the ef-
fects of Klein’s work on aspects of the philosophy of mathematics. In this context,
I would like to mention that Henning Heller completed his undergraduate thesis
“Beiträge Felix Kleins zur Gruppen- und Invariantentheorie” [Felix Klein’s Con-
tributions to Group and Invariant Theory] with me at the University of Jena in
2015, holds a master’s degree from the University of Bristol, and is currently
working on Klein’s mathematics and philosophy at the University of Vienna.
Furthermore, the interdisciplinary spirit at the Friedrich Schiller University in
Jena (at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science and the Ernst Haeckel
House) deserves to be acknowledged here because it formed an important basis
for my work.
As I mentioned above, several colleagues have read the German version of
this book in detail and have provided me with valuable references and feedback. I
have made every effort to ensure that their insights have been included in the
English translation. In this regard, my gratitude is also due to Reinhard Bölling
(Potsdam), Peter Bussemer (Gera), Günter Dörfel (Dresden), Michael Fothe
(Jena), Rita Meyer-Spasche (Munich), Rainer Schimming (Potsdam), and Gert
Schubring (Rio de Janeiro). Finally, it remains for me to thank the translator him-
self, Valentine A. Pakis, for his constructive, reliable, and excellent work.
The translator would like to acknowledge his great debt to Reinhard
Siegmund-Schultze and Martin Mattmüller, who each read the draft in full and
made invaluable corrections throughout. He would also like to thank Lizhen Li
(University of Michigan) and Li Peng (Higher Education Press, Beijing) for
making materials available to him that were out of his reach.
Although I have relied on many people while writing this book, it goes
without saying that I alone am responsible for any remaining errors or inaccura-
cies.
16 1 Introduction

Figure 3: An excerpt of a letter from Felix Klein to Sophus Lie dated April 1, 1872 [Oslo]
(Regarding the context, see Section 2.8.3.4)
 2 FORMATIVE GROUPS

This chapter will examine the people and communities that shaped Felix Klein’s
views, work ethic, manners of behavior, and style of thinking. The following
groups will be discussed:
– his family;
– his classmates and teachers in Düsseldorf;
– his intellectual community while studying in Bonn under Julius Plücker;
– the algebraic-geometric school led by Alfred Clebsch;
– his circle of friends in Berlin and Paris; and
– the circle of Privatdozenten in Göttingen (not only mathematicians).

2.1 THE KLEIN–KAYSER FAMILY

A strong work ethic and certain other factors were instilled in Klein from an early
age. Both his father’s and his mother’s side of the family played a role in this, as
both Felix Klein and his brother Alfred agreed.

2.1.1 A Royalist and Frugal Westphalian Upbringing

A stubborn will, unrelenting diligence, a sober sense of reality, absolute reliability, and well-
considered frugality – these are the traditional characteristics of this rugged German clan,
which were also purely embodied in my father.1

His family (Kleine, Kleinen) stemmed from the Sauerland area of Westphalia.2
His ancestors included farmers and representatives of the region’s small-scale iron
industry. His great-grandfather, the farmer Friedrich Peter Kleine (b. 11/11/1731),
married Catharina Margarethe Schürfeld on July 27, 1776. Their first-born son,
Johann Peter Friedrich Klein (b. 9/18/1777, d. 11/22/1858), was married to Maria
Catharina Hammerschmidt (b. 3/31/1787, d. 10/6/1871), the daughter of a timber
merchant. Her father could not write, but he was excellent at making calculations
in his head. Felix Klein’s grandfather Peter Klein established a blacksmith shop
that produced miner’s lamps and other small devices out of iron. These
grandparents led a very simple and frugal life: a bucket in the yard was used for
washing themselves. The family acquired a modest degree of prosperity through
hard work: they used their small savings to purchase plots of forest, which they

1 KLEIN 1923a, p. 12 (Felix Klein’s autobiography).

2 [Hillebrand] A family chronicle by Alfred Klein (begun in 1910 and expanded in 1918).

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 17

R. Tobies, Felix Klein, Vita Mathematica 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75785-4_2
18 2 Formative Groups

would then clear themselves and convert into farmland. Of their six children, the
eldest was Felix Klein’s father: Peter Caspar Klein, who was born on August 11,
1809 in Voerde and died on January 26, 1889 in Düsseldorf. His old-fashioned
Prussian-Protestant disposition was, as Felix Klein described it in 1923, “in stark
contrast to the more light-hearted and joyful manner of Rhinelanders.”3 Alfred
Klein (1910) characterized his father as a “robust Westphalian, industrious,
brusque, an organizational and financial talent, a man of independent mind and
character, firm in his convictions, hard on himself and others.”

Figure 4: Felix Klein at the age of two (unknown illustrator) [Hillebrand].

Because Caspar Klein had been frail as a child, he was spared from having to lead
the hard life of a farmer or craftsman. At the age of fifteen, he was hired as a clerk
at the mayor’s office on Enneper Straße (Enneper Street). The office’s jurisdiction
included the districts of Haspe, Voerde (where Felix Klein’s grandparents lived),
Vorhalle, Waldbauer, and Westerbauer. Enneper Straße, which extended for two
miles along the Ennepe river, had been built as a military road by the Prussian
government at the end of the eighteenth century. It was lined with numerous iron-
related production facilities. For the sake of serving his mandatory military ser-
vice, Caspar Klein went to Düsseldorf, where he was active from 1829 to 1831 as
a brigade clerk, sergeant and additionally worked for the “Royal Government.”
After the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the city of Düsseldorf had become the seat
of government for the Rhineland Province of the Prussian Kingdom. Here, Felix
Klein’s father worked as a civil servant and climbed the ranks to become a presi-
dential secretary. In 1845, moreover, he took on an ancillary position as an in-
spector for the Jägerhof and Benrath Palaces. As a close confidante of two noble
government presidents – Adolph Theodor Freiherr von Spiegel-Borlinghausen
und zu Peckelsheim (in office from 1837 to November 1849) and Karl Friedrich

3 KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), p. 12.

 2.1 The Klein–Kayser Family 19

Leo Freiherr von Massenbach (from 1850 to 1866) – Caspar Klein remained faith-
ful to the royal house. During the German revolutions of 1848–1849, he sat in fear
with his family on packed suitcases. The family survived unscathed and, on Au-
gust 7, 1850, Caspar Klein was awarded for his loyalty by being made a Knight of
the Fourth Class of the Order of the Red Eagle.4
At the end of 1853, Caspar Klein was promoted to provincial treasurer
(Landrentmeister), which was the highest financial office at the Royal Treasury in
Düsseldorf. On Felix Klein’s Abitur diploma, his father’s profession is listed as
provincial treasurer and government councilor. In 1889, Caspar Klein left behind
a fortune of approximately 700,000 Mark, “which he had amassed through strict
diligence, great frugality, and financial savviness.”5 He was able to support his
son Felix when the latter had financial difficulties in Munich during the 1870s
(see Section 4.4). Already in the 1860s, Caspar Klein made it possible for Felix,
who was interested in science and technology, to tour factories, but he adhered to
the principle that his sons should orient themselves, from an early age, toward
career goals and toward earning their own income. In 1871, while he was a
Privatdozent in Göttingen, Felix Klein still had to comply with his family’s strict
principle of frugality. In a letter to the Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie, he
complained about this rigid, unbending regime as follows:
Dear Lie!
Today I have to relate some sad news to you. I will not be able to come to Norway in the
fall. My previous calculation has been spoiled by a letter that I received from home yesterday.
I had devised a plan whereby I would have been able to make the trip if only the yearly sum
that I receive from home would have been made available to me in advance. My father,
however, rejected this idea categorically; I should become accustomed, “as though I were a
civil servant,” to receiving regular quarterly payments. “I could take great trips as soon as I
had greater means at my disposal.” I had to restrain myself with all my might so as to avoid
starting a long conflict, so little do my parents understand me and my disposition. These
people – and yet I must say that, relatively, my parents do not do this to the greatest extent –
appraise the value of life according to the money that one earns and saves! And they have no
notion whatsoever of how beautiful it is to live for an idea; they simply don’t believe me
when I tell them that science is undertaken for its own sake […].6

As one can see, Felix Klein’s assessment here applies to both of his parents. On
September 10, 1844, at the age of thirty-five, his father had married Sophie
Kayser, who was ten years his junior, but he only did so after he had managed to
save a sum of 2,000 Reichsthaler.7

4 His son Felix would receive this same honor in the year 1889 (see Section 6.3.7.1).
5 [Hillebrand] Alfred Klein (1910), p. 3. (700,000 Mark in the year 1889 is equivalent to about
4,800,000 euros in 2020).
6 [Oslo] Klein to Sophus Lie, May 22, 1871. On the status of Privatdozenten (lecturers), see
Section 2.8.
7 [Hillebrand] Alfred Klein (1910), p. 4. From 1821 to 1871, a special Reichsthaler (=30 silver
pennies) was valid in Prussia.
20 2 Formative Groups

2.1.2 Talent in School and Wide Interests as Gifts from His Mother’s Side

My mother likewise came from people who had moved away from the industry of Aachen.
She was more cheerful and had more flexible opinions than my father. Her multifaceted inte-
rests were therefore the main source of intellectual life in the house. Admittedly, this greater
degree of activity was tied to an inclination toward nervous exhaustion, which, as a feature in-
herited from my maternal background, often affected me later in life.8

Felix Klein remained very close to his mother and was known to have sent her a
letter every Sunday.9 His opinion of his mother was shared by his brother Alfred,
who wrote, “My mother represented what was good and genial in the house; she
had strong pedagogical and speculative-scientific interests and a great memory for
historical dates.” In addition, Alfred Klein underscored the intellectual activity of
both parents and their “rationalistic way of thinking about religious issues.”10
The Kayser family tree can be traced back to the Reformation. In the Free Im-
perial City of Aachen, the ancestral home of the Kayser family, there was a long
period of “religious unrest” during the decades of the Reformation. Merchants and
educated citizen were among the first to convert to Protestantism, and they fled
from the city in increasing numbers. The Kaysers, a family of fabric manufactur-
ers, left for Thuringia.
In addition to innkeepers and farmers, Sophie Kayser’s ancestors also in-
cluded church dignitaries, surgeons, pharmacists, an estate manager, a civil ser-
vant, a wine merchant, and an instrument manufacturer. One ancestor (Privy
Councilor of Commerce C.G. Jaeger) left behind a career as a dye manufacturer
and indigo dealer to become a banker; upon his death in 1852, 1/32 of his estate
(12,500 Reichsthaler) was inherited by Sophie Kayser.
Felix Klein’s maternal grandfather, Christian Gottfried Kayser (b. 10/30/
1791), followed the family tradition and became a wool and fabric merchant. On
March 24, 1817, he married Eleonore Schleicher (b. 3/10/1793, d. 5/22/1875),
who hailed from Stolberg. This couple’s four children were Felix Klein’s mother
Sophie (b. 4/22/1819 in Aachen), Mathilde (married name: Fischer), and Alfred
and Ivan, who both followed their father’s example and became fabric manufac-
turers and wool merchants.11
By Caspar Klein’s side, Sophie Kayser developed into a very frugal wife. The
household budget had to be managed with embarrassing precision. According to
Felix Klein’s brother Alfred, “Mother would have to calculate precisely whether
she could afford to buy a single bread roll; any spending beyond the budget was
unthinkable.”12

8 KLEIN 1923a, p. 12.

9 This is according to an obituary for Felix Klein that was written by F. Lindemann and printed
in the Münchner Neueste Nachrichten on July 9, 1925.
10 [Hillebrand] Alfred Klein (1910)
11 Alfred Klein’s family chronicle (1910, 1918) does not relate when his mother’s siblings were
born and died.
12 [Hillebrand] Alfred Klein (1910), p. 3.
 2.1 The Klein–Kayser Family 21

2.1.3 Felix Klein and His Siblings

Caspar and Sophie Klein had four children together. Their second child Felix was
born on April 25, 1849, in Jägerhofstraße 11 in Düsseldorf. His birthday is easy to
remember because it consists of the squares of three prime numbers, 2, 5, and 43,
as Klein himself was happy to point out. His parents predestined him to a life of
good fortune by naming him Felix, which means “happy” or “lucky” in Latin. He
was endowed with a readiness of mind and the “good-natured humor of his Rhine-
land home,” features that would characterize him throughout his entire life.13
On May 1, 1869, Felix Klein’s older sister, Aline Leonore (b. 8/19/1847),
married the businessman August Hermann Flender, whose first wife had died in
1867 after six years of childless marriage. Flender owned ironworks in Düsseldorf
and Benrath, and he left behind a considerable estate after his early death on Janu-
ary 3, 1882. His businesses lived on in the form of joint-stock corporations such
as Brückenbau Flender and Balcke, Tellering & Company in Benrath.14 The mar-
riage between Aline and August Flender produced eight children, four sons and
four daughters. Among these, I should draw attention to their third-born child,
Hermine Adolfine Leonore (b. 3/2/1873, ob. 8/28/1912), because she would marry
Felix Klein’s doctoral student Robert Fricke after the latter had become a profes-
sor at the Technische Hochschule in Braunschweig on April 1, 1894.
Felix Klein’s brother Alfred, who was born on October 15, 1854, studied law,
earned a doctoral degree, and received the title of Justizrat (judicial counselor).
On April 25, 1880, he settled down as a lawyer in Düsseldorf.15 With his first
wife, Magda Schulz (b. 9/12/1864, ob. 5/24/1893), he had two children, and with
his second wife, Helene Portig (b. 10/30/1873), he had four more. The letters bet-
ween Alfred and his brother Felix document their close relationship. Among other
things, Alfred Klein maintained contact with Felix Klein’s son while the latter
was living in the United States. He advised his brother in legal affairs, as in the
matter, for instance, of preparing a will: “In my opinion, a joint will is simpler and
fully satisfies your wishes.”16 In 1894, Felix Klein called upon his brother to help
him establish contact with industrialists in the Rhineland (see Section 7.7). Later,
Alfred Klein wrote anxious remarks about the 1918 November Revolution and the
Spartacists: “My dear Felix! […] I have been overtaken by pessimism since the
15th of November; the future looks very bleak. Here we have plenty of opportuni-
ties to witness the insanity of the Spartacists.”17 Felix Klein’s rational activity at
this same time will have to be judged with greater nuance. He remained optimistic
and active, and he had no reservations whatsoever about the new government of
the Weimar Republic (see Sections 9.1.2 and 9.3.2).

13 KIRCHBERGER 1925, p. 2.
14 [Hillebrand Private Estate] Alfred Klein (1918), p. 8.
15 [UBG] Cod. MS. Klein 10, p. 399 (a letter from Alfred to Felix Klein dated April 24, 1900).
16 Ibid., p. 403 (quoted from a letter dated December 17, 1913).
17 Ibid., pp. 400, 419 (quoted from a letter dated April 1, 1919).
22 2 Formative Groups

Felix Klein’s younger sister, Eugenie (b. 1/20/1861, d. 2/30/1910) never mar-
ried. She worked as a nurse, volunteer, and board member at the Evangelical Hos-
pital in Düsseldorf and, in addition, she found time to take her nieces on long
trips, as Alfred Klein commented in 1910. The commemorative photograph taken
on Felix Klein’s silver wedding anniversary in 1900 contains fifteen people,
among them his siblings Eugenie and Alfred (see Section 3.6.3, Fig. 19).

2.2 SCHOOL YEARS IN DÜSSELDORF

Having first been taught to read, write, and do basic arithmetic by his mother,
Felix Klein was sent at the age of six to attend a private elementary school for two
and a half years. As of the fall of 1857, he then attended the Gymnasium in
Düsseldorf. Known as the Görres-Gymnasium today,18 it is one of the oldest
schools of this sort in the German-speaking area, with a history that goes back to
the year 1545. Klein’s future professor in Bonn, Julius Plücker, had been gradu-
ated from this same school in the year 1819. During Klein’s years there, the
school building was located on Alleestraße, which is Heinrich-Heine-Straße to-
day, for the famous poet, who came from a Jewish family, had attended the
(Christian) Gymnasium from 1807 to 1810.
Following a decree instigated by Wilhelm von Humboldt on November 12,
1812, Gymnasium became the formal designation in the Kingdom of Prussia for
schools that prepared pupils directly for university. Klein called his school, which
focused on classical languages, a humanistic Gymnasium.19 Of course, then ma-
thematics belonged to the basic components of Prussian secondary schools20, but
in retrospect, Klein emphasized the rather formal character of this mathematical
instruction. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, so-called Real-
gymnasien (where Latin was the only classical language taught) and Oberreal-
schulen (which were more strongly oriented toward the natural sciences and mod-
ern languages) were created. In the year 1900, Felix Klein did much to ensure that
all three types of secondary schools would be treated equally in Prussia (see Sec-
tion 8.3.4.1). The school systems differed strongly in the German states.
As of 1844, the Gymnasium in Düsseldorf was directed by the historian Karl
Kiesel, who was qualified to teach history, geography, classical languages, He-
brew, German, and philosophy at all levels, and mathematics up to the interme-
diate level.21 Klein described his school principal as a strict and excellent teacher;
the latter evaluated his proficiency in Greek. According to the school’s records,22
the evaluations of his teachers, the high quality of his Abitur essay on German

18 Since 1947, the school has borne the name of Joseph Görres, a philosopher and publisher.
19 KLEIN 1923a (Autobiography), p. 12.
20 See SCHUBRING 1983; and SCHUBRING 2012.
21 [BBF] Personnel records.
22 [Gymnasium Düsseldorf] Felix Klein’s graduation certificate (1865).
 2.2 School Years in Düsseldorf 23

literature, and his later comments on his Gymnasium instruction corroborate the
view that his time spent at the school served to strengthen the diligent work ethic
that had already been instilled in him at home.

2.2.1 Earning His Abitur from a Gymnasium at the Age of Sixteen

It is only through effort that a person can achieve a feeling of happiness (Klein 1865).

Thus wrote Felix Klein in his Abitur essay on the topic “The Toils of Life Alone
Teach us to Value the Blessings of Life” (Goethe)23. He concluded this German
essay with the words: “The most blessed are not those who, born in the lap of
luxury, have possessed and experienced everything desirable from early age but
rather those who, by gradually toiling with the hard struggles of life, have climbed
from one step to the next.” Referring to Psalm 90:10, he added: “Indeed, if a life
has been precious, it has been, as the Psalmist says, one of toil and trouble.”
The topic of the essay had been determined by August Uppenkamp, who, like
Klein’s family, came from Westphalia. Having earned a doctoral degree in 1847,
Uppenkamp became a senior teacher at the Gymnasium in Düsseldorf in 1851 and
was later made the principal of the school.24 His evaluation of Klein’s essay was
as follows: “The topic has essentially been treated properly. Although the langu-
age is without ornamentation, it is sufficiently correct. Klein’s earlier essays were
typically somewhat better. Satisfactory.”25 Uppenkamp, who was also responsible
for teaching Latin, appraised Klein’s examination in this subject (translation and
an essay) as good. For the essay, pupils were asked to write about the following
maxim by Cicero: “In omnibus saeculis pauciores viri reperti sunt, qui suas cu-
piditates, quam qui hostium copias vincerent” (“In all ages, fewer have been
found capable of conquering their own passions than of defeating hostile armies”).
The examination in theology involved writing an essay in response to the
following question: “What does the Holy Scripture teach us about the person of
the Savior?” Hugo Deussen, who had been teaching religion at the Gymnasium
and the Realschule in Düsseldorf since 1864 and was also an assistant pastor at
the local Protestant church,26 gave Klein a grade of satisfactory for this examina-
tion, but he also added a few critical remarks:
In the present work, however, I would have wished to see a more precise explication of what
the Holy Scripture teaches us about the person of our Savior, whereas certain other topics,
such as Jesus’s futility27, could have been discussed more briefly. It was likewise out of place
to offer a defense of what the Scripture teaches us. A fundamental flaw of this work is that it
does not discuss the practical significance of the represented teachings, even though the

23 Source: Goethe, Torquato Tasso, 1807 (Act V, Scene 1, Antonio speaking to Alfons).
24 [BBF] Personnel records.
25 [Gymnasium Düsseldorf] Felix Klein’s school records.
26 KÖSSLER 2008, p. 68.
27 Deussen had really written “Sinnlosigkeit” (senselessness/futility).
24 2 Formative Groups

words “our Savior” in the essay topic implied this. Moreover, the style of this essay would
have benefited from greater clarity and stronger organization.28

Klein’s written examination in Hebrew was evaluated by a teacher named Krahle

– about whom I was unable to find any further information – and it was given a
grade of good. His examination in French was especially impressive; it contained
“few and minor mistakes,” and the essay topic was “Victoire de Sobieski à Lem-
berg”29 (which suggests that the instructional content of the class was focused on
military history). Klein’s knowledge of languages would facilitate his later studies
in Paris and his correspondence with colleagues from France, Italy, Russia, and
elsewhere.
His Abitur diploma contains evaluations of the knowledge that Klein acquired
in nine different subjects (Table 1) and attests to his strong sense of ethics and
general diligence: “Klein has worked without any problems and good cheer; he
participated constructively in his classes; he always behaved in a morally upright
manner, and we have high expectations regarding his future success.”

Table 1: Evaluations of Felix Klein’s achievements from his Abitur diploma

(August 3, 1865)
1. In religion, he is able to provide information about the content of the class. He was also able
to place excerpts of entire teachings into their context, and although he did not go into matters
in great depth, he demonstrated participation and knowledge. His proficiency in the subject is
thus satisfactory.
2. In German, he treats his assignments properly and in appropriate language. He is proficient in
logic and also familiar with literary history. His knowledge of the subject is thus satisfactory.
3. In Latin, he is skilled at writing, reading, and speaking the language, so that his knowledge of
this subject can be called good.
4. In Greek, he has a detailed understanding of the language and is also familiar with the content
of the texts that were read. In this subject, too, his knowledge can be called good.
5. In French, he understands the texts so easily and correctly and his German translations are so
skillful that he has to be attested as having a good knowledge of this subject.
6. In Hebrew, he has a precise understanding of grammar and is able to understand select passa-
ges of the Old Testament. His knowledge of this subject is therefore good.
7. In mathematics, his understanding is quick and certain, and he is always able to recall and
apply what he has learned. His knowledge of this subject is thus good.
8. In history and geography, he has acquired a complete overview of the material, and he is able
to call to mind and categorize historical details. His knowledge of these subjects is therefore
good.
9. In natural history, he has a quite sound understanding of what was taught, and he is able to
discuss this material easily, clearly, and comprehensively. His knowledge of this subject is
therefore good.

28 [Gymnasium Düsseldorf], see the German original in TOBIES 2019b, p. 17 – At that time,
elements of Protestant theology were turning away from salvation-historical interpretations of
Jesus’s blood sacrifice; see BERNSTORFF 2009, p. 79.
29 John III Sobieski (1629–1695) was King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania. He
drove back a Turkish invasion at Lviv in 1675.
 2.2 School Years in Düsseldorf 25

Although Klein’s teachers graded his achievements merely as good and satisfac-
tory, these assessments are clearly stronger than they might seem today. This
Gymnasium provided a sort of education that trained the memory and stressed
logic and grammar. In his autobiography from 1923, Klein recalled the pleasure
and satisfaction that he experienced after translating stanzas from Schiller’s “The
Cranes of Ibycus” into Greek verse, though he doubted that he had fully captured
the content and poetic value of the poem. The school’s curriculum, he thought,
covered a massive amount of material but did not provide much vital or creative
insight. Topics such as “poetry, cultural history, and folklore” were neglected:
The view at the time was that the best possible education could be achieved if the pupil had to
struggle, by hard work, through a nearly unmanageable amount of material. Even though this
method ignored the imagination and any sort of artistic sensibility and deprived us of a great
deal of genuine knowledge, it nevertheless provided us with a valuable skill: We learned to
work and to work some more.30

2.2.2 Examination Questions in Mathematics

In his autobiography, Felix Klein does not mention his mathematics teacher, Dr.
Jakob Schneider. Only in passing does he refer to the “strictly formal character”
of the mathematical instruction, which came easy to him but which lacked any
references to applications or more recent methods. Schneider taught at the Gym-
nasium in Düsseldorf from 1858 to 1888. In 1840, he earned a doctoral degree
from the University of Bonn – the title of his dissertation was “Ueber electrische
Figuren, mit Rücksicht auf verwandte Erscheinungen des electrischen und mag-
netischen Gewitters” [“On Electric Figures, with Regard to Related Phenomena of
Electrical and Magnetic Storms”] – and he later received numerous awards, parti-
cularly for his archeological and historical studies. His personnel files reveal that
he was qualified to teach mathematics, physics, chemistry, botany, and minera-
logy to all levels as well as Latin, history, and geography to the lower levels.31
The questions and answers of Klein’s Abitur examination in mathematics
were published by Gerd FISCHER (1985). Of the four questions, that concerned
with algebra (1) is especially noteworthy; Klein treated a quintic equation (see
below Table 2). Whereas, as is well known, the general quintic equation is not
solvable by radicals,32 this particular problem could be solved. Later, equations of
the fifth degree and higher became one of Klein’s significant areas of research.

30 KLEIN 1923a, p. 13.

31 [BBF] Personnel records. See also https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Schneider (accessed
November 4, 2019).
32 In 1824, Niels Henrik Abel formulated the first complete proof demonstrating this. On the
basis of Galois theory, George Paxton Young and Carl Runge later provided an explicit
criterion for determining whether a given quintic equation can be solved with radicals.
26 2 Formative Groups

Table 2: Examination questions in mathematics (1865)33

(1) The difference between two numbers is 2, the difference between their fifth powers is 2882.
Identify these numbers. [Schneider’s comment on Klein’s solution was: There is nothing es-
sentially wrong with this work.]34
(2) Place a chord through a given point in a given circle in such a way that its segments have a
given relation to one another. [Entirely successful]
(3) Calculate the angles of a triangle with the following sides: a = 11, b = 9, d = f. [There is
nothing essentially wrong with this calculation.]
(4) Calculate the volume of a rectangular parallelepiped whose diagonal plane is a square of area
122 and whose base edges have a ratio of 5 to 7.

Schneider evaluated Klein’s solutions as follows:

Algebra: good
Planimetry: good
Trigonometry: good
Stereometry: good
This work is fully in accordance with his other achievements, which have been praiseworthy
in every respect.

Felix Klein did not have any classmates who were particularly interested in ma-
thematics. Most of his graduating class were pursuing a theological career and be-
came Catholic priests.35 One of his “oldest and best friends,” however, was Albert
Wenker, who completed his Abitur two years after Klein and who, in 1869 and
1870, supported his construction of mathematical models.36 When, as a university
student, Klein would return home to Düsseldorf during his semester breaks,
Wenker “was the only person with whom I could have scientific conversations,”
as he later informed Sophus Lie. Klein was deeply saddened when, in early
February of 1871, Wenker died of typhus as a result of the Franco-Prussian War.37

2.2.3 Interests in Natural Science During His School Years

Klein fondly recalled the interests that were awakened in him at his elementary
school in Düsseldorf, which was then located at the corner of Grabenstraße and
Kanalstraße. The son of this private school’s founder, who was named Krumbach,
was a student teacher (Referendar) who had failed his initial teaching examina-
tion. Klein wrote the following words about him: “To him I owe my earliest ex-
citement for and instruction in the natural sciences, and I can still clearly remem-

33 Published with Klein’s solutions in FISCHER 1985.

34 Klein described the two equations I) x – y = 2; II) x5 – y5 = 2882; he raised I to the fifth
power, transformed the system in two quadratic equations with one unknown, and received
the results x = 5 or –3; y = 3 or –5.
35 See KLEIN 1923a, p. 13.
36 See KLEIN 1922 [GMA, vol. 2, pp. 7–10]; and Sections 2.3.4 and 2.7.2 below.
37 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated March 11, 1871.
 2.2 School Years in Düsseldorf 27

ber the details of these lessons. He also cultivated, in an excellent way, my ability
to do arithmetic in my mind.”38
In contrast, the (humanistic) Gymnasium offered little by way of scientific
instruction. In Wilhelm Ruer, however, Klein found a friend at school who was
supportive of such interests:
The lack of stimulation in the natural sciences, however, was compensated for by my friend
and classmate Wilhelm Ruer. At his father’s pharmacy, my relentless questions were always
answered with friendly and instructive answers. These were supplemented with numerous ex-
cursions, and thus I gained my earliest knowledge of chemistry, botany, and zoology. A cor-
responding enthusiasm for the abstract side of things was fostered in me by the small astro-
nomical observatory in Düsseldorf. Its director, Robert Luther, was a quiet scholar who de-
voted himself with unceasing diligence to the then difficult task of discovering small planets.
He introduced me to the praxis of astronomy and, to a certain extent, he allowed me to parti-
cipate in his research. Of course, I experimented and tinkered around to the best of my abili-
ties […].39

Robert Luther had been the director of the Düsseldorf-Bilk Observatory since
1851.40 From 1852 to 1865, the year in which Klein completed his Abitur, Luther
discovered fourteen asteroids, and he would go on to discover ten more by the
year 1890. He was a pioneering astronomer in many respects, and he was interna-
tionally recognized for his work. Later, as a professor in Göttingen, Klein was not
only keenly interested in ensuring that the astronomy faculty remained strong
there; he also supported the construction of (educational) observatories. A main-
belt asteroid discovered by Paul G. Comba in 1997 was named after Felix Klein.41
Another graduate of the Gymnasium in Düsseldorf, Adolph Kirdorf, went on
to have a career in the mining industry. In 1894, Klein was able to convince him
to serve on a committee tasked with promoting scientific and technical research
(see Section 7.7). Ever since his early factory tours, Klein was interested in “the
natural sciences in the broadest sense, from the purely intellectual side all the way
to the virtuoso technical side,” and less interested in the commercial side of
enterprises.42 This accords with his decision, in 1916, to reject an invitation to join
the German Federation of Technical and Scientific Organizations, for the main
purpose of this federation was to promote the economic interests of enterprises.
On Klein’s Abitur diploma, it is noted that he intended to study mathematics
and the natural sciences. The Abitur examination committee released him into the
world “under the higher condition that he acquire, with continued devotion to his
task, the means of useful and noble activity.” Klein chose to attend the nearby
University of Bonn, which was then the only university in what would now be the
state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

38 KLEIN 1923a, p. 12. See also Section 9.2.3.

39 Ibid., pp. 13–14. For the German original, see TOBIES 2019b, p. 20.
40 Today, Bilk is a district of Düsseldorf. On R. Luther, see NDB, vol. 15 (1987), pp. 561–62.
41 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meanings_of_minor_planet_names:_12001–13000#818, (12045
Klein [1997 FH1]), accessed May 15, 2020.
42 KLEIN 1923a, p. 14.
28 2 Formative Groups

2.3 STUDIES AND DOCTORATE IN BONN

Bonn belonged to the Prussian Rhine Province. Located within the government
district of Cologne, the city had 22,492 residents according to the census taken on
December 3, 1864, and thus it was approximately twice the size of Düsseldorf,
Klein’s birthplace. In 1818, King Friedrich Wilhelm III had established the Uni-
versity of Bonn on the bank of the Rhine for his new province. It was the sixth
Prussian university, after those in Greifswald, Berlin, Königsberg,43 Halle, and
Breslau.44 Oriented toward the Humboldtian educational ideal of the unity of tea-
ching and research, the University of Bonn also invoked the “spirit of free re-
search for students of all confessions.”45 It had a theological faculty with two
equal parts (one for the Catholic and one for the Protestant denomination) as well
as faculties for law, medicine, and philosophy. In the nineteenth century, the
primary task of the philosophical faculty was to educate future secondary-school
teachers; by tradition, it also included mathematics and the natural sciences.46
Mathematics was not an independent course of study at the time. Not until 1895
did Klein manage to introduce actuarial mathematics as a new degree program in
Prussia (see Section 7.6). Klein himself was able to complete his studies by
passing either a teaching examination or a doctoral examination.
Felix Klein was a student at the University of Bonn from October 5, 1865 to
December 15, 1868.47 Plagued from early on with poor health (asthma), he was
less inclined than others to get into mischief. Whereas it was typical for the noble
students, such as the seventeen-year-old Otto von Bismarck in Göttingen,48 to run
riot and find themselves in detention, Felix Klein felt duty-bound to the work
ethic of his socially climbing family. We have to imagine him as an assiduous
student who was soon making frequent visits to his professor Julius Plücker’s
house. Only after Klein had secured his first professorship did he no longer con-
duct mathematics (at all times) with such “grim seriousness” but rather became, in
his words, “mostly a very jolly person.”49
The themes of the next four sections are as follows:
– Klein completed a wide-ranging course of study in mathematics and the natu-
ral sciences within six semesters, and he was awarded on account of his semi-
nar activities.

43 Founded in 1544 as a Protestant university by Duke Albrecht von Brandenburg-Ansbach, the

University of Königsberg remained Prussian until the end of the Second World War (Königs-
berg has been the Russian city of Kaliningrad since 1946).
44 Known as the Schlesische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität from 1811 to 1945; since 1945 it
has been the Polish University of Wrocław.
45 SYBEL 1868, p. 101.
46 On the profession of mathematics teachers in the 19th century, see SCHUBRING 1983.
47 [UA Bonn] F. Klein’s diploma.
48 See KRAUS 2005 and the same author’s essay in FREUDENSTEIN 2006, pp. 102–04.
49 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated August 26, 1872.
 2.3 Studies and Doctorate in Bonn 29

– The geometric-intuitional approach that characterized Klein’s work derived

from his cooperation with Julius Plücker, who was renowned internationally
for his contributions to both physics and mathematics.
– At the fifty-year anniversary celebration of the university, Klein was awarded
a prize for winning a problem-solving contest in theoretical physics.
– Moreover, he had to determine and develop his own ideas for a dissertation in
mathematics, because Plücker had died on May 22, 1868.50

2.3.1 Coursework and Seminar Awards

In the University of Bonn’s matriculation record for the winter semester of

1865/66, Felix Klein’s name is listed second, after that of a medical student. Of
the just 355 students attending the university, only fourteen were enrolled for
mathematics and the natural sciences; still only sixteen years old, Felix Klein was
the youngest among them.51 All but one of his thirteen fellow students came from
the surrounding area, the exception being A. Gontschareff, who came from Sim-
birsk in Russia (the city is known as Ulyanovsk today). Like Klein, eight of his
fellow students stayed in Bonn for several semesters. Among these, Bernhard
Pontani and Ernst Sagorski are especially noteworthy. They both acquired mul-
tiple teaching qualifications and enjoyed careers as teachers. Pontani, in addition,
earned a doctoral degree in physics under Adolf Wüllner.52 Like Klein, Sagorski
was also honored for winning a student prize, and he acted as an “opponent” in
Klein’s doctoral procedure. Later, as a teacher at the Landesschule Pforta near
Naumburg, which was then part of Prussia, Sagorski was – like Klein – active in
Prussian educational reform.53
Klein was an active member in the Bonn Natural Sciences Seminar and, as of
1867, in the newly established Mathematical Seminar as well. A Seminar was a
type of institution at German universities designed to prepare students for their
later teaching jobs at secondary schools. Under the guidance of a professor, stu-
dents gave presentations, held discussions, and solved problems. Seminars for
mathematics had been founded following the example of seminars for language
teacher candidates; one of the first seminars for mathematics and physics had been
created at the University of Königsberg in 1834.54 One can surmise from Klein’s
later remarks, however, that the Bonn Natural Sciences Seminar made it relatively
easy for students to earn their teaching qualifications:

50 GRAY 2013 (p. 88) erroneously states that Plücker died in 1871.
51 [UA Bonn] Matriculation record AB-07, WS 1864–1872.
52 [BBF] Personnel records. On Wüllner’s treatment of infinitesimal calculus in his Lehrbuch
der Experimentalphysik (6th ed., 1907), see KLEIN 2016 [1924], p. 235.
53 [BBF] Personnel records. See also KÖSSLER 2008, vol. 18, p. 18; Ernst Sagorski, Analytisch-
geometrische Untersuchungen (Naumburg: Heinrich Sieling, 1875).
54 See KÖNIG 1982; BIERMANN 1988, p. 97; OLESKO 1991. – On the structural difference
between a Seminar and an Institute, see SCHUBRING 2000b.
30 2 Formative Groups

In the Natural Sciences Seminar in Bonn, which had been founded in 1819,55 students alter-
nated in giving presentations about sections from the general textbooks of the time. Five days
a week, from four to five o’clock in the afternoon, they held discussions on chemistry, bot-
any, physics, zoology, and minerology. By today’s standard, this was an entirely elementary
operation. Within this seminar, the advanced students could take an exam [a colloquium,
which meant that they gave a lecture, and a discussion followed]. That was the entire teaching
examination for scientific subjects! In this way, however, one could comfortably complete
one’s studies in three years.56

In this seminar, Klein gave presentations about various topics in physics, crystal
systems in mineralogy, vascular cryptogams and the alternation of generations in
botany, butterflies in zoology, and sodium in chemistry.57 He made it known that
he was particularly interested in the descriptive natural sciences. Then residing at
the Poppelsdorf Palace, which had belonged to the university since 1818 and was
surrounded by its own botanical garden, Klein had easy access to such fields:
Regarding lectures, I mainly occupied myself – at least after Easter of 1866 – with botany and
other descriptive natural sciences, to which end my apartment at the time in the Poppelsdorf
Palace, which also housed the university’s natural-scientific collections, offered me favorable
opportunities. I attended only a few lectures in mathematics, because the highly elementary
lectures held by Lipschitz, whose scientific significance I only learned to appreciate much
later, and the underdeveloped mathematical-physical course offerings in Bonn did not capti-
vate me in any way.58

In his first semester, Klein studied a broad range of subjects and attended typical
introductory courses (see Table 3): experimental physics (taught by Julius Plü-
cker), analytic geometry (taught by Rudolf Lipschitz), and differential calculus
(taught by the Privatdozent Franz Gehring, whom he considered “confused”).59
Klein took a logic course taught by the theology professor Joseph Neuhäuser,
whose expertise was mainly ancient philosophy (Anaximander, Aristotle). For
astronomy, which had interested him since his Gymnasium years, he enrolled in a
course taught by Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander, who had been the director of the
observatory in Bonn since 1837 and had also participated as an advisor in the
construction of the Düsseldorf-Bilk observatory. Later, when he was able to de-
termine his own course content, Klein would integrate the theme of Argelander’s
lecture – the “method of least squares” developed by Gauss and Legendre – into
his curriculum for applied mathematics (see Section 8.1.2). During this semester,
Klein also attended a lecture on Goethe by the art historian Anton Springer.60

55 SCHUBRING 1989b states correctly that this seminar was founded in 1825.
56 [Hecke] A lecture by Klein (1910/11), pp. 246–47.
57 See SCHUBRING 1989a, p. 210. In botany, cryptogams are plants that reproduce with spores
and not with seeds (algae, moss, ferns, lichens, fungi, etc.).
58 KLEIN 1923a, p. 14.
59 Quoted from LOREY 1916, p. 166. Gehring, who earned his doctorate in Berlin in 1860, be-
came a Privatdozent in Bonn 1862, and worked in the same capacity in Vienna beginning in
1873 ([UA Bonn] PF-Pa 158). Later, he became a music publicist.
60 This would later help Klein to develop a relationship with the Goethe scholar Friedrich Zarn-
cke at the University of Leipzig (see Section 5.2).
 2.3 Studies and Doctorate in Bonn 31

There were two categories of instruction: private lectures had to be paid for,
while public courses were free.61

Table 3: Courses attended by Felix Klein at the University of Bonn

Private Lectures Public Courses

Winter Semester 1865–66
1) Prof. Dr. Joseph Neuhäuser: Logic 1) Lipschitz: Mathematical Exercises
2) Prof. Dr. Rudolf Lipschitz: 2) Prof. Dr. Anton Springer:
Analytic Geometry Goethe in Bonn
3) Prof. Dr. J. Plücker: Experimental Physics 3) Prof. Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander:
4) PD Dr. Franz Gehring: Differential Calculus Method of Least Squares
Summer Semester 1866
1) Plücker: Electricity Theory 1) Plücker: Mathematical Exercises
2) Prof. Dr. Hans Landolt: Inorganic Chemistry
3) Prof. Dr. Johannes von Hanstein:
General Botany
4) Lipschitz: Number Theory
5) Plücker: Mechanical Practicum
Winter Semester 1866–67
1) Lipschitz: Analytical Mechanics 1) Landolt:
2) Landolt: Organic Experimental Chemistry Selected Chapters (Chemistry)
2) Hanstein: On Reproduction
3) Lipschitz: Mathematical Exercises
4) Plücker: Mathematical Exercises
5) Prof. Dr. Franz Hermann Troschel:
Natural Sciences Seminar
Summer Semester 1867
1) Lipschitz: Newton’s Law 1) Lipschitz/Plücker:
2) Troschel: Zoology Mathematical Seminar
3) Prof. Dr. Johann Jakob Nöggerath: 2) Hanstein: Natural Systems
Mineralogy 3) Troschel:
Natural Sciences Seminar

Winter Semester 1867–68

1) Landolt: Chemical Practicum 1) Lipschitz/Plücker:
Mathematical Seminar
2) PD Dr. Eduard Ketteler:
Interference Phenomena

61 [UA Bonn] Felix Klein’s registration record.

32 2 Formative Groups

Summer Semester 1868

1) Lipschitz: Differential Equations 1) Gehring: Calculus of Variations
2) Lipschitz/Plücker:
Mathematical Seminar
Winter Semester 1868–69
1) Lipschitz: Number Theory 1) Prof. Dr. Gustav Radicke:62
Analytical Statics
2) PD Dr. Ernst Pfitzer:
On Parasitic Fungi

In the vita appended to his dissertation, Klein also refers to a lecture by Karl
Gustav Bischof,63 a cofounder of geochemistry in Germany. This lecture could
have spurred on his interest in the earth sciences, which he would later promote at
the University of Göttingen.
The breadth of Klein’s course of study led to him acquiring qualifications to
teach a range of subjects. That said, even though Klein participated in courses
taught by the chemist Hans Landolt, the mineralogist and geologist Johann Jacob
Nöggerath, the zoologist Franz Hermann Troschel, and the botanist Johannes von
Hanstein, it was Julius Plücker who influenced him most profoundly.
Plücker had studied in Bonn, Berlin, Heidelberg, and Paris. In 1825, he com-
pleted his Habilitation in Bonn, where he became a professor extraordinarius
three years later. In 1835, after holding intermediary positions in Berlin and Halle,
he was appointed full professor of mathematics in Bonn, and in 1836 he was ad-
ditionally made a full professor of physics there. Regarding Klein’s presentations
in his physics course in 1865-66, Plücker offered the following assessment:
“Through his talent, knowledge, and diligence, Klein stands out above all other
participants in the seminar.” He added: “Klein displayed an eminent talent for
mathematical physics as well as for experimental physics.”64
The course offerings in mathematics and physics, however, were somewhat
less developed than those in the descriptive natural sciences, and this is because of
Plücker’s dual appointment. At first there was no Mathematical Seminar, for
Julius Plücker had opposed its creation when it was proposed in 1864 by the
newly hired Rudolf Lipschitz.65 A former student of Dirichlet in Berlin and an
expert in mathematical analysis, Lipschitz was hired as a full professor of “pure”
mathematics in Bonn against Plücker’s wishes. Plücker would have preferred for
the position to be offered to Alfred Clebsch, whose approach to mathematics was

62 Gustav Radicke was a professor extraordinarius (see ADB 27 [1888], p. 135).

63 This vita is included in the copy of his dissertation kept at the University Library in Bonn.
Klein also mentioned Bischof in the vita included in his Habilitation thesis. See TOBIES
1999a, p. 85.
64 Quoted from SCHUBRING 1989a, p. 210.
65 Regarding the early history of the mathematics department in Bonn, see ERNST 1999, pp. 33–
37; and SCHUBRING 1985.
 2.3 Studies and Doctorate in Bonn 33

closer to his own. In 1864, Plücker had met Clebsch in Gießen, where the 39th
Annual Meeting of the Gesellschaft deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte [Society
of German Naturalist and Physicians] (GDNÄ) took place. Plücker had given a
lecture on his current research topic “Über eine neue Auffassung des Raumes
vermöge der Geraden als Raumelement” [On a New Conception of Space by
Virtue of the Straight Line as a Spatial Element].66 There he discussed his results
with Clebsch, who would later relate these methods in his own lectures.
Plücker’s animosity toward Lipschitz rubbed off on Klein, so much so that he
would only later come to recognize Lipschitz’s importance to mathematics. When,
in the fall of 1866, the Mathematical Seminar was finally formed, Plücker and
Lipschitz each directed his own exercises, in which students had to give talks and
solve problems. Klein attended the seminar exercises of both professors. Studying
under Plücker, Klein was able to familiarize himself with his teacher’s latest re-
search. Lipschitz, in contrast, had to lower the level of his exercises on account of
the insufficient educational background of his students. The following quotation
comes from a report by the university’s Kurator dated December 16, 1867:
In the winter semester of 1866/67, Professor [Julius] Plücker chose the principle of reciproc-
ity as the subject of his exercises, which required that the students had previous familiarity
with the elements of analytic geometry. Here, the main consideration was the parallelism
between geometric and analytic approaches. During the summer semester of 1867, Plücker
divided his exercises into two weekly courses. In one course (for the more advanced stu-
dents), he treated one of the more significant chapters of recent analytic geometry: “The sig-
nificance of the number of constants in the equations of algebraic curves and surfaces.” In the
second course, he discussed the analytic representation of the straight line in space in the two
instances where it is determined by points that lie on it or by planes that intersect in it. He
considered this discussion a basic introduction to a new geometry of space, whereby a straight
line is regarded as a spatial element.
Professor [Rudolf] Lipschitz created two courses and devoted one hour per week to each
course. In the lower-level course, his intention was to develop an elementary foundation of
convergence theorems for power series; the knowledge, however, that the majority of
participants had brought with them from Gymnasium was so inadequate for this task that
there was nothing left to do but go down a level and discuss the binomial theorem with
positive exponents, the basics of making calculations with fractional powers and exponentials
in a series. Only in the second semester was it possible for him to execute his original plan. In
the upper-level class during the first semester, Lipschitz gradually developed the theory of
systems of linear differential equations with constant coefficients. This was followed in the
second semester by the application of the theory of functional determinants to systems of
differential equations. Throughout, effort was made to bring to life the connection between
the proposed analytic problems and corresponding problems in mechanics.67

According to Gert Schubring, the Prussian Ministry of Culture allocated 85 Thaler

per semester for seminar awards (Seminarprämien) and 50 Thaler per year for a
reference library.68 Felix Klein received a seminar award for three semesters. A

66 See TOBIES/VOLKERT 1998, p. 236.

67 Quoted from ERNST 1933, pp. 33–37.
68 See SCHUBRING 1985, p. 149.
34 2 Formative Groups

comparison with similar Seminar prizes at the University of Berlin shows that the
Ministry requested to see performance evaluations of the students who earned
such awards (see Section 2.5.1).
On March 9, 1868, a Mathematical and Naturalist Student Union (known as
MNV Marsia) was created in Bonn, and Felix Klein is still listed as one of its
most prominent members today.69 Unions of this sort already existed in Greifs-
wald, Breslau, Berlin, and Halle.70 At different universities throughout his career,
Klein would participate in similar student unions and even instigate their forma-
tion himself. One of Klein’s fellow members in Bonn was Friedrich Neesen, with
whom Klein maintained a long-lasting friendship (see 2.8.3.2).

2.3.2 Assistantship and a Reward for Winning a Physics Contest

When, for the summer semester of 1866, Julius Plücker needed a new assistant for
his course on experimental physics, he chose Felix Klein. In the vita appended to
his dissertation, Klein wrote:
I had the good fortune of developing a closer relationship with one of the most significant
representatives of these sciences [mathematics and physics], Professor Plücker, who ap-
pointed me his assistant for two years at the Physics Institute in Bonn and who included me in
his mathematical research. This good relationship lasted until his death on May 22, 1868.71

Plücker’s significant achievements in physics include his discovery of crystal

magnetism (1847) and the discharge spectra of diluted gases under magnetic in-
fluence (1857). Plücker recognized that every gas has its own characteristic spec-
trum, and he observed the first three lines of the hydrogen spectrum. He thus
created a basis for modern spectral analysis and, together with the glass blower
and instrument maker Heinrich Geißler, he also created the foundations for mo-
dern vacuum engineering.72
It is no surprise that the young Klein considered pursuing a career in physics.
This idea was strengthened when he won a physics contest on the topic of “ether
vibrations,” which Plücker had formulated in 1867 on the occasion of the up-
coming celebration of the university’s fiftieth anniversary.73 Although there is no
surviving record or evaluation of what Klein did to win this contest, the vita con-
tained in the record of his Habilitation procedure states that “a historical-critical
treatise on the question of the direction of vibrations in polarized light” had been

69 See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnstädter_Verband (accessed November 8, 2019).

70 In 1868, the Mathematical and Natural-Scientific Student Unions at various universities came
together to form a single cooperative union. From 1909 to 1933, this association was known
as the Arnstadt Union (Arnstädter Verband).
71 Quoted from the vita contained in the copy of Klein’s dissertation held by the University
Library in Bonn (see TOBIES 2019b, p. 26).
72 See DÖRFEL 2014, and DÖRFEL/MÜLLER 2006.
73 [UA Bonn] PF 6401: Record of contests.
 2.3 Studies and Doctorate in Bonn 35

asked for.74 This is in line with the fact that Klein had attended Eduard Ketteler’s
lecture on interference phenomena during the winter semester of 1867/68.75
The award ceremony for student prizes took place on the last day of the anni-
versary festivities, which ran from August 1 to August 4, 1868. Plücker did not
live to see the ceremony, but the list of attendees was impressive. The nineteen-
year-old Klein met people there who would turn out to be important to him later
in his life. Universities and Academies had sent deputies to be in attendance, in-
cluding the famous Karl Weierstrass, who gave an official address on behalf of
the Berlin Academy of Science (the speech was co-signed by the other two re-
nowned mathematicians in Berlin, Ernst Eduard Kummer and Leopold Kro-
necker).76 Klein would soon be on his way to Berlin, for the winter semester of
1869/70, to continue his studies under this triumvirate of mathematicians (see
2.5). The delegate from the University of Erlangen was the historian Karl Hegel.
Here, Hegel was able to see his future son-in-law in the limelight (see 3.6.2).
The event on August 4, 1868 began at eleven o’clock in Bonn’s Protestant
Church and opened with a performance of Carl Maria von Weber’s Jubel-Ouver-
türe (Op. 59).77 After a speech delivered in Latin by Friedrich Heimsoeth – a clas-
sical philologist, musicologist, and art historian – nine students were honored: one
from the Catholic Theological Faculty, two from the Protestant Theological Fac-
ulty, one from the Medical Faculty, and five from the Philosophical Faculty, the
latter bestowing one prize for philosophy, two for chemistry, one for theoretical
physics, and one for philology. The aforementioned Ernst Sagorski was honored
for his work in chemistry; Felix Klein was honored next for his achievement in
theoretical physics.
The last student to receive an award was Otto Lüders, who had won the so-
called “Welcker Contest.” Since 1819, the classical philologist and archaeologist
Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker (ob. 12/17/1868) had done much to promote a liberal
atmosphere in Bonn, and the celebrated student Lüders followed in his footsteps.
Through the close friendship between Lüders and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moel-
lendorff, who since 1867 had likewise been a student in Bonn, a line can be drawn
to Felix Klein. Based on his studies of Plato, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff had also
taken an interest in classical mathematical texts.78 Later, he would be one of
Klein’s close allies in his effort to reorganize the Göttingen Academy of Sciences.

74 See TOBIES 1999a, p. 85.

75 See Table 3. – Ketteler worked as a Privatdozent in Bonn as of 1865, and he became an
influential figure in the field of optical research. One of his students, for example, was Carl
Pulfrich, who went on to become an important industrial researcher at the famous Zeiss
optical company in Jena, which was directed by Ernst Abbe. Later, Klein would hold both
Abbe and the Zeiss company in high esteem (see Section 8.1.1).
76 See SYBEL 1868.
77 See ibid., p. 112.
78 For instance, Eva Sachs, whose doctoral dissertation was directed by Wilamowitz (De Theae-
teto Atheniensi Mathematico, 1914), later published the article “Die fünf platonischen Körper:
36 2 Formative Groups

Directly following the prize ceremony for students, honorary doctorates were
awarded. The selection of honorees is indicative of the liberal atmosphere men-
tioned above and reflects an unusually emancipated way of thinking on the part of
the decision makers. One of the honorary doctors was Charles Darwin, whose
magnum opus On the Origin of Species had first been published in 1859 and
translated into German as early as 1860. Darwin’s highly controversial theory of
evolution was received much more warmly in Germany than in other countries;
already in the early 1860s, it was firmly supported by Ernst Haeckel, a professor
in Jena.79 From early on, Klein was open to new natural-scientific theories, and
thus it is no surprise that biologists would later turn to him for support (see 8.3.4).
Honorary doctorates were also awarded to the optician and microscope de-
signer Eduard Hartnack and to the aforementioned instrument maker Heinrich
Geißler, who made unique scientific contributions to the early stages of gas dis-
charge research. Klein’s later efforts to establish a technical college for precision
mechanics in Göttingen (see Section 8.1.1) may have had its roots here. Other
honorees included the chemists August Wilhelm Hofmann and August Kekulé. In
1867, Kekulé had come from Gent to take a position in Bonn, which then had the
largest chemistry institute in the world (located next to the Poppelsdorf Palace,
where Klein resided as a student). In addition, honorary doctorates were presented
to, among others, the liberal British philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill,
who was a social reformer and promoter of women’s emancipation; the French
chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur; the cartographer August Heinrich Pe-
termann; and the botanists Nathanael Pringsheim and Julius Sachs, who came
from Jewish families.
If we consider these honorees through the eyes of the young Felix Klein, we
can imagine the opinions, ideas, and plans that they might have sparked: inspira-
tion to respect academic fields beyond his own and to take an interest in emerging
disciplines and theories, and motivation to value talented researchers regardless of
their nationality, religion, or gender.

2.3.3 Assisting Julius Plücker’s Research in Geometry

Even though Klein served as an assistant for Plücker’s course on experimental

physics and won the prize in physics discussed above, the goal of becoming a
physicist fell into the background. Julius Plücker had returned his attention to
mathematical research, and he included his student in this work. Klein wrote:

Zur Geschichte der Mathematik und der Elementarlehre Platons und der Pythagoreer” (1917)
in Wilamowitz and Kiessling’s journal Philologische Untersuchungen.
79 See HOßFELD/OLSSON 2009. Ernst Haeckel spoke about Darwin’s theory at several Annual
Meetings of the GDNÄ, first in 1863. On the meeting in 1877, where Klein was involved in
its organization, see Section 4.3.3.
 2.3 Studies and Doctorate in Bonn 37

In addition, I was also involved in Plücker’s own scientific work, which, after a period of ma-
king discoveries in physics, had taken on a predominantly mathematical orientation. I had to
help Plücker develop his investigations, and I enjoyed this sort of “work-study” arrangement,
as one would call it today. It was this experience that inspired, more than anything else, my
own work in the subject of line geometry. That said, this work also prevented me at the time
from acquiring a broader understanding of mathematics and physics.80

In his first geometric phase, Plücker had been influenced in Paris by Jean-Baptiste
Biot’s lectures on analytic geometry and, indirectly, by the work of Gaspard
Monge.81 Plücker strove to reconceptualize analytic geometry, and he published
two volumes under the title Analytisch-geometrische Entwicklungen [Analytic-
Geometric Developments] (1828, 1831). Like Hermann Grassmann and August
Ferdinand Möbius, he contributed to the rise of analytic methods over the pre-
viously dominant synthetic methods in the field. His conflict with Jakob Steiner, a
Berlin-based proponent of synthetic geometry, seemed inevitable.82
In Plücker’s second mathematical phase, which took place while Klein was
his student, his focus was on line geometry, which he approached with both syn-
thetic and analytic methods. Synthetic methods helped him to gain insights into
structures.83 But an accepted proof necessarily had to be analytic. In Plücker’s
work of this sort, Mechthild Plump has detected points of departure for Klein’s
much-discussed paper on the “arithmetizing of mathematics” (see Section 8.3.2).84
As early as 1846, Plücker had proposed the idea of a four-dimensional pro-
jective geometry in which lines and their “line coordinates” function as basic en-
tities of three-dimensional space. In the case of a line that is given by an equation,
the coordinates can ultimately be established directly by means of the equation in
question.85 Plücker was inspired by James Joseph Sylvester, whom he had met in
1863 at the Annual Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of
Science, to pursue this field of research further. In 1864, as noted above, he dis-
cussed his findings at the Annual Meeting of the GDNÄ in Gießen, and in De-
cember he sent a paper to the Royal Society of London86. He also presented

80 KLEIN 1923a, p. 14.

81 On Monge see BARBIN et al. 2019, pp. 3–8; On Plücker’s work and how it compared to that
of Gergonne, Poncelet, Möbius, Jacobi, Cayley, and others, see the obituary that Clebsch
wrote with Klein’s assistance (CLEBSCH 1872); see also ZIEGLER 1985; and PLUMP 2014.
82 On Plücker’s visiting professorship in Berlin and Steiner’s aversion to Plücker, see BIER-
MANN 1988, pp. 67–68. See also KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 87–120.
83 Klein likewise felt about himself that he was able to gain new knowledge by way of geo-
metric intuition (see especially Section 4.2).
84 PLUMP 2014, pp. 155–56.
85 Given a line l in complex projective three-space P3 defined by two points (x1, x2, x3, x4) and
(y1, y2, y3, y4), Plücker represented it by six homogeous coordinates pij, 1≤ i < j ≤ 4, defined by
pij := xi yj – xj yi. The coordinates (pij) represent a line in this space if and only if they satisfy
the Plücker relation p12 p34 + p13 p42 + p14 p23 = 0. The fundamental objects in this line ge-
ometry – line complexes – are defined by homogeneous equations in the line coordinates pij.
(See ROWE 1992, pp. 48–52; PARSHALL/ROWE 1994, p. 156).
86 Plücker, J. (1865). “On a New Geometry of Space.” Philos. Trans. Royal Society 14: 53-58.
38 2 Formative Groups

(wooden) models of his geometric objects in Great Britain and France.87 The re-
sults of his research had important implications pertaining to a general theory of
algebraic curves and surfaces. Esteemed abroad, Plücker was awarded the Copley
Medal in 1866 by the Royal Society of London (its highest honor).88 The Acadé-
mie des Sciences in Paris made him a corresponding member in 1867. Plücker
was also in close contact with Luigi Cremona in Milan, and Felix Klein would
benefit from all of these international connections.
Klein’s so-called “work-study” with Plücker consisted of learning about how
to manufacture mathematical models and helping him with his book on line ge-
ometry. As can be read in letters from Plücker to Klein, Plücker wanted his assis-
tant to be back in October of 1867 before the beginning of the semester so that he
could support him in the final phase of his book Liniengeometrie (Part I). Klein
was asked to read through the proofs of the book, and he also came immediately
when the already terminally ill Plücker summoned him on April 25, 1868 (Klein’s
birthday).89
Klein’s early concentration on this subject had obvious advantages and disad-
vantages. The disadvantage was that it limited the scope of his studies and, at least
at first, tied him too closely to a single scientific school of thought. The advantage
was that it helped him to acquire, as a young man, the ability to conduct his own
creative work and that it gave him deep exposure to a relatively new area of
mathematics, one with links to scholars in France, Great Britain, and Italy. Klein
quickly felt at home in this intellectual community, which was attempting to ac-
complish something new. He considered it his good fortune that Plücker “intro-
duced him to the methods of the newer geometry and involved him in the geome-
tric work that he was doing at the time.”90
Klein explained the concept of line coordinates as follows:
The equation of the straight line u1x1 + u2x2 + u3x3 = 0 is completely symmetric in the coeffi-
cients u and the coordinates x. Plücker then interpreted the u as the variable quantities, so that
the equation comes to represent the system of lines through the fixed point x. He called the u
“line coordinates”; in terms of them the above equation represents the pencil of lines through
the point, and thus the point itself. Just as I can interpret the linear relation as the equation of
a line in point coordinates, so too I am entitled to see it as the equation of a point in line coor-
dinates.
With this idea of the arbitrary “space element” that can be chosen as the starting point for
geometry came a full elucidation of the Poncelet-Gergonne principle of duality. Because the
equation for the united configuration of point and line (in space, of point and plane) is sym-
metric in the two elements, it follows that one can interchange these two words in any state-
ment that is based on a simple juxtaposition of the two elements.91

87 See PLUMP 2014, pp. 108–12.

88 In 1912, Felix Klein would become the fourth German mathematician to win this award.
89 Plücker’s letters to Klein are published in PLUMP 2014, pp. 125–26.
90 Quoted from the vita contained in Klein’s Habilitation thesis, which is published in TOBIES
1999a, pp. 84–85.
91 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 112. See also LORENAT 2015.
 2.3 Studies and Doctorate in Bonn 39

Klein and others embraced the fundamental concepts developed by Plücker, such
as axis and ray coordinates, complexes, congruences, higher ruled surfaces,
complex surfaces, etc.92 Klein called the “Plücker formulae” his teacher’s a main
achievement. The latter, he explained, “connect the order n of a curve (the degree
of its equation in point coordinates) with its class k (the degree of its equation in
line coordinates) and its simple (so called ‘necessary’) singularities.”93
Plücker’s projective thinking94 and his approaches to “newer geometry” were
highly inspiring to his student Klein, who found an idea for his dissertation in this
field. Later, in 1876, Klein would make use of Plücker’s formulas to develop one
of his own in order to determine the behavior of geometric forms with respect to
their reality.95 Plücker’s work was not only the point of departure for Klein’s in-
tuitive (anschaulich) geometric thinking, which Hilbert would praise so strongly
in 1909.96 It is also the origin of why Klein always considered “working with spa-
tial ideas as such, that is, the geometric imagination” to be his strongest tool for
discovering new results. He underscored this point as late as 1922.97 He discussed
this aspect of being able to imagine something spatial with the help of geometric
models or in one’s own mind in Note III of his Erlangen Program from October
of 1872. Also, Plücker’s use of both synthetic and analytic methods is reflected in
Klein’s early insight about the relation between these methods, which, unlike
many geometers at the time, he did not regard as oppositional. This would be the
point in Note I of his Erlangen Program (see Section 3.1.1).
When Plücker died in May of 1868, only the first part (226 pp.) of his book
Neue Geometrie des Raumes, gegründet auf die Betrachtung der geraden Line als
Raumelement [A New Geometry of Space, Based on the Consideration of the
Straight Line as a Spatial Element] was ready for print. Plücker’s son Albert sent
this first part to the Prussian Minister Heinrich von Mühler.98 The enclosed letter
mentioned that Julius Plücker had intended to present this part at the University of
Bonn’s anniversary celebration and that the second part would be edited by “Mr.
Klein, whom my father counted among the most talented of his many young
students.”99 In his preface to Plücker’s first part, Alfred Clebsch noted that there
was only a little completely elaborated for the promised second part,
[…] but fortunately, Plücker’s former assistant in his physics lectures, Mr. Klein, who already
participated in many ways in the editing of the book and has internalized its spirit and

92 See KLEIN 1976 [1926], pp. 108–14.

93 Ibid., p. 112.
94 See Helmut Karzel, “Wandlungen des Begriffs der projektiven Geometrie (1959),” in
KARZEL/SÖRENSEN 1984, pp. 13–19.
95 Felix Klein, “Eine neue Relation zwischen den Singularitäten einer algebraischen Kurve,”
Mathematische Annalen 10 (1876), 199–209; reprinted in GMA II. For an explanation of this
work, see KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 113–14.
96 See TOBIES 2019b, p. 514, translated in ROWE 2018a, p. 198.
97 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 5.
98 Heinrich von Mühler was the Prussian Minister of Culture from 1862 to 1872.
99 Quoted from ERNST 1933, p. 40.
40 2 Formative Groups

method, has been put in the position, through an oral agreement with the deceased, to fill in
the gaps of the manuscript according to Plücker’s intended meaning. […] These continuations
will have as their object the further development of his theory of second-degree complexes in
a way that, in accordance with Plücker’s ideas, is analogous to the theory of second-degree
surfaces. Plücker’s methods will thus be maintained as faithfully as possible.100

Plücker’s family had commissioned the young Felix Klein to edit these unpub-
lished materials.101 Klein spent a few days off at the home of his teacher’s widow,
Antonie Plücker (née Altstätter), whom he also consulted in order to facilitate
Clebsch’s task of writing Julius Plücker’s obituary.102
Plücker’s book on line geometry included applications in optics and mechan-
ics. For this reason, Klein attended a course on analytic statics during his last
semester in Bonn (see Table 3). Later, Klein would encourage his doctoral student
Ferdinand Lindemann to develop a mechanics of rigid bodies based on line ge-
ometry. As a professor, Klein would also often teach analytical mechanics, first in
Erlangen during the winter semester of 1873/74.103 In May of 1869, he completed
the second part of Plücker’s Liniengeometrie (378 pp.). In his preface, Klein re-
ferred to his own contributions to the book and to a pertinent study by the Italian
mathematician Giuseppe Battaglini, which would require a separate exposition. It
was Battaglini’s work in particular that inspired Klein’s dissertation, which he had
already defended on December 12, 1868.

2.3.4 Doctoral Procedure

The idea for his dissertation – “Über die Transformation der allgemeinen Glei-
chung zweiten Grades zwischen Linien-Coordinaten auf eine canonische Form”
[On the Transformation of the General Second-Degree Equation in Line Coordi-
nates Into a Canonical Form]104 – came to Klein during the summer of 1868 while
he was working on Plücker’s book. Through Clebsch, he learned about Bat-
taglini’s work,105 mentioned above, and about Jacob Lüroth’s Habilitation thesis,
which applied Plücker’s methods.106 To provide himself with a broader internatio-
nal orientation, Klein studied the textbooks by the Irishman George Salmon on

100 Clebsch’s preface (dated June 8, 1868), in PLÜCKER 1868, pp. III-IV.
101 Klein was also authorized by Plücker’s family to communicate on their behalf with the
Leipzig-based publishing house B.G. Teubner; see ACKERMANN/WEIß 2016, p. 31.
102 [Canada] A letter from Felix Klein to Antonie Plücker dated November, 10, 1871. I am in-
debted to Eisso Atzema for bringing this reference to my attention.
103 For an edition of these lectures, see KLEIN 1991.
104 Originally published in Bonn by the C. Georgi press (1868); revised in Math. Ann. 23 (1884),
pp. 539–78, reprinted in KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 5–48. English trans. by D.H. Delphenich:
https://neo-classical-physics.info/uploads/3/0/6/5/3065888/klein_-_canonical_forms.pdf.
105 Giuseppe Battaglini, “Intorno ai sistemi di rette di primo grado” and “Intorno ai sistemi di
rette di secondo grado,” Giornale di Matematiche 6 (1868 [2nd ed.]), pp. 24–36, 239–58 (the
first edition was published in 1866).
106 Jacob Lüroth, “Zur Theorie der windschiefen Flächen,” Crelle’s Journal 67 (1867), 130–52.
 2.3 Studies and Doctorate in Bonn 41

projective and algebraic geometry, which the mathematician Wilhelm Fiedler had
translated into German. In this regard, Klein explained:
It was not entirely easy for me to move from the more elementary methods of Plücker’s re-
presentation to the strict method of projective coordinates, as it was used by Battaglini. Stu-
dying the textbooks by Salmon-Fiedler and several original papers helped me to get over this
difficulty. I soon noticed that the canonical form of second-degree complexes at the basis of
Battaglini’s work could not be the general form. Thus I had the topic that I hoped I might be
able to form into a dissertation, namely the development of a truly general canonical form.107

In 1866, Battaglini had treated the theory of forms defined by one, two, or three
algebraic equations of the first or second degree with more modern methods than
Plücker’s. Klein recognized that the general linear transformation of line coordi-
nates was still lacking and that it is necessary for solving further problems. This
was the point of departure for the first argument in his dissertation (see below).
Klein spent the September of 1868 at his parents’ house in Düsseldorf
(Bahnstraße 15) and worked out the initial ideas of his dissertation. He showed his
preliminary work to Rudolf Lipschitz in Bonn, who was assigned to supervise his
doctoral procedure. Lipschitz recommended that he should examine not only the
simplest case but possibly all special cases as well. With this in mind, he gave
Klein a recently published work by Weierstrass, in which the latter presented his
theory of elementary divisors for a given variable n.108 Klein used Weierstrass’s
theory as a tool for classifying quadratic line complexes. His dissertation opens
with the following definition of line complexes: “A line complex of degree n en-
compasses a triply-infinite number of straight lines that are distributed in space in
such a manner that those straight lines which go through a fixed point form a cone
of order n, or – put another way − will envelope a curve of class n.”109 Later, the
Italian mathematician Gino Fano would write: “One noteworthy application of
this theory [the theory of elementary divisors] is the systematic classification of
second-degree line complexes, which was begun by F. Klein in his dissertation
and completed by A. Weiler and C. Segre.”110
In addition to the algebraic aspect of his study, Klein was also keenly inter-
ested in the geometric problem that had originally inspired Plücker. Thus, a few
years later, Klein had a discussion with Sophus Lie about the question of how to
find all second-degree complexes and how to visualize the various types of quad-
ratic line complexes within a given scheme of classification. Klein’s doctoral stu-

107 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 3. – See SALMON 1862.

108 Karl Weierstrass, “Zur Theorie der quadratischen und bilinearen Formen,” Monatshefte der
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (May, 1868), pp. 310–38. – On the history of this
area, see also HAWKINS 1977, and BRECHENMACHER 2016a.
109 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 11. On Kleinian line coordinates, see ROWE 1992c; Konrad Zindler,
“Algebraische Liniengeometrie” (1921), in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. 3 (C 8), p. 1112; Emil Mül-
ler, “Die verschiedenen Koordinatensysteme” (1910), in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. 3 (1.1, B 7), pp.
732–35; and VOSS 1919, p. 281.
110 Gino Fano, “Kontinuierliche geometrische Gruppen: Die Gruppentheorie als geometrisches
Einteilungsprinzip” (1907), in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. 3.1.1, pp. 289–388, at 384–85.
42 2 Formative Groups

dent Adolf Weiler would later deal with this very issue (1873).111 The Italian
mathematician Corrado Segre translated this theory into the language of multidi-
mensional geometry, while Rudolf Sturm applied it within the framework of syn-
thetic geometry.
Segre completed his doctorate in 1883 in Turin, for which he adopted Klein’s
motto – “Line geometry is like the geometry of an M 4( 2 ) in R5” – and further deve-
loped the topic.112 After the appearance of Segre’s study, Klein published the
aforementioned revised version of his dissertation in volume 23 of Mathematische
Annalen (1884). He referred to Segre’s work, and he also accepted two of Segre’s
articles (one coauthored by Gino Loria) for publication in the same volume of
Annalen.113
Here it should be noted that some of Klein’s studies contain inaccuracies, in-
sufficient proofs, or even errors. His way of dealing with this was to acknowledge
the findings of others, correct and supplement the work in question, and republish
it, always with references to the scholars who had achieved new results. In the
revised version of his dissertation published in the first volume of his collected
works (1921), Klein is sure to acknowledge, once more, Segre’s approach from
1884.114 He also refers there to Konrad Zindler’s overview of line geometry pub-
lished in the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (1921) – Zindler had previously published a textbook
on the subject – as well as to studies by Ernst Steinitz, who had written a thorough
analysis of line geometry and the configurations investigated by Klein.115
Klein had dedicated his dissertation “to his unforgettable teacher Julius Plü-
cker, in grateful memory.” Lipschitz evaluated Klein’s performance in the oral
doctoral examination as summa cum laude.116 After all the internal examination
proceedings had been completed, a public disputation took place on December 12,
1868 (this was still part of the process at the time). It involved formulating theses
that did not necessarily have to be related to one’s dissertation. In addition, every
doctoral candidate had to hold a debate with three opponents, who had to discuss
the candidate’s theses in a public forum.
One of the opponents was the physicist Emil Budde, who was seven years
older than Klein and already held a doctoral degree. Like Klein, Budde had at-
tended the Gymnasium in Düsseldorf, had studied mathematics and physics in
Bonn, and had worked as Plücker’s assistant. He went on to become a significant
internationally-oriented and mathematically-oriented (industrial) physicist.

111 For further discussion of Weiler’s work and how it relates to Klein’s and Lie’s approaches to
line geometry, see ROWE 2019a, pp. 193–94.
112 See TERRACINI 1926, pp. 211–15; LUCIANO/ROERO 2012; and CASNATI et al. 2016.
113 Corrado Segre and Gino Loria, “Sur les différentes espèces de complexes du 2e degré des
droites qui coupent harmoniquement deux surfaces du second ordre,” Math. Ann. 23 (1884),
pp. 213–34; and Corrado Segre, “Note sur les complexes quadratiques dont la surface singu-
lière est une surface du 2e degré double,” Math. Ann. 23 (1884), pp. 235–43.
114 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 4.
115 See ROWE 1989a, pp. 218–24.
116 [UA Bonn] Prom.-Album, p. 84, no. 526. There is no surviving copy of Lipschitz’s report.
 2.3 Studies and Doctorate in Bonn 43

Figure 5: Felix Klein’s Doctoral Certificate, December 12, 1868 ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 101).
44 2 Formative Groups

The second opponent was Klein’s fellow student Ernst Sagorski, and the third,
Johannes Seeger, completed his doctoral degree seven days after Klein in the field
of physics (likewise summa cum laude).117
The five theses put forward by Klein demonstrate his wide range of interests,
but they are also partly indicative of the limited state of knowledge at the time:
1. The canonical equation form that serves as the basis for Battaglini’s work on complexes of
the second degree,
∑
2
x
a x p x = 0, is not the general form.
2. The application of the principles that Cauchy developed in his Méthode générale propre à
fournir les équations de condition relatives aux limites des corps […] to differential equa-
tions of a given order does not seem to be beyond all doubt.118
3. When explaining the phenomena of light one cannot circumvent the assumption of light-
ether.
4. Positive and negative electricity should not be regarded as equal opposites.
5. It is desirable that, alongside Euclidean methods, newer methods of geometry should be in-
corporated into the Gymnasium curriculum.119

Regarding the existence of light-ether (Lichtäther) mentioned in his third thesis,

Klein still held on to this belief as late as 1904,120 but he abandoned it upon recog-
nizing the mathematical basis of Einstein’s special theory of relativity (see Sec-
tion 8.2.4.4). This is just one example of Klein’s maxim that one should not
remain committed to obsolete ideas, as so many experimental physicists (and even
the theoretical physicist Max Abraham) did in the case of ether.121
Klein’s interest in mathematical instruction at the secondary-school level (the-
sis 5) would remain with him his entire life. He also pointed out necessary cur-
riculum changes in an early letter to the French mathematician Gaston Darboux:
At the moment, for instance, a lively struggle is taking place here about whether the methods
for teaching geometry at a Gymnasium, which have remained static for God knows how long,
should not be changed to reflect the progress that geometry has made since Monge’s time,
even though it is impossible to dispute such things in a reasonable way […].122

117 Ibid., no. 527 (December 19, 1898). The title of Seeger’s dissertation was “Ueber die Gleich-
gewichtsvertheilung der statischen Electricität auf drei und vier leitenden Kugeln” [On the
Equilibrium Distribution of Static Electricity on Three and Four Conductive Spheres].
118 Here, Cauchy had studied the change of the behavior of solutions of a differential equation
system if a small perturbation term, which assumes considerable values only in a small do-
main of the independent variable, is added to the right-hand side. He applied his theory to lin-
ear systems of a given order and referred to the behavior of physical quantities in the pro-
ximity of boundary surfaces. As Cauchy’s preconditions remained vague, Klein could have
seen in this a point of critique. – The author would like to thank Hans Fischer, Eichstätt, for
important information.
119 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 49.
120 See KLEIN 1904.
121 See HENTSCHEL 1990.
122 [Paris] 59–60: Klein to Darboux, March 21, 1872 (the original German quotation is published
in TOBIES 2019b, p. 37).
 2.4 Joining Alfred Clebsch’s Thought Community 45

2.4 JOINING ALFRED CLEBSCH’S THOUGHT COMMUNITY

When, in 1869, the young, nineteen-year-old Dr. Felix Klein moved to Göttingen
to continue his studies, the small city of 15,000 residents had belonged to Prussia
for just three years. Ever since a railroad line had been made operational there on
July 31, 1854, the city’s train station has served as its gateway. From there, one of
the first things that newly arrived visitors see is the Hotel Gebhard, whose owner,
recognizing the signs of the times, built his facility in a modern style six years
after the train line had opened. Later, as a Privatdozent in Göttingen, Klein would
be a regular face at the hotel’s beer hall, and he would also later stay at the Hotel
Gebhard when visiting the city from out of town.123 During the first half of 1869,
he lived at the home of a widow named Fobbe (Groner-Tor-Straße 25).124
Göttingen was characterized above all by its educational facilities. Alongside
the Royal Society of Sciences, which had been established in 1751 (since 1942, it
has been known as the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities), the
University of Göttingen (also known as the Georg-August University), which had
been founded in 1737 by the provincial government of Hanover and was now
under Prussian control, formed the center of the city. Until the end of the 1860s,
most of the businesses in Göttingen had some connection to scientific activity.
There were seven facilities in the city, for instance, that produced scientific
instruments, and together they employed approximately fifty specialists. By the
year 1900, these numbers would increase to twelve facilities with 270 employees
and apprentices.
Established during the Enlightenment, the University of Göttingen had long
afforded its professors the freedom to develop their ideas. Such scholars included
the experimental physicist and aphorist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, the zoolo-
gist and anthropologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, the pioneering organic
chemist Friedrich Wöhler, and the multifaceted thinker Carl Friedrich Gauss.
Felix Klein described Gauss, a professor of astronomy, as an outstanding and
singular phenomenon in German mathematics and its applications.125 Gauss’s
scientific breadth would later serve as an example for Klein when, toward the end
of the century, he would finally be in a position to expand and restructure the
university’s institutions.
Gauss’s successors, Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet and Bernhard Riemann,
had been able to build Göttingen into an internationally recognized center for ma-
thematical research, but for various reasons they produced only few students of

123 Regarding the Hotel Gebhard, see E. Böhme’s article in FREUDENSTEIN 2016, pp. 106–12.
The hotel’s beer hall was established in 1865. Felix Klein would even compose some of his
correspondence there; see, for instance [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated April 6, 1873.
124 See NISSEN 1962, p. 92.
125 See KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 7–57.
46 2 Formative Groups

their own. Alfred Clebsch, on the contrary, who had succeeded Riemann in Octo-
ber 1868,126 already had a circle of students by the time Klein arrived. Clebsch’s
thought community in the area of algebraic geometry can be regarded as the first
significant mathematical school in the nineteenth century (see Section 2.4.1).127

Figure 6: Alfred Clebsch (TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 10).

Together with the mathematician Carl Neumann, Clebsch founded the journal
Mathematische Annalen in 1868. During its early years, this journal, which still
exists today, developed into the internationally oriented mouthpiece of the
Clebsch school. Later, thanks in large part to Klein’s leadership, it would broaden
its scope (see Section 2.4.2).
During his time in Göttingen from January to August of 1869, Klein still con-
sidered himself a student. As a young doctor, he joined the Mathematical and
Natural-Scientific Student Union, which had been founded through Clebsch’s ini-
tiative on December 7, 1868. Here, Klein made contacts with people who would
remain part of his network for years to come, as the example of the biologist Karl
Kraepelin shows (see Section 8.3.4.1). While in Göttingen, Klein continued to
attend lectures, though his main focus was on the aforementioned edition of
Plücker’s Liniengeometrie. He also completed five additional studies (see 2.4.3).

126 See Göttinger Nachrichten (1875), p. 282.

127 For a discussion of the term “mathematical school,” see TOBIES 2008c, pp. 149–76.
 2.4 Joining Alfred Clebsch’s Thought Community 47

2.4.1 The Clebsch School

Born in Königsberg, Alfred Clebsch benefited from the education offered by his
East Prussian home university, particularly from its Mathematisch-physikalisches
Seminar, which had been founded in 1834 by Jacobi and the physicist Franz
Neumann. This seminar produced numerous mathematicians whom Klein would
encounter throughout his career, among them Adolph Mayer, Karl Von der Mühll,
Carl Neumann, and Heinrich Weber.128 Clebsch’s approach to algebraic geometry
had been influenced by Jacobi’s student Otto Hesse,129 and his approach to mathe-
matical physics had been shaped by Franz Neumann. Another of his influences
was Friedrich Julius Richelot, who spoke enthusiastically about Jacobi and about
the “still little-known Riemannian intuitions.”130 After earning his doctoral degree
in 1854 under Franz Neumann, Clebsch devoted his early studies to mathematical
problems in optics, hydrodynamics, and elasticity theory. He completed his Ha-
bilitation at the University of Berlin in 1858 and, in the same year, was made a
professor of theoretical mechanics at the Polytechnikum in Karlsruhe. In 1863,
Clebsch took a new position as a professor of mathematics at the University of
Gießen, and in 1868 he came to Göttingen, where Felix Klein joined his circle.
Clebsch’s article “Ueber die Anwendung der Abel’schen Functionen in der
Geometrie” [On the Application of Abelian Functions in Geometry] is considered
the foundational work of algebraic geometry.131 Here, he combined geometry with
elliptic and Abelian functions, which yielded, in a new way, theorems that Hesse
had formulated about third- and fourth-order curves. Clebsch also used Plücker’s
methods and combined the traditions of Jacobi and Jakob Steiner and the work of
the Englishmen Cayley and Sylvester and the Irishman Salmon with Riemannian
ideas. Clebsch’s use of Abel’s theorem would significantly influence both Klein
and Klein’s later students.132
Clebsch created a new type of scientific thought collective. Later, the famous
Russian mathematician Igor R. Shafarevich named the following members of this
circle: “Gordan, Brill, Lüroth, Zeuthen, and the most famous of all: [Max]
Noether and Klein.”133 The latter scholars would take this research program in a
wide variety of directions. It will be necessary below to provide a brief profile of
this cast of characters, especially as Klein would remain in touch with them for
many years. When he himself was offered a professorship before some of the
older members of the Clebsch school, he found himself in the position of being
able to promote their careers. They thanked him by collaborating with him in
many of his undertakings.

128 See OLESKO 1991; and TILITZKI 2012.

129 See KLEIN 1975; M. Noether, “Otto Hesse,” Zeitschr. Math. Physik 20 (1875), pp. 77–88.
130 According to Heinrich Weber, this was in the year 1854; see KOENIGSBERGER 2004, p. 109.
131 The article was published in Crelle’s Journal 63 (1864), pp. 189–243.
132 See Section 5.5.2.3 of this book; and also PARSHALL/ROWE 1994, p. 157.
133 SHAFAREVICH 1983, p. 140.
48 2 Formative Groups

Klein’s first contact with Clebsch’s circle took place on May 31, 1868 (Whit-
sunday), shortly after Plücker’s death. Clebsch invited him to go on a hike along
with Brill, Gordan, Lüroth, Otto Hesse, Christian Wiener, Carl Neumann, and
others.134 Klein referred to the people around Clebsch as “Clebsch’s school,” and
wrote: “Like Jacobi, Clebsch was one of those blessed teachers who understood
how to draw out young talents and make them independent researchers.”135
According to Ferdinand Lindemann – a proud member of the Clebsch school,
who would earn a doctorate under Klein and edit Clebsch’s lecture courses on
geometry – the first generally recognized member of this school was Olaus Hen-
rici (b. 1840).136 Henrici began his studies in 1859 at the Polytechnikum in
Karlsruhe and ultimately found a permanent position in London thanks to the sup-
port of Hesse, Sylvester, Cayley, Hirst, and Clifford. Later, Henrici acted as a
contact person for Klein and his students when they traveled to Great Britain. He
also translated some of Klein’s papers into English (see Section 4.2.3). Henrici’s
models and instruments were used at many German universities. It was because of
Henrici’s relationship with Klein that the University of Göttingen received the
first version of his “new harmonic analyzer” for finding the coefficients of the
Fourier series of a function. Klein presented this instrument at the Royal Society
of Sciences in Göttingen and used it in his courses.137
The oldest member of Clebsch’s school by age – and, according to Klein, its
most significant one – was Paul Gordan (b. 1837).138 Gordan earned his doctorate
in Berlin in 1862 and completed his Habilitation one year later under Clebsch’s
supervision in Gießen. Gordan and Clebsch coauthored the book Theorie der
Abelschen Functionen [Theory of Abelian Functions] (1866), which was based on
a geometric-algebraic interpretation of Riemann’s results. Leo Koenigsberger, one
of Weierstrass’s students, praised the book, but he mentioned a dispute about the
precedence of some results.139 However, Koenigsberger also wrote: “Among the
mathematicians in Berlin, it was Weierstrass alone who quickly recognized that
his results concerning hyperelliptic functions and his theorems concerning general
Abelian functions were superseded by Riemann’s investigations.”140
Gordan took this area of study in an algebraic direction. He simplified the
symbolic calculus for the calculation of algebraic invariants that had been deve-
loped by Clebsch and Siegfried Aronhold. For this effort, Gordan came to be
called the “king of invariant theory,” and he would not be removed from this
throne until David Hilbert entered the scene (with Klein’s support; see Section

134 “Wanderung an der Bergstraße,” LOREY 1916, pp. 213–14; KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 3.
135 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 278.
136 See Ferdinand Lindemann, “Olaus Henrici,” Jahresbericht DMV 36 (1927) Abt. 1, pp. 157–
62, at 157; and CLEBSCH 1876/1891.
137 See Olaus Henrici, “Ueber einen neuen harmonischen Analysator (Auszug aus einem Briefe
an Herrn F. Klein),” Göttinger Nachrichten (February 3, 1894), pp. 30–32.
138 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 278.
139 KOENIGSBERGER 2004 [1919], p. 38.
140 Ibid., pp. 28–29.
 2.4 Joining Alfred Clebsch’s Thought Community 49

6.3.7.3). The theory of Clebsch-Gordan coefficients would earn him fame later.
Such coefficients are numbers that appear in the representation theory of Lie
groups, and they were later applied in quantum physics. In 1872, when Gordan
was running out of career prospects in Gießen, Felix Klein (twelve years his
junior) would come to his aid (see Section 3.5).
Alexander Brill (b. 1842) studied at the Polytechnikum in Karlsruhe while
Clebsch and Christian Wiener (one of Brill’s uncles) were teaching there. Brill
completed his studies in Karlsruhe with exams in architecture and in pedagogy,
and he earned a doctoral degree under Clebsch in Gießen on July 13, 1864.141
After a brief period of study in Berlin (on Clebsch’s recommendation), Brill
returned to Gießen in 1867 to complete his Habilitation. In 1869, he was offered a
professorship at the newly established Polytechnikum in Darmstadt, where Klein
visited him on several occasions. When Klein was given a position at the Poly-
technikum in Munich, he was able to arrange for Brill to be hired as a professor
there at the same time (see Chapter 4).
Alexander Brill and Max Noether’s coauthored article “Ueber die alge-
braischen Funktionen und ihre Anwendung in der Geometrie” [On Algebraic
Functions and Their Application in Geometry] can be regarded as another signifi-
cant development of algebraic geometry.142 Twenty years later, Klein invited them
to write a thorough report on the history of algebraic functions for the DMV, a
work that represents yet another trace of Clebsch’s wide-reaching influence.143
Max Noether (b. 1844) earned his doctoral degree (without having to submit a
thesis) in 1868 at the University of Heidelberg under the supervision of Otto
Hesse. In 1868, when Hesse took a new position at the Polytechnikum in Munich,
Noether came to study under Clebsch. Noether pursued Clebsch’s program of
working out the implications of Riemann’s theory of complex functions for alge-
braic geometry, and his particular interest was the birational geometry of cur-
ves.144 Klein’s cooperation with Noether during the beginning of 1869 in Göttin-
gen led to a finding that Noether cited in a study published that year (see 2.4.3).
After Noether had moved to Heidelberg in 1870 to complete his Habilitation, he
and Klein maintained an intensive correspondence; they also hiked together
during the semester break (e.g. a Rhine tour in summer 1871). Noether, who came
from a Jewish family, received, thanks to Klein, his first professorial position in
1875 in Erlangen (see Section 3.5). Noether supported Klein as a reviewer for the
journal Mathematische Annalen, and he repeatedly fulfilled Klein’s wish of
writing obituaries for important contributors to this journal. These biographical
articles provided, in Klein’s judgment, “an excellent resource for the study of the

141 See FINSTERWALDER 1936, p. 654.

142 The article appeared in Math. Ann. 7 (1874), pp. 269–310.
143 The report was published in the Jahresbericht DMV 3 (1894), pp. 107–566. For further dis-
cussion of Alexander Brill’s life and work, see F. Severi, “A. von Brill zum 80. Geburtstag,”
Jahresbericht DMV 31 (1922) Abt. 1, pp. 89–96.
144 See SCHOLZ 1980, Appendix 2.
50 2 Formative Groups

whole [mathematical] period.”145 Later, Klein would come to the assistance of

Max Noether’s daughter Emmy (see Sections 7.5 and 9.2.2), and he involved Max
Noether’s son Fritz in his project concerned with the theory of the spinning top.146
Jakob Lüroth (b. 1844) had likewise earned his doctoral degree under Hesse
(1865), and later he would edit Hesse’s collected works. After a short time in
Berlin, where he attended lectures by Weierstrass, he came to Gießen to continue
his studies under Clebsch, whose research orientation was closer to his own. After
completing his Habilitation in Heidelberg (1868) and holding a deputy professor-
ship there, he became a professor at the Polytechnikum in Karlsruhe in 1869.
Klein, who had profited from Lüroth’s Habilitation thesis in his dissertation (see
2.3.4), arranged for Lüroth to be his successor at the Technische Hochschule in
Munich (see Section 4.4). In 1883, Lüroth took a position at the University of
Freiburg im Breisgau, where he would remain.147 When Klein later recommended
Lüroth as a potential member of the first board of the DMV (see Section 6.4.4), he
was thus considering appointing an old ally from Clebsch’s intellectual circle.
According to Igor Shafarevich, the Danish mathematician Hieronymus Georg
Zeuthen (b. 1839) was also a member of Clebsch’s circle, though Max Noether
did not regard him as an immediate member of the school.148 Zeuthen built upon
the work of the French mathematician Michel Chasles to contribute to enumera-
tive methods in geometry, and he worked closely with Clebsch’s group. Klein and
Zeuthen would forge a long-lasting relationship; Zeuthen would go on to publish
sixteen articles in Mathematische Annalen.149 He would also prove to be a reliable
contributor to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project (he provided an essay on enumerative
methods)150 and to Klein’s project on the Kultur der Gegenwart [Culture of the
Present] (see Section 8.3.1). While serving as the general secretary of the Royal
Danish Academy of Sciences in Copenhagen, Zeuthen made sure that Klein was
appointed a foreign member of this society (on March 8, 1892).
Hermann Schubert (b. 1848), who maintained an active research agenda as a
secondary-school teacher, was likewise closely associated with Zeuthen’s field of
study and with Clebsch’s circle. Klein met Schubert for the first time during his
semester in Berlin (see 2.5.5), and he later arranged for Schubert to serve as the
representative for Gymnasium instructors on the DMV’s board of directors (see
6.4.4). Schubert’s calculus of enumerative geometry was also based on Chasles’s
methods.151 In 1900, David Hilbert included among his famous (then) unsolved

145 KLEIN 1977 [1926], p. 145.

146 KLEIN/SOMMERFELD 1897–1910, vol. IV.
147 See A. Brill and Max Noether, “Jakob Lüroth,” Jahresbericht DMV 20 (1911), pp. 279–99.
148 See Max Noether, “Hieronymus Georg Zeuthen,” Math. Ann. 83 (1921), pp. 1–23.
149 See TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 39.
150 This article gave rise to Zeuthen’s Lehrbuch der abzählenden Methoden der Geometrie (Leip-
zig: B.G. Teubner, 1914). The latter study, however, failed to consider certain contributions
by Eduard Study, who had a public dispute with Zeuthen in which Klein was involved. See
Section 5.4.1 and HARTWICH 2003, pp. 73–88.
151 Hermann Schubert, Kalkül der abzählenden Geometrie (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1879).
 2.4 Joining Alfred Clebsch’s Thought Community 51

problems the matter of establishing “a rigorous foundation for Schubert’s enu-

merative calculus” (see Section 10.1). Schubert published fifteen articles in Ma-
thematische Annalen,152 and he would also contribute to Klein’s ENCYKLOPÄDIE
(his article in vol. I concerns the foundations of arithmetic). He was also quick to
recognize and promote the mathematical talents of the Hurwitz brothers while
they were still schoolboys,153 and he ultimately recommended that Adolf Hurwitz
should study under Felix Klein (see Section 4.2.4.2). Hurwitz would become
Klein’s most accomplished doctoral student and one of his notable collaborators.
Aurel Voss (b. 1845), whose path to becoming an academic was paved by
Clebsch, owed his later career primarily to Felix Klein. On March 17, 1869, Voss
was awarded a doctoral degree for a thesis entitled Über die Anzahl reeller und
imaginärer Wurzeln höherer Gleichungen [On the Number of Real and Imaginary
Roots of Higher Equations], which was supervised by Moritz Abraham Stern in
Göttingen,154 and then he became a teacher. Still inspired by one of Clebsch’s
courses, which he attended along with Klein in 1869, he decided to return to Göt-
tingen to complete a Habilitation.155 When Clebsch suddenly and unexpectedly
died, Voss followed the young Professor Klein to Erlangen. Voss remained thank-
ful to Klein throughout the rest of his life for facilitating his Habilitation process,
and the two became close friends. As an established professor, Voss would also
contribute to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE and to Klein’s project on the Kultur der Gegen-
wart. About the young Klein, Voss wrote of a “youthful Dozent” with “unusually
multifaceted talents, a divinatory feel for science, and a range of original ideas.”156
With these words, Voss was describing the youngest member of Clebsch’s
thought collective; though young, Klein was nevertheless the quickest to acquire a
complete overview of Clebsch’s work, and he was best suited to represent it sys-
tematically and to perpetuate Clebsch’s wide-ranging research program.157
The fact that Clebsch’s influence extended beyond the circle of scholars dis-
cussed above is evident from the correspondence between Richard Dedekind and
Heinrich Weber. Both would carry out Clebsch’s initiative of editing Riemann’s
work.158 Heinrich Weber, who would work as Klein’s colleague in Göttingen for a
while (see Chapter 7), developed Riemann’s ideas further in a purely algebraic
manner. Klein, who since the late 1870s had also been intensively engaged with
Weierstrass’s lectures, remarked (in his historical lectures) that Weierstrass’s the-
ory of Abelian functions would not become widely known until later, but it was
“simpler, more systematic, and much more rigorous” than Riemann’s.159 At first,

152 See TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 39.

153 See OSWALD/STEUDING 2014.
154 This dissertation was published by the Göttingen-based press of E.A. Huth in 1869.
155 [UB Frankfurt] B.I.1, No. 441: A letter from Klein to Lorey dated Febr. 26, 1919.
156 VOSS 1919, p. 286.
157 See CLEBSCH 1874 (an obituary for Clebsch written by his friends and colleagues).
158 See SCHEEL 2014, pp. 43–51.
159 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 289. Klein’s intensive study of Weierstrass’s lectures began with
Hurwitz; see Sections 4.2.4.2 and 5.5.2.
52 2 Formative Groups

however, he pursued Clebsch’s intended geometric-algebraic (Riemann) program,

whose participants would take it in a variety of directions.
During his first stint in Göttingen, which began in January of 1869, Klein at-
tended lectures by Moritz Abraham Stern (theory of numerical equations), Bern-
hard Minnigerode (theory of partial differential equations and their application to
mathematical physics),160 and Alfred Clebsch. During the winter semester of
1868/69, the latter taught a course (five hours per week) on the analytic geometry
of space and gave a public course devoted to exercises in geometry (one hour per
week). In the summer of 1869, from April 15 to August 15, Clebsch offered two
four-hour weekly courses: one on determinants, elimination, and algebraic forms,
the other on the mathematical theory of light. Aurel Voss, who attended these
lectures along with Klein, reminisced about them as follows:
The beautiful form of his lectures; the pleasure that this incomparable teacher seemed to feel
when he presented to his audience the thoughts with which he and his scientific friends A.
Cayley, C. Jordan, and L. Cremona were vividly engaged at that very time; the elegance with
which he treated, in the first lectures on the geometry of space ever to be held in Göttingen,
all of the new resources at hand, from homogeneous coordinates and the principle of duality
to the theory of representing algebraic surfaces in conjunction with the Abelian theorem, and
not least the new geometry of space by J. Plücker – all of this introduced his students to a
whole new world, connected them to the present in a lively fashion, and instigated them to
study such scholarly literature.161

Clebsch taught the latest results in his field. These included works not only by
Cayley, Jordan, and Cremona but also Plücker’s more recent contributions to line
geometry. As Voss reported, the students were surprised when Clebsch cited the
young Felix Klein, who was present among them in the lecture hall, as an expert
in this area of research: “We were astounded that this young man, whose lovable
personality appeared mature and original beyond his years, was referred to in one
of Clebsch’s lectures as an authority of this new geometry of space, with which
Plücker had so enriched science during the last years of his life.”162
Clebsch’s work and his ability to discover and systematize connections be-
tween individual research areas that were previously thought to be heterogeneous
would serve as a model for Klein’s own approach. He remarked: “In my view, the
most important aspect of Clebsch’s influence was the moral influence he exerted
by instilling in us, in addition to a deep interest in science, a confidence in our
own powers.”163 Clebsch’s refined lecture style, the organization of his seminar,
his way of dealing with people, “communicating his thoughts bounteously and
without reservations,” and in sum, his “great program of unification (of people as

160 See the vita appended to Klein’s Habilitation (published in TOBIES 1999a, p. 85); and the lists
of lectures to be held at the University of Göttingen, which are printed in Göttinger Nach-
richten (1868), no. 14, p. 310; (1869), no. 6, p. 90.
161 VOSS 1919, p. 280.
162 Ibid.
163 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 278.
 2.4 Joining Alfred Clebsch’s Thought Community 53

well)” would serve as an example to Klein.164 Clebsch’s program involved the

synthesis of function theory, algebra, and geometry. According to Klein, his
classification principles in geometry, his symbolic representation of invariant
theory (based on Aronhold’s work), and his term “connex” (introduced as a basic
entity in the geometry of surfaces)165 were important steps toward combining
newer geometric studies with the theory of first-order differential equations.
When Clebsch died suddenly on November 7, 1872, his students and friends
got together to discuss how his obituary should be written. As early as November
15, Klein wrote the following in a letter to Max Noether:
We have decided to write a more comprehensive scientific biography, much like the one that
Clebsch himself composed about Plücker. Thus we have to turn to you and others for help.
We have identified six periods in Clebsch’s scientific activity:
Mathematical physics (Neumann)
Partial differential equations and second variation (Mayer)
Bordered determinants – the beginnings of newer algebra (Lüroth)
Abelian functions (Brill)
Newer algebra (Gordan)
Surface mapping (Noether).166

The Leipzig-based professors Carl Neumann and Adolph Mayer, both educated in
Königsberg, were members of the editorial board of the journal Mathematische
Annalen, for which the obituary was being prepared. In the end, Carl Neumann
handed over the section on mathematical physics to his colleague Karl Von der
Mühll, who had likewise studied in Königsberg. Klein edited the text into a co-
herent whole, a process that required many rounds of discussion.
This circle of friends and colleagues also created a Clebsch Foundation in or-
der to support his wife and sons (who were still not of working age).167 Intellectu-
ally, this group found itself in heavy competition with mathematicians trained or
teaching in Berlin. Without their leader Clebsch, they had to implement their new
approach against traditional, “rigorous” mathematics. This involved establishing
the legitimacy of Riemann’s way of thinking. Like Leo Koenigsberger (see Sec-
tion 1.2, p. 9), we could regard this as a new style of thinking in mathematics.

2.4.2 The Journal Mathematische Annalen

In May of 1868, while on their aforementioned hike along the Bergstraße, Alfred
Clebsch and Carl Neumann had decided to create a new mathematical journal to
compete with the existing Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik.168
Later that same year, Neumann was offered a professorship at the University of

164 [UBG] Cod. Ms. F. Klein (a manuscript “25 Jahre moderner Mathematik”, February 2, 1893).
165 See Section 2.8.3.1.
166 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 12, No. 554: Klein to Noether, November 15, 1872.
167 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7L, pp. 1–72 (Clebsch Foundation).
168 Briefly Crelle’s Journal called, after its founder, see Section 2.5.
54 2 Formative Groups

Leipzig. While there, he got in touch with the Leipzig-based publishing house
B.G. Teubner. In a letter dated June 10, 1868, he proposed that the press should
establish Mathematische Annalen as a new journal and he recommended Clebsch
to be the editor. “Through his talent and energy,” Carl Neumann predicted, “the
journal will soon surpass all other mathematical journals in Europe with respect to
the richness of its content, its elegance, and its dissemination.”169 The first issue
came out on December 22, 1868. This journal and the authors associated with it
would help B.G. Teubner, which had been founded in 1811, to develop into one of
the most important publishers of mathematical scholarship.170
As editors of the journal, Clebsch and Neumann aimed at an international
orientation. Articles could be submitted in German, English, French, and Italian.
The very first volume contained two articles by Camille Jordan in Paris and one
each by Arthur Cayley (Cambridge), Eugenio Beltrami (Bologna), and Zeuthen
(Copenhagen) – mathematicians with whom Klein would quickly be associated.
Klein’s first contribution to the journal appeared in issue 2 of the second volume
(1870). After Clebsch’s death, Carl Neumann sought out new collaborators. Be-
ginning with the sixth volume (1873), he expanded the editorial board to include
his Leipzig colleagues Adolph Mayer and Karl Von der Mühll as well as Felix
Klein and Paul Gordan as representatives of the Clebsch school (see Fig. 7).
As early as 1873, Klein articulated his special sense of responsibility for the
journal, noting that “caring for the Annalen, to the extent that it lies within my
powers, is my primary concern.”171 Klein contributed his own articles; he encour-
aged the editorial board to publish dissertations by four of his Erlangen students
(see Section 3.1.2), the Habilitation thesis by Aurel Voss, etc. Klein informed
Neumann that he had organized an exchange between journals: the Teubner pub-
lishing house sent a copy of each new issue of Mathematische Annalen to the
editors of the French Bulletin de la Société Mathématique, and in return they re-
ceived copies from Paris.
Neumann was less fond of editorial activity. He knew that he had put the
journal in good hands, when, beginning with its tenth volume (1876), he handed
over its chief editing responsibilities to Klein and Adolph Mayer and assumed a
lesser role on the editorial board.
Klein and Mayer expanded the journal’s subscription base. They attracted
new authors and proved to be especially perspicacious by publishing Georg Can-
tor’s studies on set theory in a series of articles that appeared from 1879 to 1884.
Leopold Kronecker in Berlin was reluctant to publish Cantor’s paper in Crelle’s
Journal, and he ultimately became a decisive opponent of set theory.172

169 For a facsimile of Neumann’s letter, see SCHULZE 1911, pp. 300–01.
170 See ibid.; WEIß 2018; and also Section 5.6 of this book.
171 [UBG] Math. Archiv 165a, p. 3 (a letter from Klein to Neumann dated April 27, 1873).
172 Cantor submitted his first article, “Ein Beitrag zur Mannigfaltigkeitsklehre,” to Kronecker on
July 11, 1877; it was published in vol. 84 (1878), pp. 242–58. The series of Cantor’s articles
in Math. Ann. began with “Ueber unendliche, lineare Punktmannichfaltigkeiten [sic],” Math.
Ann. 15 (1879), pp. 1–7. See also PURKERT/ILGAUDS 1987, and FERREIRÓS 2007.
 2.4 Joining Alfred Clebsch’s Thought Community 55

Figure 7: The title page of volume 6 of Mathematische Annalen (1873).

56 2 Formative Groups

When Gottlob Frege submitted his article “Booles rechnende Logik und die Be-
griffsschrift” [Boole’s Calculating Logic and Conceptual Notation] to the Mathe-
matische Annalen, Klein was less far-sighted than usual. He recommended that
the author should submit the text to a philosophical journal.173
When, in addition to Crelle’s Journal, another competing publishing venue
appeared on the market – Acta Mathematica, founded in 1882 by the Swedish
mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler – Klein engaged in a special sort of politics.
He offered his cooperation and even submitted some of his own work for
publication, which was rejected. Sophus Lie, one of the initiators and board mem-
bers of the Scandinavian journal, wrote the following from Paris to Mittag-Leffler
in October of 1882: “Of course, Klein wishes to be on friendly terms with the
journal. […] Klein is far and away a more outstanding mathematician than most
German function theorists would admit or even understand.”174 In a letter to Klein
sent in December of 1882, Lie referred to Mittag-Leffler as a good person but also
as a scheming diplomat.175 Mittag-Leffler had many merits. He had studied under
Hermite in Paris and under Weierstrass in Berlin, and he contributed important
findings to function theory. He not only arranged for Sofya Kovalevskaya to
become a professor in Stockholm in 1884 but also for her to join the editorial
board of “his” journal. Mittag-Leffler received support for Acta Mathematica
from the Swedish king and, as well, from the governments in Paris and Berlin.
Klein was annoyed by such support for the Swedish journal; “his” Annalen ex-
isted without requesting funds from a German government. Mittag-Leffler en-
sured, too, that the most prominent mathematicians from Berlin were decorated
with Swedish awards. Despite his support of the journal, Lie would ultimately not
publish in Acta Mathematica, preferring instead Klein’s Mathematische Annalen.
Yet Klein offered the following advice to his best student, Adolf Hurwitz:
From a general perspective, it seems to me desirable for you to publish from time to time in
Mittag-Leffler’s journal. If we limit our publications to the Annalen, then we too easily put
ourselves in an isolated position (I myself would have been happy to see my work appear in
Mittag-Leffler’s and Kronecker’s journals, if it had not been rejected by both editors). That
said, I would indeed like you to reserve your main studies for the Annalen.176

Klein and Mayer made continuous efforts to expand the international authorship
represented in the Annalen by including more and more contributions from West-
ern and Eastern Europe and also from overseas (see 5.4.2.5, 5.5.3.1, and 6.3.7.1).
Later, Klein regularly made changes to update the journal’s editorial board.
On the one hand, he did this for personal reasons to reduce his organizational du-
ties (thus his appointment in 1887 of his former doctoral student Walther Dyck),
and on the other hand he did so to maintain a high level of content and to allow
room for new directions in mathematics. As of volume 42 (1893), for instance, the

173 Klein’s letter to Frege (dated August 14, 1881) is printed in TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 37.
174 Quoted from STUBHAUG 2002, p. 291.
175 See ibid., p. 297; and also ROWE 1992b, pp. 610–12.
176 [UBG] Math. Archiv 77, p. 192 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated January 15, 1888).
 2.4 Joining Alfred Clebsch’s Thought Community 57

editorial board was joined by Heinrich Weber and Max Noether. Sophus Lie de-
clined Klein’s offer to take such a position; he was only willing to serve as one of
the journal’s chief editors, but Klein doubted that Lie could fulfill this role. After
years of resistance from members of the old Clebsch school, Klein did manage,
however, to appoint David Hilbert to the editorial board (as of 1898) and, in 1902,
Klein named him one of the main editors of Mathematische Annalen.177
Subsequently, Klein made sure that the journal printed a rich selection of
studies devoted to the most modern topics at the time. Thus he insisted, for in-
stance, in a letter to Hilbert on July 31, 1901: “From the latest issues of the An-
nalen, no one would know how intensively you and your students are working in
such a variety of new directions!”178 It was Klein who instigated Hilbert’s first
doctoral student Otto Blumenthal, who was by then a professor at the Technische
Hochschule in Aachen, to join himself, Hilbert, and Dyck as one of the journal’s
main editors as of 1906 (instead of simply serving on the broader editorial board).
Klein remarked that Blumenthal “has acquitted himself so well as a member of
the editorial board that, in my opinion, we should no longer keep this recognition
from him.”179 As of 1909, after the death of A. Mayer, Klein and Hilbert arranged
for Hermann Minkowski and Otto Hölder to join the editorial board.180 Following
the deaths of Paul Gordan (1912), Karl Von der Mühll (1912), and Heinrich
Weber (1913), Klein supported the recommendation of Otto Blumenthal – who, in
the meantime, had taken on the lion’s share of editorial duties – to invite Brouwer
and Carathéodory to join the editorial board beginning with volume 76 (1915).181
When, during the First World War, a new situation arose at the B.G. Teubner
publishing house (see 5.6), it was Klein again who managed the affairs of the
journal. Teubner considered its mathematical publications to be a losing venture.
In contrast, the Julius Springer Verlag in Berlin was on the upswing. As of 1918,
the latter press began to publish a new mathematical journal, which (like Crelle’s
Journal and Mathematische Annalen) still exists today: the Mathematische Zeit-
schrift, then edited by Leon Lichtenstein. The Springer publishing house was buil-
ding up its mathematics program and was interested in acquiring an additional,
more applications-oriented journal. Mathematische Annalen switched from Teub-
ner to Springer. As the journal’s fourth main editor (replacing Dyck), Klein ap-
pointed Albert Einstein to encourage and oversee contributions in theoretical
physics (see Section 9.2.2). Klein himself remained one of the main editors until
volume 92 (1924). The following year, he stepped down to become one of the

177 Klein had wanted to appoint Hilbert to the editorial board as early as 1894. When he failed to
do so, Klein arranged for Hilbert to receive complimentary copies of the journal from then on
(see FREI 1985, p. 95). See also Section 5.6.
178 Quoted from FREI 1985, p. 129. From 1898 to July of 1901, twenty students completed dis-
sertations on topics suggested by Hilbert (see HILBERT 1935, p. 431).
179 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22 L: Klein’s memorandum to the members of the editorial staff of
Math. Ann. (Hilbert, Mayer, Gordan, M. Noether, Dyck, and H. Weber) dated April 23, 1906.
180 See FREI 1985, pp. 135–37. Minkowski, however, died on January 12, 1909.
181 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 8, p. 138 (a letter from Blumenthal to Klein dated June 5, 1914).
58 2 Formative Groups

members of the broader editorial board. This happened primarily because of dis-
agreements between Klein and Brouwer about which articles should be accepted
for publication.182 When Klein passed away, the editors of Mathematische An-
nalen emphasized:
If, as much this has been humanly possible, the journal Mathematische Annalen has encom-
passed, in equal measure, all areas of mathematics that are being developed in a lively man-
ner, this is due to Felix Klein. He made sure that different mathematical orientations were
represented on the editorial board and that the members of this board could all work with him
on an equal footing.183

His first articles to appear in this yournal originated in Göttingen in 1869.

2.4.3 Articles on Line Geometry, 1869

After Klein had cleared his desk of Plücker’s Liniengeometrie on May 25, 1869,
he was free to write about his own findings. From June 4 to August 4, 1869, he
completed five articles, which Clebsch accepted for publication either in the Göt-
tinger Nachrichten or Mathematische Annalen. Klein referred to the influence of
Clebsch’s circle as follows:
In comparing my dissertation to the work that I completed soon thereafter, one can detect the
stimulating influence that the environment in Göttingen exerted on me. I have chosen this ra-
ther vague expression because, in addition to Clebsch, the still small number of specialist stu-
dents that he had already taken under his wing also influenced me in the most vibrant ways.
At the time, Clebsch himself had taught us above all about the rational mapping of the lowest
algebraic surfaces to the plane, which he himself discovered, and he had convinced Noether
in particular to continue these principal investigations and to expand them to include multi-
dimensional structures.184

Max Noether’s study “Zur Theorie der algebraischen Funktionen mehrerer kom-
plexer Variablen” [On the Theory of Algebraic Functions of Several Complex Va-
riables] is especially instructive regarding our assessment of why Klein chose to
enter this particular research area of Clebsch’s circle.185 Noether’s article began
by mentioning how Riemann, in his theory of algebraic functions of one complex
variable, had established a classification of equations that define these functions.
Noether then cited Clebsch’s expansion of this theory to functions of two variab-
les and his introduction of the concept of the genus of a surface.186 Noether him-
self extended this area of inquiry by developing a technique for mapping the lines

182 [UBG] Klein 8: 143/A, 146 (a letter from Blumenthal to Klein). See also the third chapter of
ROWE/FELSCH 2019.
183 Obituary “Felix Klein†,” Math. Ann. 95 (1926), p. 1. See also VAN DALEN 2005, pp. 601–33.
184 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 51.
185 Max Noether’s article appeared in Göttinger Nachrichten (1869), pp. 298–306.
186 See Alfred Clebsch, “Sur les surfaces algébriques,” Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sci-
ences 67 (1868), p. 1238. – Regarding the concept genus, see also François LȆ 2020.
 2.4 Joining Alfred Clebsch’s Thought Community 59

of a linear complex to points in three-dimensional space. This is where Klein

could bring his own special knowledge into play. In the article, Noether wrote: “I
am indebted to Dr. Klein for the simplest mapping of a second-degree line com-
plex.”187 Klein later reprinted this single page of Noether’s article in his own col-
lected works,188 and on the same page he noted that Sophus Lie had, from a dif-
ferent point of departure, arrived at this same way of mapping first-degree line
complexes. Thus it is clear that there were already points of contact between
Klein’s and Lie’s work even before they would soon meet in Berlin (see 2.5.2).
In an earlier paper – “Über eine Abbildung der Komplexflächen vierter Ord-
nung und vierter Klasse” [On a Mapping of Complex Surfaces of the Fourth Or-
der and Fourth Class] (completed June 14, 1869) – Klein had already shown that
he would be able to contribute to Clebsch’s program (based on Plücker’s own) for
classifying curves and surfaces.189 This was one of several programs that Klein
would ultimately keep in mind over many years, promote with contests, and dis-
seminate through his own lectures.
Klein considered another work completed in June of 1869 – “Zur Theorie der
Linienkomplexe des ersten und zweiten Grades” [On the Theory of First- and
Second-Degree Line Complexes] – to be especially important, noting that, after
his dissertation, it was really with this study that “I earned my spurs.”190 Here,
Klein introduced the concept of a Kummer surface, an idea that Kummer had first
described in 1864.191 Clebsch published this article in Göttinger Nachrichten in
1869 (vol. 13, pp. 258–76), and an extended version of it soon appeared in Ma-
thematische Annalen. In it, Klein formulated the following theorem:
Those points whose complex cone degenerates into two planes – the so-called singular points
– form a Kummer surface of the fourth order and class, with 16 double points and 16 double
planes. The same surface is enveloped by the singular planes – i.e., such planes whose com-
plex curve has resolved into a system of two points. In what follows, a surface of this sort will
be called a Kummer surface. In relation to the complex, it is called a singularity surface.192

Voss later remarked that Klein, “through a perspicacious combination of funda-

mental complexes and their positional relations,” recognized that the singularity
surface of the general second-degree line complex, which was supposedly disco-
vered by Plücker, had already appeared in Kummer’s work as a self-dual form of
the fourth order and class with 16 double planes and 16 double points.193
In this work, Klein also mentioned that determining the singularities of a
Kummer surface depends on resolving a sextic equation and several quadratic

187 Max Noether, “Zur Theorie …,” p. 305.

188 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 89.
189 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 87–88 (originally published in Math. Ann. 2 (1870), pp. 371–72).
190 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 155. – For the article in question, see KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 53–80.
Trans.: http://neo-classical-physics.info/uploads/3/0/6/5/3065888/klein_-_line_complexes.pdf
191 For a detailed discussion of Kummer’s approach, see ROWE 2019a.
192 Math. Ann. 2 (1870), pp. 198–226, quotation p. 214 and in KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 69.
193 VOSS 1919, p. 281.
60 2 Formative Groups

equations. He emphasized Camille Jordan’s discovery from 1868 that the 16th-
order equation of the dual elements could be reduced to a sextic equation and se-
veral quadratic equations.194 Klein’s achievement was that he confirmed this geo-
metrically. His reference to an algebraically solvable sextic equation, however,
formed a significant point of departure for his later studies concerned with the
solution of algebraic equations.195 François Lê has rightly underscored that
Klein’s use here of so-called “geometric equations” was an important step toward
developing his Erlangen Program.196 In 1899, Otto Hölder already devoted a brief
section of his ENCYKLOPÄDIE article to these equations.197 In his “spur-earning”
work, Klein also determined how a Kummer surface could be constructed (see
Fig. 8). Of course, he dutifully referred to Kummer’s own model from 1864.198

Figure 8: A Kummer surface with 16 real nodes (FISCHER 1986, fig. 34).

Among the four models of second-degree line complexes that were produced by
Klein’s friend Albert Wenker during the summer and fall of 1869, two are of
Kummer surfaces.199 Both Klein and Wenker went about the construction of their
models in a way that differed from Plücker’s approach. Plücker, as Klein explai-
ned, “constructed his models of complex surfaces only empirically, by assuming
appropriate values for the constants present in the equation, from the equations of
the horizontal sections or from those of the ‘meridian sections’ crossing through

194 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 71.

195 See VOSS 1919, p. 208; and Section 4.2.1.
196 LÊ 2015b.
197 Otto Hölder, “Galois’sche Theorie mit Anwendungen,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. I.1 (3.c., d.),
esp. pp. 518–20.
198 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 71. See also VOSS 1919, p. 281.
199 See KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 7–10.
 2.5 Broadening His Horizons in Berlin 61

the z-axis.” Klein’s models, in contrast, were based on a geometric construction,

in that he “used the planes that touch the surfaces along entire conic sections.”200
One of the four models designed by Wenker would later play a special role, as
Klein explained: “In particular, we spent an extraordinary amount of effort on the
model of the general complex surface by looking for a case that did not possess
any special symmetry but rather symmetries that could provide us with an over-
view and also facilitate the construction.”201 Klein presented this model of the
general Plückerian complex surface at a conference held by the Berlin Physical
Society in March of 1870,202 and he would also use it in his Habilitation lecture in
January of 1871 (see Section 2.7.2).
Klein was familiar with Kummer’s work on the theory of linear ray systems,
of which the surfaces named after him were a part, and he had also made success-
ful use of Weierstrass’s theory of elementary divisors in his dissertation. All of
this was reason enough for him to spend a semester in Berlin. Between September
5 and October 15 of 1869, Klein had also prepared a special work for Kummer.203
All in all Klein had achieved some independent results, which was a precondition
to be allowed to participate in the Mathematical Seminar of Kummer and Weier-
strass.

2.5 BROADENING HIS HORIZONS IN BERLIN

Despite the favorable conditions in Göttingen, I felt compelled to expand my horizons, for I
wanted to move beyond the confines of scientific “schools.”204

From the fall of 1869 to March 17, 1870, the twenty-year-old Dr. Felix Klein
spent a semester studying in Berlin, even though both Plücker and Clebsch had
advised him not to do so. On his trip, Klein brought along the prejudices of his
teachers, but he wanted to get to know this famous center for mathematical re-
search on his own. He lived at Karlstraße 11 (Reinhardtstraße today), which was
near the university and also near the apartments of his closest academic friends
there.205 From there it was also convenient to visit professors personally at home.
Klein found himself having to participate in numerous “social obligations.”206 It
was common at the time, for instance, to introduce oneself personally at the ho-
mes of professors.

200 Quoted from KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 3 (see also TOBIES 2019b, p. 50–51).
201 Ibid., p. 3. After Wenker’s death, Klein had the models constructed by a mechanical work-
shop in Cologne.
202 Klein’s lecture “Über ein Modell einer Plücker’schen Komplexfläche” [On a Model of a
Plückerian Complex Surface] is cited in Die Fortschritte der Physik 24 (1868 [1872]), p. vii.
203 On this study, see ROWE 2000, p. 64; ROWE 2013, p. 2; and ROWE 2019a, pp. 182–84.
204 KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), p. 15.
205 AMTLICHES VERZEICHNIS (1869), p. 24. Sophus Lie lived at Kronenstraße 52, Otto Stolz at
Schumannstraße 1b (parallel to Karlstraße), and Ludwig Kiepert lived at Dessauer Straße 7.
206 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated April 13, 1870.
62 2 Formative Groups

The topics covered below will include the events that Klein attended and what
the professors in Berlin thought of the young doctor (Section 2.5.1); the new
friends and collaborators whom Klein met at the Mathematical Union (Section
2.5.2); and how, for the first time, Klein used his ability – fostered by Clebsch – to
discover connections between seemingly distinct areas of research (Section 2.5.3).
It should be mentioned in advance that Klein also attended meetings related to
physics: the Physical Colloquium, which had been founded by Gustav Magnus in
1843 and given rise to the Berlin Physical Society in 1845.207 The latter was ori-
ented toward interdisciplinary research; it included non-academic members, and it
had established the review journal Die Fortschritte der Physik [Advances in
Physics],208 which was the prototype for the Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der
Mathematik, the first German review journal for mathematics, founded in 1870
(see Sections 2.6.1 and 2.8.3.4). As early as 1869, Klein joined the Physical Soci-
ety as a member, and in a meeting on March 11, 1870, he spoke on his model of a
general (Plückerian) complex surface [allgemeine Complexfläche], as mentioned
above in Section 2.4.3. This presentation may seem less unusual if we consider
that Gustav Magnus and Julius Plücker knew each other personally and had ex-
changed ideas about models and line coordinates as early as the 1840s.209

2.5.1 The Professors in Berlin and Felix Klein

When Klein came to Berlin in the fall of 1869, the Friedrich Wilhelm University,
which had existed since 1810, was under the leadership of its Rektor Emil du
Bois-Reymond (Carl Runge’s father-in-law). This renowned physiologist, who
had also studied mathematics (in addition to theology, philosophy, and geology)
in Bonn, numbered among the founding members of the Berlin Physical Society
and argued, from early on, for the use of graphic methods in medicine. Later,
Klein considered him a pioneer of educational reform, a movement that would
reach its peak shortly after the year 1900 (see Section 8.3.4).
In 1869, the mathematician Ernst Eduard Kummer was the Prorektor (the
Rektor’s deputy) of the University of Berlin.210 In 1855, he had been hired as a
professor to replace Dirichlet,211 and this has been considered the beginning of the
“golden age” of Berlin mathematics.212 Kummer managed to create a position for
the forty-one-year-old Karl Weierstrass, who, like him, had spent more than ten
years earning a living as a secondary-school teacher. The third member of the tri-

207 See SCHREIER et al. 1995.

208 The first issue of the Fortschritte der Physik, which appeared in 1847, reviewed the scholarly
literature that had appeared in 1845.
209 See PLUMP 2014, pp. 106–07, 114, 302–03.
210 AMTLICHER BERICHT (1869), p. iii.
211 Kummer and Dirichlet were related to each other through their wives (the cousins Ottilie and
Rebecca Mendelssohn). – On Dirichlet’s mathematical biography, see MERZBACH 2018.
212 See BIERMANN 1988, pp. 79–152; and KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 264.
 2.5 Broadening His Horizons in Berlin 63

umvirate was Leopold Kronecker, who had been Kummer’s pupil at the Gymna-
sium in Liegnitz (today the Polish city of Legnica). After earning his doctorate in
Berlin in 1845, Kronecker worked as a businessman. In 1855, he settled in Berlin
as an independent scholar; he came from a wealthy Jewish family.
The relationship among these three luminaries was not without friction,213 but
these professors attracted numerous students to the Prussian capital. Between
1860 and 1870, the number of mathematics students doubled there.214 In the win-
ter semester of 1869/70, seventy-four students were enrolled in the subject at the
University of Berlin.215
One of the focal points of mathematics in Berlin was the Journal für die reine
und angewandte Mathematik [Journal for Pure and Applied Mathematics], which
had been established in 1826 by August Leopold Crelle and is still commonly
known as Crelle’s Journal. Under Crelle’s editorship, the journal had a national
and international orientation,216 but its subsequent editor, Carl Wilhelm Borchardt,
gradually turned it into a mouthpiece for mathematicians in Berlin. In 1869, the
editorial board consisted of Karl Heinrich Schellbach,217 Kummer, Kronecker, and
Weierstrass. Borchardt had earned his doctoral degree under Jacobi and had com-
pleted his Habilitation in 1848; he did not hold a professorship (he had private
means). As early as 1861, he retired from teaching, and he wanted to step down
from his position as the editor of Crelle’s Journal, too, but then “Clebsch’s” jour-
nal appeared on the scene. Borchardt remained in his position largely because of
his longstanding feud with Clebsch over the latter’s edition of Jacobi’s Vorlesun-
gen über Dynamik [Lectures on Dynamics] (1866).218 According to Ferdinand
Lindemann, it was this same feud that had prompted Clebsch to establish the jour-
nal Mathematische Annalen.219 Borchardt continued to hold this grudge even after
Clebsch’s death. He wrote about how Mathematische Annalen had been founded
as a slight to him and about how the journal had become a showcase for superfici-
ality – a development for which he blamed the deceased Clebsch: “[Clebsch] did
not use his talent to conduct profound research but rather to achieve occasional,
obvious, and merely superficial accomplishments. Among his students, [Felix]
Klein is probably the one who abets this superficiality the most.”220
Borchardt was not as welcoming to modern developments as Clebsch, and he
even held strict and meticulous sway over former young scientists from Berlin.

213 On the falling out between Weierstrass and Kronecker, see BIERMANN 1988, pp. 137–39; and
Reinhard Bölling’s article in KÖNIG/SPRENKELS 2016, pp. 95–100.
214 BIERMANN 1988, p. 103.
215 These numbers are tallied from the AMTLICHES VERZEICHIS 1869, pp. 1–54.
216 See NEUENSCHWANDER 1984, p. 11; and ECCARIUS 1976.
217 Schellbach’s mathematical-pedagogical seminar, which was associated with the Friedrich-
Wilhelms-Gymnasium in Berlin, was attended by Clebsch, Carl Neumann, and many others.
218 See BIERMANN 1988, p. 81.
219 [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 48. See also Weierstrass’s preface in the supplement to Jacobi’s
Gesammelte Werke (Berlin: Reimer, 1884), pp. 3–4.
220 Quoted from NEUENSCHWANDER 1984, p. 52 (Borchardt to Lipschitz on December 25, 1875).
64 2 Formative Groups

Such was the account of Weierstrass’s former doctoral student Leo Koenigsber-
ger.221 Even after Borchardt’s death, when Kronecker and Weierstrass took over
the main editing duties of Crelle’s Journal (from 1881 to 1888), the venue suf-
fered from their disagreements, be it about the founding of modern analysis or
about Georg Cantor’s work on set theory. Soon, therefore, Weierstrass left
Kronecker to do the work alone.222 Klein would publish only one article in
Crelle’s Journal; it appeared years after Kronecker’s death, but it concerned
Kronecker’s theorem (see Section 5.5.6).
Kronecker made significant contributions to number theory, the theory of el-
liptic functions, and algebra. Since 1861, he had been a “lecturing Academy
member” at the University of Berlin, which meant that, as a member of the Berlin
Academy of Sciences, he was able to offer lectures. Lipschitz had written Klein a
letter of recommendation for Kronecker,223 and Klein attended his lecture course
on the theory of quadratic forms and he began to understand something about
number theory.224 Later, Klein recalled that Kronecker was able to grasp “many
fundamental relations as though by presentiment,”225 but he opposed the latter’s
tendency to apply one-sided intellectual norms to all varieties of mathematical
work (see Sections 5.4.2.4 and 6.5.1.1).
Weierstrass is considered a founder of modern analysis based on logical and
arithmetical methods.226 He created a school of function theory,227 but he hardly
ever referred to other works. Because Weierstrass seldom published his findings,
those interested in his new ideas could only encounter them in his lectures and
their transcripts. He designed a notable lecture cycle: introduction to the theory of
analytic functions, the theory of elliptic functions, applications of elliptic func-
tions to problems in geometry and mechanics, the theory of Abelian functions, the
application of Abelian functions to solving select geometric problems, and – in
addition – the calculus of variations.228
In 1869, Weierstrass dominated the scene, as Felix Klein informed:
Pretty much the entire interest of the students here has so far concentrated on Weierstrass’s
investigations. However, the understanding of these does not keep up with the interest.
Weierstrassiana are not judged from an independent point of view, but the students are com-
pletely dominated by them. One reason could be that there is something very impressive
about him personally, especially in conversation.229

221 See KOENIGSBERGER 2004 [1919], pp. 28–29.

222 See BIERMANN 1988, pp. 137–39. Kronecker acted as the sole editor of Crelle’s beginning
with volume 104 (1889), while Weierstrass, Hermann von Helmholtz, Heinrich Eduard
Schroeter, and Lazarus Fuchs served on the editorial board (“unter Mitwirkung”).
223 See SCHARLAU 1986, p. 178–79 (Lipschitz to Kronecker on August 7, 1869).
224 [UBG] 12: 527/3 (Klein to Max Noether on December 17, 1869).
225 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 264. See also BIERMANN 1988, p. 85.
226 See for example KÖNIG/SPREKELS 2016.
227 See BEHNKE 1966; BÖLLING 1994.
228 See BIERMANN 1988, p. 104; see also BÖLLING 2016.
229 [UBG] 12: 527/3 (Klein to Max Noether on December 17, 1869).
 2.5 Broadening His Horizons in Berlin 65

In 1869, Klein was put off (as Sophus Lie was, too) by the nature of Weierstrass’s
lectures on function theory.230 From Plücker and Clebsch, Klein was accustomed
to a different type of lecturing style. While in Berlin, Klein made a transcript of
Weierstrass’s lecture notes on elliptic functions (see also Section 2.5.2), and later
in life he would pay a copyist to transcribe several of Weierstrass’s other lectures
(see Section 5.5.2.1).
As Klein reported to Max Noether, however, the interests had now become
more varied, “because Sophus Lie, a certain Dr. [Otto] Stolz, who is a private lec-
turer in Vienna and also mainly dealt with geometry, and I came here.”231 Their
geometrical interests were favoured by the fact that Ernst Eduard Kummer had
chosen “the theory of ray systems, especially those of the third order” as the topic
for his winter semester seminar. “Kummer has no special student here, so Lie and
I are the only ones who have some knowledge of the ray systems,” Klein con-
tinued.
Ernst Eduard Kummer had made important contributions to various branches
of mathematics, including function theory, number theory, geometry, etc. Kum-
mer was a man of independent judgement; he praised, for instance, Friedrich
Prym’s dissertation (1863) because of its use of Riemann’s geometric function
theory, despite the fact that Weierstrass was highly critical of it (see 5.5.2.2).232
Before Weierstrass was promoted to full professor in 1864, most mathematicians
in Berlin had formally been supervised by Kummer, including Paul du Bois-Rey-
mond in 1859 (a brother of the aforementioned Emil du Bois-Reymond) and
Hermann Amandus Schwarz in 1863, who was offered a full professorship at the
Polytechnikum in Zurich in 1869 and who, as a scion of the Berlin mathematics,
would never develop an especially warm relationship with Felix Klein.
During Klein’s semester in Berlin, Kummer was no longer giving lectures
about his latest research findings. His well-attended lectures were instead devoted
to topics that were already established. By that time, Kummer limited his discus-
sion of more recent research to the mathematical-scientific seminar,233 which he
and Weierstrass had started in April of 1861. Understandably, Klein was more
interested in participating in this seminar than he was in attending Kummer’s lec-
tures. By rule, participation in the seminar was restricted to twelve people with
demonstrable scientific talent.234
Later, Klein explained: “I did not attend any great lectures in Berlin, and
therefore I was all the more excited to participate in Kummer and Weierstrass’s
mathematical seminar, in which the participants gave presentations on topics of

230 [Oslo] II (a text written by Klein on November 1, 1892), printed in ROWE 1992a, p. 589.
231 [UBG] 12: 527/3 (Klein to Max Noether on December 17, 1869).
232 Ibid., pp. 94, 352. The findings in Prym’s influential dissertation would be used and further
developed by Clebsch, Klein, Hilbert, and others.
233 This was in distinction to Schellbach’s mathematical-pedagogical seminar. On this mathema-
tical-scientific seminar, see BIERMANN 1988, pp. 89, 96–100, 279–81.
234 See BIERMANN 1988, p. 280.
66 2 Formative Groups

their choice.”235 In the vita submitted with his Habilitation materials, Klein noted
that, at the end of this semester, “I was pleasantly surprised by a friendly letter
from Professor Kummer, in which I was informed that I would be the recipient of
one of the two seminar prizes.”236 Kummer and Weierstrass assessed:
Berlin – January 31, 1870
Dr. Felix Klein from Düsseldorf completed his mathematical studies at the Universities of
Bonn and Göttingen to the extent that he has already earned the degree of Doctor of Philoso-
phy237 with honors. He has also already published a few good mathematical studies and, upon
the request of the late Prof. Plücker in Bonn, he has edited and published the incomplete work
that the latter left behind. For the winter semester of last year, he came to Berlin and enrolled
in the university here in order to join the Mathematical Seminar as an ordinary member. Since
then, he has participated enthusiastically in the seminar’s exercises and has given several
presentations which, with respect to their form, are to be deemed entirely excellent. Because
he has also conducted his scientific research with lively zeal and tireless diligence – sup-
ported by his good talent – it can be expected that he will distinguish himself scientifically as
a teacher of mathematics and that he will continue to be highly fruitful and productive.
Kummer (signed)
Weierstrass (signed)238

This report, which was sent to the Ministry of Culture, was certainly supportive of
Klein’s future career. The second prize of the semester went to the Viennese Pri-
vatdozent Otto Stolz, with whom Klein would remain in close contact. In other
semesters, Ludwig Kiepert, Eugen Netto, Georg Frobenius, and others were dis-
tinguished in the same way.239
Klein’s much-discussed seminar presentation on Cayley’s metric took place
after the semester had officially ended (see Section 2.5.3).

2.5.2 Acquaintances from the Mathematical Union: Kiepert, Lie, Stolz

The number of mathematics students in Berlin exceeded the limit of twelve who,
per semester, were allowed to participate in Kummer and Weierstrass’s Mathe-
matical Seminar. For this reason, those who were not accepted to join the seminar
had formed, in 1861, a Mathematical Union (Mathematischer Verein) in Berlin240
that was open to everyone and would serve as a model for similar organizations
elsewhere. The union collected membership dues, maintained a library, and was
intended to deepen the mathematical knowledge of its members via lectures, dis-
cussions, and problem-solving.

235 KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), pp. 15–16.

236 Quoted from TOBIES 1999a, p. 85.
237 The title “Doctor of Philosophy” comes from the tradition of mathematics belonging to the
Philosophical Faculty.
238 Quoted from LOREY 1926, p. 150.
239 See BIERMANN 1988, pp. 107–10.
240 [UAB] No. 559: Records of the Math. Student Union, May 1862–November 1935.
 2.5 Broadening His Horizons in Berlin 67

It was here that Felix Klein met Ludwig Kiepert, Sophus Lie, Otto Stolz,
Heinrich Bruns, Eugen Netto, Hermann Schubert, Max Simon, and others, most of
whom (with the exception of Lie, Stolz, and Schubert) completed their doctoral
degrees under Weierstrass and Kummer between 1867 and 1871.241 Schubert was
the academically active secondary-school teacher, mentioned above, who was
closely associated with Clebsch’s algebraic-geometric school (see 2.4.1). He
earned his doctorate in 1870 from the University of Halle. Heinrich Bruns and
Klein would reunite later as colleagues in Leipzig, where Bruns became a profes-
sor of astronomy. In 1869, however, it was Kiepert, Lie, and Stolz who proved to
be especially important for Klein’s development as a mathematician, for they in-
spired him to seek new research findings in a variety of different directions.
Ludwig Kiepert helped to familiarize Klein with Weierstrass’s areas of re-
search. While looking for contacts among the young mathematicians in Berlin,
Klein had asked Weierstrass for recommendations about whom, in particular, he
ought to know. Weierstrass recommended Kiepert, who attended his lectures from
October of 1865 to April of 1871. Kiepert had also served as Weierstrass’s
“blackboard writer” (since 1861, health issues had prevented Weierstrass from
writing on the blackboard himself). Kiepert reported that Weierstrass’s lectures on
Abelian functions in the summer semester of 1869 began with 107 attendees but
ended with just seven remaining students. “A master researcher […] but had many
difficulties as a teacher” was how Kiepert described his Doktorvater,242 who as-
signed to him a research topic on the theory of elliptic functions that he himself
had been unable to resolve.243 Even in his fourth year, Kiepert was still having
difficulties with Weierstrass’s lectures, and thus it is no surprise that Klein did not
devote too much of his time to them during his stay in Berlin.
Kiepert, who soon became one of Klein’s close friends, later wrote: “Most of
all, I owe thanks to Weierstrass for creating my friendship with Felix Klein.”244
Klein and Kiepert informed each other about their teachers’ lectures (Plücker’s
and Weierstrass’s, respectively). They traveled together, visited one another later
in life, and achieved – each in his own way – similar research results on such to-
pics as the transformation of elliptic functions, the solution of quintic equations,
and the complex multiplication of elliptic functions.245 In his Leipzig lectures on
the theory of elliptic functions, Klein would cite Kiepert’s findings in his expla-
nations of transformation theory: “Kiepert’s determinants,” “The Jacobian sum-
mation formula according to Kiepert.”246 In Klein’s estimation, Kiepert was the
one student of Weierstrass who contributed the most to the area of elliptic func-

241 BIERMANN 1988, p. 353.

242 KIEPERT 1926, p. 59.
243 See Weierstrass’s evaluation of Kiepert’s dissertation in BIERMANN 1988, pp. 117–18.
244 KIEPERT 1926 (memories about Weierstrass), p. 62.
245 Ibid., pp. 62–64; and [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10, pp. 49–120 (Kiepert’s letters to Klein).
246 Felix Klein, Theorie der elliptischen Funktionen, 2 parts (1884), transcribed by Biedermann
(held in the library of the Mathematical Institute, University of Leipzig), pp. 411–12.
68 2 Formative Groups

tions. Klein would later delve deeper into Weierstrass’s methods (see Section
5.5.2), and he acknowledged the influence that Weierstrass had on his work:
[B]ut in fact Weierstrass has strongly influenced all of us who, having grown up on another
soil, came to elliptic and related function. […] In my works on hyperelliptic and Abelian
functions of 1886–89 […], I have carried over to higher cases the idea of σ, and I mean, that I
have given their definitive form to Weierstrass’s thoughts on the decomposition of algebraic
functions on a Riemann surface into prime factors and units.247

Klein and Kiepert wanted to do what they could to overcome the historical aver-
sion that existed between the representatives of their respective schools. In 1881,
Kiepert, who had been a professor at the Technische Hochschule in Hanover since
1879, expressed this unequivocally in a letter to Klein: “Nothing came from the
animosity between [Jakob] Steiner and Plücker or of Kronecker’s behavior to-
wards Clebsch etc. Thus it is all more pleasing to me that you have remained my
faithful friend even though we come from entirely different schools.”248
On account of his differences with Kronecker, Kiepert decided in 1884 no
longer to publish his results in Crelle’s Journal. Since then, he instead sent his
articles to Klein, who published them in Mathematische Annalen or in the Göt-
tinger Nachrichten. While working as a professor in Hanover, Kiepert also served
as a consultant for a life-insurance company there. In the middle of the 1890s, he
helped Klein to establish the first ever university seminar devoted to actuarial sci-
ence in all of Germany (see Section 7.6).
The Norwegian mathematician Sophus Lie, whom Klein also first met in Ber-
lin, would turn out to be his most important mathematical collaborator.249 Klein
was able to cooperate with Lie immediately, because their work shared similar
points of departure. In Norway, a lecture by Hieronymus Zeuthen in 1868 had
inspired Lie to immerse himself in the works of Poncelet, Chasles, Plücker, and
others.250 Lie had sent his first published work to Clebsch, so Klein was already
familiar with it before he went to Berlin. Klein reported to his mother:
Among the young mathematicians here, I have made an acquaintance that seems very promi-
sing to me. The person in question is a Norwegian called Lie, whose name was already fami-
liar to me from an article that he had published in Christiania. We have been working in par-
ticular on similar subjects, so that there is no lack of material to discuss with him. We are not
only united by this common love but also by a certain repulsion to the way in which mathe-
matics here is made to seem superior to the mathematical achievements of others, especially
foreigners.251

Among the seventy-four mathematics students in Berlin during the winter semes-
ter of 1869/70, only a few were from abroad: three from Switzerland, one each
from Poland and Italy, the Norwegian Sophus Lie, and the Austrian Otto Stolz.

247 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 274–75.

248 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: A letter from Kiepert to Klein dated October 15, 1881.
249 On Lie’s biography, see STUBHAUG 2002; F. ENGEL 1899; and M. NOETHER 1900.
250 STUBHAUG 2002, p. 103.
251 Klein’s letter dated October 31, 1869; quoted from LIE 1934 (GMA I), p. 636.
 2.5 Broadening His Horizons in Berlin 69

Klein had heard condescending remarks about foreign science from university
administrators as well as professors, for instance when he paid an introductory
visit to the meteorologist Heinrich Wilhelm Dove.252 Because Weierstrass cited
other scholars so infrequently in his lectures, he was able to foster such an attitude
in his students, as the example of H.A. Schwarz would show (see Section 5.5.2.4).
Lie had his first publication (mentioned above) translated into German, and
submitted it to Crelle’s Journal.253 Klein was enthusiastic about their common
approach, and he began to edit an article that Lie was working on at the time:
“Über die Reciprocitäts-Verhältnisse des Reye’schen Complexes” [On the Recip-
rocity Relations of the Reye Complex], which Clebsch accepted for publication in
Göttinger Nachrichten.254 The article contained references to Max Noether’s tech-
nique for mapping the lines of a linear complex to points in three-dimensional
space and to Theodor Reye’s tetrahedral configuration (Reye complex).255
Just as Max Noether had thanked Klein in his article from 1869 (see Section
2.4.3), Sophus Lie would write the following at the end of his latest study: “For
the last two theorems I am indebted to Dr. Klein, with whom I hope to work to-
gether on a more comprehensive study of the pertinent congruences.” This article
contained important ideas in an embryonic stage: the idea of contact transforma-
tion (with which straight lines could be transformed into spheres; that is, Lie tur-
ned Plückerian line geometry into sphere geometry), and the idea that the Reye
complex defines a first-order partial differential equation. Klein would ultimately
incorporate these findings into his Erlangen Program.
Lie found it difficult to express his many important ideas in writing. Klein
was happy to assist him with this in order to immerse himself in Lie’s material.
He helped Lie to present his ideas systematically and he strengthened Lie’s argu-
mentation with conclusions by analogy. He boosted Lie’s self-confidence, and he
presented the latter’s work on the Reye complex in the Berlin Mathematical
Seminar because Lie still felt uncertain about his German skills.256 Lie wrote
home: “I regard it as an extraordinary stroke of luck that Klein, who is an out-
standing (if still young) pupil of Plücker and Clebsch, has remained in Berlin this
semester. We are traveling to Paris together, and if I get the stipend in question,
also to Milan and Cambridge.”257 Klein was to become the first German mathe-
matician to study in Paris again, after Plücker, Dirichlet and Jacobi, who had gone
there some decades before. In Paris, Klein and Lie would indeed successfully
carry on with their collaborative work (see Section 2.6). Later, Klein assessed:

252 Ibid.
253 LIE 1934 (GMA I), pp. 1–11 = “Ueber eine Darstellung des Imaginären in der Geometrie,”
Crelle’s Journal 71 (1869), pp. 346–53. See also STUBHAUG 2002, p. 109.
254 The article appeared in Göttinger Nachrichten (February 16, 1870), pp. 53–66.
255 See Max NOETHER 1900, p. 5; and, for further detail, ROWE 2019a.
256 STUBHAUG 2002, p. 136.
257 Quoted from ibid., p. 137.
70 2 Formative Groups

Lie was a highly productive researcher; his work stemmed from his own mind and he only
took on projects that were of immediate interest to him. For my part, already during my time
in Berlin I had formulated the ideal – to which I would remain true ever since – that I wanted
to achieve something in science by understanding and comparing different points of view. At
that time, as well as much later, I pursued my interests in physics as well. Unlike Lie, I was
not exclusively devoted to mathematics.258

In 1874, when Lie recommended that his student Elling Holst should study under
Klein, he wrote that Klein was “equally eminent as a researcher and teacher” and
that he possessed the ability to adapt to the thoughts of others.259 Later still, Klein
would support Lie’s career in an entirely extraordinary way (see Section 5.8.3).
Klein’s third influential acquaintance from Berlin, the Viennese Privatdozent
Otto Stolz, came to Germany in the fall of 1869 with a travel stipend from the
Austrian government. From Stolz, Klein learned of the existence of non-Euclidean
geometries, and he also gained access to Karl Georg Christian von Staudt’s pro-
jective geometry. In Klein’s words: “All the while, Stolz was not only my stern
critic but also my guide to scholarly literature. He had studied the works of Loba-
chevsky, János Bolyai, and von Staudt in detail, which I never could have forced
myself to do, and he was happy to answer all of my questions.”260
It should be highlighted that von Staudt had freed projective geometry from a
number of methodological shortcomings.261 Poncelet’s projective geometry grew
out of three-dimensional (Euclidean) geometry, in that it supplemented space or
planes with so-called “infinitely distant points” and replaced the term “parallel”
with the idea of lines “meeting in infinity.” This led to statements such as: “Two
different lines in a plane always intersect at exactly one point.” At first, however,
metric concepts such as distances and angles were still used, particularly for de-
fining cross-ratios. In general, projective geometry sought to synthesize geometric
results exclusively by using the concepts of “join” and “intersection.” In contrast
to his predecessors, von Staudt, in his book Geometrie der Lage [Geometry of
Position], strove for a metric-free conceptualization of geometry and only relied
on assumptions concerning the position and arrangement of points, lines, etc.
Klein recognized the possible connection between Cayley’s metric, non-Eu-
clidean geometry, and von Staudt’s new projective concept of the cross-ratio (also
called double ratio, a number associated with four collinear points). Klein outlined
his basic ideas while still in Berlin (see Section 2.5.3), and he worked on the topic
in greater detail after his stay in Paris and the interruption caused by the Franco-
Prussian war. In doing so, he had the good fortune that Otto Stolz had decided to
continue his studies with him in Göttingen (see Section 2.8.2). Stolz remained one
of Klein’s collaborators for many years. He published fifteen articles in Mathe-
matische Annalen and he was a reliable reviewer.

258 [Oslo] II (a text written by Klein on November 1, 1892), printed in ROWE 1992a, p. 589.
259 Quoted from STUBHAUG 2002, p. 236.
260 KLEIN 1923 (GMA I), p. 52. – Regarding Otto Stolz and Klein, see also BINDER 1989.
261 See Max Noether, “Zur Erinnerung an Karl Christian von Staudt,” Jahresbericht der DMV 32
(1923) Abt. 1, pp. 97–118, esp. 105, 112–14.
 2.5 Broadening His Horizons in Berlin 71

2.5.3 Cayley’s Metric and Klein’s Non-Euclidean Interpretation

This was the first research topic in which Klein intuited a connection that no one
had thought of before. He approached this projective metric from the perspective
of Plücker’s line geometry. Klein had been familiar for some time with the work
of Arthur Cayley, whose projective metric (first formulated in 1859) made it pos-
sible “to add the actual measurement itself to the general projective concept of the
cross-ratio.”262 Cayley had demonstrated that the usual (Euclidean) geometry
could be understood as being a part of projective geometry.263
Klein had first become aware of Cayley’s theory in the summer of 1869,
when he was reading Wilhelm Fiedler’s German translation of George Salmon’s
A Treatise on Conic Sections. In Berlin, Klein and Sophus Lie studied selections
of Cayley’s work together. In a letter to Lie, written after the latter had already left
Berlin for Göttingen, Klein explained: “Something new that I can tell you is that
Cayley has sent me his two works on cubic surfaces and reciprocal surfaces, se-
lections of which we had studied together from the Proceedings.”264 These studies
turned out to be useful for a lecture that Weierstrass had asked Klein to deliver
after the end of the semester (Weierstrass often continued his seminars after the
official end of the term).265 Klein had already informed Lie on March 8, 1870:
“Unfortunately, I will not be able to leave Berlin as early as I had intended,
namely on Thursday the 17th. On Friday evening I met with Weierstrass, and he
charged me with the task of delivering, on the 16th, my promised seminar lecture
about Cayley’s generalization of the concept of distance.”266
In his article from 1859, Cayley had introduced metrics to projective geome-
try via a fixed conic that he referred to as the “absolute,” which is determined by
considering projective transformations acting on a complex projective plane.
From this, he deduced the projective metric that is named after him. Klein recog-
nized the connection between Cayley’s study and non-Euclidean geometry after
Otto Stolz had informed him about Lobachevsky’s work.
In Klein’s letter from the time to Lie about his presentation, there is no sign of
frustration about Weierstrass’s attitude (Klein would often express such frustra-
tion later): “Last Wednesday evening, I delivered my lecture about Cayley in
Weierstrass’s seminar. On the next day, when I visited him to say farewell, Wei-
erstrass discussed things with me at length. Kummer had far less to say; he gave
me a copy of his work on ray systems to pass along to you.”267 In fact, it seems as

262 See Max NOETHER 1895, p. 468.

263 Arthur Cayley, “A Sixth Memoir Upon Quantics,” Philos. Trans. Royal Society of London
149 (1859), pp. 61–90.
264 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated March 10, 1870.
265 See HILDEBRANDT/STAUDE-HÖLDER 2014, p. 8.
266 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated March 8, 1870.
267 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated March 29, 1870. Kummer’s article was “Über
Strahlensysteme, deren Brennflächen Flächen vierten Grades mit sechzehn singulären Punken
sind,” Gesammelte Werke, ed. A. Weil (Berlin: Springer, 1975), vol. 2, pp. 418–32.
72 2 Formative Groups

though Klein’s conversation with Weierstrass led him to think more precisely
about the definition of the distance between two points: “My lecture about Cayley
was an occasion for me to propose the following definition of distance, which
agrees with Cayley’s definition in substance but has the advantage of providing
the related function entirely […] and thus transparently. Namely, I have replaced
the arccosine with the relevant integral.”268
Klein’s first intuitive idea did not persuade Weierstrass in the least, but later
he interpreted his approach as simply being a different way of discovering new
research results:
In February 1870 I gave a lecture on the Cayley metric in Weierstrass’s seminar, closing with
the question of whether this work didn’t extend and agree with Lobachevsky’s. As an answer
I was told that these were two completely different separate spheres of thought, and that the
first thing to be considered in the foundations of geometry is the idea of a line as the shortest
distance between two points.
I let myself be impressed by this rejection and put aside the idea I had already formed.
With respect to the logicians’ criticisms, which lay further from my interests, I was always
timid. Only very much later did I come to understand that this was a matter of a difference in
natural dispositions, and that the psychology of mathematical research conceals great prob-
lems. Weierstrass’s nature was obviously more attuned to careful inquiry, to building a path
to the summit step by step. It was less in his nature clearly to discern the outlines of distant
mountain peaks; at least in this case he made no use of such a view from the distance.269

In anticipation of his future work in 1871, it should be mentioned in passing how

Klein classified Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries with projective me-
thods. In his historical lectures, he explained his approach as follows:
From the beginning there was the task of studying the Cayley metric in the various cases that
arise by distinguishing the varieties of the second degree from the projective point of view.
Considering only varieties with real equations, these cases are:
a) true surfaces of the second degree:
1. real ruled (one-sheeted hyperboloid, hyperbolic paraboloid),
2. real unruled (ellipsoid, elliptic paraboloid, two-sheeted hyperboloid),
3. imaginary.
b) true curves of the second degree:
1. real (ellipse, parabola, hyperbola),
2. imaginary.
c) point-pairs:
1. real,
2. imaginary.
d) double point.

Klein explained further:

Case b, 2 gives the usual metric, if one takes the basic conic section – what Cayley calls “the
absolute” – to be the spherical circle. Cases a, 2 and a, 3 lead to just the two kinds of non-
Euclidean geometry that were distinguished by Gauß, Lobachevsky, Bolyai, and Riemann
and that are obtained from the usual geometry by taking the sum of the angles of a triangle to

268 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated March 29, 1870.
269 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 140. Klein often referred to Weierstrass as a “logician.”
 2.6 In Paris with Sophus Lie 73

be less than or greater than π. So these systems too have now been included in projective ge-
ometry and lost everything paradoxical. This is the simplest way to arrive at their characteris-
tic and at a conviction of their consistency.270

Gauss, Lobachevsky, Bolyai, and Riemann had already demonstrated that the ne-
gation of the Euclidean “parallel postulate” leads to different (non-Euclidean) ge-
ometries. It still remained to be shown, however, that these non-Euclidean ge-
ometries lack contradictions. Klein’s work was significant because he proved that
Cayley’s projective metric could serve as a model for non-Euclidean geometries
and because he derived the non-contradictory nature of the latter from that of
projective geometry.271 It would cost him much time and effort to convince those
who were skeptical about these non-Euclidean theories (see 2.8.2 and 2.8.3.3).

2.6 IN PARIS WITH SOPHUS LIE

My plan to receive an explicit order from the Ministry has failed. I have to restrict myself
simply to submitting an application in which I request diplomatic recommendations to travel
to Paris and London. Such recommendations may be advantageous, for instance, for gaining
access to the École Polytechnique or for viewing the larger collections of research mate-
rials.272

From April 19, 1870 until the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in July, Klein
spent his time in Paris. His father had recommended that he should request, for
this trip, an official order from the Prussian Ministry of Culture. The Ministry
responded to this request as follows: “We have no need for French or English
mathematics.”273 His second application, however, was successful. Felix Klein re-
ceived diplomatic recommendations and was later required to submit a report
about his activities abroad (see Appendix 1).
On April 17 (Easter Sunday), Klein was still at his parents’ home in Düssel-
dorf. From there he traveled to Aachen, where he visited relatives and also paid a
visit to the Theodor Reye, whose work had been central to Lie and Klein’s re-
search (see Section 2.5.2). In 1870, Reye had been made a professor of geometry
and graphical statics at the newly founded Royal Rhenish-Westphalian Polytech-
nical School (Königlich Rheinisch-Westphälische Polytechnische Schule, as of
1880: Technische Hochschule Aachen). Reye had attended lectures by Riemann in
Göttingen and had ultimately been influenced by Karl Culmann in Zurich.
Reye thanked Culmann (known from his book Die graphische Statik [Graphi-
cal Statics], published in 1866) for his reference to von Staudt’s Geometrie der
Lage [Geometry of Position]. Based on von Staudt’s work, Reye wrote a more

270 Ibid., p. 138. – For an interpretation of Klein’s classification with the terminology of mathe-
matical structuralism, see Francesca BIAGIOLI (2020).
271 See Hans REICHARDT 1985, pp. 239–40. – Regarding the concept of “model,” see also
SCHUBRING 2017.
272 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated March 8, 1870.
273 KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), p. 16.
74 2 Formative Groups

intelligible Geometrie der Lage (1866, 1868), which saw several editions. The
topic addressed in the second volume of his book – complexes – was a point of
reference for Lie and Klein.
From Aachen, Klein traveled on the overnight train to Paris, where Lie picked
him up at the Gare du Nord in the morning of April 19, 1870.274 The two of them
stayed in adjacent rooms at the Hôtel Molinié (Rue de l’École de Médicine 32),
and at the beginning of June they moved to the Hôtel Bellevue (Boulevard de
Montparnasse 35).275 Due to his knowledge of French, Klein gained access to Par-
isian institutions without a hitch, while Sophus Lie – who had arrived there a few
weeks before – was only able to make any contact with French mathematicians
with Klein at his side.276
In addition to their mathematical studies, they also enjoyed the Parisian life.
As Klein wrote to his mother on May 6, 1870, they dreamily roamed the streets
arm in arm.277 Lie reminded Klein of this great time several years later, while they
were attempting to schedule another trip to Paris together:
Do you not also think about a trip to Paris? It would be remarkable to meet in Paris again.
Then once again we could go to Sceaux and drink coffee among the trees, and even once
more admire the hippopotamuses in the zoological gardens, and perhaps even meet once more
at Closerie des Lilas. Think of it!278

2.6.1 Felix Klein and French Mathematicians

Gaston Darboux proved to be the key person in Klein’s growing network of

French mathematicians.279 Camille Jordan, who was twelve years older than
Klein, also gave a warm welcome to the mathematicians who came to him from
Clebsch.280 Every Monday, Klein and Lie were able to meet the seventy-seven-
year-old Michel Chasles at the Institute, where they also met the sixty-one-year-
old Joseph Liouville,281 who had published Evariste Galois’s group-theoretical
writings in 1846 in his Journal de Mathématiques Pures et Appliquées.
While in Paris, Klein and Lie found a receptive community for their geome-
trical work, which they had largely lacked in Berlin. Ever since being appointed a
professor of advanced geometry at the Sorbonne in 1846, Chasles – Darboux’s

274 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated April 13, 1870.
275 [Oslo] XXXIII, p. 8 (a letter from Klein to his mother dated May 6, 1870).
276 In Berlin, they had prepared for their stay in Paris by participating in a French conversation
course, but Lie had soon stopped attending. ([Oslo] XXXIII, p. 3, Klein to his mother,
January 15, 1870).
277 [Oslo] XXXIII, p. 8.
278 Quoted from STUBHAUG 2002, p. 288.
279 See TOBIES 2016; RICHTER 2015; and CROIZAT 2016.
280 Jordan had visited Clebsch in Göttingen in 1869 (HARTWICH 2005, p. 14). By that time, Lie
also considered himself to be a member of Clebsch’s school (see STUBHAUG 2002, p. 138).
281 See STUBHAUG 2002, p. 143; see also LÜTZEN 1990; VERDIER 2009.
 2.6 In Paris with Sophus Lie 75

doctoral supervisor – had developed an influential school in the area of projective

and metric geometry. These French geometricians made important contributions
in the field by introducing, as real structures, the spherical circle (Kugelkreis) in
the infinitely distant plane and circular points on the infinitely distant line. Klein
later described their influence on his and Sophus Lie’s work.282
After Darboux had introduced Klein and Lie to him, Chasles invited them for
dinner on April 27th.283 Moreover, Chasles would usher Klein and Lie’s collabora-
tive work from June of 1870 to publication (see Section 2.6.2.1). Two years later,
he became the first president of the Société Mathématique de France.
In 1870, Gaston Darboux had taken over the editorial duties of the Bulletin
des Sciences Mathématiques et Astronomiques with Jules Hoüel and Jules Tan-
nery, and they steered the journal in an international direction.284 Even before
Klein came to Paris, Darboux had surprised him with a letter in which he sug-
gested that they should work together. Klein responded as follows in a letter dated
March 25, 1870: “A few weeks ago, I looked at the first issue of your valuable
journal with Clebsch in Göttingen, and I look forward to the opportunity of colla-
borating on such an up-to-date undertaking.”285
Klein contributed to this publication venue, which he described as a review
journal, from its first (1870) to its eleventh volume (1876), and he was credited on
the title page of the Bulletin (see Fig. 9). Not until 1876, when Klein became the
chief editor (with Adolph Mayer) of Mathematische Annalen, did he step down
from his position as a reviewer for the Bulletin, but he made sure that the two
journals would continue to work closely together. In their report from July 7, 1870
to the Mathematical Student Union in Berlin, Klein and Lie expressed their
admiration for the Bulletin:
Allow us to go into greater detail regarding the Bulletin des Sciences Mathématiques et
Astronomiques. We believe that such a journal is a very useful but also a very difficult un-
dertaking that can only fully achieve its goals if it has a large number of predominantly native
collaborators in the disciplines that it covers. The Bulletin is not yet in such a favorable
position. And, indeed, it is not difficult to point to a number of imperfect judgements in the
volumes that have already appeared. However, the personality of the editor, G. Darboux,
whose talents we believe to be extraordinarily suited to this very purpose, strikes us as one
that will ensure that the Bulletin will become better and better over time. Most of its reviews
are distinguished by their expertise and clarity.286

They were pleased, moreover, by “one of the Bulletin’s main tendencies […],
which is to make the hitherto little-known modern branches of geometry and al-
gebra more familiar in France.” The journal published not only reviews but also
articles, including (translated) contributions by Klein and Lie.

282 KLEIN 1979 [1926] pp. 132–35.

283 [Oslo] XXXIII, p. 8–9.
284 See GISPERT 1987; NEUENSCHWANDER 1984; CROIZAT 2016, and HENRY/NABONNAND 2017.
285 [Paris] 41: A letter from Klein to Darboux dated March 25, 1870.
286 See here, and for the following quotation, [Oslo] A report by Klein and Lie dated July 7,
1870. (The German original report is published in TOBIES 2015).
76 2 Formative Groups

Figure 9: A title page of the Bulletin des Sciences Mathématiques et Astronomiques.

 2.6 In Paris with Sophus Lie 77

Their collaborative studies in Paris were also influenced by Camille Jordan, who
just had published Traité des substitutions et des équations algébriques, (Paris:
Gauthier-Villars, 1870). It has often been discussed how the Traité shaped Klein’s
thinking about group theory. In their mentioned report, Klein and Lie referred to
the work as a “singular phenomenon.” Even though they had yet to study it in
detail, the book introduced them to certain fundamental ideas:
C. Jordan, ingénieur des mines, absorbed himself in Galois’s theory of equations for about
five years, and he has made extraordinarily important advances in this discipline. In particu-
lar, he solved the problem of indicating all algebraically solvable equations of a given degree.
If we are not mistaken, his success is partly due to the idea of introducing the Galois imagi-
nary into the theory of linear substitutions. Without this instrument, one can reduce integer li-
near substitutions to a canonical form only in very special cases; with it, one can reduce all of
them.

In his Traité, Jordan not only developed Galois’s theory further. His aforementio-
ned visit to Clebsch in 1869 had expanded his perspective to include the findings
of Hesse, Clebsch, Kummer, and their (geometrical) equations in conjunction with
the related idea of (substitution) groups,287 something which would lead Klein and
Sophus Lie to their first application of the group concept (see Section 2.6.2.1).
Later, Klein expressed himself inconsistently about the extent to which Jor-
dan’s Traité had influenced him. In 1886, he asked Jordan for a (further) copy for
the new reading room at the University of Göttingen.288 In 1892, Klein said it
initially had only an“indirect stimulus” on his research. In 1921, he wrote that the
work at first seemed to them like “a book with seven seals.”289
On October 25, 1924, Klein wrote to Friedrich Engel in no uncertain terms
that Jordan’s work had revealed to them the “general significance of the group
concept,” and that Jordan’s article “Sur les groups de mouvement” and Galois’s
work demonstrated that “every equation possesses a particular group as soon as
one recognizes the area of rationality in which one operates.”290 In Jordan’s article
on motion groups (Annali di matematica pura ed applicata 2/3 [1868], pp. 167–
215, 322–45), “groups of transformations” are defined that in modern terminology
would be called semi-groups.291 Upon Clebsch’s request, Jordan had published an
introduction to Galois’s work in the first volume of Mathematische Annalen,292 a
text that Klein and Lie had already read before their trip to Paris.293

287 See, for example, pages 305–08, 427–30 in Jordan’s Traité. This could have been a starting
point for the international Galois field network, described by BRECHENMACHER 2016b.
288 [Paris-ÉP] 97: Klein to Camille Jordan, July 3, 1886.
289 [Oslo] II (a text by Klein dated November 1, 1892); KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 51.
290 This letter is appended to Engel’s article “Gruppentheorie und Grundlagen der Geometrie,”
Mitteilungen aus dem Mathematischen Seminar der Universität Gießen 35 (1945), pp. 1–22
(the letter appears on pp. 22–24, and the quotation here is from page 23).
291 See HOFMANN 1992; HOLLINGS 2014; and PORUBSKÝ 2018.
292 Camille Jordan, “Commentaire sur Galois,” Math. Ann. 1 (1868), pp. 141–60.
293 See Max NOETHER 1900, p. 8.
78 2 Formative Groups

Whereas, with Jordan’s Traité, group theory was regarded as an indispensable

instrument for the theory of equations (in which, Klein remarked, “a substitution
means a permutation of letters”), Klein and Lie ultimately attempted “to work out
the significance of group theory for various domains of mathematics.”294 Of
course, their group concept was quite different from its modern abstract formula-
tion.295 Klein later discussed the process of development from their intuitive (an-
schaulichen) group concept to the abstract formulation – but he could not refrain
from remarking that the latter, though “excellent for proofs,” “is not at all directed
to the discovery of new ideas and methods.”296

2.6.2 Collaborative Work with Sophus Lie

Klein’s letters to Lie show how he attempted to be an equal collaborator. Even

before their trip to Paris, he had written the following to him:
In Paris, I hope that I can be of more value to you than was possible in Berlin, where, as you
know, I was occupied with a wide variety of social obligations. No disruptions of this sort
will burden me in Paris, and I have no intention to let such things impose upon me there.
Your investigations are profoundly interesting to me. I feel infinitely unworthy to contribute
to them, especially when I think of the promise that I made myself to work on complexes as
much as possible. Since the last time I wrote to you, I have not yet spent even a quarter hour
working on mathematics.297

Yet even before their trip, they had both thought about publishing something to-
gether in Paris. Even before the letter quoted above, Klein had written to Lie: “I
am sticking to our project with the Paris Academy and, ever since I conceived of
it, I have not doubted its feasibility for a second. I share your conviction that our
studies will at least be as valuable as any of the multitude of articles published in
the Comptes Rendus.”298 They would indeed publish two articles together on so-
called W-configurations (see Section 2.6.2.1), and in July of 1870 they achieved
new results related to the Kummer surface (see Section 2.6.2.2).

2.6.2.1 Notes on W-Configurations

Klein and Lie had come to an understanding that they should publish their results
in the Comptes Rendus hebdomadaires des séances de l’Académie des sciences de
Paris (Comptes Rendus for short), the publication venue of the Académie des
Sciences. The reason for their confidence was Lie’s study on the Reye complex,

294 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 315.

295 See SCHOLZ 1989, pp. 103–09; and WUßING 2007.
296 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 316.
297 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated April 13, 1870.
298 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated March 9, 1870.
 2.6 In Paris with Sophus Lie 79

which Klein had edited for the Göttinger Nachrichten. In the proceedings of the
Parisian Académie for June 6th and 13th of 1870, Chasles indeed published their
“Deux notes sur une certaine famille de courbes et de surfaces” [Two Notes on a
Certain Family of Curves and Surfaces], which were five and four pages long,
respectively.299 In Paris, the publication process was simpler than it was in Berlin:
The articles in the Comptes Rendus typically serve the purpose of providing a preliminary
overview. The editors are very liberal in their acceptance of articles, perhaps too liberal. In
any case, the possibility of having one’s work published within eight days is extremely
pleasant. A facility of this sort is lacking in Germany, with the exception of the academy
proceedings that are published so quickly in the Göttinger Nachrichten.300

Their notes in the Comptes Rendus concerned previously overlooked curves or

surfaces that, “through a continuous closed family of ∞1 or ∞2 linear tetrahedral
transformations are mapped to themselves: W-curves and W-surfaces.”301 The
terms “W-curve” and “W-surface” derive from the fact that Sophus Lie, in his
conversations with Klein, used von Staudt’s projective term Wurf (throw) for the
cross-ratio. Later, Halphen would speak of courbes anharmoniques.302
Even though their notes on W-configurations were not without inaccuracies –
Klein corrected and supplemented these texts in his collected works (GMA I) –
they nevertheless brought to light, “for the first time, the significance of the con-
cept of a group of linear space transformations.”303 The expanded version of this
text, which was prepared by Klein for Mathematische Annalen and dated March
1871, contains a reference to Jordan’s Traité des substitutions et des équations
algébriques and the following footnote: “The expression ‘a closed system of
transformations’ fully corresponds to what one would call, in the theory of sub-
stitutions, ‘a group of substitutions’.”304
Max Noether wrote about Klein and Lie’s “equal familiarity with the operati-
ons of linear substitutions,” and he stressed: “Their introduction of the concept of
a closed system of transformations (Abgeschlossenheit einer Transformations-
schar), like the concept of commutativity (Vertauschbarkeit), derives from the
influence of Galois’s ideas, which, in the domain of discontinuous substitution
groups, were disseminated at the time through C. Jordan’s recently published
book and through his commentary on Galois that had been published a year earlier
in the first volume of Mathematische Annalen.”305

299 Comptes Rendus (June 1870), pp. 1222–26, 1275–79. (KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 415–23).
300 [Oslo] A report by Klein and Lie dated July 7, 1870 (published in TOBIES 2015).
301 Max NOETHER 1900, p. 6.
302 See KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 424–549, esp. 436; and NABONNAND 2008.
303 [Oslo] II: Klein’s notes dated November 1, 1892 (printed in ROWE 1992a, p. 591). According
to HAWKINS (1989, p. 284), “when Klein arrived in Berlin, he may have been more disposed
than Lie to perceive groups arising in a geometrical context.”
304 Felix Klein and Sophus Lie, “Ueber diejenigen ebenen Curven, welche durch ein geschlosse-
nes System von einfach unendlich vielen vertauschbaren Transformationen in sich überge-
hen,” Math. Ann. 4 (1871), pp. 50–84, at p. 56 (KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 424–59).
305 Max NOETHER 1900, p. 8.
80 2 Formative Groups

In 1892, Klein described how he and Sophus Lie divided their labor in their
work on W-configurations:
Everything new that we stated there about differential equations undoubtedly belongs to Lie;
on the other hand, I took it upon myself to work out the relationships to invariant theory and
to deal with a great number of details. Thus I was the first to observe that the famous theory
of the logarithmic spiral is subsumed here and that there is an analogous theory of the lo-
xodrome. From today’s understanding of things, this seems self-evident. At the time, howe-
ver, we were surprised that our projective ideas could be transferred to such transcendent con-
figurations of metric geometry.306

In his collected works (KLEIN GMA I), Klein classified these studies on W-con-
figurations as belonging to the period leading up to his Erlangen Program.

2.6.2.2 Principal Tangent Curves of the Kummer Surface

Klein and Lie achieved their main collaborative result at the beginning of July in
Paris. Because of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, they were not able to
complete this study until later in the year. At the end of July, however, while
Klein was back at his parents’ house in Düsseldorf, he sent a letter to Lie in Paris
with additional findings. This letter contains an explanatory sketch (see Fig. 10)
that would be included in their joint article, which was published by Ernst Eduard
Kummer in Berlin at the end of 1870. Because Klein’s letter with the sketch was
written during the war, it will be discussed below in Section 2.7.1. However, as
the insights in this article largely derive from their time together in Paris, they
should briefly be explained here.307
Even while in Berlin, Klein and Lie had sought to discover new results about
the properties of objects in three-dimensional space by using so-called “transfer
principles.” In Paris, French works on sphere geometry – in particular Darboux’s
works on confocal cyclides – inspired them to reach new conclusions via analogy.
Ultimately, Lie was able to discover analogies between the sphere geometry being
practiced in France and Plücker’s line geometry, and Klein discovered analogies
between line geometry and metric geometry. Incidentally, it should be mentioned
that, for Klein, so-called Dupin cyclides would later play a special role (see Sec-
tion 2.8.2).308 Their transfer principles allowed them to recognize the fundamental
similarities between the lines of curvature on cyclides and the principal tangent
curves (also known as “asymptotic curves”) on a Kummer surface. Toward the

306 [Oslo] II (printed in ROWE 1992a, p. 591). Lie commented: “The actual existence of W-curves
and their equations were your achievements” ([Oslo] LXI, No. 4, p. 23).
307 For a brief outline of Klein and Lie’s ideas in this article, see also PARSHALL/ROWE 1994, pp.
164–65.
308 See KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 51; and ROWE 2019b. Dupin cyclides are surfaces enveloped by
a two-parameter family of spheres. Klein would use Dupin’s Theorem, which states that the
surfaces in orthogonal families intersect along lines of curvature, to formulate a proof of a
theorem by analogy.
 2.6 In Paris with Sophus Lie 81

end of their article, they explained that it had been Sophus Lie who first observed
that the asymptotic curves of the Kummer surface (see Fig. 8 in 2.4.3) are alge-
braic curves of the sixteenth order.309 On the basis of this observation, Klein
found the correlation between those curves and the second-degree complexes that
belong to the Kummer surface, and he determined their singularities.310 When
Klein prepared this co-authored article to be reprinted in his collected works, he
added the following comment about the day of their insight in Paris:
In the beginning of July, 1870, I got up early one morning and wanted to start directly, when
Lie, who was still in bed, called me from his room and described to me the connection bet-
ween the principal tangent curves of a surface and the curvature curves of another surface that
he had found in the night in such a way that I did not understand a word. (It was concerned
with the line-sphere transformation, but instead of spheres, he operated, semi-intuitively, with
rectilinear hyperboloids that went through a fixed real conic section.) In any case, he con-
vinced me that the principal tangent curves to the Kummer surface must be algebraic curves
of order 16. Later that morning, while I was visiting the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, the
thought occurred to me that we must be dealing with those very curves of order 16 that ap-
peared already […] in my “Theorie der Linienkomplexe ersten und zweiten Grades,” and I
quickly succeeded in deducing the geometric considerations […] independently of the Lie
transformation. When I returned to our hotel at four o’clock in the afternoon, Lie had gone
out, and I left him a summary of my results in a letter.311

Klein did, after all, understand Lie’s line-to-sphere mapping, and he realized that
Lie’s claim regarding the principal tangent curves (asymptotic curves) of Kummer
surfaces was correct. As David Rowe has described in detail, Klein was now able
to deduce other properties of these curves via his theory of one-parameter families
of quadratic line complexes with a fixed singularity surface.312
Through these collaborations with Sophus Lie, Klein achieved a new general
understanding of the methods and objectives of geometry. That is, he recognized
that, in addition to the projective interpretation of algebraic surfaces, there is an
equally valid way of looking at things, according to which spheres play the same
invariant role that lines do in the projective approach. Here he also found an im-

309 During the same year, Lie would publish a separate article on this topic in Christiania as well
as in Paris, where it appeared as “Sur une transformation géometrique,” Comptes Rendus 71
(October 31, 1870), pp. 579–83.
310 See Felix Klein and Sophus Lie, “Über die Haupttangentencurven der Kummerschen Fläche
vierten Grades mit 16 Knotenpunkten,” Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie (December
15, 1870), pp. 891–99. This article was reprinted in Math. Ann. 23 (1884), pp. 579–86; and in
KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 90–97. For an English translation, see Felix Klein and Sophus Lie,
“On the Principal Tangent Curves of the Fourth-Degree Kummer Surface with 16 Nodes,”
trans. D.H. Delphenich (http://www.neo-classical-physics.info/uploads/3/4/3/6/34363841/
klein_lie_-_principal_tangent_curves_of_kummer_surfaces.pdf; accessed Dec. 10, 2019).
311 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 97. Klein, however, overemphasized his independence in this quota-
tion from 1921. In 1916, in his report to Friedrich Engel (see ENGEL/HEEGAARD 1922, p. 60),
Klein did not mention a letter but only that he understood the idea over the course of the day
and that he knew how to determine the characteristics of such curves of order 16. In the eve-
ning, Klein had told this to Lie. See [Oslo] XXXIII, p. 11.
312 See ROWE 2019a, pp. 188–91.
82 2 Formative Groups

petus for the ideas that he would present in his Erlangen Program. Published in
1872, the latter text begins by referring to the relation between projective me-
thods, metrical properties, and the imaginary circle at infinity common to all
spheres, and it also refers to the idea of transfer principles.313

2.6.3 A Report on Mathematics in Paris

Sophus Lie’s Nachlass contains a multi-page report on the state of mathematics in

Paris. Dated July 7, 1870, it is written in Klein’s hand and signed by both Klein
and Lie.314 This report about their experiences there, which was composed for the
Mathematical (Student) Union at the University of Berlin, was also sent to the
Prussian Minister of Culture Heinrich von Mühler (see Appendix 1): “I have writ-
ten to the Minister, to whom, as you know, I was obliged to send reports about
French and English mathematics. As evidence that I have worked according to my
proposed plan, I have also submitted to him our article in the Comptes Rendus and
a copy of the report that we sent to the Student Union in Berlin.”315
With their report, Klein and Lie provided an impressive overview of the status
of French mathematics at the time. They discussed the way in which mathematics
was taught there at various institutions, the students who were earning degrees,
the enrollment numbers in the lectures, people (mathematicians and also engi-
neers) who published new mathematical results, and the mathematical work that
had been produced there in recent years. Unlike the case of German universities,
all the university lectures in Paris were free and open to the public. Klein and Lie
were not very enthusiastic about this because it increased the student-teacher ratio.
At the same time, they missed the seminar activity that was common in Germany
as well as a mathematical library (Lese-Institut). While in Paris, it was only
through their private contacts that they were able to access new scholarly litera-
ture. Moreover, they regretted that the French mathematicians did not, in their
opinion, have a very close relationship with one another – a situation that would
soon improve with the aforementioned establishment of the Société Mathématique
de France.
Their comparison of German and French mathematical journals and the re-
spective ways in which articles were written in the two countries is especially
noteworthy. They preferred the French approach:
Compared to the German way, the French manner of editing mathematical studies has the ad-
vantage of incomparably greater clarity or – we should rather say – simplicity. In Germany,
one often adopts the method of condensing mathematical analyses as much as possible and
editing them in such a way that they can only be understood by those working in the same

313 KLEIN 2020 [1872], p. 1. See also sections 4 (on “Transfer of Properties by Mapping”) and 5
(on “Hesse’s Transfer Principles”) in this work.
314 As mentioned above, this report is published with commentary in TOBIES 2015.
315 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated December 30, 1870.
 2.7 The Franco-Prussian War and Klein’s Habilitation 83

discipline. By the manner of presentation that is customary here, this drawback is remedied,
even though the space that each communication takes is larger. It only takes a moment to rec-
ognize that the French manner of presentation has the absolute advantage. For the only rea-
sonable purpose of a mathematical study is to be understood; its purpose should not be to
arouse admiration for its author.316

All in all, Klein’s stay in Paris had a lasting influence on him. Throughout his
career, he would maintain a regular exchange of ideas with French mathematici-
ans; he would always discuss the latest works by French authors in his seminars;
he would send his students to study in Paris; and he would encourage his French
colleagues to contribute to Mathematische Annalen and to his later book projects.
Moreover, he supported students from France who came to study under him (on
Darboux’s recommendation above all). During the German reform of mathemati-
cal education, the French example repeatedly served as an argument for making
certain changes.317 Klein’s experience in Paris, and especially his tour of the coll-
ections at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, also increased his enthusiasm for
mathematical models318 and instruments. Among the latter, he was particularly
pleased to learn about new and less expensive reproduction methods by means of
lithography – a technique was used by mathematicians in France (and Italy) ear-
lier than it was in Germany.319

2.7 THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR AND KLEIN’S HABILITATION

We met two older gentlemen – that is, assessors – from Bonn, who led us over the battlefield
on August 19th. During the foot march, I spoke with them at length about my Habilitation
plans and other things. A wonderful coincidence: one of them was the same man who would
later be of the greatest importance to me: Althoff […].320

Nevertheless, now that the opportunity has arisen to write you a letter, I should not refrain
from offering you a sign of life […].321

Klein and Sophus Lie had to end their stay in Paris earlier than planned. On the
Saturday after the outbreak of the war (July 16, 1870),322 Klein traveled to his
parents’ home in Düsseldorf323 and, still in July, sent a letter to Lie in which he
discussed the spherical circle, complexes, and similar concepts (see below). This

316 Quoted from TOBIES 2015.

317 See, in particular, Sections 5.5.3; 7.4; 8.3.4; and 9.3.2 below.
318 See also BRECHENMACHER 2017.
319 See KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), pp. 22–23.
320 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22L, p. 3 (Klein’s “wartime reminiscences” for his children).
321 [Paris] 42: Klein to Darboux, February 14, 1871.
322 In one letter, Klein stated that the war had been declared on July 16th (see Appendix 1). It was
known that there had been a turbulent session in the French Senate on July 15th, in response to
which the German states of Bavaria and Prussia began to mobilize their troops on July 16th.
323 Both STUBHAUG (2002, p. 13) and PATTERSON (2016, p. 129) falsely claim that Klein trave-
led to Berlin.
84 2 Formative Groups

gave rise to the well-known story of Lie coming under suspicion of being a Ger-
man spy. Lie had Klein’s letter in his bag when he was detained in Fontainebleau
(approximately 55 kilometers southeast of Paris) in August of 1870. He was held
in custody until the 10th of September because he did not have a valid passport.
Lie turned to Chasles, Bertrand, and others for help, and Darboux ultimately trav-
eled to Fontainebleau and successfully arranged for his release. Immediately
thereafter, Lie set off on his intended course through Switzerland toward Italy.324
In the first of the following two sections, I will discuss Klein’s participation
as a paramedic in the Franco-Prussian War from August 16 to October 2, 1870,325
and I will consider the influence that the war had on his career and on his contacts
in France (Section 2.7.1). In the second (Section 2.7.2), I will focus on how the
war barely interrupted Klein’s mathematical train of thought and how, even on the
battlefield, Klein kept his intended Habilitation plan in mind.

2.7.1 Wartime Service as a Paramedic and Its Effects

This is no place to provide a detailed account of the war. It should only be stres-
sed that the French officially declared war on July 19, 1870, and that the German
forces were victorious over those of Napoleon III. On January 18, 1871, the Prus-
sian king Wilhelm I was crowned the German Emperor at the Palace of Versailles.
Likewise at Versailles, a preliminary peace treaty was signed on February 26,
1871. The German Empire was unified, and Otto von Bismarck was named its
first chancellor. Regarding the politics of higher education, it was relevant that, as
stipulated by the Treaty of Frankfurt am Main (ratified on May 10, 1871), Alsace-
Lorraine and thus the University of Strasbourg became part of Germany – a
situation that would last until 1918.
On July 29, 1870, Klein wrote from Düsseldorf to Sophus Lie in Paris about
his new ideas concerning their research on principal tangent curves (asymptotic
curves), and he included in this letter the sketch that I mentioned above (see Fig.
10).326 This same illustration would be printed in their joint article, which E.E.
Kummer published in the Sitzungsberichte of the Berlin Academy.327 Klein would
later even incorporate this image into the design of a gown for his fiancee (see
Section 3.6.1). In this letter, Klein also reported about his unsuitability for military
service: “Yesterday I was examined to determine my fitness for military service
and, for the time being, I was found to be unsuitable. Yesterday, too, I received a

324 See Gaston Darboux, “Sophus Lie,” Bull. Amer. Soc. 5 (1899), pp. 367–70; M. NOETHER
1900, p. 14; and STUBHAUG 2002, pp. 145–46.
325 See Klein’s vita from December 5, 1870 in TOBIES 1999a, p. 85. GRAY’s remark (2013, p.
489) that Klein “served in the Prussian army” misleadingly suggests that he was active in the
armed service.
326 In his letter to Lie, Klein added that the dashed line in this sketch (Fig. 10) was improperly
(that is, asymmetrically) drawn. The published article contains the correct version.
327 Reprinted in KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 94.
 2.7 The Franco-Prussian War and Klein’s Habilitation 85

preliminary response to the application in which I made myself available to the

Ministry of War.” He did not, however, receive the position of an intendance offi-
cial (an administrative official in the army), which he had expected.

[…] Yesterday, too, I received a

preliminary response to the
application in which I made myself
available to the Ministry of War.

It seems probable that I will be

deployed as an intendance official in

Muenster. Aside from that, things are

going extremely poorly for me. Even
less than usual, I have no idea of
what I should be doing,

and I am feeling crazier than ever

before. Although I have plenty of

delightful time to work, I dawdle

away all of this time by

doing nothing at all (etc.) in the

manner with which you are familiar.
– A few days ago, Wenker was
deployed to serve in the infantry.

Farewell. Greet everyone on my

behalf (Darboux, Jordan, Liouville,
et al.), and please let me hear
something from you soon.
Yours, Felix Klein

Figure 10: An excerpt of a letter from Klein to Lie dated July 29, 1870, including a sketch of the
asymptotic curves between two double points on a Kummer surface [Oslo].

After Klein had devoted eight days to second-degree complexes, pondering all the
while that he might “quietly work on mathematics by myself here throughout the
duration of the war,” he traveled to Bonn and joined an emergency volunteer or-
ganization (Nothelferverein). This organization equipped people with backpacks,
caps, and Red Cross armbands in order to send them onto the battlefield “with the
purpose of seeking out the wounded and providing them with refreshment, etc.,
hearing their final wishes, writing the necessary letters for them, etc.”328

328 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Sophus Lie dated August 8, 1870.
86 2 Formative Groups

Klein was serving as a paramedic in the Walloon region of Belgium when, on

August 19, 1870, he met Friedrich Althoff, who after the war would work as a
legal advisor and consultant for ecclesiastical and educational affairs at the (now)
Prussian university in Strasbourg and who, in 1882, would move to Berlin to take
a new position at the Prussian Ministry of Culture. Ten years older than Klein,
Althoff was already married and was likewise serving as a paramedic on the batt-
lefield. Their conversations during their march to Couvin, a municipality in the
province of Namur, concerned Klein’s plan for his Habilitation and created a
foundation for their future encounters.
Klein’s service as a paramedic was brief. When, approximately four weeks
later, he next wrote to Sophus Lie, he was convalescing in the Belgian city of
Bouillon. Having tended to wounded soldiers in Metz and Sedan, and having
evacuated field hospitals, his experiences were certainly not for the faint of heart,
though he acknowledged that he himself did not have to be “in the true fire.”329
His recovery, however, was soon followed by another illness: “I fell ill […] and
had to leave Château Thierry, which we had reached on foot. For more than
fourteen days, I have been at home receiving medical attention. My illness, which
consists of a gastric fever, is not at all dangerous, but it has lasted a long time.”330
Whereas Klein’s friend from school Albert Wenker died of typhus, Klein
himself was able to recover with plenty of bedrest at home. He kept to a strict diet,
and by the middle of November in 1870 he was healthy enough to receive a visit
from Sophus Lie, to finish their joint article on the principal tangent curves of the
Kummer surface, to submit his Habilitation materials, and to regain the attention
of the Prussian Ministry of Culture (see Appendix 1).
The peace treaty between Germany and France had not yet been signed, but
all that mattered to Klein and Lie was mathematics. From Düsseldorf, they sent a
letter in mid-November to Ernst Eduard Kummer in Berlin about their “research
on the fourth-degree surface with sixteen nodes,” to which Kummer responded on
the 26th of November with the suggestion that they should send him “what [they]
had discovered about this fourth-degree surface in a fully substantiated, if short,
form as a brief self-standing article.” Kummer hoped to present this article to the
board of the Academy and have it published, but he also expressed a tinge of
skepticism, noting that their work “might be seen by the mathematicians in Berlin
as a corruption of the development of geometry if the mere results are published
without the necessary justification.”331 This remark was probably meant as a slight
to many of the articles published in the Comptes Rendus and the Göttinger Nach-
richten as well. However, Klein and Lie were able to fulfill Kummer’s wishes
remarkably quickly. On December 14, 1870, Klein sent the manuscript of the co-
authored article to Kummer, who presented it to the Academy a day after he had

329 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated September 13, 1870.
330 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated October 18, 1870.
331 [Oslo] A letter from Kummer to Klein and Lie dated November 26, 1870.
 2.7 The Franco-Prussian War and Klein’s Habilitation 87

received it.332 The range of mathematicians to whom Klein thought to send

offprints of this article is an indication of how widely his network already exten-
ded: “Cayley, Sylvester, Salmon, Cremona, Battaglini, Beltrami, the mathematici-
ans from Berlin, Geiser, Sturm, Schroeter, Reye, Brill, Lüroth, and so on.”333
Klein’s later remark that the Franco-Prussian War, “though it affected all of
our experiences so profoundly, did not disrupt our scientific relationships as much
as one might now suppose,”334 is confirmed by his correspondence at the time.
Even before the peace treaty was signed, Klein had already reestablished contact
with Paris. A letter that he sent to Darboux on February 14, 1871 began with the
following words: “Dear Mr. Darboux! I don’t know where or how this letter will
find you or even if you will welcome it, coming as it does from my country.” The
twenty-one-year-old Klein described the course of events that his life had taken
and ended his letter with a hopeful wish for lasting peace:
After I so suddenly had to leave Paris, I joined a relief corps as a voluntary paramedic. As
such, I spent some time – until the end of September – on the front lines. My discharge from
this activity was not voluntary, for I had become significantly sick. I spent the entire time un-
til the new year as a convalescing patient, during which period I could not bring myself to en-
gage in any scientific work. A pleasant diversion for me was a visit from Lie, who came to
me on his way back to Christiania and who had completed his Habilitation in the meantime.
After the new year, I resumed my usual scientific activity; I went to Göttingen and settled at
the university. Of course, the enrollment of students there is extremely low at the moment.
People are not yet ready to resume the quiet activities of peacetime. I hope that things will
soon be better and remain so for a long time!335

For his part, Darboux reacted positively, and their exchange of letters resumed.
Klein would not return to Paris until 1887, but in the meantime he sent a number
of young mathematicians there (Ferdinand Lindemann, Walther Dyck, Eduard
Study, David Hilbert); he established contact with additional French mathemati-
cians; and he guided several young French students, who had been sent to study
under him by Darboux, toward producing publishable research.336
Whereas the First World War would later cause enormous differences be-
tween French and German scientists, the relationship between Klein and Darboux
in 1870 and 1871 was unaffected by such severe nationalistic excesses. This is not
to say that such passions were not heated in the scientific community at the time.
Among mathematicians, for instance, Ernst Eduard Kummer made patently anti-
French remarks,337 while Camille Jordan was decidedly anti-German. Later, how-

332 [Oslo] Klein to Lie, Dec. 13, 1870. For the article, see KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 90–97.
333 [Oslo] An undated letter from Klein to Lie (probably around the end of February in 1871).
334 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 51.
335 [Paris] 42: Klein to Darboux, February 14, 1871 (published in TOBIES 2016, p. 106).
336 See Section 5.4.2.1.
337 [Oslo] Kummer to Klein, Nov. 26, 1871: “In this war, France has shown itself to be a morally
depraved nation.” According to STUBHAUG (2002, p. 136), “Kummer’s ill-will toward the
French no doubt stemmed from his traumatic childhood experience, from the period when
Napoleon’s army invaded his hometown of Sorau and infected the populace with typhus.”
88 2 Formative Groups

ever, Jordan would overcome his overly nationalist tendencies when Klein sent
young mathematicians to study under him in Paris.338 In 1870, the anti-French
attitude of the meteorologist Heinrich Wilhelm Dove, which Klein had encoun-
tered in Berlin, was reflected in the stance of his eldest son, Richard Wilhelm
Dove, in a drastic manner. The latter, who was then the Prorektor of the Univer-
sity of Göttingen, officially endorsed the idea that Paris should be bombarded
with cannon fire, and he was celebrated throughout Germany for doing so.339
Richard Wilhelm Dove, a professor of canon law at the University of Göttingen
and member of the National Liberal Party, is also worth mentioning here because
the non-partisan Felix Klein would later succeed him as the University of Göttin-
gen’s representative in the Prussian House of Lords (see Section 8.3.4.1).

2.7.2 Habilitation

Then I spent three days in Göttingen. It seems fairly certain that I will complete my Habilita-
tion there, which, as you also expressed, would be the most reasonable thing for me to do.340

Klein had discussed the next steps of his career with Sophus Lie and, with
Clebsch’s advice, he had already determined what he ought to do even before his
trip to Paris. On December 5, 1870, Klein sent the following application to the
Philosophical Faculty of the University of Göttingen:
Allow me to present to the esteemed Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Göttingen my
humble request to be appointed a Privatdozent of mathematics there on the basis of the fol-
lowing enclosed documents:
1. A doctoral diploma,
2. A curriculum vitae,
3. Copies of the publications listed in my curriculum vitae.
I have submitted this application to the esteemed Faculty from my hometown because I am
presently recovering there from the consequences of a long illness that will detain me until
the new year. While convalescing, however, I do not wish to delay this application any lon-
ger, for I had hoped to submit it before the beginning of the semester. So as not to waste any
further time, please allow me to suggest that I deliver a probationary lecture on one of the
following three topics:
1. A demonstration of a model of Plücker’s general complex surface;
2. On those curves that are satisfied by a linear differential equation of the first order;
3. On the fourth-degree Kummer surface with sixteen nodes.

338 Commenting on a letter that Jordan had written to Clebsch, Klein remarked that Jordan’s
response was “not something to be expected from a thoughtful man; every line was full of
patriotic (that is, French) passion. He terminated his membership with the Academy here and
thereby broke off all relations.” [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated July 12, 1871. –
[Lindemann] Memoires, p. 68. On April 2, 1886, Hilbert wrote to Klein that Jordan had gone
out of his way to ensure that they (Hilbert and Study) would warmly greet Klein on his behalf
and inform him that all of his eight children could speak German (see FREI 1985, p. 4).
339 [Lindemann] Memoires, p. 39.
340 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated March 29, 1870.
 2.7 The Franco-Prussian War and Klein’s Habilitation 89

If possible, I would like to request that this lecture should be scheduled to take place during
the first days of the new year.
With the utmost respect,
Dr. Felix Klein341

The copies of publications listed in Klein’s curriculum vitae included his doctoral
dissertation, his edition of the second volume of Plücker’s Liniengeometrie, his
articles from 1869, and his co-authored articles with Sophus Lie that appeared in
the Comptes Rendus. Klein did not have to submit an independent Habilitation
thesis, but this was not unusual at the time. Clebsch himself had earned his Ha-
bilitation without submitting such a thesis.342
Two days after receiving Klein’s application, Alfred Clebsch wrote:
Dr. F. Klein, whom I have known personally and through his writing for a long time, has
shown through his talent, knowledge, and relatively early achievements that he can meet the
highest expectations, and I believe that the Faculty can only rejoice that he has decided to
pursue his first professional activity here in Göttingen. Among the proposed topics of his pro-
bationary lecture, I would vote for the first.343

It already seemed somewhat certain in advance that Clebsch would choose the
first topic, since Klein had informed Lie early on: “Incidentally, I have already
applied to Göttingen and, as the topic of my probationary lecture, I have chosen to
give a demonstration of Wenker’s model.”344 Klein had already given a lecture in
Berlin on Albert Wenker’s model of Plücker’s general complex surface (see Sec-
tion 2.4.3). After Klein had arrived in Göttingen on January 2, 1871,345 the dean
of the Philosophical Faculty, Karl Hoeck,346 issued an invitation to attend “The
probationary lecture and colloquium of Dr. Felix Klein on next Sunday, the 7th of
January, at six o’clock,” and he assigned Clebsch the task of leading the collo-
quium. Later, Klein reported about this event to Wilhelm Lorey:
It was much simpler then than it is now. My previously published studies were kindly accep-
ted as my Habilitation thesis. At the dean’s house, where wine and cake were served, I gave a
lecture to the assembled honorary faculty (ca. eight members), who were all sitting around the
table, about a model that I had made of Plücker’s general complex surface, and then I answe-
red a few questions from Clebsch on that topic.347

In addition to the dean and Clebsch, the following other participants were in at-
tendance: the historian Georg Waitz, the botanist Friedrich Gottlieb Bartling, the
physicist Wilhelm Weber, the philosopher Hermann Lotze, the geologist Wolf-

341 [UAG] Phil. Dek. 156 (1870/1871), pp. 510–12 (quoted from TOBIES 1999a, p. 84).
342 See BIERMANN 1988, pp. 363–68. In Berlin, the Habilitation thesis did not become a require-
ment until 1883, and the first to be submitted there were by Johannes Knoblauch (on March
15, 1883) and Carl Runge (on June 6, 1883).
343 Quoted from TOBIES 1999a, p. 86 (a handwritten document by Clebsch dated Dec. 7, 1870).
344 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Sophus Lie dated December 12, 1870.
345 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated January 15, 1871.
346 A classical historian, Hoeck was also the director of the Göttingen University Library.
347 Quoted from LOREY 1916, p. 191.
90 2 Formative Groups

gang Sartorius von Waltershausen,348 the theologian and orientalist Ernst Ber-
theau, the Germanist Wilhelm Müller, and the Protestant theologian Friedrich
Ehrenfeuchter.349 In 1885, Wilhelm Müller would be the dean of the Faculty when
Klein’s appointment to Göttingen as a full professor was discussed (see Section
5.8.2). Georg Waitz, Wilhelm Weber, and Hermann Lotze would likewise serve
as important contacts for Klein later on.
On January 7, 1871, Dean Karl Hoeck made the following remarks in Klein’s
Habilitation file: “He has met all academic requirements in an outstanding way;
even the external form of his lecture met with general approval.” The Faculty
submitted an application to the Royal University Curatorium in which it was rec-
ommended that “[…] Dr. Klein be provisionally granted the venia legendi in the
subject of mathematics.” This request was approved – “provisionally for a period
of two years” – on January 13, 1871.350

2.8 TIME AS A PRIVATDOZENT IN GÖTTINGEN

Dr. Klein, who is fully here now, has told me much about the pleasant time that he experi-
enced in Paris. As always, he is very industrious […]; I am happy to have gained such an ac-
tive and amiable colleague here.351

In the letter quoted above to Camille Jordan, Clebsch demonstrated his apprecia-
tion for Klein, who produced new research results, took up his ideas, and even
took the time to read through the proofs of Clebsch’s articles. Klein gave his
lecture courses and exercises, supervised advanced students, and participated in
the many social engagements to which the Privatdozenten felt obliged: attending
balls, carousing in pubs, and going to academic sessions.352 In a letter to Lie from
February 9, 1872, Klein remarked: “Fathers who have daughters invite me, even if
I have yet to pay a formal visit. What is one supposed to do in such a situation?”
On November 4, 1871, with Clebsch’s endorsement, Klein was made an As-
sessor (committee member, assistant) of the Mathematical Class of Göttingen’s
Royal Society of Sciences (known as the Academy of Sciences since 1942). At
the same meeting, Arthur Cayley (Cambridge) had been named an external mem-
ber of this society, and Ludwig Schlaefli (Bern) and Hermann Grassmann (Stettin)
had been appointed corresponding members.353 Klein had already made successful

348 Wolfgang Sartorius von Waltershausen had contributed to Gauss’s research on the earth’s
magnetic field. A close friend of Gauss, he wrote the book Gauß zum Gedächnis [In Memory
of Gauss] (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1856).
349 [UAG] Phil. Dek. 156 (1870/1871), p. 509.
350 Ibid., pp. 517–18.
351 A letter from Clebsch to Jordan dated March 5, 1871 (quoted from LÊ 2015, p. 171).
352 [Oslo] Two letters from Klein to Sophus Lie (one undated from the beginning of 1871 and the
other dated January 1, 1871).
353 Klein’s and also Grassmann’s appointment were approved by sixteen of the eighteen voting
members; Cayley and Schlaefli were elected unanimously. [AdW Göttingen] Pers. 12, p. 288.
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 91

use of studies by Cayley, Schlaefli, and Grassmann, and now, as an Assessor, he

could submit his own results for publication in the Academy’s proceedings.
Clebsch repeatedly drew attention to Klein’s work in his publications.354 He
helped his favorite student receive a professorship in Erlangen early on, and he
still ensured on October 12, 1872, before his untimely death from diphtheria on
November 7, that Klein was named a corresponding member of the Academy in
Göttingen (along with Sophus Lie and Adolph Mayer).355
As a Privatdozent, Klein was still financially dependent on his parents, and in
1871 he had to cancel a trip that he had planned to visit Lie in Norway (see Sec-
tion 2.1.1). His only source of income was the fees that students had to pay to at-
tend his “private” courses. Klein’s courses are considered in the context of the
members of the Seminar of mathematics and physics (see Section 2.8.1).
The many works that Klein completed during this time are evidence of a
higher level of productivity in his research life: further studies on the relationship
between line geometry and metric geometry; essential new ideas for the theory of
equations; the development of his ideas on non-Euclidean geometry; fundamental
thoughts on how to systematize various branches of geometry; ideas about how to
model and classify cubic surfaces. All of this was accomplished nearly simultane-
ously, and his studies from this time involved closely related approaches to those
that he would later develop more deeply in his Erlangen Program. I will investi-
gate the trends that defined Klein’s research there and the conditions that enabled
this creative phase, during which he also supervised his first doctoral student (see
Section 2.8.2).
It will also be shown how Klein was engaged in mathematical and non-
mathematical circles in Göttingen and elsewhere. He followed Clebsch’s idea of
unification, but also his own social drive (Section 2.8.3).

2.8.1 Klein’s Teaching Activity and Its Context

Every semester, the Göttinger Nachrichten announced the courses that would be
taught at the university.356 After being granted the venia legendi on January 13,
1871, Klein offered exercises during the ongoing semester on “select chapters of
geometry” (two hours per week),357 and he explained to Sophus Lie: “I am living
quite happily and, as a so-called privatissimum, I have already begun to teach
mathematical exercises, for which I have six students.”358 In the subsequent sum-

354 See, for instance, Göttinger Nachrichten (Dec. 6, 1872), pp. 621–23; CLEBSCH 1872, p. 26.
355 [AdW Göttingen] Pers. 20 (Clebsch’s proposals). Clebsch fell ill while travelling to the Mi-
nistry of Culture in Berlin to discuss a job offer that he had received from the University of
Vienna. See Göttinger Nachrichten (1875), p. 265.
356 See https://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/sammlungen-historische-bestaende/alte-drucke-1501-
1900/historische-vorlesungsverzeichnisse/#c9191.
357 See KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), Appendix, p. 4.
358 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated January 22, 1871.
92 2 Formative Groups

mer semester in 1871, Klein formulated his course offerings without indicating
their exact times or hours per week (see Table 4). His lectures on Plücker’s com-
plexes were attended by five students, and his lectures on theoretical optics were
attended by nine.359 In order to provide a better idea of Klein’s teaching activity as
a Privatdozent, it will be necessary to introduce the Royal Mathematical and Phy-
sical Seminar (Kgl. mathematisch-physikalisches Seminar) as well as his collea-
gues there. Both are of interest, because the Seminar and most of these colleagues
would still be there when, fifteen years later, Klein would return as a professor to
Göttingen and serve as one of the directors of this Seminar.
In 1850, Moritz Abraham Stern (b. 1807)360 had founded the Royal Mathe-
matical and Physical Seminar, which had been based on a similar institution at the
University of Halle (founded in 1839). The stated aim was to offer a “coherent
and systematic curriculum” that would encourage students, future secondary
school teachers of mathematics and physics, “to stay longer in Göttingen.” The
founding statute of the Seminar obliged its members to participate, on a weekly
basis, in two hours of mathematical exercises and up to four hours of exercises in
physics.361
Within the framework of the Seminar, M.A. Stern and Georg Ulrich (b. 1798)
directed the mathematics division, while Wilhelm Weber (b. 1804) and J.B. Lis-
ting (b. 1808) led the physics division.362 Ernst Schering (b. 1833) offered exerci-
ses on magnetism. In addition, the following other course listings were announced
for the Seminar: “Prof. Ulrich, mathematical exercises, Wed., 8 o’clock,” “Prof.
Stern on certain properties of continued fractions, Wed., 8 o’clock,” “Prof. Klin-
kerfues, one meeting per week: instruction in astronomical observations,” “Prof.
Listing, exercises in physics.”363
Whereas Gauss, Dirichlet, and Riemann had never participated in this Semi-
nar, Clebsch followed the example of the Königsberg school364 and intentionally
used it as a venue for teaching the latest research in the field. This is also eviden-
ced by the seminar that he and Felix Klein co-taught in the summer of 1872.365
For Klein, this manner of teaching would serve as a model throughout his career.

359 Klein kept a list of all the students who participated in his lectures and seminars from 1872 to
1920, a document that is preserved in [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7 E. The figures cited here
are from pages 1–2 of this list.
360 Regarding M.A. Stern see also below, and SCHMITZ 2006.
361 A brief history of this Seminar is contained in [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 2 E, pp. 13–14.
362 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 2 E, pp. 13–14.
363 See Göttinger Nachrichten (1871), pp. 64, 66; and [UAG] Math. Nat. 0012 (current affairs).
364 See also OLESKO 1991.
365 See below Section 2.8.2, and [Protocols] vol. 1.
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 93

Table 4: A list of course offerings in mathematics, physics, and astronomy at the

University of Göttingen for the summer semester of 1871.366

Instructor Course Title Days Time

Prof. Ulrich Stereometry with Spherical M, T, Th, F 10 AM
Trigonometry
Prof. Ulrich Practical Geometry with Exercises in 4 hours/week 5–7 PM
the Field
Prof. Clebsch Analytical Geometry of Surfaces M, T, Th, F 12 PM
Prof. Clebsch Select Chapters of Higher M, T 11 AM
Geometry
Prof. Stern Theory of Numerical Equations 4 hours/week 8 AM
Prof. Stern Differential and Integral Calculus 5 hours/week 7 PM
Prof. Enneper Theory of Definite Integrals M, T, W, Th, F 10 AM
Prof. Schering Functions of Complex Variables, esp. 4 hours/week. 9 AM
Elliptic, Abelian, and Riemannian
Functions
Dr. Klein On Plücker’s Complexes 1 or 2 hours/week
(free of charge)
Dr. Minnigerode Theory of Linear Partial Differential 4 hours/week
Equations and Their Applications to
Mathematical Physics
Dr. Klein On Theoretical Optics 4 hours/week
Prof. Clebsch Exercises on Topics in Newer W (public) 12 PM
Algebra
Prof. Schering Magnetic Exercises (for members of Friday 6 PM
the Math. and Physical Seminar)
Dr. Klein Mathematical Exercises on Some
Aspects of Geometry
Prof. Klinkerfues Spherical Astronomy M, T, Th, F 12 PM
Prof. Weber Physics, First Part M, T, Th, F 5–6 PM
Prof. Listing Optics, Including Crystal Optics 4 hours/week 12 PM
Prof. Listing On the Eye and the Microscope Private instruction
during available hours
Prof. Listing Exercises in Practical Physics Saturday 10–12

366 Göttinger Nachrichten (1871), pp. 63–65.

94 2 Formative Groups

Along with Gauss as professor of astronomy, Georg Ulrich had been a full
professor of mathematics since 1831. In addition, he was a government councilor
and was responsible for examining teaching candidates in mathematics and phy-
sics. His lectures concerned practical geometry, mechanics, analysis, and other
areas of geometry, but he did not incorporate the latest research methods in his
teaching.367
Moritz Abraham Stern was the first unbaptized mathematician from a Jewish
family to become a full professor at a German university, though he was first of-
fered this position thirty years after his doctoral examinations, which Gauss had
evaluated as summa cum laude in 1829. Already a Privatdozent in 1829, Stern had
to wait nineteen years before becoming an associate professor (Professor extraor-
dinarius). His lucid lecturing style was generally praised.368 According to Aurel
Voss, however, the content of Stern’s lectures seldom extended beyond the
mathematics of Fourier’s time (d. 1830).369 Ferdinand Lindemann, who attended
Stern’s lectures on algebraic analysis in 1870/71, reported that Stern based his
lectures on his own book, “in a fairly modern style, because all operations were at
first only supposed to have a symbolic meaning, and only afterwards did he men-
tion their application to the numerical system.”370
Klein had already attended some of Stern’s lectures in 1869 (see Section
2.4.1), and he maintained a good relationship with both Stern and his son Alfred
for many years. When Klein returned to Göttingen as a full professor in 1886, it
was Stern’s position that he was appointed to fill (see Section 5.8.2).
Around the year 1871, the physicist Wilhelm Weber, who had once collabo-
rated with Gauss (famous for the Gauss-Weber telegraph, 1833), was said to have
conducted mostly unsuccessful experiments. He also maintained a heated polemic
with Hermann von Helmholtz (b. 1821).371 Klein, on the contrary, integrated
Helmholtz’s law on the conservation of force into his teaching and did not take
much interest in Weber’s field of research at the time.372
Johann Benedict Listing, who had earned his doctoral degree under Gauss in
1834, was made an associate professor of physics in 1839 and a full professor of
mathematics in 1849. He coined such terms as “geoid” and “topology,” though
mathematicians still – for a long time – used the older notion analysis situs for the
latter area of research. Aurel Voss, who had attended Listing’s lectures, remarked

367 See VOSS 1919, p. 280.

368 It was appreciated, for instance, by Richard Dedekind. See LOREY 1916, pp. 81–82.
369 VOSS 1919, p. 280.
370 [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 40. The book in question is M.A. Stern, Lehrbuch der algebrai-
schen Analysis (Heidelberg: C.F. Winter, 1860).
371 [Lindemann] Memoirs, pp. 40–41. In particular, Weber took issue with Helmholtz’s book On
the Conservation of Force, which was originally published in German in 1847.
372 See KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), p. 15. On the polemic between W. Weber and Helmholtz
and the latter’s plea to orient physics around empirically tested natural laws, see Helmholz’s
preface to Thomson and Tait’s Handbuch der theoretischen Physik (Braunschweig: Vieweg,
1871, pp. VIII–IX); and KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 22–23.
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 95

that “his over-abundant use of ingenious terminology was not always well-suited
for promoting genuine insight.”373 This was a time in which surface topology was
developing into an independent subdiscipline and topological methods were first
being incorporated into the study of projective geometry. Later, Felix Klein would
play a role in these developments:
By establishing the idea of a group and the notion of space as a number manifold, Klein
managed to produce a concise summary of Listing’s definitions, which one could formulate
as follows: the task of analysis situs consists in determining all of those properties of spatial
configurations that behave invariantly toward the group of all continuous transformations of
space.374

Alfred Enneper (b. 1830) had likewise studied under Gauss. Although he had
completed his Habilitation in 1859, he would not become an associate professor
until 1870. Klein made use of his findings in differential geometry and also sent
them to Sophus Lie.375 According to Aurel Voss’s judgement, Enneper had a good
knowledge of recent French and Italian scholarship, and he prepared his lectures
meticulously. Nevertheless, his lectures were sparsely attended (Lindemann re-
ported the presence of only two or three students). The whole time, Enneper only
looked at the blackboard and wrote down his lecture systematically and flaw-
lessly, without any written notes.376
Ernst Schering, who had been a full professor of mathematics since 1868 and
was one of the directors of the observatory for theoretical astronomy and geod-
esy,377 was primarily engaged in editing Gauss’s collected works for the Göttin-
gen Royal Society of Sciences – a project that Klein would carry on after Scher-
ing’s death (see Section 8.3.1). In 1885, Schering would oppose hiring Klein as a
full professor in Göttingen on the grounds that Klein belonged to a different sci-
entific school (see Appendix 4.2). For the same reason, Clebsch, too, after he had
moved to Göttingen to take up his professorship in 1868, had to endure Schering’s
utter lack of friendliness “to an unbelievable extent.”378
An associate professor as of 1867, the astronomer Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm
Klinkerfues (b. 1827) was for various reasons unable to teach his scheduled
courses at the time.379
Bernhard Minnigerode (b. 1837), who was one of Klein’s fellow Privatdoz-
enten in Göttingen, had studied under Riemann and had completed his Habilita-
tion in 1866. In 1874, he became an associate professor in Greifswald, where he
was promoted to full professor in 1885. While in Greifswald, Minnigerode fo-
cused on classifying crystal groups by means of a geometric group concept. Later,

373 VOSS 1919, p. 280.

374 DEHN/HEEGAARD 1907, p. 154. See also SCHOLZ 1980, pp. 142–79.
375 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated February 1, 1872.
376 See VOSS 1919, p. 280; and [Lindemann] Memoirs, pp. 40, 42.
377 See Göttinger Nachrichten (1875), p. 282.
378 [Deutsches Museum] No. 1968-2/2 (Clebsch to M.A. Stern on August 8, 1868).
379 [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 44.
96 2 Formative Groups

this approach would be superseded by Arthur Schoenflies’s studies of elementary

spatial groups – studies encouraged by Klein (see Section 6.3.6.1).
Alfred Clebsch impressed his students not only with the content of his lectu-
res but also with his rhetorically sophisticated lecturing style. In the summer of
1871, between twenty and thirty students attended his lectures.380 In the summer
of 1872, he delivered lectures on the theory of elliptic functions to more than se-
venty students, including Klein and Lindemann.381
Whereas, in the future, Klein would use his semester breaks to prepare new
lectures, he at first had little time for that: “I prepared from one lecture to the next
as best as I could, for which my friends in physics, Riecke and Neesen, were
especially helpful.”382 That he much rather would have been teaching and conduc-
ting research in mathematics instead of physics is evident from his letters at the
time. In order to earn more money during his first two semesters, he had to con-
centrate on theoretical physics. In his later autobiography, Klein interpreted this as
“his plan to become a physicist.”383 In September of 1871, however, he wrote the
following to Gaston Darboux: “My own work has been slowed down considerably
by my lecture on theoretical optics.”384 To Sophus Lie, Klein wrote:
Yet perhaps one also sees things with less prejudice if one possesses an overview of
neighboring disciplines (I count theoretical physics as one of these). This is approximately
how I motivate myself when I now have to deal with physics, etc. The next and only cogent
reason that I do this, however, is due to the conditions at the university here, which barely
allow me to teach anything but physics. That said, I am quite attracted right now to the notion
of mathematical physics as it is practiced by W.[illiam] Thomson. Just as he has regenerated
mathematical physics by placing its physical content in the foreground, I think it would be
possible to regenerate geometry in a similar way.385

Klein’s lectures in physics were thus a temporary solution. Nevertheless, he im-

mersed himself in the material and even conducted experiments, as Eduard Riecke
reported (see Appendix 10.1). In the winter semester of 1871/72, eleven students
attended Klein’s lectures “On the Interaction of Natural Forces and the Law of the
Conservation of Force.” In these lectures, Klein discussed the theory of heat and
electricity, for which he relied especially on William Thomson and Peter Guthrie
Tait’s Treatise on Natural Philosophy (vol. 1, 1867),386 which had been recom-
mended to him by his Scottish friend William Robertson Smith.387
In a letter to Plücker’s widow, Klein still expressed certain reservations about
having to teach physics: “I returned here from Düsseldorf in September. Fourteen

380 [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 41

381 See LOREY 1916, p. 161.
382 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22 L: 4, p. 5.
383 KLEIN 1923a, p. 17.
384 [Paris] 45: A letter from Klein to Darboux dated September 5, 1871.
385 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated October 1, 1871.
386 Trans. into German by G. Wertheim, edited by H. v. Helmholtz (Handbuch der theoretischen
Physik). Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1871.
387 For further discussion of Klein’s relationship with W.R. Smith, see Section 3.3.
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 97

days ago, the semester began with its dreaded lectures. I have ten to twelve regu-
lar students and can thus be quite content. In general, the mathematical conditions
are as lovely as ever; there have never been so many students.”388 It should be
mentioned that both of Klein’s physics lectures, in the summer of 1871 and the
winter of 1871/72, were attended by Richard Börnstein, who later became a pro-
minent physicist and meteorologist. At the time, the latter was close to completing
his doctoral degree under Wilhelm Weber’s supervision in 1872.389 In the case of
theoretical physics, Klein filled a gap at the university; his own field, geometry,
was already represented by Clebsch at the time.
During the winter semester of 1871/72, Klein’s hour-long public lecture, “On
the Application of Transformations in Geometry,” was attended by only four stu-
dents. Among these were his friend Friedrich Neesen and Carl Rodenberg, who
went on to create – and assemble a collection of – mathematical models.
In the summer semester of 1872, Clebsch handed over his introductory geo-
metry lectures to Felix Klein, and conducted a joint research seminar with him.
This allowed Klein to concentrate on geometry in teaching and research. From
April 1 to July 27, 1872, he lectured four times per week at 8 AM on the analytic
geometry of the plane. These lectures were attended by thirty-eight students,
including his later doctoral student Adolf Weiler and, once again, Neesen and
Rodenberg.390 Ferdinand Lindemann, who enrolled in these lectures later, reported
that Klein had based his course on Karl Georg Christian von Staudt’s Theorie des
Imaginären [Theory of the Imaginary],391 which he had first gotten to know while
studying non-Euclidean geometry. It is worth emphasizing that Klein would soon
be offered a professorship in Erlangen, where von Staudt had taught as a professor
himself. From the course listings for the winter semester of 1872/73, we know
that, if Klein had remained in Göttingen, he would have offered the following
lectures: “Analytical Geometry of Space” (three lectures per week), and “On
Higher Elements of Plane Geometry” (four lectures per week).392
In October of 1872, when Klein became professor in Erlangen, the Privat-
dozent Friedrich Neesen took over his teaching duties (i.e., the geometry program)
in Göttingen for the winter semester of 1872/73. Neesen was followed in this ca-
pacity by Aurel Voss, with Klein’s endorsement (see 3.1.2). Clebsch’s professor-
ship was not filled until April 1, 1874, namely by Lazarus Fuchs, a Berlin-trained
mathematician with expertise in the theory of linear differential equations.393
Even though Fuchs’s time in Göttingen was brief, he and Weierstrass ensured
that the Russian student Sofya Kovalevskaya was able to earn a doctoral degree

388 [Canada] A letter from Klein to Antonie Plücker (née Altstätter) dated November 10, 1871.
389 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7 E, pp. 1–2. Börnstein is perhaps best known for the book
Physikalisch-chemische Tabellen [Physical-Chemical Tables], which he co-edited with Hans
Heinrich Landolt. First published in 1883, a version of the book is still in use today.
390 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7 E, pp. 5–8.
391 [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 45.
392 See Göttinger Nachrichten (July 24, 1872), p. 360.
393 See GRAY 1984.
98 2 Formative Groups

there in absentia, thus becoming the first female mathematician in Europe to be

awarded such a degree in the 19th century.394 Klein admired Kovalevskaya’s work
and would himself become a staunch supporter of the right of women to study at
the university level (see Section 7.5). In Göttingen, Fuchs was succeeded in 1875
by H.A. Schwarz, who had likewise completed his doctorate in Berlin with Kum-
mer and Weierstraß. In 1868, moreover, Schwarz married Marie Luise Kummer, a
daughter of Ernst Eduard Kummer. In 1885, Schwarz and Schering would (unsuc-
cessfully) oppose hiring Klein as a full professor in Göttingen (see Section 5.8.2).

2.8.2 An Overview of Klein’s Research Results as a Privatdozent

During his three semesters as a Privatdozent, the industrious and amiable Klein –
as Clebsch called him – completed sixteen manuscripts. Four of these studies
were placed by Clebsch in the 1871 volume of the Göttinger Nachrichten, and, in
1872, three others were placed by Klein himself in that journal, for which he was
then active as an Assessor. Nine articles (two of which were unmodified reprints
from the Göttinger Nachrichten) were published by Clebsch in Mathematische
Annalen. In addition, Klein worked on four models and was preparing his afore-
mentioned Erlangen Program (1872), which would ultimately appear as the
summation of his previous work. Some of these studies and their approaches have
already been discussed above in their proper context, so that here I can limit my-
self to providing an overview meant to demonstrate the wide range of methods
that Klein employed during this brief time period.
First. In communication with Lie and in cooperation with Clebsch, Klein re-
fined the results that he had formulated in Paris concerning W-configurations (see
Section 2.6.2.1). In this case, Klein restricted himself to making a systematic
study of various types of W-curves that occur on a plane. He had set aside his in-
tended study of spatial W-configurations, for at first he found it too difficult and
he was already immersed in too many other ideas. Klein ultimately submitted the
article for publication in March of 1871.395 Beforehand, he reported enthusiasti-
cally to Lie that Clebsch had recognized certain connections to Abelian functions
and that the differential equation of the complex in question could be integrated:
Clebsch has now made me aware that, by the nature of φ, the integrals are precisely those
Abelian integrals for which the inversion problem can be solved with the sums of three inte-
grals. The theory of second-degree complexes is thus an illustration of the theory of Abelian
functions for p = 3. Similarly, line geometry is in general an illustration of the theory of Abe-
lian functions for p = 4, and the Kummer surface is an illustration of this theory for p = 2.396

Here, p is the topological invariant later called the genus (the maximum number
of non-separating loop-cuts [Rückkehrschnitte]), which Riemann introduced in

394 For a detailed discussion of Kovalevskaya’s doctoral procedure, see TOLLMIEN 1997.
395 See KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 424–59.
396 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated January 15, 1871 (emphasis original).
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 99

order to analyze surfaces and their (conceivable) mappings (see Section 3.1.3.1).
In the same letter to Lie, Klein added: “At the moment, I am entirely absorbed by
these ideas; I believe that it would be very fruitful to pursue them, but first I have
to learn more about Abelian functions.”397 Here we can see the origin of Klein’s
intensive study of Abelian functions.
Lie’s desire to further pursue the unprocessed spatial W-configurations was
his main motivation for visiting Klein in the summer of 1872 (he had announced
his plan to do so as early as January of that year). By the time he came, however,
both of them had become occupied with other topics. The topic of W-configura-
tions would be further advanced by others.398
Second. Through his correspondence with Lie and Darboux, Klein further in-
vestigated the relations between line geometry and metric geometry. He wrote his
own studies, edited texts for Lie, and oriented himself toward French scholar-
ship.399 One of Klein’s results, which he developed by analogy, is especially note-
worthy. In Paris, he had already familiarized himself with Dupin cyclides (surfa-
ces enveloped by a two-parameter family of spheres). Klein would use Dupin’s
Theorem, which states that the surfaces in orthogonal families intersect along li-
nes of curvature, to prove a theorem concerning the relationships between line
complexes and principal tangent curves of the Kummer surface (completed on
March 4, 1871): “Über einen Satz aus der Theorie der Linienkomplexe, welcher
dem Dupinschen Theorem analog ist” [On a Theorem from the Theory of Line
Complexes that is Analogous to Dupin’s Theorem].400 As late as 1913, mathe-
maticians in Berlin would cite this finding in their proposal to appoint Klein a
corresponding member of the Academy there (see Appendix 9).
In a letter to Darboux dated September 27, 1871, Klein explained the connec-
tions that he saw between their respective work:
As it seems to me, the problem that you have mentioned – “déterminer une surface, connais-
sant une propriété de ses sphères principales” – is identical with the problem treated by Lie in
his article published in Christiania […]. Regarding my treatment of the integration of the ge-
neral second-degree complex, I have thus used the elliptic line coordinates that I analyzed in
my first note published in the Göttinger Nachrichten. […] Moreover, I have hardly any doubt
that, for your part, you have taken almost the exact same path; it is very remarkable how your
studies and those by Lie tend to agree so closely with my own. The reason for this, however,
is not so coincidental; your studies of metric problems had captured our attention to a great
degree; there Lie discovered the connection between line-geometric problems and the prob-
lems of metric geometry, and he dragged me along toward this line of investigation.401

397 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Sophus Lie dated January 15, 1871.
398 See, for instance, Anders Wiman, “Über die W-Kurven im dreidimensionalen Raume,” Acta
Mathematica 64 (1935), pp. 243–52.
399 For a discussion of Klein’s collaboration with French mathematicians at that time, see also
ROWE 2019a.
400 See KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 98–105; and KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 72; [Oslo] Letters from
Klein to Lie dated January 21 and February 25, 1871.
401 [Paris] 49–50: Klein to Darboux, Sept. 27, 1871 (German original in TOBIES 2019b, p. 87).
100 2 Formative Groups

Further studies were soon to follow. In October of 1871, Klein completed his ar-
ticle “Über Liniengeometrie und metrische Geometrie” [On Line Geometry and
Metric Geometry], an important early paper in which he offered the insight that
“line geometry is equivalent to metric geometry in four variables.”402 In Novem-
ber of 1871, Klein submitted his article “Über gewisse in der Liniengeometrie
auftretende Differentialgleichungen” [On Certain Differential Equations that Ap-
pear in Line Geometry] to Mathematische Annalen. Even though Aurel Voss
would later find a few inaccuracies in this work, it was a classic example of how
Klein classified ideas and drew connections: between Sophus Lie’s spherical ge-
ometry and Darboux’s work, to Kummer, to Hermann Schubert’s theory of char-
acteristics, to Moritz Pasch’s Habilitation thesis, to Lüroth’s theory of skew surfa-
ces, and to the possible definition of the focal surface of a congruence as a special
complex. Later, as Eisso Atzema has shown, the latter idea was taken in yet an-
other direction by Julius Weingarten.403 All of this led to what Klein would in-
tegrate and systematize in his Erlangen Program.
Klein remained in touch with Darboux; he encouraged the Leipzig-based
mathematician Adolph Mayer to write to Darboux in order to make his own re-
search results known in Paris;404 and he introduced his later doctoral students
(Staude, Domsch, Bôcher) to Darboux’s work. Whereas Klein dutifully cited the
work of other authors, it upset him somewhat that DARBOUX (1873) made no
mention at all of the relevant studies by himself and Lie. That said, they were both
pleased that Darboux printed positive reviews of their work in his Bulletin.405
Third. Klein’s regular interaction with Clebsch led to him making contributi-
ons to the field of algebraic equations. Klein’s first result in this area of research
was completed in May of 1871: “Über eine geometrische Repräsentation der Re-
solventen algebraischer Gleichungen” [On a Geometric Representation of the Re-
solvents of Algebraic Equations].406 Drawing on Galois theory and the work of
Clebsch and Jordan, Klein discovered the basic principle that, “in the theory of
equations, the invariant theory of those forms is relevant that pass into one another
by means of particular discontinuous groups of linear substitutions.” This princi-
ple would serve as an indirect impetus for Klein’s Erlangen Program as well as
the basis of his later work on transcendent automorphic functions.407
Fourth. Along with Otto Stolz, Klein delved deeper into the field of non-Euc-
lidean geometry (see Section 2.5.3). Beginning in May of 1871, the two of them

402 Math. Ann. 5 (1872), pp. 257–77; reprinted in KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 106–26. – Engl.
trans.: http://neo-classical-physics.info/uploads/3/0/6/5/3065888/klein_-_line_geometry.pdf
403 Math. Ann. 5 (1872), pp. 278–303 (KLEIN 1921 [GMA I], pp. 138–52). – Moritz Pasch, Zur
Theorie der Komplexe und Kongruenzen von Geraden (Gießen, 1870); ATZEMA 1993.
404 See TOBIES/ROWE 1990, pp. 62–63 (a letter from Klein to A. Mayer dated Dec. 8, 1871).
405 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated June 28, 1873. In the 2nd edition of Darboux’s book
(published in 1896), there is a single reference (on p. 227) to Klein’s first article on non-
Euclidean geometry: “[…] un Mémoire important de M. Klein (Math. Annalen, t. IV).”
406 This article appeared in Math. Ann. 4 (1871), pp. 346–58.
407 [Oslo] II: Klein’s notes dated November 1, 1892 (printed in ROWE 1992a, p. 599).
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 101

lived in the same house in Göttingen. Not only did they work together but they
also drank “a glass of beer every evening.” It is clear that they often had more
than just one glass; as Klein wrote to Lie, “[…] I have a mild hangover, for yes-
terday evening I once again spent too much time at the pub.”408 Klein had reason
to celebrate, for, as was seldom the case in his life, he happened to be “truly con-
tent” with his work and proud of what he had achieved:
I am now able to prove what, at the time [i.e., in Berlin], I only had a vague notion of, namely
that Cayley’s general metric leads to the exact same ideas as those of so-called non-Euclidean
geometry, which Gauss, Bolyai, and Lobachevsky developed by disregarding Euclid’s elev-
enth axiom. This connection between two heterogeneous things seems all the more interesting
to me because it sheds an entirely new light both on the true meaning of non-Euclidean geo-
metry and on the significance of Cayley’s investigations – if, for once, I may express myself
with such pride.409

Regarding the awkwardly formulated “eleventh axiom” (= fifth postulate) from

Book I of Euclid’s Elements, it should be noted that there are statements that are
equivalent to it, for example: “Given a line and a point not on it, one and only one
line parallel to the given line can be drawn through the point” (thus the parallel
postulate), or “The sum of the angles in every triangle is 180°.” After centuries of
attempts to prove this postulate, mathematicians finally realized that a new, non-
Euclidean type of geometry would arise if it were accepted that this does not hold.
Around the year 1870, however, there was still no evidence of the consistency of
non-Euclidean geometries.
Klein worked on his new findings in non-Euclidean geometry until August of
1871. Clebsch presented a short version of these results in the Göttinger Nach-
richten and a detailed version in the Mathematische Annalen.410 Klein called the
two types of non-Euclidean geometry “hyperbolic geometry” (infinitely many
parallels; the sum of the angles in a triangle less than 180°; developed independ-
ently by Gauss, Lobachevsky, and Bolyai) and “elliptic geometry” (no parallels;
sum of angles greater than 180°; Riemann). And he referred to the usual Euclid-
ean geometry as “parabolic geometry.” As mentioned above, Klein used a model
borrowed from Cayley as a proof of consistency. With the help of projective
geometry based on Cayley’s approach, he showed how it is possible to conceptu-
alize both types of non-Euclidean geometry: by means of a second-degree surface
as a so-called fundamental surface. That is, Klein detected that the inner points of
a (real) conic surface ‒ a hyperboloid, paraboloid or ellipsoid (the sphere being a
special case of the ellipsoid) ‒ can be interpreted as a model for non-Euclidean
plane geometry. He did not make an illustration, and he did not consider the spe-
cial case of the circle. When Klein published these articles in his collected works,

408 [Oslo] Klein’s letters to Sophus Lie dated April 15, April 31, and October 1, 1871.
409 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated July 2, 1871.
410 Felix Klein, “Über die sogenannte Nicht-Euklidische Geometrie,” [On So-Called Non-Eucli-
dean Geometry] Göttinger Nachrichten 1871, Nr. 17, pp. 419–33; and Math. Ann. 4 (1871),
pp. 574–625 (KLEIN 1921 GMA I, pp. 244-305).
102 2 Formative Groups

he commented that one usually regards the circle as a Fundamentalkegelschnitt411;

today, the circular disk model (Kreisscheibenmodell) is generally used.412
Darboux immediately commissioned the translation of Klein’s article (the
short version) into French for publication in his Bulletin: “Sur la géométrie dite
non euclidienne.”413 The translation was done by Jules Hoüel, one of the Bulle-
tin’s coeditors. Hoüel may have introduced a few minor inaccuracies via his
translation,414 but it was still Klein’s first publication to be translated by someone
other than himself. Hoüel had also made the work of the Italian mathematician
Eugenio Beltrami – whom Klein cited – available in France, where Liouville also
dealt with this area.415 Wilhelm Killing referred to Klein’s Annalen article when
he stressed “the important and beautiful theorem that non-Euclidean spatial forms
can be derived from projective geometry by replacing the distance between two
points with the logarithm of a certain cross-ratio.”416
Some established mathematicians reacted positively to Klein’s work on non-
Euclidean geometry. In September of 1871, Klein was pleased to receive a letter
from Beltrami in which the latter approved of his findings. Wilhelm Fiedler in-
formed Clebsch that he intended to incorporate Klein’s results into his German
translation of Salmon’s Analytic Geometry of Three Dimension. Klein wrote about
this to Lie: “It is not difficult to see why such a thing is understood while others
are not, and this is because it is met by a ready audience and does not offer much
that is new but rather provides an overview of a series of things with which people
are already familiar.”417
That said, Klein’s early work in this field did incite critique from certain ma-
thematicians and philosophers.418 As Klein wrote to Lie, “On account of my work
on non-Euclidean geometry, [Richard] Baltzer in Giessen has depicted me as the
most objectionable and depraved human being because, in his estimation, I have
brought things together that have nothing at all to do with one another.”419 In
Hungary, where Bolyai’s work was well known, Julius König expressed doubts

411 KLEIN 1921 GMA I, p. 242.

412 Later, Henri Poincaré also developed a model of 2-dimensional hyperbolic geometry, a con-
formal disk model. See also GRAY 1985; 2006; 2013, pp. 38–55.
413 Bulletin 2 (1871), pp. 341–51.
414 [Paris] 59: Klein to Darboux, March 21, 1872.
415 Regarding Hoüel, see HENRY/NABONNAND 2017. – Eugenio Beltrami had developed a
differential geometric metric that operated along the same lines as Cayley’s metric on a
submanifold of the projective plane: “Teoria fondamentale degli spazii di curvatura costante,”
Annali di Mat. Pura App., Ser. II 2 (1868–69), pp. 232–55. See Nicola Arcozzi’s article in
COEN 2012, pp. 1–30; and SCHOLZ 1980, pp. 101–13, 125–41.
416 Wilhelm Killing, Die nicht-euklidischen Raumformen in analytischer Behandlung (Leipzig:
B.G. Teubner, 1885), p. 262.
417 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated September 29, 1871. In a letter on January 24, 1872,
to Lie, Klein compared the warm reception of his work on non-Euclidean geometry with the
scholarly community’s lack of interest in their collaborative work on W-configurations.
418 On the reception of Klein’s work by philosophers, see Section 2.8.2.3.
419 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Sophus Lie dated April 16, 1872 (emphasis original).
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 103

about Klein’s theory, but he was open to the idea.420 In 1873, König would come
to Göttingen to attend a mathematics conference (see 2.8.3.4). Later, he arranged
for Gusztáv Rados to study under Klein; together, König and Rados saw that
Klein would be elected as a member of the committee that awarded the Bolyai
Prize (see Section 5.4.2.4). Arthur Cayley remained generally skeptical of Klein’s
contributions to non-Euclidean geometry.421 In Max Noether’s opinion, however:
By means of his projective metric, [Cayley] had even done a service to philosophy: for since,
as F. Klein stressed, the correlation of Staudt’s Würfe to cross-ratios is independent of our
metric, the result is the ultimate subordination of the metrical to the projective, the identity of
this metric with that of general hyper-Euclidean geometry in the space of constant curvature
(as Beltrami implicitly suggested), and thus a new intuitive understanding of concepts of
space that are independent of the parallel postulate.422

British mathematicians such as Andrew R. Forsyth and William Kingdon Clifford

were quick to appreciate Klein’s results. Clifford expanded the definition of pa-
rallels to suit elliptic space geometry (thereby making non-Euclidean geometry
realizable on a sphere: here there are no parallels, since the lines are simply great
circles and these always intersect). Clifford’s expansion made it possible to con-
strue two “parallels” (or “skew lines”) to a given line through a given point.423
This gave rise to further results in the field, which were soon outlined by Federigo
Enriques.424
One more persuasive study was needed to establish the general idea that Euc-
lid’s “parallel postulate” is independent of the other postulates and that a different,
non-Euclidean geometry would necessarily arise if this postulate is no longer con-
sidered to be valid.425 The ongoing skepticism of many scholars prompted Klein
to refine his ideas about the topic and to write “a long philosophical study,” which
culminated in his (third) essay “Über die sogenannte Nicht-Euklidische Geome-
try” [On So-Called Non-Euclidean Geometry], dated June 8, 1872. In this article,
Klein emphasized the utility of such investigations: In the case of mathematics,
they introduced the new concept of “an arbitrarily extended manifold of constant
curvature,” and, in the case of physics, he prophetically cited Riemann’s idea “that
the reconceptualization of traditional spatio-mechanical ideas should not be hin-
dered by the narrowness of concepts, and progress in our knowledge of the con-
nection between things not inhibited by traditional prejudices.” 426

420 [Oslo] Klein to Lie on May 18, 1872. See also Julius König, “Ueber eine reale Abbildung der
s.g. Nicht-Euclidischen Geometrie,” Göttinger Nachrichten 9 (1872), pp. 157–64.
421 See the discussion in JI/PAPADOPOULOS 2015, pp. 91–136.
422 Max NOETHER 1895, p. 479.
423 In three-dimensional geometry, skew lines are lines that do not intersect but are not parallel.
424 Federigo Enriques, “Prinzipien der Geometrie,” in ENCYLOPÄDIE, vol. 3 (1.1), pp. 112–17.
425 SCHOENFLIES 1919, p. 289.
426 Klein had sent the manuscript of this article to Lie in two installments, the first on June 5,
1872 and the second on June 8, 1872. – Because of a strike by the typesetters at the press, the
publication of this article was delayed. It first appeared in Math. Ann. 6 (1873), pp. 112–45
(quotation, p. 114); (reprint in KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 311–43).
104 2 Formative Groups

According to Schoenflies, one of Klein’s main contributions was that he

stripped non-Euclidean geometry of its “metaphysical accessories” and elevated it
to “one of the most attractive and applicable realms of knowledge.”427 Because of
these findings, Schoenflies regarded Klein as a “thoroughly cognizant pioneer of
the general axiomatic-geometric approach to research […], an approach that
would fully mature approximately ten years later, first in the work of [Moritz]
Pasch and afterwards in that of Hilbert.”428 Recent scholars of the philosophy of
mathematics see in Klein’s works the origin of structuralism.429
Klein’s third article on non-Euclidean geometry anticipated a number of sig-
nificant aspects of his Erlangen Program: his discussion of groups of transforma-
tion; his reference to the fact that his definition of this concept derived from an
analogous conceptual formulation in substitution theory; the example of groups of
motions, first proposed by Jordan; the concept of the principal group (Hauptgrup-
pe), with unchanging/invariant geometric properties;430 and his insight that, with
more extensive groups, the number of invariant properties is smaller. In this artic-
le from June of 1872, as Erhard Scholz has underscored, Klein generalized the
way that metric geometry could be integrated into projective geometry in such a
way that other subdisciplines could also be included by specifying a manifold and
assigning a transformation group to it: “In accordance with the importance that
projective geometry possessed for Klein, he introduced the notion of a manifold
(Mannigfaltigkeit) as a reformulation of n-dimensional projective space […].”431
Fifth. Klein’s Erlangen Program, the actual title of which was Vergleichende
Betrachtungen über neuere geometrische Forschungen [Comparative Considera-
tions on Recent Research in Geometry] (see Fig. 14), synthesized a number of the
approaches discussed above. The starting point for writing this work may have
been Klein’s vision, from November 20, 1871, “to write an essay of a very gen-
eral sort on recent methods in geometry, in which I would like to show how each
method (or nearly each) can be subsumed under the following general claim: to
develop the properties of geometric things that are preserved in a given cycle of
transformation.”432 This agrees with what Klein would write much later – on
October 25, 1924 – to Friedrich Engel:
The basic idea behind my Erlangen Program came to me in November of 1871, while I was
attempting to synthesize the work of Hamilton and Grassmann under a single point of view.
In the third volume of my collected writings, however, I stressed that Möbius’s complete
works are borne by the same thought, though he never formulated it explicitly.433

427 SCHOENFLIES 1919, p. 289.

428 Ibid.
429 See BIAGIOLI 2016, 2020; and SCHIEMANN 2020.
430 In modern mathematics, the term automorphism group is used for this.
431 SCHOLZ 1980, p. 131.
432 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated November 20, 1871 (emphasis original).
433 Quoted from Mitteilungen aus dem Mathematischen Seminar der Universität Gießen 35
(1945), p. 22. – Regarding A.F. Möbius, see also FAUVEL/FLOOD/WILSON 1993.
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 105

In their work, Klein and Lie at first spoke of “systems,” “families,” or “cycles” of
transformations. The concept of a group first appeared in their correspondence in
December of 1871. On December 25, 1871, Klein wrote again about his idea to
write an essay with “an overview of existing geometric methods,” which he inten-
ded to provide by “placing them into groups, each according to the cycle of trans-
formations that they present.”434 This is confirmed by his later explanation that, in
December of 1871, he came to the opinion
that, for the study of a manifold, there are as many different manners of treating it as one can
construe, within the manifold, continuous groups of any sort of transformations, and that the
Euclidean and non-Euclidean metrics are just as surely included in the projective approach as
their “groups” – given the appropriate choice of coordinates – are contained in the entire
group of projective transformations.435

As Erhard Scholz has discussed, Klein at first used a limited concept of the mani-
fold, which consisted of “the combination of a projective space (real or complex)
with a group of transformations.” Not until 1874 did Klein begin to employ a
broader concept of the manifold in his work.436 His concept of groups was intui-
tive, geometric: “The combination of an arbitrary number of transformations of
space always results in a single transformation. If now a given system of trans-
formations has the property that any transformation obtained by combining trans-
formations of the system belongs to that system, it shall be called a group of
transformations.”437 As he informed Lie, Klein had become enthusiastic about
Grassmann’s approach,438 he had begun to read Hamilton, and he had begun to
study Hankel’s Theorie der komplexen Zahlen [Theory of Complex Numbers] and
Chasles’s Rapport sur les progrès de la géométrie en France (1870), the latter of
which he also reviewed. Klein’s Scottish friend W.R. Smith proved to be a helpful
catalyst yet again by providing Klein with reports about the discussions that were
being held at the time among Peter Guthrie Tait and his students in Edinburgh.
Regarding the idea that a general principle for classifying as many geometric
approaches as possible lies in the concept of the group, Klein derived this prima-
rily from (1) his own non-Euclidean considerations; (2) the inspiration that came
to him from studying Sophus Lie’s work; and, most importantly, (3) Hamilton’s
quaternion theory from 1843 (which comprised a theory of the invariants of mo-
tion in Euclidean space) and Grassmann’s extension theory (1844, 1865), which

434 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated December 25, 1871.
435 [Oslo] II: Klein’s notes dated November 1, 1892 (printed in ROWE 1992a, p. 601).
436 SCHOLZ 1980, pp. 132–36, 170–74.
437 KLEIN 2020 [1872], p. 3. For a discussion, with references to Klein and Lie, of the modern
understanding of groups and semi-groups, see HOFMANN 1992.
438 Grassmann’s work is frequently cited in Klein’s Erlangen Program. On May 3, 1870, one of
Grassmann’s sons had attended the Royal Seminar in Göttingen (see [UAG] Math. Nat. 0012,
n.p.), where he presented his father’s book Ausdehnunglehre [Extension Theory] as a gift. See
also TOBIES 1996a; SCHUBRING 1996; and PETSCHE 2006. Klein provided an overview of
Grassmann’s ideas in his book Elementary Mathematics from a Higher Standpoint (vol. 2, pp.
37–48 in the English translation).
106 2 Formative Groups

provided the foundation for a geometry of multi-dimensional space. On January 1

and 5, 1872, Klein sent a draft of his long essay to Sophus Lie. After receiving
Lie’s reply (which is lost), Klein remarked that, “in a certain sense, the difficulty
of the work and its merit lie in its presentation.” On this basis, he was able to
complete his Erlangen Program (see Section 3.1.1).
Sixth. In the meantime, Klein also devoted effort to an additional area of re-
search: the classification of cubic surfaces. This reflected his interest in tangible
models, which inspired him to think of new ideas (see Section 2.4.3). In this re-
gard, Klein oriented himself toward Clebsch, who combined algebraic representa-
tions of cubic surfaces with their physical representation, a prime example being
Clebsch’s diagonal surface with twenty-seven real lines (Fig. 11).439

Figure 11: Clebsch’s diagonal surface,

the first model of a cubic surface on which all of its 27 lines are real (FISCHER 1986, fig. 10).

439 For a clear description of Clebsch’s surface, see https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/about-

us/departmental-art/cubic-surfaces/clebsch-diagonal-surface (accessed December 30, 2019);
see also LÊ 2013; and TOBIES 2017a.
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 107

In 1999, as I mentioned in my introduction, a large ceramic model of this diagonal

surface was installed at the University of Düsseldorf on the occasion of Klein’s
150th birthday. Klein used this surface to understand higher-order spatial
configurations in an intuitive manner. He would return to it, too, in future stages
of his research life. He would later, for instance, employ group theory to analyze
the problem of twenty-seven real lines on a cubic surface (see Section 6.3.1).
Even while editing his collected works at the end of career, Klein corrected cer-
tain proofs and added a supplement – “Über die durch die 27 reellen Geraden
vermittelte Zerlegung der Clebschschen Diagonalfläche” [On the Division of
Clebsch’s Diagonal Surface Effected by Its 27 Real Lines]440 – to the reprint of
his article “Ueber Flächen dritter Ordnung” [On Cubic Surfaces], which was first
published in 1873. It was in the latter paper, as its title suggests, that Klein at-
tempted to classify such surfaces.441
The idea to undertake the classification of cubic surfaces first came to Klein
in Göttingen in 1871. It was prompted by Klein’s supervision of the doctoral stu-
dent Joseph Diekmann. The latter submitted his dissertation on June 9, 1871:
“Ueber die Modificationen, welche die ebene Abbildung einer Fläche 3ter Ord-
nung durch Auftreten von Singularitäten erhält” [On the Modifications that Are
Obtained in the Planar Mapping of a Cubic Surface by the Appearance of Singula-
rities].442 Steered in this direction by Klein, Diekmann analyzed the types of nodes
on cubic surfaces that appeared in the work of Ludwig Schlaefli (1863),443 and he
used “a geometric interpretation of the mapping associated with Grassmann’s
manner of creating such representations.” As a full professor, Clebsch was the
official reviewer of the dissertation. In his vita, Diekmann also thanked, in addi-
tion to Clebsch and M.A. Stern, the Privatdozent Klein.444 From Klein’s cor-
respondence with Lie, however, we learn that Klein was in fact Diekmann’s
primary supervisor. Klein send a copy of Diekmann’s dissertation to Lie and re-
marked: “I helped the author a great deal. I was unfortunately unable to get very
far with him, however, because he is not the most clear-headed person.”445 Diek-
mann would go on to become an accomplished teacher and author of textbooks.446
Klein delved deeper into the subject both while Diekmann was writing his
dissertation and afterward. His letters to Darboux, Lie, Max Noether, and Otto
Stolz provide a picture of his ongoing research and his enthusiasm for the topic. In
a letter to Darboux dated February 3, 1872, for instance, we read that Klein had
been “thinking about a model of a cubic surface that shows its 27 lines in a clear

440 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 56–62. Klein’s research assistant Vermeil gave a lecture on this
supplement at the annual meeting of the German Mathematical Society in Leipzig in 1922.
See Jahresbericht DMV 31 (1922) Abt. 2, pp. 103–04.
441 Math. Ann. 6 (1873), pp. 551–81 (Reprint KLEIN 1922, GMA II, pp. 11–44).
442 This dissertation was published in Math. Ann. 4 (1871), pp. 442–75.
443 On Schlaefli’s work in this area of research, see KELLERHALS 2010, pp. 169–70.
444 [UAG] Prom. Phil. Fak. 156, pp. 395–99.
445 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Sophus Lie dated July 29, 1871.
446 See LOREY 1916, p. 84.
108 2 Formative Groups

grouping.” Six days later, Klein thus explained to Lie that he hopes to have “built
a model of a general F3” [a cubic surface (Fläche)] by the time of the next Acad-
emy meeting. On March 13th of the same year, he informed both Lie and Max
Noether about “the basic forms of cubic surfaces.” “I can now,” he went on, “de-
termine all such surfaces with respect to their shape.”447 Relying on Schlaefli’s
work, Klein identified five types of cubic surfaces. He explained these types in a
letter to Darboux (March 21, 1872) and in one to Otto Stolz (March 30, 1872),
where he was happy to remark that he had once again been able to demonstrate a
connection between different areas of research:
I have recently been engaged in an entirely new study, which I think I will be able to com-
plete. Its aim is to develop the forms of F3. Like Schlaefli, I have arrived at five types, each
according to the reality of its lines. I will also show, however, that these five types can be de-
fined by their interrelation in the Riemannian sense, for the surfaces are connected in a 4-fold,
3-, 2-, 1-, or 0-fold manner. This would thus be a link between algebra and analysis situs, and
it brings me great pleasure to have recognized this. I am especially pleased because I am able
to prove that the five types in question exhaust all of the formal possibilities of F3. I intend to
write this up.448

This topic was also the subject of the first (and only) research seminar that
Clebsch and Klein led together. Announced to be about “various, mainly geome-
tric topics,” it took place on Tuesdays from May 7th to the end of June in 1872.
Thirteen students gave presentations on the work of French, Italian, Norwegian,
Swiss, and German mathematicians: Abel, Chasles, Clebsch, Cremona, Dedekind,
Frobenius, Hesse, Carl Neumann, Puiseux, Schlaefli, and others. The primary
focus of the seminar was on cubic surfaces and recent scholarship on algebra.449
Noteworthy attendees include Adolf Weiler and Wilhelm Bretschneider, who
would later be Klein’s doctoral students (see Section 3.1.2); Carl Rodenberg, who
also attended Klein’s lectures in Göttingen, earned a doctoral degree in 1874, still
inspired by Clebsch (who died in 1872),450 and became known for creating a
series of twenty-six mathematical models made of plaster451; and Friedrich Nee-
sen, Klein’s friend from Bonn, who, on June 25, 1872, presented to the seminar a
“model of a cubic surface with four nodes, completed according to Dr. Klein’s
specifications.”452

447 [Paris] 59: Klein to Darboux, March 21, 1872; [Oslo] A letter Klein to Sophus Lie dated
March 13, 1872. See also VOSS 1919, p. 285.
448 The German original is quoted in BINDER 1989, p. 5 (see also TOBIES 2019b, p. 95).
449 [Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 1–28.
450 Rodenberg, meanwhile a secondary school teacher in Plauen, submitted his doctoral thesis at
the University of Göttingen: Das Pentaeder der Fächen dritter Ordnung beim Auftreten von
Singularitäten (Göttingen: E.A. Huth, 1874, 31pp.).
451 Rodenberg published this series in Flächen dritter Ordnung (Darmstadt: Ludwig Brill, 1881).
There are several online presentations. For an explanation of the context, see Franz Meyer
(1928), “Flächen dritter Ordnung,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE vol. III.2.2b, p. 1505.
452 [Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 15–16.
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 109

Figure 12: An illustration of a cubic surface with four real nodes (Klein 1922 [GMA II], p. 15).

On August 3, 1872, Clebsch and Klein presented models created for their afo-
rementioned joint seminar at the meeting of the Göttingen Royal Society. Clebsch
showcased two models constructed by Weiler (among them a model of the diago-
nal surface with twenty-seven real lines), while Klein presented his model built by
Neesen. Here Klein described the significance of how he was able to derive, from
this model, additional forms of cubic surfaces by means of continuous variation:
Because a surface with four nodes does not have any absolute invariants, all other surfaces
with four real nodes can be derived from the present example by means of real collineation.
With respect to their behavior at infinity, five main types have to be distinguished. If one de-
forms such surfaces in the finite by means of continuous processes, whereby the sections tou-
ching one another at a single node can either come together or fully separate, one thus sche-
matically obtains the shapes of other cubic surfaces. It can be proved that all cubic surfaces
can be produced in this way, so that it is thereby possible to obtain a complete overview of all
possible forms of cubic surfaces in general.453

453 Alfred Clebsch and Felix Klein, “Über Modelle von Flächen dritter Ordnung,” Göttinger
Nachrichten 20 (1872), pp. 402–04, here at p. 404.
110 2 Formative Groups

Because Klein, on account of being offered a professorship in Erlangen and on

account of Clebsch’s early death, had to focus on different priorities, he would not
be able to flesh out the details of this contribution to the classification of cubic
surfaces until somewhat later. On May 5, 1873, he submitted a short version of his
revision (six pages) to the Sitzungsberichte [Proceedings] of the Physical and Me-
dical Society in Erlangen, and on June 6, 1873 he submitted the aforementioned
longer version to Mathematische Annalen. For the latter article, Klein asked Adolf
Weiler to create a plaster model and an illustration of a cubic surface with four
real nodes (see Fig. 12).
Even though Klein accomplished a great deal while working as a Privatdoz-
ent, he repeatedly expressed how discontent he was with himself for not achieving
even more: “At the moment, I am idle, for I have more or less forgotten how to
work on detailed questions.” He hoped that Lie’s presence would provide him
with fresh inspiration: “For me, your visit here is a matter of scientific life and
death.”454 Lie arrived in Göttingen on September 8, 1872. During that time, Klein
not only completed his Erlangen Program but also helped to edit the article that
Lie was working on during his visit (see Section 3.1.1).

2.8.3 Discussion Groups

Klein, who had experienced a rather distant relationship with the professors in
Berlin, was far more integrated into the scholarly community as a Privatdozent in
Göttingen, where he was taken under Clebsch’s wing. In addition to leading a
seminar together, Klein and Clebsch met in a small group to discuss their re-
search. Klein also participated in other groups and associations, including the stu-
dent union, gatherings of his fellow Privatdozenten in Göttingen, and his circle of
contacts from out of town. The following sections will outline the role that Klein
played in these various communities.

2.8.3.1 A Three-Man Club with Clebsch and Riecke

As a Privatdozent, Klein was a frequent visitor at the home of Professor Alfred

Clebsch, who since 1867 had been married to his second wife Minna Rays, the
daughter of a district judge. Among other things, they discussed the articles by
Klein and Lie that Clebsch would soon accept for publication.455 In early April in
1871, this gathering took on the character of a regular club with three participants,
as Klein informed Lie: “Clebsch, the physicist Riecke, and I have recently formed
a club consisting of the three of us. We get together once a week to discuss things
that happen to be on our minds. During our next meeting, I plan to speak about

454 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Sophus Lie dated July 18, 1872.
455 [Oslo] Klein’s letters to Lie dated February 4, 1871; March 11, 1871; May 27, 1872, etc.
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 111

your theory of the imaginary and about our other collaborative studies.”456 Within
this circle, Clebsch would have to be considered the leader, but he encouraged
collaboration on an equal footing.
In November of 1871, Klein wrote enthusiastically to Plücker’s widow about
his regular interaction with Clebsch: “Things are going very well for me in gen-
eral. My constant contact with Clebsch has been extremely valuable and a vital
element of my life.”457 During Klein’s time as a Privatdozent, Clebsch developed
his “fundamental study of plane geometry; he investigated the general connections
(he calls them connexes) that are represented by an equation containing a series of
point coordinates and a series of line coordinates, each of them in a homogeneous
way.”458 With his concept of the connex, Clebsch made advances in the theory of
differential equations.459 Klein would use this concept in his Erlangen Program to
characterize groups of contact transformations in a consistent manner.460
Hardly anything has been written about the fact that Eduard Riecke (Fig. 13)
was just as closely associated with Clebsch as Klein was, and that Klein benefited
from this relationship. Klein and Riecke first met in 1869, when they attended
Clebsch’s lectures together, and they soon realized that they were on the same
wavelength (see Appendix 10.1). Because Riecke would later be a driving force
behind bringing Klein back to Göttingen – against the wishes of the mathemati-
cians there (see Section 5.8.2) – he should be introduced here in greater detail.
Born in Stuttgart as the son of a physician, Riecke studied mathematics and
physics at the Polytechnikum there and at the University of Tübingen. He passed
his teaching examinations in 1869 and moved to Göttingen to continue his studies
under the guidance of Friedrich Kohlrausch, Wilhelm Weber, and Alfred Clebsch.
On April 30, 1871, Riecke submitted his dissertation – “Ueber die magnetische
Natur des weichen Eisens” [On the Magnetic Nature of Soft Iron]461 – and shortly
thereafter he completed his Habilitation with a thesis entitled “Über eine Art
allgemeiner Kugelfunctionen” [On a Type of General Spherical Functions].
Clebsch served as the chair of Riecke’s Habilitation procedure because
Weber was sick, and on June 18, 1871 he wrote in his evaluation: “Already in his
doctoral dissertation, Riecke had demonstrated a level of mathematics that is far
beyond what is typical.” Riecke’s Habilitation thesis concerned, in Clebsch’s

456 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated April 7, 1871.

457 [Canada] A letter from Klein to Antonie Plücker dated November 10, 1871.
458 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated June 29, 1872. The work in question is Alfred
Clebsch, “Ueber ein neues Grundgebilde der analytischen Geometrie der Ebene,” Göttinger
Nachrichten 22 (1872), pp. 429–49.
459 Clebsch’s connex is a geometric concept that includes, as special cases, the curve considered
as a point locus and as a line envelope. For a detailed description of this concept, see Emil
Müller, “Die verschiedenen Koordinatensysteme,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. 3 (1.1), pp. 755–56.
See also CLEBSCH 1874, p. 50.
460 KLEIN 2020 [1872], p. 20; KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 486.
461 See Göttinger Nachrichten (1871), p. 620.
112 2 Formative Groups

summary, “a class of functions which one often encounters when studying the
theory of electric currents and magnetism.”462

Figure 13: Eduard Riecke ([UBG] Math. Arch. 52).

Riecke obtained the venia legendi for mathematics and physics; worked as an as-
sistant in the physics lab; and continued his work on the topic of magnetism,
which, in 1872, resulted in the publication of three articles in the Göttinger Nach-
richten. Among the latter was a critical examination of Helmholtz’s law of “elec-
trodynamic interactions,” a topic that had been brought to Riecke’s attention by
W. Weber.463 On March 14, 1873, Riecke was offered an associate professorship,
and in 1881 he succeeded Weber as a full professor of experimental physics.464
Here he remained, until his death in 1915, one of Felix Klein’s closest allies. Rie-
cke’s two-volume Lehrbuch der Experimental-Physik [Textbook of Experimental
Physics], which was first published in 1896, has gone through numerous editions,
the most recent of which appeared in 2015.

462 [UAG] Phil. Dek. 156 (1870/1871), pp. 307–09, 529–35.

463 Göttinger Nachrichten (August 14, 1872), pp. 394–402.
464 See Göttinger Nachrichten (1875), pp. 279, 285; and NDB, vol. 21 (2003), pp. 562–63.
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 113

Riecke’s mathematical theory of magnetism and electrodynamics was one of

the topics discussed at the gatherings of this three-person club. Klein included the
topic in his lectures on theoretical physics. Riecke himself first lectured on it in
the summer of 1872,465 when Klein was finally able to concentrate on geometry.
Klein’s letters to Max Noether reflect the close personal relationships between
Klein and Riecke. On August 9, 1871, Klein remarked: “Riecke was just in my
room and picked me up to go to the Stegemühle [a restaurant near Göttingen],
where we often spend the evening.” He ended his letter of January 12, 1871 with
the words: “Enough for today; there’s a Friday club at [Wilhelm] Weber’s, where
I have to go with Riecke.”466 There were other circles with whom they willingly
socialized.

2.8.3.2 The Mathematical and Natural-Scientific Student Union

Felix Klein had joined the Student Union in Göttingen in 1869, and he did much
to promote the solidarity of its members. As a Privatdozent, too, he attended the
union’s weekly meetings almost regularly, and often together with Riecke.467 He
had an especially close relationship with the students who had served as president
of the union (Diekmann, Neesen, Lindemann) at various times. On June 16, 1871,
under the leadership of Joseph Diekmann – who had just completed his disserta-
tion under Klein’s supervision (see Section 2.8.2) – the student union bestowed
the title of honorary member upon Klein and emphasized that the organization
was “currently flourishing largely thanks to you.”468
Friedrich Neesen, who has already been mentioned several times, took over
the presidency after Diekmann. He had studied mathematics and physics under
Plücker in Bonn, where he and Klein had started a student union at that university.
Like Klein’s, Neesen’s doctoral procedure was chaired by Rudolf Lipschitz. After
completing his doctoral degree, Neesen moved to Göttingen, where he participa-
ted in Klein and Clebsch’s research seminar and constructed the aforementioned
model for Klein. Already before his trip to Paris, Klein spent many days at Nee-
sen’s parents’ house in Cleve,469 where Neesen’s father owned a gas plant. One
sign of their lifelong friendship, among others, is the fact that Neesen and his
daughter were the only non-family members in attendance at Klein silver wedding
anniversary (see Section 3.6.3, Fig. 19).
Neesen’s dissertation – “Ueber die Abbildung von leuchtenden Objekten in
einem nicht centrirten Linsensystem” [On the Mapping of Luminous Objects in a

465 See Göttinger Nachrichten (1872), p. 118.

466 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 12: 537; 542 (Klein’s letters to Max Noether).
467 [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 45.
468 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 114, No. 1.
469 [Oslo] Letters from Klein to Lie dated March 29, 1870, April 13, 1870, and Sept. 29, 1871.
Cleve belonged to the administrative district of Düsseldorf, where Klein’s parents lived.
114 2 Formative Groups

Non-Centered Lens System] (December 1871)470 – concerned the optic calcula-

tion of rays. Whereas his predecessors in this field (Euler, Lagrange, Gauss, Mö-
bius) had used centered lens systems in their examinations, Neesen investigated
what influence a non-centered lens system would have on the position of the
images. At the same time, he built upon the works of Gauss and Möbius by
expanding the application of the collinear relationship between image and object.
Over the years, Klein’s work had several points of contact with the field of
optics. This can be said of his research on Plücker’s line geometry and, most ob-
viously, of his own lectures on theoretical optics in the summer of 1871 (see Ta-
ble 3), which he discussed with Neesen.471 It should also be mentioned here that
Klein, in the inaugural lecture that he delivered in Erlangen on December 7, 1872
(see Section 3.2), would underscore “so-called geometric optics” as an area of
application for mathematics.472 Later, Klein recognized the implications of Hamil-
ton’s results for practical applications in optical instruments.473 He expanded upon
these findings and published his results in the Zeitschrift für Mathematik und
Physik at the time when the journal was being reconfigured as a publication venue
for work on applied mathematics (see Section 5.6).474 In 1901, Klein sent his two
articles to the optical company Carl Zeiss in Jena, where his results were appreci-
ated.475
Neesen and Klein also shared a common opinion about the use of more recent
methods of geometry in secondary-school education, an opinion which they
expressed in similar Thesen as part of their doctoral procedures.476 After com-
pleting his Habilitation in physics in the fall of 1872, Friedrich Neesen became an
assistant at the physics department in Göttingen, where he directed, together with
Eduard Riecke, the “practical exercises” in the physics laboratory. In the fall of
1873, Neesen moved to Berlin, where he taught at the military academy and also
as a Privatdozent and associate professor at the University of Berlin.477 Like
Klein, Neesen became a member of the Physical Society in Berlin.

470 This dissertation was published in Bonn in 1871 by the Carl Georgi press. It contains a vita
on page 32.
471 See LOREY 1916, p. 191.
472 Quoted from JACOBS 1977, p. 9.
473 Felix Klein, “Ueber neuere englische Arbeiten zur Mechanik,” Jahresbericht DMV 1 (1891),
pp. 35-36.
474 See KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 603–12. The titles of the articles are “Über das Brunsche Ei-
konal” [On Bruns’s Eikonal] and “Räumliche Kollineationen bei optischen Instrumenten”
[Spatial Collineations in Optical Instruments].
475 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 8, p. 492 (a letter from Czapski to Klein dated Sept. 20, 1901). –
Georg Prange continued Klein’s initiative of making Hamilton’s optical papers known, and
he published a German edition supported by the Carl Zeiss foundation; see TOBIES 2020b.
476 Appendix to Neesen, “Über die Abbildung” (doctoral thesis), p. 33.
477 See Göttinger Nachrichten (1873), p. 141; and (1875), p. 276. Neesen’s lectures on geometric
optics at the University of Berlin in the summer semester of 1889 were attended by, among
others, Moritz von Rohr, who would become an important “calculating optician” at the Carl
Zeiss company. See TOBIES 2017c, p. 122.
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 115

Ferdinand Lindemann assumed the presidency of Göttingen’s Mathematical

and Natural-Scientific Student Union after Neesen had completed his Habilita-
tion. Lindemann, who is best known today for formulating the first proof of the
transcendence of π (1882), had been studying in Göttingen since 1870, and he
joined the student union at the end of the 1871/72 winter semester. He wrote in his
memoirs that one of the customs of the union was to discuss difficult or unsolved
problems at the end of each meeting. Klein remarked that Lindemann was able to
solve these (often geometric) problems with ease.478 Klein, in Lindemann’s recol-
lection, “happened to be present” when Lindemann gave a presentation about
Klein’s recently published articles on non-Euclidean geometry: “A few days later,
I received a letter from Klein in which he asked me to visit him. There he imme-
diately suggested a topic for my doctoral dissertation concerning mechanics in
non-Euclidean geometry.”479 Following Klein’s suggestion, Lindemann immersed
himself in the scholarship on this topic during the following semester break. The
result was his doctoral thesis: “Ueber unendlich kleine Bewegungen und über
Kraftsysteme bei allgemeiner projectivischer Massbestimmung” [On Infinitely
Small Motions and On Systems of Forces in the General Projective Metric].480

2.8.3.3 A Scientific Circle: Eskimo

From the memoirs of the philosopher Carl Stumpf, we learn that Klein was also a
driving force behind an informal group known as “Eskimo”:
Klein, who was already then an active organizer, founded with me a group called “Eskimo,” a
loose association in which young natural scientists could give lectures and engage in friendly
interaction. My role in this group had been to represent the philosophical side of things. Pro-
fessors were excluded. To my knowledge, the club still exists today, though it now has looser
rules.481

The members of the club were primarily Privatdozenten. They gathered in one or
another’s apartment for lectures on a specific theme and then continued the dis-
cussion in the pub (Gebhard’s beer hall). This small circle included, in addition to
Klein and Stumpf, the physicist Eduard Riecke, the anatomist Friedrich Siegmund
Merkel, the chemist Bernhard Tollens, and Max Bauer, who had completed his
Habilitation in the fields of mineralogy and geology.
Regarding Klein’s intellectual contribution to the group, this mostly had to do
with his studies at the time on non-Euclidean geometry. He was able to convince
Carl Stumpf, a close friend, of the validity of his ideas, even though Immanuel

478 [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 46.

479 Ibid., p. 45.
480 The dissertation was published in Math. Ann. 7 (1874), pp. 56–143. See also Section 3.3.
481 STUMPF 1924, p. 212. Later, professors also participated, such as the chemist Otto Wallach,
who first joined the group in 1899. As a professor, Klein himself did not participate. See
BEER/REMANE 2000, pp. 163–64.
116 2 Formative Groups

Kant’s pronouncement that three-dimensional Euclidean geometry was necessa-

rily true was a maxim to Stumpf’s doctoral supervisor in Göttingen, Hermann
Lotze. To Lotze, non-Euclidean geometry and n-dimensional space seemed uni-
maginable. Klein reported: “None less than Lotze had just then proclaimed all
non-Euclidean geometry to be nonsense,” and he recalled the “endless […] dis-
cussions that I had with my friends in Gebhard’s Tunnel482 every evening of the
winter of 1871/72.”483 Philosophers such as Hermann Lotze and Eugen Dühring
dismissed non-Euclidean geometry “as a pointless intellectual game or as some-
thing mystical and bizarre.”484 Carl Stumpf earned his doctoral degree under
Lotze’s supervision in 1868, and in 1870 he obtained the venia legendi for philo-
sophy with a thesis, composed in Latin, on mathematical axioms. About the latter
work, he remarked: “I never published the text because the non-Euclidean manner
of thinking, to which Felix Klein had introduced me, was ultimately over my
head.”485 Later, when both Carl Stumpf and Felix Klein were full professors, they
remained in close contact (see Section 8.3.2).
Klein’s circle of fellow Privatdozenten also included members of the histori-
cal seminar led by Georg Waitz. A legal historian and medievalist, Waitz had
been a professor in Göttingen since 1848. He practiced Leopold von Ranke’s ap-
proach to historiography, and he was closely acquainted with Klein’s future fa-
ther-in-law Karl Hegel (see Section 3.6.2). Ranke’s so-called historicism was
based on systematic and source-critical methods, as compared to the philosophical
treatment of historical events that had been favored before. Already at this point,
Klein appreciated the significance of source-critical, systematic historical research
and the “possibilities and advantages of an organized course of specialized
study.”486 A letter from Klein to Otto Stolz refers to his close contact with mem-
bers of Waitz’s seminar such as Ernst Steindorff and David Peipers: “Everything
is going very well for all of us – that is, for Kiepert and the group from Göttingen
including Riecke, Stumpf, Peipers, Steindorff, etc. etc. We were extremely happy
together throughout our entire time in Göttingen.”487
This group of like-minded scholars also included the church historian Richard
Zoepffel, whose wedding Klein attended,488 and Alfred Stern, a son of the mathe-
matician M.A. Stern who completed his Habilitation in history at the University
of Göttingen in 1872.489 In 1873, Alfred Stern became an associate professor at

482 Regarding the beer hall at the Hotel Gebhard, see the beginning of Section 2.4.
483 KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 140–41. In this work, Klein also laments Lotze’s misunderstanding of
the term “curvature” (Krümmungsmaß).
484 CLEBSCH 1891, p. 554. On Dühring, see VOLKERT 2013, p. 204. Regarding the philosophical
context of non-Euclidean geometry, see TORRETTI 1978 and BIAGIOLI 2016.
485 STUMPF 1924, p. 211. [UAG] Phil. Dek 156 (1870/1871), pp. 498–507 (Habilitation Stumpf);
Stumpf’s habilitation thesis was later published by Wolfgang Ewen, see STUMPF 2008.
486 KLEIN 1923a, p. 15.
487 [Innsbruck] A letter from Klein to Otto Stolz dated March 30, 1872.
488 Ibid. A letter from Klein to Otto Stolz dated July 28, 1872.
489 See Göttinger Nachrichten (1872), p. 345.
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 117

the University of Bern (Switzerland), and he was promoted to full professor there
in 1878. One of Klein’s close friends, Alfred Stern took a firm stance against the
anti-liberal, anti-Semitic, and nationalistic historiography practiced by the in-
fluential (and also misogynistic) Berlin-based historian Heinrich von Treitschke.
Later, Stern would repeatedly host Klein in Switzerland, and he would also deve-
lop a close relationship there with Klein’s doctoral student Adolf Hurwitz.490
Klein’s return to Göttingen in the year 1886 was facilitated not only by Rie-
cke’s support. The Philosophical Faculty there, which still comprised naturalists,
humanists and mathematicians, had, in the meantime, been joined by the follo-
wing professors: the historian Ernst Steindorff, who carried on the work of his
teacher Waitz and had married the latter’s daughter, Clara; the philosopher and
classical philologist David Peipers;491 and Bernhard Tollens, who served as direc-
tor of the Agricultural-Chemical Laboratory. In the meantime, too, Friedrich Mer-
kel had become a full professor of anatomy. Even if, for health reasons, Klein
would later not be able to socialize as much as he might have liked, his involve-
ment in this circle is evidence of his efforts to reach beyond the strict boundaries
of a single academic discipline; interdisciplinary efforts of this sort, according to
Richard Courant, could indeed be interpreted as a “key element of Klein’s life.”492

2.8.3.4 The “Social Activity” of Bringing Mathematicians Together

The mathematics students in Göttingen and Berlin felt the differences between
their respective teachers, as when Ferdinand Lindemann reported: “We in Göttin-
gen could not understand it at all when a student coming from Berlin would have
no idea about Hesse’s theorems concerning curves of the third order, for in-
stance.”493 Klein, who regularly used his semester breaks to discuss his work and
cultivate contacts, similarly complained from Berlin in a letter to Sophus Lie: “It
is unfortunately impossible to relate our ideas to the people here, because there are
no points of connection whatsoever.” He went on:
Thus I have been engaged all the more energetically in creating a sort of social arrangement
that might, first, bring together the mathematicians here and then all German mathematicians
(by means of a periodically recurring conference); if such a meeting existed, it would be eas-
ier to promote the general scientific standpoint in the sense that seems desirable to us. The-
reby I would also be able to satisfy my ever-present need for social activity. I am discontent
when only working abstractly on pure science.494

490 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10, p. 1160B. See also [Deutsches Museum] Sondersammlung
1968–4/2 (a letter from Klein to Alfred Stern, 1919).
491 David Peipers is probably best known for his book Untersuchungen über das System Plato’s
(Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1874).
492 COURANT 1926, p. 197.
493 [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 48.
494 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated April 1, 1872. A page of this letter is reproduced in
Figure 3 (p. 16).
118 2 Formative Groups

Though Klein would later write about himself that he considered “social activity
to be a substitute for lost genius,”495 the sources indicate not only that he had this
social streak from early on but also that he regarded it as one of his most impor-
tant qualities. In a specific sense, Klein followed Clebsch’s idea of bringing peo-
ple together in order to promote a mutual understanding for different approaches
to mathematical research.
Attendance was usually sporadic at the annual meetings of the Society of
German Natural Scientists and Physicians (Gesellschaft deutscher Naturforscher
und Ärzte, GDNÄ), which had been founded in 1822. Participation depended
greatly on where the event was held. Just as other disciplinary factions had begun
to split from the GDNÄ,496 Clebsch proposed, at the organization’s annual mee-
ting held in 1867 in Frankfurt am Main, that a separate mathematical association
should be formed. Not long thereafter, on Whitsunday of 1868, Clebsch invited
twenty mathematicians – the student Klein among them – to join him on the afo-
rementioned hike along the Bergstraße. Here, Klein not only got to know Clebsch
and the other mathematicians. He was also introduced to Christian Wiener’s mo-
del of a cubic surface with twenty-seven real lines (asymmetrical and based on an
empirical construction) and he witnessed the discussion that led to the creation of
the journal Mathematische Annalen. These early stages of Clebsch’s efforts to
bring scholars together were interrupted, however, by the Franco-Prussian War.
After the war, Clebsch put the Privatdozent Klein on the task. The latter rec-
ruited the Leipzig-based mathematician Adolph Mayer and Max Noether to serve
as members of a planning committee:
Perhaps you recall that we spoke last Easter about how desirable it would be to organize a
gathering of mathematicians in the not-so-distant future. Since then, I have asked around and
received the impression that a conference held early next year – in late May, for instance –
would be agreeable to many sides. Clebsch, who will incidentally be in Leipzig at that time, is
also entirely in favor of the plan. I would like now with this letter to ask whether you might
perhaps be willing to play an organizational role in the matter. I have posed this same
question to Noether in Heidelberg, whom I know personally very well. The three of us: you,
Noether, and I could perhaps form a committee “for the purpose of organizing a mathematics
conference.”497

When Klein heard that another meeting was being planned for Berlin, he formu-
lated his general principle of “not allowing any fragmentation.”498 The twenty-
two-year-old coordinated with the organizers of the other meeting and followed
Max Noether’s suggestion to appoint a Berlin-based mathematician to the plan-
ning committee. They recruited Carl Ohrtmann, a senior teacher at a Realgyma-
sium in Berlin who – along with Felix Müller, a teacher at the Königliches Lui-
sengymnasium – had founded Germany’s first review journal devoted to mathe-

495 Quoted from JACOBS 1977, p. 5.

496 On these developments, see the detailed discussion in TOBIES/VOLKERT 1998.
497 Quoted from TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 59 (Klein to Mayer on October Oct. 10, 1871).
498 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 12: 542 (Klein to Max Noether on November 19, 1871).
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 119

matics: Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik [Yearbook on Advances

in Mathematics].499
Recommended by Hermann Schubert and Otto Stolz, Klein assumed the duty
of writing reviews about “line geometry and some algebra” as of the second vol-
ume of the Jahrbuch.500 Because he was discontent about how works were being
distributed for review, Klein chose the topic of reviewing as one of the discussion
points for the conference that he was planning. A letter from Klein to Otto Stolz
indicates how he prepared to implement his ideas:
I would like to take the occasion of the conference to restructure the manner in which works
are reviewed for the Jahrbuch, in the sense that each reviewer should review the work in
question completely and not simply focus on his special area of expertise, so the journal will
be more coherent than it has been. I would also like to recruit new reviewers, such as [Ale-
xander] Brill. I am not yet able to write anything more specific about this, for in the next few
weeks I intend to learn more about the relationships between the people whose names might
come up in this regard. In general, however, if you are able to attend the meeting around
Easter time or if potential reviewers are voted on otherwise, may I be secure in knowing that
you approve of this idea?501

Before the planned national conference took place in Göttingen from the 16th to
the 18th of April in 1873, another meeting of approximately fifty people had been
held in Berlin during the Easter break of 1872. Here, Klein met the Austrian phy-
sicist Ludwig Boltzmann for the first time.502 In addition, the planning committee
for the national meeting acquired two further members: Ludwig Kiepert, a friend
of Klein and student of Weierstrass, and Emil Lampe,503 who was then a Cor-
rector for Crelle’s Journal.
When Clebsch died during the conference’s planning stages, Klein had
meanwhile begun his first professorship (at the University of Erlangen), and he
stuck to the plan: “My program is to unify German mathematics, even its isolated
members (insofar as they are animated by genuine interest).”504 The professors
whom Klein especially wished to be in attendance received an extra invitation:
Regarding the conference, it seems necessary to write personally again to those men who
seem especially important to us. On the basis of suggestions from Kiepert and [Max] Noether,
I would like to ask you to send a special invitation to Richelot, [Eduard] Heine, and
Aronhold, while Kiepert will write to the mathematicians in Berlin; Noether to [Lazarus]

499 See MÜLLER 1904 and also SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 1993.

500 [Oslo] Letters from Klein to Lie dated March 29, 1871 and May 31, 1871. Klein wrote
reviews for the Jahrbuch until 1879, at which point he passed on this task to Aurel Voss
([UGB] Cod. MS. F. Klein 12, p. 70: a letter from Voss to Klein dated February 18, 1879).
501 [Innsbruck] A letter from Klein to Stolz dated February 3, 1873.
502 Ibid. Klein’s letter to Otto Stolz dated March 30, 1872. – Boltzmann spent 1871/72 with
Helmholtz, and in 1872 he published one of his famous papers on statistical mechanics.
503 At that time, Lampe was a senior teacher at the Friedrich-Werdersche trade school in Berlin.
Later he became a professor at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, and as of 1885 he served
as chief editor of the Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik.
504 Quoted from TOBIES 1991, p. 35 (a letter from Klein to Max Noether dated December 1872).
120 2 Formative Groups

Fuchs, Schwarz, and [Otto] Hesse; [Alexander] Brill to Christoffel, Reye, and [Heinrich]
Weber; and I will write to Lipschitz, [Wilhelm] Fiedler, Grassmann, and Schlaefli.505

In the end, however, none of these specially invited professors attended the pre-
pared conference, which was held in Göttingen in April of 1873.506 The partici-
pants included former members of Clebsch’s circle (A. Brill, Gordan, Klein, Lin-
demann, Lüroth, M. Noether, H. Schubert, Voss, Weiler); scholars associated with
the University of Göttingen (Enneper, Klinkerfues, Listing, Meyerstein, Min-
nigerode, Neesen, Riecke, Schering, M.A. Stern, Georg Ulrich, Wilhelm Weber);
representatives of the journal Mathematische Annalen (Adolph Mayer and Karl
Von der Mühll, in addition to Klein and Gordan); representatives of the journal
Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik (Emil Lampe, Felix Müller, Carl
Ohrtmann); and representatives of the journal Archiv der Mathematik und Physik
(Reinhold Hoppe). Participants from abroad included Zeuthen from Denmark,
Julius König and Mór Réthy from Hungary, Ernst Pasquier from Belgium, and
Otto Stolz from Austria. In addition, the event was also attended by the professors
Moritz Pasch (from Giessen) and Rudolf Sturm (from Darmstadt).507 Also present
were the algebraists Eugen Netto and Ernst Schröder, who did not yet hold profes-
sorships at the time, and Max Simon, a mathematics teacher in Strasbourg who
was to become a well-known historian of mathematics. The organizers had done
their best, but the meeting ultimately fell short of their goal, which was to make
connections between a broad variety of mathematical schools of thought.
Nevertheless, Klein wrote optimistically to Sophus Lie: “I have to tell you
briefly about our conference. As far as I’ve heard, the latter took place to the
satisfaction of everyone involved. The collaborators working on Clebsch’s
biography held long discussions, which I will take into account over the course of
the summer as I finish the matter.”508 The conference had also been enriched by
an exhibit of models.
Klein was able to realize his ideas for the Jahrbuch as well, which were based
on his experiences as a collaborateur for the French review journal – Darboux’s
Bulletin (see Section 2.6.1). On March 11, 1871, Klein received the first volume
of the Jahrbuch, which contained reviews of works that had appeared in 1868.
Klein thought that it left “a good, objective impression,” and he had compared:
“Darboux’s Bulletin is somewhat analogous but far more subjective.”509
In addition, a main result of the conference in Göttingen was the decision to
plan a follow-up conference. Klein was elected, along with Carl Ohrtmann and
Alfred Enneper, to be part of a preparatory committee for a meeting to be held in

505 Quoted from TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 70 (a letter from Klein to Mayer dated Jan. 25, 1873).
506 For a full list of participants, see GUTZMER 1904, p. 23.
507 Rudolf Sturm would later write the three-volume book Die Gebilde ersten und zweiten
Grades der Liniengeometrie in synthetischer Behandlung (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1893–96),
the third volume of which repeatedly refers to Klein’s analytic results.
508 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated May 4, 1873.
509 Ibid. Klein to Lie, March 11, 1871.
 2.8 Time as a Privatdozent in Göttingen 121

Würzburg in 1875. For several reasons, however, this plan for Würzburg was
never realized. Already on October 24, 1874, Klein wrote to Moritz Abraham
Stern in Göttingen about a planning meeting that he had scheduled with Adolph
Mayer, Ohrtmann, and Enneper in Leipzig: “I am actually going about it with
very mixed feelings, for we have no reason to expect great success this second
time around, and it is very well possible that, in light of this circumstance, we
might seek a way to postpone the conference for a while.”510 Other challenges
arose that Klein also had to manage. In November of 1874, he accepted a new
position in Munich (see Chapter 4). At the same time, while still in Erlangen, he
began to make his private life a priority, so that his free days were planned differ-
ently. Moreover, the interest among German professors of mathematics to form a
separate association of mathematicians remained minimal at the time, even though
the French Société Mathématique had already been founded in 1872.
The French society was the first national association devoted exclusively to
mathematics. Before its establishment, there had only been local mathematical
societies (such organizations were founded, for instance, in Hamburg in 1690, in
Prague in 1862, in London in 1865, in Moscow in 1867, in Tokyo in 1877, in Pa-
lermo in 1884, and in New York in 1888). In Germany, the first national organi-
zation of mathematicians – the German Mathematical Society (Deutsche Mathe-
matiker-Vereinigung) – was founded in 1890 (see Section 6.4.4), after which si-
milar societies would be formed in other countries.511

510 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10, p. 1160B (a letter from Klein to Stern dated October 24, 1874).
511 For details concerning the establishment of these organizations, see also TOBIES 1986a; and
TOBIES 1989b.
122 2 Formative Groups

Figure 14: The title page of Klein’s Erlangen Program (October 1872).
 3 A PROFESSORSHIP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ERLANGEN
I have to say that the hour of fulfillment has struck for me, too. Yesterday I received an offer
to become a full professor in Erlangen, where [Hans] Pfaff (von Staudt’s successor) died two
or three months ago. This morning I accepted the offer, and I will probably move to Erlangen
as early as next semester.1

Thus wrote Klein to Sophus Lie, who had just become a professor in Christiania a
few months before. To Darboux, Klein wrote: “It is von Staudt’s old chair, and it
brings me not a little pleasure to be his successor, because I have been studying
his work repeatedly over the past few years.”2 To the Leipzig-based mathemati-
cian Adolph Mayer, he sent the following news: “The matter came so unexpec-
tedly” that he had little time to think about it. Klein ended his lectures before the
close of the term in order to embark upon a three-week tour of the Tyrolian Alps
with his Scottish friend William Robertson Smith. Otto Stolz had recommended
the route that they should take: “We undertook,” as Klein wrote to him, “the tour
that you suggested with the utmost diligence but also with the greatest pleasure,
except that, instead of the Kreuzspitze, we hiked up the Similaun, which is not
much more difficult but is higher and more interesting on account of all the
snow.”3 Klein was athletic at the time, and he had become a full professor at such
an early age that he was still too young to vote in the German Empire’s first
parliamentary election – a fact that he was amused to relate.4
Klein arrived in Erlangen on September 29, 1872. The city, after changing
hands between several political territories, was now part of Bavaria. The univer-
sity had been founded in 1743 in what was then the principality of Brandenburg-
Bayreuth. Under Bavarian rule, it was renamed the Royal Friedrich Alexander
University, and the only reason why it was not closed down was because it pos-
sessed the only Protestant theological faculty in the otherwise Catholic state. Er-
langen’s population then was approximately 12,500, and thus it was an even
smaller town than Göttingen. There were fewer than four hundred students en-
rolled at the university. The palace, the palace garden, and the orangery had be-
longed to the university since 1818. The palace contained the university library,
lecture halls, seminar rooms, and scientific collections. Here, after much effort,
Klein acquired a room for conducting mathematical exercises (see Section 3.2).

1 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated August 3, 1872.

2 [Paris] 62: Klein to Darboux, August 28, 1872.
3 TOBIES/ROWE 1990, pp. 64–66 (a letter from Klein to A. Mayer dated August 28, 1872); and
[Innsbruck] A letter from Klein to Stolz dated August 29, 1872. The Similaun is a mountain
in the Ötztal Alps with an elevation of 3,599 meters.
4 See CARATHÉODORY 1925, p. 2. Only men older than 25 were eligible to vote. The first elec-
tion of the German parliament took place on March 3, 1871.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 123

R. Tobies, Felix Klein, Vita Mathematica 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75785-4_3
124 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

After the death of Karl Georg Christian von Staudt (Erlangen’s first mathe-
matician with an international reputation), his professorship was briefly held by
Hermann Hankel (1868–69) and Hans Pfaff (1869–72). After Pfaff’s death on
May 20, 1872, the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Erlangen submitted,
as early as June of that year, a list of just two potential candidates to fill the
position to the Bavarian Ministry of Culture in Munich. Klein’s name stood at the
top of the list, and Johannes Thomae’s was in second place. From a letter written
by the dean of the Philosophical Faculty, Eugen Lommel (Klein’s future brother-
in-law), we learn that, for financial reasons, the university was looking for a
young man who could teach a broad range of subjects. Clebsch had sent a glowing
recommendation for Klein, and this was reflected in the letter dated June 26,
1872, to the Bavarian Ministry of Culture in support of Klein’s candidacy:
Just twenty-three years old, Klein has managed, through the number and quality of his publi-
cations, to earn the unreserved respect and admiration of his colleagues. […] Recently, his
article “On Non-Euclidean Geometry” stirred lively discussion and became a sensation in the
widest circles – here and abroad. […] The majority of his work is in the area of analytic ge-
ometry, a discipline which, by its nature, occupies a mediating position between the various
approaches of contemporary mathematics mentioned above; moreover, I am also aware that
Clebsch has introduced him in the most thorough manner to modern algebra, and thus, to a
high degree, he possesses the multifaceted education that is so desirable to us. Klein, howe-
ver, is not only impressive as an author but is also, according to the judgement of his expe-
rienced colleagues, a highly effective teacher. […] If we may add to this that, in addition to
his abilities as a scholar and teacher, his sterling private character, his vigor, his vitality, and
his amiability are also unanimously praised, then we must recognize in Klein, in every
respect, the man above all to whom we would like to entrust the vacant professorship.5

The Bavarian king, Ludwig II, signed Klein’s letter of appointment on August 21,
1872. Klein began his new position on October 1, 1872 with a yearly salary of
2,000 Gulden. Upon request, he was allotted 400 Gulden to cover his moving ex-
penses.6 He rented an apartment on the first floor of Gabelsberger Straße 16,
which was just a short walk away from the palace and the botanical garden.
On December 9, 1872, Klein was made a member of the Societas Physico-
medica Erlangensis, which was founded in 1808 and still exists today.7 This aca-
demic society pursued the goal of “exchanging thoughts, observations, and ex-
periences from all areas of the natural sciences, technology, and medicine.” Klein
was the first, as Max Noether reported, to integrate mathematics into its program.8
That is, Klein made use of the society’s Sitzungsberichte [Proceedings] – as he
had done with the Göttinger Nachrichten before – to publish his findings and

5 For the original German letter, see TOBIES 1992a, p. 767 (TOBIES 2019b, p. 108).
6 [UA Erlangen] R. Th. II. Pos. 1, No. 15 (Hans Pfaff’s personnel file, which contains records
of Klein’s hiring process). By comparison, we know that in 1869 the mathematician Gustav
Bauer was hired as a professor by the University of Munich with an annual salary of 1,200
Gulden. See VOSS 1907, p. 61.
7 [UB Erlangen] MS 2565 [8] List of members; and [10] Minutes from the meeting.
8 M. NOETHER 1908, p. 81. I am indebted to Cordula Tollmien for this reference.
 3.1 Research Trends and Doctoral Students 125

those of his students quickly. When, after five semesters in Erlangen, Klein moved
to Munich to take a new position, the Societas Physico-medica Erlangensis made
him an honorary member on May 10, 1875, so that this publication venue re-
mained open to him. In all, he published sixteen articles in the Sitzungsberichte.
Klein’s Erlangen Program, which arose from discussions with Sophus Lie,
was published as an independent booklet (see Fig. 14). Klein regretted that his
teacher Clebsch had not lived to see it. After its publication, Klein spent a good
deal of time writing Clebsch’s academic biography and continuing Clebsch’s pro-
gram of bringing disciplines and people together. Although Klein’s higher lec-
tures in Erlangen were never attended by more than eight students, he supervised,
within the framework of his own research program, the doctoral studies of a sur-
prisingly high percentage of young mathematicians at the time (Section 3.1).
Klein was aware that most mathematics students would not become research-
ers but rather teachers at secondary school. For this reason, he made it a point in
his obligatory inaugural lecture as a professor to formulate his far-sighted goals
for education (Section 3.2).9 Klein continued his efforts to familiarize himself
with different scientific schools of thought. In 1873, he undertook a long-planned
trip to Great Britain (see Section 3.3), and in 1874 he traveled to Italy for the first
time (Section 3.4). Even though Klein left Erlangen after just five semesters there,
he did much to build up the university’s mathematical institution, which, before
his arrival, had existed in name (“Mathematisches Institut”) only (Section 3.5).
In Erlangen, too, he set the course for his familiy life (Section 3.6).

3.1 RESEARCH TRENDS AND DOCTORAL STUDENTS

Of course the enjoyment of independent productivity will always remain accessible to only a
few.10

Klein felt from early on that he numbered among the few people who could make
creative contributions to mathematics. He knew that such activity “requires a spe-
cial disposition not given to everyone,” and he compared it to musical creativity:
“[O]nly very few persons are musically creative, but still most people have a more
or less cultivated understanding for a finished piece of music. The class of those
with no musical sense whatsoever is decidedly limited. Similarly, there are also
those otherwise normally gifted persons, again not many, who have absolutely no
head for mathematics, and are utterly unable to follow even the simplest mathe-
matical argument.”11 Klein was quickly able to recognize the mathematical talents
of others, and he took pleasure in guiding young mathematicians.

9 Klein’s inaugural lecture (Antrittsrede) in Erlangen is often confused with his Erlangen Pro-
gram. For a somewhat recent example of this confusion, see STUBHAUG 2002, p. 165.
10 Quoted from Klein’s inaugural lecture in Erlangen (see Section 3.2), which he delivered on
December 7, 1872. The English translation given here is from ROWE 1985, p. 136.
11 Ibid., p. 137.
126 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

The development of the Erlangen Program – a text that, as a newly appointed

professor in Erlangen, Klein was required to publish – has already been discussed
above (see Section 2.8.2). My focus here will be on the vision of the work and its
effects. In addition, I will also outline the research interests of Klein’s students in
Erlangen and discuss how they took Klein’s own research in new directions.

3.1.1 The Vision of the Erlangen Program

Klein wrote the following to Darboux on November 29, 1872: “Lie visited me for
nearly two months, September and October. What we discussed will be evident to
you from the publications that arose from our conversations: Lie’s note in the
Göttinger Nachrichten and my inaugural program.”12 By “inaugural program,”
Klein meant his Erlangen Program (KLEIN 1872, 48pp.), whose basic idea and
motivation he later explained in the first volume of his collected writings:
Even as early as my time in Bonn, my interest was directed toward understanding, in the con-
flict between feuding mathematical schools, the mutual aspects of their concurrent ap-
proaches, which were outwardly dissimilar from each other and yet related by their nature. I
hoped to resolve their contradictions by means of a unifying and all-encompassing concept.
Within the field of geometry, there was still plenty for me to do in this respect.13

The broad spectrum of geometric approaches in which Klein had immersed him-
self and for which he sought an ordering principle included Julius Plücker’s line
geometry, projective geometry, the birational geometry of Riemann and Clebsch,
sphere geometry (as developed in particular by French mathematicians), Hermann
Grassmann’s extension theory, Karl Georg Christian von Staudt’s geometry of po-
sition, two types of non-Euclidean geometry (one developed by Gauss, Loba-
chevsky, and Bolyai; the other by Riemann), and Sophus Lie’s new insights into
contact transformations and their applications to systems of partial differential
equations. Klein recognized that these different approaches to geometry could be
classified with correlated transformation groups, with each of such groups de-
termining a specific set of invariants.
Klein drew a connection between these individual approaches to geometry by
replacing his aforementioned idea of a “principal group” (see Section 2.8.2) with a
more comprehensive group (which would preserve only part of the geometric
properties). The transition to a larger group thus corresponded to a transition
toward a less specific geometry.
Table 5 arranges traditional Euclidean geometries into a schema in order to
illustrate their interrelations. The schema itself does not appear in Klein’s booklet
but was formulated later on to provide an overview.14 The Erlangen Program, for

12 [Paris] 64v; Sophus Lie, “Zur Theorie partieller Differentialgleichungen erster Ordnung,
insbesondere über eine Classification derselben,” Göttinger Nachrichten (1872), pp. 473–89.
13 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 52. See also HAWKINS 1984; and ROWE 1989a.
14 See also WUßING 1968.
 3.1 Research Trends and Doctoral Students 127

instance, does not address the affine geometry cited here. The motion of a geo-
metric figure (its displacement or rotation, for instance) alters its position. The
length of line segments and the property of lines to be orthogonal thereby remain
invariant. Parallel lines cross over again into parallel lines. The partition ratio of
three points and the cross-ratio of four points maintain the same value. In the case
of a projective mapping (a central projection, for instance) the lengths in a figure
do not accord with the corresponding lengths in its image. Parallel lines can be
transformed into intersecting lines. Only the cross-ratio of four points and in-
cidence relations remain invariant. Klein only mentioned non-Euclidean geome-
tries in an appendix to his Program (see below).
Table 5: On the Erlangen Program
Motion Equiform Affine Projective
group group group group
Position not invariant not invariant not invariant not invariant
Extent invariant not invariant not invariant not invariant
Orthogonality invariant invariant not invariant not invariant
Parallelity invariant invariant invariant not invariant
Partition ratio invariant invariant invariant not invariant
Cross-ratio invariant invariant invariant invariant
Incidence invariant invariant invariant invariant
Metric Equiform Affine Projective
geometry geometry geomety geometry

The content of the Erlangen Program has been widely discussed in the English-
speaking world. A recent study by Gray bases its analysis on the early English
translation by Klein’s doctoral student Haskell (1893).15 David Rowe, who con-
siders Haskell’s translation outdated, has recently translated the text anew.
The Erlangen Program followed a lofty vision, as Klein remarked twenty
years after its publication: “My Program, as we believed, was meant to be an
outward sign of the redevelopment of geometry, comparable to the redevelopment
that Poncelet had set in motion fifty years before.”16 By “we,” Klein meant him-
self and Sophus Lie, with whom he had discussed his basic ideas. By the summer
of 1873, however, the work had hardly caused the splash that Klein had hoped it
would. To a question from Lie, Klein responded in June of 1873:
You ask what people have thought about my Program. Well, I have hardly heard any opini-
ons about it at all. A Frenchman, Pasquier, who was in Göttingen over Easter, told me that
Darboux has criticized it. Mansion, on the contrary, is delighted with it and hopes for it to be
translated. [Max] Noether, who also understood our work on W-curves, wrote to me in
approval. Gordan, whom I asked directly about it, told me that it does not appeal to him in the
least; he seemed to regard the whole thing as an exercise in style. In contrast, the old [Moritz
Abraham] Stern, as someone wrote to me from Göttingen, is very pleased with it. That is just

15 See Jeremy Gray’s article in JI/PAPADOPOULOS 2015, pp. 59–73.

16 [Oslo] II: Klein’s notes dated November 1, 1892 (printed in ROWE 1992a, p. 202).
128 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

about everything that I have heard. My colleagues here have unanimously told me that they
did not understand it.17

The (Belgian) mathematician Ernest Pasquier had participated in the seminar led
by Clebsch and Klein in 1872.18 Paul Mansion, another Belgian mathematician,
translated works by Riemann, Plücker, Clebsch, and others into French.
The Austrian Otto Stolz numbered among the few who were quick to recog-
nize the potential of Klein’s Erlangen Program. He sent a draft of his review of
the booklet to Klein before it appeared in the Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der
Mathematik,19 and Klein was very pleased about Stolz’s sympathetic assessment.
Klein requested, however, that Stolz should “emphasize Lie’s name somewhat
more: It is essentially by exchanging ideas with him that I formulated these gen-
eral ideas.” Friedrich Engel later reported, however, that, for Sophus Lie, “Klein’s
thought that many areas of mathematics to that point could be conceptualized as
an invariant theory of certain known groups […] was new and surprising.”20 Klein
stressed Lie’s inspiration at several points in the Program, but he himself recog-
nized that there were still unsolved problems. In a letter to Stolz, he elaborated:
In your review of my work, you considered my unification of various branches of geometry
to be complete; I think that is an exaggeration. Only one step has been made, and although I
think that this step is an important one, the synthesis still has to become much tighter. I be-
lieve that I am now in a position to take things a step further and to set aside the limitations
that I mention in § 9 (in the middle). Yet what I have in mind is still so undefined that I
hardly know how to capture it in words.21

Section 9 of his text concerned the group of all contact transformations, and it
owed much to the work of Lie and Clebsch. Later, in his collected works, Klein
would cite two main imperfections in his Program from 1872: the unsatisfactory
identification of projective geometry with linear invariant theory, and the re-
stricted notion of a function that he used.22 In comparison with Lie, as Rowe has
underscored, Klein had transformation groups in mind that could be applied glob-
ally (not locally) to a manifold.23 The distinction between the global and local
properties of a manifold, which already appears in Riemann’s work, is not fully
expressed in Klein’s Erlangen Program. Scholz has pointed out that Klein used a
mixed concept between projective and topological mapping, and that he would
overcome this problem in later works.24 Klein regarded his Program as a sugges-
tion to systematically study the invariants and covariants of known groups. This
was an ambitious goal, but it is only according to this measure that the Program

17 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated June 28, 1873 (see TOBIES 2019b, p. 111).
18 [Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 12–13, 21–22.
19 The review was published in the 1875 issue of the Jahrbuch (pp. 234–35).
20 F. ENGEL 1899, p. xxxix.
21 [Innsbruck] A letter from Klein to Otto Stolz dated January 8, 1874.
22 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 414.
23 ROWE 2003, p. 671.
24 SCHOLZ 1980, p. 136.
 3.1 Research Trends and Doctoral Students 129

should be judged. In this respect, one can consider the researchers working today
who continue to rely on Klein’s basic ideas.25
Klein appended seven notes to his program that should be understood as an
immanent component of his visionary ideas:26
I. In the first note, he stressed that, for him, the distinction between synthetic
and analytic approaches was no longer essential, as I have already mentioned
above in the context of Plücker.
II. Klein referred to the state of geometry at the time – that is, its division into
separate disciplines – as something that is “hopefully only provisional.”27
III. Here he stressed the value of spatial perception or intuition (Anschauung)
both with respect to teaching and as a fundamental method of geometric research.
This is something that would occupy him throughout his life: “A model – whether
constructed and observed or only vividly imagined – is for this geometry not a
means to an end but rather the object of inquiry itself.”
IV. In this note, Klein engaged with the theory of manifolds of any number of
dimensions, and he discussed the development of this theory by Plücker, Grass-
mann, Gauss, and Riemann.
V. Klein discussed non-Euclidean geometry as a special case because, in his
words, it was still associated with “a multitude of non-mathematical speculati-
ons.”
VI. In this note, he explained in greater detail how line geometry could be un-
derstood as the investigation of a manifold of constant curvature. He cited in par-
ticular his article “Ueber Liniengeometrie und metrische Geometrie” [On Line
Geometry and Metric Geometry].
VII. Finally, Klein interpreted “binary forms” with reference to the corre-
sponding theory by Clebsch,28 and in doing so he drew a connection between
sphere geometry (the interpretation of x + iy on the surface of the sphere), the ver-
tices of a symmetrical tetrahedron, and the theory of biquadratic equations.29
We have to keep these notes in mind, too, when we say that Klein continued
to follow the program, for then it is possible to agree with his later assessment of
the work: “This Erlangen Program has always remained the major guideline for
my later investigations, and its ordering principle can still be applied to a number
of other areas, including function theory, mechanics, and physics.”30
In 1884, Lie wrote as follows to Klein: “If you are collecting your older works
for republication in Mathematische Annalen, do you not also want to reprint your
Erlangen Program there? It is certainly your most significant work from around
1872, and it would be better understood now than it was then.”31 As early as 1883,

25 See, for instance, KISIL 2011; JI/PAPADOPOULOS 2015; RATAJ/ZÄHLE 2019.

26 KLEIN 2020 [1872], pp. 23–27; KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 490–97.
27 Here and in the following, see KLEIN 2020 [1872], p. 24–25.
28 A “binary form” is a polynomial with two variables.
29 This aspect would be taken up by Klein’s doctoral student Ludwig Wedekind (see below).
30 KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), p. 18. See also CARATHÉODORY 1919, and Section 9.2.2.
31 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 695/3.
130 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

the Greek mathematician Cyparissos Stéphanos (then in Paris) had suggested that
he could translate the Erlangen Program into French and publish it in Mittag-
Leffler’s Acta Mathematica, which sometimes incorporated translations (espe-
cially of the works of Georg Cantor). Klein agreed, Poincaré and Sophus Lie sup-
ported the idea. However, Mittag-Leffler rejected Stéphanos’s proposal. Klein
remained diplomatic and eventually abandoned the plan.32
When, in November of 1889, Corrado Segre, a professor in Turin, requested
permission to translate the work into Italian,33 Klein gave his assent. Segre’s stu-
dent Gino Fano, who would subsequently study under Klein, did the translation,
and Klein supplemented the text with commentary.34 In Turin, the Privatdozent
Mario Pieri also made use of Klein’s Program, and he even referred to Klein as “a
personal hero.”35 The work was finally translated into French by Henri Padé, who
studied under Klein in 1890 and 1891. Klein had hoped that Padé would use the
Italian version as the base text, because Klein himself had updated the latter to
include more recent scholarly literature. Padé, however, used the German original
from 1872 because he had a better command of German than Italian. Klein there-
fore furnished the French edition with a preface.36 In France, it now became more
apparent that, as early as 1872, Klein had stressed that his main points of depar-
ture were Camille Jordan’s work on groups of motions (“Sur les groupes de mou-
vements”) and Michel Chasles’s intuitive approach of regarding metric properties
as projective relationships to a fundamental configuration (the infinite spherical
circle). The French translation was followed in 1893 by the aforementioned Eng-
lish translation by M.W. Haskell, who, in 1890, had completed his doctoral degree
under Klein’s supervision in Göttingen. Additional translations would subse-
quently appear in Polish (by S. Dickstein in 1895), in Russian (by D.M. Sintsov in
1896), and in Hungarian (by Lajos Kopp in 1897).37
Klein also agreed with Lie’s idea to reprint the Erlangen Program in Mathe-
matische Annalen, but he wanted to publish it along with reprints of his and Lie’s
early collaborative studies (with explanatory notes). In the early 1890s, however,
the two had begun to develop diverging opinions (see Section 6.3.6), so that Klein
gave up on this plan and decided to publish only his Program.38 He added a few
corrections and notes, referring to developments over the previous twenty years

32 On Stéphanos, see PHILI 2009, and [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11 (Stéphanos to Klein, Sep-
tember 29, 1883). Regarding the context, see also DÉCAILLOT 2011, p. 35, and ROWE 1992b,
p. 612 (a letter from Klein to Mittag-Leffler dated June 21, 1885).
33 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 991 (a letter from Segre to Klein dated November 19, 1889).
34 Felix Klein, “Considerazioni comparative intorno a ricerche geometriche recenti,” Annali di
matematica pura ed applicata 17 (1890), pp. 307–43.
35 See MARCHISOTTO/SMITH 2007, p. 56.
36 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 157, 158 (letters from Padé to Klein dated Oct. 27 and Nov. 3,
1890). Felix Klein, “Considérations comparatives sur les recherches géométriques moder-
nes,” Annales de l’école normale supérieure 3/8 (1891), pp. 87–102, 173–99.
37 See KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), Appendix, p. 17; also GRAY 2005.
38 This reprint appeared in Math. Ann. 43 (1893), pp. 63–100.
 3.1 Research Trends and Doctoral Students 131

and especially to Lie’s findings. This reprint, the many translations, Klein’s lec-
tures on advanced geometry, and his students all served to make the ideas of his
Erlangen Program known to a broader audience. For example, Klein’s American
scientific heir Edward Kasner based his doctoral thesis, “The Invariant Theory of
the Inversion Group: Geometry Upon a Quadric Surface” (1899), on it.39
Of course, Sophus Lie’s contribution and that of other mathematicians to the
influence of the Erlangen Program are not a matter of dispute. Thomas Hawkins
is certainly right to remark that it was Lie who did the most to promote the Erlan-
gen Program and to ensure its widespread influence.40 It should be kept in mind,
however, that Lithographic copies of Klein’s hand-written lectures circulated
more widely than Hawkins supposes. They were available in Italy, for instance,
where they can still be found (among other places) at the Scuola Normale Superi-
ore in Pisa, and they were eagerly awaited in France by Émile Picard and his fa-
ther-in-law Hermite.41 Furthermore, even though Gino Fano underscored the
works of Italian mathematicians and Eduard Study in his article on group theory
in the ENCYKLOPÄDIE and paid little attention there to the Erlangen Program, as
Hawkins points out,42 this was done in full agreement with Klein, who guided the
ENCYKLOPÄDIE project. Élie Cartan wrote the extended French version of this en-
cyclopedia article (“La théorie des groupes continus et la géométrie”), and the
question of how Klein’s view of transformation groups could be imported into a
differential geometric setting played a crucial role in his further research (as well
as in the research of Hermann Weyl).43
In 1914, the Dutchman J.A. Schouten published a book with Teubner in
which he used Klein’s classification principle for the investigation of geometric
quantities in vector analysis, and Klein had written a preface to it. The geometri-
cian Wilhelm Blaschke, who completed his doctorate under Wilhelm Wirtinger in
Vienna and his Habilitation under Eduard Study in Bonn, emphasized the fol-
lowing point in the preface to his edition of Klein’s lectures on geometry (which
was published after Klein’s death):
Klein’s group-theoretical development of geometry, as first formulated in his Erlangen
Program from 1872 and further refined in his Introduction to Higher Geometry, is just as
important and vital today as ever before for the further development of geometry – and of
physics as well.44

Klein’s Erlangen program influenced famous philosophical systems as well. Its

impact on Ernst Cassirer’s “system of invariants of experiences” has been well
investigated by IHMIG (1997). SCHIEMER (2020) called Klein’s Program an im-
portant origin of structuralism in the philosophy of mathematics.

39 published in Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 1 (1900) (4), pp. 430–98.
40 See HAWKINS 1984, p. 452; and HAWKINS 2000.
41 See TOBIES 2016.
42 HAWKINS 1984, p. 454.
43 See SHARPE 1997; and in particular SCHOLZ 2012.
44 KLEIN/BLASCHKE 1926, preface. See also Sections 9.2.2 and 9.2.3.
132 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

3.1.2 Klein’s Students in Erlangen

Like Clebsch, Klein dreamed of founding his own scientific school. But he re-
cognized the difficulties of achieving such a lofty aim, because in Bavaria there
had been no math teachers at secondary schools for some decades.45 Klein feared
the worst: “Until now, there has been no mathematics in Bavaria, and the southern
German student seems to be a lazy thinker. That said, my rather strong social
drive – if this is understood as the desire to affect other people – will presumably
be satisfied.”46 About a month after the beginning of the semester, Klein commu-
nicated the following to Darboux:
Here in Erlangen I was at first very isolated, especially scientifically; my only interactions
were with beginners. Since then, two older people have come here from Göttingen who work
independently on geometry. I hope very much that this number increases next semester and
that, in Erlangen, I will gradually succeed in establishing a school of geometric productivity
such as that which had gotten off to such a great start in Göttingen while Clebsch was still
there.47

After receiving his certificate of employment, Klein had informed the senate of
the University of Erlangen on September 3, 1872 that he planned to offer a lec-
ture, Monday through Friday from 11 to 12 o’clock, “on elementary aspects of
algebra in connection with the analytic geometry of the plane,” and to teach
“mathematical exercises” one hour per week.48 However, when he showed up to
deliver his first lecture, on November 5th, only two students were in attendance.
Aurel Voss and Adolf Weiler transferred to Erlangen to continue their studies un-
der Klein, after Alfred Clebsch had died on November 7th. In general, the univer-
sity facilities in Erlangen were rather underdeveloped at the time. During the
winter semester of 1869/70, for instance, there were only 374 students enrolled at
the entire university, and only two in mathematics.
Klein’s course for beginners during his first semester in Erlangen (1872/73)
was ultimately attended by five students, who remained there for several semes-
ters and would later become teachers. At first, only one student, Adolf Weiler,
registered for his advanced lecture “Select Chapters of Newer Geometry, with
Practical Exercises.”49 In response, Klein changed the lecture topic to projective
metrics, thereby attracting the attendance of Aurel Voss and Siegmund Günther in
addition to Weiler. Weiler, in fact, would write his doctoral thesis on this topic,
and it also informed Voss’s Habilitation thesis, which, with Klein’s help, he was
able to submit to the University of Göttingen.50

45 See SCHUBRING 2007, p. 2.; SCHUBRING 2012.

46 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated August 3, 1872.
47 [Paris] 64: Klein to Darboux, November 29, 1872, emphasis original.
48 [UA Erlangen] I–II, Pos. 1, No. 27: Felix Klein.
49 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein, 7E.
50 Klein thanked M.A. Stern for fulfilling Klein’s request and allowing Aurel Voss to do this
([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 1160A, a letter from Klein to M.A. Stern dated July 26, 1874).
 3.1 Research Trends and Doctoral Students 133

Siegmund Günther, who was already a Privatdozent when Klein arrived in

Erlangen, gave lectures on the history of mathematics there.51 Although he atten-
ded Klein’s courses, he never incorporated their material into his own research.
When Klein, in 1874, arranged for Paul Gordan to receive an associate professor-
ship (see Section 3.5), Günther felt passed over. On July 17, 1874, he transferred
as a Privatdozent to the Polytechnikum (as of 1877: Technische Hochschule) in
Munich. When Klein revealed to him that he himself has accepted a position
there, Günther decided to teach at a Bavarian secondary school.52 Finally, in 1886,
he became professor of geography at this Technische Hochschule.
Aurel Voss, in contrast, considered himself especially fortunate to have
interacted with Klein for four months on a nearly daily basis and to have learned
from his example. In awe, he wrote about Klein’s “remarkable ability to identify,
in the works of others, the point that related specifically to his own ideas” and
about his “talent of directing each of his students to the topic that best suited the
latter’s particular gifts and stage of development.”53
Despite his small number of students, Klein’s efforts in Erlangen to create a
productive geometric school were successful. Over the course of just five semes-
ters there, he supervised not only Voss’s Habilitation research but also the docto-
ral dissertations of six mathematicians, four of whom would go on to have univer-
sity careers.
During Klein’s second semester in Erlangen, after Voss had left for Göttingen
to defend his Habilitation, five students attended his advanced lecture on invariant
theory: Wilhelm Braun, Wilhelm Bretschneider, Ferdinand Lindemann, Ludwig
Wedekind, and the aforementioned Adolf Weiler. With these potential doctoral
students, Klein initiated, on April 22, 1873, and together with the Privatdozent
Siegmund Günther, his mathematical research seminar in Erlangen.54 Just two
months later, Klein informed Sophus Lie: “Two dissertations will soon be com-
pleted here: the first concerns my classification of second-degree complexes, and
the second is about the problem of projective dynamics (kinematics and stat-
ics).”55 Weiler was the first to defend, on July 19, 1873, and Lindemann soon fol-
lowed on August 2, 1873. Klein had already made the following suggestion to
Lindemann at a conference in Göttingen shortly after Clebsch’s death:
As you know, Clebsch’s lectures ought to be edited, if possible, and especially his lectures on
geometry. Do you have any interest in editing the latter under my oversight? The plan for

51 See Uebersicht des Personal-Standes bei der Kgl. Bayerischen Friedrich-Alexander-Uni-

versität Erlangen 1869/70 (Erlangen: Kunstmann), pp. 13–25; and LOREY 1916, p. 193.
52 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 505 (a letter from Günther to Klein dated February 7, 1875);
JACOBS 1977, p. 2; [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 54.
53 VOSS 1919, p. 286 (emphasis original).
54 Until January 21, 1874, Günther delivered several lectures in this seminar on continued fracti-
ons, which was the topic of his Habilitation thesis ([Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 29–30, 44–46, 64–
66, 70–71, 80). Günther’s thesis was published as Darstellung der Näherungswerthe von
Kettenbrüchen in independenter Form (Erlangen: E. Besold, 1873).
55 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated June 28, 1873.
134 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

this, which Gordan and I have agreed upon, is as follows: You take your doctoral exams,
which can happen by the end of the summer. […] You complete the edition while remaining
in daily contact with me, that is, probably in Erlangen. […] I will take it upon myself to write
a preface for the publication. […] I can think of no better opportunity for you to use your abi-
lities and also make yourself known in an advantageous way!56

Klein had switched roles. Just as he himself had edited Plücker’s work on line
geometry under Clebsch’s aegis, the twenty-year-old Lindemann was now wor-
king under Klein’s supervision to edit Clebsch’s lectures. To facilitate Linde-
mann’s relocation to Erlangen, Klein rented an apartment for him; he induced
Lindemann to give presentations on topics related to Clebsch in his seminar, and
he met with him regularly.57

Figure 15: Klein’s circle in Erlangen, 1873.

Felix Klein (on the right) with Ferdinand Lindemann, Wilhelm Bretschneider, Siegmund Günther,
Adolf Weiler, and Ludwig Wedekind (TOBIES/VOLKERT 1998, p. 132).

56 [Lindemann] Memoirs, pp. 49–50 (a letter from Klein to Lindemann dated Dec. 27, 1872).
57 Ibid., pp. 52–54. Regarding Lindemann’s presentations, see [Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 69, 84.
 3.1 Research Trends and Doctoral Students 135

Lindemann described how Klein assembled and maintained his circle in Erlangen,
which was joined by Axel Harnack in the fall of 1873. Once a week, Klein invited
his students to his home, where one of them would give a lecture. Afterwards,
they would all go out to dinner at eight o’clock. They would often eat lunch
together at the Gasthof Walfisch,58 where professors in other disciplines were also
regular patrons, including the zoologist Ernst Ehlers, who was the president of the
Societas Physico-medica Erlangensis and whom Klein encountered again as a
professor in Göttingen. After lunch, the whole group enjoyed the famous
cheesecake at Café Mengin.59 Weather permitting, they would take a postprandial
walk along the canal or toward the Rathsberg range of hills; in bad weather, they
would go instead to the botanical garden and the greenhouses. During these
excursions, they discussed mathematical problems, wrote “formulas and figures in
the sand in the surroundings of Erlangen,” and heard several lectures by the
botanist Maximilian Reeß, who was an expert in mycology.
The professor of botany Reeß had been elected as a member of the Societas
Physico-medica Erlangensis on the same day as Klein. Klein had been interested
in biology since his student years. In 1874 and 1875, he even participated in the
practical zoological exercises led by Emil Selenka, Ehlers’s successor. Klein was
never fully certain of his own mathematical creativity, and he was still somewhat
undecided about whether, at some later point, he should shift his research agenda
to the natural sciences.60 But Klein had not yet run out of mathematical ideas.
In this intensive work atmosphere, further dissertations were completed. Wil-
helm Bretschneider, who had given presentations in Klein’s seminar on December
17, 1873, and February 25, 1874, submitted his dissertation – “Über Kurven 4.
Ordnung mit 3 Doppelpunkten” [On Curves of the Fourth Order with Three
Double Points] – on March 10, 1874. While working as a secondary school tea-
cher in Württemberg, Bretschneider had acquired funding to continue his studies.
At Klein’s instigation, he developed an analytic approach to a topic that Heinrich
Schröter had treated synthetically.61
Ludwig Wedekind passed his doctoral examination on March 11, 1874. In his
dissertation – “Beiträge zur geometrischen Interpretation binärer Formen” [Con-
tributions to the Geometric Interpretation of Binary Forms] – he drew upon
Klein’s Erlangen Program and his new principle of transference, which involved
applying the geometric interpretation of x + iy to the surface of a sphere (Rie-
mann’s number sphere) in order to develop a theory of binary forms. Wedekind’s
ideas about the complex cross-ratio helped Klein to formulate his theory of the

58 The Walfisch inn, where Goethe had once spent the night, was located on Calvinstraße 5. In
1912, the building was demolished to make way for a bank. [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 52.
59 Café Mengin (Schloßplatz 5) still exists in Erlangen today.
60 See JACOBS 1977, p. 2; and [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated February 22, 1875.
61 [Protocols] vol. 1, p. 90. See also G. Kohn and G. Loria, “Spezielle ebene algebraische Kur-
ven,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, Vol. 3 (C 5), p. 560.
136 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

icosahedron (see Section 3.1.3.2). Klein published Wedekind’s findings directly

after a related article of his own in Mathematische Annalen.62
Axel Harnack gave two presentations in Klein’s seminar (on December 10,
1873 and January 14, 1874) about the work of Ferdinand Minding, from whom he
had learned differential geometry in his birthplace of Dorpat (now Tartu, Estonia).
Klein recognized Harnack’s analytic background and encouraged him to draw a
connection between the theory of elliptic functions and the geometry of cubic
curves in order to discover new sets of questions. To do so, Harnack used another
of Klein’s important results: a new type of Riemann surface (see Section 3.1.3.1).
Harnack quickly developed his own theorems, which he presented in Klein’s
seminar on February 11, 1874, and he submitted his dissertation on July 18th of
that year: “Ueber die Verwerthung der elliptischen Functionen für die Geometrie
der Curven dritten Grades” [On the Utilization of Elliptic Functions for the
Geometry of Third-Degree Curves].63
Wilhelm Braun’s dissertation, which he submitted on July 22, 1874, grew
from the seminar lectures that he delivered on January 28 and April 21, 1874,
about the geometric peculiarities of Lissajous’s tuning-fork curves: “At the insti-
gation of my esteemed teacher, Professor Klein, to whom I owe the greatest
thanks for his kind support, I attempted to study the oscillating curves, which re-
sult from two pendulum motions on the plane, as an object in itself in the sense of
projective geometry and to ascertain their singularities.”64
Klein promoted the further advancement of his students. Just as Clebsch had
published Klein’s early work in Mathematische Annalen or in the Göttinger
Nachrichten, Klein likewise used the Annalen and the Sitzungsberichte of the So-
cietas Physico-medica Erlangensis to publish the works of his doctoral students.65
It was in Erlangen, too, that the first foreign students came to study under
Klein. These were Scandinavians recommended by Sophus Lie. In 1874, the
Swede Victor Bäcklund, who already held a doctoral degree, came to Erlangen on
a six-month travel stipend. He had achieved results in the field of algebraic ge-
ometry, for which he made use of Lie’s invariant theory of contact transforma-
tions. Klein took Bäcklund along as a guest to the meetings of the Erlangen So-
cietas, he submitted the latter’s work for publication in the society’s Sitzungs-
berichte, and he also persuaded him to publish articles in Mathematische
Annalen.66

62 Felix Klein, “Über binäre Formen mit linearen Transformationen in sich selbst,” Math. Ann. 9
(1875), pp. 183–208; Ludwig Wedekind, “Beiträge zur geometrischen Interpretation binärer
Formen,” Math. Ann. 9 (1875), pp. 209–17. See also VOSS 1919, p. 286.
63 [Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 85–87; and Math. Ann. 9 (1875), pp. 1–54.
64 Wilhelm Braun, Die Singularitäten der Lissajous’schen Stimmgabelcurven (Erlangen: E. Th.
Jacob, 1875), p. 4.
65 [UB Erlangen] MS 2565 [10]: Minutes from the society’s meetings held on July 28, 1873 and
July 13, 1874.
66 [UB Erlangen] MS 2565 [10]: Minutes from the society’s meetings held on April 11, 1874
and March 6, 1876; and TOBIES/ROWE 1990.
 3.1 Research Trends and Doctoral Students 137

At the end of November in 1874, the Norwegian Elling Holst arrived as well.
Holst had only just passed his master’s examination under Sophus Lie in July of
that year. Lie had advised Holst not to continue his studies in Berlin but rather to
go to Klein: “Believe me, there is nothing for you in Berlin unless you were to be
as lucky as I and meet another Klein there.”67 Holst attended Klein’s lecture on
“Select Chapters of Newer Geometry” (1874/75), and he gave three presentations
in Klein’s seminar,68 which, in addition to a talk by Paul Gordan, also featured
lectures by the freshly minted doctors Lindemann, Harnack, and Wedekind. Klein
sent positive reports about Holst to Lie and recommended him for a Norwegian
stipend so that he could continue his studies.69 When Klein moved to Munich in
April of 1875 to begin a new position as a professor at the Polytechnikum there,
Holst, Lindemann, Harnack, and Wedekind went with him and played an active
role in the Mathematical Colloquium during Klein’s first year in Munich.
The careers of Klein’s students advanced quickly. In December of 1876, Holst
submitted his first article to Mathematische Annalen, where the dissertations by
Lindemann, Weiler, Harnack, and Wedekind also appeared. Shortly after comple-
ting his Habilitation (Leipzig, 1876), Harnack became an associate professor at
the Polytechnikum in Darmstadt, and he was appointed an associated professor in
Dresden the following year. Wedekind completed his Habilitation in Karlsruhe,
where he rose to become an associate professor in 1880 and a full professor in
1883. Adolf Weiler, who was Swiss, completed his Habilitation in 1875 at the
Polytechnikum in Zurich, and in 1899 he was appointed associate professor at the
University of Zurich. Lindemann, who at Klein’s instigation studied abroad in
1876, finished his Habilitation in Würzburg in 1877. In 1878, he became an asso-
ciate professor in Freiburg im Breisgau, and he was promoted to full professor
there the following year. In 1883, he ultimately became the first mathematician
with an academic genealogy linked to Clebsch to be offered a full professorship at
a Prussian University (Königsberg). The main reason for this appointment was
Lindemann’s successful proof of the transcendence of π. But Klein considered this
professional development especially important for other reasons as well:
Your job offer from Königsberg is a benefit to us all, for it is a victory for our principle
(namely our struggle against the cliquish nature of academia). Do you recall that, just ten
years ago, a certain influential person stated that no student of Clebsch would ever come to
Prussia with his consent?70

67 Quoted from STUBHAUG 2002, p. 236 (a letter from Sophus Lie to Holst).
68 [Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 143, 149, 151 (Holst’s lectures, Dec. 15, 1874; Jan. 26, 1875; and
March 5, 1875). On Holst and especially his contribution to the reform of mathematical edu-
cation in Norway around 1900, see JONASSEN 2004; and SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE/SØRENSEN
2006, pp. 167–74.
69 [Oslo] Letters from Klein to Lie dated December 2, 1874 and February 22, 1875.
70 [Lindemann] Memoirs (a letter from Klein to Lindemann dated March 30, 1883). – Further
simplified proofs of the transcendence of π would follow, and Klein played a role in their
publication. For a detailed discussion of these developments, see ROWE 2015.
138 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

In Aurel Voss’s opinion, Klein was successful because, when interacting with his
students, “he scattered the gold flakes [Goldkörner] of his rich talent without any
concern about how they might later be put to use, for he never held the petty view
of those who were inclined to see their own students as future competitors.”71

3.1.3 New Research Trends

Whenever I think of you, it so often feels as though I have long and perhaps hopelessly been
separated from my better self. And yet I repeatedly tell myself that, given my young age and
my highly different aptitude, things would have to come to this. Who knows where my scien-
tific activity will turn? Like you, I would like to formulate great new theories. Then again –
and I have been following this plan with some consistency – I would also like to gain, to the
extent that this is possible, a complete overview of all of mathematics in order to put an end
once and for all to the fragmentation that has decidedly been such a great misfortune for all of
us. Often, too, I think that my education in mathematics must at some point enable me to ac-
complish something reasonable in physics.72

Here, in 1875, Klein expressed his vision to integrate as many areas of mathe-
matics as possible. Later, when he was no longer in a position to do so by himself
and with his own students, he initiated the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project (see Section
7.8), which would serve to bring together various branches of mathematics, its
applications, and its practitioners. In doing so, he would continue to focus on un-
solved problems (see, in particular, Section 8.2.4).
During this early phase of Klein’s research, which was predominantly orien-
ted toward geometry, Klein missed cooperating with Sophus Lie and he increa-
singly sought to forge his own paths ahead. His publications during his time in
Erlangen concerned the following areas of research:
First, old topics such as cubic surfaces, Plücker’s complex surfaces, and non-
Euclidean geometry. In this regard, it came to light that some of Klein’s articles
had been published prematurely and needed to be corrected. After Klein had pub-
lished an addendum on non-Euclidean geometry,73 Darboux later wrote to him on
December 8, 1879 that one of his additions to a definition by von Staudt was su-
perfluous. In response, Klein published a correction in Mathematische Annalen74
along with Darboux’s extensive letter: “Sur le théorème fondamental de la géo-
métrie projective.”75 At the same time, he commented in a letter to Otto Stolz,
with whom he had worked on the topic: “The matter is of course very frustrating
to me, but nothing helps except admitting openly that one has erred.”76

71 VOSS 1919, p. 288.

72 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated February 22, 1875 (emphasis original).
73 Math. Ann.7 (1874), pp. 531–37.
74 Math. Ann. 17 (1880), pp. 52–54.
75 Math. Ann. 17 (1880), pp. 55–61.
76 [Innsbruck] A letter from Klein to Stolz dated April 28, 1880.
 3.1 Research Trends and Doctoral Students 139

Second, some new individual problems. Klein extended Pascal’s well-known

theorem about a hexagon inscribed in a conic to n-space,77 a topic to which later
mathematicians would also devote themselves.78 Here, with reference to Wede-
kind’s dissertation, Klein formulated his aforementioned new principle of trans-
ference, “by virtue of which the sphere, which serves to represent x + iy, simulta-
neously obtains the significance of the fundamental surface of a projective met-
ric.”79 Klein and his students used this principle as a tool for generalization; it
would also later prove to be fruitful for Klein’s theory of the icosahedron. In this
area of research, analyzing things according to principles of transference or analo-
gies was already an important methodological approach in Hesse’s work.80
In 1873, moreover, Klein also engaged in a philosophical discussion concer-
ning the concept of a function in order to understand why continuous functions
could exist without differential quotients.81 Weierstrass had been the first to pro-
vide an example of a non-differentiable continuous function. Klein took up this
subject immediately with the help of his friend Otto Stolz, who would also later
bring Bernhard Bolzano’s early results into the picture.82 (For further discussion
of Klein’s forays into philosophy, see Section 8.3.2).
Third, Klein devoted himself to new approaches and to questions concerning
the connection of surfaces as related to a new type of Riemann surface and to
aspects of the theory of equations, between which he drew a close connection.

3.1.3.1 On a New Type of Riemann Surface

In accordance with his research plan, Klein chose to immerse himself deeply in
the topics that had been worked on by Clebsch. Such topics included Riemann’s
ideas, and in this case Klein relied more heavily on Riemann’s original ideas than
on Clebsch’s results, with which he was not entirely satisfied. Clebsch had prefer-
red an algebraic approach, whereas Klein tried to think about Riemann’s problems
in geometric terms. Following Plücker, he preferred an intuitive approach. Klein
sought a connection between the analytic results and the geometric form described
by them. Ultimately, he found a “new type” of (projective) Riemann surface,
which he later described as follows:

77 This article appeared in the Erlanger Sitzungsberichte on November 10, 1873.

78 See, for example, Sahib Ram Mandan, “Pascal’s Theorem in n-Space,” Journal of the Austra-
lian Mathematical Society 5/4 (1965), pp. 401–08.
79 Ludwig Wedekind, “Beiträge zur geometrischen Interpretation binärer Formen,” Math. Ann.
9 (1875), p. 213.
80 See Otto Hesse, “Ein Uebertragungsprincip,” Crelle’s Journal 66 (1866), pp. 15–21.
81 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 214–24 (Erlanger Sitzungsberichte on December 8, 1873).
82 [Innsbruck] A letter from Klein to Stolz dated November 23, 1873; and Otto Stolz, “B.
Bolzanos Bedeutung in der Geschichte der Infinitesimalrechnung,” Math. Ann. 18 (1881), pp.
255–79. Klein explained Weierstrass’s function at some length in the third volume of his
Elementary Mathematics from a Higher Standpoint. See KLEIN 2016 [1928], pp. 41–46.
140 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

In Riemann’s work, the number p is a characteristic for the “connection” of a closed surface.
For me, it was an especially tormenting problem to figure out what this idea might have to do
with the form of the related algebraic curves, and I was fortunate when, by constructing a
“new” Riemann surface, I managed to find an extremely simple answer to this question.83

In order to determine whether two orientable surfaces can be mapped continu-

ously and on a one-to-one basis, Riemann used characteristic invariants: p, the
maximum number of possible loop-cuts [Rückkehrschnitte] that neither fragment
the surface nor intersect one another; and μ, the number of boundary curves. In the
case of closed surfaces, which were Klein’s main consideration, μ = 0 and the
surfaces are characterized by p alone. As Klein had already learned in Göttingen
in 1869 (see Section 2.4.3), Clebsch referred to the number p as the “genus”
(Geschlecht) of the surface or of the equation F (ζ, z).84 Klein later explained how
this was relevant to his further research:
Equations F (ζ, z) = 0 can be biuniquely and continuously related to each other if and only if
they have the same p. […] Thus Riemann has given a first characteristic to distinguish all al-
gebraic equations that can be gotten from one another by biunique – or, as one says from the
standpoint of formulas, by birational – transformations: they necessarily have a numerical in-
variant, the number p. Varieties with the same p are then further distinguished by their essen-
tial constants, the so-called “moduli.” Riemann finds their number to be zero for p = 0, one
for p = 1, and 3p – 3 for p > 1.85

The theory of Riemann surfaces came about because the analytic continuation of
holomorphic functions is not univalent. That is, one can obtain different function
values along different paths. By means of a multiple-sheeted surface (a covering
surface) as a domain of definition, the univalence of the analytic continuation can
be achieved (as an example, think of the Riemann surface of the complex loga-
rithm). Many researchers were working on this topic at the time. Scholz has de-
scribed Riemann’s ideas about the “connection of surfaces” (their topology) and
has compared the various approaches of Riemann, Möbius, Carl Neumann, Jor-
dan, Schläfli, and Klein.86 In Scholz’s opinion, this comparison revealed that
Klein, in his definition of the connection of surfaces, relied more heavily on Ca-
mille Jordan’s work than on Riemann’s.
Klein began to publish on this topic in February of 1874, both in the Erlanger
Sitzungsberichte and in Mathematische Annalen. In his seminar, he gave a lecture
entitled “Ueber den Zusammenhang der Flächen” [On the Connection of Surfa-
ces] on February 18, 1874, and on May 12th of that year he presented the lecture
“Ein neuer Beweis über das p algebraischer Curven” [A New Proof Concerning
the p of Algebraic Curves].87 As mentioned above, Klein attempted to “ascertain

83 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 5. – See also PARSHALL/ROWE 1994, pp. 168–69.
84 See also KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 295.
85 Ibid., p. 242. Klein explained this repeatedly with examples: a sphere has no closed cuts, so p
= 0; a torus has one such cut, that is, p = 1; and for p = 2, Klein used the example of the
double torus (the shape of a pretzel). See also KLEIN 2016 [1925], pp. 124–25.
86 SCHOLZ 1980, pp. 163–79.
87 [Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 87–89.
 3.1 Research Trends and Doctoral Students 141

the number for the genus of a curve immediately from the form of the curve in
question.”88 In his seminar lecture, he stressed: “The means to do this is provided
by a new way of conceptualizing the course of an algebraic function by means of
a Riemann surface that is closely connected to the curve represented by the func-
tion.”89 His article “Ueber eine neue Art der Riemann’schen Flächen” [On a New
Type of Riemann Surfaces] begins as follows:
When investigating the algebraic functions y of a variable x, one can make use of two
different intuitive tools. One can either represent y and x equally as coordinates of a point on
the plane, where only the real values of the same become evident and where the image of the
algebraic function becomes the algebraic curve – or one can extend the complex values of one
variable x to a plane and designate the functional relationship between y and x by means of
the Riemann surface constructed over the plane. In many respects, it must be desirable to
have a way to cross over between these two intuitive images.90

Klein explained that he understood the contact point (for real tangents) and the
single real point (for imaginary tangents) as an image of the pair of curves or as an
image of the place in the algebraic configuration. As Wirtinger later assessed,
Klein combined von Staudt’s theory of the imaginary and the concept of the Rie-
mann surface with the general concept of the Riemannian manifold.91
In dialogue with Ludwig Schläfli, Klein developed his work further, clarified
his fundamental concepts, and implicitly expanded his concept of the manifold.
Whereas, in his Erlangen Program, Klein had only considered relative properties,
he now began to distinguish between relative and absolute properties in the sense
of analysis situs (topology):
I call absolute those properties that belong to the manifold in question independent of the sur-
rounding space, in which they can be taken to lie. Relative properties depend on the sur-
rounding space; they are invariant in the case of distortions of the manifold that take place
within the space in question, but they are not invariant under arbitrary distortions.92

As an example of an absolute property, Klein cited the (non-)orientability of a

surface. Among the novel approaches that Klein developed in the area of surface
topology was the idea of understanding the projective plane as a “double surface,”
which, in modern terms, means replacing it by its orientation covering.93 Klein’s

88 On the different terminology used to denote the topological invariant “genus” (Geschlecht) in
the nineteenth century, see SCHOLZ 1980, p. 168.
89 [Protocols] vol. 1, p. 105. – For a lucid discussion of Riemann surfaces from a modern per-
spective, see LAMOTKE 2009, which also takes Klein’s work into account.
90 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 89. Originally published in Math. Ann. 7 (1874), p. 558.
91 See WIRTINGER 1919, p. 287.
92 Felix Klein, “Ueber den Zusammenhang der Flächen,” Math. Ann. 9 (1875), pp. 476–482, at
p. 478 (= KLEIN 1922 [GMA II], p. 67). It should be noted that, in this context, EPPLE 1999
(pp. 164–66) regards Klein’s relativization of the knot problem as a new epistemic approach.
In topology today, a distinction is drawn between the local and global properties of spaces.
93 See Felix Klein, “Bemerkungen über den Zusammenhang der Flächen,” Math. Ann. 7 (1874),
p. 550 (= KLEIN 1922 [GMA II], p. 64).
142 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

interest in non-orientable surfaces also led him to design his eponymous “Klein
bottle,” a model of which he described in 1881.94
During his time in Munich (see Chapter 4), Klein, in his own words, got to the
genuine Riemann, which means that he no longer used the algebraic equation to
define an algebraic curve but rather derived Riemann’s existence theorem directly
from the surface.95 He further developed his understanding of the Riemann
surface in conjunction with works on geometric function theory:
From a differential-geometric basis, he managed to characterize the complex structure on a
real two-dimensional manifold, which made it possible to separate the concept of the Rie-
mann surface from its elementary, immediate specifications by means of the sheet and branch
structure above the complex plane.96

On the whole, Klein’s geometric manner of problem-solving led him to under-

stand intuitively that Riemann’s approach to function theory would lead him
farther than Weierstrass’s immediately could.
Reinhard Bölling, today’s foremost expert in Weierstrass’ ideas, has con-
vincingly shown how Weierstrass’s critique of Riemann initially caused mathe-
maticians to look down on those who drew upon his work, but also how Rie-
mann’s concept ultimately proved to be farther-reaching than Weierstrass’s.97
Klein’s comparison of Riemann and Weierstrass was as follows:
Riemann was the man of brilliant intuition. Through his comprehensive genius he surpassed
all his contemporaries. Where his interest had been awakened, he began anew, without letting
himself be led astray by tradition and without submitting to the constraints of systematization.
Weierstrass was primarily a logician; he proceeded slowly, systematically, step by step.
Where he worked, he strove for definitive form.98

True to his motto of testing out all possible approaches, however, Klein would
also incorporate Weierstrass’s approaches to function theory into his own arsenal
of methods (see especially Section 5.5.2).
Klein repeatedly returned to the topic of Riemann surfaces with new approa-
ches; he held a series of lectures on them, which has recently been newly edited.99
These lectures provide a picture of how Klein integrated different mathematical
subdisciplines and heuristic approaches while also taking into account the latest
research results in the field.
This is a fitting place to mention that Hermann Weyl, while lecturing during
the winter semester of 1911/12 on Riemann surfaces in light of recent findings in
set theory and topology, was able to rely on the willing support and helpful advice
of Felix Klein, to whom he dedicated the first two editions of his book Die Idee

94 KLEIN 1893 [1882], p. 74 (repr. KLEIN 1923 [GMA III], p. 571). – See Section 5.5.1.2.
95 See KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 5.
96 SCHOLZ 1980, p. 181.
97 BÖLLING 2016, pp. 83–85. See also BOTTAZZINI 1986.
98 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 231.
99 See KLEIN 1986.
 3.1 Research Trends and Doctoral Students 143

der Riemannschen Fläche [The Idea of the Riemann Surface] “in gratitude and
admiration” (see also Section 5.5.1.2).100

3.1.3.2 The Theory of Equations

On December 4, 1873, Klein wrote to Lie about where his research might take
him next: “Perhaps I will turn my focus to equations that, in the representation of
a complex variable on the surface of a sphere, are formulated by means of the
regular solids.”101 Further following his principle that, “in the theory of equations,
such forms are a matter of invariant theory that pass into one another by means of
particular discontinuous groups of linear substitutions” (see Section 2.8.2), Klein
spoke in his seminar on July 7, 1874 about how “equations with one variable that
possess in themselves linear transformations are peculiar with respect to their
solvability.” In this regard, he particularly studied the equation of the twelfth de-
gree, which, “if considered in light of the vertices of the regular icosahedron, can
be reduced in such a way that the group of this equation, after the adjunction of
the irrationality 5 , consists of 60 substitutions, and that one can derive its solu-
tion to an equation of the fifth degree with an adjoint product of differences.”102
Klein wrote three articles about the theory of binary forms and the equation of
the twelfth degree, which he submitted to the Erlanger Sitzungsberichte (on May
11, 1874; December 14, 1874; and July 12, 1875), expanded for publication in
Mathematische Annalen, and combined into a single work in the second volume
of his collected writings. In these studies, he demonstrated above all that finite
groups of linear substitutions can be derived from the regular polyhedra (the tetra-
hedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosahedron; later, he added the
dihedron).103 He explained their transformations (that is, their rotations and re-
flections) and the dual reciprocation of the polyhedra, and he showed that the
transformations which align a regular solid with itself form a group. By employ-
ing his principle of transference and referring to the Riemann sphere (which con-

100 The first edition of Weyl’s book was published in 1913, the second in 1923.
101 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Sophus Lie dated December 4, 1873. Since regular polyhedra
(also known as Platonic solids) will come up again in subsequent chapters, I should perhaps
note that Klein was of course familiar with Euclid’s Elements, where, at the end of Book 13,
it is shown that there are only five polyhedra whose faces are all identical regular polygons,
identically arranged at all vertices. Euclid derives in previous theorems about how these
polyhedra can be inscribed within a sphere. Because Plato mentioned these shapes in his
Timaeus dialogue, they are also referred to as Platonic solids.
102 [Protocols] vol. 1, p. 123.
103 See KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 320: “In these investigations I discovered an additional regular
solid, the ‘dihedron’ […]: if we imagine the portion of the plane bounded by the sides of a
regular n-gon to be doubled, we can consider this configuration as a regular solid, which
maps to itself under n rotations about its principal axis and n reflections [Umklappungen]
about lines in its equatorial plane. (This agrees exactly with the usual definition of a regular
solid, only here the enclosed space-content is zero).”
144 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

tains the vertices of the polyhedra), Klein was able to prove that no additional
finite groups of linear transformations exist beyond those that he had identified by
means of polyhedra.
In cooperation with Paul Gordan, Klein continued to work on this topic in
Munich, and he would often revisit it in later years.104

3.2 INAUGURAL LECTURE: A PLAN FOR MATHEMATICAL EDUCATION

Still, the lack of widespread knowledge of mathematics is only a symptom of a deeper, much
more serious problem. It is a symptom of the fateful division that has taken hold of our edu-
cation all too strongly, and which from some persons has even found approval as a matter of
principle: I am referring to the division between humanistic and scientific education. Mathe-
matics and those fields connected with it are hereby relegated to the natural sciences, and in-
deed the indispensability of mathematics for these warrants this placement. On the other
hand, its conceptual content belongs to neither of these two categories.105

Klein wrote these words down in November of 1872, when he was preparing his
inaugural lecture at the University of Erlangen. He delivered this address on De-
cember 7, 1872, before a largely non-mathematical audience, which included the
university’s Rektor, the legal scholar August Bechmann. The twenty-three-year-
old Klein possessed a firm opinion about the essence and the role of mathematics:
One should not believe that the essence of mathematics lies in the formula; the formula is
only a precise designation for the thought connections involved. […] But the time is gone
when the formula played the sole sovereign role at the expense of the thoughts behind it, and
in which one regarded a mathematical work as finished so long as the computations were ac-
cessible. Today it is different: we require an inner understanding of the ongoing development,
and consider a mathematical result complete only when it can be regarded from beginning to
end as self-evident.106

At the same time, Klein philosophized about the place of mathematics within the
system of the sciences and within society at large. He emphasized both the formal
educational value of mathematics as well as the value of its applications, in which
regard he especially underscored “the theoretical services performed by mathe-
matics in the development of other sciences.”107 He cited examples of this from
theoretical physics: the theory of light, molecular theory, geometric optics, the
theory of heat conduction, and potential theory – topics in which he had immersed
himself as a Privatdozent in Göttingen. He was aware that mathematicians were
not appreciated at the time for the practical applications of their field that were
“somewhat removed from the academic outlook,” among which he mentioned the
predictive calculations of astronomers, the precision of geometric measurements,

104 See KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 255–61.

105 Klein’s inaugural address in Erlangen, quoted here from ROWE 1985, p. 135. For the German
text, see JACOBS 1977, p. 19 (and TOBIES 2019b, p. 124).
106 Quoted from ROWE 1985, pp. 137–38.
107 Ibid., p. 137.
 3.2 Inaugural Lecture: A Plan For Mathematical Education 145

and the accomplishments of engineers.108 This academic outlook was somewhat

dismissive of technical applications – an attitude that Klein would do much to
change in later years.
In order to overcome the widespread opinion at secondary schools “that ma-
thematics is just not important,”109 Klein argued that teachers should implement
an intuitive teaching method and that the standards should be raised for the ma-
thematical education of future teaching candidates. In this regard, he made the
following pronouncement: “If we educate better teachers, then mathematics in-
struction will improve by itself, as the old consigned form will be filled with a
new, revitalized content!”110
Klein intended to promote both logical exposition – the art of separating the
essential from the inessential – as well as the use of geometric drawings and mo-
dels. He argued that attention should be given both to mathematical exercises and
to seminars with student participation. In this respect, he compared mathematical
exercises to the “practica” used in teaching the natural sciences and technical
subjects. Already here, he recommended that students should spend time at one of
Germany’s Polytechnika (technical colleges), two of which he himself had visited
and closely inspected (in Berlin and Darmstadt).111 Twenty-six years later, Klein
did indeed make sure that spending one or more semesters at a Polytechnikum
(Technische Hochschule) would become acceptable and would be recommended
to teaching candidates in Prussia (see Section 8.1.2).
In Erlangen, it took some time for Klein to acquire a classroom in which to
conduct mathematical exercises. At first, he was given just a closet in the lecture
hall for storing his models. Not until April of 1874 did the mineralogist Friedrich
Pfaff, a brother of the late mathematician Hans Pfaff, offer Klein a spare room
“for practical mathematical exercises in drawing, modeling, etc.” The room was
located within the mineralogical collection in the palace. Klein saw this as a ray of
hope, even though the facility had considerable technical shortcomings, such as
bad flooring and problems with its heating and sanitation.112
At 50 Gulden, the annual budget of Erlangen’s Mathematical Institute was
extremely meager. Klein therefore submitted special applications for funding to
acquire instruments such as a polar planimeter and one of Charles Xavier Tho-
mas’s arithmometers (see Fig. 16), which was the first mass-produced mechanical
calculator (1,500 of these devices were produced from 1820 to 1878).113 To
acquire the latter, Klein applied for additional funding of 100 Gulden on March 2,

108 Ibid.
109 Ibid., p. 139.
110 Ibid.
111 Ibid. See also LOREY 1916, p. 150.
112 [UA Erlangen] Ph. Th .I. Pos. 20 V, No. 8 (Klein’s requests for a classroom, dated December
19, 1872; April 16, 1874; July 23, 1874; and November 9, 1874).
113 See Rita Meyer-Spasche, “On the Impact of Mechanical Desktop Calculators on the Develop-
ment of Numerical Mathematics” (2017), http://www2.ipp.mpg.de/~rim/e_art_wittenberg17-
4.pdf (accessed January 12, 2021).
146 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

1874; as he explained in his application, “such a machine would not only be

extremely valuable for teaching but also for all of the institutes at the university
whose professors occasionally have to make large numerical calculations.”114 He
demonstrated how to use this calculator not only in his research seminar but also
in a meeting of the Societas Physico-medica Erlangensis.115 Klein was the first
person in Germany to acquire such a calculator for a university institute. Later, he
continued to use this apparatus in his teaching, and he would commission Rudolf
Mehmke and Aurel Voss to write about the development of mechanical calcula-
tors for the ENCYKLOPÄDIE.116

Figure 16: Charles Xavier Thomas’s arithmometer.

Serial No. 759, built in 1868; dimensions (mm): 460 long, 180 wide, 93 high.
Photograph by Georg Pöhlein and courtesy of the Informatik-Sammlung, University of Erlangen

Klein purchased mathematical models from the Delagrave publishing house in

Paris. During his trip to Great Britain in 1873, he learned about more models and
instruments that he soon incorporated into his teaching: mathematical models by
Olaus Henrici, a tide-predicting machine by William Thomson (based on the
methods of harmonic analysis and Fourier analysis), and a simple mechanical ap-
paratus that “generated linear motion by means of mere circular motion.”117

114 [UA Erlangen] Ph. Th. I. Pos. 20 V, No. 8 (request for a math. apparatus, March 2, 1874).
115 [Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 96, 149; and [UB Erlangen] MS 2565 [10] Minutes of the meeting of
the Societas Physico-medica Erlangensis held on May 11, 1874.
116 See Rudolf Mehmke, “Numerisches Rechnen,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. 1.2, pp. 938–1079; and
Aurel Voss, “Differential- und Integralrechnung,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. 1.1, pp. 128–34 (an
appendix to Voss’s article). – Klein also explained the theory of Amsler’s polar planimeter in
the second volume of his Elementary Mathematics from a Higher Standpoint; see KLEIN 2016
[1925], pp. 15–20. – See also DURAND-RICHARD 2010.
117 [Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 67–68 (a lecture delivered by Klein on November 5, 1873).
 3.3 First Trip to Great Britain, 1873 147

3.3 FIRST TRIP TO GREAT BRITAIN, 1873

I think that I am only at the beginning of my real education. Let me go to England and maybe
also to Italy to meet the mathematicians there. Then I will come to you with some more origi-
nal thoughts and be fully ready to participate, once again, in your manner of thinking.118

Klein wrote this to Sophus Lie on April 23, 1873. He postponed his trip to Nor-
way because he did not want to visit Lie, who devised his theories very quickly,
without any new creative ideas of his own. As his letters to his friend repeatedly
suggest, Klein wanted to meet Lie on the same scientific level.
In order to prepare for his trip to the British Isles, Klein took courses in Eng-
lish along with his doctoral student Ludwig Wedekind: “At the moment, I am
taking four hours of English instruction per week. I am not learning much, how-
ever, because the amount of work that I am putting into it at home = 0 and be-
cause I am not well disposed to learning languages. Nevertheless, I am looking
forward to the trip.”119 His remark about learning languages was certainly an un-
derstatement, given that he already had a good command of French and the classi-
cal languages at the age of sixteen (see Section 2.2.1).
On August 8, 1873, Klein described his travel plans:
I am set to leave the day after tomorrow. I will meet my friend [William Robertson] Smith in
Leipzig and travel with him via Hamburg to Edinburgh. I intend to stay in Scotland for a few
weeks and attend the meeting of the British Association in Bradford in the middle of
September. Cayley, whom I contacted, wrote me a very obliging letter in response, and I am
very much looking forward to meeting the old man. I am very curious about what my scienti-
fic gains will be from my trip (although that is not the only reason why I’m going), and espe-
cially whether the direction of my research will become more clearly defined than it has re-
cently been. I am genuinely attracted to all aspects of mathematics. Usually, the way that
mathematics is presented in books does not satisfy me in the least, or, on the other hand,
things seem so self-explanatory that I have no desire to work on them (over the past weeks,
incidentally, I have had no time to produce any results).120

Years later, in his autobiography, Klein had fond and grateful memories of his
Scottish friend William Robertson Smith: “A mathematician and physicist by na-
ture, Smith nevertheless shifted his attention to theological and oriental studies.
Later, he invited me to England and made it much easier for me to access the aca-
demic circles there.”121 Smith, who had studied in Bonn in 1868, transferred to
Göttingen the following year, where he was influenced by the theologian and ori-
entalist Julius Wellhausen. Klein and Smith had spent much time together dis-
cussing works by Thomson and Tait, by R. Clausius (second law of thermodyna-
mics), and others.122 They had undertaken an Alpine tour in August of 1872, and
began their journey on August 10, 1873; Klein would return on October 16.

118 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated April 23, 1873.
119 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated June 28, 1873.
120 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated August 8, 1873.
121 KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), p. 15.
122 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 12: 550 (Klein to Max Noether on July 5, 1872)
148 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

After five weeks in Great Britain, Klein sent a report to Lie from Kirkcaldy, a
city on the Scottish coast, about the attitude of British scientists toward geometric
research. In essence, he felt that his own work did not quite overlap with what was
being done there. In Scotland, that is, he encountered a different approach to
mathematics, according to which “mathematical research is only undertaken and
appreciated if it has immediate applications.”123 To Klein, the main proponent of
this approach was Peter Guthrie Tait, who was especially interested in the appli-
cations of mathematics to physics. The researchers working in this way had little
respect for Cayley, whom Klein and other German mathematicians had regarded
as a shining star. Before Klein’s trip, seven of Cayley’s articles had been pub-
lished in Mathematische Annalen, and others would follow.124 Surprised by this
contrast in Great Britain, Klein compared it (in the aforementioned letter to Lie
from September 14, 1873) to the familiar contrast in Germany between geometry
and function theory. Klein’s conclusion was to bring the two sides together. In the
future, that is, he hoped both to take into account the applications of geometric
research and to gain a firmer understanding of function theory.
Shortly thereafter, Klein participated in the forty-third annual meeting of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science, which took place from Sep-
tember 17 to 24, 1873 in Bradford. Here he met Arthur Cayley, who occupied a
respectable position in the Association. Cayley was one of the vice presidents of
“Section A: Mathematics and Physics,” and received financial support from the
Association for the publication of his book Mathematical Tables – a grant that
was twice the amount of what Tait received for his Thermo-Electricity.125 Thus it
is conceivable that Klein’s first impression of mathematics in Great Britain
(formed by Tait in Edinburgh) was not representative. After Klein had met several
mathematicians in Bradford – including Cayley, James Joseph Sylvester,126 Henry
Smith, and William Kingdon Clifford – he wrote the following to Lie:
I have to tell you about England! Indeed, this is terribly difficult to do in few words. Cayley is
an extraordinarily friendly man who takes an interest in everything that is presented to him.
Sylvester is entirely different. When he has something on his mind, he tells everyone about it
and is briefly but entirely absorbed by the topic. I wished that he worked more steadily. There
is no doubt that he is more brilliant than Cayley, and everyone in London is generally of the
same opinion. One of the finest, incidentally, is [Henry] Stephen Smith, who visited you in
Christiania. I wished that I could have spent more time with him. Then, finally, there is Clif-
ford – the “divine one,” as they call him. Among the younger mathematicians, he is decidedly
the best, and to me he is a highly interesting man to the extent that his interests encompass not
only nearly all branches of mathematics but also, and to the same degree, the natural sciences
and philosophy from a mathematical perspective.127

123 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Sophus Lie dated September 14, 1873 (see also Section 10.1).
124 See Max Noether, “Arthur Cayley,” Math. Ann. 46 (1895), pp. 462–80.
125 See REPORT 1874, pp. xlvi, and lx. – On Cayley and his contributions to mathematics in
Cambridge, see BARROW-GREEN/GRAY 2006.
126 On Sylvester’s life and work, see PARSHALL 2006. See also Section 5.8.1.
127 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated November 4, 1873.
 3.3 First Trip to Great Britain, 1873 149

In the same letter, Klein recommended that Sophus Lie should always send his
results to the London Mathematical Society, and especially to Clifford, who had
been a professor at University College London since 1871. Clifford died in 1879
at the young age of thirty-three. Nevertheless, he left behind an impressive body
of mathematical work, about which I will only mention here that he had been in-
fluenced by Riemann’s work on differential geometry and that some of his find-
ings were closely related to Klein’s own. Thus, Clifford’s lecture in Bradford –
“On a Surface of Zero Curvature and Finite Extent” – motivated Klein to expand
his concept of the manifold and his understanding of topology.128 Clifford had
discovered a closed two-dimensional submanifold of elliptic space that is locally
isometric to the Euclidean plane. This inspired Klein, in his future lectures on the
theory of automorphic functions, to pursue the task of determining all manifolds
of constant Riemannian curvature. Wilhelm Killing later called this the problem
of Clifford-Klein space forms. Although Klein had proposed the term “space form
with multiple connectivity,” Killing insisted: “The essence of these new space
forms lies in a thought that was first raised entirely by you.” He concluded: “You
see, however, that important reasons occasioned me to introduce the term ‘Clif-
ford-Klein,’ and I hope that the term establishes itself.”129 It has certainly stuck.
At the conference in Bradford, Henry John Stephen Smith, a professor at Ox-
ford University, served as the president of “Section A: Mathematics and Physics.”
Klein had begun to study Henry Smith’s Report on the Theory of Numbers in
1871, and this book would form an important basis in Klein’s later work on num-
ber theory (see Section 4.2.2). In Bradford, Smith gave a lecture “On Modular
Equations,” a subject that would become one of Klein’s central research topics. In
his address as president of the section, Henry Smith remarked that a committee
had been formed some years before “to aid the improvement of geometrical
teaching in this country.” In England, as in Germany, Euclidean geometry was
dominant in the curricula at secondary schools, and Smith believed that it should
be supplemented or replaced by more recent geometric methods. With respect to
the “triumphs of modern geometry” over Euclidean geometry and the aforemen-
tioned “parallel postulate” (likewise referred to here as the “eleventh axiom”), he
mentioned Arthur Cayley and Felix Klein by name:
Two of those whose labours have thrown much light on this difficult theory are present at this
Meeting – Prof. Cayley, and a distinguished German mathematician, Dr. Felix Klein; and I
am sure of their adherence when I say that the sagacity and insight of the old geometer are
only put in a clearer light by the success which has attended the attempt to construct a system
of geometry, consistent within itself, and not contradicted by experience, upon the assumption
of the falsehood of Euclid’s eleventh axiom.130

128 See SCHOLZ 1980, pp. 170–74; SCHOLZ 1999, p. 31; and KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 241, 253–
82.
129 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10, p. 191 (Killing to Klein on June 9, 1891). See Wilhelm Killing,
“Über die Clifford-Kleinschen Raumformen,” Math. Ann. 39 (1891), pp. 257–78.
130 REPORT 1874, p. 5 (“Mathematics and Physics.” Address by Prof. H.J.S. Smith).
150 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

In this same address, Henry Smith also highlighted James Clerk Maxwell’s re-
cently published Treatise on Electricity and its underlying mathematical theory.
This did not escape Klein’s attention. He studied this theory and later commissio-
ned H.A. Lorentz to write the article on it for the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (see Section 7.8).
In 1881, Henry Smith sent his student Arthur Buchheim to study under Klein (see
Section 5.4.2.1); and when Smith died in 1883, Cayley would recommend Klein
to apply for the vacant chair at Oxford University (see Section 5.8.1).
In his lecture at the annual meeting in Bradford in 1873, the Irishman Robert
Stawell Ball also referred to Klein. He spoke in the section on mechanics and
physics about “Contributions to the Theory of Screws.” Here he made use of
Klein’s theory of first-degree and second-degree line complexes in his discussion
of six fundamental complexes.131 In the mechanics of solid bodies, the theory of
the screw is useful for describing static and kinematic systems. When he returned
to Erlangen, Klein instructed his doctoral student Lindemann to take into account
Ball’s approach and to write an addendum to his dissertation: “Ueber unendlich
kleine Bewegungen und über Kraftsysteme bei allgemeiner projectivischer Mass-
bestimmung” [On Infinitely Small Motions and Systems of Force in a General
Projective Metric].132 Later, Klein would return to the topic himself in order to
systematize this area of research with the methods of invariant theory and group
theory (in this article, he also drew upon his Erlangen Program).133
After his stay in Great Britain, Klein immersed himself in the “study of func-
tions.” In December of 1873, he delved more deeply into hyperelliptic functions,
and he planned to read more about Abelian functions during the summer of 1874.
His aim was to master geometric topics such as “the Kummer surface and inscri-
bed ∞ 5 tetrahedra with hyperelliptic functions.” With the hope of cooperating
further with Sophus Lie, he wrote to him: “When I come to visit you in fall, I will
be more familiar with certain areas of research than I was before, and thus I can
perhaps be useful.”134
As mentioned above, new mathematical models and instruments were pre-
sented at the conference in Bradford, and Klein immediately incorporated these
into his teaching (see Section 3.2). Just as he considered such instruments useful
for his university, he also thought that it would be valuable to initiate an exchange
between British and German academic journals. At a meeting held on November
10, 1873, the zoologist Ernst Ehlers, president of the Societas Physico-medica
Erlangensis, informed the society’s members that “Prof. Klein has taken steps to
initiate an exchange of publications with the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the

131 See REPORT 1874, p. 27: “A group of six coreciprocals is intimately connected with the group
of six fundamental complexes already introduced into geometry by Dr. Felix Klein (see
‘Math. Ann.’ Band ii, 203).”
132 This addendum was published in Math. Ann. 7 (1874), p. 144.
133 Felix Klein, “Zur Schraubentheorie von Sir Robert Ball,” Zeitschrift für Mathematik und
Physik 47 (1902), pp. 237–65; reprinted in Math. Ann. 62 (1906), pp. 419–48 (= KLEIN 1921
[GMA I], pp. 503–32). See also KLEIN 1991.
134 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated December 12, 1873.
 3.3 First Trip to Great Britain, 1873 151

Mathematical Society of London, and with the editors of the journal Nature, and it
has been decided to send these societies copies of our published proceedings.”135
This exchange of journals was an important means of keeping Klein and his stu-
dents up to date with the latest international research; at the time, in Klein’s opi-
nion, the holdings of the university library in Erlangen were drastically antiqua-
ted. As early as November 15, 1872, he therefore applied for additional funding so
that the library might acquire more works of scholarship pertinent to mathematics,
stressing “that mathematics is a thoroughly international science and that the pro-
gress of the productive mathematician is inhibited in an essential way unless he is
fully aware of the contemporary ideas of others.” His application is a testament to
his overview of scholarly literature and to his extremely skillful approach to
achieving his aims (see Appendix 2). Because the library’s overall budget was
limited, this free exchange of journals served to provide a helpful supplement to
its collection. It should be noted that, in his later positions, Klein would likewise
be a stubborn advocate for university libraries to increase their holdings in the
field of mathematics.136
In Bradford in 1873, Felix Klein was made a corresponding member of the
British Association for the Advancement of Science.137 In 1875, Klein was ap-
pointed as a foreign member of the London Mathematical Society (see Fig. 17),
whose president at the time was Henry John Stephen Smith.138 As of 1884, the
latter society has awarded, every three years, the De Morgan Medal, which is
named after its cofounder and first president Augustus de Morgan. In 1893, Klein
became the fourth mathematician (after Cayley, Sylvester, and Lord Rayleigh) to
receive this honor, which to this day has been given to just a few non-British
mathematicians.139 On June 6, 1878, the Cambridge Philosophical Society named
Klein an honorary member.140 On December 10, 1885, the Royal Society of Lon-
don, which has existed since 1660, elected Klein as a foreign member, and it
made him an honorary member on November 7, 1902. In 1912, Klein became the
fourth German mathematician to be awarded the Royal Society’s Copley Medal,
after Gauss (1838), Plücker (1866), and Weierstrass (1895). Since 1731, this prize
has been awarded to a researcher working in any branch of science, and it is the
highest distinction bestowed by the Royal Society.

135 [UB Erlangen] MS 2565 [10], p. 21.

136 While working in Munich, Klein and his assistant Walther Dyck assessed the holdings of the
Bavarian State Library and compiled a list of (mostly non-German) mathematical books and
journals that the library ought to acquire. ([BStBibl] Halmania VI: letters from Klein to the
director of the library dated January 20, 1879 and February 17, 1879). Regarding Klein’s
similar activity in Leipzig see [UB Leipzig] MS. 0800: Nachlass of the librian Koehl (Klein’s
letter to Koehl dated July 24, 1881); on Göttingen, see FREWER-SAUVIGNY 1985.
137 See REPORT 1874, p. 81.
138 See BERICHT 1876, p. 8. Regarding the presidents of this society, see OAKES et al. 2005.
139 See https://www.lms.ac.uk/prizes/list-lms-prize-winners#DeMorgan_medal (accessed Jan. 26,
2020).
140 See BERICHT 1878, p. 28.
152 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

Figure 17: Felix Klein’s certification as a Foreign Member of the London Mathematical Society,
1875 ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 114: 51),
and the De Morgan Medal, which he became the fourth mathematician (after Cayley, Sylvester,
and Rayleigh) to receive in 1893 ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 115: 10).
 3.4 Trips to Italy 153

3.4 TRIPS TO ITALY

In the meantime, I am now preparing for another longer trip. Now that you are getting
married and I therefore can’t come to Norway, I would like to travel to Italy and perhaps
spend the entire fall there.141

Although a trip to Italy had long been on Klein’s agenda, it was not part of his
plans in the summer of 1874. At that time, Klein wanted to work with Sophus Lie
and finally to embark on a trip to Norway – a trip that had already been postponed
several times. On February 10, 1874, he wrote to Lie: “I consider it a complete
certainty that I am coming to Norway in the fall.”142 On April 4th, he informed Lie
that he would like to visit from the middle of August to the middle of September
and that he intended to take Norwegian classes in advance from a Danish student
in Erlangen. Klein was looking forward to this trip to Norway “with all the eager-
ness of which I am capable.” Yet Lie’s alternative proposal, which was for Klein
to meet him in Paris during Lie’s honeymoon, was not an option for Klein. Klein
had oriented his recent work in such a way as to “culminate” in collaboration with
Lie. This plan fell through, and Klein drew the following conclusion:
I will now have to find my way more independently. This path ahead is already laid out for
me by the lectures that I have begun to prepare on Abelian functions. I will attempt – and my
article on Riemann surfaces is a first step in this direction – to provide a geometrically intui-
tive account of this entire area of study.143

Klein wanted to seek out Italian mathematicians and expand his knowledge, and
he was met in Italy with open arms. The political unification of the country in
1861 had also inspired its mathematicians, who in part had participated in patrio-
tic struggles, had held political offices over the course of the nation gaining inde-
pendence, and had fostered contacts with foreign mathematicians.144 Alfred
Clebsch, for instance, was a member of academic societies in Milan and Bologna.
Felix Klein’s was integrated into this network from early on.
In his dissertation (see Section 2.3.4), Klein had generalized a result by Giu-
seppe Battaglini, who held professorships in Naples (as of 1860) and Rome (as of
1874) and who had cofounded the Giornale di matematiche. As of 1867, the latter
journal published Battaglini’s works on non-Euclidean geometry as well as Jor-
dan’s articles on group theory. Battaglini served as the journal’s editor until his
death in 1894, and as late as 1893 he published a lecture that Klein had given in
Chicago. Klein organized an exchange between the Giornale and Mathematische
Annalen. At the same time, he also recruited Italian authors for “his” journal –
scholars such as Bertini, Brioschi, Ascoli, and D’Ovidio.

141 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated July 23, 1874.
142 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated February 10, 1874.
143 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated April 26, 1874 (see the original quotation in German
TOBIES 2019b, p. 132).
144 On these details, see NEUENSCHWANDER 1983.
154 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

Enrico D’Ovidio had studied under Battaglini while the latter was still in
Naples, and his work drew upon Klein’s articles on non-Euclidean geometry.145
As of 1872, D’Ovidio held the professorship for algebra and analytic geometry at
the University of Turin, where he taught line geometry (as developed by Plücker
and Klein) and where he became known for formulating the law of sines in n-
dimensional curved spaces. His students included Corrado Segre and Giuseppe
Veronese, who contributed to the geometry of higher-dimensional spaces.146 Both
Veronese and Francesco Gerbaldi, who was D’Ovidio’s assistant for several
years, would conduct postdoctoral research under Klein during the 1880s (see
Section 5.4.2.3).
Since 1888, Corrado Segre held a professorship alongside D’Ovidio in Turin.
He collaborated with Klein and some of Klein’s students for many years.147 Dur-
ing a trip to Italy in March and April of 1899, which Klein undertook in the inter-
est of the ENYCLOPÄDIE, he stayed in Turin for some time. Afterwards he delivered
a lecture entitled “Mathematik in Italien” [Mathematics in Italy] at the Göttingen
Mathematical Society.148 As early as February of 1899, Klein had tried to hire
Segre’s student Gino Fano as a professor in Göttingen (see also 8.1.2).149 Fano,
who had translated Klein’s Erlangen Program into Italian (see 3.1.1) and studied
under Klein in 1893 and 1894, contributed to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE. Fano’s transla-
tion of the Erlangen Program was published in 1890 in Annali di matematica
pura ed applicata. This journal was characterized by the work of significant Ital-
ian mathematicians of the older generation. Its chief editor at the time was Fran-
cesco Brioschi (Milan), and its editorial board included Luigi Cremona (Rome),
Enrico Betti (Pisa), Eugenio Beltrami (Pavia), and Felice Casorati (Pavia).
Brioschi and Betti are associated with the beginnings of algebraic geometry in
Italy. In 1858, both of them (and Casorati) studied abroad together in France and
Germany; they met Riemann in Göttingen and later invited him to Italy. They
translated his papers and lectured about his work. In November of 1872, Klein
had ordered Casorati’s book Teorica [sic!] delle funzioni di variabili complesse
(Pavia 1868) for the university library in Erlangen (see Appendix 2).
While serving as the general secretary of the Italian Ministry of Education,
Brioschi founded the Politecnico di Milano and the Academy associated with it.
He was named a corresponding member of the Göttingen Royal Society of Sci-
ences in 1869 and a foreign member in 1870. His research on the theory of equa-

145 See SCHOENFLIES 1919, p. 294.

146 Klein recruited Segre to write the article on multi-dimensional geometry for the ENCY-
KLOPÄDIE (“Mehrdimensionale Geometrie,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. 3 [2.2.A], pp. 772–972).
147 See Section 2.3.4 above and CASNATI et al. 2016. For the correspondence between Segre and
Klein from 1883 to 1923, see [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 952–998B.
148 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22F (a draft of Klein’s lecture).
149 See Klein’s letter to Fano dated Febr. 5, 1899 (printed in TERRACINI 1952, p. 486). Fano ex-
pressed his thanks but said that this would only be a “fantasy.” He preferred to find a pro-
fessorship in Italy, which he ultimately did (in Messina in 1899 and then in Turin in 1901).
([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 4A (a letter from Fano to Klein dated Febr. 10, 1899).
 3.4 Trips to Italy 155

tions, which was published in the Göttinger Nachrichten and in Mathematische

Annalen, influenced Klein’s thinking about the theory of the icosahedron (see
Section 4.2.1, and 4.2.3). Klein remained in close contact with Brioschi’s doctoral
students Luigi Cremona and Eugenio Beltrami. As early as December 30, 1868,
Klein had sent a copy of his dissertation to Luigi Cremona:
The study is concerned with an aspect of the theory of second-degree complexes. After his
trip to Northern Italy this last fall, the now-deceased Plücker expressed more than once that
you are the only person who fully understood him. I thus find it of the utmost importance to
subject my first academic work to your esteemed judgement, all the more so because I achie-
ved a result that deviates from that which lies at the basis of Battaglini’s study of second-de-
gree complexes.150

Cremona became a corresponding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences

(again, then called the “Royal Society”) in 1869 and a foreign member in 1880,
and he was a contributor to Mathematische Annalen as early as 1871, when the
journal was still edited by Clebsch. Cremona’s research was concerned above all
with third-order space curves, descriptive geometry, and graphical statics.151 Be-
fore he went to Italy, Klein had already informed Cremona about his edition of
Plücker’s Liniengeometrie and had asked him what he thought of Clebsch.152 Cre-
mona thought highly of him, as Klein mentioned in Clebsch’s obituary, which
appeared in Mathematische Annalen in 1873. Later, Max Noether also character-
ized Clebsch and Cremona as having the same essential feature: “Neither was
much concerned with solving particular individual questions or with abstract
questions of principle; rather, they were interested in the creative methodology of
their science.”153 This could similarly be said of Klein.
When Klein was planning his first trip to Italy for August and September of
1874, he wrote to Cremona on July 23 that he intended to come to Rome via
Switzerland with a friend (whose command of Italian was presumably better than
his own). Klein stressed that he would especially like to meet Cremona, Beltrami,
and Battaglini,154 and he later provided further details of his travel plans:
Genoa – August 25, 1874
My esteemed colleague and friend!

As you can see from the heading of this letter, I have by now entered lovely Italy, if only its
northern region, and I will now take this opportunity, in response to your kind letter from Au-
gust 4th, to share with you the details of my travel plans. On Thursday, August 27th, I will take
a steamship from here to Naples, and I think that I will spend the next ten to twelve days there
and in the surrounding area. Then I will travel to Rome, for which I have set aside approxi-
mately three weeks. If, as your letter suggests, you will still be in Sorrento until the end of
August […] then I will come together with my travel companion (Dr. Carl Schmidt, a Privat-

150 [Rome] 2589 (a letter from Klein to Cremona dated Dec. 30, 1868). See also MENGHINI 1993.
151 See also Marta Menghini’s article in BARBIN et al. 2019, pp. 57–68.
152 [Rome] 2590–2593 (letters from Klein to Cremona).
153 Max Noether, “Luigi Cremona,” Math. Ann. 59 (1904), pp. 1–19, at p. 19.
154 [Rome] 2596 (a letter from Klein to Cremona dated July 23, 1874).
156 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

dozent of theology at the University of Erlangen) to visit you there for a day, which should be
easy to do from Naples, and discuss with you where and how I might be able to speak with
you again in Rome. I regret terribly, of course, that my knowledge of Italian is almost non-
existent and that I thus must fear that our conversation, which might be easiest to conduct in
French, might cause you considerable inconvenience. Luckily, it is somewhat easy to com-
municate about mathematics – though this may also be the reason why I understand so little
Italian, as I have simply been content to understand mathematical articles written in it. I also
have to thank you for the information regarding Prof. Battaglini and Beltrami. I have not yet
received a letter from the latter, since I have already been away from Erlangen for a rather
long time. We will probably still be able to make arrangements, however.

In the hope of meeting you soon and being able to listen to you and learn from you,
I remain sincerely yours,
Felix Klein155

Klein met with Beltrami in Venice.156 Their work on non-Euclidean geometry had
common points of reference.157 Beltrami’s article “Zur Theorie des Krüm-
mungsmaasses” [On the Theory of Curvature Measure] appeared in the first vol-
ume of Mathematische Annalen. Since January of 1873, Klein had been studying
“Beltrami’s treatise on differential parameters” and had been discussing it in his
lectures, as he reported to Sophus Lie: “The work is very beautiful, but in the case
of our concepts of invariants or the connex, as established by Clebsch, it can be
expanded in an essential way.”158 Klein was looking for a more general method,
and he wanted to discuss the matter with Beltrami. Beltrami had been influenced
by Gauss’s work; he had met Riemann in Pisa and had kept in close contact with
Clebsch.159 Later, Beltrami sent some of his own students to study under Klein,
and thus G. Morera came to Leipzig (see 5.4.2.3) and E. Pascal to Göttingen.
Klein’s plan to meet Enrico Betti in 1874 fell through. Betti held professor-
ships for advanced geometry and analysis (1859), theoretical physics (1864), and
celestial mechanics (1870) in Pisa, where he also had supported Riemann (who
died in Italy in 1866). On September 8, 1874, Klein wrote to Betti from his hotel
in Naples (Hôtel Minerva): “Yesterday I learned from Prof. Cremona that you are
back in Pisa, where, recently, I unfortunately looked for you in vain while spen-
ding a day in Livorno as part of my steamship tour from Genoa to Naples.” Klein
informed Betti further that he intended to be in Florence from the 24th to the 28th
of September, and that, “during those three days, I would be willing to come to
Pisa, even though it would be more pleasant for me to meet you in Florence, be-
cause I also really want to get to know the city of Florence […].” Klein wanted to
have a discussion with Betti “about questions concerning the connection of higher

155 [Rome] 2597 (Klein to Cremona, August 25, 1874). – For Carl Smith see UEBERSICHT 1874,
p. 5.
156 See JACOBS 1977, p. 2; and [Rome] A letter from Klein to Cremona dated Nov. 21, 1874.
157 On Beltrami’s work, see Nicola Arcozzi’s article in COEN 2012, pp. 1–30.
158 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated January 22, 1873.
159 See Ernesto Pascal, “Eugenio Beltrami,” Math. Ann. 57 (1903), pp. 65–107.
 3.4 Trips to Italy 157

spaces, about which I hope to learn a great deal from you.”160 Betti had announced
that he would arrive in Florence on Saturday, but then changed his plans without
notice to come on Sunday. Klein spent the Saturday waiting for him in vain, and
ultimately decided to spend that Sunday sightseeing.161
Klein’s move from Erlangen to Munich in 1875 meant that he was even closer
to Italy than he had been. Brioschi thus visited him while traveling to and from
Gauss’s centenary celebration in Göttingen.162 Cremona and Giuseppe Jung, a
professor of graphical statics in Milan, came to Munich in 1876 and 1877 (see
Section 4.3.3). Moreover, Klein undertook a second trip to Italy during the Easter
vacation in 1878 (April 2nd to 25th). This time he traveled with his wife (see
Section 3.6), and they visited Pisa, Florence, Bologna, and Venice.163 Klein had
informed Cremona in advance that he had “undetermined travel plans to come to
Italy with my wife, but probably only to northern Italy, because the present times
and the circumstances might make it difficult to travel any farther.”164 His son
Otto, who was not yet three years old (see Section 3.6.3), would be taken care of
by his relatives in Erlangen during this time.
On this trip in 1878, Klein finally managed to meet Enrico Betti, whom he
had failed to meet in 1874. Klein wrote to him: “My work has taken a turn that
has made me increasingly reliant on your algebraic investigations.”165 While in
Pisa, Klein also met Ulisse Dini, who succeeded Betti in 1871 as the professor of
advanced geometry and analysis there; Eugenio Bertini, who was a professor of
geometry there from 1875 to 1880; and Ernesto Padova, who, with Betti’s sup-
port, was made a professor of theoretical mechanics in Pisa in 1875. Betti would
remain later, too, a point of reference for Klein. As late as 1882, and with respect
to his work on Riemann’s function theory, Klein sent an inquiry to Betti “about
the use of closed Riemann surfaces in space and about the extent to which Rie-
mann himself had already developed a theory of stationary currents of incom-
pressible fluids in three-dimensional spaces that are somehow curved but closed.”
In particular, he asked: “Have you personally worked to develop this theory fur-
ther and, if so, have you ascertained how the related (or at least similarly classifi-
able) statements by Helmholtz and [William] Thomson should be understood?”166
In February of 1877, the Reale Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere in Mi-
lan made Klein a corresponding member of its “Classe di scienze matematiche e
naturali.” Brioschi had presented Klein’s results before this body. Furthermore,
the first two of Klein’s honorary doctoral degrees – he was awarded ten in total –
were bestowed by Italian universities, the first by the University of Turin (1880)
and the second by the University of Bologna (1888).

160 [Pisa] 826: Klein to Betti dated September 8, 1874 (emphasis original).
161 [Pisa] 828: A letter from Klein to Betti sent from Munich and dated October 2, 1874.
162 See TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 88 (a letter from Klein to A. Mayer dated May 11, 1877).
163 [Pisa] 830: A letter from Klein to Betti dated April 30, 1878.
164 [Rome] 2602: A letter from Klein to Cremona dated November 4, 1877.
165 [Pisa] 829: A letter from Klein to Betti sent from Munich and dated March 30, 1878.
166 [Pisa] 832: A letter from Klein to Betti dated March 13, 1882 (emphasis original).
158 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

In 1896, when Klein was elected a foreign member of the Società Italiana
delle Scienze (the Italian Academy of Science) in Rome (see Fig. 30), Klein
thanked the president Luigi Cremona for this surprising honor167 and emphasized,
in a personal letter to him, that he had frequently been discontent with his scien-
tific achievements and still often thought he was searching for his own way. Klein
referred here to “his old love of physics” and enclosed a lecture on technical
physics that he had delivered in Hanover (see Section 7.7). He concluded this let-
ter to Cremona by thanking him for the many inspirations that he had received
from Italian mathematicians and, above all, for sending to him “capable students,
who have all been especially valuable to me.”168

3.5 DEVELOPING THE MATHEMATICAL INSTITUTION

Gordan and I complement one another so well that the mathematics program in Erlangen can
now be seen as being equal to that of every other university.169

Klein, who was especially creative when cooperating with other mathematicians,
saw that his collaborative work with Sophus Lie was coming to an end, and thus
he reoriented his approach. He had not only strengthened his contacts with British
and Italian mathematicians, but he was also able to establish an associate profes-
sorship for mathematics in Erlangen. This was a rather amazing feat, given that,
during the summer semester of 1874, there were still only eleven students of
mathematics and physics combined at the university there, whose total enrollment
was 442 students (166 of whom were students of theology).170
Before his first trip to Italy, Klein informed Lie that his “highest hope” was
for Paul Gordan to be hired in Erlangen. Klein worked with Gordan on the
editorial board of Mathematische Annalen, and he wanted to collaborate further
with him on “geometry and algebra in all of the advanced ways.”171 Klein’s
application for establishing a new associate professorship for mathematics, which
the Philosophical Faculty had submitted to the Academic Senate on July 20, 1874,
contained the names of three of Clebsch’s students as possible candidates for the
position: 1) Paul Gordan, 2) Max Noether, 3) Aurel Voss.172 The application
emphasized Gordan’s pioneering achievements, particularly his 1868 proof of the
so-called theorem of finitude, which states that every binary form possesses a
“finite system of forms,” i.e., that every covariant and invariant of a given binary

167 There were only twelve foreign members, in addition to fourty Italian members.
168 [Rome] 2834: A letter from Klein to Cremona, 1896. – On Italian students in Klein’s courses,
see Sections 4.2.4.2, 5.4.2.3, and 6.2.3.
169 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated July 23, 1874.
170 See UEBERSICHT 1874, p. 28.
171 [Oslo] Klein’s letters Klein to Lie dated July 23, and October 5, 1874.
172 For the complete text of this application, see TOBIES 1992a, pp. 768–70.
 3.5 Developing the Mathematical Institution 159

form is a rational function of a finite number of such covariants and invariants.173

At the same time, it was stressed that Gordan was being barred from advancing
his career in Gießen, where he had been an associate professor since 1864. The
application also highly praised Noether’s and Voss’s research and teaching
achievements to bring them to the Bavarian government’s notice in view of future
applications for positions in Bavaria.
Paul Gordan came to Erlangen on October 1, 1874, and his yearly salary was
1,700 Gulden. As early as November 8, 1874, Klein recommended that Gordan
should be made a member of the Societas Physico-medica Erlangensis, and he
was elected to join the society on December 14th. Like every newly hired profes-
sor in Erlangen, Gordan had to present a written “program” to join the Philosophi-
cal Faculty. Gordan’s program, which was published in 1875 as Über das For-
mensystem binärer Formen [On the Form System of Binary Forms], was com-
posed in a peculiar way: Gordan dictated and Klein wrote down what he said.174
In his own seminar, which Gordan attended, Klein gave three lectures about Gor-
dan’s program before it was published (these lectures took place on February 10,
17, and 26, 1874).175 Klein’s research at the time concerned “all finite groups of
real motions of space […] that transfer a sphere to itself and have a fixed point
within this same sphere.” He was therefore busy studying the regular solids (par-
ticularly the icosahedron), and he believed that Gordan’s “general investigations
of systems” could help him in important ways, especially with the algebraic as-
pects of his work.176
Klein and Gordan were both mathematicians who benefited from, and even
needed, collaboration. Gordan, who in Noether’s words was “clumsy with the
pen,” often depended on his close friends (Clebsch, then Klein and Noether) to
prepare the final versions of his work.177 Klein valued Gordan’s brilliant ideas, as
he did Lie’s. Thus he informed Lie: “Moreover, I will always have to edit Gor-
dan’s texts, which I am pleased to do in order to do him a favor and familiarize
myself with his work.”178
After Klein’s new position in Munich had been finalized, he immediately
turned to the issue of his successor in Erlangen. In a letter dated December 12,
1874, to the Bavarian State Ministry concerning the “replacement of the full and
possibly also the associate professorship for mathematics at the University of Er-
langen,” Paul Gordan was the only person recommended as a candidate for the

173 Paul Gordan, “Beweis, dass jede Covariante und Invariante einer binären Form eine ganze
Function mit numerischen Coefficienten einer endlichen Anzahl solchen Formen ist,”
Crelle’s Journal 69 (1868), pp. 323–54. For further discussion of this proof and additional
related proofs by Gordan himself and by Hilbert, see Max NOETHER 1914, pp. 11–18.
174 [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 54; and for Gordans paper: CATALOGUE 1908, p. 150.
175 [Protocols] vol. 1, p. 150. – Gordan lectured in Klein’s seminar (vol. 1, p. 148) on his article
“Über den größten gemeinsamen Factor,” Math. Ann. 7 (1874), pp. 433–48.
176 See M. NOETHER 1914, p. 21.
177 Ibid., p. 21.
178 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Sophus Lie dated February 22, 1875.
160 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

full professorship. He was given the position on December 28, 1874, and took it
up on April 1, 1875, with a yearly salary of 2,000 gulden.179 The proposed candi-
dates for the associate professorship were Max Noether and Aurel Voss.
Noether, the preferred candidate, assumed this position on April 1, 1875 with
an annual salary of 1,500 gulden.180 As early as January 1875, Klein had ex-
plained the Erlangen institution to Noether: “The Seminar has two directors, one
for the mathematical department, the other for the physics department. Lommel
and I currently hold these positions.” Eugen Lommel and Klein had written the
seminar’s statutes, which also allowed the associate professor of mathematics
(first Gordan, then Noether) to announce exercises for teaching candidates.181
Klein was interested in finding positions for the most accomplished represen-
tatives of Clebsch’s algebraic-geometric school. The religious affiliations of the
candidates did not play any role in Erlangen’s hiring process. Both Noether and
Gordan came from Jewish families, though Gordan had been baptized at the age
of eighteen.182 Klein’s and his colleagues’ later campaigns to endorse Noether’s
candidacy for a full professorship failed repeatedly on account of explicit anti-
Semitism.183 Not until 1888 did Max Noether become a full professor alongside
Gordan in Erlangen, even though Gordan, Klein, and Eugen Lommel had been
submitting formal proposals in favor of his promotion since 1882.
By the time Klein left Erlangen in 1875, he had developed a Mathematical In-
stitution there with improved personnel and facilities, a wider selection of models
and instruments, and a more substantial collection of mathematical scholarship in
the university library. Before his arrival, the library there did not even have copies
of Euler’s Introductio and Lagrange’s Mécanique analytique (see Appendix 2).

3.6 FAMILY MATTERS

By securing a full professorship at such a young age, Felix Klein was able to seek
a life partner around the same time that his older friends were doing the same. On
December 2, 1874, he wrote to Sophus Lie that he was not only “occupied with
Gordan” but also with “dancing and socializing.”184

179 [UA Erlangen] T. II, Pos. 1, No. 23 (Paul Gordan).

180 [UA Erlangen] T. II, Pos. 1, No. 6 (Max Noether).
181 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 12: 569 (Klein’s letter to Max Noether on January 19, 1875).
182 Gordan was baptized on July 21, 1855 in Berlin. This information was brought to my atten-
tion by Cordula Tollmien, who came upon it while conducting research for her biography of
Emmy Noether (on her first two volumes, see TOLLMIEN 2021).
183 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 429, 430 (Gordan to Klein, October 18 and 23, 1882).
184 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated December 2, 1874.
 3.6 Family Matters 161

3.6.1 His Friends Marry and Klein Follows Suit

In the summer of 1872, Gaston Darboux, who was seven years Klein’s senior, had
sent Klein an announcement of his marriage. Klein congratulated him and wrote:
When I was in Paris, we spoke about little else but scientific matters; this made sense, given
the nature of our original relationship and the stage of development that Lie and I were in at
the time. Since then I have returned my attention, to a greater degree, to general human inte-
rests; at the expense of my academic activity, I have become a society man. So far, I cannot
report such a joyful event as you have announced to me. I hope, however, to be in a position
to do so at some point in the years to come.185

Sophus Lie then got engaged, and Klein responded to this news as follows on
February 1, 1873:
I never really thought that you would get engaged before me. Do you remember our
conversation while we were traveling from Nuremberg to Fürth, and we were both in
agreement that it would be a good thing to land in the safe haven of domesticity? That you
have now begun to do so amuses me all the more because I always used to tell myself,
whenever a similar thought stirred within me: No, you can’t do it, because then you will not
be able to work, and Lie would never allow for that.186

Lie’s marriage, of course, did nothing to dampen his friendship with Klein, as is
clear from the fact that, in October of 1874, he and his wife traveled on their hon-
eymoon through Cologne, where they not only visited the cathedral but met up
with Felix Klein and Adolph Mayer, and then they went together to Klein’s par-
ents in Düsseldorf, where Klein edited Lie’s (first) article on transformation
groups.187 Klein’s interest in the personal lives of his other friends is a further
indication of his close connections. “It will interest you to know, as it did me, that
Riecke is now engaged,” reported Klein to Otto Stolz on May 4, 1874.188 Later,
after the still unmarried Stolz had congratulated Klein upon hearing the news of
his engagement, Klein thanked him and noted that Ludwig Kiepert and Alexander
Brill were likewise still courting potential brides.189
Felix Klein and Anna Hegel (b. May 24, 1851), who was the eldest daughter
of Karl Hegel, a professor of history at the University of Erlangen (and a son of
the great philosopher), became engaged on Saturday, January 9, 1875. Ten days
later, Klein wrote to Max Noether, for whom he had promised to look for an

185 [Paris] 62: Klein to Darboux, August 28, 1872.

186 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated February 1, 1873.
187 [Oslo] Letters dated October 5, 1875 and October 10, 1874. Lie’s article – “Ueber Gruppen
von Transformationen,” Göttinger Nachrichten (1874), pp. 529–42 – explicitly mentions
Klein’s group-theoretical classifications and its “importance for other mathematical disci-
plines” (p. 540). – See also STUBHAUG 2002, p. 234.
188 [Innsbruck] A letter from Klein to Stolz dated May 4, 1874.
189 Ibid. A letter from Klein to Stolz dated March 22, 1875.
162 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

apartment (Klein found one for him in March): “At the moment I am of less use
for other things than visiting Anna, or going for walks with her etc.”190

Figure 18: Anna Hegel and Felix Klein’s engagement announcement – January 9, 1875 [Oslo]

Lindemann recorded an account of how Felix Klein came to meet his future wife:
As stipulated, Klein’s supervision of my edition of Clebsch’s lectures meant that I would
bring my manuscript to him and he would go over it with me. After some time, however, he
suggested that it would be easier if he came to my place, since we often passed by my apart-

190 [UBG] Cod.MS. F.Klein 12: 569, 572 (Klein to M. Noether on January 19, and March 21,
1875).
 3.6 Family Matters 163

ment during our walks. There I would order a coffee from Mrs. Brater,191 which her daughter
Agnes192 would bring up to my room with her friend Miss Hegel, and this would be a pleasant
interruption and distraction from our dry work. Only later, when I learned that Klein had be-
come engaged to Miss Hegel, did it become clear to me why Klein preferred to look over the
manuscript in my apartment.193

Lindemann also reported that, beginning in the fall of 1874, Klein suddenly and
gladly devoted his energies to arranging a costume ball and staging a performance
of the play Die Jobsiade (1784).194 This satirical work by Carl Arnold Kortum
attracted popular attention in 1872 because the artist Wilhelm Busch had based a
series of illustrations on it.195 Klein’s colleagues and doctoral students participated
in the performance. Professors at the University of Erlangen appeared on the stage
wearing long wigs to examine the idle student of theology Hieronymus Jobs. The
role of Jobs was played by Klein’s doctoral student Axel Harnack.196
Klein was fairly certain that his marriage would in fact improve his academic
productivity: “In the meantime, I am confidently hopeful that my engagement and
marriage will only benefit my work. You will not believe how much more I would
have accomplished in the past years if I had enjoyed the tranquility and regularity
that I expect to have from having a household of my own.”197 The fact that Klein
had a ball gown for his bride decorated with mathematical ornamentation can be
seen as a symbolic intertwinement of marriage and mathematics. As Aurel Voss
remarked: “The decorative arabesques, which these curves form within the
systems of parabolic surface curves, would later be used by Klein as ornamentati-
on on a ball gown for his bride Anna Hegel.”198
In the photograph commemorating Felix Klein’s silver wedding anniversary
in 1900, his father-in-law Karl Hegel, who was eighty-six years old at the time,
can be seen seated in the middle (see Fig. 19). Between November of 1899 and
July of 1900 – not long before this photograph was taken – Hegel had completed
his memoirs, and here it seems fitting to summarize his life and relate how it
influenced Klein’s own affairs.

191 Pauline Brater, widow of the publicist Karl Brater, was a sister of the late mathematician
Hans Pfaff. The widow rented out a room for extra money.
192 Agnes Brater (later married name: Sapper) became a successful author of children’s books.
193 [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 54.
194 Ibid., p. 55.
195 See Wilhelm Busch, Bilder zur Jobsiade (Heidelberg: Fr. Bassermann, 1872).
196 Axel Harnack and Adolf Harnack (a theologian, later professor of church history and 191130
president of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Society) were twin brothers. Their father was a professor of
theology. Regarding Klein’s interactions with Adolf Harnack, see Section 8.3.4.2.
197 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie sent from Erlangen and dated February 22, 1875.
198 VOSS 1919, p. 283. For an image of the design in question, see Figure 10 in Section 2.7.1.
164 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

3.6.2 Klein’s Father-in-Law, the Historian Karl Hegel

Karl Hegel described how he was “always driven ahead by his work and will-
power.”199 This is comparable to the work ethic of his son-in-law Felix Klein.
Born in Nuremberg as the first of two sons to the great philosopher Georg Wil-
helm Friedrich Hegel (see also Section 8.3.2) and his wife Maria von Tucher, who
was twenty-one years younger than her husband, Karl Hegel had lived in several
places as a child on account of his father’s various university positions. He was
educated at the Collège Français in Berlin, where he was the top student of his
class and where he developed a love of mathematics from his teacher Johann Phi-
lipp Gruson.200 After completing his Abitur at the age of seventeen, he at first stu-
died at the University of Berlin, where his father was the Rektor in 1829 and 1830
(G.W.F. Hegel died in 1831). After further studies in Heidelberg, Karl Hegel
earned a doctoral degree in Berlin in 1837 and, the following year, passed his tea-
ching examinations (in classical philology, ancient and modern history, philo-
sophy, and German).
While on a trip to Italy, Karl Hegel learned to appreciate the art and culture
there, and he discovered his main field of historical research. From his initial goal
of writing a history of the governing constitution of Florence emerged a large
book on urban constitutions throughout Italy (1847), an accomplishment that
brought him “the satisfaction of no longer being regarded merely as the son of my
father.”201 Before publishing this book, he had already been able to leave behind
his work as a school teacher for a university career; in the fall of 1841, he was
hired as an associate professor of history by the University of Rostock. In prepa-
ration for this new position, he attended a few lectures by Leopold von Ranke,
whose ideas would later be espoused by Felix Klein (see Sections 7.4 and 8.3.1).
Ranke’s student Georg Waitz was a friend and colleague of Karl Hegel. As a Pri-
vatdozent in Göttingen, Klein was in close contact with Waitz and his circle of
students (see Section 2.8.2.3).
During the German Revolution of 1848, Felix Klein’s father had remained
loyal to the monarchy. Karl Hegel had also witnessed this event. For three years,
he acted as a political intermediary between aristocrats and democrats; while in
Rostock, he stood up for the freedom of the press and for constitutional reform,
but his support did not extend to any deeper democratic causes. Hegel founded a
largely royalist journal called the Mecklenburgische Zeitschrift, and this, he
believed, played a role in his promotion to full professor.202
Karl Hegel served as the Rektor of the University of Rostock from 1854 to
1856, and in the fall of 1856 he accepted a professorship at the University of Er-
langen (Bavaria). In addition, the Bavarian Ministry of Education appointed him

199 HEGEL 1900, p. iii.

200 Ibid., pp. 5, 7.
201 Ibid., p. 115. On the significance of Karl Hegel as a historian, see KREIS 2012.
202 HEGEL 1900, pp. 140–62.
 3.6 Family Matters 165

the “commissioner of examinations for Gymnasien in Erlangen, Schweinfurt, and

Hof,” and later also in Munich. This was a special feature of the Bavarian educa-
tional system that would also be encountered by Felix Klein, who regularly had to
travel from Erlangen to Munich in order to administer and evaluate Abitur exami-
nations (or Absolutorialprüfungen, as they were called in Bavaria) in mathema-
tics.203 In Bavaria, university professors – and not school teachers – were res-
ponsible for administering these examinations and reporting their results to the
Ministry of Education.204
Karl Hegel’s involvement with a large-scale academy project also served as a
model for Klein. Hegel was a member of a historical commission that had been
initiated by Ranke at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Munich. The aim of this
commission was to edit German parliamentary records, city chronicles, and other
historical documents, and it received abundant financial support from the Bava-
rian government.205 Karl Hegel traveled to numerous places in the name of this
project, including Strasbourg and Paris (1867). The trips that Klein would later
take for the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project, which was funded by a consortium of German-
speaking academies, are therefore comparable (see Section 7.8).
In 1867, Karl Hegel was named a corresponding member of the Philosophi-
cal-Historical Class of the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen. He was made
an external member there in 1871 on the same day that Klein became an Assessor
for the society’s Mathematical and Natural-Scientific Class. While in Erlangen,
Karl Hegel practiced and taught Ranke’s approach to historiography (see Section
2.8.3.3). In 1872, Karl Hegel founded the university’s first historical seminar. For
Klein, he was a reliable source of information not only about historical matters but
also about Italian art and culture.
Since May 28, 1850, Karl Hegel had been married to his younger cousin Su-
sanne Tucher von Simmelsdorf, who was thirteen years his junior. During their
years together in Rostock, his wife gave birth to three daughters and a son.206
When his wife, whom he outlived by twenty-one years, died after a long illness on
New Year’s Eve in 1877, two sons, four daughters, and two sons-in-law were
standing by his side.207 Two years before his death in 1899, he preliminarily divi-
ded his estate equally among his children.208

203 As a full professor in Erlangen, for instance, Klein spent October 5–17, 1874 in Munich for
the sake of these examinations ([Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated October 5, 1874).
204 See HEGEL 1900, p. 176.
205 Ibid., pp. 177–79.
206 Ibid., p. 164.
207 Ibid., p. 207.
208 Felix Klein administered this bequest on the authority of his father-in-law. In this capacity, he
resolved a disparity that arose from an advanced payment that Anna (Hegel) Klein had al-
ready received. Each of Karl Hegel’s children was due to receive 14,420 Marks, but because
his wife had already been advanced 10,100 Marks, her remaining inheritance was only 3,820
Marks ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9, pp. 666–71).
166 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

3.6.3 Anna Hegel, Felix Klein, and Their Family

Felix Klein and Anna Maria Caroline Hegel’s wedding took place on August 17,
1875 in Munich, after Klein had moved there to begin his new professorship and
after he had been granted, on June 2, “official approval to marry Anna Hegel.”209
In Erlangen, on July 6, 1872, Anna’s younger sister Louise Friederike Caroline (b.
April 3, 1853) had married the physicist Eugen Lommel, who, as dean of the
Philosophical Faculty, had played a role in Klein’s hiring process. Another of
Anna’s sisters, Maria (b. 1855), remained at home to take care of her father after
her mother’s early death. Her brother Georg (b. 1856) forged a career in the
Bavarian military, and her brother Wilhelm Sigmund (b. 1863) became a lawyer
and civil servant at a patent office. The youngest sister, Sophie Louise (b. 1861),
would become an especially important person in Felix and Anna Klein’s life.
Sophie Hegel had not been allowed to marry her great love – a military officer
of little means – and devoted herself instead to supporting her sisters. She accom-
panied Anna and Felix Klein to Leipzig, for instance, in order to help care for
their children. On the side, she received training as a singer. Beginning in 1890,
Sophie Hegel taught German at a private school in Malvern, England. In 1910,
she returned to Germany and lived in Anna and Felix Klein’s home in Göttingen.
There she took care of her brother-in-law, who was suffering increasingly from
paralysis in his lower limbs, and her sister, who had become hard of hearing.210
When Anna and Felix Klein celebrated their silver wedding anniversary in
August of 1900, the following people were in attendance: Anna’s father, two of
her sisters and one of her brothers, their four children – Otto (b. August 6, 1876),
Luise (b. November 24, 1879), Sophie (b. July 11, 1885), and Elisabeth (b. May
21, 1888) – Luise Klein’s fiancé Fritz Süchting, two of Felix Klein’s siblings, and
Klein’s old friend Friedrich Neesen and his daughter (see Fig. 19).
In his family chronicle from 1918, Alfred Klein made the following notes
about Anna and Felix Klein’s four children:211
a) Otto, an engineer, spent several years in America after completing his studies and married
there his wife Mrs. Myrthel Cram. He works as a factory director in Hanover.212
b) Luise married the engineer Fritz Süchting, who is now a professor in Clausthal.213 They
have four children: Otto, Hildegard, Carla, and Peter.
c) Sophie married the attorney Eberhard Hagemann in Verden. Their children are Elisabeth,
Gabriele, Eveline, Rudolf, and Rose-Marie.
d) Elisabeth studied mathematics and music. Her husband, Robert Staiger, whom she
married in August of 1914, died in the battle on the river Sambre near Charleroi.214

209 [Archiv TU München] Personnel files of F. Klein II5.

210 [Hillebrand] An obituary for Sophie Hegel written by Dr. Sigmund Hegel. – See Section 9.5.
211 Ibid., Alfred Klein’s family chronicle (1918), pp. 8–9.
212 Otto Klein, who had earned an engineering degree and later received an honorary doctorate in
engineering, died in Göttingen on May 12, 1963 (his death certificate is no. 699/1963 at Göt-
tingen’s registry office).
213 In 1910, Fritz Süchting was employed as the director of electricity in Bremen.
 3.6 Family Matters 167

Figure 19: A photograph from Anna and Felix Klein’s silver wedding anniversary –
Sunday, August 19, 1900 [Hillebrand].
Standing (from the left): Otto Klein (24 years old), Prof. Friedrich Neesen, Sophie Hegel, Dr.
Sigmund Hegel, Luise Klein (20 years old), Dr. Fritz Süchting, Maria Hegel, Dr. Alfred
Klein, Elisabeth Klein (12 years old). Seated (from the left): Hanni Neesen, Eugenie Klein,
Prof. Karl Hegel, Anna Klein, Felix Klein, Sophie Klein (15 years old).

Among Anna and Felix Klein’s four children, their youngest daughter Elisabeth
was the most mathematically gifted, and she was also a talented musician. She
studied at the University of Göttingen and at Bryn Mawr College in the United
States, and she became qualified to teach mathematics, physics, and English in
Germany. She passed her examination with distinction on February 14, 1913.215
After she had become engaged to Robert Staiger, who since 1911 had been the
director of the Academic Orchestra Association in Göttingen, she earned an addi-
tional degree in music from the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig, where Max Reger
was teaching at the time. The musicologist Robert Staiger was on his way toward

214 Robert Staiger, a staff sergeant (Vizefeldwebel), fell in battle in Gozée, a village fifteen kilo-
meters southwest of the Belgian city of Charleroi. The battle that took place there between
August 21–23, 1914 on the French-Belgian border is notorious for its gruesome war crimes
(German troops perpetrating massacres against the civilian population); see THE MARTYR-
DOM OF BELGIUM 1915.
215 [BBF] Personnel file; and TOBIES 2008a.
168 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

completing his Habilitation when the First World War broke out.216 They married
on August 2, 1914. After her husband had been killed in battle only three weeks
later, Elisabeth Staiger had a remarkable career, which led to her becoming the
headmistress of an upper school for girls in Hildesheim. In addition, she directed a
choir and, like many intellectuals after the First World War, was politically active.
She became a member of the German Democratic Party, which had been founded
with Einstein’s support and whose members also included the mathematicians
David Hilbert, Carl Runge, and Felix Bernstein. In 1933, Elisabeth Staiger ex-
pressed her opposition to the firing of her Jewish colleagues and to the conserva-
tive image of women promoted by the National Socialists. Because she failed to
conform to Nazi politics, she was transferred to Hamburg-Harburg and demoted
to a teaching position. In 1945, she was appointed again to the role of headmis-
tress, now at the Kaiserin-Auguste-Viktoria-Schule in Celle (near Hanover).217
Anna und Felix Klein’s other children seem to have been less academically
inclined.218 Otto Klein failed his Abitur in the spring of 1894, began working as an
apprentice (“Eleve”) for the railway, and ultimately studied mechanical engineer-
ing at the Technische Hochschule in Hanover. In 1895, Felix Klein had sought
advice from Wilhelm Kohlrausch, an electrical engineer and the Rektor of the
Technische Hochschule in Hanover, about selecting an appropriate apprenticeship
for his son.219 Otto found his own way, however, by moving to the United States.
He reported back to home that he was working as an engineer at a factory in
Hamilton, Ohio (December 12, 1903), as a chief engineer in Detroit, Michigan
(June 29, 1906), and that he spent the Christmas of 1906 with the German mathe-
matician Oskar Bolza and his family in Chicago (Bolza, who had studied with
Klein in Göttingen, held a professorship there). In 1908, Otto Klein became en-
gaged to an American woman. Afterwards, he accepted his father’s help in order
find a job in the German machine tool industry.220 To this end, Klein used his con-
nections to the industrialist members of the Göttingen Association (see 8.1.1).
Felix Klein’s attempts to find his son a professorship at a Technische Hoch-
schule were unsuccessful. Alwin Nachtweh, a professor of mechanical technology
at the Technische Hochschule in Hanover, informed Klein on March 31, 1910,
that there was an open professorship there in the field of machine tools and indus-
trial organization and that his son was being considered as a possible candidate for
the position. Klein responded immediately with his son’s address and rejoiced:
“That is indeed a wonderful combination. Since the beginning of 1909, my son

216 Robert Staiger’s doctoral thesis was published as Benedict von Watt: Ein Beitrag zur
Kenntnis des bürgerlichen Meistergesangs um die Wende des 16. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig:
Breitkopf & Härtel, 1914).
217 For further discussion of Elisabeth Staiger’s career, see TOBIES 1993a and 2008a. On the
establishment of additional political parties after the First World War and the intellectuals
who joined them, see TOBIES 2012, pp. 113–17.
218 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 201–392 (Anna Klein’s letters to her husband).
219 Ibid. 10: 528 (a letter from Kohlrausch to Klein dated February 11, 1895).
220 Ibid. 10: 439, 442, 445 (letters from Otto Klein to his father).
 3.6 Family Matters 169

has been working at the Görlitzer Mechanical Engineering Company, and his
address is Dipl.ing. Otto Klein, Görlitz, Reicherstr. 30/III. It would be best if he
could discuss his curriculum vitae with you himself.” Otto Klein was the top can-
didate for this position,221 but he turned down the job offer because he did not
think that it would suit him to become an academic teacher. Later, he would also
turn down an offer to become a professor at the Technische Hochschule in Dan-
zig.222 Instead of pursuing an academic career, he accepted a position in 1913 at
the Hanover-Wülfel Iron Casting Company, which produced military equipment
during the First World War and also exploited the labor of war prisoners.223
Fritz Süchting, who married Luise Klein in 1900, sought his father-in-law’s
advice about professional decisions. Following Klein’s suggestion, he and Robert
Fricke prepared a German edition of John Perry’s book The Calculus for Engi-
neers.224 During this process, Klein introduced Süchting to Maxwell’s equations,
with which he had been unfamiliar.225 Süchting directed electricity plants; he
enabled students to take practical courses in his Bremen-based business; and in
1912 he became a full professor of mechanical and electrical engineering at the
Royal Mining Academy in Clausthal. Today, there is a Fritz Süchting Institute for
Mechanical Engineering at the Clausthal University of Technology.226 Süchting
maintained a very warm relationship with his father-in-law; he addressed Klein as
Lieber Papa and shared his enthusiasm for hiking: “I went on an expedition with
[…] Luise and the three children to Riefensbeek, deep within the Söse Valley,
with a backpack full of cakes and with a stop for coffee at the village inn, just as
the Klein family used to hike up the Hainberg hills to Rohns’s café.”227
Sophie Klein often got into trouble at school, and later she was wooed by a
number of suitors. On August 15, 1903, her mother Anna Klein wrote to her hus-
band about the “miraculous power of love” that she recognized in her daughter
Sophie: “Indeed, a mother feels things doubly, first for her child and then from her
own experience. Thus it is quite sad when one’s husband is absent and when he
has recently expressed that he is no longer able or willing to be affectionate.”228
This is difficult to interpret, but it is probably an expression of Anna Klein’s

221 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 1–2 (Nachtweh to Klein on June 17, 1910).
222 Ibid. 10: 403 (Otto Klein to his father on April 23, 1914).
223 Ibid.: 472 (a letter from Otto Klein to his father dated April 4, 1917).
224 See PERRY 1902 [1897].
225 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from F. Klein to Fricke dated July 14, 1901: “How are you get-
ting along with Süchting? He is not yet familiar with Maxwell’s equations, and I have rec-
ommended that he should read, as an introduction, Ebert’s recently published theory of elec-
tromagnetism.” The work in question is Hermann Ebert, Magnetische Kraftfelder (Leipzig:
J.A. Barth, 1897), a second edition of which would appear in 1904.
226 See https://www.imw.tu-clausthal.de/institut/wissenswertes/ (accessed February 2, 2020).
227 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11 (a letter from Süchting to Klein dated October, 1913). Rohns’s
café and inn on the Hainberg, which had been built in 1830 in the classical style by the archi-
tect Christian Rohns, was a favorite hiking destination for many professors and students in
Göttingen (see Figure 28 in Section 6.1).
228 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10, p. 274 (Anna Klein to her husband on August 15, 1903).
170 3 A Professorship at the University of Erlangen

frustrations concerning her husband’s excessive workload and his health prob-
lems. Sophie’s suitors at the time were not an issue. Klein evaluated all potential
marriage candidates precisely according to their financial conditions. In 1908,
Sophie Klein ultimately married Eberhard Hagemann, who was five years her
senior. From 1908 to 1931, Hagemann worked as an attorney in Verden (a city on
the Aller river in the Prussian province of Hanover), and, beginning in 1924, he
additionally served as the chairman of Hanover’s provincial parliament. From
1931 to 1933, he was the president (Landeshauptmann) of Hanover’s provincial
government. During the Nazi era, Hagemann left his political office and restricted
his activity to practicing law. In 1936 and 1937, he represented the Göttingen-ba-
sed Protestant minister Bruno Benfey, who came from a Jewish family and had
been forced out of his parish.229 Benfey was ultimately able to emigrate to the
Netherlands and survive. After 1945, Hagemann received numerous honors,
among them an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Göttingen, which
was awarded on February 15, 1950.230
Anna Klein’s loving relationship with her husband, her trust in his plans, her
willingness to help him think through problems, and her management of his cor-
respondence in his absence are documented in her numerous letters to him, which,
as of 1907, she composed with a mechanical typewriter: “This manner of writing
is so much fun for me.”231 On the occasion of her husband’s sixty-second birthday
– and thus we are jumping quite ahead in Felix Klein’s biography – she wrote the
following words to him:
Dearest husband! It is almost becoming a rule with us that we will have to be apart on our
birthdays and our wedding anniversaries. In this respect, I take comfort in the thought that
your multifaceted life and its vigorous demands please you and keep you youthful in a way
that is uncommon among other men your age. My wish for your birthday tomorrow is thus
that you will be able to remain happy with your work and confident in its success for many
years to come. Even if you can no longer go climbing as you once did, your strength has ne-
ver failed you when you have set out to accomplish something that seems valuable to you.
During your years of illness and impediment, moreover, I rightly and repeatedly consoled you
with the words: “My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weak-
ness.” Among the many things that you have undertaken and striven to achieve, the success of
the Göttingen Association has always been the most astonishing and a gratifying to me.
Therefore I hope even now that the meeting which you are currently attending might result in
a fruitful collaboration with the gentlemen from Berlin.232

229 I am indebted to Oswald Glaser (University of Stuttgart) for this information.

230 See https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eberhard_Hagemann (accessed February 2, 2020).
231 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 319 (Anna Klein to her husband, January 4, 1907).
232 Ibid. 10: 361 (a letter from Anna Klein to her husband dated April 24, 1911). Invited by the
Friedrich Krupp Corporation, the Göttingen Association met on April 24–25, 1911 in Essen.
The “gentlemen from Berlin” who attended were representatives of Ludwig Loewe & Com-
pany, a German manufacturer of arms and munitions. On the Göttingen Association, see Sec-
tion 8.1.1. Anna Klein’s quotation is of 2 Corinthians 12:9.
 4 A PROFESSORSHIP AT THE POLYTECHNIKUM IN MUNICH
Over the course of Bauernfeind’s reorganization of the Technische Hochschule in Munich,
the institution received the right, like the university there, to educate teaching candidates in
the fields of mathematics and physics. It was only because of this that Klein decided to accept
the position, but he was clear about the fact the education of mathematicians there could only
really be achieved through the creation of an additional full professorship for mathematics.1

This is Ferdinand Lindemann’s account of things, and it is largely accurate. Upon

closer inspection, however, it turns out that Klein did not create an additional pro-
fessorship but rather merely influenced the hiring process in Munich.
Munich, the capital of Bavaria, was first mentioned as a city in the year 1158.
By the year 1850, it had a hundred thousand residents, and it grew so quickly over
the next thirty years that its population more than doubled. During the reign of
King Ludwig II (1865–1886), the music and theater scenes expanded there, and
numerous large-scale buildings were erected for art, culture, and education. Since
1871, there have been multiple train stations and railway connections there. A
horse-drawn streetcar began operating in the city center in 1876. The Ludwig Ma-
ximilians University was relocated from Landshut to Munich in 1826, and already
at that time it had more than a thousand students. A polytechnical institution, with
a rather turbulent history, has existed in Munich since 1827.
Beginning with the École Polytechnique in Paris, which was founded in 1794,
a number of polytechnical schools were created throughout Europe.2 Differing in
quality, most of the German polytechnical schools improved their status in the
second half of the 19th century. At the end of the 1870s, these institutions were
renamed Technische Hochschulen, and since the 1960s they have been known as
Technische Universitäten. Their primary aim was to produce a qualified work-
force for businesses – that is, to educate engineers and architects, for which pro-
fessions there were no courses of study then at German universities. Ever since he
spent time in Berlin and Paris, Klein appreciated such institutions and their strong
focus on mathematical teaching and research.
In 1868, the Royal Bavarian Polytechnical School (renamed as a Technische
Hochschule in 1877), had been restructured. Karl Max von Bauernfeind, a profes-
sor of geodesy and the man in charge of the reorganization, modeled his institu-
tional changes on the Polytechnikum in Zurich (Switzerland) and the Polytechni-
kum in Dresden (Saxony), where both engineers and teaching candidates could
complete a full course of study (this was not yet possible at the Polytechnika in
Prussia). The Polytechnikum in Munich was divided into five departments: a gen-

1 [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 56.

2 See BELHOSTE et al. 1994, BARBIN et al. 2019, and KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 59–84.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 171

R. Tobies, Felix Klein, Vita Mathematica 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75785-4_4
172 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

eral department, which included mathematics, and departments of engineering,

construction, mechanical engineering, and chemical engineering. Mathematics
lectures, on the one hand, became service lectures for the engineering departments
and, on the other hand, were meant to train future teachers for the Bavarian
Realschulen (secondary schools with a focus on mathematics and sciences).3
In 1868, the Polytechnikum hired numerous new professors who would later
be important to Klein, including Carl Linde (a professor of theoretical mechanical
engineering), Johann Bauschinger (a professor of technical mechanics and
graphical statics), and the mathematician Otto Hesse.4
Since the reorganization of the Polytechnikum, its student enrollment had
more than tripled; that is, it soon had, like the University of Munich, more than a
thousand students.5 Therefore, on May 31, 1873, Otto Hesse applied for a second
professorship at the Polytechnikum with the same teaching duties as his own in
the field of analytic geometry, differential and integral calculus, and analytical
mechanics. Besides Hesse, Johann N. Bischof taught trigonometry, algebraic
analysis, and geometry there. Bischof was also the director of the Polytechni-
kum’s library. In the department of mechanical engineering, there was also a pro-
fessorship for descriptive geometry and mechanical technology, and this position
was held by Friedrich August Klingenfeld.6
The Bavarian Ministry of Culture approved Hesse’s application not long be-
fore the latter died on August 4, 1874. Thus there were now two mathematics pro-
fessorships that the Polytechnikum had to fill: Hesse’s vacant position and the
position that Hesse had encouraged the Polytechnikum to create. Until these two
appointments were made, elementary lectures were taught by others: the univer-
sity professor Gustav Bauer took over the lectures on analytic geometry, and the
Privatdozent Siegmund Günther lectured on differential calculus.7 A second Pri-
vatdozent, Wilhelm Schüler, held lectures on analytical mechanics; he was also
paid to lead students through exercises in mathematics and engineering.
The list of candidates to replace Otto Hesse contained just one name: Felix
Klein, with reference to the “extraordinary reputation that this young scholar has
attained from his academic work as well as from his achievements as a teacher.”8
Klein, who envisaged having a broader sphere of influence and activity than was
possible in Erlangen, accepted the position in Munich unconditionally and without
delay on November 19, 1874.9 King Ludwig II signed the letter of appointment on

3 The author wishes to thank Gert Schubring for this reference; see also SCHUBRING 2019.
4 According to Klein, Hesse had demonstrated “that the problems of newer geometry could be
understood as algebraic problems and be solved with algebraic means” (KLEIN 1875, p. 46).
5 See HASHAGEN 2003, p. 41.
6 BERICHT 1875, pp. 19–20.
7 Ibid., pp. 6, 15. When Klein arrived in April of 1875, Günther took a new position as a secon-
dary school teacher (see BERICHT 1876, p. 6). Later, as a teacher at the Ansbach Gymnasium,
he recognized the unusual talent of Heinrich Burkhardt (see Section 6.3.2).
8 TOBIES 1992a, pp. 757–58 (a letter to the Bavarian Ministry of Culture dated Nov. 1, 1874).
9 See ibid., pp. 770–71 (a letter from Klein to Wilhelm Beetz dated November 19, 1874).
 4.1 A New Institute and New Teaching Activity 173

December 2, 1874, which meant that Klein, now a member of the Polytechni-
kum’s faculty (Lehrerrath), could play a part in deciding who should be hired to
fill the second vacant mathematics professorship (even though Klein himself did
not begin his new position until April 1, 1875).
Klein persuaded the majority of the hiring committee to pursue the candidates
of his choice: Alexander Brill ranked first, and Jacob Lüroth second – both of
them had studied under Clebsch and were already teaching at polytechnical
schools. The committee was chaired by the physicist Wilhelm Beetz, who was the
newly appointed director of the Polytechnikum, and it also included the mathe-
matics professors from the University of Munich, Gustav Bauer and Ludwig
Seidel.10 Other members of this committee – J.N. Bischof, Johann Bauschinger,
and the now acting director of the Polytechnikum, Bauernfeind – had voted for
another candidate.11 Klein’s opinion was ultimately able to prevail, but this led to
him having a strained relationship with Bauernfeind. For this reason, Klein’s ac-
cess to the field of geodesy, which Bauernfeind oversaw, was somewhat limited.
On April 1, 1875, Felix Klein and Alexander Brill started their new jobs as
professors of analytic geometry, differential and integral calculus, and analytical
mechanics. Together, they were able to develop their own mathematical institute
and to reorganize the teaching curriculum, as discussed in Section 4.1.
Section 4.2 provides an overview of how Klein developed, as he put it, his
“true mathematical individuality” in Munich, and it also profiles his circle of col-
laborators and students there. Regarding his research interests at the time, Klein
mentioned the following: the intuitive geometry of algebraic entities, the theory of
quintic equations based on the icosahedron group, problems of number theory,
and geometric function theory, especially modular functions.12
While at the Polytechnikum, Klein befriended numerous scholars working in
technical areas of research. From them, he gained the insight that engineering is
an important field of application for mathematics and that the two subjects should
be combined into an overarching curriculum (this is the topic of Section 4.3).
Section 4.4 discusses why Klein ultimately wanted to leave his position in
Munich and how he managed to do so.

4.1 A NEW INSTITUTE AND NEW TEACHING ACTIVITY

From the outside, it appeared as though Felix Klein and Alexander Brill began
their new positions in Munich as equals. However, whereas Klein received an
annual salary of 2,500 Gulden (as of January 1, 1876: 5,100 Mark), Brill, who
was seven years older than Klein, received only 2,000 Gulden (as of January 1,

10 The university professor Seidel also lectured regularly on astronomical methods (including
probability theory) at the Polytechnikum. See BERICHT 1875, p. 15; and 1876, p. 17.
11 [BHSt] MK 19555.
12 KLEIN 1923a, p. 20. See also TOBIES 2019b, p. 151.
174 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

1876: 4,200 Mark). In 1875, both moreover received a cost-of-living pay increase
of 350 Gulden annually and compensation for their moving expenses. On October
1, 1877, Klein’s salary was raised to 5,460 Mark.13 In addition, both Klein and
Brill could rely on earning more money on account of the high number of students
attending their courses. For Klein, this extra income ranged from 870 Mark in the
winter semester of 1876/77 to 1,500 Mark in 1879/80. According to Klein’s con-
tract, he was required to teach ten to fourteen hours per week.14
Even before Brill was hired, Klein had applied to create a new Mathematical
Institute. He also took the initiative to redesign the mathematics curriculum at the
Polytechnikum. This reorganization concerned the mathematics lectures and exer-
cises attended by the large number of engineering students. Within the framework
of special courses for teaching candidates and future researchers, Klein and Brill
also tried out three new formats: a workshop for constructing models, a mathe-
matical colloquium, and a so-called presentation seminar (Vortragsseminar).

4.1.1 Creating a Mathematical Institute

Bearing in mind the difficulties with classroom space that he had experienced in
Erlangen, Klein submitted, on December 9, 1874, an application concerning “fa-
cilities for a new mathematical institute” to the board of directors at the Polytech-
nikum in Munich. Klein hoped to create an institute “in which students of mathe-
matics (I only have special mathematicians in mind) can experience a broader
education in geometry than what is currently available – a broader education from
which, I have no doubt, the science itself will considerably profit.” He argued that
the construction of models helps students “to conceptualize abstract geometric
relations and thus makes it possible for them to conduct immediately insightful
research” (this is reminiscent of Note III in his Erlangen Program). Confidently,
he summarized in four points what an institute of this sort would require:
I. It will have to have its own facilities, that is, in addition to an office for its director, a
sufficiently bright and spacious work room and a room for exhibiting its collection of
models.
II. It will be necessary to hire an assistant who has an extensive background in geometry
and is also a skilled craftsman.
III. It will need to have at its disposal a far higher annual budget than that which is currently
allotted for the teaching of mathematics (50 Gulden).
IV. Finally, for the purposes of establishing the institute, an additional subsidy will be
needed; the amount necessary for this I cannot accurately predict at the moment.15

13 [BHSt] MK19556. FINSTERWALDER 1936 (his obituary of Alexander Brill) contains incorrect
information concerning Brill’s and Klein’s hiring process and their equal status.
14 [BHSt] MK 19557. On his teaching load at the time, see KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), Appendix,
pp. 4–5. After the Bavarian currency was converted from the Gulden to the Mark in 1875,
students had to pay 2.50 Mark for one weekly hour of instruction through the semester.
15 For the full text of this application, see TOBIES 1992a, pp. 771–72.
 4.1 A New Institute and New Teaching Activity 175

Already adept at submitting such applications, Felix Klein went on to emphasize

that his first point was the most urgent matter and that he would be willing to
discuss his other requests during the next round of budget discussions. After
securing a one-time grant of 1,500 Gulden for the Mathematical Institute as well
as ongoing funding of 50 Gulden per year to cover operating expenses, Klein and
Alexander Brill immediately submitted new applications in May of 1875. They
requested 300 Gulden from the administration with the purpose of developing the
Institute’s collection of models and, together with J.N. Bischof, they applied for a
yearly budget of 150 Gulden to pay for seminar prizes.16
The Mathematical Institute was first mentioned in the Polytechnikum’s annual
report for the 1875/76 academic year, where its two divisions are identified: Divi-
sion 1: Felix Klein; Division 2: Alexander Brill. In order to justify these two divi-
sions (and, later, to hire two assistants), Klein and Brill divided the model collec-
tion, which was under development, into “pure geometry” and “differential cal-
culus, mechanics, and mathematical physics,” whereby Klein would be held re-
sponsible for models of second- and third-order surfaces, complex surfaces, poly-
hedra, algebraic space curves (etc.), and Brill would be held responsible for
minimal surfaces, representations of shortest distances, the curvature and asymp-
totic curves of a surface, models of deformed rods (etc.).17
In 1876, after the Mathematical Institute had acquired new rooms in an ex-
panded building of the Polytechnikum,18 Klein and Brill commissioned the con-
struction of wooden and plaster models in their modeling workshop. Klein pro-
vided numerous instructions for these projects,19 but over time he left it to Brill to
manage them. Brill was ultimately in charge of building the collection, and as of
1878 he directed the entire workshop. The number of models at their disposal –
which were constructed by students, purchased, or received as donations from
Germany and abroad – grew to around three hundred items in time for the annual
conference of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians (GDNÄ)
in 1877, which took place in Munich.20 Klein and Brill treated this event as a spe-
cial occasion to promote the models (see Section 4.3.3), for Ludwig Brill (Alex-
ander Brill’s brother) happened to own a distribution company in Darmstadt,
which reproduced and sold them with some success; by the end of the nineteenth
century, nearly every mathematical institute in Germany (and many in other
countries) had copies of them.21

16 [Archiv TU München] X2d.

17 See MÜNCHEN 1877, pp. 19–20.
18 BERICHT 1877, p. 16. The expansion was built in the courtyard behind the Polytechnikum’s
main building, which occupies the block on Arcisstraße across from the Alte Pinakothek.
19 See ROWE 2013; and ROWE 2017.
20 [BHStA] MK 19557 (an overview of the models that had been constructed or acquired).
21 In 1899, Ludwig Brill’s firm was taken over by Martin Schilling in Halle (see SCHILLING
1903). See also POLO BLANCO 2007. – Today, there are some online presentations; see for ex-
ample http://formpig.com. In 1999, Jonathan Chertok, University of Texas at Austin, begann
to create digital reproductions of models from the Brill/Schilling collection.
176 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

4.1.2 Reorganizing the Curriculum

In accordance with their job descriptions, Klein and Brill taught analytical ge-
ometry, differential calculus, and analytical mechanics. Whereas, during the sum-
mer of 1875, only eighteen students attended Klein’s two-hour lectures on analy-
tical mechanics, 207 students attended his lectures on analytical geometry, which
were combined with two weekly hours of exercises. His course on differential
calculus during the winter semester of 1875/76 had just as many students, and he
maintained these high enrollment numbers in the following semesters.22 Soon,
therefore, Klein sought to devise a more efficient method of educating enginee-
ring students in basic mathematics, for what he really wanted was to devote more
time to training future teachers and creative researchers in specialized courses.
It should be stressed in advance that Klein succeeded in creating a new curri-
culum and that this novel approach to instruction and exercises would be perpetu-
ated after his departure from Munich and would also serve as a model for other
Technische Hochschulen.23 Klein combined the previous mathematics lectures for
engineering students into one lecture course: “Introduction to Higher Mathema-
tics,” which ran for four hours per week for four semesters (architecture students
were only required to attend for two semesters), and which involved two weekly
hours of exercises. The lecture course on analytical mechanics and other subjects
that Otto Hesse had preferred to teach, such as determinants and homogeneous
coordinates, were dropped from the curriculum.
Klein and Brill began this new teaching cycle in the winter semester of
1877/88. At first, several professors of engineering seemed less than enthusiastic
about it, for Klein noted: “There has been some passive resistance, which will be
overcome but will leave behind some resentment.”24 Brill’s doctoral student Se-
bastian Finsterwalder reported that Klein’s “fiery spirit, geniality, and initiative”
had been needed to achieve this goal.25 During this process, Alexander Brill had
not always shared Klein’s level of “engagement, humor, and lust for life.”26 Much
later, Brill humorously reported on Klein’s leading role when he wrote that they
had composed verses about this at the house of Klein’s bride (Anna Hegel): “So
that your groom [Klein] won’t dictate Brill, rein in your groom with a gentle hand,
my Fräulein Hegel!” Brill commented that he lived then with the feeling that he
had to maintain his independence, and “Well, I didn’t quite succeed.”27
In order to reconfigure the mathematical exercises according to their vision,
Klein and Brill had to part ways with the Privatdozent Wilhelm Schüler, who, as
mentioned above, had been in charge of this aspect of the curriculum. Klein

22 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7 E, pp. 32–125.

23 See LOREY 1916, p. 152.
24 See JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges aus München”), p. 2.
25 FINSTERWALDER 1936, p. 657.
26 See HASHAGEN 2003, p. 52.
27 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 8 (Brill to Klein, Sept. 29, 1912). “Da Dein Bräutigam Brill nicht
diktieren will: Mit zarter Hand leg’ an die Zügel dem Bräutigam, mein Fräulein Hegel!”.
 4.1 A New Institute and New Teaching Activity 177

wanted to hire young assistants, whose academic work he could supervise and
further develop (see Point II in his application from December of 1874). In addi-
tion, he wanted to produce copies of exercise sheets by means of lithography, a
copying method that he had learned about in Italy and France. In Germany, this
process had first been used to reproduce musical scores and in art.28
The Polytechnikum’s General Department already employed two assistants –
one for physics and one for descriptive geometry29 – and so it was somewhat of a
struggle to persuade the administration to hire two more. For the winter semester
of 1876/77, Klein was able to acquire funding of 550 Mark for one assistant,
whose salary he supplemented with his own money. About this, he later noted:
“My own assistant = Gottlob Fischer. My wishes were fulfilled, but my income
was reduced.”30 Fischer had given two talks in Klein and Brill’s presentation se-
minar in the summer of 1876 (on Eulerian integrals of the second kind, and on the
vortex motion in hydrodynamics). As of the winter semester of 1877/78 (and after
repeated applications), Klein and Brill finally each managed to acquire an as-
sistant of his own, whereby Fischer became Brill’s assistant and Klein hired the
academically talented Josef Gierster. As of April 1, 1878, when Wilhelm Schüler
left the Polytechnikum, these two assistants were given an annual salary of 1,000
Mark each. In 1879, when Gierster left to become a teacher, Walther Dyck, who
had meanwhile earned his doctoral degree, was made Klein’s new assistant.31
In April of 1875, Klein and Brill had introduced a Mathematisches Kollo-
quium, in which they themselves and above all Klein’s students from Erlangen
(now post-doctoral students in Munich) gave presentations. This ran until Decem-
ber of 1875; it was cancelled during the first half of 1876 (because Klein’s stu-
dents went their separate ways); and afterwards it was developed into a mathe-
matical seminar, in which Klein’s research interests were the primary focus.32
From May of 1876 until the summer of 1878, Klein and Brill led the afore-
mentioned presentation seminar, which was later called a proseminar. Among its
participants, two in particular would go on to make a name for themselves in
science: Max Planck and Adolf Hurwitz. Planck, a future Nobel Prize winner in
physics, spoke on three occasions (July 1, 8, and 22, 1877) about the “theory of
the rotation of bodies according to Poinsot,”33 and Hurwitz spoke on two occasi-
ons (July 6 and 13, 1877) about the “frequency of prime numbers according to
Chebyshev.”34 Along with Carl Runge and others, Hurwitz attended Klein’s lectu-
res on number theory during the summer semester of 1877.35 In the fall of 1877,
Hurwitz, Runge, and Planck all moved to Berlin to continue their studies.

28 See WEIß 1989; WEIß 2017.

29 BERICHT 1875, p. 6.
30 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges aus München”), p. 2.
31 HASHAGEN 2003, p. 672; LOREY 1916, p. 152; KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), Appendix, pp. 4–5.
32 [Protocols] vol. 1.
33 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 311–14, 320 (Max Planck’s lectures).
34 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 314–17.
35 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7 E (Number Theory, 4 hours per week, 10 Mark, 14 students).
178 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

Carl Runge remained in Berlin, where he earned a doctoral degree in mathe-

matics and completed his Habilitation. He accepted a professorship at the TH
Hanover, and from there Klein would ultimately lure him to Göttingen (see 8.1.2).
Hurwitz returned to Klein more quickly (see 4.2.4.2), and he would follow Klein’s
lead in important fields of mathematical research. Klein also remained in touch
with Max Planck. Still two months before his own death, Klein sent Planck a
remarkable letter about the theory of relativity and Emmy Noether’s contributions
to it (see 9.2.2).

4.2 DEVELOPING HIS MATHEMATICAL INDIVIDUALITY

I have always regarded those years, during which I made such decisive progress, as the hap-
piest period of my mathematical production. They were characterized by my frequent meet-
ings with [Paul] Gordan outside of Munich. As a meeting place we chose Eichstätt because it
lies in between Erlangen and Munich, and there we often spent Sundays together. Even in la-
ter years, Gordan spoke fondly of this era of mathesis quercupolitana […].36

There are already several good overviews of the mathematical results that Klein
achieved during his years in Munich.37 Here I will focus on the development of
these results and Klein’s methods. In his obituary for Otto Hesse, Klein expressed
what his own goals were at the time: “Recently, mathematics is again striving to
unify various research areas that have long been treated as separate disciplines.”38
Klein continued his work on surface connections and a new type of Riemann
surface, which he had begun in Erlangen; he studied Abelian integrals and contri-
buted, via a geometric approach, to the theory of higher-order algebraic equations.
Insights from group theory and invariant theory helped him to develop a general
method for solving such equations. By drawing upon number theory and the Rie-
mannian existence theorem, Klein succeeded in classifying elliptic modular func-
tions. Enthusiastic about the value of his geometric approach as a heuristic tool,
Klein wrote in an article: “Geometry not only makes things intuitive and easier to
understand; it also provided the fundamental basis for discovery in this work.”39
Klein’s approach was characterized by geometric intuition, the combination
of approaches from different research areas, his search for general connections,
and his use of concrete principles. At the beginning of an article, Klein typically
described his goals and methods, contextualized them, and made sure to mention
the work of others (especially his students). This can be seen, for instance, in an
article published in 1876 on Abelian integrals. Here Klein stressed that his goal

36 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 259 (mathesis quercupolitana = ‘Eichstättian mathematics’). On the
collaboration between Klein and Gordan, see also Max NOETHER 1914, pp. 21–30.
37 See KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 315–61; TOBIES/ROWE 1990, pp. 46–52; PARSHALL/ROWE 1994,
pp. 147–88; GRAY 2000, pp. 81–87; and ROWE 2018a.
38 KLEIN 1875, p. 50.
39 Felix Klein, “Ueber die Auflösung gewisser Gleichungen vom siebenten und achten Grade,”
Math. Ann. 15 (1879), p. 251–82, at p. 252.
 4.2 Developing His Mathematical Individuality 179

was “to make, in the case of the general algebraic curves of the fourth degree, the
course of Abelian integrals immediately intuitive on the curves themselves.” He
explained that he had already attempted this for the elliptic integral in the case of
third-degree curves (in vol. 7 of Math. Ann.) and that his student Axel Harnack
had further developed these ideas (in vol. 9 of Math. Ann.). After this, he referred
to the geometric basis of his work and outlined its underlying principle:
Here as well as in my earlier article, my main resource has been the new type of Riemann sur-
face […]. I rely to a great extent on the principle of deriving, via a limiting process, complex
relationships from simpler relationships, thereby making the discussion accessible. When be-
ginning with a pair of ellipses as a special curve of the fourth degree, the material obtains a
constellation and a limitation that many might regard as arbitrary. One will also find that in
many places my presentation is only sketchy. What seems valuable to me is the general di-
rection of the considerations and the nature of results that they produce; there is room for
hope that, later, I will yet again be able to discuss these same ideas more systematically and
completely, perhaps by extending them to curves of the nth degree.40

Klein did not wait until he had figured out every last detail but rather published
his preliminary results immediately. As I mentioned elsewhere, this occasionally
meant that his articles contained errors, but this approach to publication also allo-
wed Klein’s collaborators and students to think along with him, participate in his
process, and refine his results.

4.2.1 The Icosahedron Equation

The icosahedron equation had already been part of Klein’s research agenda in
Erlangen, where he made the following comment: “Perhaps I will shift my atten-
tion to the equations that, in the case of representing a complex variable on the
spherical surface, are formed by the regular solids” (see Section 3.2.3.2). In the
meantime, Klein had worked out his preliminary results on the connection bet-
ween group theory, binary forms, and regular solids. In the mathematical collo-
quium held on April 20, 1875, he explained his solution:
Such an equation has simply been known as an equation of degree 12 whose symbolic bilin-
ear covariant vanishes in the fourth iteration. The algebraic group of such an equation must
consist of 120 substitutions, corresponding to the 60 motions that bring an icosahedron into
congruence with itself, and to the perspective turns of its vertices by means of projection from
the barycenter. Considering that this group contains subgroups of 20 and 24 substitutions,
there must be resolvents41 of the sixth and fifth degree. Examples of the latter can be ele-
gantly constructed as follows […].42

40 Felix Klein, “Ueber den Verlauf der Abel’schen Integrale bei den Curven vierten Grades,”
Math. Ann. 10 (1876), pp. 365–97 (Quotations p. 365); KLEIN 1922 [GMA II], p. 99.
41 In the theory of algebraic equations, a resolvent (or Lagrange resolvent) is an auxiliary quan-
tity that is formed from the roots of a polynomial and the primitive roots of unity.
42 [Protocols] vol. 1, p. 154. – SLODOWY (1993, p. viii) described Klein’s result and the icosa-
hedron equation in the following modern terms: “Let G be the icosahedron group, i.e., the
180 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

By means of the regular dodecahedron, Klein derived the resolvent of degree six,
and he referred to it as a special case of the multiplier equation that arises from the
fifth-order transformation of elliptic functions.43 He then explained how a quintic
equation can be obtained by means of the octahedron; he demonstrated the latter’s
connection to the equation of the sixth degree; and he mentioned that he had
compared his approach to Brioschi’s method.
On May 5, 1875, Klein delivered a report in his research colloquium about
quintic equations, beginning with references to the results of Ruffini and Abel and
to Jerrard’s transformation to the simplified form x5 – x – k = 0. The overview of
scholarly literature that Klein provided, which included results by Hermite, Ja-
cobi, Kronecker, Brioschi, and Jordan, was mostly borrowed from Brioschi’s ol-
der studies. Hermite, Klein noted, had shown “that the dependence of the five
roots x on k can immediately be represented by means of elliptic functions.” He
also outlined the ideas and proofs that Jacobi, Kronecker, and Brioschi had deve-
loped concerning the solution to sextic equations, and he emphasized especially
Brioschi’s proof that sixth-degree equations always have a resolvent of the fifth
degree. On this basis, Klein developed a different special equation of the fifth de-
gree that can be solved with elliptic functions, and he made the following paren-
thetical remark: “This is the same equation that appeared in the case of the icosa-
hedron. In Brioschi’s work, the coefficients are not entirely correct. Hermite and
C. Jordan likewise have incorrect coefficients; this was first corrected by Joubert
in 1867.” Klein further reported that Hermite had asked “whether every equation
of the fifth degree can be transformed into this form by means of rational
substitution.” Finally, Klein referred to the rather different fundamental idea of
Kronecker, who used a cyclic function,44 something that would later be important
to Klein’s own approach and to his proof of one of Kronecker’s theorems in 1876.
Klein later noted that Kronecker, in comparison with the other mathemati-
cians, “[had] penetrated more deeply into the heart of the theory, though without
quite reaching the icosahedron […]. The essential thing is to connect it with the
icosahedron equation; bringing in elliptic functions is on the same level as bring-
ing in logarithms to extract roots.”45

group of rotational symmetries of a regular icosahedron. This group operates on the sphere
circumscribing the icosahedron, which we identify with the Riemann sphere, that is, with the
complex projective line P1. The quotient from P1 to G is in turn identified with P1 and the
quotient mapping P1 → P1/G is a ramified covering of degree 60, the order of G. The problem
of calculating an original point beneath this mapping can be regarded as the problem of sol-
ving an equation of degree 60. Klein called such an equation an icosahedron equation.”
43 In Klein’s work, the concept of a multiplier (Multiplikator) developed various meanings. See
KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 137.
44 [Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 161–64, at pp. 163–64. See P. Joubert, “Sur l’équation du sixième
degré,” Comptes Rendus 64 (1867), pp. 1025–29; and Leopold Kronecker, “Ueber die Glei-
chungen fünften Grades,” Crelle’s Journal 59 (1861), pp. 306–10.
45 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 338 (emphasis original).
 4.2 Developing His Mathematical Individuality 181

On July 27 and August 3, 1875, Klein had spoken in his colloquium about
Sophus Lie’s new geometric understanding of the theory of partial differential
equations.46 Klein had further developed his new type of Riemann surface and had
devoted his attention to Abelian integrals. Discontent at first with his creativity, he
was finally able to rejoice at the beginning of July in 1876: “The muses are back
again!”47 From a letter to Lie dated September 25, 1876, we can gain some insight
into Klein’s research program at the time:
Of course, my focus first of all is on the analogy with algebraic equations (Galois). In
this respect, one can distinguish two research directions:
1) A general direction, which asks: If I have knowledge of certain (non-symmetric) func-
tions of the roots, what can I do then?
2) A special direction, which is more number-theoretical. It states: If an equation is gi-
ven, which functions of the roots are then known? Either directly as rational numbers or as
rational functions of given irrationalities.
The case is similar with differential equations.
You concern yourself with this problem: If I know certain integrals (say, of a function-
theoretical character), what follows then?
I, on the contrary, am working on the following problem: If a differential equation is given,
when does it admit
1) rational functions as integrals,
2) algebraic functions,
3) integrals of algebraic functions, etc.,
where the transition from 1) to 2) to 3) is an iterated adjunction. The three-body problem
is dealt with in the sense of 1), whereas it would seem quite demanding to approach it in the
sense of 2).48

The two research directions described here ran parallel to one another but also, in
certain respects, flowed into another. On June 26, 1876, Klein submitted the ar-
ticle “Ueber lineare Differentialgleichungen” [On Linear Differential Equations]
to the Erlanger Sitzungsberichte. This study employed a method “for making it
possible to determine whether the integrals of a given second-order linear differ-
ential equation with rational coefficients are all algebraic.” Here Klein referred to
the points of departure in studies by H.A. Schwarz, Lazarus Fuchs, and Camille
Jordan. Francesco Brioschi was also active in this area of research; in August of
1876, he sent Klein a letter that contained a similar result. In response, Klein im-
mediately published portions of Brioschi’s letter as “Extrait d’une lettre de M.F.
Brioschi à M. F. Klein” together with his own work from the Erlanger Sitzungs-
berichte in his journal Mathematische Annalen,49 whose editorship he had re-
cently taken over with Adolph Mayer. Darboux also recognized the importance of
Klein’s short article and promptly published it in his Bulletin (1877).

46 [Protocols] vol. 1, p. 177.

47 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges aus München”), p. 2.
48 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated September 25, 1876 (emphasis original).
49 Math. Ann. 11 (1877), pp. 115–18 (the quotation earlier in the paragraph is from p. 118 of this
publication). Brioschi’s letter was published ahead of Klein’s article, on pp. 111–14.
182 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

Klein pursued this topic further and explained to Adolph Mayer, on October
1, 1876, that he “was on the right track toward finding, in ordinary linear differ-
ential equations of the third order (and perhaps also of higher orders), those cases
with algebraic integrals.”50 Regarding his search for ways to solve higher-order
equations, Klein had, as already mentioned, recognized the connection between
the theory of quintic equations and the icosahedron,51 and he used this insight to
solve an equation of the twelfth degree. Inspired by Gordan, he inverted the
problem and derived the theory of quintic equations from the icosahedron.52
Klein was able to prove one of Kronecker’s hitherto unproven statements: “In
the case of arbitrarily given y0 … y4, it is impossible to find a rational function
φ (y) that depends on an equation in which there is only one parameter (as in the
icosahedron equation).”53 Klein demonstrated, moreover, that this was not only
true of quintic equations but also of higher-degree equations. Around November
13, 1876, he rejoiced enthusiastically about this finding with the words O quae
mutatio rerum (“Oh, how things have changed!”). On November 18, 1876, he
noted: “An area of research that I have long wanted to enter is suddenly open to
me. (sleeplessness).”54 On November 23, 1876, Klein sent Adolph Mayer the
news: “In certain points, I have gone beyond Kronecker.”55
As usual, Klein published his initial results in the Erlanger Sitzungsberichte
(three articles). He mailed a letter to Brioschi, who published it in the organ of the
Istituto Lombardo Accademia di Scienze e Lettere (classe di scienze matematiche
e naturali),56 an academy that had been founded in Milan by Napoleon in 1797.
For Mathematische Annalen, Klein refined his argument even further in a study
completed on August 20, 1877.57 All of this work would ultimately be incorpora-
ted into his book on the icosahedron (see Section 5.5.6).
Klein had already recognized the area’s breadth when he wrote, on December
6, 1876, “I have climbed one mountain, but now an entire mountain range lies
ahead of me,”58 and when he informed Adolph Mayer: “The icosahedron is cer-
tainly a wonderful object; all the possible theories that I would gradually like to
learn about converge in it: invariant theory, the theory of equations, differential
equations, elliptic functions, minimal surfaces, number theory.” This led him to a
logical conclusion: “Next summer I will try to lecture on number theory.”59

50 Quoted from TOBIES/ROWE 1990, pp. 76–77. – See also GRAY 2008.
51 See Math. Ann. 9 (1875), pp. 183–208.
52 See also Max NOETHER 1914, p. 22.
53 Felix Klein, “Weitere Untersuchungen über das Ikosaeder,” Math. Ann. 12 (1877), p. 559.
54 Klein in JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges aus München”), p. 2.
55 Quoted from TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 80.
56 Felix Klein, “Sull’equazione dell’Icosaedro nella risoluzione delle equazioni del quinto
grado,” Rendiconti del Reale Istituto Lombardo 2/10 (1877), pp. 253–55.
57 F. Klein, “Weitere Untersuchungen über das Ikosaeder,” Math. Ann. 12 (1877), pp. 503–60.
58 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges aus München”), p. 2.
59 TOBIES/ROWE 1990, pp. 82–83, 84 (Klein to A. Mayer, on January 7 and February 25, 1877).
 4.2 Developing His Mathematical Individuality 183

4.2.2 Number Theory

Number theory is a very old mathematical discipline; important theorems on natu-

ral numbers, prime numbers, and the relations between numbers can already be
found in Books VII to IX of Euclid’s Elements. In the eighteenth to twentieth
centuries, branches of the discipline were developed that worked with different
methods: analytical, geometric, and algebraic number theory. Klein used resour-
ces from all of these areas before these branches were fully defined.
In 1877, when Klein was preparing to give his first lectures on number theory,
his knowledge of the field was limited. In any case, that is what he communicated
to Otto Stolz: “This is how number theory is going for me: Even though I don’t
know anything at all about it, I have announced that I will be offering a four-hour
lecture course on the topic during the summer semester, and now I’m studying
some of the scholarly literature.”60 Klein prepared intensively for his lectures; he
traveled to Erlangen to meet with Gordan for eight days, and he decided not to
attend Gauss’s centenary celebration in Göttingen, where the international elite
would be gathering (Hermite, Brioschi, the Berlin mathematicians).61
Klein relied above all on Henry Smith’s “Report on the Theory of Numbers,”
which his Scottish friend William Robertson Smith had brought to his attention as
early as 1871. Back then, after first reading this series of articles, Klein remarked
to Sophus Lie: “Even the likes of us can somewhat understand it.”62 In addition,
Klein made use of Henry Smith’s approach (from 1874) toward translating one of
Hermite’s ideas into geometric terms.63 Moreover, Klein studied works by Lie and
Adolph Mayer on Jacobi’s multiplier of a linear partial differential equation.64
Number theory proved to be a useful tool for Klein in his additional work in the
area of function theory. In this regard, his approach was oriented toward that of
Weierstrass, who in 1876 had published a method for factoring analytic functions
into “prime factors.”65 Hurwitz sent Klein the latest results by mathematicians
from Berlin. About the winter semester of 1877/78, Klein noted: “A very calm
winter. My mathematical orientation is influenced by Berlin. I am working inde-
pendently and at a higher level of consistency.”66

60 [Innsbruck] A letter from Klein to Otto Stolz dated April 10, 1877.
61 See TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 85 (a letter from Klein to A. Mayer dated April 5, 1877).
62 [Oslo] Klein to Lie, on January 28, 1871. Smith’s “Report on the Theory of Numbers” was
published in six parts in successive annual reports of the British Association for the Advan-
cement of Science (1859–1865). Reprint in J.W.L. Glaisher, ed., The Collected Mathematical
Papers of Henry John Stephen Smith, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894), pp. 38–364.
63 See KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 7–8.
64 See Adolph Mayer, “Ueber den Multiplicator eines Jacobi’schen Systems,” Math. Ann. 14
(1877), pp. 132–43.
65 Karl Weierstrass, “Zur Theorie der eindeutigen analytischen Funktionen,” Math. Abhandlun-
gen der Kgl. Akademie der Wiss. Berlin (1876), pp. 11–16 (Reprint in Weierstrass’s Mathe-
matische Werke, vol. 2, pp. 77–124). See also KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 267–70.
66 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges aus München”), p. 3.
184 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

This work ultimately led to Klein’s classification of elliptic modular functi-

ons, whereby he created his so-called “level theory” (Stufentheorie), which invol-
ved grouping number moduli into the first, second, third to the nth level (see Sec-
tion 4.2.3). One aspect of this approach led to Hilbert’s twelfth problem (see Sec-
tion 10.1), which remains unsolved today. Partial solutions have been offered, for
instance in Erich Hecke’s dissertation “Höhere Modulfunctionen und ihre An-
wendung in der Zahlentheorie” [Higher Modular Functions and Their Application
in Number Theory].67

4.2.3 Elliptic Modular Functions

Moreover, I am pleased to stress how the following studies combine group theory, number
theory, geometry, and function theory into an inseparable whole, all supported by the funda-
mental ideas of invariant theory (that is, of projective thinking). That which is known and can
be found effortlessly in any given one of these fields is used to solve problems in the others.
The method employed here, which of course requires previous study of the approaches that
are unique to each individual area of research, can actually be regarded as a basic feature of
the studies collected in the present volume.68

The quotation above is from Klein’s introduction to the third volume of his col-
lected works, which contains, among other things, his studies devoted to elliptic
modular functions. Regarding this latter topic, Jeremy Gray summarized Klein’s
contributions as follows: “Klein connected this study with that of the quintic
equation, and so with the theory of transformations of elliptic functions and
modular equations as considered by Hermite, Brioschi, and Kronecker around
1858. Klein’s approach to the modular equations was first to obtain a better un-
derstanding of the moduli, and this led him to the study of the upper half plane
under the action of the group of two-by-two matrices with integer entries and de-
terminant one; his great achievement was the production of a unified theory of
modular functions.”69
The course of events that led to the development of elliptic modular functions
– a trajectory that ultimately also led to the development of automorphic functions
– has already been described at length in previous studies.70 Here I would like to
stress that Gauß and Riemann had already worked on elliptic modular functions,
and their work was subsequently taken up by numerous researchers. Klein’s ear-
liest work on the theory of elliptic modular functions was inspired by his student
years in Berlin, when he had worked together with Ludwig Kiepert. Klein built
upon previous investigations; a study by Dedekind (published in Crelle’s Journal
in 1877) proved to be an especially important component. Klein used the modular

67 Published in Math. Ann. 71 (1912), pp. 1–37.

68 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 4.
69 GRAY 2000, p. 101.
70 See KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 269–72, 339–353; ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. II.2, pp. 277–79 (contri-
butions by Harkness, Wirtinger, and Fricke); and GRAY 2000.
 4.2 Developing His Mathematical Individuality 185

figure described by Dedekind (see Fig. 20) to serve his own group-theoretical
approach. From this he derived so-called fundamental polygons for the corre-
sponding Riemann surfaces, and he succeeded in classifying equations that can be
solved with elliptic modular functions. He posed the question: “How must s as a
function of J be ramified if the equation φ (s, J) is to be solved by means of
elliptic modular functions?”71

Figure 20: Klein’s modular figure, derived from Dedekind (KLEIN 1923 [GMA III], p. 23).

Klein had first encountered this figure in a study by H.A. Schwarz on the hy-
pergeometric series, and he worked on the topic in cooperation with his students.
At the annual meeting of natural scientists (GDNÄ) in September of 1877, Klein
announced that he would give a lecture on elliptic functions (see Section 4.3.3). In
March of 1878, he managed to publish his initial findings in the Erlanger Sit-
zungsberichte, Mathematische Annalen, and the Proceedings of the London Ma-
thematical Society. In London, Klein’s contribution was translated into English by
Olaus Henrici (one of Clebsch’s former students); it was presented to the Society
on May 9, 1878 and published shortly thereafter in its Proceedings.72
Toward the end of the century, after Klein had studied Gauß’s oeuvre more
closely, he was able to recognize approaches in Gauß’s work that anticipated his
own findings during the 1870s. Klein acknowledged this in his historical overview

71 J is the absolute invariant of an elliptic integral. See Felix Klein, “Ueber die Transformation
der elliptischen Functionen und die Auflösung der Gleichungen fünften Grades,” Math. Ann.
14 (1879), pp. 111–72, at p. 121: “In the Riemann surface that represents s as a function of J,
ramification points can only lie at places where J = 0, 1, ∞. For J = 0, three sheets can con-
nect any number of times; for J = 1, two sheets any number of times; for J = ∞, the ramifica-
tion can be of any sort.” This article is reprinted in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 13–75.
72 Felix Klein, “On the Transformation of Elliptic Functions,” Proceedings of the London Ma-
thematical Society 9 (1879), pp. 123–26.
186 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

of nineteenth-century mathematics, where he again explained the so-called modu-

lar figure (this time pointing out that it was first discussed by Gauß).73
On the basis of his work on the icosahedron, Klein further pursued his goal of
gaining a better understanding (and simplifying the treatment) of quintic and
higher-degree equations in light of the theory of elliptic functions. In 1878, Klein
gave several lectures on equations of degree seven and on modular equations. He
was encouraged by his success in this area to attempt a group-theoretical approach
toward elliptic modular functions; that is, he felt as though he might now be able
to answer the question, mentioned above, of which equations could be solved with
the theory of elliptic modular functions:
The function-theoretical method, which I recently used to investigate the modular equations
for the lowest degree of transformation for n = 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 13, will be applied in what fol-
lows to define the resolvents of the fifth, seventh, and eleventh degree, which, according to a
famous theorem by Galois, can be established for n = 5, 7, 11.74

As already mentioned, Klein supported his argument with a broad range of scho-
larly literature; to repeat, he cited works by Brioschi, Betti, Hermite, and Ludwig
Kiepert, who had likewise devoted efforts to the topic. Klein also used a resource
of his own: the n-layered Riemann surface. In his Annalen article “Ueber die
Transformation siebenter Ordnung der elliptischen Functionen” [On the Order-
Seven Transformation of Elliptic Functions]75 – dated November, 1878 – Klein
formed the corresponding Galoisian resolvent of degree 168, and from this he
derived the lower equations. He arrived at a closed, 168-layered Riemann surface
of genus p = 3 (see also Section 3.1.3.1). By means of a function, he was able to
map this surface onto a polygon that was composed of 168 double triangles of the
modular figure (see Fig. 21).76 Klein proved that there must be an algebraic
function of degree 168 that is the resolvent of the corresponding modular equa-
tion. He showed that there is no other grouping of these 2 × 168 triangles. He used
his so-called “main figure” to prove additional theorems.
Jeremy Gray explained Klein’s “main figure” as follows:
Klein wanted to display the figure in as regular a way as possible, but he knew that there is no
solid in three-dimensional space whose symmetry group is G168. […] The aspects of the fig-
ure which cannot be realized in three-space have this interpretation: one imagines the octahe-
dron as composed of three hyperboloids of one sheet with axes crossing at right angles, and
with opposite edges identified at infinity, thus representing a surface of genus 3. The axes of
the hyperboloids may be said to pass through the vertices of the octahedron.77

73 See KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 43–44.

74 Felix Klein, “Ueber die Erniedrigung der Modulargleichungen,” Math. Ann. 14 (1879), pp.
417–27, at p. 417.
75 The article was published in Math. Ann. 14 (1879), pp. 428–71. For an English translation of
this work, see Levy 1999, pp. 287–331. (http://library.msri.org/books/Book35/files/klein.pdf)
76 For a modern interpretation of this as a 14-edge tessellation, see LAMOTKE 2009, pp. 231–36.
77 GRAY 2000, p. 159.
 4.2 Developing His Mathematical Individuality 187

Figure 21: Klein’s “main figure” (Hauptfigur) with 2 × 168 circular arc triangles
(Source: Math. Ann. 14 (1879), p. 470; KLEIN 1923 GMA III, p.126; KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 351).

Paul Gordan, who had seen Klein’s article before its publication, wrote to him:
“Your study is very good. I would like once again to work on pure invariants”
(July 31, 1878); “I have not done any work for a long time; you’re probably doing
enough work for the two of us” (September 7, 1878); “I’m busy establishing the
system of forms of your order-four curves, and I’m content with my results so far.
For instance, I now know the conditions under which a given order-four curve
will pass into yours” (December 3, 1878).78
Here Gordan was referring to Klein’s order-four curve λ3μ + μ3ν + ν3λ = 0,
which defines an algebraic entity with 168 transformations. Klein published this
in his aforementioned article on the order-seven transformation of elliptic functi-

78 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 400, 401A (Gordan to Klein, July 31, Sept. 7, and Dec. 3, 1878).
188 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

ons. There was, however, more to say about the topic. In a subsequent study –
“Ueber die Auflösung gewisser Gleichungen von siebenten und achten Grade”
[On the Solution of Certain Equations of the Seventh and Eighth Degree],
completed toward the end of March in 1879 – Klein wrote:
The modular equation, which corresponds to the order-seven transformation of elliptic func-
tions, has a Galois group of 168 substitutions. Will it be possible, by means of feasible pro-
cesses, to derive such equations of the seventh or eighth or even 168th degree, which have the
same group, from the modular equation? And what are the simplest means that one could use
to achieve this end?79

In this article, Klein presented a general method for treating higher equations;
that is, he explained not only how to manage the problem with 168 substitutions
but also “how one can treat similar problems related to any given higher equation
and, what is more important, how one should set them up.”80 Klein developed this
approach further with his students, and later authors would contribute to it as well.
On September 24, 1879, Gordan wrote the following to Klein:
Dear Klein! I just received your package containing the work by Gierster; I’ll read it through
and bring it with me to Munich. Now that I have some more free time, I hope to work with
you again. I have not made any progress, however, on the seventh-degree equations. It is too
convoluted to express, by means of simple functions, the complicated functions of 7 variables
with 168 permutations; you will have to provide me with a few suggestions regarding how I
ought to proceed.81

Writing in 1914, Max Noether eloquently described how Klein and Gordan col-
laborated further and successfully in this area of research. In 1878, and on the ba-
sis of a function-theoretical approach to the Galois resolvent, Klein had construc-
ted an isomorphic group Γ168 of ternary linear transformations for the correspon-
ding group G168 of 168 substitutions. This was an isomorphic linear group with
the fewest possible variables, something he had essentially been pursuing for a
long time. Regarding the corresponding curve of the fourth degree, Klein devel-
oped “the entire system of forms of its covariants, particularly the cluster of
curves of degree 42, Ψ3 – J – Δ7 = 0, which from f = 0 excises the groups of 168
points each. […] Furthermore, Klein succeeded in deriving, as Kronecker had
already conjectured in 1858, all equations with the group G168 to the […] modular
equations.”82 Gordan developed the algebraic side further, and Klein would later,
in his collected works, provide a detailed account of Gordan’s contributions.83

79 Felix Klein, “Ueber die Auflösung gewisser Gleichungen von siebenten und achten Grade,”
Math. Ann. 15 (1879), pp. 251–82, at p. 251.
80 Ibid.
81 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 405, p. 9 (a letter from Gordan to Klein dated September 24,
1879). See Paul Gordan, “Ueber das volle Formenstystem der ternären biquadratischen
Form,” Math. Ann. 17 (1880), pp. 217–33, an article in which he thanks Klein multiple times.
82 Max NOETHER 1914, pp. 27–28.
83 See KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 426–38; and KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 135.
 4.2 Developing His Mathematical Individuality 189

In 1882, on the basis of this order-four curve, Klein formulated (in close dia-
logue with Poincaré) three “uniformization theorems” (see Section 5.5.4):
The principal importance of our curve probably lay, however, in the fact that the main figure,
when inscribed within an orthogonal circle, was the first concrete example of the uniformiza-
tion of higher-genus algebraic curves, and thus, for me, it provided the firmest support when I
was formulating my uniformization theorems.84

In the context of Klein’s work from 1878, a dispute arose with Camille Jordan
about the problem of determining all possible finite groups of linear substitutions.
There can be hardly any debate over whose ideas came first, however, for Jordan
wrote to Klein on October 11, 1878: “Vous avez parfaitement raison.”85 Later, the
Swedish mathematician Anders Wiman established that the task of solving this
problem for the binary case had first been accomplished by Klein’s geometric
considerations and then purely algebraically by Gordan. Jordan, in 1878 and 1880,
had dealt with the corresponding task for the ternary case. As Wiman noted: “The
difficulty of the task of dealing with more than two homogeneous variables is evi-
dent from the fact that Jordan, in his first study, had overlooked a group of 168
collineations of the plane, which in the meantime was derived by Klein by consid-
ering order-seven transformations of elliptic functions.”86 In a subsequent article,
Wiman stressed that Jordan’s results, though important, did not represent the final
word, for in 1889 the Dane Herman Valentiner discovered yet another group of
order 360. Wiman was able to show that this group “is holohedrally isomorphic to
the group of even permutations of six things.”87 Wiman would also write the
chapter on finite groups of linear substitutions for the ENCYKLOPÄDIE.88
Klein’s results from the end of the 1870s quickly made an impact, especially
in Italy and England. Klein was a great admirer of Brioschi’s work, especially his
contributions to quintic equations, the transformation theory of elliptic functions,
and the theory of linear differential equations and hyperelliptic functions.89 Al-
ready in 1877, Klein had requested a summary of Brioschi’s results, and he trans-
lated it into German himself for publication in Mathematische Annalen.90 Con-
versely, Brioschi did much to promulgate Klein’s results. He submitted them ex-
tremely quickly to the Rendiconti, the publication venue of the Reale Istituto

84 Ibid., p. 136.
85 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10, pp. 21 (a letter from Jordan to Klein dated October 11, 1878).
See also BRECHENMACHER 2011.
86 Anders Wiman, “Ueber eine einfache Gruppe von 360 ebenen Collineationen,” Math. Ann. 47
(1896), pp. 531–47, at p. 531.
87 Anders Wiman, “Endliche Gruppen birationaler Transformationen in der Ebene,” Math. Ann.
48 (1897), p. 199. See also FRICKE/KLEIN 2017 [1912], pp. 476-81 (Appendix 6).
88 Anders Wiman, “Endliche Gruppen linearer Substitutionen,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. I.1
(1899), pp. 522–54.
89 See Max Noether, “Francesco Brioschi,” Math. Ann. 50 (1898), pp. 477–91.
90 Francesco Brioschi, “Ueber die Auflösung der Gleichungen vom fünften Grade,” Math. Ann.
13 (1878), pp. 109–160. – See also Section 4.2.1.
190 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere (Milan).91 As early as 1877, it had been Brioschi

who arranged for Klein to become a member of the Reale Istituto Lombardo di
Scienze e Lettere (see 3.4). Brioschi also sent Klein’s results to his former student
Luigi Cremona, who presented them to the Accademia dei Lincei.92 Founded in
Rome in 1603, this latter academy, which was the first private institution for pro-
moting the natural sciences in Europe, accepted Klein as a member in 1883.
In Great Britain, where Klein had been a member of the London Mathemati-
cal Society since 1875 (see Fig. 17), his latest results were published in the Soci-
ety’s Proceedings. Arthur Cayley translated into English a summary of Klein’s
articles from volumes 14 and 15 of Mathematische Annalen.93
The Bavarian Academy of Sciences made Klein an (associate) member on
June 25, 1879 (see Appendix 3). Klein used the occasion of the Academy’s
meeting on December 6, 1879 to present his results on the theory of elliptic
modular functions. Here he described how, over the course of a series of studies,
he “was gradually led to a general and essentially new understanding of elliptic
modular functions,” and he explained that the various forms of modular equations,
whose relationship to one another had hitherto been confusing, “can be classified
according to a simple general principle as very special cases.”94 Klein explained
this general principle on the basis of three principles of classification: an algebraic
one (subgroups), an arithmetic one (congruence groups),95 and a function-theoreti-
cal one (here he introduced the concept of a subgroup’s genus). He demonstrated
the application of transformation theory and formulated the following theorem:
“Thus we ultimately have, for every degree of transformation n, infinitely many
equation systems, all of which can be designated modular equations.”96
When editing his collected works, Klein gave this article the title “Zur [Sys-
tematik der] Theorie der elliptischen Modulfunktionen” [On (the Systematics of)
the Theory of Elliptic Modular Functions], and he described once again his basic
method of using group theory as an ordering principle and how he was able to
accomplish the self-imposed task of identifying those algebraic equations which
can be solved with elliptic functions.97

91 See Felix Klein, “Sulle equazioni modulari,” Rendiconti del Reale Istituto Lombardo 12
(1879), pp. 21–24; and Felix Klein, “Sulla transformazione dell’ 11° ordine dele funzioni el-
littiche,” ibid., pp. 629–32 (The second article had been translated by Giuseppe Jung).
92 Felix Klein, “Sulla risolvente di 11° grado del’ equazione modulare di 12° grado,” Atti della
Reale Accademia dei Lincei: Transunti 3 (1879), pp. 177–79.
93 Felix Klein, “On the Transformation of Elliptic Functions,” Proceedings of the London Ma-
thematical Society 11 (1879/1880), pp. 151–55.
94 Klein’s article appeared in the Sitzungsberichte der Münchener Akademie (December 6,
1879) and was reprinted in Math. Ann. 17 (1880), pp. 62–70 (quoted here from p. 62).
95 The constants were subjected to congruence requirements in relation to a number module,
from which arose the aforementioned division into levels. KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 3–4.
96 Math. Ann. 17 (1880), p. 68.
97 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 3 and pp. 169–78.
 4.2 Developing His Mathematical Individuality 191

4.2.4 Klein’s Circle of Students in Munich

When looking at Klein’s circle of students in Munich, we can distinguish two

separate phases. The first phase concerns his first two semesters there, when he
still had his doctoral students from Erlangen around him as discussion partners
and mentees. The second phase began around the fall of 1876, when he gradually
managed to attract new students into his sphere.

4.2.4.1 Phase I: 1875–1876

About this first phase, Lindemann reported that Klein at first continued his traditi-
ons from Erlangen: “In the summer, Klein, Harnack, Wedekind, and I met every
day at the café near the Hofgarten and took a walk to the English Garden.”98 After
Klein had married – on August 17, 1875 – and after his honeymoon was behind
him, he cut back on his daily rituals with students. Nevertheless, his discussions
with Lindemann about the latter’s edition of Clebsch’s lectures and the meetings
of the mathematical colloquium remained constant features in Klein’s life.
In 1875, the colloquium took place on Tuesdays from April 13th to August
10 ; from November 18th to December 21st, five additional meetings were held on
th

various weekends. The speakers at the colloquium included Felix Klein (seven
times), A. Brill (three times), F. Lindemann (seven times), A. Harnack (four
times), E. Holst (four times), L. Wedekind (once), and Wilhelm Frahm (twice).
The only person in this group who was new to Klein was Frahm, and Klein was
more than willing to foster his talent.
Frahm had earned a doctoral degree in 1873 from the University of Tübingen
with a dissertation titled “Ueber die Erzeugung der Curven dritter Classe und
vierter Ordnung” [On the Generation of Curves of the Third Class and the Fourth
Order], and he was able to complete his Habilitation there in the same year.99 His
dissertation was dedicated to Sigmund Gundelfinger (a former student of Clebsch
and Gordan). Frahm’s work was also related to Klein’s own, and four of his ar-
ticles had already been published in Mathematische Annalen (in 1874 and 1875).
Moreover, Klein arranged for one of Frahm’s studies – “Über die typische Dar-
stellung bilinearer Formen” [On the Typical Representation of Bilinear Forms] –
to appear in the Sitzungsberichte of the Societas Physico-medica Erlangensis.100
Tragically, however, Frahm died in the summer of 1875.101

98 [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 56.

99 I am indebted to Dr. Gerhard Betsch (Tübingen) for providing me with this information.
100 [UB Erlangen] MS 2565 [10], minutes of a meeting of the Societas held on Dec. 12, 1874.
101 Frahm contracted typhus in August of 1875, and he ended his own life by jumping out of a
hospital window. See Lindemann’s introduction to CLEBSCH 1891, p. v.
192 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

Lindemann reported how Klein helped him with his edition of Clebsch’s lec-
tures and also with more mundane things. Klein lent him money so that he could
take a trip with Axel Harnack in the spring of 1875. Klein encouraged Lindemann
to apply for a stipend from the Bavarian government in order to study abroad; he
also sent him to London in his place: “1876. Lindemann with a stipend to London
instead of me, and from there to Paris.”102 Klein saw Lindemann as an ambassa-
dor who could refresh his own contacts with British and French colleagues,
something that would also serve the interests of Mathematische Annalen.103
While in England, Lindemann was able to rely on support from Henrici,
Cayley, Clifford, and Henry Smith. While in Paris in 1879, Lindemann received a
great deal of attention for his edition of Clebsch’s lectures, the first volume of
which had just appeared (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1876; more than 1,000 pages).
Felix Klein had written the preface to the book, and there he stressed that it would
function well as a textbook. At the same time, it was important for Klein to stress
the following sentiment as well: “From him [Clebsch] we also learned to take for-
eign research fully into account and to incorporate it into our own work.”104 As
early as 1880 and 1883, this first volume was translated into French and published
in two parts as Leçons sur la géométrie (Paris: Gauthier-Villars).105 During his
time in Paris, Lindemann received numerous visits and invitations, and not only
from Darboux and Jordan. Even the ninety-year-old Chasles climbed the stairs to
Lindemann’s apartment to invite him to a formal dinner at his house. Another
visitor was Hermite, who “gave me a copy of his work – still largely overlooked
at the time – on the transcendence of the number e, about which he commented
that he considered it one of his most significant research results.”106
This study by Hermite formed the basis of Lindemann’s 1882 proof of the
transcendence of π. Klein would also play a special role in this as Lindemann’s
doctoral supervisor. Before accepting Lindemann’s article for publication in Ma-
thematische Annalen, Klein sent it for review to Georg Cantor, who made impor-
tant improvements to Lindemann’s argument. In the years that followed, better
proofs were formulated by Weierstrass, Adolf Hurwitz, David Hilbert, and Paul
Gordan.107 As the editor of Mathematische Annalen, Klein was the intermediary
for all these new developments. Later, he promulgated these results in presentati-
ons, lectures, and teacher training courses (see Sections 7.3 and 7.4.2).

102 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges aus München”), p. 1.

103 See TOBIES/ROWE 1990, pp. 78–79.
104 Klein’s preface to CLEBSCH 1876, p. iv.
105 The second volume of Lindemann’s edition (CLEBSCH 1891) was not translated. On June 21,
1896, Darboux wrote the following to Klein: “Je vous avouerai que j’ai été très peu satisfait
de l’exposition que donne M Lindemann dans le tome II des Leçons de Clebsch. Il m’a même
paru qu’il y avait dans cette exposition des erreurs graves en des points essentiels p.e. en ce
qui concerne la définition de la distance de deux points sur une ligne droite.” Quoted from
[UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 8: 505.
106 [Lindemann] Memoirs, p. 70.
107 See ROWE 2015; and ROWE 2018a, pp. 141–42.
 4.2 Developing His Mathematical Individuality 193

4.2.4.2 Phase II: 1876–1880

As a thinker, Klein was at his best when collaborating with others. On October 1,
1876, he wrote to his Leipzig colleague Adolph Mayer: “It is truly unfortunate:
when I have to rely on myself alone, as has been the case during this semester
break, then I never complete anything substantial at all. […] I am someone who
needs scientific interaction, and I have already been longing for the semester to
begin for some time.”108
In the meantime, a few talented students had enrolled in the mathematical
colloquium and in the presentation seminar, some of whom were more strongly
influenced by Brill while others worked more closely with Klein. Neither Brill’s
nor Klein’s students, however, could earn a doctoral degree directly under their
supervision, because Polytechnika were still not authorized to grant this degree. In
Prussia, Technische Hochschulen had to wait until 1899 for this right, while those
in Bavaria had to wait until 1901. Klein’s own experiences in Munich would later
motivate him to support the right of Technische Hochschulen to bestow doctorates
(see Sections 6.4.2 and 8.1.1).
Klein’s and Brill’s doctoral students had to complete their degree require-
ments at a university. The closest was the University of Munich, where, between
1875 and 1879, the professors Gustav Bauer and Ludwig Seidel did not supervise
any doctoral candidates of their own.109 Among Klein’s students, Karl Rohn and
Walther Dyck completed their doctoral procedures at the University of Munich;
an exception in this regard was Franz Meyer. Other students of Klein during his
time in Munich either followed him when he took a new position in Leipzig or
submitted their dissertations elsewhere.
Regarding the exceptional case of Franz Meyer, Klein mentioned him as one
of his doctoral students in several lists, but in other such lists Meyer’s name does
not appear.110 Meyer attended courses both at the University of Munich and at the
Polytechnikum, but his academic interests were shaped above all by Klein. From
the winter semester of 1875/76 until he submitted his dissertation, Meyer gave
five presentations either in Klein’s colloquium or in his seminar. His primary area
of research was fourth-order curves, and on January 28, 1878 he gave a presenta-
tion with the title “Anwendung der Topologie auf algebraische Curven” [The Ap-
plication of Topology to Algebraic Curves].111 This corresponded to the title of
his dissertation – “Anwendungen der Topologie auf die Gestalten der alge-
braischen Kurven” [Applications of Topology to the Shapes of Algebraic Curves]
– which he submitted shortly thereafter to the university (his degree was awarded

108 Quoted from TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 76 (a letter from Klein to Mayer dated October 1, 1876).
109 For a list of mathematicians who earned a doctoral degree in Munich during these years, see
HASHAGEN 2003, pp. 671–72.
110 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22 L: 5, p. 1 (Klein’s list of doctoral students dated March 11,
1913, which includes Franz Meyer); and KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), Appendix, pp. 11–13, where
Meyer is not mentioned.
111 [Protocols] vol. 1, p. 243.
194 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

on March 15, 1878). Moritz Epple regards this work as an attempt, instigated by
Klein, to apply the theory of knot projections to the theory of curves.112 In the
Polytechnikum’s annual report from 1879, Franz Meyer’s dissertation is men-
tioned as a theoretical study that derived from his seminar work there.113 Meyer
was obviously aware that he was indebted to Klein when he wrote to him from
Berlin on November 17, 1879:
Dear Professor Klein,
It has been a long struggle for me to overcome my timidity and bring myself again to your
attention. I have left several letters unfinished because I have been repeatedly fraught with
misgivings. In the meantime, my need to reestablish contact with you – my esteemed teacher,
to whom I owe the most for my education in mathematics – has become so insurmountable
that I would rather accept all the reproaches in the world than maintain my depressing silence.
[…] If you could assign me some work that might spare you some of your own effort, I would
be thrilled.114

Klein responded warmly and recommended a Habilitation project to Franz Meyer,

which he completed in 1880 in Tübingen. Meyer became an associate professor
there, and was later appointed a full professor at the Mining Academy in Clausthal
(in 1888) and at the University of Königsberg (in 1897). He remained in regular
contact with Klein and he developed, during his time in Clausthal, a plan that
would lead to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project (see Section 7.8).
Karl Rohn, who began to study with Felix Klein in the winter semester of
1875/76, earned his doctoral degree with distinction under Gustav Bauer and
Ludwig Seidel on August 3, 1878. His dissertation made contributions to the topic
of Kummer surfaces (see also Section 4.3.3), and he openly admitted that his ac-
tual doctoral supervisor had been Klein. Rohn completed his Habilitation in Leip-
zig in 1879, and then was able to establish himself as a professor in Saxony, at the
University of Leipzig and, for some years, at the Polytechnikum in Dresden.
Klein’s next doctoral student, Walther Dyck, also submitted his dissertation –
“Über regulär verzweigte Riemannsche Flächen und die durch sie definierten Ir-
rationalitäten” [On Regularly Ramified Riemann Surfaces and the Irrationalities
Defined by Them] – to the University of Munich. Although he was ultimately
awarded a doctoral degree on July 30, 1879, he faced some resistance along the
way. Ulf Hashagen has pointed out that Seidel was “uncomfortable with Klein’s
youth and pushiness at the time” and that he had little appreciation for Klein’s
orientation toward Riemann’s geometric methods. Those same features of Klein’s
were responsible for the fact that none of his students would be able to complete a
Habilitation at the University of Munich.115 Seidel was also critical of what he
perceived to be Klein’s sloppy use of mathematical terms. About this, Klein
would later write to Adolph Mayer that “Seidel, for his part, objects to my work

112 EPPLE 1999, p. 176.

113 BERICHT 1879, p. 8.
114 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 1151 (a letter from Meyer to Klein dated November 17, 1879).
115 See HASHAGEN 2003, pp. 82–86.
 4.2 Developing His Mathematical Individuality 195

because I once wrote ‘complex plane’, for instance, instead of ‘plane of the com-
plex variable’.”116 All this aside, Klein would nevertheless be invited, in 1892, to
become Ludwig Seidel’s successor at the University of Munich (see 6.5.2).
In 1878 and 1879, Alexander Brill likewise sent two doctoral candidates to
the University of Munich. By that time, however, Brill was no longer making any
contributions of his own to the mathematical colloquium. If Paul Gordan is to be
believed, Brill’s knowledge of contemporary mathematics had begun to fall
behind. Regarding an article that Wilhelm Heß had submitted to Mathematische
Annalen, Gordan, unable to contain his sarcasm, wrote the following to Klein:
The studies [that you sent me] are not bad, but there is one genius among them: the name of
this honest lad is Heß, and he has submitted a piece on the rational curves of the fourth order.
This work was completed under Brill’s supervision, and it is clear that Heß has understood
my invariant theory better than Brill ever has. I have also learned a few things from the work,
and I am in favor of accepting it as it is for publication in the Annalen. Brill wants to edit it
first, which will probably just make it worse, for the errors that stem from the young author
alone will do nothing to tarnish the reputation of the journal.117

From 1877 to 1880, Klein’s special lectures were devoted to number theory, el-
liptic functions, and algebraic equations. At the same time, he also gave presenta-
tions on his own new research results in the colloquium and he supervised additi-
onal talented students. Among the latter, he stressed four students in particular:
I had the good fortune of finding, among those attending my courses, a few outstanding col-
laborators, who not only supported my own research in essential ways but also – each in his
own way – took it a step further. In this respect, I should mention, in chronological order of
their significant publications, Gierster, Dyck, Bianchi, and Hurwitz.118

Here, regarding Walther Dyck, Klein mentioned only that he produced “suitably
drawn figures” for him and that he ultimately took an interest in work on group
theory. The other three students supported Klein’s research at the time more
strongly, but they did not complete their doctoral degrees in Munich.
Josef Gierster studied in Munich from 1873 to 1877; he participated in
Klein’s presentation seminar in 1876/77, in which he gave two talks (on Fourier
series and the gamma function); he passed his teaching examinations and he wor-
ked as Klein’s assistant, in which capacity he helped Klein make the numerical
calculations that were necessary for formulating modular equations.119 Gierster
followed Klein’s turn toward number theory and he made important contributions
to the theory of class number relations, which formed a building block of Klein’s
level theory. Enthusiastic about Gierster’s first results in this field, Klein submit-
ted Gierster’s article to the Göttinger Nachrichten in 1879 and wrote to Darboux
about it:

116 Quoted from TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 124 (a letter from Klein to Mayer dated Jan. 4, 1881).
117 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 415, p. 19 (a letter from Gordan to Klein dated Oct. 23, 1881).
118 Klein 1923 (GMA III), p. 5.
119 See Josef Gierster, “Notiz über Modulargleichungen bei zusammengesetztem Transforma-
tionsgrad,” Math. Ann. 14 (1878), pp. 537–44.
196 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

One subject that is now close to my heart is the relations between the class numbers of quad-
ratic forms of negative determinants, as first established by Kronecker in 1857. (Last summer,
Mr. Gierster, who was my assistant then but is now in Bamberg, presumably sent you a copy
of his article on this topic from the Göttinger Nachrichten; in the meantime, and in connec-
tion to my speculations about the various forms of modular equations, he has pursued this
subject further and obtained a great many new results.)120

Basing his work on the findings of Klein, Kronecker, and Henry Smith, Gierster
wrote: “In entirely the same way, one can derive, from the modular equations of
regular solids introduced by F. Klein, analogous relations, which, in regard to
their simple arithmetic construction, exist on the same level as Kronecker’s for-
mulae. Here, in particular, I will convey findings that result from the icosahedral
modular equations.”121 Gierster worked as a teacher in Bamberg, and he earned
his doctoral degree on February 10, 1881 in Leipzig with a dissertation titled “Die
Untergruppen der Galois’schen Gruppe der Modulargleichungen für den Fall
eines primzahligen Transformationsgrades” [The Subgroups of the Galois Group
of Modular Equations in the Case of a Prime Degree of Transformation].122 Gier-
ster suffered from poor health and died young. Klein arranged for Robert Fricke to
write his obituary.123
In the letter quoted above to Darboux, Klein added prophetically:
These relations, as you know, are a preliminary step toward the theory of equations for the
singular moduli of complex multiplication. I have no doubt that my young collaborators and I
will succeed in this, but I will also have to encourage the latter not only to study Kronecker’s
published results but also to go far beyond them. First, however, the class number relations
will have to be worked out more thoroughly.124

Adolf Hurwitz carried on Gierster’s number-theoretical approach “with resound-

ing success.” Though his background was in algebraic geometry, Hurwitz increa-
singly concentrated on function theory and number theory.125 As mentioned
above, he attended Klein’s lectures on number theory in the summer semester of
1877, and he had already collaborated with Klein even before he made his first
contribution to Klein’s presentation seminar (see Section 4.1.2).126
Klein made Hurwitz a part of his family; he worried about Hurwitz’s health,
and he would have preferred for Hurwitz to remain in Munich a little longer be-
fore continuing his studies in Berlin.127 While in Berlin, a bout of typhus caused

120 [Paris] 69: Klein to Darboux, December 26, 1879.

121 Josef Gierster, “Neue Relationen zwischen den Klassenzahlen der quadratischen Formen von
negative Determinante,” Göttinger Nachrichten (June 4, 1879), pp. 277–81; at pp. 277–78.
122 In his dissertation, Gierster thanked Klein for his encouragement and support; see Math. Ann.
18 (1881), pp. 319–65, at p. 321.
123 See Robert Fricke, “Josef Gierster,” Jahresbericht DMV 2 (1893), pp. 44–45.
124 [Paris] 69: Klein to Darboux, December 26, 1879.
125 See KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 5–6.
126 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 7 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated June 27, 1877); and
[Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 314–17.
127 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 8 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated October 3, 1877).
 4.2 Developing His Mathematical Individuality 197

him to miss the winter semester of 1877/78. After his recovery, he attended
Weierstrass’s lectures on analytic functions and developed a new geometric idea
analogous to Chasles’s principle of correspondence, “which is a geometric trans-
lation of the theorem that an equation of the nth degree has n roots.”128 Hurwitz
worked on this study further in discussion with Klein, and it was accepted for
publication in Mathematische Annalen on December 18, 1878.129

Figure 22: Adolf Hurwitz ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein).

Klein advised Hurwitz to keep an open mind: “Besides the pleasure of producing
new results, don’t forget to adopt other people’s points of view!”130 In a later let-
ter, Klein remarked: “In the coming winter, you will presumably attend Kro-
necker’s great lectures on equations; I would be grateful to you if, later on, you
could send me a copy of your notes. […] I should add that I would also be happy
to receive copies of Weierstrass’s recent lectures, especially those on function
theory.”131 Klein wanted to study Kronecker’s lectures mainly in order to see how
far Kronecker had advanced with his ideas about quintic equations: “I would like
to give his work its due respect, but no more than that.”132 In his lectures on equa-
tions, however, Kronecker said nothing about quintic equations; supposedly, he
addressed the topic instead in a lecture course on number theory.133 Not until

128 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 872/1, fol. 1v (Hurwitz to Klein, September 24, 1878).
129 Adolf Hurwitz, “Ueber unendlich-vieldeutige geometrische Aufgaben, insbesondere ueber die
Schliessungsprobleme,” Math. Ann. 15 (1879), pp. 8–15. See also HILBERT 1921.
130 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 11, p. 17 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated October 6, 1878).
131 Ibid., 13, p. 20 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated October 22, 1878).
132 Ibid., 18, p. 30 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated January 19, 1879).
133 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 884, fol. 36 (Hurwitz’s letter to Klein dated March 24, 1879).
198 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

March of 1881 did Klein learn that Kronecker had never found a proof for his
theorem (see Section 5.5.2.1).
During the winter semester of 1878/79, Hurwitz attended Weierstrass’s lec-
tures on elliptic functions,134 and after that term he returned to Klein. He expan-
ded his knowledge under Klein’s tutelage. Klein bombarded him with tasks and
mathematical questions, met with him even on Sundays, and openly shared his
opinions and advice: “One of the main flaws of mathematicians today is that they
do not keep up with the scholarly literature,” or, “Don’t be afraid of Camille Jor-
dan; rather, read at least enough of his book so that you know what he has set out
to accomplish in it.”135
Even before the beginning of the winter semester of 1879/80, Hurwitz had
studied the work of Klein, Gordan, and Clebsch (in Lindemann’s edition). In
Klein’s colloquium, Hurwitz spoke about Hamilton’s quaternion calculus and
spherical functions,136 and he formulated proofs for some of Klein’s theorems.137
Klein was sure to acknowledge the contributions of his students; for instance, in
his aforementioned study “Zur [Systematik der] Theorie der elliptischen Modul-
funktionen” [On (the Systematics of) the Theory of Elliptic Modular Functions],
which he first presented at the Munich Academy of Sciences on December 6,
1879, Klein included the following footnotes: “Mr. Hurwitz, who supported my
work on these investigations, was led to formulate such elegant equations for the
23rd and 47th degree of transformation […],” and “At first I had operated only with
x0 : x1 : x2 : x3; the result as it appears in the text is due to Mr. Hurwitz.”138
It is of some interest how Klein imagined guiding Adolf Hurwitz to the
completion of his doctoral degree. Klein had in mind that Hurwitz should submit
his dissertation in Leipzig, and he offered, while still in Munich, the following
proposal to him:
With your permission, I would like to provide you with somewhat more personal guidance
than I have offered you in the past – something along the lines of how I worked with Bianchi
this summer. So far, I have only had you work on general sets of questions; I have identified
the fields in which you ought to immerse yourself; and, just in our conversations, I have
helped you to circumvent certain mathematical difficulties that you have encountered. I left it
to you to decide how to formulate and approach your research topics. Now I would like to do
things differently. For some time, I would like to present you with one special question after
another, each of which I will ask you to work out to their conclusion. Of course, these questi-
ons will be related to your research topic and, where possible, will grow naturally from our
conversations and correspondence. By working in such a way, you will renounce a degree of
your independence in order later to be able to deal with the material all the more independ-
ently. With this same end in mind, I will perhaps ask you in Leipzig to attend as few other

134 Ibid. 872/2, fol. 3v (Hurwitz’s letter to Klein dated September 24, 1878). Hurwitz signed this
letter: “Your admiring former and hopefully future student, Adolf Hurwitz” (fol. 4).
135 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 16 and 27/1 (Klein’s letters to Hurwitz dated November 17, 1878 and
October 2, 1879).
136 [Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 89–108.
137 See, for example, [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 887 (Hurwitz to Klein dated Sept. 27, 1879).
138 Quoted from the reprint of Klein’s article in Math. Ann. 17 (1880), pp. 62–70, at pp. 69–70.
 4.2 Developing His Mathematical Individuality 199

courses as possible beside my lecture on function theory (for which I am counting on your
support, much as I did last winter for my lectures on analytical mechanics).
If I were now to present you with my first question, it would involve working through
the theory of new multiplier equations, as I formulated them in Annalen XV, p. 86; Kiepert's
recent work also deals with these. Why do these equations exist for prime numbers > 3? How
are things in the case of 2 and 3? And in the case of composite numbers? And how, in parti-
cular, in case of powers of 2 or 3? Wherever possible, do everything without σ-functions but
merely on the basis of your function-theoretical intuitions about modular functions. I hardly
need to add how much I myself am interested in this set of questions. For I already told you
once that I still don’t have any acceptable proofs for the various statements that I made in the
note in question. I was completely convinced of the correctness of these things; otherwise I
would not have written the note. However, at least during the last Easter break, when for a
long time I thought of taking up these multiplier questions myself, I could not readily or ex-
plicitly formulate the relevant proofs.139

Hurwitz gratefully adopted Klein’s program, and their regular interactions culmi-
nated in Hurwitz’s dissertation, “Grundlagen einer independenten Theorie der
elliptischen Modulfunctionen und Theorie der Multiplicator-Gleichungen erster
Stufe” [Foundations of an Independent Theory of Elliptic Modular Functions and
a Theory of First-Level Multiplier Equations], which was submitted on March 23,
1881. On December 6, 1880, Hurwitz developed important results in his very first
seminar presentation in Leipzig – “Über die Bildung der Modul-Functionen” [On
the Formation of Modular Functions], in which he drew upon the work of Gottlob
Eisenstein, Cayley, and Weierstrass. Hilbert later emphasized how Hurwitz had
adopted and refined Klein’s ideas:
Inspired by Klein, Hurwitz used Eisenstein’s approaches to create a theory of elliptic modular
functions that was independent of the theory of elliptic functions. [...] One main section of his
dissertation concerns so-called multiplier equations, which Hurwitz, drawing upon works by
Klein and Kiepert, investigates with characteristic thoroughness and diligence.140

After Klein had visited Enrico Betti, Ulisse Dini and others in Pisa in April of
1878 (see Section 3.4), Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro came from Italy in the fall to
study under Klein in Munich (he was Klein’s first Italian student). Ricci attended
Klein’s lectures on number theory (in the winter semester of 1878/79) and alge-
braic equations (in the summer semester of 1879), and he also participated in
Klein’s seminar. There he gave a lecture on “Certaines équations du degré 2n,” in
which he also addressed the problem of solving quintic equations (this lecture was
held on March 3, 1879). In a second presentation, he discussed Henry Stephen
Smith’s work on modular functions, which had been published in French in an
Italian journal: “Les courbes modulaires: Rapport sur un mémoire de M. Stephen
Smith communiqué à la Académie Royale des Lyncées, 1877” (publication date:
July 28, 1879).141 During his time in Munich, Ricci did not produce any

139 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 38, fols. 60–60v (Klein’s letter to Hurwitz dated August 21, 1880).
140 HILBERT 1921, pp. 161–62.
141 [Protocols] vol. 1.2, pp. 44–51, 75–78. Smith’s article “Sur les équations modulairs” had
already been submitted to the Academy in Paris in 1874. See KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 7–9.
200 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

publishable work. However, when Ricci later developed tensor analysis with his
student Tullio Levi-Civita, Klein requested his results immediately for publication
in Mathematische Annalen. Klein later explained that Ricci’s work served as the
basis for the general theory of relativity.142
Luigi Bianchi, whose first academic term in Munich was the summer semes-
ter of 1879, possessed, unlike Ricci-Curbastro, an excellent command of German.
He spoke in seven sessions of the colloquium, and he worked intensively with
Klein, for the number of participants in the colloquium was low at the time. Du-
ring the winter semester of 1879/80, five students were enrolled; in the summer of
1880, only Bianchi and Dyck participated. They met on Saturdays or Sundays,
and during the summer they visited Klein at his country home, where he had
retreated for health reasons.
Bianchi’s first presentations in the colloquium were related to his dissertation,
which concerned surface curvature and a theorem by Julius Weingarten (the pre-
sentations took place on January 17 and 24, 1880). Klein suggested that he should
write an article on this topic for Mathematische Annalen.143 In subsequent mee-
tings, Bianchi made contributions to Klein’s level theory and spoke about tetra-
hedron irrationality (on May 29 and June 5, 1880) and about icosahedron irratio-
nality (on June 13, July 4, and July 11, 1880).144 In his work “Über unendlich
viele Normalformen des elliptischen Integrals erster Gattung” [On Infinitely
Many Normal Forms of the Elliptic Integral of the First Kind], which was first
presented on July 3, 1880 at the Academy of Sciences in Munich and was an ef-
fort to expand his level theory with the help of doubly periodic functions, Klein
acknowledged Bianchi’s results as follows: “At my request, Mr. Bianchi recently
investigated the fifth level, and what I will communicate below are essentially
results discovered by him.”145 Bianchi expanded the proofs from this earlier work
in an additional Annalen article (published in August of 1880).146 In Klein’s ar-
ticle that appeared in the Proceedings of London Mathematical Society, which I
mentioned above, there is also a reference to Bianchi’s findings (on p. 152).
About the relationship between Bianchi’s work and his own, Klein later wrote:
“By treating, in the summer of 1880 (Math. Ann. 17), the elliptic curves that I
would later call elliptic normal curves of the 3rd and 5th order by means of the σ
function, he overcame my reservations about using this resource and that of theta
series. He [Bianchi] thus did his best to build a bridge from my work to the devel-
opments of Weierstrass’s school, particularly to my friend Kiepert’s studies,
which were written around the same time.”147 As early as July 29, 1879, Julius

142 See KLEIN 1927, pp. 189–95, 205. See also Section 9.2.2 below.
143 The article appeared in Math. Ann. 16 (1880), pp. 577–82.
144 [Protocols] vol. 1.2, pp. 94–97; and vol. 2, pp. 6–27.
145 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 179–85, at p. 183. On Klein’s “principle of dividing levels
[Stufenteilung],” see also FRICKE 1913a, pp. 277–79.
146 Luigi Bianchi, “Ueber die Normalformen dritter und fünfter Stufe des elliptischen Integrals
erster Gattung,” Math. Ann. 17 (1880), pp. 234–62.
147 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 6.
 4.3 Discussion Groups in Munich 201

Amelung had discussed Ludwig Kiepert’s work in Klein’s colloquium.148 Klein

first needed to collaborate with Bianchi, however, before he was able to integrate
Kiepert’s approaches into his own methodological arsenal. Conversely, Bianchi
wrote to Klein: “I will never forget what you have done for me. And if I can be
useful to you, remember that I am entirely at your disposal.”149 Many years later,
in February of 1924, Klein successfully arranged for Bianchi to be made a cor-
responding member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences.150
Klein was aware of how important collaboration was for his research. On Sa-
turday, February 14, 1880, he had written in his protocol book: “The undersigned
spoke about the current state of his research on elliptic modular functions, with
the particular aim of underscoring the significance that the studies by individual
colloquium members possess for these investigations. – F. Klein.”151

4.3 DISCUSSION GROUPS IN MUNICH

Klein worked together with his students, of course, but as before he was also
involved in other circles. These included a mathematical coterie with engineers
and natural scientists, a mathematical student union, and a mathematical society
(with mathematicians from the University of Munich). In addition, he also played
a considerable role in organizing the annual meeting of the Society of German
Natural Scientists and Physicians (GDNÄ), which was held in Munich in 1877.

4.3.1 A Mathematical Discussion Group with Engineers and Natural Scientists

Klein’s early interests in engineering and technology were reawakened in Munich.

In 1870, the aforementioned Johann Bauschinger had founded the first mechani-
cal-technical laboratory at a Polytechnikum, and it soon became a hotbed of gov-
ernment-supported institutions for materials research (Materialprüfanstalten).152
An even more important person in Klein’s life was Carl Linde. In his lectures on
theoretical mechanics, Linde taught the mathematical foundations of this research
area; he made use of graphical methods and he created the second government-
funded mechanical-technical laboratory (a research institute for thermodynamics)
at the Polytechnikum. About his time in Munich, Klein wrote:

148 [Protocols] vol. 1.2, pp. 78–79.

149 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 8: 91( Bianchi’s letter to Klein dated August 14, 1880).
150 [AdW Göttingen] Pers. 20 (1105).
151 [Protocols] vol. 1.2, p. 108.
152 Johann Bauschinger’s son Julius studied under Klein in 1879 and 1880. Later, from 1920 to
1922, Julius Bauschinger (then a professor of astronomy) would collaborate with Klein within
the Emergency Association of German Science; see Section 9.4.1 below.
202 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

Through my interaction with outstanding engineers such as Linde, my technical interests were
supported on many fronts in the mathematical discussion group that we had created. It was
through this group that I became more closely acquainted with the geometric disciplines of
mechanical engineering, such as descriptive geometry, graphical statics, and kinematics.153

Klein would later integrate descriptive geometry, graphical statics, and kinematics
into his university teaching. In his memoirs, the refrigeration engineer Carl Linde
mentioned both this mathematical discussion group and his close relationship with
Felix Klein:
Whereas my activity in professional associations kept me in ongoing general contact with
Munich’s technical circles, a tighter circle of colleagues, which formed during my last years
teaching there, proved to be especially valuable for exchanging ideas. After the death of the
mathematician [Otto] Hesse, his position was replaced in 1875 by the two young professors
Klein and Brill. Together with them and my colleagues von Bezold and Loewe, we created a
“mathematical discussion group,” which still exists today in an expanded form and whose
rules stipulated that we should meet every two weeks in the office of one of its members, who
would then be responsible for lecturing about his current research. It was during these gath-
erings that my long friendship with Felix Klein began, and it was because of my early impres-
sions of him that I later contributed to the establishment of the “Göttingen Association.”154

Figure 23: Carl Linde, 1872 ([Deutsches Museum] Portrait collection, No. 41926).

153 KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), p. 20.

154 LINDE 1984, p. 34. On Linde’s involvement with the Göttingen institutions, see Section 7.7.
 4.3 Discussion Groups in Munich 203

In 1866, after studying mechanical engineering at ETH Zurich (where he never

completed his degree) and after working as a draftsman in Berlin, Carl Linde
joined the technical office of the Munich-based locomotive firm Krauß & Co. In
1868, he became an associate professor of theoretical mechanics at the Polytech-
nikum in Munich. He designed his first refrigeration machine in 1871, and he be-
came a full professor the following year. His refrigerators soon became a hot
commodity (so to speak), especially in breweries. Klein noted that, in December
of 1875, he met with Linde at the Spaten brewery (Spatenbräu), which was then
the largest brewery in Munich (its history dates back to the fourteenth century).155
In 1879, with the backing of two brewing companies, Linde founded the “Society
for Linde’s Ice Machines,” a joint-stock company that had immediate success on
the market. He gave up his university position, but later he would resume his
teaching activities (from 1892 to 1910). Klein recognized that Linde’s research
institute was equally engaged in theory and praxis, and later he would strive to
establish similar large-scale laboratories in Göttingen. In Klein’s judgement:
An excellent example of the capabilities of technical physics from both the practical and theo-
retical sides is the outstanding air liquefaction apparatus that Linde introduced in 1895. Until
that point, the variance that exists between the actual thermodynamic behavior of atmospheric
air and the ideal schema of Mariotte's and Gay-Lussac’s law was regarded as incidental; here
it is used, with the greatest practical success, as the very principle of the device’s design.156

Klein and Linde both believed in the close relationship between mathematics,
physics, and engineering. The initial meetings between the two of them gave rise,
at the beginning of 1876, to their mathematical discussion group. In addition to
Klein, Linde, and Alexander Brill, the other participants were the physicist and
meteorologist Wilhelm von Bezold and the engineer Ferdinand Loewe.
Von Bezold had attended Riemann’s courses and, later, he donated his notes
from one of Riemann’s lectures (from 1858/59) to the University Library in Göt-
tingen. The lecture in question concerned the problem of the (x + iy) sphere,
which had been important to the principle of transference (Übertragungsprinzip)
that Klein employed in his work on the icosahedron.157 Von Bezold’s Habilitation
thesis – Ueber die physikalische Bedeutung der Potential-Funktion in der Elek-
tricitätslehre [On the Physical Significance of the Potential Function in the The-
ory of Electricity], which was published in 1861 – likewise fell within Klein’s
spectrum of interests.
Loewe’s research was devoted to railway and road construction. This work
brought him into contact with Georg Krauß, the founder of the aforementioned
locomotive company Krauß & Co., whose first locomotive had earned a gold
medal at the World’s Fair in Paris in 1867. Krauß was an investor in Carl Linde’s
refrigerators. It is thus no surprise that Munich-based businesses would later be

155 See JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges aus München”), p. 1.

156 KLEIN 1904a, pp. 150–51.
157 See KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 256.
204 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

quick to support Klein’s efforts to form a closer bond between science and
engineering (see Section 7.7).
On December 2, 1898, Klein was awarded Bavaria’s highest honor, the
Maximilian Order for Science and Art; in 1905, he received an honorary doctorate
from the TH Munich; and, in 1909, he was appointed to the board of the Deut-
sches Museum in Munich to help enhance its collection of masterpieces from the
natural sciences and engineering. None of these honors would have been possible
without the influence of his doctoral student Walther Dyck, but they also were due
to his close contacts to representatives of technical disciplines.

4.3.2 The Mathematical Student Union and the Mathematical Society

The Mathematical Student Union is worth mentioning because it was Felix Klein
who initiated its creation.158 In 1877, as the number of students interested in ma-
thematics continued to increase, Klein encouraged them to form an official,
registered students’ association like those with which he was familiar from Bonn,
Göttingen, and Berlin. Isaak Bacharach,159 Walther Dyck, Joseph Gierster, Franz
Meyer, Max Planck, Karl Rohn, and other students of Klein and Brill drafted the
founding statutes of this association, which was officially acknowledged in May
of 1877 by both the University of Munich and the Technische Hochschule. Klein
maintained contact with this union and accepted its invitations to special events.
When it became known that Klein would be taking a new position in Leipzig in
the fall of 1880, a delegation from the student union officially expressed, on July
31, 1880, how unhappy they were to lose him.160
Professors and Privatdozenten of mathematics and physics at the University
of Munich and the Polytechnikum (Technische Hochschule, as of 1877) regularly
met in a Mathematical Society. Little is known, however, about the specific con-
tent of these meetings.161 The gatherings may have been useful for contributing to
the professional development of Klein’s and Brill’s academically talented stu-
dents. Habilitation topics may have been discussed. Alfred Pringsheim’s Habili-
tation was completed during this time (in November of 1877), as Klein mentioned
in his notes from the period.162 Pringsheim’s research was oriented toward Weier-
strass’s analysis and thus corresponded closely to the ideas held by the professors
at the University of Munich, who refused to accept the Habilitation theses from

158 See HASHAGEN 2003, p. 64.

159 Bacharach completed his doctorate under M. Noether in Erlangen (1881). His main contribu-
tion was in the field of algebraic geometry. His name lives on today in the Cayley-Bacharach
theorem. He also wrote an important book on the history of potential theory (Geschichte der
Potentialtheorie, Göttingen; Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1883), mentioned in POCKELS 1891,
p. 1. Bacharach became a secondary school teacher, and he died as a victim of the Holocaust.
160 See JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges aus München”), p. 4.
161 See HASHAGEN 2003, p. 53.
162 See JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges aus München”), p. 3.
 4.3 Discussion Groups in Munich 205

Klein’s students whose work was oriented toward Riemannian geometry. Later,
Klein engaged in a heated public dispute with Alfred Pringsheim over the nature
of introductory lecture courses (see Section 8.3.4.1). Despite this disagreement,
Pringsheim nevertheless contributed as an author to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE.

4.3.3 The Meeting of Natural Scientists in Munich, 1877

The fiftieth annual meeting of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Phy-
sicians (GDNÄ) took place in Munich from the 17th to the 22nd of September in
1877.163 Even as a Privatdozent and young professor, Felix Klein was actively
engaged in bringing mathematicians together (see Section 2.8.3.4). Now he used
the conference in Munich to recruit the largest possible number of people to par-
ticipate in its Mathematics Section. At the same time, he served as the chairman of
the event’s media and editorial committee.164 In the latter capacity, he edited a
booklet that was presented as a gift to each participant in the meeting: München in
naturwissenschaftlicher und medicinischer Beziehung: Führer für die Theilneh-
mer der 50. Versammlung deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte [The Natural Sci-
ences and Medicine in Munich: A Guide for the Participants in the 50th Meeting of
German Natural Scientists and Physicians].165 Daily newsletters were printed and
distributed throughout the course of the conference, and the papers given at the
event were later published in an official report (Amtlicher Bericht).
Eminent researchers such as Charles Darwin and William Thomson (Lord
Kelvin) accepted invitations as honorary guests. For the second time, Felix Klein
experienced at close range the extent to which many scientists valued Darwin’s
theory of evolution,166 but he also encountered its opponents. In his plenary lec-
ture – “Ueber die heutige Entwicklungslehre im Verhältnisse zur Gesammtwis-
senschaft” [On Today’s Evolutionary Theory in Relation to Science in General] –
Ernst Haeckel described Darwin’s theory “as the most significant advancement of
our pure and applied sciences,” and he concluded: “From now on, practical phi-
losophy and pedagogy, like theoretical science as a whole, will no longer derive
their most important principles from alleged epiphanies (aus angeblichen Offen-
barungen) but rather from the natural knowledge of evolutionary theory.”167 Ernst
Haeckel’s former teacher in Würzburg, Rudolf Virchow, rallied the opposition in
a subsequent talk and elicited shouts of bravo with his imploration: “Teachers, do
not teach this!”168 In part because of Virchow’s influence, evolutionary theory and

163 For further discussion of this conference, see TOBIES/VOLKERT 1998.

164 The editorial committee consisted of Prof. F. Klein (chair), Dr. A. Engler, Dr. J. Forster, Dr.
E. Hermann, Prof. F. Ratzel, and Dr. E. Schweninger. See AMTLICHER BERICHT 1877, p. iii.
165 This work was published in Leipzig and Munich by the G. Hirth press (1877).
166 Klein’s first encounter with Darwin’s theory had been while he was a student at the Univer-
sity of Bonn (see Section 2.3.2).
167 AMTLICHER BERICHT 1877, pp. 14–22, at p. 20. See also RICHARDS 2009, pp. 312–29.
168 AMTLICHER BERICHT 1877, pp. 65–77, at p. 70. See also ZIGMAN 2000.
206 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

the subjects of botany and zoology were banned, in 1882, from school curricula in
Prussia.169 In 1900, biologists fought to remove this ban, and they were able to
count on Felix Klein’s support (see Section 8.3.4).
Sixteen papers were announced for the meeting’s section on mathematics, as-
tronomy, and geodesy. The chair of this section was Ludwig Seidel, the professor
of mathematics at the University of Munich. He led the first panel but did not give
a paper himself. The chair of the second panel was Wilhelm Scheibner from Leip-
zig. He, too, did not give a talk, but later he would play an important role in luring
Klein to Leipzig in 1880. The third panel, which was more strongly focused on
applied mathematics, was chaired by the geodesist Bauernfeind.
The first panel began with Luigi Cremona and Sophus Lie, whom Klein had
personally invited. Cremona’s talk was titled “Ueber Polsechsflache bei Flächen
dritter Ordnung” [On Polar Hexahedra in the Case of Order-Three Surfaces], and
Lie’s paper was “Ueber Minimalflächen, insonderheit über reelle algebraische”
[On Minimal Surfaces, Especially Real Algebraic Surfaces]. Lie was followed by
Alexander Brill, who gave a presentation on the modelling workshop at the Tech-
nische Hochschule and on several of the models that had been constructed there.
Finally, Klein lectured “Ueber die Gestalten der Kummer’schen Fläche” [On the
Forms of the Kummer Surface]. Brill and Klein both advertised for Ludwig Brill’s
firm in Darmstadt, which had produced models designed by the mathematical in-
stitute at the TH Munich. Klein presented four types of Kummer surfaces, and he
classified them on the basis of his older and more recent results:
One can distinguish four types of the general Kummer surface according to its 6 linear fun-
damental complexes, all or only 4, 2, 0 of which are real. In the first case, the surface has 16
real double points and double planes, in the second only 8, in the third and fourth 4; the latter
two cases differ in that, in one, the 4 double planes pass through the 4 nodal points in pairs,
whereas in the other this is not so (as in the case of Fresnel’s surface). These four types corre-
spond to the four types of real hyperelliptic integrals (p = 2), which can be distinguished ac-
cording to the reality of their ramification points and whose course is realized through the sur-
faces in question.
Between these 4 types of the general surface there is a large number of transitional and de-
generate cases. These include, above all, Plücker’s complex surfaces. By means of continuous
transition, one can derive all of these forms from one another and thus gain a complete over-
view of the large series of existing possibilities.170

In 1878, Klein’s student Karl Rohn submitted his dissertation – “Betrachtungen

über die Kummersche Fläche und ihren Zusammenhang mit den hyperelliptischen
Funktionen p = 2” [Considerations Concerning the Kummer Surface and its Con-
nection to the Hyperelliptic Functions p = 2]171 – and he ultimately developed a

169 [StA Berlin] Rep. 76 Vb Sekt. 1, Tit. 5, Abt. V, No. 12, Vol. 1, Fol. 33.
170 AMTLICHER BERICHT 1877, pp. 93–95, at p. 95.
171 This dissertation was published as a book by the Straub publishing house in Munich (1878).
 4.3 Discussion Groups in Munich 207

general method for ascertaining the forms of Kummer surfaces that do not contain
multiple straight lines.172
Klein was especially eager to reunite with Sophus Lie at the conference, and
he did all that he could to ensure that Lie could come to Munich for an extended
period of time. Lie had accepted Klein’s offer to stay at his home in Munich.
From Germany, Lie wrote back to Christiania (Oslo) about Klein’s “remarkably
amiable” wife and about his “fine strong boy,”173 who had just turned one year old
on August 6, 1877. Unfortunately, however, they did not have enough time to
accomplish any substantive work together.
Lie had already published an article on his paper topic in the Norwegian jour-
nal Archiv for Mathematik og Naturvidenskab, of which he was one of the editors.
During the conference, it was brought to his attention that he had made a mistake.
Lebrecht Henneberg, who in 1875 had completed his doctoral studies in Zurich
under the supervision of Hermann Amandus Schwarz (his dissertation concerned
minimal surfaces), was the person who identified Lie’s error. After the confer-
ence, Lie therefore devoted his full attention to correcting the mistake. Beyond
that, he was upset with H.A. Schwarz, who told one and all about Lie’s erroneous
results, and he was irritated with Alexander Brill’s reaction to the affair. On top of
that, Lie also received some unfortunate news from home, so it is understandable
why he and Klein were unable to find time to collaborate.174
The conference report contains an addendum after Lie’s paper: “The author
wishes to communicate after the fact that he did not sufficiently consider the case
in which the minimal surface becomes a double surface. When this is the case, the
formulas of order and class provided by the author should be divided by 2.”175
Klein kept this topic in mind and had his colloquium students give lectures on
minimal surfaces (on works by Lie, Schwarz, Weierstrass, and on Henneberg’s
theorems).176 Later, he successfully recruited Lebrecht Henneberg, who became
an associate professor at the TH Darmstadt in 1878 and a full professor there in
1879, to contribute as an author and consultant to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project
(particularly in the field of technical mechanics).177
The second paper that Klein was scheduled to deliver at the meeting of natural
scientists was related to his recent research on the theory of elliptic functions. Be-
cause of time constraints, however, he was unable to give this talk. It was an-
nounced with the following abstract:
One obtains the following theorem: When, in the representation of its values in the complex
plane, the absolute invariant g23/∆ of a biquadratic function R (x) [where Δ = g23 – 27 g23 in

172 See Karl Rohn, “Die verschiedenen Gestalten der Kummer’schen Fläche,” Math. Ann. 18
(1881), 99–159.
173 Quoted from STUBHAUG 2002, p. 267. Sophus Lie’s first daughter was born on May 21, 1877.
174 See ibid., pp. 269–70; and [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 655/1 (a letter from Lie to Klein).
175 Amtlicher Bericht 1877, p. 94.
176 [Protocols] vol. 1.2, pp. 22–23, 74–75.
177 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 680–82 (letters from Henneberg to Klein written between
January 13, 1892 and November 9, 1899).
208 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

the usual notation] moves across the positive half-space, the value of the period ratio K/K’ of
the elliptic integral ∫ dx / R( x ) passes through a circular arc triangle with the angles 0°,
60°, 90°: Six of these triangles, when arrayed in a particular way according to the laws of
symmetry, form a new circular arc triangle with the angles 0, 0, 0, and this, as is well known,
is the triangle within which K/K’ moves when the module k2 of the elliptic integral passes
through its positive half-space.178

Sophus Lie responded positively to this result and remarked that he himself might
want to pursue this direction further. He added: “It is actually remarkable how few
people there are who have acquired a really audacious geometric way of thinking.
We have probably learned this from Plücker. In any case, we have grounds for
being eternally grateful to Plücker.”179
Other presenters in the section included Giuseppe Jung from Italy, Oscar Si-
mony and Simon Spitzer from Austria,180 Paul Gordan, Ferdinand Lindemann,
and a few lesser-known researchers.181 Other participants in the conference (who
did not present papers) included the historian of mathematics Moritz Cantor (Hei-
delberg), Sigmund Gundelfinger (Tübingen), Reinhold Hoppe (Berlin), Klein’s
friend Ludwig Kiepert (who was then an associate professor in Freiburg), Jacob
Lüroth (Karlsruhe; later Klein’s successor in Munich), Klein’s friend Friedrich
Neesen (who was then a Privatdozent in Berlin), Max Noether (Erlangen), Theo-
dor Reye (Strasbourg), Rudolf Sturm (Darmstadt), Klein’s old friend Otto Stolz
(Innsbruck), and Klein’s student Walther Dyck.182 Klein had thus succeed in enti-
cing a good number of his friends and acquaintances to come to Munich. These
attendees did not, however, represent the full spectrum of German mathematics.

4.4 “READY AGAIN FOR A UNIVERSITY IN A SMALL CITY”

As early as November of 1876, Felix Klein noted that he was “ready again for a
university in a small city.”183 He did not have the rather large city of Leipzig in
mind when, in 1877, the university there was searching for someone to do geo-
metry, which had not been represented since August Ferdinand Möbius. For this
position, Klein recommended Max Noether, who was still looking for a full pro-
fessorship, and his doctoral student Ferdinand Lindemann: “If Leipzig really
wants to hire a geometrician, my first recommendation would be Noether. My
second would be Lindemann, who has just completed his Habilitation in Würz-
burg. Perhaps, however, it is too early to write any more about such things.”184

178 Amtlicher Bericht 1877, p. 104.

179 Quoted from STUBHAUG 2002, pp. 270–71.
180 Regarding Simony’s research, see EPPLE 1999, p. 179.
181 On the talks given on these panels, see TOBIES/VOLKERT 1998, pp. 241–42.
182 AMTLICHER BERICHT 1877, pp. xvii–xxxiv.
183 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges aus München”), p. 2.
184 Quoted from TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 86 (a letter from Klein to A. Mayer dated April 5, 1877).
 4.4 “Ready Again for a University in a Small City” 209

There were various reasons for Klein’s desire to leave Munich, some of which
have already been suggested: conflicts with engineers over the reorganized curri-
culum; the lengthy process of hiring assistants; problems with the mathematicians
at the University of Munich, who obstructed the doctoral and Habilitation proce-
dures of his students; and his late election as an associate (instead of full) member
to the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences. The letter that G. Bauer and Seidel
wrote in support of Klein’s election to this academy in fact contained several
barbs and did not do justice to Klein’s already considerable international reputa-
tion (see Appendix 3). In addition, Klein’s relationship with Alexander Brill had
soured, even though Klein had attempted to teach with him and take trips with
him (in 1876 to Regensburg and to visit Gordan; during the spring of 1877 to hike
in the mountains). Brill envied Klein’s position at Mathematische Annalen and his
academy memberships. Though seven years Klein’s senior, Brill was not made an
associate member of the Bavarian Academy until 1882, and he did not become a
full member until 1885. Adolph Mayer wrote that Klein “had become irritated and
nervous on account of Brill’s envy, jealousy, and begrudging disposition.”185
Klein informed Darboux that he felt “worn out” and “overworked” to the ex-
tent that his health was suffering.186 Klein was constantly working in high gear,
and he repeatedly doubted himself. After just his first semester in Munich, he no-
ted: “Tense from the semester. Doubts about my academic abilities.” A little later,
he remarked: “I am only content when producing new results.”187
In September of 1877, when his work began to overwhelm him, Klein had
written: “I am in a mild state of despair. The work that I have to do after the end
of the conference – not to mention dealing with Lie, Lindemann, Gordan, the An-
nalen, and the icosahedron – is killing me.”188 In addition to editing Mathema-
tische Annalen, Klein had agreed to edit the official conference report for the So-
ciety of German Natural Scientists and Physicians (see 4.3.3). At the same time,
he was helping Lindemann to prepare his edition of Clebsch’s lectures (vol. 1) for
its translation into French. Any hope of collaborating with Lie had vanished, and
this caused him strain. He was preparing, too, one of Gordan’s manuscripts for
publication. Finally, Klein felt that it was important to translate Brioschi’s results
himself for Mathematische Annalen because, “together with my icosahedron
study, they conquer a field of research that has yet to be discussed in its pages.”189
As of April 2, 1875, Klein lived on the second floor of Theresienstraße 14,
which was close to his office. With his growing family, he moved to Gabelsberger
Straße 16 (second floor too).190 From August 8 to October 7, 1879, he retreated to
Ebenhausen (20 km outside of Munich) for the sake of his health; there he lived in

185 Ibid., p. 116 (a letter from Adolph Mayer to Klein dated February 28, 1880).
186 [Paris] 70: A letter from Klein to Darboux dated May 29, 1880.
187 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges aus München”), pp. 1, 4.
188 Quoted from TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 93 (a letter from Klein to Mayer dated Sept. 27, 1877).
189 Ibid. (a letter from Klein to Mayer dated October 16, 1877).
190 [Paris] 66-67: A letter from Klein to Darboux dated December 7, 1879.
210 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

the Fischerschlössl, a hunting lodge that is perhaps best known from a painting by
Karl Roux (1877). Here, however, Klein hardly had a chance to rest and recover,
for he received numerous visits from colleagues and students:
In addition to my administrative and academic work, my efforts were devoted to a number of
excellent students, and therefore I was already greatly overworked in Munich. It was there
that I laid the foundation for my nervous illness, which would later flare up in Leipzig.191

Early in 1880, after his doctor had prescribed gardening as a form of therapy,
Klein purchased “a country house with a large garden” (Forstenrieder Straße 8).192
On March 1, 1880, he had appealed to the administration of the Technische
Hochschule for “reduced duties during the current semester and the coming sum-
mer semester.” His requests were honored, and he was permitted to conclude his
lectures one week early during the winter semester of 1879/80. Brill took over his
examinations of engineers. For the summer semester, Klein was allowed to cancel
his “announced (but not obligatory) special lecture on analytical mechanics (part
II) and the mathematical seminar associated with it.”193
Gordan was aware of Klein’s restlessness, and he wrote the following to him
on April 24, 1880: “Best of luck with your gardening, and happy birthday tomor-
row; if only you could stop working so hard on mathematics!”194 Klein limited his
teaching to his seminar with Dyck and Bianchi, who came to his house for the
course. Hurwitz, who had likewise fallen sick, remained at his parents’ home in
Hildesheim. Klein recommended that he should rest: “Consider me a warning
sign.” Admittedly, Klein requested Hurwitz’s presence again as early as April (at
his house on Forstenrieder Straße), but on May 10, 1880 he wrote to Hurwitz’s
parents that their son, “who combines specific mathematical talents with endea-
ring personal characteristics,” should take a semester off on account of his
health.195 His parents agreed to this plan, and Hurwitz, playfully rephrasing a
poem by Heinrich Heine, wrote to Klein: “Zieh hinaus bis an das Haus, wo die
Moduln spriessen, wenn Du einen Hauptmodul schaust, sag’ ich lass ihn grüßen”
[Go out until you reach the house where moduli are blooming; if you happen to
look upon a main modular function, extend to it my greetings].196

191 KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), p. 20.

192 [Innsbruck] A letter from Klein to Otto Stolz dated April 28, 1880; and JACOBS 1977
(“Vorläufiges aus München”), p. 4.
193 [Archiv TU München] A letter from Klein to the administration dated March 1, 1880. The
same file contains the administration’s agreement to honor Klein’s request (dated March 2,
1880) and the final permission granted by the Ministry of Culture (dated March 8, 1880).
194 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 407, fol. 11 (a letter from Gordan to Klein dated April 24, 1880).
195 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 30, 32, 34 (letters from Klein to Hurwitz dated March 26, April 22,
and May 10, 1880).
196 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 890, fol. 46v (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein from May 1880).
The original lines, which are from Heine’s cycle of poems Neuer Frühling [New Spring] are:
“Zieh hinaus, bis an das Haus / Wo die Veilchen sprießen. / Wenn du eine Rose schaust, /
Sag, ich lass’ sie grüßen” [Go out until you reach the house / where violets are blooming. / If
you happen to see a rose, / Extend to her my greetings].
 4.4 “Ready Again for a University in a Small City” 211

Although gardening is still recommended today as a therapy to counter ner-

vous exhaustion, Klein’s recovery seemed to have been brought about, above all,
by the possibility of being hired by another university. On March 3, 1880, Adolph
Mayer wrote to him confidentially:
The faculty has finally mustered the courage to ask the Ministry to establish a full professor-
ship for geometry, and your name is on the top of the list for the position. […] As I already
said, the prospect is still highly in doubt, but everyone here is working with all our powers on
your behalf and we do not want to have anyone else but you.197

The hiring process turned out to be more difficult than expected. On several occa-
sions, Mayer made his way to Dresden to pay personal visits to the appropriate
minister, Carl von Gerber, who had once been a professor of law at the University
of Leipzig.198 Supposedly, it was Mayer’s offer to allot part of his salary to Klein
that ultimately persuaded the hesitant minister to go ahead with the hire.199
Mayer came from a banking family and was not dependent on his salary. For
Klein, in contrast, the new position in Leipzig would alleviate his financial situa-
tion. Klein had expressed concerns about his finances as early as February of
1876, at which time he had needed to take out a loan. A life-insurance policy pur-
chased in 1879 further restricted his disposable income, and this situation was
only made worse by his poor health. Klein had to ask for his father’s assistance to
straighten out his affairs.200 Later, he would often seek financial advice from Gor-
dan, who, like Mayer, came from a wealthy banking family.
The official job offer came from the Saxon Ministry of Culture on May 21,
1880, and Klein accepted it within a week.201 He was active again as early as
June, when he informed Hurwitz that he would of course need him in Leipzig. In
addition, Klein was involved in finding a replacement for his Polytechnikum col-
league Klingenfeld, who had recently died. Klein made sure that Klingenfeld’s
courses on descriptive geometry would be taught by Walther Dyck, so that the
latter would be well prepared to carry on such work when he later followed Klein
to Leipzig.
Arthur Cayley visited Klein and his family several times in Munich: for a
month in the summer of 1879 and in June 1880. They discussed their research
results. Klein included Cayley’s results in Mathematische Annalen; Cayley
prompted Klein to summarise the most recent results of his research, and he sub-
mited them to the Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society202 (see also
Section 4.2.3).

197 Quoted from TOBIES/ROWE 1990 (a letter from A. Mayer to Klein dated March 3, 1880).
198 See ibid. (letters from Mayer to Klein dated March 3, April 17, April 19, and April 24, 1880).
199 See WITTIG 1910, p. 41.
200 See JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges aus München”), pp. 1, 4.
201 [StA Dresden] 10282/17, fols. 3–6v.
202 [UBG] Cod. Ms. F. Klein 8: 366; 369-71 (letters from Cayley to Klein dated September 10,
1879; June 6, July 7, and October 13, 1880).
212 4 A Professorship at the Polytechnikum in Munich

In early July of that year, moreover, Klein and Brill were visited in Munich by
the Swedish mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler, who had been traveling through
Italy and Switzerland.203 Thus Klein became personally acquainted with Mittag-
Leffler even before the latter founded the journal Acta Mathematica (see Section
2.4.2).
Paul Gordan was overjoyed about Klein’s new position in Leipzig, and he
provided recommendations concerning who should be chosen as his successor at
the Technische Hochschule in Munich:
Dear Klein!
The news about your new position pleased me to such an extent that it felt as though I was of-
fered the job myself. Leipzig will be your way out of the sluggish conditions in Munich,
where you had to wait three years before being made an associate member of the Academy.
Do not, however, take the issue of your replacement lightly. My first choice would be Lüroth
and my second choice would be Kiepert, but this is between us.
Yours truly, Gordan204

In accordance with the wishes of Klein, Brill, and J.N. Bischoff, Klein’s profes-
sorship in Munich was offered to Jacob Lüroth, who was a member of Clebsch’s
school. Prior to this appointment, Lüroth had been a professor at the Polytechni-
kum in Karlsruhe (which became a Technische Hochschule in 1885). The second-
place candidate on the list was not Felix Klein’s friend – and Weierstrass student
– Ludwig Kiepert but rather Klein’s doctoral student Axel Harnack.205
This sort of hiring politics was a result of the dominant influence of Berlin
mathematicians, who hoped to prevent Clebsch’s students (and Clebsch’s stu-
dents’ students) from rising through the ranks. The hostility was keenly felt by
both sides. When the hiring process in Munich became known to mathematicians
who had earned their doctoral degrees in Berlin, Ludwig Kiepert expressed to
Hermann Amandus Schwarz that “all representatives of the Berlin school” would
have to stick closely together and should learn from the hiring politics practiced
by the opposition.206 Since 1879, Kiepert had been a professor at the Technische
Hochschule in Hanover, where his academic influence was limited (the Prussian
Technische Hochschulen did not train teaching candidates in mathematics and
they did not offer doctoral degrees until 1899). Kiepert was never, in fact, able to
find a new position. Ever hopeful of moving to a new professorship, however, he
did not refuse to cooperate with Klein, whom he addressed in letters as “Dear
Felix.”207 H.A. Schwarz, on the contrary, actively attempted to hinder Felix
Klein’s career (see Section 5.8.2).

203 See STUBHAUG 2010, p. 252.

204 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 408, fol. 12 (a letter from Gordan to Klein dated May 27, 1880).
205 [BHSt] MK 19557 (a letter from August Kluckhohn to the Bavarian Ministry of Culture dated
June 3, 1880).
206 See HASHAGEN 2003, pp. 110–11.
207 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 49–180 (Ludwig Kiepert’s letters to Klein).
 5 A PROFESSORSHIP FOR GEOMETRY IN LEIPZIG
Meanwhile, a highly important and long-awaited event in my life has finally been realized. In
the fall I will begin a new position in Leipzig as a professor of geometry. I hope that this
move, which will provide me with a far larger sphere of influence and more responsibilities,
will revitalize and increase my motivation.1
I read in the Literarisches Centralblatt that you will be moving to Leipzig in the fall. I am
happy that you will acquire such a great sphere of influence there.2

In October of 1880, Felix Klein arrived in Germany’s leading trade-fair city,

whose municipal charter dates to 1165 and whose university had been founded in
1409. The only university in the Kingdom of Saxony, the University of Leipzig
had an enrollment of 3,326 students during the winter semester of 1880/81, which
was higher than that of any other German university.3 According to the census
taken on December 1, 1880, Leipzig had 148,081 residents and was thus the sixth-
largest German city after Berlin, Hamburg, Breslau, Munich, and Dresden. With a
population of 220,818, Dresden (the capital of Saxony) was home to the Royal
Saxon Polytechnikum,4 which focused on training engineers and teachers and
where some of Klein’s former doctoral students received professorships. Leipzig
was the center of the German publishing industry, and Klein maintained close and
longstanding contact with the B.G. Teubner press.
Leipzig was an important travel hub. In 1880, there were seven train stations
in the city, and its city center was further equipped with horse-drawn streetcars
(this was upgraded to a network of tramways in 1896).5 As early as 1701, Leipzig
was the third German city, after Berlin and Hamburg, to become equipped with
street lights (originally using oil lamps). By the time Klein lived there, gas and
electric streetlights had been installed, something which the small town of Göttin-
gen would not acquire for several years to come. Leipzig had also made a name
for itself as a center for theater and music, with its St. Thomas Boys Choir
(established in 1212) and the Gewandhaus Orchestra, whose roots go back to
1479. Although Klein himself was not very musically talented, his wife, his sister-
in-law Sophie, and his youngest daughter Elisabeth were gifted in this regard.
Adolph Mayer had procured an apartment for Klein’s family on the third floor
of a six-story building on Sophienstraße 10 (today Shakespearestraße), and he also
found a nanny to help care for their four-year-old son Otto and their eleven-

1 [Paris] 70: Klein to Darboux, May 29, 1880.

2 [Innsbruck] A letter from Otto Stolz to Klein dated June 18, 1880.
3 See HASHAGEN 2003, p. 94.
4 In 1890, the Polytechnikum was renamed the Technische Hochschule (TH) Dresden.
5 Today, Leipzig’s Central Station is the largest railway terminus in Europe. It was completed
in 1915.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 213

R. Tobies, Felix Klein, Vita Mathematica 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75785-4_5
214 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

month-old daughter Luise.6 This small street was conveniently located near the
Bavarian Railway Station and it was within walking distance to the city center,
where the university’s main buildings were situated. In May of 1885, the Klein
family moved to Sophienstraße 31/II because they were expecting another child.7
Born on July 11, 1885, their daughter was given the name Sophie.
In the autumn of 1880, Klein began anew in Leipzig with full intensity. His
ambition was “to carry out [his] research, administrative work, and teaching ac-
tivity with equal energy.”8 However, the metaphor that he used to characterize this
time – “I have bitten off more than I can chew”9 – suggests that he was unable to
maintain the same high level of energy for all of these areas of activity. In order to
understand how big this bite in fact was, we will need to examine the number of
parallel activities that Klein was engaged in.
Toward the end of September in 1880, while Anna Klein was furnishing their
new apartment in Leipzig, Felix Klein traveled to Erlangen. There he edited an
article by Gordan on seventh-degree equations, and the two of them discussed
various ideas related to Bianchi’s work.10 While in Erlangen, Klein also com-
pleted the article that Cayley had requested for the London Mathematical Society
(dated Oct. 5, 1880), and wrote the inaugural address required of his new profes-
sorship in Leipzig (Oct. 7, 1880). This lecture will be the topic of Section 5.1.
As was the case in Munich, Klein’s first initiative in Saxony involved the in-
stitutional framework for the university’s mathematicians, whose teaching hith-
erto took place in the “Augusteum” – the university’s main building on Augustus-
platz. Even though Klein, during his hiring negotiations, had followed Adolph
Mayer’s advice to avoid the matters of establishing an institute and hiring an
assistant,11 he would nevertheless go on to pursue these goals shortly after accep-
ting the position (Section 5.2).
In Leipzig, Klein wanted to come closer to realizing his idea of a systematic
teaching program. After his first three semesters, however, he was again over-
taxed with work, and so he resorted to the same remedy that had worked for him
in Munich: he cut back on his program of lecture courses (Section 5.3).
In an effort to encourage young researchers to achieve independent results,
Klein extended a helping hand to a growing circle of people. The fruits of his ef-
forts need be seen in the context of his numerous students and collaborators from
Germany and abroad (Section 5.4).
Some of Klein’s mathematical studies during his time in Leipzig involved
continuing, refining, and summarizing his previous findings. In doing so, he relied
more heavily on the methods of Berlin mathematicians. He figured that his old

6 See TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 123 (a letter from Mayer to Klein dated September 20, 1880).
7 [UBG] Math. Archiv 77: 142 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated June 20, 1885).
8 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Persönliches betr. Leipzig”), p. 2.
9 In German: “Ein Mantel, der mir zu weit ist.”
10 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 40 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated September 27, 1880).
11 See TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 118 (a letter from Mayer to Klein dated March 7, 1880).
 5.1 Klein’s Start in Leipzig and His Inaugural Address 215

research program from Munich could be carried out by his students, and he forged
a new application-oriented research program of his own. That said, a closer ex-
amination of Poincaré’s work inspired, within his old research framework, some
of his greatest achievements (the three fundamental theorems related to his theory
of uniformization), which he later interpreted to be the zenith of his mathematical
creativity (Section 5.5).
Klein’s close collaboration with the B.G. Teubner publishing house entered a
new phase when Alfred Ackermann-Teubner became a member of the manage-
ment in 1882. Klein’s work with him also led to the establishment of a prize foun-
dation for achievements associated with the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (Section 5.6).
As elsewhere in his career, Klein founded, participated in, and reorganized
academic groups. He was involved in a mathematical discussion group, the So-
cietas Jablonoviana, and the Royal Saxon Academy of Sciences (see Section 5.7).
Section 5.8 will show why Klein once again sought a change of scenery and
how he influenced the choice of his successor in Leipzig.

5.1 KLEIN’S START IN LEIPZIG AND HIS INAUGURAL ADDRESS

In Leipzig, Wilhelm Scheibner (54 years old) and Carl Neumann (48 years old)
were teaching as full professors, while Adolph Mayer (41 years old) and Karl Von
der Mühll (39 years old) held associate professorships. Felix Klein, just thirty-one
years old, arrived as the third full professor, with an appointment to teach geo-
metry. Before then, no German university had a full professorship that was devo-
ted only to geometry.
Through his editorial work for Mathematische Annalen, Klein had already
been familiar with Mayer and Von der Mühll since 1873 (see Section 2.4.2).
Scheibner first learned to appreciate Klein at the 1877 meeting of natural scien-
tists in Munich (see Section 4.3.3). In the application for the new professorship,
Scheibner made a shrewd argument by citing the large number of professorships
in Berlin and Göttingen.12 With the application, he also enclosed a long list of
branches of geometry in order to demonstrate that many of them could not be
taught in Leipzig without an additional professor on hand. Here is an excerpt of
Scheibner’s application to the Saxon Ministry of Culture in Dresden:
V. Geometry.
a) Analytic geometry of the plane / N.[eumann] and M.[ayer]
b) Analytic geometry of space / M.[ayer]
c) Theory of curved surfaces / Sch.[eibner] and N.[eumann]
d) Descriptive geometry / vacant
e) Higher synthetic geometry (Möbius and [Jakob] Steiner) / vacant
f) Geometry of position (Staudt and Reye) / vacant
g) Theory of invariants and covariants / vacant
h) Theory of binary forms / vacant

12 See KÖNIG 1982, p. 92; and SCHLOTE 2004, p. 30.

216 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

i) Theory of higher algebraic curves and surfaces / vacant

j) Theory of mappings of algebraic surfaces (Cremona and Clebsch) / vacant
k) Theory of complexes (Plücker) / vacant
l) Connection between algebraic curves and the theory of elliptic and Abelian functions /
vacant
m) Theory of non-Euclidean geometry / vacant
n) Theory of higher manifolds / vacant.13

Regarding Felix Klein, who was named as a potential candidate along with two of
his students (Axel Harnack and Ferdinand Lindemann), Scheibner wrote:
We name as our first choice one of the most prominent students of the late Clebsch, Dr. Felix
Klein, a full professor at the Polytechnikum in Munich who, both through his numerous aca-
demic publications and through his editorial work for Mathematische Annalen, has done
extraordinarily much to further the developments of newer geometry; who has recently achie-
ved, by way of geometric speculations, important new results concerning the theory of al-
gebraic equations and modular functions; and who has distinguished himself by training
talented students.14

The Saxon Ministry of Culture offered Klein the position with a starting dated of
October 1, 1880. In calculating his pay, the ministry took into account his eight
years of civil service in Bavaria. Klein thus received an annual salary of 7,500
Mark and a moving allowance of 1,800 Mark.15 In addition to this, he would also
receive fees for his lectures. Per semester, students in Leipzig had to pay a 15-
Mark fee to attend a four-hour lecture course (this increased to 16 Mark as of the
winter semester of 1884/85) and an additional 1.5 Mark of administrative fees.
Seminars and exercises cost nothing.16 Also in October 1880, the Saxon Minister
of Culture Carl von Gerber appointed Klein to the Examination Committee for
Secondary-School Teaching Candidates. This was an important role, because then
the primary objective of studying mathematics was – as mentioned before – to
prepare oneself to become a secondary school teacher.
On October 25, 1880, Klein delivered his inaugural address, which he had
prepared in Erlangen a few weeks before and which bore the title “Über die Be-
ziehungen der neueren Mathematik zu den Anwendungen” [On the Relations
Between Recent Mathematics and Applications]. Drawing from his experiences in
Munich, Klein began:
Among all the sciences, hardly any could claim to be more generally applicable than mathe-
matics. Not only do the neighboring natural sciences and the more finely developed aspects of
epistemology require a mathematical basis; practical life, too, with its multifaceted underta-
kings (above all, modern technology) cannot proceed without preliminary education in ma-

13 [StA Dresden] 10210/17, fols. 245–46.

14 Ibid., fol. 250.
15 [StA Dresden] 10281/184 (Klein’s personnel file), fols. 7–9v. Klein returned 300 Mark of the
moving allowance because he was soon able to find a new tenant for his apartment in Munich
(see ibid., fol. 14).
16 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7 E, fols. 128–45. At the TH Munich, the fee for enrolling in
lectures was 10 Mark.
 5.1 Klein’s Start in Leipzig and His Inaugural Address 217

thematics. This is acknowledged and not disputed by any side. And yet, despite this fact, we
observe a strange contradiction. No one will deny that, since the beginning of the century,
pure mathematics has undergone a powerful and profound development in a variety of direc-
tions. With respect to applications, however, all of this development seems to have been
nearly useless. The practitioner ignores our progress and is at most inclined to single out a
few seemingly paradoxical conclusions and subject them to a rather harsh critique.17

Despite this trend, Klein expressed his “optimistic conviction” that “whatever is
of interest to us theoreticians now will later become applicable in a more general
sense.”18 However, he also believed that mathematicians themselves would have
to change their ways, and this was the basic premise behind his suggestions:
First. The “excessive specialization of university instruction and the associa-
ted creation of one-sided mathematical schools of thought” must be abandoned.
Clebsch’s approach, which fused geometry and algebra as well as geometry and
function theory, had “left behind a lasting legacy” only among his students and
friends.19 Klein argued in favor of integrating different areas of research, offering
general as well as specialized lectures, and designing a systematic teaching
program. He also argued that every teacher of mathematics should possess a broad
overview of the subject, and that this broad knowledge should be reflected in their
teaching and research.
Second. With reference to the long-overlooked results of the Leipzig geo-
metrician August Ferdinand Möbius, Klein stressed that geometry could no longer
be neglected and that the methods of different approaches to geometry should be
incorporated into the curriculum. Klein’s initiatives to reorganize the curriculum
and to arrange for editions of the work of Möbius and Grassmann should be seen
within this context.
Third. Whereas French mathematicians felt compelled early on to present
their knowledge in textbooks, this was long an uncommon practice in Germany.
During the first half of the nineteenth century, the textbooks published in Ger-
many were often translated works. Klein mentioned this deficiency particularly in
the case of analysis, and he pointed out that Cauchy’s Cours d’analyse still for-
med the foundation of the better books on the subject. Too much time had passed,
he thought, before the results of Riemann and Weierstrass – the founders of the
theory of complex-valued functions – were more widely available. This changed
with the publication of Rudolf Lipschitz’s two-volume Lehrbuch der Analysis
[Textbook on Analysis] (Bonn: Fr. Cohen, 1877 and 1880). This was the first
German textbook in the field. It was not because he lacked new ideas that Klein
began to systematize his own ideas into books; rather, he was aware that it was
necessary to do so and to follow the model of French textbooks in order to dis-
seminate his ideas in the first place (see Sections 5.5.1.2, 5.5.6, and 5.5.7).

17 KLEIN 1895a, pp. 535–36. This lecture is reprinted in BECKERT/PURKERT 1987, pp. 40–45.
18 KLEIN 1895a, p. 536.
19 Ibid., p. 537. Klein did not divide his inaugural lecture into numbered points, but such a
logical structure is clear.
218 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

Fourth. In order to introduce mathematics to a broader circle of people, Klein

offered the following solution: “It is its great abstractness that we have to fight
against.”20 He explained the role of illustrations and geometric models, and he
showed that geodesists, astronomers, and physicists could also benefit from them.
He expressed his belief that the university curriculum should be expanded to in-
clude subjects that he had learned to appreciate at the Technische Hochschule:
“descriptive geometry, graphic constructions, machine kinematics.” It was this
conviction that would motivate his efforts to form, at the University of Leipzig, a
mathematical institution with a collection of models and a reorganized curricu-
lum. For the first time at a German university, descriptive geometry was included
in the curriculum; of course, it was taught in conjunction with other fields such as
projective geometry (see Section 5.3.1).21
Klein concluded his inaugural address by noting that he would only be able to
implement this program gradually. The substance of this speech would continue to
define his orientation towards applications well beyond his years in Leipzig. In
1895, while he was continuing to advance his program in Göttingen, he sent this
address to the Prussian Ministry of Culture, and only at this point did he submit it
for publication (KLEIN 1895a). Although he faced many obstacles in Leipzig, he
was indeed able to realize several of his goals there.

5.2 CREATING A NEW MATHEMATICAL INSTITUTION

Things are going well for me in general, and I am truly content with the conditions here re-
garding the possible developments that can be made.22

Klein’s letter to Otto Stolz is indicative of his characteristic urge to shape his pro-
fessional surroundings. Shortly before, the Saxon Minister of Culture Carl von
Gerber had approved Klein’s funding request for geometric models and for an
appropriate glass case in which to store them. As expressed in his inaugural ad-
dress, Klein had greater ambitions than merely acquiring models. His experiences
from Erlangen and Munich taught him that he would be able to achieve greater
status for mathematics by establishing a separate institution devoted to it.
On December 5, 1880, Klein, having felt out the conditions at the university,
applied not for an Institute (as he had done at the Polytechnikum in Munich) but
rather for a Mathematical Seminar. To make his case, he was able to point out that
such an arrangement for training teaching candidates already existed at numerous
universities. Klein was familiar with such seminars from his own experiences in
Bonn, Berlin, and Göttingen.

20 KLEIN 1895a, p. 538.

21 On the development of descriptive geometry in Germany in comparison with France, see
Nadine Benstein’s article in BARBIN et al. 2019, pp. 139–66. On the synthesis of projective
and descriptive geometry, see Klaus Volkert’s article in the same book (pp. 167–80).
22 [Innsbruck] A letter from Klein to Otto Stolz dated November 10, 1880.
 5.2 Creating a New Mathematical Institution 219

Klein was granted permission to renovate a little-used building known as the

“Czermakeion.”23 On December 7, 1880, he sent a list of desiderata to the univer-
sity administration with details about renovating and expanding the lecture hall,
creating side rooms for seminars, and a library; here Klein also provided detailed
information about furniture, heating, blackboards, lighting, and washing facili-
ties.24 Evidently, he intended to create more than a seminar; he desired an institute
comparable to that in Munich.
Regarding matters of personnel, Klein also made novel decisions. He hired a
custodian to take care of facilities; he revived the previously existing position of a
Famulus (a student assistant); and, on October 15, 1881, he could hire a regularly
salaried assistant (Klein became, in fact, the first professor of mathematics at a
German university to have an assistant of this sort).25 Klein’s main justification
for creating this budgetary position was to have someone to prepare and oversee
the model collection. Unlike his assistants at the Technische Hochschule in Mu-
nich and later in Göttingen, Klein’s assistants in Leipzig, Walther Dyck and Fried-
rich Schur, had already completed their Habilitation; they became Privatdozenten.
The Famulus managed the “vouchers” (Belegbogen) for Klein’s private lectures
(which students had to pay to attend) and edited his lectures. Each of the five stu-
dents in Leipzig who went on to hold the position of Famulus also completed his
doctoral degree under Klein’s supervision (see Table 6).
Klein took over the renovated rooms for the Mathematical Seminar on April
8, 1881. He was also made the director of this seminar as well as the director of
the model collection and a co-director of the Czermakeion. The Czermakeion was
a classroom building used by all the faculties at the university; its other co-direc-
tor was the psychologist Wilhelm Wundt. At the time, Wundt established the
world’s first institute for experimental psychology, and it would serve as a model
for similar institutes elsewhere (including the University of Göttingen). Wundt
and Klein first worked together – as members of a doctoral committee – as early
as December of 1880.26
At Klein’s request, two colleagues were named co-directors of the Mathema-
tical Seminar: the associate professors Adolph Mayer and Karl Von der Mühll.
The younger Klein thereby increased the status of these older colleagues and thus
secured two allies. Klein’s effort to have both co-directors promoted to honorary
full professors was only successful in the case of Mayer (the promotion was
granted in 1881).27

23 The Czermakeion (also “Czermak’s Spektatorium”) was named after the physiologist J.N.
Czermak, who left the building (Brüderstraße 34) as a legacy to the university.
24 See König’s article in BECKERT/SCHUMANN 1981, p. 63; and KÖNIG 1982, pp. 127–31.
25 See LOREY 1916, p. 167. For a list of Klein’s Famuli and assistants, see KLEIN 1923 (GMA
III), Appendix, p. 14 (here, however, it is wrongly noted that Klein’s assistant in Leipzig
began in the summer semester of 1881 instead of in the winter semester 1881/82).
26 Klein and Wundt wrote evaluations for Alfred Donadt’s dissertation, Das mathematische
Raumproblem und die geometrischen Axiome (Leipzig: J. Ambrosius Barth, 1881).
27 See TOBIES/ROWE 1990, pp. 25–26.
220 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

In order to build up the Mathematical Seminar, Klein submitted additional

applications for funding: for seminar prizes, models, books, furniture, etc. More-
over, he dreamt of having work rooms for students, for which the Czermakeion
did not have adequate space. It was far more difficult for Klein to acquire these
rooms than some have made it seem.28 Klein’s letters to the Rektor of the univer-
sity, Friedrich Zarncke, mention several opponents and obstacles. Although Zarn-
cke – a Germanist, Goethe scholar, and the founder of the Literarisches Central-
blatt für Deutschland – personally prepared the decisive meeting of the academic
senate with Klein, the senate voted against his construction plans and budget
projections for new work rooms for mathematics. Klein reacted by submitting an
application to the Ministry of Culture, and he sent Zarncke a draft of his applica-
tion on August 2, 1882:
It is in my interest to assure you that I have taken the proper course of action in response to
the vote of the academic senate – but it is also in my interest to bring my further plans to your
attention. I hope that you view them as sympathetically as you have regarded me hitherto, and
I remain hopeful that the time will come when I find full acceptance among the extended
circle of colleagues who, at the moment, are confronting me with one obstacle after another.29

Although the Saxon Ministry of Culture did not immediately agree to Klein’s re-
quest, a new application, which he completed on October 12, 1882, resulted in
mathematics acquiring the desired work rooms on the third floor of Ritterstraße
14, a building known as the “Kleines Fürsten-Collegium.” At the time, no other
German university possessed work rooms of this sort for students and younger
researchers.30 As of the winter semester of 1883/84, the institution as a whole was
called the Mathematical Institute, and it had facilities in two different buildings:
a) the Mathematical Seminar on Ritterstraße and b) the model collection (with a
modeling room) and a lecture hall for elementary and geometric lectures in the
Czermakeion. On March 2, 1886, Klein persuaded the Ministry of Culture to re-
name these two parts as “Division I” and “Division II” of the institute.31
Otto Hölder first came to Leipzig as a young doctor in April of 1884, and he
sent his parents informative letters about Klein’s institution. After completing his
doctoral degree under Paul du Bois-Reymond in Tübingen with a dissertation on
potential theory (1882), Hölder had continued his studies in Berlin, where he
“could not develop any relationships with his peers.” In Leipzig, on the contrary,
he felt as though he was integrated immediately:
I met with Klein during my first day here, exactly 3 hours after I had arrived in Leipzig. He
immediately gave me a key to the rooms of the Mathematical Seminar, and yesterday I al-
ready spent 6½ hours there. There is a library room and a work room, and the mathematicians
here actually work there all day long. […] Through Klein, one immediately becomes ac-
quainted with all the young mathematicians. He simply sends you into the Seminar, where

28 See KÖNIG 1982; and THIELE 2018.

29 [UB Leipzig] Nachlass Fr. Zarncke (a letter from Klein to Zarncke dated August 2, 1882).
30 [UA Leipzig] Phil. Fak. B1/1423, vol.1, fol.3 (O. Hölder/K. Rohn, “Das math. Institut, 1909”).
31 See Fritz König’s article in BECKERT/SCHUMANN 1981, pp. 67–68.
 5.3 Teaching Program 221

everyone introduces himself to everyone else, and then you soon see how everyone gets along
with one another […] When working on a project that requires references to scholarly litera-
ture, it is very handy to be in the Seminar, which has everything, and no books can be taken
out. […] The Seminar facility also makes it immediately possible for the people there to form
social relationships; just yesterday I went out with the mathematicians for a beer. […] The
work rooms are open every day – even on Sunday – from 7 in the morning to 10 at night.32

5.3 TEACHING PROGRAM

Just as in Berlin, where it was “the coordinating hand of Ernst Kummer that de-
signed the curriculum,” and just as Clebsch had functioned in Göttingen, Klein
acted in the interest of his students during every semester.33 In what follows, it
will be shown how Klein sought to organize the mathematics curriculum in
Leipzig and how his own teaching fit into his overall program.
Certain aspects should be emphasized in advance: Klein’s competition with
Carl Neumann in the area of function theory, the new subject of descriptive geo-
metry, his attempt to reorganize the curriculum, and the temporary reduction of
Klein’s teaching load on account of his health and other reasons. In addition, it
will be necessary to correct some wrong information that appears in the appendix
to the third volume of Klein’s collected writings (see Section 5.3.1). Section 5.3.2
will focus on the specific role of Klein’s research seminar.

5.3.1 Lectures: Organization, Reorientation, and Deviation from the Plan

In Munich, Klein had organized the mathematics curriculum with Alexander Brill.
In Leipzig, however, he had to convince several older colleagues to go along with
his plan. At first, he limited his efforts to producing a “coordinated geometric
education for teaching candidates,”34 and he coordinated his plans in advance with
his former student Karl Rohn, who had been working as a Privatdozent there since
May 15, 1879. Because Rohn would be teaching the lower-level courses during
the winter semester of 1880/81 (“Theory of Plane Curves of the Third and Fourth
Order,” “Differential and Integral Calculus, with Exercises”), Klein would be able
to concentrate on his research-oriented teaching.
Already in April of 1880, Klein had written the following to Otto Stolz:
“Then in the winter I will focus on function theory, into which, as you know, I
have been meaning to immerse myself for a long time but which is still, for me,
uncharted territory.”35 While in Munich, Klein had sought to draw a close connec-

32 Quoted from HILDEBRANDT/STAUDE-HÖLDER, pp. 142, 144 (letters from Hölder to his
parents dated April 23 and May 6, 1884). See the German original in TOBIES 2019b, p. 196.
33 On Kummer’s organization of course offerings in Berlin, see BIERMANN 1988, p. 101.
34 See JACOBS 1977 (“Entwicklung meiner Vorlesungen und Arbeiten”), p. 2.
35 [Innsbruck] A letter from Klein to Otto Stolz dated April 28, 1880.
222 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

tion between the fields of geometry, algebra, number theory, and special functions
(especially elliptic modular functions). He integrated each of these subjects in his
first special lecture course in Leipzig: “Function Theory from a Geometric Ap-
proach for Intermediate Students,” which was held four hours per week, Tuesday
to Friday from 12 to 1 o’clock.36 Eighty-nine students enrolled in the course, more
than attended any other course taught by a mathematician in Leipzig at that time.37
Klein’s Famulus, Ernst Lange, who had already attended Klein’s courses in Mu-
nich,38 took lecture notes. Later, in 1892 in Göttingen, Klein requested his student
Paul Epstein to produce an autograph copy of this lecture, an edition of which was
published by Fritz König in 1987. In a preface (Geleitwort) to this edition, Frie-
drich Hirzebruch outlined Klein’s basic ideas – the idea of the Riemann surface,
algebraic geometry, and the relationships between function theory and algebraic
curves – and remarked that such topics, though seldom discussed in contemporary
university courses, can still be of great interest to students and teachers alike.39
Under the rubric “mathematics and astronomy,” the courses offered at Leipzig
during the winter semester of 1880/81 still, however, indicated a lack of coordi-
nation. Both Karl Von der Mühll and Karl Rohn, for instance, were scheduled to
teach differential and integral calculus. Von der Mühll, whose expertise was ma-
thematical physics, also offered a course on the mathematical theory of light and
conducted mathematical-physical exercises. Adolph Mayer, whose main field was
the calculus of variations, offered the introductory lecture course on analytical
mechanics, as he usually did in winter semesters. The list was completed by
Wilhelm Scheibner (“On the Three-Body Problem,” “On Multiple Integrals”),
Carl Neumann (“Mathematical Theory of Electrostatics”), and the associate pro-
fessor of physics Eilhard Wiedemann (“On Quaternions”).
The astronomers, with whom Klein developed good relationships, also offered
courses on mathematical subjects: Karl Christian Bruhns, who was then the di-
rector of the observatory in Leipzig-Johannisthal (“On the Relations between Dif-
ferences and Differentials, Sums and Integrals”; “Theoretical Astronomy: On
Determining the Orbits of Planets and Comets”; “Colloquium on Topics from
Astronomy, Geodesy, and Meteorology”); and Hugo von Seeliger (“Mathematical
Geography,” “The Theory of Eclipses and Related Phenomena”).
When Bruhns died on July 25, 1881, his professorship and the directorship of
the observatory were taken over by Heinrich Bruns. A student of Weierstrass,
Bruns knew Klein from the latter’s period of study in Berlin (1869/70). Bruns
developed into a top-rate scholar in Leipzig40 and cooperated well with Klein.
Together, they co-supervised August Föppl’s doctoral research, which culminated

36 https://histvv.uni-leipzig.de/vv/1880w.html.“Functionentheorie in geometrischer Behand-

lungsweise für Studierende mittlerer Semester”.
37 See KÖNIG 1982.
38 In Munich, Ernst Lange attended Klein’s lectures from 1878/79 to 1879/80 (higher mathema-
tics, analytical mechanics). See [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7E.
39 See KLEIN 1987, p. 3.
40 See BIERMANN 1988, pp. 132–34.
 5.3 Teaching Program 223

in a thesis on the mathematical theory of structures (1886).41 Later, Klein re-

cruited August Föppl to contribute to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, and he discussed Föppl’s
work in seminars at a time when he himself was trying to systematize problems in
the area of statics (see Section 8.2.4).
During his second semester in Leipzig – the summer semester of 1881 – Klein
took over the beginners’ course “Introduction to the Analytic Geometry of the
Plane and of Space” (87 students); K. Rohn taught “Introduction to Analysis”; and
Friedrich Schur, who had meanwhile completed his Habilitation, offered a course
titled “Elements of Newer Synthetic Geometry” in addition to “Geometric Exerci-
ses.” Klein also continued his special lecture course, “Function Theory from a
Geometric Approach II,” which had forty-five students and met for four hours per
week. The content of his course corresponded to that of his forthcoming book
Über Riemanns Theorie der algebraischen Funktionen und ihrer Integrale: Eine
Ergänzung der gewöhnlichen Darstellungen [On Riemann’s Theory of Algebraic
Functions and Their Integrals: A Supplement to the Usual Treatises] (see 5.5.1.2).
By teaching such a course, however, Klein caused a dispute with Carl Neu-
mann, who felt robbed of one of his domains because he regularly gave lectures
on function theory.42 In 1865, Neumann had published his book Vorlesungen über
Riemann’s Theorie der Abel’schen Integrale [Lectures on Riemann’s Theory of
Abelian Functions], and he prepared a second edition, which was published in
1884. Later, Klein wrote: “It is an excellent introduction to the Riemannian circle
of ideas.” Comparing Neumann’s book to the aforementioned book by Clebsch
and Gordan on the same subject (see Section 2.4.1), Klein remarked that the latter
“may be difficult, and it demands the close attention of readers, but it lets them
penetrate far more deeply into the problems at hand and it stimulates them to
study Riemann’s thought in a serious way.”43 Neumann was reluctant to harmo-
nize the teaching program. Like his Königsberg teacher Richelot, he wanted to
teach whatever he pleased – geometry included. Later, Sophus Lie would also feel
that Neumann treated him poorly (see Sections 5.5.1.1 and 5.8.3).
In any case, Klein avoided further problems with Neumann by designing his
own cycle of geometry courses. After teaching “Analytic Geometry” in the sum-
mer of 1881, he planned to offer “Projective Geometry and Differential Geome-
try” during the following semester. Beginning in October of 1881, he introduced a
course on descriptive geometry (with exercises), the instruction of which was
supported by his assistant Dyck.44 For decades, this discipline, which had been

41 See KÖNIG 1982, A6-4. – From 1912 to 1914, August Föppl’s son Ludwig became Klein’s
assistant after he completed his doctoral degree under Hilbert. Like his father, Ludwig Föppl
became a professor of technical mechanics.
42 For a list of Neumann’s courses, see http://histvv.uni-leipzig.de/dozenten/neumann_c.html.
He taught, for example, “The General Theory of Functions of Complex Variables (According
to Cauchy)” (summer, 1876), “Select Chapters from the Theory of Spherical Functions and
Potential” (winter, 1877/88), and “The Theory of Functions” (summer, 1882 and 1884).
43 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 256.
44 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 52 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz, October 1881).
224 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

established by Gaspard Monge in Paris, had been part of the engineering curricu-
lum at polytechnical schools also in Germany, though here it was usually at a
lower level (see BARBIN 2019). Klein, as mentioned above, was the first person to
teach it at a German university. His lecture course “Projective Geometry, Part I (in
Conjunction with Descriptive Geometry)” attracted more students (102) than any
of his other courses during his time in Leipzig. Sixty-six “trainees” (Praktikan-
ten), as he put it, participated in the exercises related to the course.45
Encouraged by the high number of students, Klein felt that it was time to de-
sign his first degree program. He discussed the matter with his colleagues, and
together they published an article “Bemerkungen über die mathematischen Vorle-
sungen an der Universität Leipzig” [Remarks on the Mathematical Lectures at the
University of Leipzig] in the Zeitschrift für mathematischen und naturwissen-
schaftlichen Unterricht.46 This journal, which had been published by B.G. Teub-
ner since 1870, circulated widely among teachers. The article listed teaching areas
in two categories: “A. Introductory or Elementary Lectures” and “B. More Ad-
vanced Mathematical Lectures,” and it described which subjects built best upon
one another. Students were advised “to take careful notes – not according to the
exact words of the lecture but according to their own understanding – and, in the
case of doubtful points, to seek out additional information from the lecturer him-
self.” It was not expected that every student could become deeply familiar with all
areas of mathematics: “Indeed, as regards the education of future Gymnasium
teachers, less importance should be placed on ensuring that they develop a par-
ticular mathematical specialty than on providing them with a general orientation,
ensuring that they can demonstrate – in one direction or another – solid and well-
ordered knowledge, some degree of familiarity with the appropriate scholarly lit-
erature, and a solid level of study.” Students who have chosen mathematics as
their minor subject should be allowed to limit their attendance to basic courses.
Such care for the interests of students was rather rare at the time. This is evi-
dent from a letter by Kiepert, to whom Klein had sent the degree program:
Almost every professor, when not teaching certain introductory lectures that bring in the most
money, simply teaches his favourite subject, and the students have to see where they can get
further knowledge from.47

In the summer semester of 1882, Klein taught the second part of his lecture course
on projective and descriptive geometry (70 students), and he returned to the sub-
ject of function theory by offering an upper-level course on it. In addition, Klein
also gave fifteen lectures on “Single-Valued Functions with Linear Transformati-
ons in Themselves.”48 He revised the content of these lectures to form sections III

45 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Persönliches betr. Leipzig”), p. 3.

46 Authorship of this article was attributed to “the professors of mathematics at the University of
Leipzig.” See ZmnU 13 (1882), pp. 247–50.
47 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 87 (a letter from Kiepert to Klein dated May 18, 1882).
48 These lectures were delivered from June 6 to August 4, 1882, and they were transcribed by
Eduard Study. See KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 585, 632, and Appendix, p. 6.
 5.3 Teaching Program 225

to V of his article “Neue Beiträge zur Riemannschen Funktionentheorie” [New

Contributions to Riemannian Function Theory].49
For the winter semester of 1882/83 (October 15 to March 15), Klein reduced
his teaching load. As in Munich, he had to deviate from his already announced
lecture program on account of health problems. He cancelled his special lecture
course “Select Chapters from Function Theory (Only for Advanced Students).”
He handed over his elementary lecture course “The Application of Differential
and Integral Calculus to Geometry” (70 students) to Walther Dyck from mid-No-
vember to Christmas 1882. Klein explained the situation as follows:
I had meanwhile been a patient of sorts. Throughout the entire fall vacation, as you know, I
suffered from asthma, and at the beginning of the semester it flared up to such an extent that,
by the middle of November, it seemed necessary to hand over my lecture to Dyck and keep
only my seminar, to which I have devoted an exceptional amount of energy. The peace and
quiet that these and other rational measures have provided me have meanwhile lifted me back
up, and thus I intend to take over my lecture again after the New Year. The fact of the matter
is that, despite everything, I have taken on too many obligations here in Leipzig. Ever since I
made the clear decision to work less, I at least feel more at ease than otherwise.50

For a long time, Klein had regularly suffered from hay fever and asthma, and he
also repeatedly suffered from stomach problems and insomnia. Thus, as of the
summer of 1881, he usually spent several weeks a year on an East Frisian island
in order to benefit from a better climate. This did not always help. On March 19,
1882, for instance, he had written the following to A. Mayer from Norderney:
In general, it’s very beautiful here. At the beginning of my trip, however, I did not take the
best care of myself, so that I have now been unwell for the past 2 to 3 days: asthma and
stomach aches, as so often. By the way, these things are taking their normal course.51

Just a few days later, Klein would formulate one of his most significant theorems
– the limit circle theorem (Grenzkreistheorem; see Section 5.5.4). After his con-
flict with the administration over securing new classrooms in August of 1882,
Klein’s sickness returned with particular severity, and it was also improperly
treated (cold baths, gymnastics), as he himself diagnosed.52 Nevertheless, on Oc-
tober 2, 1882, he completed the aforementioned article “Neue Beiträge zur Rie-
mannschen Funktiontheorie” [New Contributions to Riemannian Function The-
ory]. This was more important to him than his health. At this time, he also could
not find a way to accompany Sophus Lie to Paris.
Even though Klein would later describe his renewed asthmatic illness as a
major break in his life – according to Klein, “the center of his productive thinking
had been destroyed”53 – his correspondence from this time does not provide any

49 Math. Ann. 21 (1883), pp. 141–218 (dated October 2, 1882).

50 [UBG] Math. Archiv 77: 86 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated December 28, 1882).
51 Quoted from TOBIES/ROWE 1990, pp. 129–30 (Klein to Mayer, March 19, 1882).
52 See Klein’s remarks in JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges über Leipzig”), p. 2.
53 See Hellmuth Kneser, “Felix Klein als Mathematiker,” Mitteilungen des Universitätsbundes
Göttingen e.V. 26/1 (1949), pp. 1–6, at p. 3.
226 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

evidence that he suffered a personal “fundamental crisis” or even that he expe-

rienced any depression. Rather, he resorted to tried-and-true means that had hel-
ped him before: He cut back on his lectures and concentrated all the more on his
research seminar. As in his last semester in Munich, he invited the four partici-
pants in the seminar to his apartment during the fall of 1882, reclined “in a chair
for invalids,”54 and even gave six presentations himself (see Section 5.5.2.3).
When Klein claimed that he felt as though he had lost his capability for “pro-
ductive thinking,” we can only understand this in reference to his own standards.
His notes from earlier years repeatedly document that he experienced bouts of
self-doubt (see Section 4.4). As we shall see, he never completely ran out of ideas,
even when he would partially change his working habits and research topics.
As of January 14, 1883, Klein resumed teaching the lecture course that he had
handed over to Dyck, and he made plans to shorten his summer semester. With a
report from his physician, he applied to go on leave from June 15 to August 15,
1883, in order to recover on the North Sea.55 He decided in advance to teach his
lecture course on the theory of equations (Thursday to Friday, 12–1 o’clock,
privatim) for only half the semester. Accordingly, the sixteen enrolled students
only paid half price (8 Mark).56 Dyck agreed to teach Klein’s seminar during the
second half of the term. While on leave, Klein wrote his book on the icosahedron
(see Section 5.5.6). In a later letter to the Saxon Ministry of Culture, Klein expres-
sed his thanks yet again for having been granted a two-month period of leave:
In general, I have good things to report regarding my health. My leave of absence and the
following semester break have done much to put me at ease. In large part, my ailment was
caused by the excessive amount of work that I had undertaken earlier. Going forward, I will
have to take on less work personally and delegate more to others in a way that seems
appropriate to me.57

In offering a special lecture course on elliptic functions,58 it is clear that Klein had
already begun to think about his next book in the fall of 1883 (see Section 5.5.7).
His eagerness to teach the second part of this course in the summer semester of
1884 comes through in one of his letters to Adolph Mayer. Here he mentioned
that he wanted to hand over his introductory lecture on analytic geometry to Karl
Rohn, and he explained: “Otherwise, I will have to neglect my own academic
work overmuch and split my productivity in two.”59
The noticeable decrease in enrollment numbers in Klein’s lectures (39 in
1883/84; 29 in 1884) was then a nationwide trend in Germany, because by that

54 [UA Braunschweig] 04.2.7 (a letter from Klein to Fricke dated December 13, 1911, in which
he explains his feelings about the years 1882 and 1883).
55 [StA Dresden] 10281/184 (Klein’s letter dated March 9, 1883).
56 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7 E.
57 [StA Dresden] 10281/184, fols.24–24v (Klein’s letter dated December 9, 1883).
58 Klein’s lectures from 1883/84 (transcribed by Otto Fischer) and summer 1884 (transcribed by
Paul Biedermann) are kept in the Mathematical Institute of the University of Leipzig.
59 TOBIES/ROWE 1990, pp. 146–47 (Klein to Mayer, November 19, 1883).
 5.3 Teaching Program 227

time secondary schools had become overstaffed with teachers – the main job op-
portunity for graduates in mathematics. In response, Klein cancelled some of his
special lecture courses. In the winter semester of 1884/85, his only lecture course
was “Higher Algebraic Curves and Surfaces” (33 students), and, during the first
three months of the term (November through January), instead he gave presenta-
tions of his own within his seminar on the topic of hyperelliptic functions and
Kummer surfaces (16 students participated in the seminar).60 In the summer se-
mester of 1885, he offered the lecture course “Introduction to the Analytic Ge-
ometry of the Plane and Space” (41 students). He cancelled his advanced lecture
on Abelian functions, choosing instead to focus on this subject in his seminar.
According to the official records, Klein offered only one lecture course during
his last semester in Leipzig: “Introduction to Differential and Integral Calculus”
(25 students). In the third volume of his collected works (GMA), Klein wrote that
he “gave his own special lecture on the simplest hyperelliptic functions (p = 2),”
and that he turned the content of this lecture into an article for Mathematische
Annalen (published in April of 1886).61 In letters to Hurwitz, Klein mentioned that
he gave “special presentations” (see Section 5.5.8). Before moving on to Göttin-
gen, Klein continued to supervise doctoral students and support the work of other
young and talented mathematicians.

5.3.2 The Mathematical Colloquium / Exercises / Seminar

Klein’s research seminars are called various things in the published course list-
ings. The announcement for the first semester of the seminar best captured what it
was about: “Discussion of recent scholarly literature alongside guidance for the
research activities of more advanced students” (Mondays, 6–8 PM, privatissime
but gratis). In the summer semester of 1881, the same course was called a
“Mathematical Society” and then, 1881/82, “Exercises in the Mathematical Semi-
nar (Colloquium)”; in the summer semester of 1882, it was referred to as the
“Mathematical Seminar,” and after that it was consistently called “Exercises of
the Royal Mathematical Seminar.”62 Only for the winter semester of 1883/84 was
an additional note added to this: “Exercises of the Royal Mathematical Seminar
(Select Chapters of Function Theory), in Collaboration with Dr. Dyck.” For the
sake of clarity and brevity, I will use the term seminar in my discussion below.
While in Munich, Klein had been able to run this sort of research center in
large part together with Alexander Brill, but in Leipzig he had no fitting partner in
this regard beyond his assistant Walther Dyck. His fellow professors were either
not readily willing to cooperate (Carl Neumann), or their approach to mathematics
did not align closely enough with Klein’s own (Mayer, Von der Mühll).

60 [Protocols] vol. 6, pp. 155 and 253.

61 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 321, Appendix, p. 6.
62 “Royal” (königlich), as related to the Kingdom (Königreich) of Saxony.
228 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

At the time when Klein arrived in Leipzig, the University of Berlin still had
higher enrollment numbers in mathematics than Leipzig did.63 Thanks to Klein,
however, the number of advanced mathematical theses (doctoral dissertations,
Habilitationen) completed in Leipzig would soon surpass the numbers in Berlin.
During the first semester of the seminar (1880/81), ten people gave a total of
eighteen presentations. In the summer semester of 1881, there were fourteen
presentations plus four “Riemann evenings” organized by Klein (June 13, June
20, July 4, and July 11, 1881), about which he noted: “Discussion of § 1–12 of
Riemann’s theory of Abelian functions.”64 At the time, Riemann’s ideas were still
not widely known. Understanding them, according to Hilbert, “elevated one into a
higher class of mathematicians.”65
Klein regarded the subsequent two semesters (1881/82 and 1882) as his best
in Leipzig.66 They were a period of extreme activity for him, quantitatively and
qualitatively. In the winter 1881/82: presentations at twenty-nine seminar meet-
ings (12 people); an additional cycle of ten presentations by Klein (January 18 to
February 8, 1882) plus four more presentations (February 15, February 20, Febru-
ary 27, March 6). In the summer of 1882: seventeen presentations in the seminar
(nine participants; he gave three presentations himself). On top of this, he deliv-
ered the fifteen special lectures mentioned above (from June to August of 1882).
All of this work was done alongside research of the highest quality. This was the
time of his three “automorphic fundamental theorems,” which were published
from January to October of 1882 (see Section 5.5.4).
The situation underwent a drastic personnel change in the fall of 1882. In
addition to Gierster, Hurwitz, and Staude, Klein’s assistants (Famuli) Ernst Lange
and Oskar Herrmann completed their dissertations67 and became secondary school
teachers. Thus there were only four advanced students left to participate in the
seminar on Abelian functions (from November 6 to December 19, 1882). Yet, this
seminar provides further evidence of Klein’s continued productivity and of the
excellent research results achieved by its participants (see Section 5.5.2.3).
In the summer of 1883, Klein noted about his new circle of people: “Perpetual
change of students.”68 A year later, on June 3, 1884, considering the (new) partici-
pants in his seminar (on modular functions), he was skeptical about whether they
would produce any valuable results:

63 In the fall of 1879, there were 293 mathematics students at the University of Berlin and 186
in Leipzig. See BECKERT/SCHUMANN 1981, p. 57.
64 [Protocols] vol. 3, pp. 51 and 145.
65 HILBERT 1921, p. 162.
66 See his remarks in JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges über Leipzig”), p. 2; and [Protocols] vol. 2.
67 Both dissertations were published in the Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik 28 (1883).
Oskar Herrmann’s thesis “Geometrische Untersuchungen über den Verlauf der elliptischen
Transcendenten im complexen Gebiete” (ibid. pp. 193–210, 257–73) is noteworthy because it
treated a prize problem formulated by Klein in October 1881; this work is missing (was
forgotten?) in the list of doctoral theses in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), Appendix, pp. 11–13.
68 Klein in JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges über Leipzig”), p. 3.
 5.3 Teaching Program 229

For the time being, I have to keep in mind how unpleasant the conditions are that, even in the
best case, define the intermediate stage of a mathematician’s development: much enthusiasm,
little success, and few good ideas. Among the most talented is Dr. [Friedrich] Engel, but he
will go to Christiania in the fall to study under [Sophus] Lie.69

Klein’s skepticism proved to be unfounded. This and the following seminar inclu-
ded further participants who would go on to earn doctoral degrees, complete Ha-
bilitationen, and become important collaborators. During Klein’s eleven semesters
in Leipzig, fifty-six people in all attended his seminars (see Table 6). In the last
semester, this group included David Hilbert, whom we could call an intellectual
grandchild of Klein, as he had done his graduate research with Klein’s former
students Lindemann and Hurwitz (see also Section 6.3.7.3).
The students who attended only Klein’s lecture courses are not listed in Table
6, though many of them also became outstanding researchers. Theodor Des
Coudres, for instance, attended Klein’s lectures for three semesters (1881–83),70
and later, in 1895, Klein would invite him to come to Göttingen to develop the
subject of applied electricity (see Section 7.8).
From the winter semester of 1880/81 to that of 1885/86, thirty-six students
completed their doctoral studies in Leipzig with a dissertation on mathematics. In
the case of twenty-two of these, Klein served as the main advisor. Of these, he
considered only the sixteen whose dissertation topics arose from his research
seminars to be his doctoral students. (Some of the other doctoral candidates were
already employed as teachers and submitted their theses externally.) Furthermore,
Klein served as the second reviewer on five other dissertation committees.
What these numbers mean can only be measured by comparing them to those
of other faculty members. During this same period, the two full professors Wil-
helm Scheibner and Carl Neumann supervised only five and three doctoral stu-
dents, respectively. The astronomer Heinrich Bruns supervised four mathemati-
cally oriented dissertations, and the psychologist Wilhelm Wundt was the main
advisor for two.
Even more informative is a comparison with Berlin, where from 1880 to 1886
only twelve students earned a doctoral degree.71 The era of Kummer (b. 1810),
Weierstrass (b. 1815), and Kronecker (b. 1832) was coming to an end. Two Ha-
bilitationen were completed in Berlin during this time (Johannes Knoblauch and
Carl Runge), while five were completed in Leipzig, one of which in the field of
astronomy.

69 [UBG] Math. Archiv 77: 155 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated June 3, 1884).
70 See the list of students in [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7 E.
71 The supervisors were Weierstrass (six times), Kronecker (four), and Kummer (two). Fuchs,
who replaced Kummer in 1884, had his first doctoral student (Lothar Heffter) on August 10,
1886. See BIERMANN 1988, pp. 355–56, 365.
230 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

Table 6: Participants in Klein’s Research Seminars, 1880/81–1885/8672

Nationalities: CH Swiss, Fr French, B British, I Italien, A Austro-Hungarian, R Russian
(including the Baltic states and Ukraine), US USA
V Attendance in Klein’s lecture course, S/s Participation with/without a presentation in the
seminar; F Famulus; A Assistant; E Extraordinarius; O Ordinarius; P Article in Math. Ann.;
*ENCYKLOPÄDIE author
Name 80/ 81 81/ 82 82/ 83 83/ 84 84/ 85 85/
81 82 83 84 85 86
Baumgart, O.73 S V VS
*Brunel, G. Fr VS VS P O
Büttner, F. VS VS V s
Domsch, P. V V V V S VS S VS
*Dyck, W. VSPP P P A P A P A S A P O
Herrmann, O. V VS VS VS V F
Hoppe, H. V V S S
Hurwitz, A. VS P VS P PP PP PP P PP P E P PP PPP
Kollert, J. V V S
Lange, E. VS F VS F VS F VS F V
Nimsch, P. V V V V VS VS VS s
Olbricht, R. V V V V VS VS VS
*Staude, O. VS VS VSPP VS VSPP P PP P P P PP E
Stöhr, F. S
Stringham, I. US VS VS O
Veronese, G. I VS VS P P O
Weichold, G. V V S S S
Biedermann, P. V V V V V VS VS VS F s
Böttger, A. V V V V V V Vs S S
Buchheim, A. B VS S
Dressler, H. VS S
Bobek, K. A S S P P P
*Dingeldey, F. S V s P
*Fischer, O. V V V VS F VS F VS F Vs
Herrmann, T. V V V V V V s S
Höckner, G.74 V V V V V V s S
Kantor, S. A s P s P P P P

72 The table is based on KÖNIG 1982, A8–10; KLEIN 1987, p. 239; [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7
E; [Protocols] vols. 2–8; the journal Mathematische Annalen; and the ENCYKLOPÄDIE.
73 Oswald Baumgart’s dissertation was titled “Über das quadratische Reciprocitätsgesetz: Eine
vergleichende Darstellung der Beweise des Fundamentaltheorems” (1885). An English trans-
lation has recently been published: The Quadratic Reciprocity Law: A Collection of Classical
Proofs, trans. Franz Lemmermeyer (Basel: Birkhäuser, 2015). For more information on
Baumgart, see HASHAGEN 2003, p. 126.
74 Höckner completed his doctorate in 1891 under the supervision of Bruns and Scheibner.
 5.3 Teaching Program 231

Name 80/ 81 81/ 82 82/ 83 83/ 84 84/ 85 85/

81 82 83 84 85 86
*Papperitz, E. V VS S VS P Vs P S P PP
Wirtz, K.75 V V V V V S
Wiener, H. S S
Engel, F. V P VS P P P
*Krazer, A. S S P
*Study, E. VS (V) V S PP PP
Friedrich, G. V VS VS VS S s
Gerbaldi, F. I S
*Fricke, R. VS VS VS s P
Krieg v. Hoch-
VS Vs
felden, F.
Molien, T. R VS VS Vs
Morera, G. I s VS P P O
Pick, G. A VS VSPP PP P PPP
Reichardt, W. V V Vs VS F VSPF
Cole, F. US V V s
Fiedler, E. CH VS VS s
Fine, H. US V V s
*Hölder, O. P P VS P P
Tikhomandrits-
P S P
kiy, M. A. R
Cornelius, H. Vs
Raussnitz,76G. A Vs S
Richter, O. V S S
Struve, L.77 R Vs
Waelsch, E. A Vs S
Weiß, W. A Vs S
Ameseder, A. A S
Hildebrand, R. s S
Witting, A.78 S S P
*Hilbert, D. S PP

Most of the participants in Klein’s seminar came from Saxony and went on to
become secondary school teachers; some taught at state institutions (Staatsan-
stalten) in Dresden (Alexander Witting) or Chemnitz (Paul Domsch, Heinrich
Hoppe). Erwin Papperitz held professorships at the Technische Hochschule in

75 Karl Wirtz followed Klein to Göttingen. In 1894, he became a professor of electrical engi-
neering at the TH Darmstadt, where he established the field of communications engineering.
76 Also known as Gusztáv Rados.
77 From St. Petersburg, Ludwig von Struve belonged to a famous family of astronomers.
78 In 1886, Alexander Witting submitted his dissertation to Klein in Göttingen.
232 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

Dresden and at the Mining Academy in Freiberg. Friedrich Dingeldey, who came
from Darmstadt, became a professor at the Technische Hochschule there, and
Robert Fricke, who was born near Braunschweig, became a professor at the Tech-
nische Hochschule in that city (he was Dedekind’s successor). Ernst Lange,
Klein’s first Famulus, worked as a school director before becoming an official in
the Saxon Ministry of Culture.79 Some of the seminar’s participants (A. Böttger,
H. Dressler, A. Witting) would make contributions to Klein’s five-volume book
project Abhandlungen über den mathematischen Unterricht in Deutschland
[Treatises on Mathematical Education in Germany],80 and eleven of them would
contribute as authors to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE.

5.4 THE KLEINIAN “FLOCK”

As he had done elsewhere, Klein gathered his students closely around him and
welcomed them into his family. In May 1884, Otto Hölder spoke of the “Kleinian
flock,” which he himself was at first reluctant to join:
There are 17 of us altogether in the seminar and everyone knows one another. Among these
are 5 doctors, three of them older than I. Aside from the fact that one meets in the work rooms
all the time, everyone also gets together on Monday evenings. […] Some of the mathematici-
ans also eat together, but I have avoided this from the first because I want to stay in contact
with my friends. This is probably all right: the opportunity to communicate with my peers
from mathematics is very nice, but I still don’t want to be entirely swallowed by the Kleinian
flock [Heerde].81

Hölder had come to Leipzig with many prejudices from Berlin. Ultimately, how-
ever, he was unable to resist Klein’s manner of both encouraging and promoting
people. On May 20th, he informed his parents that he had grown closer to Klein,
that he had visited him at home, and that he “had been introduced to Mrs. Klein
and invited on a boat tour the next day,” which ended in a café in the Rosental
park. Klein advised him about how to proceed with his Habilitation and told him
that he would be the right man to write the sorely needed textbook on differential
and integral calculus.82 Admiringly, Hölder wrote to his parents: “With Klein,
there are always interesting people who come to ‘pay him respect’ […]: Mr. Ti-
khomandritskiy from Kharkiv and Mr. Eneström from Uppsala, both Dozenten.”83
In what follows, I will take a closer look at those members of Klein’s “flock”,
who would complete a Habilitation with Klein’s encouragement, and I will also
provide profiles of the students who came to study under him from abroad.

79 See LOREY 1916, p. 168.

80 Prompted by the IMUK (ICMI) and edited by Felix KLEIN 1909–1916.
81 Quoted from HILDEBRANDT et al. 2014, p. 144 (Hölder to his parents, May 6, 1884).
82 See ibid., p. 147. Hölder would never write a book of this sort. Klein’s former student Axel
Harnack would publish a revised edition of Joseph Serret’s book; see Appendix 2.
83 Ibid., pp. 152–53 (Hölder to his parents, June 24, 1884). Regarding Tikhomandritskiy, see
Section 5.4.2.5; on Eneström, see Section 5.6.
 5.4 The Kleinian “Flock” 233

5.4.1 Post-Doctoral Mathematicians

In Leipzig, Felix Klein was able for the first time to supervise Habilitation
procedures himself. However, new problems arose, so that he once again felt as
though he had to recommend the best of his students to other universities. Klein
served as the main reviewer in four Habilitation procedures at the University of
Leipzig, and he paved the way for five additional successful procedures at other
universities.
In a letter to Friedrich Althoff, an influential official at the Prussian Ministry
of Culture, Klein listed the mathematicians who had attended his seminars and
then gone on to have academic careers. The list included the post-doctoral stu-
dents who completed their Habilitation between 1882 and 1885: Walther Dyck,
Friedrich Engel, and Eduard Study in Leipzig, as well as Adolf Hurwitz (Göttin-
gen), Otto Hölder (Göttingen), Adolf Krazer (Würzburg), Otto Staude (Breslau),
and Hermann Wiener (Halle).84 In 1881, Friedrich Schur completed his Habilita-
tion in Leipzig; although he was not Klein’s student, Klein served as a reviewer.
Friedrich Schur had earned his doctoral degree in 1879 under Kummer’s su-
pervision in Berlin with a thesis that drew upon the methods of Plücker, Klein,
and others. Schur had served as Weierstrass’s “blackboard writer”85 and had origi-
nally planned to complete his Habilitation under Weierstrass’s student H.A.
Schwarz in Göttingen. After a short time, however, he left Schwarz on account of
the latter’s rather difficult personality,86 with which Klein and Hurwitz also would
have first-hand experience. The Leipzig professor Wilhelm Scheibner agreed that
Schur could submit his Habilitation thesis – “Über die durch kollineare Grundge-
bilde erzeugten Kurven und Flächen” [On the Curves and Surfaces Created by
Collinear Basic Figures] – in Leipzig on October 10, 1880. The recently hired
Klein acted as a reviewer of this thesis, and he described Schur’s synthetic-geo-
metric approach as being of “systematic importance.” Klein remarked further:
“The author was not content simply to formulate general principles or to derive
already known results in a different way (as is so often the case in works on syn-
thetic geometry); rather, he succeeded in discovering truly new theorems.”87
Klein was able to coordinate the curriculum with Schur, who was open to his
suggestions. Thus Klein, after Dyck’s departure, made Schur his assistant, before
Eduard Study would boldly ask for this position.88 Klein arranged for Friedrich
Schur to become an associate professor in Leipzig on May 19, 1885.89 As of 1888,
Schur would hold full professorships in Tartu, Aachen, Karlsruhe, Straßburg
(until 1918), and Breslau.

84 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein, I B, fol. 23 (Klein to Althoff, October 1, 1885).

85 Ludwig Kiepert had held this same position (see Section 2.5.2).
86 See Friedrich Engel, “Friedrich Schur,” Jahresbericht DMV 45 (1935), pp. 1–31, esp. p. 6.
87 [UA Leipzig] PA 967 (Klein’s evaluation dated November 22, 1880).
88 [StA Dresden] 10281/184, fol. 23b.
89 [StA Dresden] 10281/276.
234 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

In a letter of recommendation for a job opportunity (Marburg, 1892), Klein

considered Schur to be a stronger candidate than Walther Dyck. Dyck’s works, he
wrote, were “neither numerous, and nor did they meet with more than modest
success.” As a teacher and organizer, however, he was “entirely incomparable.”
He ranked Schur between Friedrich Schottky and Dyck, and he regarded him as “a
respected theoretician and a talented teacher with a level-headed personality”.90
Walther Dyck was Klein’s first doctoral student whose Habilitation research
he could supervise himself. Dyck submitted the work on November 11, 1881, but
he immediately encountered a problem that did not exist at Bavarian or Prussian
universities. According to §1a of the University of Leipzig’s statutes governing
Habilitation procedures, it was necessary for candidates to have a secondary
school diploma from a humanistic Gymnasium,91 whereas Dyck held his from a
Realgymnasium. Many members of the Philosophical Faculty, which included the
humanities, natural sciences, and mathematics, did not want to deviate from this
rule. Klein had to employ his full power of persuasion to convince eleven faculty
members to change their votes. Eight others maintained their dissenting opinion.92
Subsequent candidates who likewise held diplomas from a Realgymnasium
(Adolf Hurwitz, Otto Hölder, Adolf Krazer, Hermann Wiener) had to submit their
Habilitation theses at other universities.
An exception was made for Dyck, who was allowed to submit his thesis –
“Gruppentheoretische Studien” [Group-Theoretical Studies] – in Leipzig. In the
colloquium held on January 25, 1882, Dyck answered Klein’s questions on group
theory in a satisfactory manner but also revealed certain gaps in his understanding
of other areas.93 On February 8, 1882, Dyck received the venia legendi for mathe-
matics. By the end of 1883, he was offered professorships by the Technische
Hochschule in Hanover and the Technische Hochschule in Munich. On April 1,
1884, he accepted the position in Munich, which was his hometown.
In 1887, when Klein sought to reduce his editorial role at Mathematische An-
nalen, Gordan wrote to him: “Dyck is the last person on my list; I have no con-
cerns about his drive, but I have some reservations concerning his lack of know-
ledge and achievements.”94 Klein nevertheless appointed Dyck to serve as his
“organizational” assistant, while he himself continued to oversee the content of
the journal and to find appropriate peer reviewers for submissions. Dyck remained
for the rest of his life at the Technische Hochschule in Munich, and he supported
Klein in further academic and organizational undertakings.
After earning his doctoral degree, Adolf Hurwitz spent one more semester
with Klein in Leipzig, one further semester in Berlin, and he was able to complete
his Habilitation in Göttingen in May of 1882. Although Klein’s name does not

90 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1C: 2, fols. 44–44v (Klein to Althoff, May 25, 1892).
91 [UA Leipzig] PA 425.
92 See HASHAGEN 2003, p. 119; and SCHLOTE 2004, p. 69.
93 See HASHAGEN 2003, p. 221.
94 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 546, fol. 64 (Gordan to Klein, November 22, 1887).
 5.4 The Kleinian “Flock” 235

appear anywhere in Hurwitz’s Habilitation records, it was Klein who made it

possible for him to earn the support of the Berlin-based mathematician Leopold
Kronecker (see also Section 5.5.2.1).
Kronecker knew how to win over the full professors in Göttingen, Ernst Sche-
ring and H.A. Schwarz. That is, Kronecker dissuaded Hurwitz from choosing a
number-theoretical topic for his Habilitation thesis – noting that “Schwarz does
not have a number-theoretical bone in his body” – and made the following re-
commendation instead: “Create a description of transcendental functions on hy-
perelliptic figures as products of Weierstrass’s prime functions.” Hurwitz had al-
ready worked out this problem, though he was somewhat less interested in this
topic.95 He consulted with Klein and agreed to follow Kronecker’s advice.96 Dur-
ing a visit to Göttingen, moreover, Klein succeeded in talking Schwarz out of the
idea that Hurwitz should first have to pass a teaching examination before he could
earn his Habilitation.97 The rather peculiar behavior of the “fat, unctuous Her-
mann Amandus Schwarz” – as Albert Einstein later called him in a letter to
Hurwitz – was widely known among his contemporaries.98
In his Habilitation application from April 24, 1882, Hurwitz also included his
Leipzig dissertation (and five articles), but – apparently for tactical reasons – he
did not mention Klein explicitly. He referred only to his studies with Weierstrass
and Kronecker in Berlin.99 The title of his Habilitation thesis was “Über die Pe-
rioden solcher eindeutiger 2n-fach periodischer Functionen, welche im Endlichen
überall den Character rationaler Functionen besitzen und reell sind für reelle
Werthe ihrer n Argumente” [On the Periods of Such Single-Valued 2n-Fold
Periodic Functions that, at Finite Places, Possess Throughout the Character of
Rational Functions and Are Real for Real Values of Their n Arguments].
H.A. Schwarz, who was tasked with reviewing Hurwitz’s work, examined not
only the Habilitation thesis, which was closely related to Weierstrass’s ideas, but
also the doctoral dissertation. Unlike Hilbert (see Section 4.2.4.2), Schwarz did
not acknowledge Klein’s contribution to the field. Rather, he stated that the text
deals “with matters to which a large number of mathematicians have devoted
themselves in recent years – an area of research that essentially has as its object an
appropriate generalization of Jacobi’s concept of the module and Jacobi’s modular
and multiplier equations.” But Schwarz rightly judged Hurwitz to be “a young
man with an unusual gift for scientific mathematical research.”100 In addition to
Schwarz, the committee also included the physicist Eduard Riecke (a friend of
Klein’s) as well as Wilhelm Weber, J.B. Listing, and M.A. Stern, so it was other-
wise stacked in Hurwitz’s favor.

95 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 908 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated January 29, 1882).
96 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 59, 60 (Klein to Hurwitz, February 18, 1882; and February 22, 1882).
97 Ibid. 77: 61 (Klein to Hurwitz, March 19, 1882).
98 EINSTEIN 1998, p. 13 (a letter to Hurwitz dated May 4, 1914).
99 [UAG] Phil. Fak. 167a, VIII 4e.
100 [UAG] Phil. Fak. 167a, VIII 4b.
236 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

Hurwitz’s colloquium took place on May 11, 1882, and his public lecture in
defense of his Habilitation – “Über die Methoden der neueren Geometrie” [On the
Methods of Newer Geometry] – was held on Saturday, May 13th, at noon.101 Ernst
Schering, then the Dekan of the Philosophical Faculty, sent a positive report about
it to the Prussian minister of culture Gustav von Goßler in Berlin. Hurwitz taught
successfully for four semesters, so that, in December of 1883, Stern, Schering,
and Schwarz applied for him to receive a Privatdozent stipendium of 1,500
Mark.102 This application helped Hurwitz’s career in Prussia, though only to the
extent that he was soon offered a low-paying associate professorship instead. Thus
the stipendium did not have to be paid. On April 1, 1884, Hurwitz received a pre-
liminary (nicht-etatmäßig) lecturership at the University of Königsberg with the
prospect of soon replacing Johann Georg Rosenhain, who was in poor health, as
an associate professor.103 Klein’s former doctoral student Lindemann, who was
now full professor in Königsberg, had proposed this at Klein’s instigation.104
On May 25, 1885, Hurwitz informed Klein without any further commentary:
“I have recently become salaried; I will receive a 2,000 Mark salary, including an
extra 600 Mark for living expenses, although the real budget of this position is
3,660 Mark.”105 Hurwitz would have to be content with such a low annual salary.
In Königsberg, Hurwitz impressed the rising stars David Hilbert and Hermann
Minkowski with the breadth of his knowledge, which surpassed that of Ferdinand
Lindemann. In Hilbert’s judgement, Hurwitz combined the knowledge of “two
schools that complement each other excellently: Klein’s geometric school and the
algebraic-analytic school in Berlin.”106
For a long time, Hurwitz remained Klein’s most important mathematical
contact person. Despite writing glowing recommendations for him, however,
Klein failed to secure a full professorship for him in Germany. The main reason
for this was the prevalence of anti-Semitism among the members of hiring com-
mittees (see also Appendix 6.1 and 6.2).107
Otto Staude had been studying in Leipzig since 1876,108 but it was not until
Klein arrived and supervised him that he was able to produce results suitable for a
dissertation: “Über lineare Gleichungen zwischen elliptischen Coordinaten” [On

101 [UAG] Kur. 6216, fols. 7–8.

102 Ibid., fols. 9–10. In 1883/84, Hurwitz had fourteen students in his course on number theory
and eighteen students in his course on surfaces of the second order.
103 Ibid., fols. 1–6 (a letter dated January 26, 1884).
104 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 954, 956, 961 (Hurwitz’s letters to Klein).
105 Ibid. 9: 999 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated May 25, 1885).
106 David Hilbert, “Adolf Hurwitz,” Math. Ann. 83 (1921), pp. 161–72, at p. 163.
107 For example, Klein recommended both Max Noether and Adolf Hurwitz for a professorship
in Hanover, but Ludwig Kiepert (a professor there) wrote to him on January 25, 1884: “I
would not have succeeded here in hiring a Jew” ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 103). Klein
also recommended Hurwitz for a professorship at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden, and
wrote to Karl Rohn there: “Hurwitz’s lecture is like the style of his academic work: well
thought-through, clear, and insightful” ([StA Dresden] 1020/17, Klein to Rohn, May 3, 1888).
108 See Friedrich Schur, “Nachruf auf Otto Staude,” Jahresbericht DMV 40 (1930), pp. 219–22.
 5.4 The Kleinian “Flock” 237

Linear Equations Between Elliptic Coordinates], which he submitted on March

13, 1881. Just a year later, Staude developed a thread construction of an ellipsoid
that Klein thought was one of the most elegant results ever to come out of his se-
minar.109 Staude’s construction made use of a fixed framework consisting of the
ellipse and a hyperbola.110 Klein considered the result so important that he had
Scheibner present it as early as March 6, 1882, at a meeting of the Royal Society
of Sciences in Leipzig (Klein himself was not yet a member; see Section 5.7.3). A
longer version of Staude’s work appeared in Mathematische Annalen, where the
author thanked Klein in particular for pointing out to him the geometric signifi-
cance of the differential equations that he used.111
Staude participated in Klein’s four-person seminar at the end of 1882 (see
Section 5.5.2.3). It was in this context that he conceived of his Habilitation thesis,
which he was able to submit to the University of Breslau in 1883: “Geometrische
Deutung der Additionstheoreme der hyperelliptischen Integrale und Functionen 1.
Ordnung im System der confocalen Flächen 2. Grades” [The Geometric Interpre-
tation of the Addition Theorems of the Hyperelliptic Integrals and Functions of
the First Order in the System of Confocal Surfaces of the Second Degree].112
Staude trusted that Klein would continue to support his future career.113 In a letter
to Axel Harnack, Klein praised Otto Staude’s extraordinary knowledge of schol-
arly literature, his excellent work on hyperelliptic functions, and his valuable
contributions to the edition of Möbius’s work (see Section 5.7.3).114 In 1886,
Staude became an associate professor in Tartu, and he was hired as a full profes-
sor in Rostock in 1888. For the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (vol. III, Geometry), he wrote the
article on surfaces of the second order (1904).
The next Habilitation candidate, Adolf Krazer, had earned his doctoral degree
under Friedrich Prym in Würzburg in 1881; the title of his thesis was “Theorie der
zweifach unendlichen Thetareihen auf Grund der Riemannschen Thetaformel”
[The Theory of Twofold Infinite Theta Series on the Basis of Riemann’s Theta
Formula]. He had done some postdoctoral research under Weierstrass and Kron-
ecker in Berlin. Yet the topic of his Habilitation thesis did not come to him until
he moved to Leipzig.115 In Klein’s seminar in the summer of 1882, Krazer analy-
zed Paul du Bois-Reymond’s results concerning Fourier integrals.116 He participa-
ted in Klein’s four-person seminar in the winter of 1882, and he submitted his
Habilitation thesis – “Über Thetafunctionen, deren Charakteristiken aus Dritteln
ganzer Zahlen gebildet sind” [On Theta Functions Whose Characteristics Are
Formed from Thirds of Whole Numbers] – to the University of Würzburg in 1883.

109 See KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 321; and [Protocols] vol. 3, pp. 141–42.
110 Staude’s thread construction is explained in HILBERT/COHN-VOSSEN 1952 [1932], pp. 19–24.
111 Otto Staude, “Ueber Fadenconstruktionen des Ellipsoids,” Math. Ann. 20 (1882), pp. 147–84.
112 The thesis was published in Math. Ann. 22 (1883), pp. 1–69, 145–76.
113 [UBG] Cod MS. F. Klein 11: 1124 (a letter from Staude to Klein dated December 28, 1884).
114 [StA Dresden] 10210/17 (a letter from Klein to Axel Harnack dated January 15, 1885).
115 See Karl Boehm, “Adolf Krazer,” Jahresbericht DMV 37 (1928), pp. 1–33, esp. p. 14.
116 [Protocols] vol. 4, 22–30, 69–82, 133–46, 207–18 (Krazer’s seminar presentations).
238 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

In this thesis, he remarks: “In the present work, which owes its genesis to inspira-
tions gained from my personal interactions with Professor Klein […].”117
Krazer became a professor in Strasbourg and Karlsruhe. He remained in close
contact with Klein. They cooperated as members of the German Mathematical
Society, and in 1920-22 still worked together in the mathematics division of the
Emergency Association of German Science (see 9.4.1). For the ENCYKLOPÄDIE,
Krazer wrote the article on Abelian functions and general theta functions.118
On June 23, 1884, Otto Hölder applied for permission to submit his Habilita-
tion thesis in Göttingen, after Klein had steered him toward an appropriate topic.
In the vita appended to this text, Hölder referred to the experience that he gained
from participating in Klein’s mathematical seminar.119 This Habilitation thesis
consisted of Hölder’s doctoral dissertation – “Beiträge zur Potentialtheorie”
[Contributions to Potential Theory] – and four additional studies (two from
Mathematische Annalen and two unpublished articles). H.A. Schwarz based his
official review primarily on Weierstrass’s and Kronecker’s positive opinion of
Hölder’s work. After Hölder’s colloquium on July 17, 1884, and after his defense
lecture – “Ueber eine Methode, gewisse Grenzübergänge nach einer allgemeinen
Regel elementar-geometrisch zu behandeln” [On a Method to Treat Certain Lim-
iting Processes According to a General Rule in an Elementary Geometric Way] –
Hölder received the venia legendi for mathematics on July 23rd.120
In comparison to Hurwitz’s, Hölder’s lectures as a Privatdozent in Göttingen
were not very well attended: 1884/85 algebraic equations (2 students); 1885 dif-
ferential equations (5 students), theory of series (Reihentheorie, 1 student), and
determinants (11 students); 1885/86 algebraic analysis (12 students); and in 1886
the theory of definite integrals (4 students). Nevertheless, on August 12, 1886, the
Philosophical Faculty applied to promote Hölder to the position of associate pro-
fessor to replace the late Alfred Enneper.121 On April 1, 1887, however, the Min-
istry of Culture approved no more than a one-year Privatdozent stipendium of
1,500 Mark, with a chance for an extension. Hölder was not promoted to associate
professor until April 1, 1889, with a yearly salary of 1,800 Mark. In October of
1889, he accepted a professorship at the University of Tübingen.122
Hölder was a strong individualist. In letters to his parents, he wrote critical
remarks about both Schwarz and Klein. When Klein left for Göttingen in 1886,
Hölder continued teaching as Privatdozent there. He refused to participate with
Klein in a joint colloquium, for he feared that he might lose his “independent cha-
racter as a teacher”123 (see Section 6.2.3). With the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project, howe-
ver, Hölder did agree to play along. He not only wrote the article on Galois theory

117 Math. Ann. 22 (1883), pp. 416–49, at p. 417.

118 It is published in vol. II.2 (Analysis), pp. 604–873. The entry is dated December 5, 1920.
119 [UAG] Philos. Fak. 170a (1.7.1884–1885), p. 34n.
120 [UAG] Kur. 5970, pp. 1–3.
121 [UAG] Philos. Fak. 172a, Nos. 75a, 75c–75e.
122 [UAG] Kur. 5970, pp. 4–31.
123 HILDEBRANDT et al. 2014, p. 216 (a letter from Hölder to his parents dated May 6, 1886).
 5.4 The Kleinian “Flock” 239

and its applications for vol. 1 (Arithmetic and Algebra, 1899); he also became a
member of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE’s editorial committee (see section 7.4).
Hermann Wiener was a son of the mathematician Christian Wiener, whose
model of cubic surfaces had inspired Klein when he was a student (see Section
2.8.3.4). Hermann Wiener began his doctoral studies in Munich in 1879. After
finishing his doctoral degree there in 1881 – the title of his dissertation was “Über
Involutionen auf ebenen Curven” [On Involutions on Plane Curves] – he moved to
Leipzig to continue his studies with Klein. He gave presentations in Klein’s semi-
nar on conformal mapping (December 12, 1881) and on the works of Georg Can-
tor (July 10, 1882), who would ultimately, in 1885, serve as the reviewer of Wie-
ner’s Habilitation thesis in Halle. The title of this thesis was “Rein geometrische
Theorie der Darstellung binärer Formen durch Punktgruppen auf der Geraden” [A
Purely Geometric Theory of the Representation of Binary Forms by Means of
Groups of Points on a Straight Line]. In the meantime, Wiener was also active in
Karlsruhe, where he served as his father’s assistant. In 1894, after many years of
working as a Privatdozent in Halle, he received a professorship at the Technische
Hochschule in Darmstadt. He made especially important contributions to the
foundations of geometry. In 1890, Wiener was, like Cantor and Klein, one of the
founding members of the German Mathematical Society (see Section 6.4.4).
Friedrich Engel’s career path was shaped by the fact that Felix Klein and
Adolph Mayer sent him, with a Kregel-von-Sternbach scholarship,124 to study
under Sophus Lie in Christiania (Oslo). Engel had been studying in Leipzig since
1879, and Adolph Mayer had already introduced him to Lie’s work. Engel’s dis-
sertation – “Zur Theorie der Berührungstransformationen” [On the Theory of
Contact Transformations]125 – was submitted on May 7, 1883. It was officially
evaluated by Felix Klein and Scheibner because Mayer (Engel’s true supervisor)
was not a full professor and was therefore not permitted to do so. Klein sent En-
gel’s dissertation to Sophus Lie and notified him at the end of 1883 that “help”
was on the way.126 Shortly before, Lie had written the following to Klein:
For several years, I abandoned transformation groups and differential equations and concer-
ned myself with geometry. Now I am turning back to them, and I regret, in a way, that I put
my most important studies aside, and they therefore remained unnoticed. For each year that
passes I become more certain that the theory of transformation groups will shed completely
new light on the theory of differential equations. If I could only collect and edit all my re-
sults!127

In the summer of 1884, after Engel had completed his doctoral degree, he atten-
ded Klein’s lectures on elliptic functions, and he gave presentations in the related
seminar. Because his trip to Norway was already planned at this point, Klein

124 Karl Friedrich Kregel von Sternbach, the last male descendent of a noble family, donated a
large part of his fortune to the University of Leipzig.
125 This thesis was published in Math. Ann. 23 (1884), pp. 1–44.
126 See also STUBHAUG 2002, p. 310.
127 Quoted from STRØM 1992, p. 8.
240 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

made sure that Freidrich Engel was familiar with all the scholarly literature that he
should know (works by Jordan, Sylow, Kronecker, and so on). At the same time,
it is clear from Engel’s entries in Klein’s protocol book that he had studied
Klein’s lectures closely. In an entry dated July 25, 1884, for instance, Engel
noted: “In his course on elliptic functions on July 24, 1884, Prof. Klein presented
a very elegant proof of the Abelian relations without the use of series and without
second-order functions.”128 In Klein’s eyes, Friedrich Engel was a “ray of hope”
(Hoffnungsstrahl), as he put it in a letter to Hurwitz.
It was expected that Engel would assist Sophus Lie, who hoped at the time “to
compile all my studies on transformation groups into a single book.”129 While in
Norway, where Engel arrived in September of 1884, he also produced important
results for his Habilitation thesis, “Über die Definitionsgleichungen der continu-
ierlichen Transformationsgruppen” [On the Definition Equations of Continuous
Transformation Groups], which Klein evaluated on May 15, 1885. Lie was im-
pressed with Engel’s originality, and he stressed that Engel’s thesis offered “a
new general method for determining all continuous groups.”130 Drawing from the
judgments of Lie and Mayer, Klein heartily endorsed “the acceptance of the can-
didate’s Habilitation achievements, and all the more so because the candidate’s
earlier publications have already made it easy to recognize that he is a talented
and diligent mathematician.”131 Engel completed his Habilitation process on Oc-
tober 26, 1885, with a lecture entitled “Anwendung der Gruppentheorie auf Diffe-
rentialgleichungen” [The Application of Group Theory to Differential Equations].
Even after Lie had moved to Leipzig in 1886 (see Section 5.8.3), Engel remained
his right-hand man throughout the production of Lie’s book Theorie der Trans-
formationsgruppen (3 vols., Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1888/1890/1893), where
Engel’s assistance is acknowledged on the title page.
In 1889, Engel became an associate professor in Leipzig. In 1892, when Klein
asked him whether he might want to be the main editor of the works of Hermann
Graßmann, Engel did not hesitate to take charge of the project (see Section 5.7.3).
After Sophus Lie had returned to Norway, Engel was made an honorary professor
in Leipzig. Later, he held full professorships in Greifswald (1904) and Gießen
(1913), and he collaborated in the edition of Leonhard Euler’s Opera omnia.
Eduard Study completed his Habilitation procedure in Leipzig one day after
Engel had done the same. Unlike the other postdoctoral researchers profiled here,
Study was an autodidact and an egocentric character who was demanding but
gave little in return. This necessarily led to controversies, and Study was involved
in many of them, with Klein and others.132 He came to Leipzig after studying
zoology under Ernst Haeckel in Jena and mathematics under Theodor Reye in

128 [Protocols] vol. 6, pp. 63–75, 90–100, here at p. 100.

129 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 704, 706/1 (Lie to Klein, in the end of 1884).
130 Ibid. 10: 707 (an undated letter, sent in 1885, from Lie to Klein).
131 [UA Leipzig] PA 436, fols. 4, 4R, here at fol. 4R.
132 See the mathematician Wolfgang KRULL 1970, and the thesis of Yvonne HARTWICH 2005.
 5.4 The Kleinian “Flock” 241

Strasbourg. In the summer semester of 1882, he attended Klein’s lecture course

and gave a presentation in Klein’s seminar (on the graphical illustration of Fourier
series, May 1, 1882).133 Impressed by this, Klein considered him qualified to edit
his aforementioned fifteen special lectures (see KLEIN 1883).
Because Klein canceled his advanced lecture course in 1882/83 and only
taught his seminar, Study left in order to continue his work in Munich in the fall
of 1882. While there, he remained in contact with Klein. Against Klein’s wishes,
however, Study submitted his dissertation, which drew upon Graßmann’s Aus-
dehnungslehre (theory of extension), to Gustav Bauer and Ludwig Seidel at the
University of Munich. Admittedly, he acknowledged Klein’s influence in the vita
appended to his thesis: “I am obligated to express special thanks to Prof. Klein for
much personal inspiration and support.”134 However, he overestimated himself
and believed that Klein would publish his entire dissertation in Mathematische
Annalen and would choose him to be his assistant in Leipzig. In both cases, he
was wrong.135 He nevertheless counted on Klein’s support during the next stages
of his career.136 Klein recommended that Study should continue working on a
topic that he had already begun to examine while at the Technische Hochschule
Munich: the application of the calculus of enumerative geometry (abzählende Ge-
ometrie, as established by Chasles, Halphen, Schubert, and others) to the problem
of fourth-order space curves. This research culminated in Study’s Habilitation
thesis. From today’s perspective, the topic was ambitious but not generally solv-
able with the methods available at the time. As already mentioned in connection
to Hermann Schubert (see Section 2.4.1), Hilbert based Problem 15 on this very
issue in his Paris lecture (HILBERT 1900). It would not be solved until the late
1920s, when Bartel Leendert van der Waerden found a general solution with new
topological methods.
The title of Study’s Habilitation thesis was “Ueber die Geometrie der Kegel-
schnitte, insbesondere deren Charakteristikenproblem” [On the Geometry of Co-
nic Sections, Particularly the Problem of Their Characteristics].137 Klein recogni-
zed Study’s academic achievement in his long official review of the work, which
is dated July 6, 1885. Here he described Study’s point of departure, which was the
general question, first posed by Chasles some twenty years before, “concerning
the number of conic sections that satisfy five given conditions,” and he noted how
Chasles had reduced the question “to simple but unproven principles.” Making
use of the work of Schubert, Halphen, and others, Study “redirected the question
and asked for those enumerative rules (Abzählregeln) that must be taken as a basis
if Chasles’s formulae are to be maintained in all cases.” Klein went on:

133 [Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 1–5.

134 Quoted from HARTWICH 2005, p. 49.
135 [StA Dresden] 10281/184, p. 22.
136 On this topic, see HARTWICH 2005, pp. 53–60 (an analysis of Study’s letters to Klein).
137 The thesis was published in Math. Ann. 27 (1886), pp. 58–101.
242 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

In this formulation, one sees a characteristic tendency – choosing mathematical definitions in

such a way that general theorems remain valid; this is also the case with respect to his ap-
proach. The candidate follows the concepts and definitions of invariant theory (Gordan),
which he combines with Grassmann’s ideas in a way that leads to a special and very concise
representation. I attach less importance to the form of this representation than to the fact that
it permits the studies on conic sections to be transferred to other simple geometric entities,
such as triples or quadruples of points on a straight line, whereby a broader perspective is
gained that the author intends to pursue in later publications. At the same time, his represen-
tation of well-known theories yields a number of interesting details, which I will only point
out parenthetically […].138

After this positive evaluation, Klein critiqued some formal aspects of the work,
which would have to be corrected before its publication, and then he endorsed
“permitting the candidate to advance to the final stages of the Habilitation proce-
dure.” In the end, however, he could not refrain from making a personal remark:
Dr. Study has an independent and sensitive nature. If he could learn to subordinate, more than
hitherto, his subjective impulses to the requirements of a given situation and if, furthermore,
his health will allow him to master the efforts needed to penetrate deeper into the essential
problems of our science, then I hope that his Habilitation will lead to a fundamental ad-
vancement of the mathematical studies conducted at our university.139

Klein helped Study to prepare his Habilitation thesis for publication, and he re-
commended that he should take a study trip to Paris. Hilbert, who traveled with
him, wrote to Hurwitz about Study’s headstrong behavior.140 Study repeatedly
rubbed people the wrong way, and he never shied away from conflict. As the edi-
tor of Mathematische Annalen, Klein found himself involved in Study’s polemics
with various colleagues (Halphen, Zeuthen, Cayley). Klein attempted to mediate
and smooth matters over. He ultimately attested that Study was “unwaveringly
opinionated” and “intolerant” of other people’s points of view, and he was tired of
Study holding him responsible for his own precarious position.141 As a Privat-
dozent, Eduard Study relocated from Leipzig (Saxony) to Marburg (Prussia) in
1888, and afterwards he tried his luck in the United States. He reunited with Klein
at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 (see Section 7.4.1), and – unknown until now
– it was Klein who, by writing the following favorable evaluation to the Prussian
Ministry of Culture, facilitated Study’s return to Germany:
Regarding Study, whom I have seen every day for the past three weeks, I have very good
things to report. The congress and the subsequent colloquium here have given him the op-
portunity to forge many personal relationships with other scholars and have allowed his own
academic brilliance to shine. For my part, I can add that, in terms of creative power, Study is
one of our best young people and that he ranks just beneath Hilbert and Minkowski.142

138 [UA Leipzig] PA 993, pp. 6–7.

139 Ibid., p. 7.
140 See REID 1970, p. 20.
141 For more details about their relationship, see HARTWICH 2005, pp. 60–63, 73–86.
142 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1 C 2, fol. 70 (a draft of a letter from Klein to Althoff, dated Sep-
tember 12, 1893). In light of this document, it is clear that the following widely used com-
 5.4 The Kleinian “Flock” 243

In Prussia, Eduard Study would go on to hold an associate professorship (Bonn,

1894) and two full professorships (Greifswald, 1897; Bonn, 1904). He never ac-
knowledged Klein’s advocacy on his behalf, and he continued to stir up conflict.
He even caused trouble with his ENCYKLOPÄDIE article on the theory of general
and higher complex quantities (vol. 1, pp. 147–83). It took him two years to
complete this relatively short article, and he was unwilling to accept any of the
changes suggested by Franz Meyer, Hilbert, and Klein. Ever overestimating his
own abilities, Study was outraged by the fact that Klein had recommended that he
cite one of his own articles: “It’s unbelievable how shamelessly Klein is using this
encyclopedia for purposes of self-promotion.”143 Klein’s critique was justified,
however, as Study’s article failed to mention certain researchers important in the
field, such as Hamilton, who had explained complex numbers as pairs of real
numbers and introduced the quaternions.144 Later, Study admitted that he had oc-
casionally treated Klein unfairly, for Klein had possessed knowledge that he him-
self had only recently come to understand.145 In the end, Study numbered among
the many donors who made it possible for Max Liebermann to paint Klein’s por-
trait (see Fig. 40, and Appendix 10, Fig. 43).
Study achieved results that have been described as “the most original and sig-
nificant contributions to geometry in the spirit of the Erlangen Program.”146 Nev-
ertheless, he continued to act polemically toward his colleagues, including Klein
and (later) Hermann Weyl. In an article from 1949 (long after Study’s death), this
motivated Weyl’s blunt and rather exaggerated description of Study as “Felix
Klein’s contemporary and life-long enemy.”147

5.4.2 Klein’s Foreign Students in Leipzig

Because of the central location and the status of the University of Leipzig, and as
a result of Klein’s international contacts, a growing number of students came from
abroad to study under the young researcher. Just as Sophus Lie, knowing that they
would be well supported, had already encouraged Scandinavian students not to go
to Berlin but to work with Klein instead, colleagues from France, Great Britain,
Italy, Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, and the United States sent some of their stu-
dents Klein’s way as well.

ment made by the mathematician Gerhard Kowalewski in his autobiography is off the mark:
“Of course, Klein never recommended [Eduard] Study for any position” (KOWALEWSKI 1950,
p. 140).
143 Quoted from HARTWICH 2005, pp. 96–97.
144 On this topic, see HASHAGEN 2003, p. 453.
145 See HARTWICH 2005, pp. 106–07.
146 Ibid., pp. 106–12. See also ZIEGLER 1985, p. 102.
147 WEYL 1949, p. 535. On the feud between Study and Weyl, see HARTWICH 2005, pp. 129–34.
244 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

5.4.2.1 The First Frenchman and the First Briton

Georges Brunel, Klein’s first French student, came to Leipzig for two semesters
(beginning with the winter semester of 1880/81), after he had passed the Agréga-
tion (a teaching examination for those seeking careers in secondary schools) at the
École Supérieure. Klein’s first British student, Arthur Buchheim, came half a year
later (see Table 6). He had been trained by Henry Smith in Oxford.148
Buchheim gave three presentations in Klein’s seminar (on May 5, November
14 and 16, 1881), each of which analyzed the scholarly literature devoted to Abe-
lian integrals. Klein further supported his career by writing a (requested) recom-
mendation on his behalf.149 Although Buchheim died young in 1888, he published
twenty-four articles over the course of his brief career, some of which are still
cited.150 Eduard Study was influenced by Buchheim’s work on line geometry.151
Research on Alfred North Whitehead has revealed that this famous British
philosopher and mathematician used a free semester (in 1885) to go to Germany
and take part in Klein’s lectures, although there are no references to this visit in
Klein’s or Whitehead’s papers.152 Later, however, Whitehead would cite Arthur
Buchheim, whose writings helped him to develop his calculus of extension, and
he would also cite Klein’s articles, especially those on non-Euclidean geometry.153
Georges Brunel came with a letter of recommendation from Gaston Dar-
boux.154 Klein felt an obligation to Darboux to guide Brunel toward achieving his
own results. After Brunel had given three presentations in his seminar – on deter-
mining the genus p (November 20, 1880), on analysis situs (January 31, 1881),
and on the theory of manifolds (May 2, 1881),155 Klein wrote to Darboux:
I do have to write a few words to you about Brunel. He is remarkably receptive, and there is
hardly anything that he has not read and really understood too. That said, the progress with
his productivity has been slow; every attempt (and there have been many) to encourage him
to work more boldly has so far failed. Only recently has he begun to study curvature radii,
and I have of course supported his efforts, from which something publishable will hopefully
emerge. This is not to say that he isn’t very valuable to me personally. My interactions with
him are friendly, but somewhat awkward. Despite his efforts, the German language still cau-
ses difficulties for him.156

148 Regarding mathematicians in Oxford (UK), see FAUVEL/FLOOD/WILSON 2013.

149 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 8:324/Anl.: Klein’s Report on A. Buchheim, April 30, 1882).
150 See https://nhigham.com/2013/01/31/arthur-buchheim/ (accessed May 11, 2020).
151 See HARTWICH 2005, p. 36.
152 See LOWE 1990, pp. 151–52. – Michael Rahnfeld (Weddingstedt) is currently working on
Whitehead’s metaphysics and the Erlangen Program, and I am grateful to him for informing
me about how philosophers made use of Klein’s Erlangen Program to classify philosophical
systems. Regarding Ernst Cassirer, see IHMIG 1997.
153 See, for example, Alfred N. Whitehead, A Treatise on Universal Algebra with Applications,
vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898), p. x.
154 See RICHTER 2015; and TOBIES 2016.
155 [Protocols] vol. 2, 76–79, 114–20; vol. 3, 14–19.
156 [Paris] 72–73: Klein to Darboux, May 3, 1881.
 5.4 The Kleinian “Flock” 245

Shortly thereafter, Klein reported that progress had been made: “Brunel has re-
cently brought me a manuscript in which he compiled formulae for the curvature
situation in curves in n dimensions; I asked him to prepare it for publication in the
Annalen.”157 Klein had found the best way to foster Brunel’s talents by pointing
him to Camille Jordan’s “Essai sur la géométrie à n dimensions.” On June 3,
1881, Brunel was thus able to complete his first article: “Sur les propriétés métri-
ques des courbes dans un espace linéaire à n dimensions.”158
At the same time, Klein asked Brunel to reach out to Henri Poincaré; how-
ever, some nationalistic undertones in Brunel’s letters to Poincaré were to have an
adverse effect on the latter’s relations with Klein (see Section 5.5.3.2). In 1884,
Brunel became a professor in Bordeaux, and his later contribution to the German
edition of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (he wrote the article on definite integrals in vol. 2,
1899) can be interpreted as an expression of thanks to Klein.

5.4.2.2 The First Americans

Irving W. Stringham, who was the first American to come to Leipzig to work with
Klein (and who was two years Klein’s senior), had completed a doctoral degree in
1880 under James Joseph Sylvester at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore
with a dissertation titled “Regular Figures in n-Dimensional Space.” He was en-
thusiastic about the international, stimulating atmosphere that Klein fostered; he
had a strong command of German; and he gave three presentations in Klein’s se-
minar: on four-dimensional regular bodies (November 29, 1880), on groups of
motions of four-dimensional bodies (February 28, 1881), and on self-transforma-
tions of groups (April 23, 1881).159 Stringham referred to his dissertation research
and, in his third lecture, he presented new results that were based on suggestions
by Klein. He analyzed what groups of linear transformations exist in four vari-
ables and which of them provide regular bodies, stressing: “The principle on
which my consideration of the problem is based comes from a lecture by Prof.
Klein from last year: ‘On Motions in Non-Euclidean Space’ (see Protocol Book
for the winter semester of 1880/81, p. 97).”160 While still in Saxony, Stringham
completed an article based on this third presentation, the results of which origina-
ted through his discussions with Klein. This article was published in the oldest
American journal devoted to mathematics: the American Journal of Mathematics,
which had been founded in 1878 by Sylvester.161 As early as 1882, Stringham was
hired as a professor at the University of California in Berkeley.

157 [Paris] 74: Klein to Darboux, May 28, 1881.

158 The article appeared in Math. Ann. 19 (1882), pp. 37–55.
159 [Protocols] vol. 2, 46–66, 147–64; vol. 3, 31–50.
160 [Protocols] vol. 3, 32.
161 Irving Stringham, “Determination of the Finite Quaternion Groups,” American Journal of
Mathematics 4 (1881), pp. 345–57. – See also DESPEAUX 2008.
246 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

The next two Americans came to Leipzig in the summer semester of 1884,
after Felix Klein had declined an offer to replace Sylvester at Johns Hopkins (see
Section 5.8.1). Henry Burchard Fine and Frank Nelson Cole arrived with insuffi-
cient language skills. In this regard, Otto Hölder made the following remark on
April 23, 1884: “Here is an Italian, there an American, and neither can speak
German or French.”162 Fine and Cole attended Klein’s lecture courses for two
semesters and also participated in his seminar in the summer of 1885, though
neither gave a presentation. Nevertheless, they completed their doctoral research
relatively quickly. Supported by Eduard Study, Fine submitted his dissertation in
Leipzig on May 27, 1885: “On the Singularities of Curves of Double Curva-
ture.”163 Fine was Klein’s only doctoral student to earn his degree (at a German
university) with a dissertation not written in German. Later, in 1893 and 1896,
Fine invited Klein to Princeton University (see Sections 7.5.3 and 8.1.3).
Frank Nelson Cole finished his doctoral degree in 1886 at Harvard University
with a dissertation inspired by Klein: “A Contribution to the Theory of the Gen-
eral Equation of the Sixth Degree.” This work was published in the American
Journal of Mathematics (vol. 8 [1886], pp. 265–86), in which Fine’s dissertation
had also appeared. In addition to this journal, which was now edited by Simon
Newcomb,164 there existed at the time just one other mathematics journal in the
United States, a fact that sheds some light on the state of research there. Cole, who
at first taught at Harvard, received his first professorship at the University of
Michigan, where he brought along Klein’s geometric approach to function theory
and further disseminated Klein’s enthusiasm for the subject. For example, Cole’s
student Edward Kasner based his aforementioned doctoral thesis on Klein’s
Erlangen Program, and spent 1899/1900 in Göttingen with Klein and Hilbert.

5.4.2.3 The Italians

Giuseppe Veronese had studied engineering and mathematics at the Polytechni-

kum in Zurich and had then held an assistantship in Rome under Cremona, who
recommended that he should continue his studies with Klein. Veronese attended
Klein’s lecture courses in the winter semester of 1880/81 and the summer semes-
ter of 1881; he also participated in Klein’s seminar, in which he gave presentati-
ons of some of his own results that he had already published. Thus, on January 3,
1881, he spoke on the theorie of projective groups and entered this talk into
Klein’s protocol book (vol. 2) under the title “Ueber einige merkwürdige Configu-

162 HILDEBRANDT et al. 2014, p. 142 (a letter from Hölder to his parents, April 23, 1884).
163 In: American Journal of Mathematics 8 (1886), pp. 156–77 (Study’s suggestions are acknow-
ledged on p. 158). – “Curves of double curvature are usually just called space curves; the
terminology derived from the fact that such curves have non-zero curvature and torsion,
whereas the torsion vanishes for plane curves.” Quoted from PARSHALL/ROWE 1994, p. 194.
164 Newcomb was Sylvester’s successor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
 5.4 The Kleinian “Flock” 247

rationen” [On a Few Noteworthy Configurations]. On April 25, 1881 (Klein’s

32nd birthday), Veronese presented new research in a lecture titled “Ueber die dar-
stellende Geometrie im Raume von 4 Dimensionen” [On Descriptive Geometry in
4-Dimensional Space].165 With Klein’s encouragement, he expanded the ideas
presented here for publication in Mathematische Annalen. In volume 18 (1881), p.
448 of the latter, he published a brief excerpt of his work – “Die Anzahl der unab-
hängigen Gleichungen, die zwischen den allgemeinen Charakteren einer Curve im
Raume von n Dimensionen stattfinden” [The Number of Independent Equations
that Exist Between the General Characters of a Curve in the Space of n Dimen-
sions] (dated June 1881), and a larger article in the next volume.166
Francesco Gerbaldi, who had already published successfully and had worked
as Enrico D’Ovidio’s assistant in Turin, came to Leipzig in the summer of 1883.
His presentation in Klein’s seminar – “Ueber die linearen Differentialgleichungen
zweiter Ordnung, welche algebraische Integrale besitzen” [On the Linear Diffe-
rential Equations of the Second Order that Have Algebraic Integrals] – offered a
comparison between the works of Klein and Lazarus Fuchs and is especially no-
teworthy in light of the polemic that had arisen between the two scholars (see
Section 5.5.5). In Gerbaldi’s words:
The method that we will discuss now, which is the simplest, we owe to Prof. Klein (Math.
Ann., vols. IX and XII). Prof. Fuchs (in Borchardt’s Journal, vols. 81 and 85) gave a different
method. He reduced the question of the conditions under which a linear differential equation
of the second order has algebraic integrals to the following question: In which cases are
certain linear differential equations (which can be uniquely derived from the given one, and
whose order does not exceed twelve) satisfied by the roots of rational functions? To this end,
he introduced the concept of the prime form and demonstrated that the degree of prime forms
of the lowest degree never exceeds the twelfth.167

Gerbaldi explained Fuchs’s method and proof, and concluded that Klein’s was
simpler. Gerbaldi remained in Leipzig for only one semester, and he did not
publish anything in Mathematische Annalen until 1898 (an article closely related
to Klein’s, Herman Valentiner’s, and A. Wiman’s results on symmetry groups).168
Giacinto Morera, who like Veronese held a degree in engineering and mathe-
matics, came in the fall of 1883 with a letter of recommendation from Eugenio
Beltrami.169 Morera’s first seminar presentation, which took place on July 14,
1884, concerned Klein’s level theory (Stufentheorie) and the “Kleinian funda-
mental theorem” (from Math. Ann., vol. 15).170 Morera expanded Klein’s ideas,

165 [Protocols] vol. 3, 1–14.

166 The article in question is Giuseppe Veronese, “Behandlung der projectivischen Verhältnisse
der Räume von verschiedenen Dimensionen durch das Princip des Projicirens und Schnei-
dens,” Math. Ann. 19 (1882), pp. 161–234.
167 [Protocols] vol. 5, 25–31 (Gerbaldi’s lecture, delivered on May 28, 1883), at pp. 28–29.
168 Francesco Gerbaldi, “Sul gruppo semplice di 360 cillineazione piane,” Math. Ann. 50 (1898),
pp. 473–76.
169 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 8: 77 (Beltrami to Klein, Oct. 7, 1883); see COEN 2012, p. 488.
170 [Protocols] vol. 6, 101–19
248 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

and Klein presented the results in a session of the Royal Saxon Academy of Sci-
ences; moreover, he also accepted them for publication in Mathematische An-
nalen.171 Hurwitz compared Morera’s findings to his own investigations:
The essential difference between Morera’s considerations and my own seems to be that he
limits himself to a number module n (which, moreover, is a prime number), while I take into
account several modules simultaneously. What we have in common is that both of us
implement your general formation process in certain cases. Morera’s execution of this process
is to be preferred over mine because it is more direct.172

5.4.2.4 Mathematicians from Switzerland and Austria-Hungary

The German-born Wilhelm Fiedler, who had completed his doctorate under Au-
gust Ferdinand Möbius at the University of Leipzig in 1858, became a Swiss citi-
zen in 1875. Fiedler had integrated Klein’s results into his textbook series (his
aforementioned translation of Salmon’s books), and in 1884 he sent his son Ernst
to study under Klein. Klein involved Ernst Fiedler in his research (see Section
5.5.7.1) and supervised his doctoral thesis, “Über eine besondere Klasse irration-
aler Modulargleichungen der elliptischen Funktionen” [On a Special Class of Ir-
rational Modular Equations of Elliptic Functions] (1885). Wilhelm Fiedler asked
Klein several times for his opinion of his son’s scientific abilities. Klein hesitated
to answer, but finally he wrote bluntly that Ernst Fiedler lacked mathematical
creativity, and that it would be not appropriate to force him to pursue a Habilita-
tion. Father and son accepted Klein’s verdict; nevertheless, Ernst Fiedler achieved
a dual-track career. He became a Privatdozent at the Polytechnikum in Zurich in
1886, and a headmaster of a secondary school there.173
The mathematicians from former Austria-Hungary listed in Table 6 came pre-
dominantly from Czech regions: Karl Bobek, Seligmann Kantor,174 Emil Waelsch,
Wilhelm Weiß, and Adolf Ameseder (a student of the Prague-born Emil Weyr). In
addition, this group also included the Hungarian Gustav Raussnitz (Gusztáv Ra-
dos) and Georg Pick from Vienna, whose relationship with Klein will be dis-
cussed in greater detail in Section 5.5.7.2.
Although these students did not complete their doctoral degrees under Klein,
he paved the way for them. Three among them earned their doctorates in Erlangen
with Gordan and Max Noether. Gordan wrote to Klein: “Another of your students,
Mr. Bobek from Prague, recently passed his doctoral examinations with me.”175
Karl Bobek earned his degree on June 23, 1885 with a dissertation titled “Über

171 Giacinto Morera, “Ueber einige Bildungsgesetze in der Theorie der Theilung und der Trans-
formation der elliptischen Functionen,” Math. Ann. 25 (1885), pp. 302–11.
172 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 991 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated February 11, 1885).
173 Ibid. 9:19 (W. Fiedler to Klein, in December 1885); see also VOLKERT 2018b; 2019.
174 Kantor is perhaps best-known today for his role in developing the Möbius-Kantor graph,
which is an important configuration in the field of graph theory.
175 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 442, p. 47 (Gordan to Klein, September 8, 1885).
 5.4 The Kleinian “Flock” 249

gewisse eindeutige involutorische Transformationen der Ebene” [On Certain

Single-Valued Involutory Plane Transformations],176 after he studied under Klein.
Wilhelm Weiß and Emil Waelsch had likewise been prepared to complete their
studies in Erlangen; Klein induced appropriate presentations from them in his
seminar of summer 1885. He described his approach to the field, the theory of
algebraic functions of one variable, as follows:
It is assumed that Riemann’s results are essentially known. We intend to use and compare
both the geometric treatment of function theory and the arithmetic approach to it. On the one
hand, we will base the discussions on the older works of Clebsch, Brill and [Max] Noether,
and as regards space curves, on the recently published major works by Noether, Halphen, and
Valentiner. On the other hand, we will use the lectures by Weierstrass, the works of his fol-
lowers, and also the papers of Kronecker, Dedekind, and [Heinrich] Weber. In the geometric
approach, the concept of the complete system of intersection points plays the same role that
the “entire” algebraic function plays in the other approach.177

Waelsch gave a presentation on Alexander Brill and Max Noether’s article “Über
die algebraischen Functionen und ihre Anwendung in der Geometrie” [On
Algebraic Functions and Their Application to Geometry] (Math. Ann., vol. 7).
Weiß reported on Max Noether’s work “Zur Grundlegung der Theorie der alge-
braischen Raumkurven” [On the Foundation of the Theory of Algebraic Space
Curves].178 On December 13, 1885, Gordan wrote to Klein: “The two Austrians
whom you sent us are doing well; Weiß, however, works too much, and so I al-
ways fear that he won’t be able to endure for long.”179 Weiß completed his docto-
ral degree in Erlangen in 1887, and Waelsch the following year.
Later, too, Klein would send other doctoral students to his friends in Erlangen,
such as the Americans H.W. Tyler and W.F. Osgood, who studied under him in
Göttingen since the fall of 1887. They continued to work on a thesis problem from
Klein while receiving individual instruction from Gordan and Noether.180
The Hungarian mathematician Gustav Raussnitz (Gusztáv Rados) came from
a Jewish family from Pest. With an already strong background in number theory
from his studies with Julius König in Budapest, he gave presentations in Klein’s
seminar (Summer 1885) on Richard Dedekind and Heinrich Weber’s work
“Theorie der algebraischen Functionen einer Veränderlichen” [Theory of Alge-
braic Functions of One Variable] and on the content and methods of Kronecker’s
Festschrift, which was titled Über den Zahlbegriff [On the Concept of Number].
Rados analyzed the latter book especially thoroughly, thereby demonstrating that
his attitude toward research was closely aligned to Klein’s own. He criticized
Kronecker for limiting his focus only to “the development of the features of ra-
tional whole numbers and functions without using methods from other areas of

176 [UA Erlangen] Phil. Fak. 923 (F), Akte 923. The dissertation was published in the Sitzungs-
berichte of the Academy of Sciences in Vienna (vol. 91, 1885).
177 [Protocols] vol. 7, 1–2 (Klein’s introductory lecture in his seminar, April 27, 1885).
178 Abhandl. Kgl. Preuß. Akad. Wiss., Phys.-Math. Kl. (1882), pp. 1–120.
179 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 443, p. 48 (Gordan to Klein, December 13, 1885).
180 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7E; see also BATTERSON 2009, pp. 920–23.
250 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

mathematics.” Very much in the spirit of Klein, Rados promised that, in his dis-
cussion, he would use “all existing tools available to us.” In his presentation, that
is, he outlined the fundamental concepts of Kronecker’s work and praised its
“algebraic materialization of Kummer’s ideal numbers or Dedekind’s ideals,” but
also discussed other approaches to the topic (Julius König’s, in particular).181
Klein and Rados remained in touch. Rados received a professorship at the
Technische Hochschule in Budapest. When, in 1905, the Hungarian Academy of
Sciences established its János Bolyai Prize (10,000 Kronen), Felix Klein and
Gaston Darboux were the only two external members who were appointed to the
prize committee, which also included Julius König and Gusztáv Rados.182

5.4.2.5 Russian and Other Eastern European Contacts

From early on, Mathematische Annalen published works by Russian authors, who
submitted their articles in French. These included Aleksandr N. Korkin, a student
of Chebyshev who, after earning his doctoral degree, continued his studies in Pa-
ris and Berlin and produced significant results in the field of geometric number
theory. In 1879, Korkin submitted an early study by his student Andrey A. Mar-
kov to the Annalen’s editorial board. Although the article was written in poor
French, Adolph Mayer remarked to Klein in a letter that, “for political reasons, we
should accept the work for publication.”183 What Mayer had in mind here was
their journal’s competition with Crelle’s Journal. When Mittag-Leffler’s journal
Acta Mathematica also entered the scene (see Section 2.4.2), Klein expanded,
with the help of his seminar participants, the range of contributors to Mathema-
tische Annalen by reaching out to more mathematicians in Eastern Europe.
Five years Klein’s senior, the mathematician Matvey A. Tikhomandritsky had
already sent Klein a note to be published in Mathematische Annalen – “Ueber das
Umkehrproblem der elliptischen Integrale” [On the Converse Problem of Elliptic
Integrals] (dated June 20, 1883) – before he arrived in Leipzig. After he had given
a presentation in Klein’s seminar (July 21, 1884), a second note was published
that is still cited in recent scholarship.184 As of 1883, Tikhomandritskiy was
employed as a Dozent at the University of Kharkiv, and he had a broad knowledge
of Eastern European mathematical institutions. At Klein’s request, Tikhomandrit-
skiy sent him a multi-page list of researchers, institutions, main research areas,

181 [Protocols] vol. 7, 27–50, 125–50 (lectures, on June 1, July 20, July 27, and August 3, 1885).
Kronecker’s Festschrift was also published in Crelle’s Journal 101 (1887), pp. 337–55.
182 In their correspondence, Klein and Darboux agreed that the first Bolyai Prize (in 1905) should
go to Poincaré and that the second (in 1910) should be awarded to Hilbert. See TOBIES 2016.
183 Quoted from TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 106 (a letter from Mayer to Klein dated May 5, 1879).
184 [Protocols] vol. 6, 121–26; Math. Ann. 22 (1883), pp. 450–54; Math. Ann. 25 (1885), pp.
197–202; and Yurii V. Brezhnev, “What Does Integrability of Finite-Gap or Soliton Poten-
tials Mean?” Philos. Trans. of the Royal Society: Math., Physical and Engineering Sciences
366 (2008), pp. 923–45.
 5.4 The Kleinian “Flock” 251

Eastern European (Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech) scholarly jour-

nals, and the researchers involved with them.185 The list included three publicati-
ons by the Royal Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg that only published in
German and French – Memoires, Bulletins, and Mélanges mathématiques et as-
tronomiques, tirés des Bulletins – along with Russian-language journals printed in
Moscow, Kharkiv, Kazan, Odessa, Kiev, Warsaw, and elsewhere. On the basis of
this list, Klein decided to pursue exchanges between Mathematische Annalen and
some of these journals, thereby attracting additional contributors and students.
Theodor Molien was the first student to come to Klein from the Baltics. He
studied for three semesters (see Table 6), and his seminar presentations would
serve as the basis for his master’s thesis, “Über lineare Transformationen ellip-
tischer Funktionen” [On Linear Transformations of Elliptic Functions].186 In De-
cember of 1885, Molien wrote to Klein to inform him “that my promotion to
Magister took place on the basis of the research that I conducted under your guid-
ance.”187 After Klein’s former assistant Friedrich Schur had accepted a professor-
ship at the University of Tartu, Molien completed his doctoral studies under him,
and Klein published his dissertation in Mathematische Annalen.188
Born in Kazan, A.V. Vasilev, who had studied in St. Petersburg and Berlin
(1879/80), then also visited Klein in Leipzig. This we know from a letter that Va-
silev wrote to Klein on June 9, 1895. Here, he thanked Klein for his “contribution
to the Lobachevsky committee” (see Section 6.3.6) and he informed him that “in
today’s meeting of the university senate, you have been elected an honorary
member of the Imperial University of Kazan.”189 During that same year, a Russian
translation of Klein’s Erlangen Program was published in the Bulletin de la So-
ciété de Kasan, a work that was instigated by Vasilev and executed by the
mathematician D.M. Sintsov. Both Vasilev and Sintsov became members of the
German Mathematical Society (see also Fig. 43).
The Eastern European contacts that Klein forged in Leipzig would expand in
later years (see Section 6.3.7.1). They also led to Klein being made a member of
the Moscow Mathematical Society (1891) and the Academy of Sciences in St.
Petersburg (1895), among other honors. The proposal to elect him as a correspon-
ding member of the St. Petersburg academy was written by A.A. Markov and Ni-
kolay Y. Sonin,190 who were longtime contributors to Mathematische Annalen.
Klein was quick to recognize new trends, and later he also organized the
translation of Russian textbooks, including works by A.A. Markov. This is just
one of the many projects that Klein started with the B.G. Teubner publishing
house during his Leipzig years (see Section 5.6).

185 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 12: 24 (Tikhomandritskiy to Klein, November 14, 1884).
186 [Protocols] vol. 5, 254–56; vol. 6, 25–33 (presentations, on February 4 and May 12, 1884)
187 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 1283 (Molien to Klein, December 14/26, 1885).
188 Th. Molien, “Ueber Systeme höherer komplexer Zahlen,” Math. Ann. 41 (1893), 83–156.
189 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 12: 200 (a letter from Vasilev to Klein dated June 9, 1895).
190 [Archiv St. Petersburg] Fond 2, 1–1895 73, pp. 5, 16–17; and JUSCHKEWITSCH 1981.
252 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

5.5 FIELDS OF RESEARCH

None of the research that Klein conducted during his years in Leipzig has given
rise to more discussion, analysis, and interpretation than his rivalry with Poin-
caré.191 This relative short phase, during which Klein worked intensively and pro-
duced results of the highest level, needs to be integrated with the ensemble of his
work. The area of research that fueled the rivalry had occupied Klein’s attention
while he was still in Munich, and since then he had passed it along to his students
and largely left it aside in his own work (this latter fact is seldom mentioned). On
October 24, 1881, Klein expressed as much to Adolf Hurwitz in clear language:
The studies that you have written to me about fill me with a degree of envy. You know that
number theory has always seemed like a promised land to me, at which I may be able to cast
my gaze but in which I might perhaps never set foot. When I think back to my work on ellip-
tic modular functions, I become wistful: so many beautiful perspectives that I will have to
leave unexploited! It is some consolation for me to know that you are continuing to work in
this direction, and thus I want to encourage you all the more to forge ahead. See to it that you
draw an explicit connection between the Legendre symbol and the w-configuration. I think of
the matter as follows: […]

Here Klein provided Hurwitz with an array of new ideas that might bear fruit.
Regarding his own work, however, he wrote in the same letter:
Mechanics or mathematical physics (whatever one might call it) beckons. Only after I have
mastered this to the extent that I have original ideas about it can there be talk of flourishing
mathematical production on my part. Will I succeed in executing this research program?192

Two aspects of this letter should be emphasized here. First, Klein recognized
Hurwitz’s mathematical creativity and repeatedly doubted his own mathematical
abilities. By no means did he consider himself to be “the leading German mathe-
matician of his generation and perhaps in the world.”193 Second, Klein’s main
intention at the time was to produce his own new results in an applications-orien-
ted discipline, even though in June of 1881 he began his correspondence with
Poincaré. Although Klein would deviate from this plan from time to time, his re-
search agenda in Leipzig in fact began with his work on mathematical physics
(Section 5.5.1).
A corresponding feature of Klein’s work at the time lay in his continued effort
to integrate the results developed in Berlin into his own arsenal of methods, even
though the mathematicians of the Berlin school continued to retain a skeptical
attitude toward him (5.5.2).

191 See ROWE 1992b; ROWE 2018a, pp. 120–27; GRAY 2000; and GRAY 2013, pp. 207–46.
192 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 52, pp. 77–78 (Klein to Hurwitz, on October 24, 1881); the original
German letter excerpt is published in TOBIES 2019b, p. 224.
193 GRAY 2013, p. 226. Gray’s complete sentence is: “He was ambitious, he had every reason to
believe he was the leading German mathematician of his generation and perhaps in the world,
and he was beginning to shape himself as the heir of Riemann.”
 5.5 Fields of Research 253

Furthermore, Klein was enthusiastic about new research results emerging

from France, and not only about Poincaré’s work, though he held it in especially
high esteem (5.5.3). Building on this work, Klein produced significant results in a
field of research that he had already left behind (5.5.4). The controversy with and
about Lazarus Fuchs, which arose in this context, will be given special attention
because of its long-lasting repercussions (5.5.5).
Klein decided to create systematic expositions of the findings that he had
made in Munich. The results of these efforts include his book Ueber Riemann’s
Theorie der algebraischen Functionen und ihre Integrale [On Riemann’s Theory
of Algebraic Functions and Their Integrals] (5.5.1.2), his book on the icosahedron
(5.5.6), and additional ideas and approaches for monographs (5.5.7, 5.5.8).
Looking back from the perspective of a modern research mathematician,
Dieter GAIER (1990) identified three sources from the nineteenth century that con-
siderably influenced the development of function theory: (1) Riemann’s mapping
theorem (1851)194; (2) a theorem by Picard (1879), which states that every entire
non-constant function f assumes every value a in the complex plane, with at most
one exception; and (3) classical potential theory.195
These points of departure are clearly reflected in Klein’s work.

5.5.1 Mathematical Physics / Physical Mathematics

The term “physical mathematics” was first used by Arnold Sommerfeld to de-
scribe Klein’s approach.196 Klein, who in his letters to Sophus Lie had repeatedly
expressed his interest in physics, was motivated to pursue these interests in
Leipzig by Carl Neumann. In doing do, Klein not only achieved novel results in
Neumann’s own area of expertise, potential theory. He also used this physics-
based approach as a heuristic principle for describing Riemann’s function theory.

5.5.1.1 Lamé’s Function, Potential Theory, and Carl Neumann

As I pointed out in Section 5.3.1, Klein and Carl Neumann had some conflicts
concerning their respective teaching assignments. At the heart of this dispute was
function theory.
In his very first lecture in Leipzig, which was given on October 26, 1880,
Klein had stressed that Neumann’s book Vorlesungen über Riemann’s Theorie der
Abel’schen Integrale [Lectures on Riemann’s Theory of Abelian Integrals] (Leip-
zig: B.G. Teubner, 1865) was a fundamental work of scholarship.197 Neumann

194 See for example Reinhold REMMERT 1998, or KRANTZ 2006, pp. 83–107.
195 GAIER 1990, pp. 363–64.
196 SOMMERFELD 1919, p. 301.
197 See KLEIN 1987, p. 12. On C. Neumann’s life and work, see SCHLOTE 2001, 2004, and 2017.
254 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

had been one of the first researchers to engage with Riemann’s work. In 1865, he
had even published a second book on the topic with Teubner: Das Dirichlet’sche
Princip in seiner Anwendung auf die Riemann’schen Flächen [Dirichlet’s Princi-
ple in Its Application to Riemann Surfaces].
In Neumann’s work, Klein thus saw good points of connection to his own
physical-mathematical interests. Klein was inspired by his interaction with Carl
Neumann to write two articles on “Lamé’sche” functions.198 Klein noted: “In my
dealings with Neumann: Lamé’s functions, confocal bodies.”199 However, in his
articles “Ueber Lamé’sche Functionen” [On Lamé’s Functions] (submitted in
January of 1881) and “Ueber Körper, welche von confocalen Flächen zweiten
Grades begränzt sind” [On Bodies that Are Limited by Confocal Surfaces of the
Second Degree] (submitted March 14, 1881), there is no mention whatsoever of
the impulse that Klein had received from Neumann. Klein merely remarked that
Neumann used different notations.200 At the time, Neumann’s most recent contri-
bution to the subject was published in the same volume of Mathematische An-
nalen as Klein’s article on “Lamé’sche” functions; it appeared immediately ahead
of Klein’s study, a gesture that was probably meant to indicate that the two au-
thors had taken a similar approach. Whereas Neumann, at the end of his article,
referred explicitly to Klein’s interesting developments (he had read Klein’s stud-
ies before their publication),201 Klein made forays into Neumann’s field of re-
search without even citing him extensively. This contradicted Klein’s typical ap-
proach, and it potentially could have led to conflict. At any rate, he stated shortly
thereafter: “I am beginning to feel antagonism with Neumann.”202
Klein sent his articles to Darboux with the following comment: “In these
studies I have proved two theorems that seem to have been unknown until now
and yet are of primary importance if one clearly wants to grasp Lamé’s func-
tions.”203 One of these theorems was the oscillation theorem, which Klein first
named as such in his later article “Zur Theorie der Laméschen Functionen” [On
the Theory of Lamé’s Functions] (1890).204 In the latter work, he expanded his ap-
proaches from 1881, he emphasized the role of this theorem in potential theory
and the theory of linear differential equations of the second order, and he also in-
troduced the concept of “automorphic functions” in this article for the first time.
Later Klein explained this concept as follows:

198 See KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 507.

199 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Persönliches betr. Leipzig”), p. 1.
200 Felix Klein, “Ueber Körper, welche von confocalen Flächen zweiten Grades begränzt sind,”
Math. Ann. 18 (1881), 410–427 (Klein makes this remark in the footnote on p. 421).
201 Carl Neumann, “Ueber die Mehler’schen Kegelfunctionen und deren Anwendung auf elektro-
statische Probleme,” Math. Ann. 18 (1881), pp. 196–236.
202 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges über Leipzig”), p. 1.
203 [Paris] 75: Klein to Darboux, June 10, 1881. See also KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 507; and
Leon Lichtenstein, “Neuere Entwicklungen der Potentialtheorie: Konforme Abbildung,” in
ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. II.3.1 (1918), pp. 177–377, esp. pp. 189–90.
204 Göttinger Nachrichten 4 (1890), pp. 85–95; reprinted in KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 540–49.
 5.5 Fields of Research 255

To give a brief explanation here, automorphic functions are those which satisfy the functional
equation
⎛ α z + βi ⎞
f ⎜⎜ i ⎟⎟ = f ( z )
⎝ γ i z + δi ⎠
for a series of indices i, possibly for infinitely many; thus they are in the broadest sense gen-
eralizations of periodic functions, addition of periods being replaced by linear substitutions.205

By 1922, when Klein was preparing volume II of his collected works, the field
had evolved. Thus he made an addition to the title of his (second) article from
1881: “Über [die Randwertaufgabe des Potentials für] Körper, welche von konfo-
kalen Flächen zweiten Grades begrenzt sind” [On (the Boundary Value Problem
of Potential for) Bodies that Are Limited by Confocal Surfaces of the Second De-
gree].206 In his words from 1881, Klein treated the “fundamental potential prob-
lem of determining, from the values of the potential at the points of a surface, the
course of the latter inside the body limited by the surface.”207 A few years later in
Göttingen, he succeeded in guiding some of his students toward producing fruitful
results in this area of research (see Section 6.3.5).

5.5.1.2 On Riemann’s Theory of Algebraic Functions and Their Integrals

In Friedrich Schulze’s history of the first hundred years of the Teubner publishing
house, Klein’s work Ueber Riemann’s Theorie … from 1882 is celebrated as his
first monograph. Here we read that it
provides an exposition of the theory on an intuitive geometric-physical basis in that it at-
tempts to demonstrate that Riemann’s theory of algebraic functions and their integrals is
nothing else than a mathematical formulation of those intuitions and facts which the physical
study of the theory of stationary currents of heat or electricity brings to light, when one
transfers it to the case of connected, closed surfaces.208

The book summarizes many of the results that Klein had achieved since his time
in Munich, with the aim of preserving them for posterity:
In the meantime, I have been working on a small text on Riemann’s theory, which I would
like to see published by Teubner. You are familiar with the issue itself from the summer se-
mester here; yet it is really taking a great deal of effort to present this same material in a
clever form. […] You can imagine how much I have to force myself to work it all out, which
is a dull task. Yet it is necessary to proceed in such a way; otherwise, all the ideas that I have
been engaged with on and off would be lost in the sand.209

205 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 258. Lester R. FORD (1915; 1929), who was one of Klein’s intellectual
heirs, wrote the first introduction to the theory of automorphic functions in English. – The
word automorphic derives from Greek αὐτός ‘self’ and μορφή ‘shape, form’.
206 KLEIN 1922, p. 521 (the brackets characterizing the insertion in the title are original).
207 Ibid.
208 SCHULZE 1911, pp. 306–07.
209 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 55 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated September 20, 1881).
256 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

Klein based his physical approach not only on Riemann but also on Thomson and
Tait’s Natural Philosophy and on Carl Neumann’s works.210 He presupposed that
previous work on Riemann’s theory was already familiar to his readers, but he
made sure to draw attention to the results produced by H.A. Schwarz, Georg Hett-
ner, and Friedrich Schottky. From Schottky, Klein learned that the latter’s similar
studies had likewise proceeded from “examining the currents of an incompressible
fluid” and that only after following Weierstrass’s advice did Schottky replace his
physical approach by “taking into account Schwarz’s studies of conformal map-
ping.”211 Conscious of this preparatory work, Klein claimed for himself the idea
“of investigating closed surfaces in space on the basis of function theory and
thereby to understand the actual fundamental ideas of Riemann’s theory.” In do-
ing so, he adopted a (supposed) suggestion from Friedrich Prym – who had yet to
attend Riemann’s lecture courses himself – and used arbitrary curved surfaces in
space as the domains of complex space functions.212 Although “curved surfaces”
are not Riemann surfaces, the approach is sensible if one moves from the metric
to the conformal structure of the surface.213
Arnold Sommerfeld described the basic ideas as follows:
The idea of the Riemann surface, which Riemann introduced in his dissertation and expanded
with a suggestion proposed in the conclusion of the same work, was further developed by
Klein into the idea of the closed “Klein-Riemann surface.” Just as, in function-theoretical
terms, the complex plane is best replaced by the sphere, a ramified Riemann plane of higher
genus can be replaced by a closed, singularity-free spatial surface with manifold connectivity.
This surface is conceived as having an evenly distributed conductive mass, and it forms a
conductor for electric current. The single-valued potentials on the surface form the building
blocks for the theory of algebraic functions of surfaces and their integrals. The discontinuity
points of the potentials are the sources and sinks of the current; at the same time, they are the
points where one should consider the electrodes to be attached, which lead the current toward
or away from the conductor. In that one can arrange infinitely many electrodes transversally
along a loop-cut (Rückkehrschnitt) of the surface, one obtains as potentials the finite integrals
of the surface (integrals of the first kind). Integrals of the second and third kind arise in the
case of point-like (connected or separate) electrodes; the single-valued functions on the
surface – the algebraic functions of the entity – are constructed as special cases from the
potential functions. What is being practiced here is not really mathematical physics; rather, it
is physical mathematics.214

210 See KLEIN 1882; KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 478, 499–573; and KLEIN 1987.
211 Friedrich Schottky, “Ueber die conforme Abbildung mehrfach zusammenhängender ebener
Flächen,” Crelle’s Journal 83 (1877), pp. 300–51. Klein classified Schottky’s theorems as
special cases among his own results (see KLEIN 1923 [GMA III], pp. 572–73.
212 Beltrami had already dealt with surface segments (Flächenstücke) and had posed the bound-
ary value problem for them. Prym accepted Klein’s approach but denied that the inspiration
had come from him. See KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 479, 501–02 (quoted here from p. 479);
and LAUGWITZ 1999, pp. 112–14.
213 I am indebted to Erhard Scholz for this insight.
214 SOMMERFELD 1919, p. 301 (on the original German quotation, see TOBIES 2019b, p. 229).
 5.5 Fields of Research 257

In the book, Klein explained that he “endeavoured to obtain a general view of the
scope and efficiency of the methods,”215 and he divided the work into three main
parts: 1) Introductory Remarks, 2) Riemann’s Theory, and 3) Conclusions.
Among his conclusions, Klein considered “surfaces with boundaries and uni-
facial surfaces,”216 based on his classification of closed surfaces according to the
genus p. Klein had already worked on such surface classifications as early as the
1870s, when, in dialog with Ludwig Schläfli, he succeeded in producing results in
the area of surface topology. While studying non-orientable surfaces, Klein intro-
duced the term Doppelfläche ‘double (or unifacial) surface’ (see Section 3.1.3.1).
These include “certain unifacial surfaces with no boundaries,” among them a spe-
cial surface with p = 1, a model of which he described in the book (this would
later be known as the “Klein bottle”):
An idea of these may be formed by turning one end of a piece of india-rubber tubing inside
out and then making it pass through itself so that the outer surface of one end meets the inner
surface of the other. With reference to all these surfaces it has been established by former
propositions that the representation of one surface upon another of the same kind is possible if
one, but only one, equation exists among the real constants of the surface; and that the repre-
sentation, if possible at all, is possible in an infinite number of ways, since a double sign and
a real constant remain at our disposal.217

The first illustration of this idea appeared in KLEIN/ROSEMANN (1928); see Fig. 24
below. HILBERT/COHN-VOSSEN (1932, pp. 271–76) contains another illustration.
Here, the terms Kleinscher Schlauch ‘Klein tube’ and Kleinsche Fläche ‘Klein
surface’ are used synonymously. In the English translation of this book (Geometry
and the Imagination, 2nd ed., 1952), the term Klein bottle is used throughout.

Figure 24: The Klein bottle (KLEIN/ROSEMANN 1928, p. 262).

215 Quoted from the English translation of the book, KLEIN 1893 [1882], p. ix (preface).
216 Hardcastle’s “unifacial surfaces (which may or may not be bounded)” in KLEIN 1893 [1882],
p. 72, are called “Doppelflächen” in Klein’s original. – For example, the Möbius strip is a
non-orientable (one-sided) surface (it is impossible to distinguish its bottom from its top or its
inside from its outside). The cylinder strip is a two-sided surface with a boundary. The sphere
and the torus are two-sided surfaces without boundary curves.
217 KLEIN 1893 [1882], p. 74 (emphasis original).
258 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

In addition, Klein supplemented further results with proofs that he would incorpo-
rate into his lectures, into his article “Neue Beiträge zur Riemannschen Funk-
tionentheorie” [New Contributions to the Riemannian Theory of Functions]
(Math. Ann. 21), and into the monographs KLEIN/FRICKE (1890/92) and FRICKE/
KLEIN (1897/1912). Later, in his book Die Idee der Riemannschen Fläche [The
Idea of the Riemann Surface] (1913), Weyl explained Riemann surfaces (anew) as
real two-dimensional manifolds that have a complex structure and are character-
ized by local coordinates. Weyl used Hilbert’s proof of the Dirichlet principle for
harmonic functions with prescribed boundary conditions in order to introduce
complex analytical functions on the surface. In his opinion:
This formulation of the concept of a Riemann surface, first developed in intuitive form in F.
Klein’s monograph Über Riemann’s Theorie der algebraischen Funktionen und ihrer Inte-
grale, is more general than the formulation that Riemann himself used in his fundamental
work on the theory of analytic functions. There can be no doubt but that the full simplicity
and power of Riemann’s ideas become apparent only with this general formulation.218

Klein’s book was translated into English (see Fig. 25) by Frances Hardcastle, who
came from a famous family. Her maternal grandfather was the astronomer, ma-
thematician, and chemist John Herschel. She wrote to Andrew R. Forsyth, her
former professor at Girton College in Cambridge (U.K.), to see whether he could
ask Klein for permission to translate the book.219 Hardcastle needed several
months to complete the project, which she did while continuing her studies at
Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania under the supervision of Charlotte Angas
Scott and James Harkness. As she informed Klein, she published the translation at
her own expense with Macmillan & Co. in London, and she expressed how much
she enjoyed the work, writing: “I shall feel more than sufficiently rewarded.”220
Klein had completed this 82-page work (KLEIN 1882) before taking a closer
look at Poincaré’s notes, namely on October 7, 1881, on the East Frisian island of
Borkum. He had been sent there for health reasons by Ernst Leberecht Wagner,
the director of the Medical Polyclinic at the University of Leipzig. In Leipzig,
Klein had suffered on hot days from “asthma in conjunction with hay fever.” He
used this vacation with his wife and son Otto not only to swim and meet with
colleagues (Aurel Voss, Georg Elias Müller),221 but also to write. In the following
years, for Klein, different East Frisian Islands (Borkum, Norderney, Spiekeroog,
Wangerooge) were on several occasions a destination where he could recover as
well as work productively.

218 WEYL 1955 [1913], p. 33 (3rd ed., 1955, pp. 29–30). I am indebted to Erhard Scholz for help-
ful information about Weyl. On Weyl’s life and work, see also SIGURDSSON 1991.
219 [UBG] Cod. MS F. Klein 9: 65 (a letter from Forsyth to Klein dated February 17, 1893).
220 Ibid. 9: 547 (a letter from Hardcastle to Klein dated July 20, 1893).
221 See Klein’s notes in JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges aus Leipzig”), p. 1. G.E. Müller was on the
hiring committee in Göttingen and helped to ensure that Klein was offered the professorship
there in 1886 (see Section 5.8.2).
 5.5 Fields of Research 259

Figure 25: The title page of Klein’s book “On Riemann’s Theory of Algebraic Functions and
Their Integrals”
https://archive.org/details/RiemannsTheory
260 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

5.5.2 Looking Toward Berlin

Earlier, when I was still fully immersed in geometry, I had little interest in Berlin mathe-
matics. Now that I have a somewhat broader perspective, that has changed […].222

Klein wrote these words to Hurwitz already on March 3, 1879. In the same letter,
he even asked Hurwitz to acquire some photographs of Berlin mathematicians for
him. When discussing Klein’s relation to the mathematicians in Berlin, we would
be wrong to perpetuate the common refrain that he felt some sort of long-lasting
enmity toward them. Klein was open to their methods in the sense that he was
ever eager to test and combine new approaches in order to produce novel results.
Even before Leo Koenigsberger identified the two leading styles of mathe-
matical thinking of his time – that is, the geometric-physical methods stemming
from Riemann and the analytic-arithmetic approach in Berlin (see Section 1.2) –
Klein had followed Clebsch’s model of combining the best aspects of different
approaches. In this vein, he sought to adopt and analyze the latest results from the
Berlin school, about which presentations were often given in his seminars.

5.5.2.1 Gathering Sources

By the end of the 1870s, Adolf Hurwitz had imbibed three semesters of Berlin
mathematics, and he passed on to Klein the contents of the lectures that he at-
tended there. Hurwitz’s own combination of methods can be detected in his work,
as already evidenced by two presentations that he gave in Klein’s Leipzig seminar
during the winter semester of 1880/81. In these, Hurwitz used both Weierstrass’s
function-theoretical approach – in order to derive “numerous number-theoretical
theorems about the sums of the powers of a number’s divisor” – as well as the
geometric methods of Riemann and Klein.223
In March of 1881, Klein took a trip with his wife to Berlin, where he had
delegated his student Walther Dyck shortly before. Klein helped Dyck to establish
contact with the Berlin mathematician Leopold Kronecker. In addition, Klein
learned something that had long interested him: Kronecker had found no valid
proof for his own theorem concerning equations of the fifth degree.224 Thus, Klein

222 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 20, fol. 33 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated March 3, 1879).
223 [Protocols] vol. 2, pp. 67–70 (quoted here from p. 70). The titles of Hurwitz’s presentations
were “Über die Bildung der Modul-Functionen” [On the Formation of Modular Functions]
(delivered on December 6, 1880), and “Über eine Reihe neuer Functionen, welche die abso-
luten Invarianten gewisser Gruppen ganzzahliger linearer Transformationen bilden” [On a Se-
ries of New Functions that Form the Absolute Invariants of Certain Groups of Integer Linear
Transformations] (delivered on February 21, 1881).
224 Klein wrote in a letter dated February 3, 1885: “His [Kronecker’s] original proof, which I
excerpted from his manuscript in 1881, is wrong.” [UBG] Cod. MS F. Klein 11: 565B, fol.
6v, on the German original see: https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/DE-611-HS-3384691.
 5.5 Fields of Research 261

would present his own proof that he had found in Munich (see Section 4.2.1) once
more as a crowning argument in his icosahedron book (see Section 5.5.6).
During his stay in Berlin, Klein also personally met H.A. Schwarz for the first
time. This contact would turn out to be beneficial for Hurwitz, whose career Klein
supported. In the case of Kronecker, too, Klein paved the way for Hurwitz. He
wrote to Hurwitz that he had “sent a thorough report about you to Kronecker,
while I was writing lately about the point in the theory of equations of the fifth
degree with which you are familiar. I think that he will receive you with the ut-
most goodwill.”225 In Berlin, Dyck and Hurwitz heeded Klein’s request to “ac-
quire, for our Leipzig seminar, really useful notes from the lectures by both
Weierstrass and Kronecker.”226 Hurwitz hired someone to copy these lectures, and
Klein reimbursed him.227 Carl Runge and Klein’s doctoral student Guido Wei-
chold were engaged in procuring additional lectures by Weierstrass.228
Klein’s lectures, publications, and seminar protocols all document the extent
to which he valued the results produced in Berlin. On February 27 and March 6,
1882, Klein himself spoke in his seminar about “Weierstrass’s lecture notes on
analytic and elliptic functions.”229 The Berlin material was also important for
Klein’s aforementioned special series of lectures, which began on June 6, 1882.
As he reported to Hurwitz: “The day before yesterday, I began a short special
lecture series about single-valued functions with linear transformations into them-
selves. I hope that Weichold will acquire for me a copy of Weierstrass’s notebook
on Abelian functions.”230

5.5.2.2 The Dirichlet Principle

Weierstrass’s critique of Dirichlet’s principle concerning potential theory was a

focal point in Klein’s analysis of the Berlin material.231 On October 24, 1881, he
wrote to Hurwitz that, in his seminar during the winter semester of 1881/82, “the
Dirichlet principle will be the focus of our discussions,” and he went on: “I will
have to master this manner of investigation, no matter the cost of doing so.”232 In

225 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 52 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated October 24, 1881).
226 Ibid. 77: 51 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated September 20, 1881). For further informa-
tion, see ULLRICH 1988. Regarding Walther Dyck, see HASHAGEN 2003.
227 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 926 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated May 22, 1882).
228 [Deutsches Museum] No. 1950–6 (Klein’s letters to Runge, dated May 23, 1882; July 22,
1872; and March 16, 1883).
229 [Protocols] vol. 3, p. 142.
230 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 80 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated June 8, 1882).
231 See WEIERSTRASS (1895), vol. 2, pp. 49–54. The article in question – “Über das sogenannte
Dirichlet’sche Princip” [On the So-Called Dirichlet Principle] – was originally published in
1870. For a recent article on further developments in this field, see Ivan Netuka, “The Trans-
formation of Mathematics Between the World Wars: The Case of Potential Theory,” in
BEČVÁŘOVÁ 2021.
232 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 52 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated October 24, 1881).
262 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

November of 1881, Klein remarked: “I am delving deep into Dirichlet’s principle,

and this morning I had a three-hour conversation with [Carl] Neumann about it.
Hopefully, I’ll get to the bottom of the matter. At least now I can really prove all
of the theorems that I formulated last summer and are included in my book.”233
In his seminar in 1881/82, Klein had his students analyze, above all, works
that sought to replace Dirichlet’s principle with other methods, especially Carl
Neumann’s “method of the arithmetic mean” and H.A. Schwarz’s so-called “al-
ternating method,” which was based on conformal mapping.234 Toward the end of
the semester, Klein himself delivered several lectures in the seminar:
From January 18th to February 8th, the undersigned [Klein] explained, in a total of 10 sequen-
tial lectures, a number of passages of his recently published book On Riemann’s Theory of
Algebraic Functions and Their Integrals. In conjunction with this, he also elucidated the sig-
nificance of symmetrical Riemann surfaces to the theory of real algebraic curves and to the
related Abelian integrals. Finally, he discussed the so-called Dirichlet principle.235

On February 15, 1882 Klein noted: “Critique of Dirichlet’s principle by the under-
signed, F. Klein.”236 He began his lecture as follows:
In order to demonstrate the existence of functions on Riemann surfaces, we have used non-
rigorous physical methods. After that, some of the presentations (see the protocol book) of-
fered strict mathematical methods [Neumann’s, Schwarz’s] for the existence proofs. Riemann
used the Dirichlet principle, which very quickly led him to his goal. In what follows, we will
examine this and test its reliability.237

After providing a historical introduction, Klein explained the fundamental objec-

tive of potential theory, demonstrated the “geometric features of the potential
problem,” and presented a “critical engagement with the Dirichlet principle”:
Let u be a surface which passes through the space curve bounding the cylinder that was con-
structed above the curve of our planar segment by applying the given boundary values. We
will now form the integral
⎡⎛ ∂u ⎞ 2 ⎛ ∂u ⎞ 2 ⎤
∫∫ ⎢⎢⎜⎝ ∂x ⎟⎠ + ⎜⎜⎝ ∂y ⎟⎟⎠ ⎥⎥ dx dy
⎣ ⎦
over this planar segment. Expressed in intuitive, indefinite terms, this integral measures the
total slope of the surface u against the xy-plane; it becomes greater, the more the surface rises
and falls. We want to set ourselves the task of constructing the surface u = z for which the in-
tegral reaches its minimum – a surface that thus lies as flatly as possible against the xy-plane.
This is a task for the calculus of variations, and the latter discipline provides the solution by
means of its usual methods:

233 Ibid. 77: 54 (Klein to Hurwitz, Nov. 13, 1881). The book is KLEIN 1882 (see Section 5.5.1.2).
234 [Protocols] vol. 3, pp. 91–126. Six of the participants in Klein’s seminar gave presentations
on this topic: H. Hoppe, J. Kollert, H. Dressler, F. Dingeldey, H. Wiener, and G. Weichold.
235 [Protocols] vol. 3, p. 136.
236 Ibid., p. 138 (Klein’s lecture, February 15, 1882)
237 These lectures are not contained in the [Protocols]. They survive as an appendix to vol. 2 of
Klein’s unpublished lectures on function theory, which are kept in the library of the Mathe-
matical Institute at the University of Leipzig. The quotation here is from p. 364.
 5.5 Fields of Research 263

∂ 2u ∂ 2u
+ = 0.
∂x 2 ∂y 2
This means, however: The aforementioned variational problem, when treated according to the
customary methods of this discipline, leads precisely to the same differential equation which
we recognized from the outset as that imposed on u, if u is to be a potential function.
Now, the Dirichlet principle consists in the following conclusion: Because, among all sur-
faces passing through the space curve, one must make this integral a minimum or, expressed
differently, it must lie most flatly against the xy-plane, there must also be a potential function
with the required property.
The Dirichlet principle thus assumes as a certainty that every variational problem has a solu-
tion, and from this it deduces the existence of this potential function.238

Klein explained this in detail, and he transferred Dirichlet’s ideas to curved sur-
faces, from which he concluded: “The Dirichlet principle is therefore also suffi-
cient for this.”239 In a section of his lecture concerned with “objections to the
Dirichlet principle,” Klein cited examples for the principle’s invalidity and, refer-
ring to the related seminar presentations in the protocol book, discussed the extant
attempts to deal with these objections. In conclusion, he formulated the following
task for his students: “The existence of the potential function is to be confirmed in
the Neumannian/Schwarzian manner. After this, it has to be shown (in the spirit of
Weierstrass) that it makes the Dirichlet integral to a minimum.”240 All of this in-
formation would be incorporated into Klein’s article “Neue Beiträge zur Rie-
mannschen Funktionentheorie” [New Contributions to Riemann’s Function The-
ory], which he completed on October 2, 1882, and which contains a section on the
scholarly research devoted to the Dirichlet principle.241
In the early 1880s, Klein had a high opinion of Weierstrass’s critique of the
Dirichlet principle, and he inspired his students to work on the topic further. Tom
ARCHIBALD’s (2016) discussion of the counterexamples presented in Weier-
strass’s work (including his critique of the Dirichlet principle) demonstrates their
importance to further developments in this line of research.
Klein had made sure that this topic was integrated into two contributions to
the ENCYKLOPÄDIE,242 and in his historical lectures, he himself summarized the
history of Dirichlet’s theory, from Gauß (1840) to Hilbert and his students, con-
cluding with a general remark about mathematical knowledge:
Here we see how mathematical knowledge, no matter how objective it seems to be, is subject
to change. I would like to emphasize this, without offending mathematics or wanting to cast
doubt on its foundations and laws.243

238 Ibid., pp. 368–69 (emphasis original); see the German quotation in TOBIES 2019, p. 234.
239 Ibid., p. 379.
240 Ibid., p. 386.
241 Math. Ann. 21 (1883), pp. 141–218, reprinted in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 630–710.
242 See the articles by H. Burkhardt and F. Meyer on potential theory (1900), and by L. Lich-
tenstein on recent developments in potential theory (1918) in volume II.
243 KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 87–89, 245–50, quotation at p. 250.
264 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

5.5.2.3 Klein’s Seminar on the Theory of Abelian Functions (1882)

One expression of Klein’s unbridled productivity was his aforementioned seminar

with Krazer, Staude, Domsch, and Weichold, which met at his home on seventeen
occasions from November 6 to December 19, 1882. During the first meeting,
Klein presented a detailed agenda for the seminar.244 He assumed that Riemann’s
work and the contents of his own lecture course from 1880/81 were known, and
he planned (I) to supplement this knowledge, (II) to study the concept of Abelian
functions, the means to represent them, and (III) their properties and applications.
Klein’s entry in the protocol book demonstrates how he organized the mate-
rial, used the latest results, and how he did not limit himself to geometric methods
but rather incorporated various approaches, including those developed in Berlin
and Paris. The entry is worth quoting at length:
I. Supplements to earlier developments
A. The existence proofs.
The Riemannian way of inferring the existence of certain related functions by beginning with
the “surface” is just one among other possibilities. Other mathematicians have sought to ar-
rive at these existence proofs on different grounds. What is common among them is that they
begin with the algebraic equation. Incidentally, I distinguish the following approaches:
1. The modern geometrical thinking. Homogeneous coordinates, determinants. Clebsch and
Gordan (1866), Brill & Noether (Annalen 7), more recent works by [Max] Noether.
Compare also Clebsch-Lindemann, Lectures.
2. The number-theoretical approach. Method of the largest common divisor. Kronecker in
the 91st, Dedekind-[Heinrich] Weber in the 92nd volume of Crelle’s Journal.
3. The method of series developments. Weierstrass’s lectures. – Articles by Christoffel in
the Annali.
B. Extension of the class of functions.
We have so far only considered those functions that
1) are many-valued only due to periodicity, and
2) do not have a substantially singular point.
In the first respect, an extension is possible using the functions w which reproduce themselves
as αw+β; Prym considered these in volumes 69 and 71 of Crelle’s Journal. If β = 0, and α is a
root of unity, then w is algebraic, a so-called root function.
In the second respect, the prime functions of Weierstrass will be investigated.
C. Relationhips between our functions.
In my lecture course, I discussed the following relationships:
1. Abel’s theorem,
2. The Riemann-Roch theorem.
The following, which are still missing, also belong here:
3. Certain bilinear relations between the periodicity moduli of the integrals of the first and
second kind.
4. The theorems on the exchange of parameter and argument in the case of the third kind.
II. Abelian functions.
A. The concept and definiteness of Jacobi’s inversion problem.
We will proceed like this:
1. Differentiation of the groups of p points ξ1…ξp into ordinary and singular.

244 [Protocols] vol. 4, pp. 111–16.

 5.5 Fields of Research 265

2. Verification that each ordinary group is fully defined by its integral sums.
3. Various ways of defining a group of points algebraically.
α) by an algebraic function vanishing at the ξ
β) by specifying the equation: (w – w1) (w – w2) …. (w – wp),
where w is an algebraic function, possibly a root function.
4. Accordingly, definition of the term “Abelian” function.
5. Special formulations and extensions:
The “Riemannian” inversion problem,
The extended inversion problem of Clebsch-Gordan.
B. Treating the inversion problem using ϴ-functions.
1. The empirical introduction of the ϴ-function by Riemann.
2. The transcendental function Tξη of Clebsch-Gordan.
3. The construction of the ϴ-function by Weierstrass.
C. Starting from the general ϴ-functions.
1. The doctrine of general ϴ-relations (in modern development);
2. The transition back to the integrals in the case of p = 2, Göpel;245
3. The same in the case of p = 3, Schottky.
III. Properties and application of Abelian functions.
A. Division and transformation.
From Hermite up to the most recent investigations.
B. Geometrical applications.
1. Clebsch’s theorems in volume 63 of Crelle’s Journal.
2. The theorems of Roch and Lindemann.
3. Special interpretation of hyperelliptic functions by elliptic coordinates of a higher space.

Klein wanted this seminar to serve as the basis for a later lecture course. He con-
cluded the seminar agenda quoted above with the words: “In the following, the
topics mentioned here will not be discussed in a systematic sequence but rather
when the right time and opportunity arise.”246
Adolf Krazer gave five presentations on the topic of theta functions, and he
would incorporate much from this seminar into his Habilitation thesis (see Sec-
tion 5.4.1). Otto Staude, who gave two presentations, would likewise write his
Habilitation thesis in this area of research. On four occasions, Guido Weichold
presented on the theory of hyperelliptic functions according to Weierstrass, and
his talks were informed by Weierstrass’s lectures.247 Weichold submitted his dis-
sertation (on symmetrical Riemann surfaces and the periodicity moduli of the re-
lated Abelian normal integrals of the first kind) on March 3, 1883.248 Paul
Domsch’s dissertation – “Ueber die Darstellung der Flächen vierter Ordnung mit
Doppelkegelschnitt durch hyperelliptische Funktionen” [On the Representation of
Surfaces of the Fourth Order with a Double Conic Section by Means of Hyperel-
liptic Functions], which he submitted on October 15, 1884 – concerned a geome-
tric application of this research area.

245 See Crelle’s Journal 35 (1847), pp. 277–312; and pp. 313–17 (Jacobi on Adolph Göpel).
246 [Protocols] vol. 4, pp. 112–16.
247 Ibid., pp. 167–99.
248 Weichold’s dissertation is still cited on occasion; see, for instance, BÉLANGER 2010 (though
the latter work is based above all on PONT 1974).
266 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

5.5.2.4 Openness vs. Partiality

Klein’s openness in research methods is reflected in his approach to teaching, in

his and also in his students’ work. In contrast, the Berlin mathematicians stuck
firmly to their specific approach. While on a research trip to Paris in March of
1883, for instance, Walther Dyck, who had applied Kronecker’s methods in his
Habilitation thesis, spent time with the Berlin-trained H.A. Schwarz and claimed
that Schwarz exclusively sang the praises of his teacher Weierstrass. As Dyck
reported to Klein, Schwarz seemed like a conspicuously “Teutonic travel com-
panion.” Schwarz was “anti-French” and his behavior was “crude and almost
blustering.” In response, Klein commented (in exaggerated terms) that Schwarz’s
behavior was typical of Berlin-trained mathematicians in general:
You are now at the point where I would like you to be: You are able to see the state of affairs
in Germany from an outsider’s point of view and, above all, you are able to recognize the true
character of the Berlin school. Achievement in one’s own narrow area of research and, be-
yond that, an unbelievably narrow perspective – that is its signature. As to how this common
character is expressed in one person or another, this is relatively unimportant. My position is
that one should embrace what is good from everyone (as long as the bad doesn’t get too bad),
and one should steadily pursue the goals that one regards to be right, regardless of whether
they might differ from the commonly held opinion at the time.249

A uniform “Berlin school” did not exist. One could speak, as mentioned above, of
a Weierstrass school; Kronecker, in contrast, was not interested in forming a
school of mathematical thought. The Berlin mathematicians achieved excellent
results in their fields of research, but did not sufficiently recognize other mathe-
matical approaches. Klein rejected this attitude as being biased. Richard von
Mises also criticized the one-sided orientation of Weierstrass’ student Schwarz:
Thus, despite the intuitive geometric approach of many of his works, he [H.A. Schwarz] nev-
ertheless contributed to the one-sidedness that so strongly characterized the Berlin mathe-
matical school. This attitude was consciously combated and overcome by Felix Klein, and his
achievement in this regard accounts for much of the success that the Göttingen school has
enjoyed over the last few decades.250

That the mathematicians in Berlin fomented reservations against other styles of

thinking is also evident from Otto Hölder’s letters to his parents:
Life is very lively here with Klein. Obviously, some of this is also mere posturing
[Macherei]. In particular, they have no preference for rigorous mathematical proofs here, so
that a student of Weierstrass and [Paul] du Bois-Reymond is often negatively affected by this.
I have more than enough to do with reworking that stuff at home, and now Klein wants to
give me a problem to present on in the seminar. One must also read a great deal, and I have
already gotten into the habit of the superficiality of the men here, which I despise by my very
nature.251

249 Quoted from HASHAGEN 2003, p. 158 (a letter from Klein to Dyck dated March 30, 1883).
250 V. MISES 1921, p. 495. On R. von Mises, see SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2004, 2018, and 2020.
251 Quoted from HILDEBRANDT et al. 2014, pp. 143–44 (Hölder to his parents, May 6, 1884).
 5.5 Fields of Research 267

Hölder’s opinion, which he thus expressed after being in Leipzig for two weeks,
was clearly prejudiced by his time in Berlin, and it would soon change (see 5.4.1).
In sum, Klein and his students appreciated and used the results from Berlin,
whereas mathematicians from there often disregarded results produced elsewhere.
Sophus Lie expressed this in clear terms:
For your part, you are fair to the mathematicians in Berlin, whose work you understand and
appreciate. The Berlin school, on the contrary, has long made efforts to downplay your work,
if not ignore it entirely. These men have seldom paid attention to any of your brilliant geo-
metric studies. It was only your relationships – with Poincaré, on the one hand, and with
Fuchs on the other (to whom you spoke such harsh truths) – that made your great power clear
to these gentlemen, even though they still do not understand you. Although I consider you the
winner in this struggle with the Berliners, I believe that it would be good for you to ignore
these stressful matters for a few years, and all the more so because you are not always in the
best of health.252

Lie wrote these words to Klein at a time when Klein had to decide whether to ac-
cept a job offer in the United States (see Section 5.8.1). Klein’s relationship with
Henri Poincaré and Lazarus Fuchs, to which Lie referred, will be discussed below.

5.5.3 Looking Toward France

Klein followed the latest scholarly literature closely. The correspondence that he
began with Henri Poincaré and the rivalry that developed between them in the
same area of research can only be explained from a broader perspective.

5.5.3.1 French Contributors to Mathematische Annalen

Klein kept an eye on foreign scholarship, but he did so not only in the interest of
his own field of research. He was also intent on attracting French authors for
Mathematische Annalen. After Camille Jordan’s article was published in volume
one of the Annalen, it would not be until volume ten, when Klein and Adolph
Mayer took over the editorship, that the next contribution from a French mathe-
matician appeared in the journal: “Lettre de M. Ch. Hermite à M. P. Gordan”
(Math. Ann. 10 [1876], pp. 287–88). This is noteworthy for two reasons. First,
when Hermite published work in German journals, his venue of choice was at first
Crelle’s Journal (which was then known as Borchardt’s Journal).253 Second, Her-
mite was influential and had numerous students. His opinion of Klein’s work
would still be important as late as the 1890s (see Section 7.4.4).
Invited by Klein in 1879, Georges Henri Halphen, who had completed his
doctoral degree under Hermite in 1878, was the next French mathematician to

252 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 102: 690/1 (Lie to Klein, in December of 1883, an undated letter).
253 See TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 44. Regarding Hermite and Klein, see GOLDSTEIN 2011a.
268 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

contribute to Mathematische Annalen. Already in his Munich seminar, Klein had

arranged for his students to analyse Halphen’s publications.254 While still in Mu-
nich, too, Klein had sent a letter to Darboux (dated May 29, 1880) in which he
inquired about additional French authors:
Recently, I have become highly interested (with respect to the many questions that I have
faced while studying elliptic functions) in general function theory, about which I was unfor-
tunately only too ignorant until now. Aside from your brilliant studies, I am now captivated,
for instance, by the recent notes by Picard. Who is this Picard? Who, moreover, is Appell,
whose name one now so often reads in investigations of this sort? When I come to Paris, I
hope to get to know all of these gentlemen personally and to speak with them at length. Of
course, however, my new position in Leipzig has made it more than doubtful that I will be
able to make a trip to Paris this fall.255

Klein would not be able to return to Paris until 1887 (see Section 6.3.6.1). In
1880, Darboux immediately put him in touch with Émile Picard and Paul Appell,
both of whom, incidentally, were related to Hermite by marriage. Klein finally got
around to writing to Picard, Appell, and Henri Poincaré in June of 1881. Not long
thereafter, four French authors published in Mathematische Annalen (vol. 19,
1882) – the three named above and Georges Brunel, who studied under Klein (see
Table 6 and Section 5.4.2.1).256
Works by Picard were the topic of presentations during Klein’s first seminars
in Leipzig: F. Büttner presented on Picard’s function-theoretical theorems; and
Hurwitz gave a talk on some of Picard’s publications in Comptes Rendus (1879,
1880, 1881).257 Hurwitz stressed that Picard’s conception of function theory was
closely related to Weierstrass’s, and he was able to associate Picard’s theorems
with certain aspects of Riemann’s function theory. As early as this seminar pres-
entation, Hurwitz was already able to generalize one of Picard’s theorems.
Going forward during the semester break, Hurwitz sent his results not only to
Klein but also to Picard. Because Hurwitz waited in vain for a reply from Picard,
Klein wrote the following to him on October 24, 1881: “It seems as though Picard
has not published any further. Do not be upset about this; the French are never as
honest as we are, and one has to consider this in advance when interacting with
them.”258 This remark was based, first, on the experiences of Sophus Lie and
Klein, who thought that French mathematicians had not (or had insufficiently)
cited their work. That they were upset about this is documented in their letters.
Second, Klein had realized that Poincaré – with whom he had since begun to
correspond – was not as willing to disclose his methods as Klein himself was
accustomed to doing with his students, with Lie, and with his Italian and British
colleagues (among others).

254 [Protocols] vol. 1, pp. 197, 202.

255 [Paris] 70: Klein to Darboux, May 29, 1880.
256 On the contributions of other French authors in Math. Ann., see TOBIES 2016, pp. 111–16.
257 [Protocols] vol. 2, pp. 165–68 (March 7, 1881); vol. 3, pp. 56–60 (July 25, 1881).
258 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 52, fol. 78v (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated October 24, 1881).
 5.5 Fields of Research 269

At that time, Poincaré’s work was highly relevant to Klein’s own research,
and it influenced his thinking considerably. As I already mentioned in Section
4.2.3, the issue at hand was the theory of uniformization (as it would be called
later). The importance of this question to the development of mathematics can be
measured by the fact that Hilbert’s 22nd problem (1900) involves the following
question: “How can analytic relations be uniformized by means of automorphic
functions?” Put simply, the goal of uniformization is to parameterize algebraic
curves in two variables, that is, to replace the variables with functions that only
depend on one variable. For instance, a unit circle, which is given by x2 + y2 = 1,
can be parameterized by replacing x and y with cos α and sin α, respectively.259
It was the work done by Klein and Poincaré that largely served, twenty years
later, as the starting point for Hilbert’s famous problem.

5.5.3.2 Klein’s Correspondence with Poincaré

Klein began his correspondence with Poincaré on June 12, 1881 with the follow-
ing words:
Dear Sir! Your 3 notes in the Comptes Rendus “Sur les fonctions fuchsiennes,” which I read
only yesterday and with which I am still only fleetingly acquainted, are so closely related to
the considerations and efforts with which I have busied myself in recent years that I had to
write to you.260

Klein explained some of his earlier work, cited Halphen regarding a special class
of functions, and informed Poincaré that, before Halphen, H.A. Schwarz had al-
ready developed the same results (a fact that Poincaré was still unaware of). To-
ward the end of the letter, Klein formulated his views on this research field in four
points. His summary reads like a research agenda that Klein hoped to pursue via
his correspondence with the French mathematician:
1. Periodic and doubly periodic functions are merely examples of single-valued functions
with linear transformations into themselves. It is the task of modern analysis to determine
all of these functions.
2. The number of these transformations can be finite; such is the case with the equations of
the icosahedron, octahedron […], which I analyzed in my earlier work (Math. Annalen, vol.
9 [1875/76], vol. 12 [1877]) and which formed, for me, the basis for this set of ideas.

259 For recent discussion of uniformization, see SAINT-GERVAIS 2016 and David Rowe’s review
of the original French version of this book in Historia Mathematica 41 (2014), pp. 98–102. –
Henri Paul de Saint-Gervais is a fictitious person invented at a meeting at Saint-Gervais;
“his” first names refer to Henri Poincaré and Paul Koebe.
260 The correspondence is published in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 587–621 (quoted here from p.
587); Acta Math. 39 (1923), pp. 94–132; and in Henri Poincaré’s Œuvres (vol. 1, pp. 26–65).
The three notes by Poincaré referred to here by Klein were published on February 14, Febru-
ary 21, and April 4, 1881. For further discussion of the correspondence, see GRAY 2008;
GRAY 2013, pp. 224–40; ROWE 1992b; and VERHULST 2012, pp. 34–43. – On Poincaré’s
articles from 1880, which have been unknown for a long time, see GRAY/WALTER 2016.
270 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

3. Groups of infinitely many linear transformations which give rise to usable functions
(groupe discontinu, in your terms) can be obtained, for example, by proceeding from a cir-
cular arc polygon that intersects a fixed circle at a right angle and whose angles are exact
fractions of π.
4. One should deal with all such functions (as you are now in fact beginning to do); but in
order to achieve concrete goals, we should limit ourselves to circular arc triangles and
especially to elliptic modular functions.261

Klein concludes his first letter to Poincaré by asking him to pass along greetings
to Hermite and by expressing his wish to exchange letters with him about their
common ideas. At the beginning, this correspondence did in fact develop quite
intensively. From June 12 to July 9, 1881, Klein sent five letters to Poincaré, four
of which were answered. It was Poincaré who broke off their exchange, at the
time when he was moving from Caen to Paris, where he was offered a permanent
position as a Maître de conférences at the Faculté des Sciences.262
In these first letters, they communicated about their earlier work. Poincaré
recognized and admitted that Klein had produced results in the field before he
himself did, and he requested further information. That is, he asked questions, but
he did not explain his own methods. Because Poincaré had difficulty accessing
German journals in Caen, Klein helped him. He sent Poincaré offprints of his arti-
cles, and he asked his students (Dyck, Gierster, Hurwitz) to do the same. Klein
mentioned other work (by Riemann, Brill/Noether, Schottky), upon which he had
based his research, and he explained his own approach.
At the same time, Klein was preparing Georges Brunel, who was then study-
ing under him in Leipzig, to explain his (Klein’s) work to Poincaré. At this point,
Brunel did not know Poincaré personally. David Rowe’s analysis of the letters
from Brunel to Poincaré makes it clear that Brunel did accomplish the task set by
Klein, though he did so with a heavy dose of nationalism. Brunel first wrote to
Poincaré on June 22, 1881, and here one reads:
As Frenchmen it is our duty to fight the Germans by all possible means, but fairly. By which I
mean that we must forthrightly acknowledge what they have accomplished, but we must also
not attribute everything to them. If in his theory of modular functions Mr Klein has already
published certain special results in the theory of Fuchsian functions, I find it only fair that you
should render him justice, as you say. If he has not gone further, so much the worse for
him!263

Klein knew nothing of this, and he unselfishly continued to share his latest know-
ledge in his letters to Poincaré. Moreover, he also fulfilled his promise to Darboux
that he would guide Brunel toward producing his own publishable work (see Sec-
tion 5.4.2.1).
Klein’s generous responses to Poincaré demonstrate the sort of unselfishness
that he practiced with his students in order to realize his envisioned research pro-

261 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 588–89.

262 A Maître de conférences is one rank below a full professorship in France.
263 Quoted from ROWE 2018a, p. 125 (a letter from Brunel to Poincaré dated June 22, 1881).
 5.5 Fields of Research 271

gram. Klein expressed how far he had come, but he also identified the places
where he had reached an impasse.
A good example of this can be seen in his letter dated July 2, 1881, in which
he provided detailed answers to questions that Poincaré had asked him (in a letter
from June 27, 1881). Klein explained his approach, offered references to related
scholarly literature, and wrote about his own progress. However, he also re-
marked: “I cannot prove that this fundamental space, together with its replica-
tions, covers only a part of the complex plane […].264 Here, one can clearly see
Klein’s desire to cooperate.
In his reply, Poincaré limited himself to asking where he could find the lit-
erature that Klein mentioned and whether he could cite one of Klein’s theorems,
but he revealed nothing about his own approach. In a letter dated July 9, 1881,
Klein responded that Poincaré could of course cite his theorem and that he was
puzzled by Poincaré’s insistence on designating classes of functions as fuchsi-
ennes or kleinéennes, recommending instead that they should be called “functions
with linear transformations into themselves.” Klein explained his assessment of
Dirichlet’s principle – which he had spent so much time studying in preparation
for the winter semester of 1881/82 – and the circumstances in which the afore-
mentioned “general existence proof” was valid.
Up to this point, Klein only had a general idea of Poincaré’s work, for the
latter had, as mentioned, explained very little to him, and Klein had not yet taken
the time to look into the matter more deeply. Klein was busy then with his book
on Riemann’s theory of algebraic functions and their integrals (see Section
5.5.1.2). Yet even before Klein completed this work (on October 7, 1881), he had
written the following to Hurwitz on September 20:
In the winter semester, I would now like to make my investigations into the Dirichlet princi-
ple the focus of the presentations. Also, in order for my time not to be too divided, I would
like to cancel my special lecture course. However, I am excited by these matters related to
Poincaré, and I hope to formulate certain beautiful theorems in this regard. That said, it is im-
possible to do everything at once.265

By October 24, 1881, Klein indeed seemed to have been influenced by Poincaré’s
note published in August of that year. Hurwitz thus heard from him: “In a study
from the beginning of August, Poincaré asserts that every algebraic irrationality
can in fact be solved by fonctions fuchsiennes.”266
After Klein had finally taken the time to read Poincaré’s articles with greater
attention, he resumed their correspondence on December 4, 1881. Klein con-
gratulated Poincaré on his proof (from August 8, 1881) of the theorem “that every
linear differential equation with algebraic coefficients can be integrated by means
of zeta-Fuchsian functions […] and that the coordinates of the points of any alge-
braic curve can be expressed by means of Fuchsian functions of an auxiliary vari-

264 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 597–98 (emphasis original).

265 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 51, fol. 76 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated September 20, 1881).
266 Ibid., 77: 52, fol. 78v (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated October 24, 1881).
272 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

able.”267 In addition, Klein suggested that Poincaré should submit an article (of
any length) to Mathematische Annalen. Poincaré agreed to do so immediately, but
he did not fulfill Klein’s request that he might, in his contribution to the journal,
“[…] provide the necessary details concerning the methods of your proofs, that is,
about the way that you actually construct the functions in question.”268
Klein did not insist on this, and instead felt incited to continue with his own
work. He wrote to Hurwitz: “Poincaré will send me a letter that I will print in the
Annalen and furnish with my own commentary. By Easter at the latest, my ‘strict’
existence proofs will have to be in order.”269 Klein succeeded in formulating three
new theorems in this research area, all of which were published in 1882.
The correspondence between Klein and Poincaré continued until September
22, 1882. In the end, Klein no longer replied to him. For his part, Poincaré was
persuaded by Mittag-Leffler to contribute to his journal Acta Mathematica.270

5.5.4 Three Fundamental Theorems

Robert Fricke, who later summarized, systematized, and expanded on Klein’s

results, made the following classifying remarks in the year 1919:
With good reason, what is regarded as Klein’s greatest achievement during his function-theo-
retical period is his discovery of the theorems that he himself called “fundamental theorems,”
and which are known today as “uniformization theorems.” One is familiar with the surprising
way in which Abel and Jacobi had contributed to the development of the theory of elliptic
functions. Legendre had considered elliptic integrals in their dependence on the integration
variables. By investigating all functions of this system of interrelated variables in their de-
pendence on the integral of the first kind, Abel and Jacobi achieved “single-valued” func-
tions; they had recognized the “uniformizing” variable for the system of these functions. In
the sense of Riemannian theory, this discovery is related to the algebraic entities of genus 1. It
was Klein who discovered the various kinds of uniformizing variables for algebraic entities of
any given genus; this is one of the greatest achievements that will remain associated with his
name.271

In what follows, I will classify Klein’s three fundamental theorems in the order in
which they were created, and this will also provide an opportunity to take a closer
look at his correspondence with Poincaré. The first two theorems were later re-
ferred to by Fricke as the “loop-cut theorem” (Rückkehrschnitttheorem) and the
“limit-circle theorem” (Grenzkreistheorem), respectively, and Klein thought that

267 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 602. – Klein wrote this in French: « que toute équation différen-
tielle linéaire à coefficients algébriques s’intègre par les fonctions zétafuchsiennes » and
« que les coordonnées des points d’une courbe algébrique quelconque s’expriment par des
fonctions fuchsiennes d’une variable auxiliaire »
268 Ibid, p. 604 (a letter from Klein to Poincaré dated December 10, 1881), emphasis original.
269 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 55, fol. 82 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated December 17, 1881).
270 See also NABONNAND 1999.
271 FRICKE 1919, p. 276. For Klein’s explanation in English, see KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 359–61.
 5.5 Fields of Research 273

these names were fitting.272 The third, general fundamental theorem includes the
other two as the most important special cases.

5.5.4.1 The Loop-Cut Theorem (Rückkehrschnitttheorem)

The concept of the loop-cut on Riemann surfaces goes back to Riemann himself
(see Section 3.1.3.1). In his letter to Poincaré dated July 2, 1881, Klein had men-
tioned that he had a possible theorem in mind, which he realized was provable in
September of that year while taking a walk on the island of Borkum. After he had
worked this out and submitted it for publication in the Annalen (the article is dated
January 12, 1882), Klein informed Poincaré:
It is possible to solve every algebraic equation f(w, z) = 0 as soon as one has drawn p inde-
pendent loop-cuts on the related Riemann surface in one and only one way, by means of w =
φ (η), z = ψ (η), where η admits a discontinuous group of the type that you mentioned then in
connection to my letter. This theorem is so elegant because this group has exactly 3p–3
essential parameters, that is, just as many as there are moduli for equations of the given p.273

The sentence in italics is the loop-cut theorem. Here, η is a function whose com-
plex values Klein interpreted on a sphere. He demonstrated what he had still been
unable to do in July of 1881: “Then, on the η-sphere, the image of our cut Rie-
mann surface covers a 2p-fold connected surface part which is simply spread out
[i.e., single-layered] everywhere.” Moreover: “The infinitely many analytical con-
tinuations of our map do not cover the η-sphere several times.” Klein used an in-
tuitive proof in his article, which bore the title “Über eindeutige Funktionen mit
linearen Transformationen in sich” [On Single-Valued Functions with Linear
Transformations into Themselves] and which was printed directly after Poincaré’s
article in the Annalen.274 In his later judgement:
My proof, which clearly forced itself upon me, was such that I could always follow – in my
imagination – any modifications of the Riemann surface or its cross-section system; it was
therefore quite intuitive in character. […] However, this was the basis for the proof of conti-
275
nuity.

5.5.4.2 Theorem of the Limit-Circle (Grenzkreistheorem)

According to his own account, Klein devised this theorem, too, on an East Frisian
island, namely on Norderney, where he spent the Easter vacation in 1882. Be-
cause of a storm, he was only able to stay there for eight days. The idea for the

272 KLEIN/FRICKE 2017 [1912], pp. 228, 359 (Here the translation are principal-circle theorem
and boundary-circle theorem; we use the traditional terms; see KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 354).
273 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 616 (Klein to Poincaré dated January 13, 1882), emphasis original.
274 Math. Ann. 19 (1882), pp. 565–68; reprinted in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 622–26.
275 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 584 (Here, Klein alluded to Koebe’s proofs of continuity in 1912).
274 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

theorem came to him during a sleepless night (from March 22nd to the 23rd), and
he worked it out further and wrote it down in the subsequent days.
Hurwitz was one of the first to hear about it. On a postcard dated March 22,
1882, Klein informed him that he was traveling to Düsseldorf because he was not
feeling well; four days later, Hurwitz received the following news: “I am doing
much better, especially as regards mathematics. I have discovered new beautiful
theorems about single-valued functions with linear substitutions into themselves.”
On March 26, 1882, Klein wrote to him at greater length:
I have to write to you about a very simple theorem that I discovered over the past few days
and have already sent to Teubner. You are familiar with the table “On Transformations of the
Seventh Order” in vol. 14 of the Annalen, where the regular Riemann surface p = 3 is mapped
onto a circular-arc tetradecagon [a fourteen-sided polygon] whose edges intersect a principal
circle at a right angle. I want to place the latter in the plane of a variable η. Then η is com-
pletely unbranched on the surface p = 3, and every unbranched function on the surface is a
single-valued function of η, which reproduces itself linearly. The point now is that, precisely
in this sense, there exists one and only one η-function on every given Riemann surface! (That
is, independent of any special cutting of the surface.)
As you see, things are moving ahead. Thus I would like all the more to engage you to work
on this as well. For myself alone, the problems are too difficult. Moreover, Rausenberger has
also submitted two small notes on the formation law of the single-valued functions in
question. If we all work together, soon real progress will be made in all matters related to al-
gebraic functions.276

Klein’s result was the limit-circle theorem: “that one can, in one and essentially
only one way, uniformize any Riemann surface with p ≥ 2 without branch points
by means of automorphic functions with a limit-circle.”277 His article appeared
under the title “Über eindeutige Funktionen mit linearen Transformationen in sich
(Zweite Mitteilung)” [On Single-Valued Functions with Linear Transformations
into Themselves (Part Two)].278 Klein explained later: “Summarizing the essenti-
als, we can see that the modular functions, or more generally the triangle functi-
ons, have led to general automorphic functions, which are single-valued within a
circle and have this circle as limit-circle!”279 From the standpoint of uniformiza-
tion and the theory of automorphic functions, his limit-circle theorem correspon-
ded to Poincaré’s result, which he had achieved by proceeding from differential
equations based on the work of Lazarus Fuchs.280
Klein’s claim in his letter to Hurwitz – “For myself alone, the problems are
too difficult” – and his call for cooperation were indicative of the way he worked.

276 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 64 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated March 28, 1882), emphasis
original. The article with the table that Klein mentions here is his own: “Ueber die Transfor-
mation siebenter Ordnung der elliptischen Funktionen,” Math. Ann. 14 (1878), pp. 428–70.
See also Fig. 21 in Section 4.2.3.
277 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 359. – It should be mentioned here once more that Klein introduced
the term automorphic functions in 1890 (see Section 5.5.1.1).
278 Math. Ann. 20 (1882), pp. 49–51; reprinted in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 627–29.
279 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 355.
280 On this topic, see already SCHOLZ 1980, pp. 198–200, and GRAY 1984.
 5.5 Fields of Research 275

He recognized that, by formulating the two theorems, he had not closed off this
research area but had rather opened it up. Adolf Hurwitz and Otto Rausenberger
(a teacher in Frankfurt am Main and a former student of Leo Koenigsberger) were
willing to cooperate.
Klein had persuaded Hurwitz to turn his seminar presentation from February
21, 1881 into an article. Urged on by Klein, Hurwitz finished this piece even be-
fore he would submit his Habilitation application (see Section 5.4.1). Klein’s let-
ter to Hurwitz dated April 16, 1882 indicates how important it was to him for the
world to know, precisely, when he had begun working with his students on this
new class of functions:
In your introduction, could you include a sentence in which you mention, without any espe-
cially sharp language, that you began to work on these things at my instigation and independ-
ent of Poincaré? The first article by Poincaré is from February 14, 1881. My concern is to un-
derscore the continuity that exists between our current efforts and those of 1879 (in the sum-
mer). With the same goal in mind, I referred in my latest note to my table [Klein’s “main fi-
gure”; see Fig. 21] on the transformation of the seventh order.281

Hurwitz’s article in Mathematische Annalen had the same title as his seminar
presentation: “Ueber eine Reihe neuer Functionen, welche die absoluten Invari-
anten gewisser Gruppen ganzzahliger linearer Transformationen bilden” [On a
Series of New Functions that Form the Absolute Invariants of Certain Groups of
Whole-Number Linear Transformations]. He draws upon Klein’s theorems and
his geometric methods, and Klein added a footnote on the first page of Hurwitz’s
article, explaining that the work stems directly from Hurwitz’s presentation in his
seminar and that there is evidence of this in his protocol book.282
The first manuscript that Rausenberger had submitted to the Annalen still
contained some errors, but Klein discovered in it a “useful basic idea” for this
research area. In response, Klein sent him, on January 4, 1881, a detailed list of
references to literature and invited him to Leipzig.283 The results were Rausenber-
ger’s three articles in volume 20 of Mathematische Annalen. In the third of these –
“Ueber eindeutige Functionen mit mehreren, nicht vertauschbaren Perioden I”
[On Single-Valued Functions with Multiple Non-Interchangeable Periods I] (April
1882) – Rausenberger corroborated Klein’s view of the correct order of historical
events: “I would like to take this opportunity to mention that, in letters sent to me
1½ years ago, Mr. Klein defined the essential task of his function-theoretical in-
vestigations as follows: To establish all functions with any given linear trans-
formations into themselves.”284

281 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 69 (a postcard from Klein to Hurwitz dated April 16, 1882). – See
Section 4.2.3.
282 Math. Ann. 20 (1882), pp. 125–34 (with Klein’s note on p. 125). See also [Protocols] vol. 2,
pp. 138–46.
283 [UB Frankfurt] Lorey Nachlass, entry no. 424 (Klein to Rausenberger, January 4, 1881).
284 Math. Ann. 20 (1882), pp. 187–212, at pp. 187–88 (emphasis original).
276 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

Whereas Klein had cooperated well with many German and foreign mathe-
maticians, his relationship with Poincaré became increasingly competitive. Yet
Klein had offered to cooperate, and later he stressed to him once again: “For me, a
lively connection with like-minded mathematicians has always been the precon-
dition for my own mathematical production.”285 In a letter dated May 7, 1882,
Klein also explained how he had proven his theorems by means of continuity and
he provided a thorough description of his approach. Yet Poincaré merely respon-
ded that Klein’s “second lemme […] il est probable que nous l’établissions de la
même manière,” and that he had likewise used the continuity method, though their
methods differed in certain details.286 When Klein asked him how he had de-
monstrated the convergence of a corresponding series, Poincaré avoided the
question by remarking that it would take too long to explain the two examples in a
letter and that his results would be published soon.
Nevertheless, Klein maintained his openness. He explained to Poincaré yet
again “how I use the continuity method,” and in the same letter (May 14, 1882) he
also mentioned additional ideas for proofs: “When I recently visited him in Göt-
tingen (on April 11th), Mr. Schwarz mentioned to me another, quite different
proof, which is also based on considerations of continuity.” Klein went on to ex-
plain Schwarz’s “beautiful train of thought”287 in the interest of pursuing a com-
mon research agenda with Poincaré.
Poincaré’s letter from May 18, 1882 makes it clear that he had in fact realized
that Klein’s work on the limit-circle theorem and his own recent work yielded
nearly identical results. At this point, he opened up to Klein by explaining his ap-
proach, he adopted Schwarz’s line of thinking, and he sent Klein some of his older
studies (which Klein had requested many months earlier).
Erhard Scholz already analyzed how Poincaré used Schwarz’s idea to prove a
uniformization theorem concerning analytic curves.288 Poincaré began the article
in question by referring to a “beau théorème de M. Schwarz” and to Dirichlet’s
principle, which Klein had explained to him.289 Here he makes no mention of
“fonctions fuchsiennes,” but he does refer to “la surface de Riemann.”

285 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 610 (a letter from Klein to Poincaré dated April 3, 1882).
286 Ibid., p. 614 (a letter from Poincaré to Klein dated May 12, 1882): “[…] j’emploie comme
vous la continuité, mais il y a bien de manières de l’employer et il est possible que nous diffé-
rions dans quelques détails.”
287 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 615–16 (a letter from Klein to Poincaré dated May 14, 1882).
288 See SCHOLZ 1980, p. 201.
289 Henri Poincaré, “Sur un théorème de la théorie générale des fonctions,” Bulletin de la Société
Mathématique de France 11 (1883), pp. 112–25. Regarding this article, see also GRAY 2013,
pp. 247–51; and SCHOLZ 1980, pp. 200–03.
 5.5 Fields of Research 277

5.5.4.3 The (General) Fundamental Theorem

Klein explained his new general theorem to Poincaré in a letter from May 7, 1882
– that is, before his article was even published. In his last letter to Poincaré (Sep-
tember 19, 1882), he discussed the theory in greater detail and stated that his two
other theorems (the loop-cut theorem and the limit-circle theorem) could be
classified as special cases of it. After pointing out an inaccuracy in Poincaré’s
work, Klein wrote:
Regarding my own work, I am limiting myself to demonstrating the geometric approach by
virtue of which I understand the new functions to be defined in the Riemannian sense. Owing
to the nature of the matter itself, there are many points of contact with your geometric ap-
proach to the subject. The most general group that I am taking into consideration is created
from an arbitrary number of “isolated” substitutions and from a number of groups with a
“principal circle” (which can be real or imaginary, or even degenerate to a point) by means of
“sliding into one another” (Ineinanderschiebung). The theorems in my two other notes in the
Annalen are then subsumed as special cases under the general theorem, which goes something
like this: To every Riemann surface with arbitrarily given branching and cutting one and only
one η-function of the pertinent type always belongs.290

Klein also told Poincaré that Sophus Lie was with him in Leipzig and was plan-
ning to come to Paris, and that he had heard from Mittag-Leffler that Poincaré
was busy “with elaborating substantial treatises” for the new journal Acta Mathe-
matica.
Klein published his results as “Neue Beiträge zur Riemann’schen Functio-
nentheorie” [New Contributions to Riemannian Function Theory].291 He had
completed this article on October 2, 1882, and he sent an offprint also to Poincaré,
but he never heard back from him. In this article, Klein made sure to express his
appreciation of Poincaré’s work:
One is familiar with the long series of brilliant publications with which Mr. Poincaré has
drawn general attention to these functions. For my part, I have already been working on si-
milar ideas for a long time, and I supplemented Poincaré’s publications with two notes, in
which I formulated certain theorems that may be of considerable importance to the applicati-
ons of these new functions. In the following, I will be concerned with demonstrating, in a co-
herent and complete form, the general course of ideas that led me to these theorems. To this
end, I will examine in the third section a relatively comprehensive class of single-valued
functions with linear transformations into themselves. I will explain at length their manner of
existence and provide the means to construct the related linear substitutions from independent
items of determination. Then, in my fourth section, I will formulate a general theorem, which
I have designated a fundamental theorem on account of its importance, and which contains in
itself the results of my two aforementioned notes as special cases.292

290 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 618–19 (a letter from Klein to Poincaré dated September 19,
1882).
291 KLEIN 1883; reprinted in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 630–710.
292 KLEIN 1883, pp. 142–43 (emphasis original). In a footnote (p. 142), Klein refers to Poincaré’s
publications and remarks: “As I have heard, Poincaré has further refined his ideas, and they
will appear shortly in Mittag-Leffler’s new journal.”
278 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

In his fourth section, Klein asked “[…] on which Riemann surfaces of the genus p
with n given branch points of a particular index normal functions η of a certain
type can exist.”293 With the following explanations, he arrived at his fundamental
theorem:
The type is defined by connecting – on our surface – certain pairs of branch points through
cuts Q, then by adding any loop-cuts R that do not disconnect the surface, and finally by con-
structing so many cut systems (π, ν) that the dissected surface can be transferred in an every-
where one-to one way to a piece of the plane. For the sake of brevity, I consider those func-
tions η which depend on one another linearly, to be identical. Our fundamental theorem then
states: That on every Riemannian surface (p, n, l, k) there exists always one and only one
normal function of any given type.294

Depending on how the Riemann surface is dissected, it is possible to derive from

this fundamental theorem a series of special uniformization theorems, including,
as mentioned above, the loop-cut theorem and the limit-circle theorem as the most
important cases.
With this article, Klein thought that he had reached a high point in his mathe-
matical productivity – in retrospect, in fact, he felt that it represented the peak. He
also believed, however, that there was additional work to be done on the topic.
Thus, knowing the situation well, he predicted in his article that Poincaré would
soon provide necessary addenda. According to Klein, Poincaré was not only in-
fluenced, like himself, by the “geometric manner of thinking” and by a desire to
“apply the continuity concept.” Beyond that, he [Poincaré] had also “wrestled
successfully with the analytic formation law of the new functions and had also
attempted, in the case of given algebraic irrationalities, to actually produce related
single-valued functions with algebraic transformations into themselves by means
of convergent processes.”295
As in the case of his other work, Klein hoped that younger mathematicians
would take up the topic and advance it further: “By discussing the important diffe-
rent directions in which our fundamental theorem might be taken, I hope to induce
other – perhaps younger – mathematicians to devote their energy to this promising
area of research.”296 The encouragement that Klein provided to young mathema-
ticians will come up repeatedly throughout the remainder of this book. Here I
should only remark that, beginning in 1907, Klein cooperated with Emil Hilb
(then Gordan’s and M. Noether’s assistant in Erlangen) and traced his fundamen-
tal theorems from the theory of automorphic functions back to his oscillation the-
orem of linear differential equations.297 Klein also created the conditions for
others to devise the final, rigorous proofs of his fundamental theorems.

293 KLEIN 1883, p. 206.

294 Ibid.
295 Ibid., p. 144.
296 Ibid.
297 See KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 770–74.
 5.5 Fields of Research 279

5.5.4.4 Remarks on the Proofs

Robert Fricke made the following comments in 1919:

A quarter century would have to pass, however, until all of the theorems formulated by Klein
found unobjectionable proofs. The methods of proof at the beginning of the 1880s were still
insufficient for this. Not until 1907 did P. Koebe begin to succeed in gradually providing ri-
gorous proofs for all of Klein’s theorems.298

Because Fricke, who wrote this shortly after the First World War, mentioned only
Paul Koebe’s rigorous proofs, it should be mentioned that, in 1907, Koebe and
Poincaré published (analytic) proofs around the same time and that, in subsequent
years, the Dutch mathematician Luitzen E.J. Brouwer also played a significant
role in further developments.299
When Felix Klein was to celebrate his sixtieth birthday on April 25, 1909, in
Göttingen, Hilbert arranged for Poincaré to be invited to give a series of lectures
from April 22nd to the 28th,300 and numerous additional researchers from Germany
and abroad participated. With Poincaré in attendance, Hilbert stressed, in his
birthday speech in Klein’s honor, Poincaré’s great contributions as well:
If […] I were to single out a special area of mathematics – now that we hear the names Poin-
caré and Klein together – which mathematician would not think of automorphic functions, the
theory of which Poincaré first founded, but the rich design of which is to your [Klein’s]
credit. This is the most profound matter that you [Klein] predicted – praesagiente animo –
and for which you also produced ideas for proofs. Even today, you await their completion.301

The early, incomplete proofs by Klein and Poincaré, which were based on the idea
of continuity, have already been analyzed in detail by Erhard Scholz in 1980. In
the 1880s, Klein and Poincaré discovered partial answers that were correct in
some respects and incorrect in others. Scholz compared their respective approa-
ches, which were hampered by the inadequate topological concepts at the time,
and concluded that the historical and methodological significance of their work
did not lie in “their valid solution but rather in the problems that they posed.”302
That this is true more generally is indicated by the fact that Hilbert made this
topic the subject of his aforementioned twenty-second problem. Klein supported
the solution of this problem (for two variables) not only by repeatedly integrating
the topic into his lectures, but also by conducting four seminars on it together with
Hilbert and Minkowski (from 1905/06 to 1907).303

298 FRICKE 1919, p. 276. – See also TOBIES 2021a.

299 Poincaré’s proofs of the limit-circle theorem are also cited in the preface to FRICKE/KLEIN
2017 [1912], p. xxvi. – Regarding Brouwer, see VAN DALEN 2013.
300 For the titles of Poincaré’s lectures, see Jahresbericht der DMV 18 (1909) Abt. 2, pp. 27, 39,
78–79.
301 The complete original German text of Hilbert’s speech is printed in TOBIES 2019b, pp. 513–
14. The English translation here is from ROWE 2018a, pp. 198–99.
302 SCHOLZ 1980, p. 215.
303 These seminars are documented in [Protocols] vols. 23–26.
280 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

These seminars focused on analyzing works by Klein, Poincaré, and also

more recent results by E. Papperitz, R. Fricke, W. Wirtinger, Osgood, and others.
Klein gave the majority of presentations himself; in 1906/07, Hilbert, Paul Koebe,
and others also gave presentations. Koebe had earned his doctoral degree in 1905
under H.A. Schwarz in Berlin, after which he went to Göttingen, where he was
able to finish his Habilitation in 1907. Koebe participated in Klein’s seminar in
the summer of 1906, and he gave his first presentation during the following se-
mester on November 14, 1906: “Über die conforme Abbildung der Halbebene auf
ein Grenzkreispolygon” [On the Conformal Mapping of the Half-Space Onto a
Limit-Circle Polygon].304 Not long thereafter, he published articles in the Göttin-
ger Nachrichten and in Mathematische Annalen that contained (analytic) proofs
for the limit-circle theorem. Here he used a deformation theorem that has since
been named after him: the Koebe quarter theorem (Viertelsatz).305
Klein still hoped, however, for someone to demonstrate that his original idea
of a continuity proof was viable. He also induced the Dutch mathematician Brou-
wer to devote attention to the topic.306 Brouwer had been a contributor to Mathe-
matische Annalen since 1909 (vol. 67), and he presented his first results on the
continuity issue in September of 1911 at the annual conference of the German
Mathematical Society in Karlsruhe, where Klein presided over a special sympo-
sium on the theory of automorphic functions. On May 21, 1912, Brouwer was
invited to give a lecture at the Göttingen Mathematical Society. In the Jahres-
bericht der DMV, it was announced that Brouwer intended to speak about
how, according to the proof of his theorem about the invariance of domain, Klein’s and
Poincaré’s continuity proof of the existence of linearly polymorphic functions on Riemann
surfaces can be executed perfectly by means of his method of expanding the modular
manifold. In addition to Fricke’s Würfelsatz [cube theorem], which plays a fundamental role
throughout, the classical results by Klein and Poincaré will be used in the case of the limit-
circle, whereas, in the remaining cases, an idea by Koebe will be used instead.307

SCHOLZ (1980) has analyzed Brouwer’s topological formulation of the proof

structure and shown that the latter could lead to a complete continuity proof of the
limit-circle theorem. All that was missing in the complex logical structure of the
proof was a sixth, final step. Koebe ultimately borrowed Brouwer’s approach and
used it to formulate continuity proofs for all three of Klein’s theorems.

304 In this presentation, Koebe concluded: “With this I have now proven the existence of those
transcendentals, the knowledge of which forms the foundation for the uniformization of the
solution of given linear homogeneous differential equations with rational functions as
coefficients and with exclusively real branch points.” Quoted from [Protocols] vol. 25, p. 62.
305 Koebe published four articles with strict proofs for the uniformization of real algebraic curves
and finally also for arbitrary analytic curves in Göttinger Nachrichten: Math.-physikal.
Klasse, in 1907 (pp. 177–90, 191–210, 410–14, and 633–69). They were alternately submit-
ted to the journal by Hilbert and Klein. The corresponding study by Poincaré is his article
“Sur l’uniformisation des fonctions analytiques,” Acta Mathematica 31 (1907), pp. 1–63.
306 See VAN DALEN 2003; and also MEHRTENS 1990, pp. 257–99.
307 Quoted from Jahresbericht DMV 21 (1912) Abt. 2, p. 142.
 5.5 Fields of Research 281

Klein was pleased that his original idea for a proof of continuity could be rea-
lised. The results were incorporated into the second volume of Fricke and Klein’s
book on automorphic functions (FRICKE/KLEIN 1912). For the second volume of
the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, Fricke (1913) and Leon Lichtenstein (1918/19) wrote infor-
mative summary articles about them. Lichtenstein illustrated Poincaré’s method
with an example and he emphasized how Klein’s approach was different: “In
contrast to H. Poincaré, F. Klein sought to draw stringent conclusions from the
behavior of the mapping inside the two manifolds alone (the method of the open
continuum). Klein’s method refrained from investigating the margin of the two
entities – something that Poincaré had considered indispensable – and it was con-
firmed and perfected in articles by Paul Koebe (1912).”308 Koebe had written to
Klein on March 30, 1912:
Poincaré’s view was based on the opinion that the bounding polygons must form a necessary
constituent in the proof of continuity. That this opinion is erroneous, that it is actually possi-
ble to give a precise justification of the continuity method in the sense of your approach, for
which, in contrast to Poincaré’s, the property of the continua not to be closed [Ungeschlos-
senheit] seems to me to be the most characteristic, was the essential content of my Karlsruhe
communication. It is precisely in this non-closedness, of which Poincaré expressly accuses
you in bold type on p.236, Acta IV, that the lifegiving moment in the proof of continuity lies.
[…]309

In the third volume of his collected works, Klein included a detailed report on his
and Fricke’s monograph on the theory of automorphic functions as well as a
commentary on the proofs, which Klein had coauthored with Erich Bessel-Ha-
gen.310 They attempted to demonstrate that Klein’s first ideas concerning a pos-
sibly rigorous proof for the fundamental theorem were essentially correct. It still
bothered Klein that his first idea of a proof had been criticized by Poincaré and
that, because of this criticism (as he thought), progress in this research direction
had long been impeded (until 1912). Klein regarded his work on this subject as his
most important result, thus that, on the occasion of celebrating the fiftieth
anniversary of the day when he had earned his doctoral degree, he chose Koebe to
be the main speaker at the event (see Section 9.2.3).
To this day, Hilbert’s twenty-second problem, which concerns analytic relati-
ons with more than two complex variables, has yet to be fully solved.

308 Leon Lichtenstein, “Neuere Entwicklungen der Potentialtheorie: Konforme Abbildungen,” in

ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. II.3.1 (1918/19), pp. 177–377, esp. 348–51.
309 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 506 (Koebe to Klein on March 30, 1912). The related article is
POINCARÉ (1884, p. 236): “Ainsi, il n’est pas évident que S est une multiplicité fermée et il est
nécessaire de le démontrer, par une discussion spéciale à chaque cas particulier, avant
d’affirmer qu’à tout point de S’ correspond un point de S. C’est ce que M. Klein a négligé de
faire. Il y a là une difficulté dont on ne peut triompher en quelques lignes.”
310 See KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 731–41, 742–47.
282 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

5.5.5 The Polemic about and with Lazarus Fuchs

Klein instigated a heated polemic over the fact that Poincaré had named the class
of functions he investigated after Lazarus Fuchs. This topic has already been
discussed in detail.311 The context of this dispute needs to be outlined here, how-
ever, because several later events in Klein’s biography cannot be fully understood
without some familiarity with how his feud with Fuchs began and unfolded.
Poincaré’s approach to this particular class of functions differed from Klein’s.
The Frenchman was inspired by differential equations that Lazarus Fuchs had
analyzed.312 Poincaré requested and received permission from Fuchs to honor him
with the term fonctions fuchsiennes (for the solution functions of the respective
differential equations). Klein made the mistake of not realizing (or not recogniz-
ing at once) that a purely analytic starting point could also lead to the results that
he himself had achieved by means of geometric methods. He obviously saw him-
self deprived of a field of research that he himself had developed from Riemann’s
geometric approach. Concerned about his priority, Klein called Fuchs’s approach
“ungeometric” and “flawed.” On June 19, 1881, Klein wrote to Poincaré:
I reject the term “fonctions fuchsiennes,” though I understand well that Fuchs’s studies in-
spired your ideas. Essentially, all of such research is based on Riemann. Regarding my own
development, the closely related work by Schwarz was […] of considerable importance. The
work by Mr. Dedekind on elliptic modular functions in vol. 83 of Borchardt’s Journal [i.e.,
Crelle’s Journal] appeared at a time when I was already familiar with the geometric repre-
sentation of modular functions (the fall of 1877). By virtue of their ungeometric form,
Fuchs’s articles stand in deliberate contrast to the works named above. I do not dispute the
great merits of Fuchs’s work on other aspects of the theory of differential equations, but in
this particular case, his articles are not relevant. He only dealt once with elliptic modular
functions, in a letter to Hermite (Borchardt’s Journal, vol. 83 [1876/77]) […], and here he
made a fundamental error, which Dedekind then only too gently criticized.313

When Klein suggested to Poincaré on December 4, 1881 that he should submit his
results to Mathematische Annalen, Klein also told him that he would like to add a
footnote to Poincaré’s text, “in which I will explain how the whole matter appears
from my perspective and how the research program that you are still engaged in
was the guiding principle underlying my work on modular functions.”314 Poincaré
agreed to this in his prompt response (December 8, 1881), so that the article was
quickly ready to be printed. On January 13, 1882, Klein sent the proof sheets of

311 See GRAY 1984, 2000, and 2013; ROWE 1992b and 2018a, pp. 111–33; see also KING 2019.
312 See GRAY 2013, pp. 207–24; and SCHOLZ 1980, pp. 180–81, 198–99, 357–59.
313 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 591–92 (a letter from Klein to Poincaré dated June 19, 1881). See
Richard Dedekind, “Schreiben an Herrn Borchardt über die Theorie der elliptischen Modul-
Functionen,” Crelle’s Journal 83 (1877), pp. 265–92. Here, Dedekind explained an error that
Fuchs had made, but he added that this mistake did not substantially affect the main point of
Fuchs’s interesting article. In a letter to Dedekind, Heinrich Weber commented that Dedekind
had treated Fuchs very decently. See SCHEEL 2014, p. 169.
314 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 602.
 5.5 Fields of Research 283

the article to Poincaré with his note, and he explained that, in this note, he
protested “against the two terms fuchsiennes and kleinéennes; regarding the latter,
one should instead cite Schottky and mention Riemann as the man to whom all of
these investigations go back.”315
Although Poincaré had agreed to allow Klein to insert his note, he neverthe-
less wanted to stick with the terms that he had already used. In his Annalen article,
he spoke of Fuchsian groups: “Je vais chercher d’abord à former tous les groupes
discontinus formés de substitutions Si où les coëfficients αi, βi, γi, δi sont réels. Je
les appelle groupes Fuchsiens.” He also spoke of Kleinian groups: “Reste à
examiner le cas le plus général, celui où l’on ne fait aucune hypothèse sur les
substitutions Si. Dans ce cas il y a encore des groupes discontinus que j’ai appelés
Kleinéens et dont j’ai démontré l’existence et étudié le mode de génération par des
procédés empruntés à la géométrie non-euclidienne à trois dimensions.” Moreo-
ver, he also spoke of Fuchsian and Kleinian functions or theta functions: “ϴ (ζ)
s’appellera une fonction thétafuchsienne ou thétakleinéenne selon que le groupe
correspondant sera Fuchsien ou Kleinéen.” Poincaré defined the properties of
these functions and added: “Nous appellerons fonction Fuchsienne (ou Klei-
néenne) toute fonction jouisant [sic] de ces deux propriétés.”316
In his footnote, Klein thanked Poincaré for the article and stressed the special
role of “functions that seem fit to compete, in the theory of algebraic irrationali-
ties, with Abelian functions, and which furthermore provide entirely new insight
into those dependencies which are defined by linear differential equations with
algebraic coefficients.” After this, Klein justified why he considered it “prema-
ture” to name the terms in question after Fuchs and himself:
On the one hand, all of the studies that Mr. Schwarz and I have published on the topic at hand
are concerned with “fonctions fuchsiennes,” about which Mr. Fuchs himself has never pub-
lished anything. On the other hand, I have not yet published anything about the more general
functions that Mr. Poincaré associates with my name; I merely brought the existence of these
functions to Mr. Poincaré’s attention in our personal correspondence.317

Later, both Poincaré’s and Klein’s terminology would become established. For
instance, the English mathematician William Burnside used Klein’s “automorphic
functions” early on.318 Stanisław Kępiński, who studied under Klein and was the
first Polish mathematician to publish in Mathematische Annalen (vol. 4, 1896, pp.
573–75), explained “Fuchsian functions of two variables” as follows: “In contrast
to Poincaré’s Fuchsian functions (of one variable), which, according to Klein’s
terminology, are a special case of general automorphic functions of one variable
[…].”

315 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 605.

316 Henri Poincaré, “Sur les Fonctions Uniformes qui se reproduisent par des Substitutions Li-
néaires,” Math. Ann. 19 (1882), pp. 553–64, quoted here from pp. 554, 557, 558.
317 Math. Ann. 19 (1882), p. 564.
318 See ADELMANN/GERBRACHT 2009. As already mentioned above, Klein introduced the con-
cept of “automorphic functions” in an article of 1890, see Section 5.5.1.1.
284 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

Lazarus Fuchs felt that he was being attacked. In a short note – “Ueber Func-
tionen, welche durch lineare Substitutionen unverändert bleiben” [On Functions
that Remain Unchanged by Linear Substitutions] – he objected to Klein’s state-
ment that he had never published anything on fonctions fuchsiennes. Fuchs menti-
oned two of his articles and claimed that Klein had used his results.319 Surprised
by Fuchs’s attack, Klein informed Hurwitz: “In the Göttinger Nachrichten from
March 4th, Fuchs targeted me in a note.”320 Hurwitz responded: “Prof. Fuchs
would certainly not be pleased at all to learn that I did not cite him in my disserta-
tion. About this I have nothing more to say than that I did not study his work in
detail at the time and that it has therefore had no influence on my own intellectual
development.”321 Shortly thereafter, Poincaré explained his terminology yet again,
and Klein printed this explanation as a letter to the readers of Mathematische An-
nalen.322 At the same time, Klein straightened out Fuchs’s arguments in a personal
letter to Poincaré:
I only asserted that Fuchs has never published anything about “fonctions fuchsiennes.” In this
regard, the second of the articles that he mentions (a copy of which I have requested in order
to study it more closely) is irrelevant. The first is admittedly concerned with “fonctions fuch-
siennes” to the extent that it deals with modular functions, but Fuchs, owing to his lack of ge-
ometric intuition, failed to recognize the true character of the latter, which lies in the nature of
the singular line – this was the error that Dedekind already pointed out in vol. 83 of Bor-
chardt’s Journal (1877). Finally, his insinuation toward the end of his note that my work was
somehow inspired by his own research is simply historically incorrect. I began my investiga-
tions in 1874 by determining all infinite groups of linear transformations of one variable. In
the year 1876, I demonstrated that the problem then posed by Fuchs – the problem of deter-
mining all algebraically integrable linear differential equations of the second order – was the-
reby settled. The matter is therefore the opposite of what Fuchs claims it to be. It was not the
case that I took any ideas from his work; rather, I showed that his topic has to be treated with
my ideas.323

In his article “Neue Beiträge zur Riemann’schen Functionentheorie,” moreover,

Klein responded to Fuchs with a long footnote. He described Fuchs’s develop-
ments as “indeterminate ideas […] because the results that Mr. Fuchs expresses in
a very definite form are incorrect as such. Throughout, he confuses the concepts
of unbranched and single-valued functions.” Klein went on about Fuchs’s publi-
cation in the Göttinger Nachrichten and remarked: “Although personal discus-
sions are hardly useful in general, I feel compelled to respond here with a few
lines.”324 This polemic would still be a matter of discussion when the occasion
arose to hire Klein in Göttingen (Section 5.8.2). In the reprint of “Neue Beiträge”
in Klein’s collected works, he omitted the polemical footnote. Instead, his preface

319 Göttinger Nachrichten (1882), pp. 81–84.

320 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 67 (a postcard from Klein to Hurwitz).
321 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 911/3 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated March 15, 1882).
322 Henri Poincaré, “Sur les Fonctions Uniformes qui se reproduisent par des Substitutions
Linéaires,” Math. Ann. 20 (1882), pp. 52–53.
323 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 608 (Klein to Poincaré on April 3, 1882), emphasis original.
324 KLEIN 1883, pp. 214–16.
 5.5 Fields of Research 285

to the article even contains a few positive words about Fuchs’s work, which had
pointed Poincaré’s attention toward modular functions.325
For a long time, the dispute between the two men remained heated. In his se-
minars and lectures, Klein repeatedly criticized Fuchs’s publications or had his
students scrutinize them for errors.326 Hurwitz wrote the following to Klein on
April 6, 1882: “Regarding Mr. Fuchs, he must be up in arms over your note on
Poincaré’s work; it must upset him to hear you sing: ‘Fuchs, you stole the func-
tion. Give it back!’ We used to sing that at school. […] The result of your last
article outshines everything that you’ve done before.”327 A few years later, Hur-
witz would identify a grave error in Fuchs’s work (Section 6.4.3 and Appendix 5).
Sophus Lie, who thought (as mentioned above) that Klein had spoken “harsh
truths” to Fuchs, commented again: “When the occasion arises, please tell me if
Fuchs has answered your recent remarks and where. I have no doubt that mathe-
maticians will come to value your essential preliminary work to Poincaré’s disco-
veries. In all your students, you have an army that represents a great force.”328
With his comment about Klein’s students, Sophus Lie hit upon an important point.
Klein worked and lived with and for his students. In his long article on Riemann’s
function theory, he made sure to stress the importance of articles written by Dyck,
Gierster, and Hurwitz. Hurwitz wrote to him from Göttingen:
Thank you for sending me your “Contributions to Riemannian Function Theory.” The article
evoked in me a sort of moral despair, for I feel as though I have not made as much progress as
I should have. I can’t even tell you how much I miss the stimulating hours that I spent with
you; the true value of what one has is never really appreciated until it has been lost.329

Both as a Privatdozent in Göttingen and as an associate professor in Königsberg,

Hurwitz continued to participate in and contribute to Klein’s research program –
with his own work, as an advisor and reviewer, and with his critical view of
Lazarus Fuchs. Despite Lie’s opinion of the matter,330 the ongoing polemic with
Fuchs was hardly reasonable, and it ultimately did Klein more harm than good.

325 See KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 580. – Max Noether had already written to Klein on January
18, 1883, that the “style” of his polemics against Fuchs was unsuitable and that he considered
it quite possible that the theory of the functions in question could be developed in another
way, based on the linear differential equations. [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 64.
326 Francesco Gerbaldi’s presentation on linear differential equations was discussed above in
Section 5.4.2.3. In a presentation given on July 31, 1886, Mellen Woodman Haskell also
analyzed work by Fuchs, particularly his article “Zur Theorie der linearen Differentialglei-
chungen mit veränderlichen Coefficienten,” Crelle’s Journal 66 (1866), pp. 121–60. See
[Protocols] vol. 8, pp. 79–81.
327 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 913. Here, Hurwitz is rephrasing a children’s song with the line
“Fuchs, du hast die Gans gestohlen,” that is, “Fox, you stole the goose.” The note that he re-
fers to is Klein’s article on the limit-circle theorem.
328 Ibid. 10: 687 (an undated letter from Lie to Klein, sent in late 1882 or early 1883).
329 Ibid. 9: 936 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated December 31, 1882).
330 Ibid. 10: 692 (an undated letter from Lie to Klein).
286 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

5.5.6 The Icosahedron Book

Whereas Klein encouraged Hurwitz to forge ahead with his work, he himself re-
turned to his idea of writing textbooks, which he had expressed in his 1880 inau-
gural address in Leipzig. In other words, his aim was to summarize his results
from the 1870s, which he had begun to systematize in his lectures. Hurwitz, who
spent the Easter holiday of 1883 with Klein’s family, was one of the first to hear
about this. After the beginning of the semester, Klein informed him: “Since the
beginning of the week, I have been reading about equations of degree 5 in order to
finish by June 15th and then perhaps go to Spiekeroog.”331
Klein did indeed travel with his wife and son Otto to the East Frisian island of
Spiekeroog. His daughter Luise remained behind with her aunt Sophie Hegel. At
the beginning of August, they then went to Grafenberg near Düsseldorf. When
Otto fell ill with diphtheria, Anna Klein went back to Leipzig with him. Felix
Klein remained behind at his parents’ house and continued to work on his icosa-
hedron book. It took longer than he expected. On March 28, 1884, he announced:
“I am concentrating on editing my book, and I hope to finish it over the break,
though I can’t make any promises.”332 On June 20, 1884, Klein finally reported:
Little new here. My book on modular functions lies further in the distance. In contrast, my
book about the icosahedron is complete except for a few details, and it will come out in some
weeks. Regarding all of this, I have a guilty conscience about “going backwards,” which I in
fact had a vivid dream about last night.333

We see that Klein was already thinking about his next book (on elliptic modular
functions); however, he was somewhat discontent summarizing his old material
and not producing new results. All the more, then, he spurred on Hurwitz’s pro-
ductivity. The latter reported his new results from Königsberg and thanked Klein
for sending him a copy of the icosahedron book:
I was just preparing for a trip when I received your book and your letter about my work.
Thank you very much for the copy of the book, which will accompany me on my trip and
which I very much look forward to studying. I have also notified two of our best students in
Königsberg about its publication. One of them, Mr. Hilbert, just finished his dissertation:
“Über Kugelfunctionen vom Standpuncte der Invariantentheorie betrachtet” [On Spherical
Functions, Considered from the Standpoint of Invariant Theory]. Hilbert is very passionate
about invariants; after taking his doctoral exams, he intends to go to Leipzig for a year to en-
joy your stimulation. He has an ardent, speculative mind, and I’m sure you’ll like him.334

Both Hilbert and Minkowski (the other Königsberg student referred to) studied
the book. In 1900, Hilbert still stressed how important it was that Klein had
recognized the broad applicability of the “problem of regular polyhedra.”335

331 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 94 (a postcard from Klein to Hurwitz dated April 28, 1883).
332 Ibid. 77: 119 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated March 28, 1884), emphasis original.
333 Ibid. 77: 116 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated June 20, 1884).
334 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 968 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated August 4, 1884).
335 HILBERT 1900, p. 256.
 5.5 Fields of Research 287

Sophus Lie wrote to Klein: “I have received your book on the icosahedron, as
I wrote to you. I feel very flattered that you mentioned me in such an honorable
way in your preface. However, I am quite sure that I am only half-way deserving
of this.”336 In his preface, Klein had thanked Lie for working together with him on
“investigating geometric or analytic forms susceptible of transformation by means
of groups of changes.”337 Lie explained his reservations about acknowledging
others as follows:
I am ashamed that in my recent works I only quoted you with a certain reserve. I have learned
that I have to be careful. When I quote somebody, one believes the person quoted has done
everything. I do not understand why this is: probably, it is simply assumed that my ideas are
proportional to my ability to express them.338

Lie regarded Klein’s icosahedron book as being “very well written,” and he
thought it would grant him renewed access to Klein’s ideas. Lie decided to adopt
Klein’s term isomorph [isomorphic], for which he had previously used the term
gleichzusammengesetzt [equally composed].339 At the same time, Lie also felt
inspired by Klein’s book to start planning – “with Friedrich Engel’s help” – his
own future book project, in which he hoped to unify his “collected investigations
on transformation groups into a single work.”340
Klein’s preface to Vorlesungen über das Ikosaeder und die Auflösung der
Gleichungen vom fünften Grade (the book was translated into English as Lectures
on the Ikosahedron [sic], and the Solution of Equations of the Fifth Degree in
1888) begins with a forecast of his comprehensive book program:
The theory of the Ikosahedron has during the last few years obtained a place of such impor-
tance for nearly all departments of modern analysis that it seemed expedient to publish a sys-
tematic exposition of the same. Should this prove acceptable, I propose to continue in the
same course and to treat in a similar manner the subject of Elliptic Modular Functions and the
general investigations newly made of Single-valued Functions with linear transformations
into themselves [as of 1890: automorphic functions]. Thus a treatise of several volumes
would grow, in which I should expect to promote science, at least in so far as it might intro-
duce many to the realms of modern mathematics rich in far-stretching vistas.341

The icosahedron book consists of two main parts, the first of which is titled “The-
ory of the Ikosahedron Itself.” The second part – “Theory of Equations of the
Fifth Degree” – is concerned with proving that the solution of an arbitrary equa-
tion of degree five can be reduced to the solution of an icosahedron equation.
Klein’s overarching goal was to present those theories about equations of de-
gree five that had been created with the construction of transcendental solutions

336 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 704 (an undated letter from Lie to Klein, 1884).
337 KLEIN 1888 [1884], p. viii. For the German original, see KLEIN 1884, p. iv.
338 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 704 (Lie to Klein, 1884).
339 Ibid.
340 Ibid. 10: 704 and 706/1. This letter from Lie to Klein, which was written toward the end of
1884, includes a detailed table of contents for the book that Lie had in mind.
341 KLEIN 1888 [1884], p. vii (preface written on May 24, 1884).
288 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

since the middle of the 19th century. He had deliberately chosen an inductive
approach for the arrangement of the material, as he later explained to a reviewer:
“I believe the reader learns more with inductive presentation.”342
With this textbook, Klein wanted to provide tools that he had needed in his
own efforts to reduce the equation of degree five to an icosahedron equation. The
book covers a wide range of topics, including geometric, algebraic, and function-
theoretical methods; the Platonic (regular) solids, group theory, and the Riemann
sphere; approaches from the theory of differential equations, series developments,
and the theory of equations; all significant contributions made by mathematicians
such as Gordan, Brioschi, Jacobi, Hermite, Kronecker, and others.
The book culminates in the proof of Kronecker’s theorem, which Klein had
achieved in 1876 (see Section 4.2.1). In the icosahedron book, the theorem is sta-
ted as follows: “[I]t is impossible, in the case of an arbitrarily proposed equation
of the fifth degree, even after adjunction of the square root of the discriminant, to
construct a rational resolvent which contains only one parameter.”343
Klein’s successful proof would still be important to him in 1905, when he re-
visited the subject in the only essay that he ever published in Crelle’s Journal.
The journal’s editor at the time, Kurt Hensel, had requested a contribution from
Klein for a special volume on Dirichlet. Klein summarized his own results and
discussed further developments in the matter of solving general equations of de-
gree five and degree six.344 He stressed in particular a new proof of Kronecker’s
theorem by Gordan (1877) and the results produced by Jordan, Wiman, and Va-
lentiner. Klein produced a novel result by synthesizing the ideas of the latter three
scholars with the theory of cubic plane curves.345 Klein also used the occasion of
this publication in 1905 to formulate his views on the nature of discovering and
proving theorems, two processes that do not necessarily coincide:
It happened that Kronecker, in his investigation, did not quite arrive at the icosahedron sub-
stitutions (which he had come so close to figuring out), and thus never found a sufficient
proof for his main theorem! This, I think, is a very remarkable fact, even from a general point
of view. For it confirms, as one especially interesting example, what Gauß so often stressed:
that the discovery of important mathematical theorems is more a matter of intuition than de-
duction, and that the formulation of proofs is an entirely different affair from the discovery of
theorems. Later, I never had a chance to discuss this subject with Kronecker, but I heard a
few years ago that, after the publication of my “icosahedron book,” Kronecker devoted some
time to the icosahedron theory in his course on solving equations of degree five.346

342 [UBG] Cod. MS F. Klein 11: 565B, fol. 5v (Klein to H. Schaeffer, February 3, 1885).
343 KLEIN 1888 [1884], pp. 286–87.
344 Felix Klein, “Über die Auflösung der allgemeinen Gleichungen fünften und sechsten
Grades,” Crelle’s Journal 129 (1905), pp. 151–74; reprinted in Math. Ann. 61 (1905), pp. 50–
71; and KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 481–504. See also Felix Klein, “Sulla risoluzione delle
equazioni di sesto grado,” Rendiconti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei: Classe di scienze
fisiche, matematiche e naturali 8 (1899), p. 324.
345 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 495–502.
346 Ibid., p. 491.
 5.5 Fields of Research 289

When Klein prepared this article for the edition in his collected works (GMA II,
1922), however, he had just learned from Kurt Hensel (who edited Kronecker’s
five-volume collected works) that Kronecker disregarded his findings.347 Thus,
Klein felt impelled to describe once more how he had arrived at his proof(s). He
also criticized Kronecker’s general attitude toward new theories, and he posed two
rhetorical questions that demonstrated his own openness to novel ideas:
When new phenomena arise (in this case, the efficiency of the accessory irrationalities),
should one impede further development in favor of a previously conceived systematic idea or,
instead, reject this thinking as too narrow and approach the new problems in an unbiased
manner? Should one be dogmatic or, like a natural scientist, always be willing to learn some-
thing new from the objects of investigation themselves?348

The icosahedron book contained some notions that would later be named after
Klein, such as the “Klein four-group” (Kleinsche Vierergruppe) and “Klein’s
form problem” (das Kleinsche Formenproblem). The latter was taken up in 1935
by Richard Brauer, who used the theory of hypercomplex quantities to demon-
strate that Klein’s form problem could be generalized.349 When a finite group G of
linear transformations or more generally of collineations is given, Klein’s form
problem for G was understood as the task of computing the coordinates of an n-
dimensional point when the values of the invariants of G are known for it. The
primary task was to investigate which equations could be reduced to a form prob-
lem for a given group G.
Klein was concerned with the question of whether every fifth-degree equation
can be traced back to an icosahedron equation. The answer is easy for a group of
entire linear homogeneous transformations. In the case of a group of fractional
linear transformations, which is of greater interest with respect to applications,
things were more complicated. Here, Klein managed to reduce the equation of
degree five to an icosahedron equation only by adding an irrationality to the basic
field (Grundkörper) that could not be represented as a rational function of the
roots of the equation with coefficients from the field itself. Before Brauer’s new
approach, proofs could be given only for special cases.
Klein had systematized the results of the research area, and he had encouraged
the discovery of new results as well. The dissertation of Klein’s doctoral student
Otto Fischer, “Konforme Abbildung sphärischer Dreiecke auf einander mittelst
algebraischer Funktionen” [Conformal Mapping of Spherical Triangles Onto One
Another by Means of Algebraic Functions] (submitted November 24, 1884), is
notable. Klein wrote that Fischer developed “versatile methods to map the ele-
mentary triangle of the icosahedron conformally onto the other spherical triangles
bounded by the symmetry arcs of the same configuration. This must be achieved
each time by the means of algebraic functions.”350 Fischer thus solved a problem

347 See PETRI/SCHAPPACHER 2002, pp. 261–62.

348 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 504.
349 See BRAUER 1935.
350 See KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 282.
290 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

formulated by Klein and corrected a mathematical error discovered by Cayley.

Later, Klein described Otto Fischer’s methods for treating the hypergeometric
functions belonging to the icosahedron as being “of general significance.”351
In the 1990s, Gert-Martin Greuel likewise stressed that Klein’s work did
much to stimulate further research on the topic of singularities because, in his ef-
forts to solve the equation of degree five, Klein had discovered equations of sim-
ple singularities (as invariants of finite subgroups). Singularities of this sort have
become fundamental in various branches of mathematics. Greuel’s exposition of
the “deformation and classification of singularities and moduli” cites Klein’s
book; it contains an overview of simple singularities, and it elucidates Peter Kron-
heimer’s approach to demonstrating direct relationships between simple Lie
groups and finite Klein groups.352
In a new edition of Klein’s book, with an introduction and commentary by
Peter Slodowy (1993), Slodowy refers to the continuing importance of “icosa-
hedron mathematics,” in which the geometry and symmetry of the icosahedron
and other regular polyhedra are relevant. In his preface, Slodowy mentions several
areas of mathematical research that have been derived from it. At the same time,
he provides an assessment of Klein’s goals, approach, and argumentation from the
perspective of modern mathematics.353 Slodowy regards Klein’s book as a
“quarry” that can still be mined for treasures by contemporary mathematicians.
The English translation of Klein’s icosahedron book (London 1888) was un-
dertaken by George Gavin Morrice, a member of the London Mathematical So-
ciety. His translation was informed by a detailed review of the German edition
that was written in English by Klein’s doctoral student Frank Nelson Cole. In ad-
dition, Morrice sought advice from Arthur Cayley about how to translate certain
technical terms.354 A letter from Klein to Fricke in 1891, however, reveals that
Klein was less than satisfied with the English version.355 In 2019, Morrice’s
English translation was reissued by the Higher Education Press in Beijing and was
supplemented with Slodowy’s introduction and commentary from 1993.

351 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 63. See also KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 317, 346, 582.
352 See GREUEL 1992, pp. 178, 185–87.
353 KLEIN 1884, ed. by SLODOWY 1993, p. viii.
354 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 1317 (a letter from Morrice to Klein dated February 24, 1888).
Cole’s review was published in the American Journal of Mathematics 9/1 (1886), pp. 45–61.
From this review, for instance, Morrice borrowed the term “self-conjugate subgroup” to
translate ausgezeichnete Untergruppe.
355 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from Klein to Fricke dated December 14, 1891. In this letter,
Klein recommended that Fabian Franklin should be chosen to translate the next book: KLEIN/
FRICKE (1890/92). This two-volume work did not appear in English translation until 2017
(see the next Section).
 5.5 Fields of Research 291

5.5.7 A Book on the Theory of Elliptic Modular Functions

Felix Klein had not even written the preface to his icosahedron book when, in
June of 1884, he was already looking ahead to his next book project:
Today I made a thorough plan for the book that I would like to write on modular functions.
Whether I will ever finish it is another question. It is still sorely lacking in terms of theory.
Yet even aside from that, writing books involves a great deal of work that I find extremely
unpleasant. I am forcing myself to do it because, at the moment, I consider it the most useful
thing that I can do.356

Ultimately, Robert Fricke would become the collaborator on this project: Vorle-
sungen über die Theorie der elliptischen Modulfunktionen [Lectures on the The-
ory of Elliptic Modular Functions].357 It has, however, an interesting prehistory
that was largely unknown until recently. First, Klein knew that the theory he had
developed in Munich in the 1870s needed to be supplemented. To this end, he
worked in Leipzig with numerous students and cooperated mainly with Adolf
Hurwitz. Second, Klein was looking for a suitable editor for the book, because he
did not want to write it alone. Before working with Fricke, he had tested out an-
other candidate for this role.

5.5.7.1 Supplementing the Theory

Klein treated the topic of elliptic modular functions in his lecture courses during
the winter semester of 1883/84, the summer semester of 1884, and in his seminar
from November 1884 to January 1885.358 Moreover, he presented reports about
new results in this research area to the Saxon Academy of Sciences. His corre-
spondence with Adolf Hurwitz shows how Klein and his students supplemented
the theoretical approaches to these functions.
Hurwitz himself was always interested in collaborating further with Klein. As
a Privatdozent in Göttingen, he missed the stimulating work that they had done
together. He thus sent regular letters to Klein and willingly accepted the latter’s
invitations to meet in person: “Having a discussion with you is one of my favorite
things to do.”359 Hurwitz helped Klein to complete his theory, and he filled in
gaps in Klein’s proofs. As early as September 14, 1883, for instance, he had writ-
ten about new ideas for a proof: “You see from this that your theory of modular
correspondences can essentially be completed by introducing Weierstrass’s E-
function at a certain point.”360 In his reply, Klein expressed his continued skepti-
cism about using Weierstrass’s prime functions in a more general context:

356 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 115 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated June 3, 1884).
357 KLEIN/FRICKE 1890/92. For an English translation, see KLEIN/FRICKE 2017 [1890/92].
358 [Protocols] vol. 6, p. 155.
359 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 962 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated March 20, 1884).
360 Ibid. 9: 951/3 (Hurwitz to Klein, September 14, 1883).
292 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

To your letter I can respond at once, even though I do not have much to say. The question is
whether real progress can be achieved both in the theory of modular functions and, beyond
that, in the theory of algebraic structures in general by introducing prime functions. I must
admit that I have so far doubted that this is the case; I believed that the prime function is only
an expression for another formulation of the already well-known theory. If I may express my-
self even more directly, I regarded Kronecker’s assertion (that we should leave behind alge-
braic functions and only concern ourselves with prime functions) as no more than a trendy
phrase. I would be happy to be convinced to the contrary. Bring me a class relation that can-
not otherwise be derived with the same ease, and then I will be convinced.361

They agreed about Klein’s statement that “the actual instrument with which one
must work is and remains Abel’s theorem.”362 Hurwitz worked further on the
topic of modular correspondences. Klein was counting on Hurwitz’s results for his
planned book, for which he envisaged: “A systematic study of nth-level moduli
will have to form the conclusion of my projected work.”363 Klein repeatedly sug-
gested topics for Hurwitz to investigate, for example: “Regarding moduli of the
nth-level, you should attempt to construct appropriate moduli from the partial val-
ues of the σ-function […].” Klein went on to offer longer explanations of the
moduli of different levels.
During his North Sea vacation in 1884, Klein edited a small work of his own,
in which he summarized his “old results on the n-part σ-products.”364 He revised
several of his older works on the topic for publication in Mathematische Annalen,
and he repeatedly polished the outline of his book on elliptic modular functions.
His urgent desire to meet with Hurwitz was fulfilled in Düsseldorf (at Klein’s par-
ents’ house) in mid-September 1884, and also during the summer vacation in
1885. Their correspondence testifies to their mutual stimulation and appreciation.
Hurwitz concluded a letter dated September 12, 1884 with the words: “Your the-
ory of modular functions has opened up access to a large and fertile field of re-
search.”365 In his reply, Klein explained his own new results, formulated open
questions, and stressed: “I don’t have to tell you how stimulating your visit was.
We must see to it that we get together next year in a similar fashion.”366
Klein’s cooperation with Hurwitz left him feeling intellectually refreshed, and
now he planned a trip to Paris for the end of September in 1884. He prepared for
this trip by writing to Picard, Hermite, and Darboux,367 and Hurwitz brought

361 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 102 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated September 16, 1883.
362 Ibid. 77: 104 (a postcard from Klein to Hurwitz dated September 26, 1883). For an explana-
tion of Abel’s theorem, Weierstrass’s prime function, and Klein’s prime forms for represent-
ing algebraic functions as a product of factors, each of which becomes zero or infinite only at
one point, see W. Wirtinger’s article in the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. II.2 (1901), pp. 155–68.
363 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 120 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated August 17, 1884).
364 Ibid. 77: 119 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated August 29, 1884).
365 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 972 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated September 12, 1884).
366 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 122 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated September 23, 1884). Their
next meeting took place in August and September of 1885, and by then their discussion had
already moved on to hyperelliptic functions.
367 See ibid. and a postcard to Hurwitz dated September 25, 1884 (No. 103).
 5.5 Fields of Research 293

Klein up to date by sending him his latest results concerning the nth-level problem.
Hurwitz also provided an assessment of Hermite’s recent work. According to
Hurwitz, Hermite had returned to his class number relations “without making any
essential modifications to his earlier ideas.”368 Furthermore: “In Hermite’s work
the development of σ-quotients in Fourier series is crucial.”369 The trip to Paris
fell through, however, because Klein was suffering from an upset stomach.370
Klein continued to work with his seminar participants, and he asked Hurwitz
to review the results. Regarding the work of Giacinto Morera, Hurwitz believed
that it was “closely related to my recent investigations into integrals of the first
kind,” and he thought that Theodor Molien’s work was useful.371 Klein attached
particular importance to Hurwitz’s judgment of Georg Pick’s first work on the
complex multiplication of elliptic functions:
The work is so important that I must have every guarantee regarding its accuracy before I ac-
cept it for publication in the Annalen. This work is very interesting for your own research, so
any time spent on it will be useful. This would be Pick’s first publication (I praised him to
you in one of our conversations in the fall). Who knows how things will develop?372

Hurwitz responded by classifying Pick’s work in Klein’s research program: “The

execution of your general program – based on your level theory [Klein’s grading
of the different kinds of elliptic functions in 1879] – will also certainly bring to
light very beautiful results for complex multiplication. Mr. Pick has taken the first
step.” Three days later, Hurwitz reported to Klein that his impression of Pick’s
study was that “everything is correct; however, I am too unfamiliar with the com-
position of quadratic forms to evaluate all of the details of his investigation.”373
On January 1, 1885, Klein sent New Year’s greetings to Hurwitz along with
mathematical ideas divided into six points. Hurwitz replied two days later: “Your
friendly messages about the σgh might perhaps be useful to me for the integrals.
Already some time ago, I had also made a recalculation of Kronecker’s Λ. It
would be of the utmost importance to me if the idea you suggested on p. 95 of
your recent publication on elliptic functions of the nth level were to be pursued
further. […] Good luck with your book!”374
Klein sent Hurwitz a report about elliptic functions and modular functions in-
cluding results from his doctoral students (Ernst Fiedler, Georg Friedrich, Robert
Fricke, Paul Nimsch, Paul Biedermann). He sent the report with the wish “that,
for your part, you may perhaps also work in the direction presented here.”375 Hur-

368 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 974 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated September 28, 1884).
369 Ibid. 9: 975 (a letter dated October 16, 1884).
370 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 123 (a postcard from Klein to Hurwitz dated October 20, 1884).
371 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 991 (a postcard from Hurwitz to Klein dated February 11, 1885).
372 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 127 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated November 29, 1884).
373 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 981, 980 (letters from Hurwitz to Klein dated December 1, 1884
and December 4, 1884; wrongly arranged in the archive).
374 Ibid. 9: 985 (Hurwitz to Klein on 3 January 1885). Klein had written to Hurwitz earlier about
Kronecker’s “analytic invariant Λ for solving Pell’s equation.” [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 130.
375 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 132 (Klein to Hurwitz on January 29, 1885).
294 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

witz supplemented this work, corrected it, referred to unanswered problems, and
offered the following assessment: “The results of Messrs. [Georg] Friedrich and
[Ernst] Fiedler are especially interesting to me. The fact that it is now possible to
explicitly specify modular equations for such high degrees of transformation is
indeed a major advance over the methods of the Jacobi and Weierstrass
school.”376
Klein divided his report in two parts, submitted the first part to be published
in the Sitzungsberichte of the Saxon Academy of Sciences (dated February 2,
1885), and he published the second part in Mathematische Annalen (dated
September 17, 1885).377 With this publication, Klein wanted to document how his
“program for a pure theory of elliptic modular functions” (Math. Ann., vols. 14
and 15), which he had first developed in Munich, had been advanced by himself
and his students. In particular, he wanted to show that these new investigations
had become more closely connected “with the actual theory of elliptic functions –
especially with the basic forms that Weierstrass used to give in his lectures.”
Klein noted that, in his study published by the Munich Academy (1879), he had
limited himself to “modular functions in the strict sense.” Further investigations,
however, would require an analysis of modular forms. He explained:
One can imagine this connection in such a way that Riemann’s methods (the construction and
discussion of fundamental polygons etc.), which I prioritized at that time, provided the first
necessary preliminary results. A refined approach and the treatment of more complicated
cases requires the use of form-theoretical methods. The supreme principle of classification
remains the group-theoretical approach (the level graduation etc.).378

By the end of the winter semester of 1884/85, Klein had made so much progress
that he was seriously thinking about organizing this material into a book. Re-
garding his research seminar, he remarked: “My seminar instruction is now turn-
ing away from modular functions, because we have all had enough of the subject.
Also, a new generation of students is coming up.”379

5.5.7.2 Who Should Be the Editor? – Georg Pick

When searching for an appropriate editor for the book, Klein had thought at first
of Hurwitz, but he concluded that this creative mind should rather be left free to
engage in its own investigations.380
Robert Fricke, who would later become the actual editor of the project, was
not yet part of the discussion, although Klein mentioned, in a letter dated August
29, 1884, that Fricke had given a seminar presentation on moduli of the sixteenth

376 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 992; 995 (Hurwitz to Klein, Febr 27, 1885; March 19, 1885).
377 The full report is reprinted in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 255–82.
378 Math. Ann. 26 (1886), p. 457; reprinted in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 275.
379 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 134 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated February 10, 1885).
380 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 136 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated March 10, 1885).
 5.5 Fields of Research 295

level.381 However, Fricke’s dissertation – “Ueber Systeme elliptischer Modulfunc-

tionen von niederer Stufenzahl” [On Systems of Elliptic Modular Functions of a
Low Level Number] (submitted on September 13, 1885) – was not yet complete.
Klein was able to persuade Georg Pick to take on the role.382 Pick was a doc-
toral student of Leo Koenigsberger, who had supervised his thesis “Über eine
Klasse Abelscher Integrale” [On a Class of Abel’s Integrals] in Vienna. Already
in 1881, Pick completed his Habilitation with the thesis “Über die Integration
hyperelliptischer Differentiale durch Logarithmen” [On the Integration of Hyper-
elliptic Differentials by Logarithms] at the University of Prague. Since the fall of
1883, Pick numbered among the new participants in Klein’s seminar (see Table 6)
who worked together on Klein’s research goal of developing the theory of elliptic
modular functions. During the winter semester of 1883/84, Pick gave three semi-
nar reports on the fundamental concepts of the theory of complex-valued func-
tions (Gauß, Cauchy, Riemann, Weierstrass, Pringsheim, Mittag-Leffler, Jacobi,
Schwarz, Cantor, etc.). Pick analyzed Poincaré’s articles in volume 1 of Acta
Mathematica and explained why one of Poincaré’s proofs was “incomplete,” so
that it could not be decided with certainty whether the series stated by Poincaré
“really represent the functions, which have to be constructed, in their entire do-
main.”383 Klein tested Pick further by having him talk about the main results of
his lecture course on algebra and number theory (1879, elaborated by Gierster),
and finally Klein directed Pick toward the topic mentioned above: the complex
multiplication of elliptic functions.384 Even before Pick spoke about this in the
seminar (on June 16, 1884), Klein was so enthusiastic about his abilities that he
wrote to his old friend Otto Stolz in Innsbruck as follows:
Dear Stolz! Though it is normally against my principles to do such a thing, I have sat down
and am writing to you in order to recommend a job candidate in the event that certain devel-
opments take place. Here, one expects that your colleague [Leopold] Gegenbauer will be of-
fered a position in Vienna, in which case his position in Innsbruck will be vacant. Now, I
happen to know an Austrian mathematician who as yet hasn’t published very much, so that
you might not be aware of him, but who possesses such excellent qualities that I would like to
help him advance his career. I would like to help him, because there are not many mathemati-
cians with such outstanding talents in Austria and there is a danger that such talents will have
to take second place to less qualified people. The candidate I have in mind is Privatdozent Dr.
Pick in Prague. Originally a student of [Leo] Koenigsberger, he completed his Habilitation
three or four years ago and was then an assistant under [Ernst] Mach, until he came here in
the fall of 1883 and has since been a participant in my seminar. Pick has, above all, an apti-
tude for function theory, and especially for number theory. He has a very clear and profound
understanding of things, so that it is always a pleasure to speak with him; he also has an out-
standing style of teaching and lecturing – something that I have only observed in a few of my

381 Ibid. 77: 119 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated August 29, 1884). Regarding Fricke’s
presentation, see [Protocols] vol. 6, pp. 77–83 (the presentation was given on June 30, 1884).
382 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 229 and 230 (Pick to Klein, February 11 and 16, 1885).
383 [Protocols] vol. 5, pp. 159–69, 260–67, 268–79 (quoted here from p. 279).
384 [Protocols] vol. 6, pp. 9–23, 49–61 (Pick’s seminar presentations, which were given on May
9, 1884 and June 16, 1884).
296 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

students (Dyck and Harnack, for instance). That he has published so little is attributable to the
fact that, as with so many others, he had not received the necessary encouragement early on.
He became excessively self-critical, and this reduced his productivity. I expect that he will
overcome this before the end of the semester; I have him working on complex multiplication,
where he is to justify and continue Kronecker’s results. Of course, as his name suggests, Pick
is a Jew, but he is one of the exceptions with whom it is pleasant to interact, as is clear from
his overall popularity in my seminar. The younger mathematicians all turn to him for advice.
But enough! If you need further information, I will send it to you immediately. For the rest,
please forgive the initiative that I have taken in this letter. I must stress that it was not
prompted by Dr. Pick but is rather entirely self-motivated.
With kind regards,
Your F. Klein385

Klein’s remark about Pick’s Jewishness stemmed from his awareness of the wide-
spread anti-Semitism that also existed in Austria at the time.386 Klein himself did
much to oppose anti-Semitism, as is evident from his support for Max and Emmy
Noether, Hurwitz, Schoenflies and others.
Leopold Gegenbauer did not leave Innsbruck until 1893. In 1888, Gegenbauer
and Otto Stolz supported Georg Pick’s candidacy for an associate professorship at
the German University in Prague (then part of Austria-Hungary).387 This also re-
quired, however, the influence of Klein, who sent a letter at Pick’s request to
Heinrich Durège, a member of the hiring committee in Prague. Furthermore,
Klein arranged for H.A. Schwarz to send his opinion of the candidates to the
committee member Ernst Mach.388 In 1892, Pick was promoted to full professor.
Before Pick received these positions, Klein had been able to print his results in
Mathematische Annalen, where, up to the year 1901, Pick would publish eleven
articles.389
Klein and Pick first met to discuss the book project during the Easter break of
1885. Before this meeting, however, Klein wrote to Hurwitz that he was still
somewhat unsure about his theoretical approach:
I have omitted the passage about the scope of your method so as not to say anything incorrect.
In my opinion, the issue is this: You define the modular correspondence by the zeroes of a
function and not by a system of intersection points, as I always imagined this earlier. This
distinction is more interesting to me than you might suppose, because I have recently come
across exactly these conflicting views on other questions. The notion that one has to define
the modular correspondence by a system of intersection points comes from geometry. The
question is whether, in the case of higher problems, geometry really has to give way to func-
tion theory, as I tend to believe more and more. This would mean that I would have to scrap
many of my favorite beliefs! In general, things look very bleak as far as the systematic

385 [Innsbruck] A letter from Klein to Otto Stolz dated May 28, 1884.
386 See SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2009; BERGMANN/EPPLE/RUTI 2012; BEČVÁŘOVÁ 2016. – Pick
became a victim of the Nazi regime. He died in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
387 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11 (Otto Stolz to Klein, May 26, 1888).
388 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 319; 323 (Pick to Klein, January 26, 1888; July 31, 1888).
389 See Georg Pick, “Ueber die complexe Multiplication der elliptischen Functionen I,” Math.
Ann. 25 (1885), pp. 433–47; and idem, “Ueber die complexe Multiplication der elliptischen
Functionen II,” Math. Ann. 26 (1886), pp. 219–30. See also TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 39.
 5.5 Fields of Research 297

completion of my views is concerned, and I almost fear that my discussions with Pick, which
will begin on Friday, will not yield any results.390

Klein commissioned Georg Pick to prepare the first five chapters of the first sec-
tion of the book by September of 1885. Pick was expected to use Klein’s lecture
courses and recent results. Regarding the latter, Hurwitz provided him with sum-
maries; he had himself made so much progress concerning the “class-number
relations of prime levels”391 that he was able to assert: “At least, however, the
existence of the relations for an arbitrary level has now been established, and their
general form is known.”392 Yet in November, Klein stated that “Pick […] has not
made as much progress with the modular functions as I expected.”393 Klein
nevertheless invited Pick to Leipzig for further consultations and, as of May of
1886, he invited him to Göttingen. On May 15, 1886, Klein wrote to Hurwitz:
Then, however, for the last eight days I have begun to draft, on the basis of Pick’s preliminary
work, the first section of my book on elliptic modular functions! In the meantime, Pick has
moved on to the second section (the main section), which we discussed at length at the end of
the Easter holiday. May it all end well. I oscillate between confidence and uncertainty
[Misstrauen]. I also regret the time that I am still devoting to these old stories, but it will
probably prove to have been a reasonable thing to do.394

Approximately one year later, Klein’s cooperation with Pick came to an end. In
July of 1887, Robert Fricke briefly met Georg Pick in Vienna,395 and in Septem-
ber of 1887, Klein informed Hurwitz: “My plan to edit the book on elliptic
modular functions together with Pick was abandoned some time ago (by mutual
agreement).” Klein then posed the rhetorical question of whether Hurwitz himself
might perhaps be interested in taking over Pick’s role.396 Wiggling out of a diffi-
cult position, Hurwitz replied: “The book will only have the proper intellectual
freshness and stimulating force if you write it yourself. This has always been my
opinion on the matter […].”397
It must be acknowledged that the main reason for Pick’s failure was that the
theoretical foundations of elliptic modular functions were still insufficiently de-
veloped at the time when he was preparing Klein’s book. Klein himself, Hurwitz,
and ultimately Robert Fricke would spend the next five years working on this very
topic. In a letter to Hurwitz dated August 5, 1888, Klein reported about the state
of Pick’s career – “Pick has now finally become […] an associate professor” –
and he also wrote about his new collaborator, Robert Fricke:

390 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 137 (Klein to Hurwitz on March 17, 1885), emphasis original.
391 See, for example, Hurwitz’s article “Ueber Relationen zwischen Classenanzahlen binärer
quadratischer Formen von negativer Determinante,” Math. Ann. 25 (1885), pp. 157–96.
392 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 998 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated May 1, 1885).
393 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 142, 149 (Klein to Hurwitz on June 20 and November 27, 1885).
394 Ibid. 77: 156 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated May 15, 1886).
395 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 312 (Pick to Klein, July 12, 1887).
396 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 190 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated September 21, 1887).
397 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1060 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated September 24, 1887).
298 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

Now, before anything else, I have to say that Fricke is really working on the modular func-
tions; at any rate, he is doing so with more consistency and also with more energy than Pick
during his time. I am letting him work as independently as possible. We have only discussed
matters briefly during the Christmas and Easter breaks, and now I expect to see him again
over the next few days.398

Klein and Fricke finished this book project in 1892 (see Section 6.3.3).

5.5.8 Hyperelliptic and Abelian Functions

In 1885, moreover, I began to work more intensively on a problem that I had already had my
eyes on for a long time and that I would concentrate on for several years to come, namely the
problem of transferring the new formulations, which I successfully constructed in the case of
elliptic functions, to hyperelliptic and Abelian functions.399

Klein spent parts of August and September in 1885 with Hurwitz on the island of
Borkum. They had a copy of Weierstrass’s lecture course on hyperelliptic functi-
ons in their luggage. After working further on the topic, Klein informed Hurwitz
on December 13, 1885 about his new results concerning “completely independent
moduli […], whereby a new system of hyperelliptic ‘main moduli’ is given.”400
Hurwitz responded with these words: “I read your other theorems about the geo-
metric integration of hyperelliptic differential equations with interest. Hopefully,
your configuration article will be published soon. I am very eager to study it, for I
have already forgotten much of what I had learned in Borkum.”401
In the “configuration article,”402 Klein further advanced an old topic that in-
volved combining the Kummer surface with hyperelliptic integrals. Karl Rohn
(1879) had already worked on this, and Klein’s doctoral student Willibald Rei-
chert took it further with his dissertation “Über die Darstellung der Kummerschen
Fläche durch hyperelliptische Funktionen” [On the Representation of the Kummer
Surface by Hyperelliptic Functions] (1887). Klein involved Hurwitz in this study:
Later, when you are again feeling refreshed and are able to take up the δ-questions that we
discussed in Borkum, I believe this could lead to very promising results. I am convinced that
by following through with our speculations – that is, essentially by constructing and tho-
roughly discussing the normal configuration corresponding to the Kummer surface with a
higher p – it will also be possible to solve the question of principles in the case of p = 4. What
would you think if the Jablonowski Society, which now again must present a mathematical
topic for its prize, were to formulate a question along these lines?403

398 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 196 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated August 5, 1888).
399 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 259.
400 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 150 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated December 13, 1885).
401 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1014 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated January 11, 1886).
402 Felix Klein, “Ueber Configurationen, welche der Kummer’schen Fläche zugleich eingeschrie-
ben und umgeschrieben sind,” Math. Ann. 27 (1886), pp. 106–42; reprinted in KLEIN 1921
(GMA I), pp. 164–99.
403 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 152 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated January 8, 1886).
 5.5 Fields of Research 299

The problem posed by the Societas Jablonoviana (see Section 5.7.2), which was
formulated by Klein, read as follows in an abbreviated form:
The Society invites a detailed investigation of the more general double integrals of the form
f ( xy ) dx dy
∫∫ R( xy )
,

where f is a rational function, in its relation to the theta functions of two variables.404

The task set for this prize was part of Klein’s broader research program, which,
based on the work of Clebsch and Gordan, involved “bringing the theory of hy-
perelliptic functions and Abelian functions into a proper connection with the the-
ory of forms or invariant theory.” Klein used Weierstrass’s theory of elliptic func-
tions as a model, which he combined more closely with approaches from invariant
theory. In this respect, he defined his main goal as follows: “to construct,
systematically, the 22p theta functions of a given Riemannian cross-cut system for
an arbitrary algebraic entity of the genus p.”405 Klein published his first results in
April of 1886,406 and continued this subject in Göttingen (see Section 6.3.2). He
constructed his own special sigma functions and thus he obtained an overview of
this field, which combines function theory, algebra and geometry.
From his correspondence with Hurwitz, we learn how Klein progressed. In
January of 1886, Klein informed Hurwitz: “I am currently very busy with the hy-
perelliptic σ, with which I am making good progress (drawing a connection to
invariant theory); next week I will resume my special lectures.”407 He hoped to
collaborate further with Hurwitz: “Now that [Karl] Rohn, Franz Meyer, and Dyck
have all ‘committed themselves’ [i.e. become engaged to be married], will you
still remain faithful to me for a little while, even though I strongly advised you
against this in Borkum?”408 Regarding Klein’s latest article from April of 1886,
Hurwitz predicted:
Your new treatise on hyperelliptic modular functions will undoubtedly have an epoch-making
effect; it paves the way for a great number of interesting and important investigations, and I
hope that you will prove to be the first to have found the correct and important generalization
of your level theory.409

404 Math. Ann. 27 (1886), pp. 471–72. The term “theta function,” which denotes a special class of
functions of several complex variables, comes from Jacobi (1829).
405 KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 317.
406 Felix Klein, “Ueber hyperelliptische Sigmafunctionen,” Math. Ann. 27 (1886), pp. 431–64;
reprinted in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 323–56.
407 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 153 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated January 29, 1886).
408 Ibid. (Klein’s postcard to Hurwitz on February 2, 1886). Regarding the engagements mentio-
ned here, see Hurwitz’s letter (No. 1017) to Klein dated February 5, 1886.
409 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1021 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated April 7, 1886).
300 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

5.6 FELIX KLEIN AND ALFRED ACKERMANN-TEUBNER

In their brief biographical study, ACKERMANN/WEISS (2016) present an impres-

sive portrait of Alfred Ackermann-Teubner,410 who was in charge of the publish-
ing house’s mathematical division from the 1880s until his departure from this
position in 1916. The authors also mention Felix Klein’s contribution to the rising
success of the press’s mathematical publications during this period.411
The B.G. Teubner publishing house had been founded by Benedictus Gotthelf
Teubner in 1811. Klein had first introduced himself to this press on May 27, 1868
as “F. Klein, student of mathematics, Plücker’s former assistant,” because he had
been commissioned to edit the second volume of Plücker’s book on line geome-
try.412 As of 1876, moreover, he was closely connected to the publishing house on
account of his editorial role at Mathematische Annalen.
In the year 1868, Alfred Ackermann-Teubner, a grandson of the company’s
founder, was only eleven years old. After years of apprenticeship at the Teubner
press and internships in London and Paris, he was made a co-owner of the firm in
1882, while Klein was working as a professor in Leipzig. Alfred Ackermann-
Teubner had attended lectures at the University of Leipzig (the natural sciences,
economics) and was ultimately made responsible for the division of the publishing
house devoted to mathematics, the natural sciences, and technology. In this role,
he benefited from Klein’s interests and personal network.
Klein’s book Über Riemanns Theorie der algebraischen Funktionen und ihre
Integrale (1882) was the first short monograph that Klein submitted to the press.
In a book celebrating B.G. Teubner’s one hundredth anniversary, the complete
table of contents of Klein’s monograph is reproduced, and Klein’s vision for es-
tablishing a monograph series at the press, which he had expressed in a letter from
August 24, 1883, is also recounted:
Let me further specify the general intention behind my decision to take on this work. It has
long been my principle that the results of longer journal articles have to be summarized in a
more editorially consistent fashion, namely in the form of monographs.413

In the following years, Klein pursued his vision for monographs in such a way
that he not only fulfilled his personal publishing agenda but also ensured that the
German Mathematical Society would take up the objective of writing reports on
mathematical subjects (see Section 6.4.4). Promoted by this society, the reports

410 Alfred Ackermann-Teubner’s father, Albin Ackermann, who was active in the firm B.G.
Teubner since 1850, had married Anna Teubner and from then on went by the name Acker-
mann-Teubner. See ACKERMANN/WEISS 2016, pp. 14–15.
411 Ibid., pp. 31–33, 39. – In their innovative study of the relationship between mathematicians
and their publishers, REMMERT/SCHNEIDER 2010 failed to mention the special relationship
between Klein and Ackermann-Teubner. THIELE 2011 contains an article on Felix Klein’s
time in Leipzig and pays tribute to his importance to the Teubner press.
412 See SCHULZE 1911, p. 297.
413 Ibid., pp. 305–06 (Klein’s quotation appears on p. 306).
 5.6 Felix Klein and Alfred Ackermann-Teubner 301

were first published first in its Jahresbericht, and later they were incorporated into
the ENCYKLOPÄDIE. This, in turn, benefited the Teubner press, which published the
project’s many fascicles from 1898 to 1935 (see Section 7.8). From the ENCYKLO-
PÄDIE project, Ackermann-Teubner gained many outstanding authors for his pub-
lishing division, and later he sponsored a prize to honor ENCYKLOPÄDIE con-
tributors. Klein’s relationship with Ackermann-Teubner and the B.G. Teubner
Press can be described in ten points:
First. While in Leipzig, Klein took advantage of the publishing house’s
proximity to make many personal introductions there, and this benefited a number
of students, colleagues, and contributors to Mathematische Annalen. An account
by Otto Hölder offers a typical example of this:
Prof. [Aurel] Voss was here from Dresden over the Easter break. Because I was back from
Göttingen, Klein invited me to visit him in order to meet Mr. Voss. The mathematical Privat-
dozent [Friedrich] Schur also joined us. We then went together to B.G. Teubner, where I
picked up my manuscript. It was very interesting to see this magnificent press from top to
bottom. We were introduced to all of the company’s directors as contributors to Mathema-
tische Annalen.414

Second. During his period of cooperation with Ackermann-Teubner, Klein’s pub-

lications included his own monographs, works written with his students or col-
leagues, and lithographic reproductions of his lecture courses. The large-scale
projects that Klein edited and published with Teubner included, in addition to the
ENCYKLOPÄDIE, a volume on mathematics within the framework of the series
Kultur der Gegenwart [Culture of the Present], and the five-volume Abhandlun-
gen über den mathematischen Unterricht [Treatises on Mathematical Instruction],
which Klein initiated as president of the International Commission on Mathemati-
cal Instruction (ICMI) (see also Sections 7.8 and 8.3).
Third. Whereas the collected works of August Ferdinand Möbius were pub-
lished by S. Hirzel in Leipzig, Klein worked to ensure that Hermann Graßmann’s
collected works would be contracted by B.G. Teubner. Thanks to Klein, Julius
Plücker’s collected works (PLÜCKER 1895/96) were also printed by Teubner. Re-
garding Gauß’s works, Klein arranged for vol. 8 (1900) and vol. 7 (new edition
1906) through vol. 10.1 (1917) to be published “on a commission basis by B.G.
Teubner in Leipzig.” Not until 1923, when Max Born succeeded Klein as the
chief editor of Gauß’s works, did their publication change hands from Teubner to
the Julius Springer publishing house.415
Fourth. Klein motivated Teubner to publish German translations of books
written in English, French, Italian, and Russian. The latter included A.A. Mar-
kov’s Differenzenrechnung [Calculus of Finite Differences] (1896) and Wahr-
scheinlichkeitsrechnung [Probability Calculus] (1912).416 Klein inspired his doc-

414 Quoted from HILDEBRANDT et al. 2014, p. 152.

415 [AdW Göttingen] Scient. 105,2: 9 and 107,5: 6b; REICH/ROUSSANOVA 2013, pp. 226–27.
416 Markov’s student Theophil Friesendorff was responsible for translating his book on the calcu-
lus of finite differences into German; in Friesendorff’s presentations in Klein’s seminar
302 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

toral student Friedrich Schilling (see Section 7.1) to write a book-length German
summary of Maurice d’Ocagne’s Traité de Nomographie,417 and he incited Paul
Stäckel to edit and translate the school textbooks by Émile Borel, which appeared
in German as Die Elemente der Mathematik (1908/09). Klein likewise instigated
translations of Horace Lamb’s Treatise on the Mathematical Theory of the Motion
of Fluids (3rd ed., 1879), which was published in German as Lehrbuch der Hydro-
dynamik (1907), and Edward Hough Love’s A Treatise on the Mathematical The-
ory of Elasticity (1892/93), which was translated by Klein’s doctoral student
Aloys Timpe as Lehrbuch der Elastizitätstheorie (1907).418 In his work on educa-
tional reform, Klein repeatedly cited John Perry’s book The Calculus for Engi-
neers (2nd ed., 1897), and he instigated its translation into German, which sold
through several Teubner editions (the first edition was published in 1902; see also
Sections 3.6.3 and 8.3.4.2). Grace Chisholm Young would take Klein’s advice
and write an introductory book on geometry,419 and Klein arranged for it to be
translated by Felix Bernstein (and his mother Sophie). It appeared in German as
Der kleine Geometer (1908). On the basis of an analysis of Benchara Branford’s A
Study of Mathematical Education, Including the Teaching of Arithmetic that was
presented in Klein’s seminar (on January 26, 1910), Rudolf Schimmack and
Hermann Weinreich decided to produce a German version of the book (1913).
Fifth. Klein himself wrote a preface or introduction for quite a number of
books published by Teubner, including, for example, the revised dissertations of
Friedrich Pockels (1891) and Maxime Bôcher (1894),420 Edward John Routh’s
Die Dynamik der Systeme starrer Körper [The Dynamics of Systems of Rigid
Bodies] (2 vols, 1898), Federigo Enriques’s Vorlesungen über projektive Ge-
ometrie [Lectures on Projective Geometry] (1903),421 Jules Tannery’s Elemente
der Mathematik [Elements of Mathematics] (1909; 2nd ed., 1921), and Jan A.
Schouten’s Grundlagen der Vektor- und Affinoranalysis [The Foundations of

(given on May 1 and May 31, 1895), he used the Russian book. At the time, the calculus of
finite differences was becoming an increasingly important field of applied mathematics. At
Klein’s request, Rudolf Mehmke wrote a preface to the book and emphasized Klein’s far-
sighted initiative. Markov’s book on probability calculus was translated by Heinrich Lieb-
mann, who was Klein’s assistant in 1897 and 1898. See TOBIES 2018; KRENGEL 1990; and
SCHNEIDER 1989.
417 See Friedrich Schilling, Über die Nomographie von M. d’Ocagne: Eine Einführung in dieses
Gebiet (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1900).
418 See KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 508. Both Love and Lamb contributed to Vol. IV of the
ENCYKLOPÄDIE, Love with an article entitled “Hydrodynamik” [Hydrodynamics] (1901) and
Lamb with an article entitled “Schwingungen elastischer Systeme – insbesondere Akustik”
[Oscillations of Elastic Systems – Especially Acoustics] (1906). See Section 7.8.
419 Although she wrote the book on her own, her husband’s name also appears on the title page:
Grace Chisholm Young and W.H. Young, The First Book of Geometry (London: J.M. Dent,
1905); see also MÜHLHAUSEN 1993, p. 206; GRATTAN-GUINNESS 1972.
420 For further discussion of Pockels’s and Bôcher’s work, see Section 6.3.5 below.
421 It was Klein himself who had instigated the German translation of Enriques’s Lezioni di ge-
ometria proiettiva. See L. Giacardi’s article in COEN 2012, p. 225.
 5.6 Felix Klein and Alfred Ackermann-Teubner 303

Vector and Affinor Analysis] (1914). Klein used these introductions and prefaces
to classify the respective books in light of his own research projects and to refer to
additional (Teubner) books. Klein was also consulted by the publishers when it
was unclear whether a given book should be published or not.
Sixth. Over time, in order to reduce his own workload, Klein recommended
additional consultants for special projects or research fields: Walther Dyck for the
ENCYKLOPÄDIE, for instance, and Arnold Sommerfeld for physics. Friedrich Engel,
who already had a good relationship with Teubner on account of his edition of
Sophus Lie’s work, became the main contact person throughout the publication
process of Graßmann’s collected works.
Seventh. Klein endorsed Alfred Ackermann-Teubner to become not only a
member of the German Mathematical Society (in 1894), but also its treasurer
(1905–1919).422 Following the Society’s annual meeting in Hamburg in 1901, it
transferred its accounts to Leipzig, where they were managed by the B.G. Teubner
publishing house. The new board position of treasurer was introduced when the
German Mathematical Society was registered as an association in Leipzig. In the
interest of the press, Ackermann-Teubner also became a member of several for-
eign mathematical societies: the Société Mathématique de France, the London
Mathematical Society, the Circolo matematico di Palermo, and the American
Mathematical Society.423 Klein was also able to gain him as a member of the Göt-
tingen Association for the Promotion of Applied Physics and Mathematics (see
Section 8.1.1). All told, Ackermann-Teubner would donate 22,500 Mark to the
Göttingen Association.424
Eighth. In October of 1899, Ackermann-Teubner turned to Klein for advice
about how his publishing house should proceed with its mathematical journals.
The latter had begun to overlap in content, and they were no longer meeting all
the needs in the field. On New Year’s Eve in 1899, Klein found the time to write
down a number of programmatic ideas on the topic (see Fig. 26).
Regarding Mathematische Annalen, Klein’s proposal to leave his position as a
main editor and join the advisory board, in order for Hilbert to take his place
(Point 1 in Fig. 26), was rejected by the journal’s other editors. Instead, Adolph
Mayer voluntarily stepped down to join the advisory board so that Hilbert, as of
vol. 55 (1902), could become one of the main editors alongside Klein and Dyck.
As of vol. 46 (1901), the Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik [Journal for
Mathematics and Physics] (Point 2 in Fig. 26), which Oscar Schlömilch had foun-
ded in 1856 as Teubner’s first mathematical journal, was published with the sub-
title “Organ für angewandte Mathematik” [Organ for Applied Mathematics] under
the editorship of Rudolf Mehmke and Carl Runge (not Arnold Sommerfeld, whom
Klein had first had in mind for the position). At Klein’s recommendation, Mehm-
ke had been an editor of the journal (with Moritz Cantor) since vol. 42 (1897), but

422 See Jahresbericht der DMV 14 (1905) I, p. 525; and 29 (1920) Abt. 2, p. 42.
423 See Jahresbericht der DMV 11 (1902) I, p. 10; ibid. 21 (1912) Abt. 2, p. 4.
424 The donation amounts are listed in [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Nachlass Schmidt-Ott C55, fol. 109.
304 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

at first he had only limited success in carrying out its transition to applied mathe-
matics.425 In 1901, Klein joined the editorial team as a member of the advisory
board, and in this capacity he was able to appoint additional mathematicians
(Guido Hauck, Heinrich Weber), prominent physicists (Hendrik Antoon Lorentz),
geodesists (Robert Helmert), astronomers (Hugo Seeliger), and engineers (Carl
von Linde, Carl von Bach, Heinrich Müller-Breslau) as advisory board members.
This journal was discontinued as a consequence of the First World War, its last
issue appearing in 1917 (vol. 64). In 1921, when Richard von Mises founded the
Zeitschrift für angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik [Journal for Applied Ma-
thematics and Mechanics],426 Klein saw this as a welcome continuation of the old
tradition (see also Section 9.5).

Figure 26: An excerpt of Klein’s drafted letter to A. Ackermann-Teubner, December 31, 1899
([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein).

In the nineteenth century, the history of mathematics (Point 3) developed into an

independent field of research, and by this point it was in need of a journal of its
own. In France, a Bulletin de bibliographie, d’histoire et de biographie was pub-
lished from 1855 to 1862 under the editorship of Olry Terquem as an appendix to
the Nouvelles annales de mathématiques. Beginning in 1859, Moritz Cantor had

425 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 1138–40 (Mehmke’s letters to Klein dated December 5, 1896;
July 4, 1897; and April 10, 1899).
426 See SIEGMUND/SCHULTZE 2020a, 2020b.
 5.6 Felix Klein and Alfred Ackermann-Teubner 305

published articles on the history of mathematics in Teubner’s Zeitschrift für

Mathematik und Physik. As of 1875, the journal devoted a special section to this
topic, and supplementary volumes on the subject were published as of 1877. Klein
thought it would be a good time to create a journal devoted exclusively to the to-
pic, and he recommended Gustaf Eneström and Paul Stäckel as potential editors.
For a long time, Eneström was an active contributor to Mittag-Leffler’s Acta Ma-
thematica,427 and in 1884 he had visited Klein in Leipzig (see Section 5.4) right
around the time when he had founded the series Bibliotheca Mathematica in
Stockholm (published by the F. & G. Beijer förlag). In 1900, Eneström ended his
relationship with F. & G. Beijer and switched to Teubner, which enabled him to
expand the annual volume from eight to thirty-five printed sheets (Druckbogen).
Teubner’s publication of Bibliotheca Mathematica came to an end with vol. 14
(1914) on account of the First World War.
Klein thought that a “journal for elementary mathematics” (Point 4 in Fig. 26)
would be a fitting supplement to Teubner’s spectrum of publications. In 1900,
following Klein’s advice, Teubner therefore purchased the Archiv der Mathematik
und Physik [Archive of Mathematics and Physics], which had existed since 1841,
from a smaller Leipzig-based press (C.A. Koch’s publishing house). What Klein
had in mind was a journal for students, and his model for this was the French
journal Nouvelles annales de mathématiques, journal des candidats aux écoles
polytechnique et normale. Edited by Charles-Ange Laisant since 1896, the latter
journal had published a number of Klein’s articles in French translation during the
1890s. After consulting with Klein, Ackermann-Teubner appointed Franz Meyer
and the Berlin-based mathematicians Emil Lampe and Eugen Jahnke as editors for
the Archiv der Mathematik und Physik. Unlike the French journal, the Archiv
appeared with the subtitle “Mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Bedürfnisse der
Lehrer an höheren Unterrichtsanstalten” [With Special Consideration for the
Needs of Teachers at Institutions of Higher Learning]. The Sitzungsberichte der
Berliner Mathematischen Gesellschaft [Proceedings of the Berlin Mathematical
Society] – the Society had just been founded in 1901 – were published as an
appendix to this journal. Lampe died in 1918, and Jahnke in 1921. The journal
ceased publication with vol. 28 (1920); see also Section 9.4.1.
Klein’s idea to establish a publication for “mathematical notices” (Point 5 in
Fig. 26) has had lasting effects. That is, today’s Mitteilungen der DMV [Notices of
the German Mathematical Society] can be traced back to Klein’s initiative. As
early as 1896, after the first four volumes of the Jahresbericht der DMV [Annual
Report of the German Mathematical Society] had been published (with some de-
lays) by the Georg Reimer press in Berlin, the Society decided to switch publish-
ers to Teubner. In his plans to reorganize this publication, Klein followed the mo-
del of the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society428 and the Physikalische
Zeitschrift, which had been founded by Eduard Riecke and Hermann Theodor

427 See STUBHAUG 2010, p. 289 (Eneström was not a member of the journal’s editorial board).
428 [BStBibl] Klein’s letter to Dyck on December 23, 1899.
306 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

Simon in 1899. In 1901, Klein and Ackermann-Teubner instituted a new program

for the Jahresbericht der DMV that included monthly notices (Mitteilungen), later
published as an independent section (2. Abteilung of the Jahresbericht). August
Gutzmer, with whom Klein had a good working relationship,429 was named the
editor as of vol. 11 (1902). This issue contained, for the first time, news about
universities, inaugural addresses, presentations, lectures, personnel changes, and
information about national and international conferences, events, etc.430
Ninth. Teubner’s publishing program also benefited from the “Kleinian edu-
cational reform” (Section 8.3.4). It published not only new and reform-oriented
series of mathematical textbooks. Klein also relied on Teubner to publish sugges-
tions for reform, lectures on mathematical instruction, and the aforementioned
five-volume work Abhandlungen über den mathematischen Unterricht in
Deutschland. Klein himself furnished such works with prefaces or postfaces. He
also arranged for the first German-language book on the didactics of mathematics
by the Viennese pedagogue Alois Höfler to be published with Teubner.431
Tenth. In 1908, when B.G. Teubner presented a comprehensive catalog at the
Fourth International Congress of Mathematicians in Rome, Ackermann-Teubner
made sure that it included “images of some of the main representatives of my
mathematical and natural-scientific publishing house.” The only mathematicians
pictured here were Felix Klein, Carl Neumann, and the historian of mathematics
Moritz Cantor.432
In 1911, when the Teubner press celebrated its hundredth anniversary, Acker-
mann-Teubner donated 20,000 Marks for the establishment of the aforementioned
prize, an “Alfred Ackermann-Teubner Memorial Prize for the Promotion of the
Mathematical Sciences.” The founding documents stipulated that the jury for the
prize had to be composed of three professors from the University of Leipzig (to be
determined by the University senate) and an additional two members to be ap-
pointed by the board of the German Mathematical Society. Ackermann-Teubner
expressly associated the prize with the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project:
The prize is to be awarded retrospectively to a representative of the mathematical sciences
who has produced significant works in one of the areas of research that fall within the pur-
view of the Encyklopädie der Mathematischen Wissenschaften (Leipzig, 1898ff.), which was
inaugurated by the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung [German Mathematical Society], and
is edited under the aegis of the Academies of Science in Göttingen, Leipzig, Munich, and Vi-
enna. The works under consideration, which may be published as monographs, articles, or in
another format, must stand out for their great contribution to scientific or pedagogical pro-
gress […].

429 See TOBIES 1988b.

430 For detailed discussions of this journal’s publishing agenda, see TOBIES 1986b; and TOBIES
1987a.
431 Höfler, a student of Boltzmann, followed Klein’s suggestions for instruction reform and be-
gan to write this book in the summer of 1904. See HÖFLER 1910, p. xiii.
432 TEUBNER 1908, p. vi.
 5.7 Felix Klein in Leipzig’s Intellectual Communities 307

Alfred Ackermann-Teubner then enumerated the research areas that would be

eligible for the prize and noted that, over time, this list might be expanded to in-
clude newly established fields of research:
1. History, philosophy, didactics, education; 2. Mathematics (primarily arithmetic and al-
gebra); 3. Mechanics; 4. Mathematical physics; 5. Mathematics, primarily analysis; 6. Astro-
nomy, fitting methods [Ausgleichsrechnung], and error theory; 7. Applied mathematics, pri-
marily geometry; and 8. Applied mathematics, primarily geodesy and geophysics, to the ex-
tent that the research in question does not already belong to one of the fields mentioned
above.433

Ackermann-Teubner chose the first winner himself, and he took this opportunity
to honor his main collaborative partner, Felix Klein, who was awarded the prize
and a sum of 1,000 Mark in 1914. Afterwards, Klein served as one of the
members of the prize jury appointed by the German Mathematical Society (he
would step down from this role in 1922).434
During the First World War, the mathematical and natural-scientific division
of the press was seen as no longer profitable. Ackermann-Teubner resigned from
his position as a liable partner in the firm. No longer involved in the press’s ope-
rations, he now performed merely ceremonial duties for the company, as he
explained to Klein (and Hilbert) in personal letters.435 He did, however, fulfill one
last promise to Klein, which was to guide the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project to its conclu-
sion (1935) – even though Klein would not live to see that final accomplishment.
In any event, Ackermann-Teubner’s resignation from his position was one of
the reasons why the journal Mathematische Annalen left Teubner for the Julius
Springer press in 1920. Furthermore, Klein’s collected works – Gesammelte Ma-
thematische Abhandlungen (GMA, 1921–23) – and his other mathematical books
were no longer published by Teubner but by Springer as well (see Section 9.2).

5.7 FELIX KLEIN IN LEIPZIG’S INTELLECTUAL COMMUNITIES

Felix Klein was actively engaged in several Leipzig communities; he used them
for important scientific goals and thus quickly took on a recognized role.
First of all, a so-called “Professorium” should be mentioned: this included the
entire body of university professors, who came together at irregular intervals on
special occasions. Klein integrated himself here, but not much is known about his
role.436 Nevertheless, this association is noteworthy because, in 1886, Klein would
initiate a similar arrangement at the University of Göttingen (see Section 6.4.1). In

433 [UA Leipzig] Rep. III/II/I, No. 93, vol. 4, p. 20.

434 The prize was awarded every two years. The early winners after Klein were Ernst Zermelo
(1916), Ludwig Prandtl (1918), Gustav Mie (1920), and Paul Koebe (1922). The winners
were announced in Mathematische Annalen.
435 See ACKERMANN/WEISS 2016, pp. 31–35.
436 See Klein’s remarks in JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges über Leipzig”), p. 1.
308 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

Leipzig, the founding of this body can be traced back to the physicist and physi-
ologist Ernst Heinrich Weber, who had earned a Habilitation there from both the
Philosophical Faculty and the Faculty of Medicine, and who was hired as a pro-
fessor of anatomy in 1821. Weber is also considered the founder of the Polytech-
nical Society (1825–44) and the Royal Saxon Society of Sciences (1846).437

5.7.1 A Mathematicians’ Circle

Klein created a mathematicians’ circle (Kränzchen) as a venue in which matters of

teaching, research, and organization could be discussed. This group first convened
under Klein’s leadership in the winter semester of 1880/81, and its original par-
ticipants were Walther Dyck, Adolf Hurwitz, Ernst Lange, Karl Rohn, and Frie-
drich Schur.438 After Hurwitz had moved to Göttingen, he recalled the circle
fondly (and somewhat enviously), for he missed “the invigorating stimulation that
I always had over the course of my student years and which encouraged my work
to such a great extent.”439
In later semesters, the circle was joined by the other professors of mathema-
tics in Leipzig, including the astronomer Heinrich Bruns. At Klein’s initiative,
they discussed the curriculum, determined the course schedule for each semester,
and reached an understanding concerning when and in which rooms each of them
preferred to teach, etc. A letter from Mayer reveals that Klein’s efforts as a coor-
dinator were sorely missed after his departure from Leipzig:
Recently, we met for the first time at the Lies’ home for an expanded circle [Kränzchen] with
women, and I was pleased by what fine hosts they were. A noticeable shortcoming, which
never would have happened under your management, is that there will be no lecture courses
for beginners this semester: One prerequisite for Scheibner’s course on differential and inte-
gral calculus is algebraic analysis, which hasn’t been taught here for an eternity.440

This group also provided a venue for the mathematicians to discuss the Jablonovi-
ana society’s upcoming prize challenge and how it ought to be formulated.

5.7.2 The Societas Jablonoviana

In our context, this German-Polish scholarly society, which was initiated in 1769
for the sake of promoting science and culture (and which still exists today), is
relevant above all because of its prizes. The statutes of the Societas Jablonoviana
stipulated that an annual prize (700 to 1,000 Mark) was to be awarded for work in

437 See Carl Rabl, Geschichte der Anatomie an der Universität Leipzig (Leipzig: J.A. Barth,
1909), pp. 82–84.
438 See Klein’s remarks in JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges über Leipzig”), p. 1.
439 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 932 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated June 21, 1882).
440 Quoted from TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 160 (Mayer to Klein on December 4, 1886).
 5.7 Felix Klein in Leipzig’s Intellectual Communities 309

mathematics, physics, economics, or history. Applications for this award could be

written in German, Latin, or French. On June 21, 1882, Hurwitz wrote to Klein
and asked: “Have you set the prize task for the Societas Jablonoviana?”441
Formulated in March of 1882, the mathematical prize task was announced in
Mathematische Annalen 20 (1882), p. 146. Hurwitz rightly suspected that it was
Klein who had come up with the problem, which consisted of executing, by the
year 1885, “an investigation of general surfaces of the fourth order.” It was
stressed that the theory of surfaces of the third order had been completed to some
extent in the works of Schläfli, Klein, Zeuthen, and Rodenberg, and that prelimi-
nary work relevant to the challenge at hand could be found in Plücker’s Neue Ge-
ometrie des Raumes [New Geometry of Space], in Karl Rohn’s studies of Kum-
mer surfaces, and in the works of Zeuthen and others on surfaces of the fourth
order with a double conic section.
This challenge from 1882 is also noteworthy because, while still in Munich,
Klein had repeatedly formulated a similar problem for a prize. The problem in
question, which Klein posed for the year 1876/77, read as follows:
In the case of curves of the fourth order with two double points, an analysis of the systems of
intersection points leads to elliptic integrals. By using these integrals, applicants are invited to
discuss and numerically determine the reality and position of the different configurations that
the curve can assume and also those of the non-adjunct curves of contact, at least in indivi-
dual cases.442

Klein strove to classify curves of the fourth order by using Abelian integrals,443
and he hoped to encourage progress in this area of research. The same problem
was presented yet again in 1877/78, but no one rose to the task.444 In order to de-
velop the theory of rational curves of the fourth order, the topic for 1879/80 was
reformulated, explained in greater detail, and repeated in the same form for the
1880/81 challenge in Munich:
Among the plane algebraic curves, those rational curves whose coordinates can be uniquely
assigned to the values of a variable parameter are the most accessible to a detailed treatment.
In particular, the properties of the designated curves of the third and fourth order can be re-
garded as determined. In order to produce a general representation of these curves, however,
it is necessary to proceed from starting points that differ from those that have been previously
used. What is desired now is the development of a theory of rational curves of the fourth or-
der that is based on equations for the parameters of the inflection points and cuspidal points in
such a way that possibly all relationships are expressed in the coefficients of these equations,
whereby a connection to the theory of binary forms should be sought.445

Of the two prize-winning papers from the year 1881, one came from Friedrich
Dingeldey, who had attended Klein’s lectures in Munich. He received half the

441 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 932 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated June 21, 1882).
442 BERICHT 1877, p. 27.
443 See KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 99–169.
444 BERICHT 1878, p. 17.
445 BERICHT 1881, p. 19.
310 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

prize,446 and he completed his doctoral degree in 1885 in Leipzig with a disserta-
tion titled “Über die Erzeugung von Kurven 4. Ordnung durch Bewegungsmecha-
nismen” [On the Generation of Curves of the Fourth Order by Means of Motion
Mechanisms]. This research topic was also treated in the aforementioned doctoral
thesis by Klein’s student Paul Domsch (see Section 5.5.2.3).
The problems that Klein formulated for prizes are indicative of the research
areas that were especially important to him at particular points in time (see also
Sections 5.5.8 and 8.3.2).

5.7.3 The Royal Saxon Society of Sciences in Leipzig

On July 24, 1882, Felix Klein was elected as a full member of the mathematical-
physical class of the Royal Saxon Society of Sciences in Leipzig.447 Wilhelm
Wundt, who was seventeen years Klein’s senior and who had been a professor in
Leipzig since 1874, was named a member on the same day, as was Christian
Braune, who had been a professor of topographical anatomy at the university
since 1872. The Society did not have a special class for the medical disciplines.
Klein cooperated with both of his newly elected fellow members. When he left
Leipzig, he was made a non-resident full member of this Saxon academy.448
Although most of the historical records pertaining to this institution were lost
in the Second World War, it is still possible to ascertain Klein’s high level of en-
gagement in it. About the year 1884, Klein remarked: “Reshuffling the Leipzig
Society of Sciences. The edition of Möbius’s works.”449 His initiatives included
the following:
First, Klein worked together with Carl Ludwig, a professor of physiology and
the secretary of the mathematical-physical class, to propose three new addenda for
the Society’s statutes. The suggested addenda were sent to the Ministry of Culture
in Dresden for approval:
a) The limitation of the number of full local members to forty is to be repealed.
b) Only the votes cast by full local members who are present in the relevant meeting will be
considered valid.
c) Regarding non-resident members, each class can decide on its own whether they may de-
liver lectures, participate in meetings, and submit work for publication.450

The Saxon Ministry of Culture approved these addenda, so that two of Klein’s
students who attained professorships in Saxony were able to become full members

446 BERICHT 1881, p. 20. To this day, the topic still has a few open problems; see, for instance,
https://www.iaz.uni-stuttgart.de/AbDartheo/ehemalige/Oehms/zula.html.
447 [AdW Leipzig]. The Society was founded on June 23, 1846 (on the 200th anniversary of
Leibniz’s birth). Since July 1, 1919, it has been known as the Saxon Academy of Sciences.
448 See https://www.saw-leipzig.de/de/mitglieder/kleinf; and WIEMERS/FISCHER 1996.
449 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges über Leipzig”), p. 3.
450 [StA Dresden] 10272/4, fol. 246.
 5.7 Felix Klein in Leipzig’s Intellectual Communities 311

of the Society relatively quickly: Axel Harnack on July 18, 1885, and Karl Rohn
on December 2, 1889.451
Second, Klein’s efforts to initiate an exchange of publications between the
Saxon Society of Sciences and other similar organizations are also noteworthy.
Because his colleagues shied away from the effort, Klein wrote to Darboux on
May 3, 1881 (before he was even a member) and asked – in the names of Wilhelm
Scheibner, Carl Neumann, and Adolph Mayer – whether Darboux might be inter-
ested in establishing an “exchange […] between the publications of the mathe-
matical-physical class of the Royal Saxon Society of Sciences here and the Bulle-
tin de la Société mathématique in Paris.”452
Third, Klein was not only able to publish his own results quickly in the Soci-
ety’s proceedings (Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Kgl. Sächsischen Gesell-
schaft der Wissenschaften, Mathematisch-physische Classe); in 1884, he also re-
ceived permission “to submit works by non-members that are not too long and
have scientific content.” He communicated this to Hurwitz, and he encouraged
him and Lindemann to send him suitable articles.453 In addition, Klein presented
works by some of his students (Biedermann, Dyck, Otto Fischer, Gierster, Hur-
witz, Rohn, Staude, Willibald Reichardt) and seminar participants (Molien, More-
ra, Pick, Hilbert) at the class meetings of the Society.454
Fourth, Klein took care to ensure that the edition of August Ferdinand Mö-
bius’s collected works would be sponsored as an “Academy project.” Klein’s inte-
rest in Möbius was based above all on the fact that, early on, he had noticed points
of contact between Möbius’s work and his own.455 Even in the aforementioned
letter to Darboux from May 3, 1881, Klein had inquired about a work on the
“question des polyèdres” (1861), with which Möbius had applied for a prize from
the Paris Academy.456 Klein added: “For many years there has been talk of editing
Möbius’s works; however, I am afraid that a long time will pass before anything
comes of it, because those most closely involved do not have the proper initia-
tive.”457 Soon thereafter, Klein learned that Richard Baltzer, who had been a

451 Klein’s vote also counted in hiring processes at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden. On
January 5, 1885, he wrote to Axel Harnack (who was already a professor there): “In my
opinion, Rohn is superior to the other four candidates in terms of his independence and
academic personality.” The (ranked) list of suggested candidates for the second professorship
for mathematics and analytic mechanics comprised: 1. Karl Rohn, 2. Otto Staude, 3. Friedrich
Schur and Hans von Mangoldt. See [StA Dresden] 15547.
452 [Paris] 72: Klein to Darboux, May 3, 1881.
453 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 126 (a postcard from Klein to Hurwitz dated November 19, 1884).
454 See REGISTER 1889. Among other studies by Klein’s students, the Society published David
Hilbert’s article “Über eine allgemeine Gattung irrationaler Invarianten und Covarianten für
eine binäre Grundform geraden Grades,” Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Kgl. Sächsi-
schen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften: Math.-physische Classe 37 (1885), pp. 427–38.
455 See KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 105–08; PLUMP 2014; and DOMBROWSKI 1990, p. 330.
456 In 1858, the prize challenge posed by the Académie des Sciences in Paris read as follows:
“Perfectionner en quelque point important la théorie géométrique des polyèdres.”
457 [Paris] 72: Klein to Darboux, May 3, 1881.
312 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

member of the Saxon Society since 1864 and was a professor at the University of
Gießen, was likewise interested in the project.458 In short order, Baltzer, Klein,
and Scheibner were commissioned by the Society to produce the edition.
Baltzer edited the first volume, which contains Möbius’s work on barycentric
calculus. He wrote to Klein: “I have anew the opportunity to admire your resolu-
tion and efficiency: while I am starting with the first volume, you have already
finished the second, and have in the meantime produced an enormous book [Klein
1884], for the completion of which I congratulate you!”459 Klein was responsible
for the second volume (additional geometric studies) and the third (statics). In his
prefaces to volumes II (October 1885) and III (February 1886), Klein thanked
Privatdozent Otto Staude, Dr. C. Reinhardt,460 and his French colleagues Bertrand
and Darboux for their support and assistance. Shortly before moving to Göttingen,
Klein informed Hurwitz: “The third volume of Möbius’s works is still being
completed, and all sorts of half-measures, from whose incompleteness I suffered,
are still being clarified.”461
While in Göttingen, Klein also contributed to the fourth volume (astronomy,
etc.), for which Wilhelm Scheibner was the main editor. On October 8, 1887, Carl
Ludwig, the already mentioned secretary of the Society’s mathematical-physical
class – who was thirty years Klein’s senior – invited Klein to Leipzig for a meet-
ing of the “Möbius commission,” which was scheduled to take place on October
22nd at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Klein responded to this invitation by suggesting
that his presence would be unnecessary, and this prompted Ludwig to pen, just
two days later, the following informative reply:
My esteemed friend! Are you suggesting that we should proceed without you on October
22nd? That would be impossible. There are still many obstacles that need to be overcome be-
fore the edition of Möbius’s works can be completed, and because you have been the soul of
this undertaking, you will surely be eager to ensure that it is brought to a flawless and unim-
peachable conclusion.462

Ludwig enclosed with this letter a newly discovered article by Möbius (on geo-
metric addition and multiplication), which Klein then included in the fourth vol-
ume; he wrote an additional explanatory preface for it.
Fifth, before it began in earnest, the edition of Hermann Graßmann’s collected
works likewise needed a boost of initiative from Felix Klein. Carl Ludwig wrote:
Dear esteemed colleague, your lightning bolt has struck. Today, after the lecture by [Fried-
rich] Engel, the class elected a commission that includes, in alphabetical order, Klein, Lie, A.
Mayer, and Scheibner (Engel will serve as the record keeper). We hope that you will honor
the request of our board and be willing to grant us your advice as often as it is needed.463

458 [Paris] 74: Klein to Darboux, May 28, 1881.

459 [UBG] Cod.MS F.Klein 8:54 (Baltzer to Klein on September 13. 1884).
460 Curt Reinhardt had completed his doctorate under W. Scheibner and C. Neumann in 1882.
461 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 154 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated March 2, 1886).
462 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 883, 884 (Carl Ludwig to Klein on October 8, 1887).
463 Ibid. 10: 887 (a letter from Carl Ludwig to Klein dated December 5, 1892).
 5.7 Felix Klein in Leipzig’s Intellectual Communities 313

Before the Society decided to go ahead with this project, Victor Schlegel had al-
ready published two volumes based on Graßmann’s works.464 Klein had written a
rather critical review of Schlegel’s first volume, System der Raumlehre [The Sys-
tem of Spatial Theory] (1872).465 In 1881, Klein nevertheless made it possible for
Schlegel, who had been Graßmann’s colleague and was six years Klein’s senior,
to be awarded a doctoral degree in Leipzig by accepting the second volume of this
work as his dissertation: Die Elemente der modernen Geometrie und Algebra [The
Elements of Modern Geometry and Algebra] (1875).466
For the edition of Hermann Graßmann’s collected works, however, Klein pre-
ferred to have editors whom he could trust to produce a sophisticated scientific
commentary. With this in mind, he reached an understanding with Graßmann’s
family,467 and, as already mentioned, he secured a commitment from Friedrich
Engel. Later, on October 17, 1892, Klein attended a meeting of the mathematical-
physical class in Leipzig to set the project in motion. Besides Engel, Klein
recommended additional collaborators (Jacob Lüroth), and he drafted conditions
for a publishing contract with B.G. Teubner. Engel, who was put in charge of the
edition as a whole, described in his preface to the first volume (1894) how Klein
had been the impetus behind the project and how, after providing this initial
impulse, he largely stepped into the background. Graßmann’s works appeared in
three volumes (each of them divided into two parts) between 1894 and 1911.
Sixth, within the framework of the Society’s broad mathematical-physical
class, Klein used his contacts specifically to promote the career of his doctoral
student Otto Fischer. Klein put Fischer in touch with the anatomist Christian
Braune and with the physiologist Carl Ludwig. As early as 1886, Fischer expres-
sed that he was pleased in his “dual role as a mathematical and anatomical as-
sistant, on the one hand, and as a probationary teaching candidate at the Realgym-
nasium in Leipzig on the other.”468 In 1893, he was able to complete his Habilita-
tion in physiological physics, and in 1896 he was made an associate professor in
the Faculty of Medicine. Fischer went on to become a recognized biophysicist.
The Royal Saxon Society of Sciences elected him as an associate member in 1893
and named him a full member in 1905. Before that, Fischer had contributed the
article on physiological mechanics to Vol. IV of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE. Wilhelm Lo-
rey described Otto Fischer’s career as “an especially fitting example […] of how
Klein, with his sharp eye for talent, always understood how to point everyone in
the most suitable direction.”469

464 Victor Schlegel, System der Raumlehre: Nach den Principien der Grassmann’schen Ausdeh-
nungslehre und als Einleitung in dieselbe dargestellt, 2 vols. (B.G.Teubner, 1872; 1875).
465 See ROWE 1996; and ROWE 2018a, pp. 95–103.
466 Schlegel submitted this work as his dissertation on Nov. 14, 1881. Klein served as the first
reviewer, and C. Neumann as the second. See KÖNIG 1882, A6-2. Klein also took two of
Schlegel’s papers with him on his later trip to Chicago. See MOORE et al. 1896, pp. 331–40.
467 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 486, 487 (H. Graßmann Jr. to Klein, Sept. 18 and 26, 1892).
468 Ibid. 9: 40 (a letter from Fischer to Klein dated May 12, 1886).
469 LOREY 1926, p. 141.
314 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

5.8 TURNING HIS BACK ON LEIPZIG

Similar to Klein’s move from Munich to Leipzig, his departure from Leipzig was
based on his desire to leave coupled with lengthy decision processes. His desire to
leave was based above all on his dissatisfaction with his own mathematical pro-
ductivity and on the fact that he had taken on too many ancillary duties. On March
10, 1885, for instance, Klein wrote the following to Hurwitz, who was then his
most intensive academic correspondent: “Regarding my own affairs, I have be-
come so deeply embroiled in business of a subordinate sort that I have almost no
time at all for independent scientific thought.”470 By changing institutions, Klein
hoped that he would once again have more time for his own research. He entertai-
ned offers from Great Britain, the United States (Section 5.8.1), and finally from
Göttingen (Section 5.8.2). The conditions surrounding the job offer from Johns
Hopkins in Baltimore have been described in detail by Parshall and Rowe.471
Klein’s path to the University of Göttingen, however, has at times been inaccu-
rately represented in scholarly literature.472 Both of these processes will be exam-
ined here in light of new sources and correspondence.
Before departing from Erlangen and Munich, Klein had been successful in
determining his own successor. Here it will be shown how Klein was able to se-
cure Sophus Lie as his successor in Leipzig and how the mathematical community
reacted to this (Section 5.8.3).

5.8.1 Weighing Offers from Oxford and Johns Hopkins

Felix Klein wrote to the Saxon Ministry of Culture on December 9, 1883:

Having been personally acquainted with Prof. Cayley in Cambridge (England’s top mathe-
matician) for ten years now, I received from him during the last Easter break an invitation to
apply for the professorship for higher geometry in Oxford, which has become vacant on ac-
count of the death of [Henry] Stephen Smith. I did not do so at the time because, upon further
inquiry, the conditions in Oxford did not seem favorable. The issue was not of a material na-
ture; rather, it did not seem possible there to execute a plan that might lead to a truly high le-
vel of mathematical research.473
Now, however, Cayley informed me on October 5th that Prof. Sylvester in Baltimore has de-
cided to retire from his position at Johns Hopkins University and that he has been unofficially
requested to ask whether I might be inclined to become Sylvester’s successor. I must say that
there is much about this invitation that is enticing to me: all of the conditions in Baltimore are
new and in an early stage of development; there is great potential there to initiate thoroughly
independent and perhaps very successful activity.474

470 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 136 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated March 10, 1885).
471 See PARSHALL/ROWE 1994.
472 See, in particular, FREI 1984, which has served as the basis for other historians.
473 Regarding mathematicians at the University of Oxford (UK), see FAUVEL et al. 2013.
474 [StA Dresden] 10281/184, fols. 25–25v (Klein to the Saxon Ministry, December 9, 1883).
 5.8 Turning His Back on Leipzig 315

Invited by Sylvester, Cayley had worked as a guest professor from January to

May of 1882 at Johns Hopkins, a private university founded in 1876, and he re-
ported to Klein about the conditions there. Klein was excited about the job offer;
he informed Paul Gordan and other colleagues about the prospect of succeeding
Sylvester far before he notified the Ministry in Dresden about this possibility. As
early as October 22, 1883, Gordan congratulated him: “Best of luck regarding
Baltimore; no matter how the matter turns out, something good will come of it for
you.”475 This, however, was a premature conclusion. When Klein sent the official
job offer from President Gilman of Johns Hopkins to Dresden on December 12,
1883, the Ministry responded “discourteously.”476 Although Minister Carl von
Gerber expressed that he did not want the University of Leipzig to lose Klein’s
“outstanding teaching abilities,” he did not propose a counter-offer of any sort.
Instead, he pointed out that Klein’s many wishes had always been fulfilled and
that he was now expected “to reject, of his own accord and of his own free will,
the appointment to a non-European educational institution.”477
This lack of goodwill on the part of the Ministry was enough to make Klein
want to accept the position in Baltimore. To seek advice, he engaged in a whirl-
wind of conversations and correspondence with his family, friends, and collea-
gues. Sophus Lie, on the one hand, recommended him to accept the offer uncondi-
tionally, also to escape the rivalry with the Berliners; on the other hand, Lie added
that he would then have fewer chances to see his friend and that the journal Ma-
thematische Annalen would suffer in Klein’s absence: “Indeed, you are the jour-
nal’s heart and soul.”478 Even at this early point, the two of them discussed the
question of whether Lie might want to succeed Klein in Leipzig. Lie seemed to be
interested; he weighed the pros and cons, and he stressed: even if an offer from
Leipzig would never come to pass, he would nevertheless “live for many years
with feelings of appreciation for the tribute that you have paid to me in your letter.
And I will never forget it.”479
In December of 1883, Klein wrote a long draft of the ideas that he would like
to express in his response to Johns Hopkins, including:
Let me say in advance that, in principle, I am in favor of accepting the offer. I am excited by
the novelty of the task and the great potential that it promises: I am even still young enough to
find something invigorating in the very act of taking on a new position. However, this enthu-
siasm is tempered by the uncertainty of success, the difficulty of the undertaking, and above
all by the circumstance that, for three years here in Leipzig, I have held a first-rate position,
which the university has lavishly endowed with all the attributes that are needed to support
my success and productivity. My enthusiasm is also tempered by the fact that, having taught
in Germany now for thirteen years, I have developed close relationships with the younger ge-

475 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 434, fol. 39 (Gordan to Klein on October 22, 1883).
476 See Klein’s comment in JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges über Leipzig”), p. 3.
477 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22 L. fols. 31–31v (Minister Gerber to Klein, December 21, 1883).
478 Ibid. 10: 690/1 (Lie to Klein, December 1883). Although Lie played a role in the establish-
ment of Mittag-Leffler’s journal Acta Mathematica, he did not publish anything in it.
479 Ibid. 10: 691–696 (an undated letter from Lie to Klein); also STUBHAUG 2003, pp. 216–17.
316 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

neration of German (and, I may add, European) mathematicians, so much so that my friends
and relatives have strongly implored me not to leave them.480

Klein was not silent about his health problems, noting that “my nervous system
was exhausted by overwork in earlier years, so that I tend to suffer from asthma,
stomach ailments, etc.” He emphasized that he was maintaining a strict diet and
that, for years, he had “not socialized in the evenings.” All in all, he indicated that
he could accept the position if his arrangement were equal to Sylvester’s, that is, if
he only had to give a few special lectures and if he received the same salary:
“Instead of $5,000 per year, as you have proposed, I would settle for $6,000 per
year plus an additional allowance for living expenses. Regarding my acceptance
of the position, I consider it a necessary condition that my benefits will be no less
than Sylvester’s in either respect.” As an additional condition, Klein mentioned
providing security for his family: “If I die, my wife is to receive […] an annual
pension of 1,400 to 1,600 Mark, or approximately $400.” Klein also wanted gua-
rantees that his salary would continue to be paid in the event that he suffered from
a prolonged illness. Even though Klein would omit this line from the final version
of his letter, it is clear that the matter seemed important to him. In his draft, he
stated that his salary in Germany “would not be diminished in the event of a long-
lasting illness” and that “a younger colleague would be ready to serve as a substi-
tute” should such circumstances arise. An arrangement of this sort did not exist in
the United States. In his closing sentence, Klein expressed in no uncertain terms
that he would “consider the negotiations to be over between us” if he did not
receive a response within six weeks (by the end of January 1884).
When Hurwitz asked him how things were unfolding, Klein replied: “The
situation with Baltimore is still unclear; every day, I expect an answer to the
preliminary questions that I asked them. In any case, I do not intend to make a
rash decision.”481 Because Klein felt that Johns Hopkins had failed to meet his
conditions, he remained in Leipzig. He informed the Saxon Ministry of Culture of
his decision on February 1, 1884.482 When, later on, another opportunity to leave
Saxony presented itself, Klein was all the more pleased to take advantage of it.

5.8.2 The Physicist Eduard Riecke Arranges Klein’s Move to Göttingen

On March 13, 1885, Felix Klein notified the Ministry of Culture in Dresden “[…]
that, on January 18, 1885, the Philosophical Faculty in Göttingen had nominated
[him] to the Prussian Ministry as the leading candidate to succeed Professor
Stern.”483 This process has a lengthy prehistory; in fact, a considerable amount of
time would pass before Klein received an official offer from Prussia.

480 Ibid. 22 L, fols. 23–25v, quoted here from fols. 23–23v (Klein’s draft, dated Dec. 18, 1883).
481 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 110 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated January 19, 1884).
482 [StA Dresden] 10281, fol. 31.
483 Ibid. fol. 33. – Regarding this nomination, see Appendix 4.1.
 5.8 Turning His Back on Leipzig 317

On April 19, 1884, the seventy-six-year-old Moritz Abraham Stern had re-
quested “dispensation from the obligation of giving lecture courses.” He wanted
to relocate to Bern (where his son Alfred was living at the time) because he had
lost his only daughter in Göttingen.484 An imperial decree issued on September
12, 1884, approved this request, effective October 1, 1884.485 Eduard Riecke
sought Klein’s advice:
You know the difficulties that arise from the personalities of Schwarz and Schering and from
the consideration we owe to Enneper, and you can better assess what we need in scientific
terms. It would be best if we could get you back to Göttingen, but there is hardly any hope for
that. 486

When Klein indicated that he would like to turn his back on Leipzig, Riecke did
everything he could to overcome existing hurdles. Riecke informed Klein that
Schwarz and Schering intended to offer the professorship to Georg Hettner,487
who had completed his Habilitation under Schwarz in 1876 and had been working
as an associate professor in Berlin since 1882. A hiring committee was formed on
November 13, 1884, for which Wilhelm Müller,488 a Germanist and then the dean
of the Philosophical Faculty, was responsible for keeping the minutes:
The committee is composed of the following experts in the field at hand: Messrs. Schering,
Schwarz, Weber (possibly), Riecke, Voigt.
A vote will be taken concerning the inclusion of an additional member, for it may be neces-
sary to replace Mr. Weber.
The number of votes is 22.
Mr. G.E. Müller receives 12 votes; Mr. [Carl] Klein 10 votes.489
Accordingly, Mr. G.E. Müller is elected.
As the member further removed from the field [i.e., mathematics], Privy Councillor H.
Sauppe is elected with 16 votes.490

Riecke persuaded several committee members to accept his suggestions, namely

the theoretical physicist Woldemar Voigt; the psychologist Georg Elias Müller,
who had been chosen to replace the ailing physicist Wilhelm Weber and had al-
ready had contact with Klein in the past; and the philologist Hermann Sauppe,
who, as the secretary of the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen, was hoping
for Klein’s active involvement. On December 3, 1884, the committee finalized its
(ranked) list of potential candidates for the position: 1. Klein, 2. Voß, 3. Enneper.

484 See Ferdinand Rudio, “Erinnerungen an Moritz Abraham Stern,” Jahresbericht der DMV 4
(1897), p. 35.
485 [UAG] Kur. 5846, pp. 80–86. Stern kept his full salary and used a portion of it to found the
Stern Foundation, the mission of which was to support widows, orphans, janitors, and careta-
kers associated with the University of Göttingen.
486 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 111: 505 (a letter from Riecke to Klein dated September 19, 1884).
487 Ibid., 111: 506 (a letter from Riecke to Klein dated October 4, 1884).
488 W. Müller had served as a member of Klein’s Habilitation committee (see Section 2.7.2).
489 In 1887, the mineralogist Carl Klein accepted a professorship in Berlin. He was succeeded in
Göttingen by Theodor Liebisch.
490 [UAG] Phil. Fak. 170a, No. 39a, 39b.
318 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

This proposal was signed by the dean Wilhelm Müller, as well as by Sauppe,
Voigt, and Georg Elias Müller. The full professors of mathematics Ernst Schering
and H.A. Schwarz added the following remark to their signatures: “Subject to a
separate opinion [Separatvotum].”491 On December 4, 1884, Riecke informed
Klein of the result: he and Voss had been recommended for the professorship by
the majority of the committee members, and Georg Hettner had been rejected.492
In January of 1885, Schwarz and Schering each wrote a dissenting separate
vote, as announced (see Appendix 4.2, and 4.3). Both were in favor of Georg
Hettner’s appointment. Schering pleaded additionally for Enneper, while Schwarz
was not willing to support him in this.
The faculty’s hiring proposal and both of the separate votes were sent to the
university’s Kurator, who forwarded everything, along with his own cover letter,
to the Ministry of Culture in Berlin. In his cover letter, the Kurator Adolf von
Warnstedt formulated his own ranking of the proposed candidates: 1. Hettner, 2.
Klein, 3. Voß.493 It is thus clear that he valued the mathematicians’ separate opin-
ions more than he valued the suggestion from the faculty.
In addition, the faculty records also contain a denunciation prompted by H.A.
Schwarz: During a chance encounter on the street, Schwarz had informed the ori-
entalist Paul de Lagarde about the academic dispute between Klein and Lazarus
Fuchs (see Section 5.5.5). Having learned about this, Lagarde thought that it
would be appropriate to make this information known by a letter to the faculty at
large. This letter – written on the same day as Schwarz’s separate opinion (see
Appendix 4.3) – contains references to sources (supplied to him by Schwarz):
“Göttinger Nachrichten from March 4, 1882” (Fuchs) and “Mathematische An-
nalen, vol. 19, p. 564; vol. 20, p. 52; vol. 21, pp. 143, 214–16” (Klein’s replies).
Lagarde referred to the scientific dispute contained in the articles and concluded
that there was good reason to take it into consideration.494 This may have had
some influence on the Kurator’s decision.
Having received the Kurator’s vote, the ministerial director Friedrich Althoff
asked Georg Hettner whether he would accept the offer of the professorship in
Göttingen. Much to the disappointment of Weierstrass, Schwarz, and Schering,
however, Hettner modestly turned down the offer with the remark that “he had not
yet accomplished enough with his publications,” as Althoff noted.495
Schwarz’s behavior was Janus-faced. On the one hand, he had written lauda-
tory words about Klein in his separate vote: “If the appointment of Prof. Klein is
successful, an outstanding teacher and an important scholar will be gained for our
University and for our Prussian fatherland” (Appendix 4.3). On the other hand, he

491 [UAG] Phil. Fak. 170a, No. 41Z, pp. 41ff. This document can also be found in the records of
the dean’s office (pp. 41gg–41kk) and in Klein’s personnel file ([UAG] Kur. 5956).
492 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 509 (a letter from Riecke to Klein dated December 4, 1884).
493 [StA Berlin] Abt. Merseburg, Rep. 75 Va Sekt. 6, Tit. IV, No. 1, vol. 11, fols. 195–98v.
494 [UAG] Phil. Fak. 170a, No. 41uu–41vv (de Lagarde’s letter, dated January 25, 1885).
495 [StA Berlin] Abt. Merseburg, Rep. 76 Va Sekt. 6, Tit. IV, No. 1, vol. 11, fol. 195v. See also
TOBIES 1991, pp. 90–93. Regarding Weierstrass’s reaction, see BIERMANN 1988, p. 144.
 5.8 Turning His Back on Leipzig 319

had initiated the denunciation mentioned above. Schwarz was somewhat fearful of
Klein’s appeal to students and younger colleagues. After Klein had informed
Schwarz, on August 13, 1885, about his successful negotiations with the ministe-
rial official Althoff in Berlin, Schwarz wrote to Weierstrass:
That which I considered so improbable has indeed come to pass! […] Who can predict how
my teaching activity can be organized in the near future? Perhaps, as a result of your decision
no longer to hold lectures, a greater number of ambitious students of mathematics will turn to
Göttingen, given that genuine function theory will no longer be taught in Berlin. I worry,
however, that if your prophecy about the difficulty of working with Mr. Klein is fulfilled, my
wish for a “change of scenery” will become all the more urgent.496

Before deciding to offer the position to Klein in August, Althoff had let the matter
rest for some time. This is because it had been suggested to him that Felix Klein
and Aurel Voss merely wanted to improve the conditions of their current posi-
tions, and that they would be too expensive in any case. Not until Althoff visited
Göttingen in July of 1885 to resolve a hiring issue in astronomy did Riecke de-
finitively persuade him to extend an offer to Klein (see Appendix 10.1). On July
23, 1885, Riecke informed Klein: “Now I have very reliable news that the Minis-
try would be willing to offer you the position, so long as the opinion does not
spread that it would be entirely hopeless to try to bring you here.”497
Through Riecke, Althoff inquired about Klein’s conditions: a 9,000 Mark an-
nual salary and a reading room for students. In early August, Klein was invited to
Berlin to meet with Althoff, and he informed the Saxon Ministry in Dresden about
this. There, the cultural minister Carl von Gerber was startled by the news, and he
had the following telegram sent to Klein: “His Excellency, to keep you in Leipzig,
is offering you a yearly salary of 9,000 Mark.”498 Klein, however, was eager to
leave, and he accepted Althoff’s offer of 9,040 Mark (an 8,500 Mark annual sal-
ary plus a yearly allowance of 540 Mark for living expenses). Until then, the ma-
ximum salary for a full professor in Göttingen had been 7,200 Mark.499
In a letter to the Saxon Ministry, Klein explained that “the character and the
scope of my scientific activity” had determined his decision. He added: “Within
mathematics, the composition of the student body has developed in such a parti-
san way that, throughout my 10 semesters of teaching in Leipzig and among the
ca. 100 participants in my advanced seminars, there has not even been one Prus-
sian candidate and there has been only one from northern Germany (from Braun-
schweig).”500 Klein was now thirty-six years old, and he envisioned having a
broader influence by working in Prussia, where he might also be able to diminish
the dominance of the mathematicians in Berlin. On September 10, 1885, after his

496 [BBAW] NL Schwarz 1254, pp. 195–96 (Schwarz to Weierstrass on August 22, 1885).
497 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 511 (a letter from Riecke to Klein dated July 23, 1885).
498 [StA Dresden] 10281/184, fol. 41 (the telegram dated August 11, 1885).
499 [StA Berlin] Abt. Merseburg, Rep. 76 Va Sect. 6, Tit. IV, No. 1, vol. 11, fols. 313v, 314.
500 [StA Dresden] 10281/184, fols. 42–43. Klein’s remark that approximately one hundred stu-
dents had participated in his Leipzig seminars is an exaggeration (see Table 6).
320 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

summer vacation, much of which he spent in the company of Hurwitz (see Section
5.5.8), Klein traveled with his wife to Göttingen, where they stayed with Eduard
Riecke and found an apartment to rent in October. H.A. Schwarz accepted an of-
fer to visit Klein in Leipzig,501 where he thought it might be possible for him to
become Klein’s successor. Klein, however, was interested above all in showing
Schwarz the institutions that he had helped to develop. In December, after “His
Majesty the Emperor and King [Wilhelm I]” had finally signed the official letter
of appointment for Klein’s full professorship in Prussia,502 Klein sent an applica-
tion to the University of Göttingen’s administration in which he requested funding
for a “reading and work room.” Soon thereafter, he informed Hurwitz that his new
position was scheduled to begin on April 1, 1886.503
In an earlier letter to Hurwitz, Klein had dreamed about spending another fall
break with him, and he ruminated about the possibilities that lay ahead: “Will I
ever again enjoy the tranquility of the genuine scholarly life? The possibility for
that exists in Göttingen; however, it seems highly unlikely to me that this will
become a reality.”504 Tranquility, however, was not Klein’s thing, and he already
suspected that he would soon be as active as ever – just as Riecke expected that he
would (see Appendix 10.1).

5.8.3 The Appointment of Sophus Lie as Klein’s Successor – and the Reactions

Klein wanted Sophus Lie to be his successor in Leipzig. Lie alone, he thought,
could be trusted “to establish an independent geometric school.” This was the
main argument in the extensive application that Klein wrote in his own hand to
nominate his favored candidate.505 Their friendship aside, Klein expected that Lie
would be able to perpetuate the high international reputation of the mathematical
institution in Leipzig, and he also expected that Lie would gladly accept the posi-
tion. Lie had already signaled his willingness to take the job when Klein was still
considering the offer from Johns Hopkins, and he had expressed (even before
Friedrich Engel came to Christiania [Oslo] as his assistant): “The next time I
come to Germany, I hope to stay there for a longer period of time. May this soon
be possible for me! It is lonely, terribly lonely here in Christiania, where no one
understands my work and interests!”506
The first draft of Klein’s proposal to hire Lie as his successor is dated October
28, 1885.507 In a letter to Hurwitz written a few days later, however, Klein was
less than certain that his proposal would be accepted: “It has been a long time

501 See Klein’s notes in JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges über Leipzig”), p. 4.

502 [UAG] Phil. Fak. 171a, No. 19a.
503 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 150, 151/2 (Klein to Hurwitz, Dec. 13, 1885 and January 3, 1886).
504 Ibid. 77: 147 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated September 24, 1885), emphasis original.
505 [UA Leipzig] PA 693, p. 31.
506 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 689 (a letter from Lie to Klein, September 1883).
507 [UA Leipzig] PA 693, pp. 29–36.
 5.8 Turning His Back on Leipzig 321

since I’ve written to you because the hiring process here has drained my time and
humor. I am fully at odds with [Carl] Neumann, and even if I am able to win over
the faculty, it is still unclear what the Ministry will do, given that a separate
opinion will be submitted alongside the faculty’s vote.”508 Klein’s disagreement
with Carl Neumann was based on the fact that Neumann wanted to promote
Adolph Mayer to full professor. However, Mayer, who was then an honorary pro-
fessor, was financially secure on account of his family’s wealth, and he allowed
Klein to explain in the faculty meeting that “he would take no offense if a geo-
metrician were hired to fill the vacant position.”509
At the end of November, after Klein had revised his proposal once more and
the majority of the faculty had voted in favor of it, Carl Neumann, Wilhelm
Scheibner, and the physicist Wilhelm G. Hankel nevertheless composed a separate
vote. Interestingly, however, they did not turn against Sophus Lie. As H.A.
Schwarz informed Weierstrass, Neumann even considered Sophus Lie an accep-
table choice, especially “because he [Lie] would not compete with him [Neu-
mann] in the area of function theory.”510 The separate vote was in fact directed
against Ferdinand Lindemann, Aurel Voss, and Axel Harnack, who were the ad-
ditional mathematicians mentioned on the list of possible candidates. It was ar-
gued that Lindemann was no longer a geometrician, and that the other two were
no better than the Privatdozenten who were already working in Leipzig.511
Klein, however, had the further success of “his” institute in mind, and he no-
ted in his application that the latter would need a director “who, through his ear-
lier activity, has demonstrated an understanding and interest in the tasks that the
role demands: Voß and Lindemann satisfy this requirement and, in the unfortunate
event that Lie should reject the offer, the faculty believes that, in the interest of the
institute, the Ministry should not hesitate to offer the position to either one of
them.”512
After the faculty had submitted its proposal to the Saxon Ministry of Culture
on December 12, 1885, the offer went straight to Norway. During the New Year’s
celebration, which Klein spent together with Georg Pick and David Hilbert, he
was able to report that Sophus Lie had responded positively. Lie wrote: “It is
more than remarkable that you pulled this off. I only hope that you never regret
it!”513 After a great deal of correspondence, and after settling his affairs in Nor-
way, Lie accepted the offer with a letter to the Ministry dated January 16, 1886.
He came to Germany in February, and Klein accompanied him to Dresden.

508 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 149 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated November 7, 1885).
509 [StA Dresden] 10281/212, fols. 7–7v. – On July 7, 1890, the Ministry agreed to a new appli-
cation to appoint Adolph Mayer as full professor after all. [UA Leipzig] PA 725, fol. 22.
510 [BBAW] NL Schwarz 1254, p. 223 (Schwarz’s letter to Weierstrass, April 3, 1886).
511 [StA Dresden] 10281/212, fols. 2–9 (hiring proposal), 10–15 (separate vote).
512 [UA Leipzig] PA 693, fol. 35R.
513 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 712/1 (Lie’s letter arrived in Leipzig on New Year’s Eve,
1885).
322 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

Klein had made his intentions known early on, for instance in a letter that he
sent to Darboux on November 21, 1885:
Perhaps you have already heard that I am about to move to Göttingen (that is, on April 1,
1886). Here I have taken on more work than is good for me, and yet I have not been able to
actualize my ideas as much as I would like. There are also some strictly private reasons for
me to move: family considerations, etc. What would you say if I were to succeed in bringing
Lie to Leipzig? I am working on that, but I am not sure whether I will prevail.514

In a letter dated January 2, 1886, Darboux replied that he had since heard about
the job offer to Sophus Lie, but that Lie was held up in Christiania for one reason
or another. Addressing Klein, he added: “J’espère que nous nous verrons un de
ces jours […].”515
In Germany, there were colleagues who misunderstood Klein’s information,
and this misunderstanding was caused by the similar way in which the words
“Lie” and “Sie” (you) appeared in his handwriting. On December 7, 1885, H.A.
Schwarz516 reported to Weierstrass that Klein had written him about Leipzig’s
hiring proposal: “1. you (Sie) [or: Lie], 2. Lindemann, 3. Voss, in addition to
which there is a separate vote in which only you are [or: Lie is] nominated.”
Schwarz commented further:
Now, if I am right to assume that the word following 1. is Sie [you] and not Lie, then I have
the distinction of being the first candidate on the list, and this is very gratifying to me. In
Klein’s letter, which is not very legible, the reading Lie is possible in both places, but a pro-
posal to hire Sophus Lie does not seem very probable to me, though it is possible. Perhaps
you already know more details about this.517

Weierstrass responded on December 20, 1885:

I am deeply sorry that Klein’s careless handwriting has caused such a terrible disappointment
for you. I became familiar with the situation a day or so before you, and from a reliable
source. Kronecker did not want to believe it at first. If Leipzig were a Prussian university, I
would have felt obligated to express my opinion to the proper authority regarding the outra-
geous procedure approved by the Leipzig faculty, which is an insult to every German mathe-
matician who is now in the prime of his life. Although I cannot deny that Lie has produced
some valuable works, he is not of such significance as a researcher and teacher that he – a fo-
reigner – should be given preference over all possible German candidates. Now it will be said
that he is a second [Niels Henrik] Abel, who had to be won at all costs. A lovely beginning to
a new era, which is set to begin under Klein’s presidency! P.[aul] Dubois[-Reymond] hit the
nail on the head when, already years ago, he referred to the trefoil of Klein – Lie – Mayer as
the “société thuriféraire.”518

Weierstrass’s influence, however, did not extend to Saxony.

514 [Paris] 76: Klein to Darboux, November 21, 1885.

515 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 503 (Darboux to Klein). They would next meet in 1887.
516 Schwarz was not a “rival candidate” to be Klein’s successor, as GRAY suspected (2013, p.
490).
517 [BBAW] NL Schwarz 1254: 203 (Schwarz to Weierstrass, December 7, 1885).
518 Ibid. 1175: 314–15. Here, “société thuriféraire” (literally: incense-carriers’ society) is a dero-
gatory reference to an “association for mutual admirers.” See also STUBHAUG 2002, p. 341.
 5.8 Turning His Back on Leipzig 323

Yet Schwarz was not the only person to misinterpret Klein’s letters about the
hiring process in Leipzig; Lindemann and Hurwitz in Königsberg misread his
handwriting as well. On December 14, 1885, Hurwitz informed Klein:
Lindemann received your letter and has shared its content with me. He was unsure, however,
whether at one point you wrote “which Lie accepts” or “which you [Sie] accept.” If Linde-
mann should receive the offer, I am convinced that he would accept it. An aggravating factor
for Lie, at any rate, is the current trend among his opponents to make such a fuss over his na-
tionality.519

Klein’s Erlangen friends were also not very enthusiastic about Klein’s list of can-
didates. In a letter to him, Max Noether, who was still waiting for a full professor-
ship, wrote: “I don’t think Lie is a suitable candidate for the Leipzig position; and
3) [Voss] will not be able to replace you.”520
Klein helped Sophus Lie cope with the many difficulties that he faced in the
beginning. On Klein’s advice, Lie visited H.A. Schwarz in Göttingen, where he
found the conversation difficult because of their different ways of mathematical
thinking. Thus, in a subsequent letter to Klein, Lie stated that “there is perhaps no
one in Germany whom I better understand than you.”521
During the summer semester of 1886, Lie made use of Klein’s lectures on
projective geometry, and he also requested more of his lecture notes. Earlier,
Klein had also acquired copies of Weierstrass’s lecture notes for him.522 Follo-
wing Klein’s example, Lie now attempted to collaborate with talented students. In
his course offerings, he also adhered to Klein’s previous plan.523 Klein helped him
with smaller matters, such as choosing appropriate exam topics for future teachers
of mathematics. In September of 1886, Klein traveled together with Lie to the
annual conference of natural scientists and physicians (GDNÄ) in Berlin, he edi-
ted Lie’s talk (on the problem with Helmholtz, see Section 6.3.6), and he made
further attempts to establish Lie’s reputation.524 Lie sought Klein’s advice about
how he might best promote the careers of Eduard Study and Friedrich Schur, and
they discussed which lecture courses these Privatdozenten should offer. Lie re-
peatedly asked Klein: “Does all of this accord with your plan?”525
Lie faced a number of tasks that were new to him, and he wanted to overcome
his self-diagnosed difficulty of dealing with others. He wanted to learn how to be
more approachable and to improve his communication skills with colleagues and
students. He grew frustrated with Carl Neumann, who tried to entice away his
students and his assistant (Famulus), who “outdid himself with his great lack of

519 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1010 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated December 14, 1885).
520 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 88 (Max Noether’s letter to Klein on November 5, 1885).
521 Ibid. 10: 718 (an undated letter from Lie to Klein).
522 Ibid. 10: 694/1, 695 (undated letters from Lie to Klein, 1884).
523 Ibid. 10: 721 (a letter from Lie to Klein, July 1886), 730 (a letter dated December 8, 1886),
730 (a letter dated March 3, 1887), and 733 (an undated letter sent to Klein in 1887).
524 Ibid. 10: 722, 723, 724, 725.
525 Ibid. 10: 730 (a letter from Lie to Klein dated December 8, 1886).
324 5 A Professorship for Geometry in Leipzig

consideration,” and who even announced that he would be offering lecture courses
on geometry.526 Lie felt as though he was being poorly treated by his colleagues
and by the Ministry of Culture, and he was irritated that he had been excluded
from examination committees. Klein heard about all of these problems, and he
was asked for advice.
Furthermore, Lie feared that other mathematicians did not sufficiently appre-
ciate his work and that someone else might achieve results in “his” research area.
When Wilhelm Killing’s studies were published in Mathematische Annalen, Lie’s
paranoia reached new heights, and this affected Klein as well (who, of course, was
the editor of the journal).527 Their relationship became strained, even though Klein
repeatedly tried to resolve their differences.
In 1889, Sophus Lie fell so ill in Leipzig that the neurologist Paul Flechsig re-
commended that he recover in the private sanatorium of Dr. Ferdinand Wahren-
dorff near Hanover, which had been founded in 1862 as an asylum for people with
psychiatric illnesses.528 There was much speculation about the specific causes of
Lie’s illness. Klein kept abreast of Lie’s condition and regularly inquired about
his status with Adolph Mayer.529 After Lie had begun to recover, Klein tried again
to include him in various projects. However, he was met with suspicion, mistrust,
and signs of paranoia. Later, Lie’s illness was diagnosed as pernicious anemia,530
associated with a mental illness, as Elling Holst – who also felt badly treated by
Sophus Lie – informed Klein.531
Lie worked for several fruitful years in Leipzig, and he produced a number of
prominent students. His relationship with Klein remained tense for a long time,
even though Klein repeatedly lauded his academic achievements. In an undated
letter of 1898, Lie wrote again to Klein and thanked him for his “Report on the
Lobachevsky Prize.”532 In the same year, when Lie was on his way back to Nor-
way, he visited Klein one more time in Göttingen and reconcile with him.533 Lie
died shortly thereafter in Christiania, on February 18, 1899. On April 29, 1899,
Klein gave a memorial address in Lie’s honor in Göttingen. In this speech, he re-
ferred to Lie as “the greatest talent in the area of geometry that the second half of
this century has seen.”534

526 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 727 (Lie to Klein, November 2, 1886), 735 (an undated letter,
sent after Easter of 1887), 736 (an undated letter, sent in the fall of 1887).
527 Ibid. 10: 741 (an undated letter from Lie to Klein, sent in 1888). See also ROWE 1988.
528 Today, the Wahrendorff clinic exists as a psychiatric and psychotherapeutic hospital.
529 See TOBIES/ROWE 1990, pp. 178–86.
530 See CZICHOWSKI/FRITZSCHE 1993, pp. 191–93; and FRITZSCHE 1991. David Hilbert would
later suffer from the same illness ([UBG] Cod. MS. D. Hilbert 749, a report on the status of
Hilbert’s health from 1929 to 1936).
531 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 2G (Holst to Klein, May 12, 1899); see also JONASSEN 2004.
532 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 769. – For this report, see Section 6.3.6.
533 See YOUNG 1928, p. xiii (Young’s account is based on a letter written by Anna Klein).
534 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22 G (Klein’s address, April 29, 1899). See also ROWE 1988, p. 45.
 6 THE START OF KLEIN’S PROFESSORSHIP IN GÖTTINGEN,
1886–1892

On April 1, 1886, Felix Klein began working as a full professor at the University
of Göttingen in Prussia. Prussia was by far the largest German state with the most
universities, which were then in Berlin, Bonn, Breslau, Göttingen, Greifswald,
Halle, Kiel (Prussian since 1867), Königsberg, Marburg (Prussian since 1866),
and Strasbourg (Prussian from 1871 to 1917). There was also a Catholic Academy
in Münster;1 polytechnical schools (later named Technische Hochschulen) in
Aachen, Berlin, and Hanover; and a mining academy in Clausthal. The Prussian
Ministry of Culture in Berlin was responsible for hiring the faculty and other staff
members at these institutions. The mathematics professorships were predomi-
nantly held by men who had studied in Berlin. This would gradually change over
the course of Klein’s tenure in Göttingen.
Klein’s first six years as a full professor in Göttingen can be regarded as a
preliminary phase. During this period, he did not have to concern himself much
with institutional matters. The Royal Mathematical-Physical Seminar already ex-
isted, belonging to the Philosophical Faculty of the university (see 2.8.1). Klein
became one of its co-directors on April 28, 1886 (the other directors were Riecke,
Schering, H.A. Schwarz, and W. Voigt). Klein moved ahead immediately to es-
tablish the student reading room that the administration had approved.2 The
collection of models and the Seminar library were under the direction of Hermann
Amandus Schwarz. There was no assistant yet at the mathematical institute. Ac-
cording to his own accounts, Klein concentrated on his mathematical work and on
his research-oriented teaching. In addition, he was also developing further plans.
By this point, Klein was responsible for a five-member family, which would
continue to grow and for which he wanted to provide spacious accommodations
(Section 6.1).
He hoped to collaborate on good terms with his colleagues, but some of them
felt as though his presence was dictatorial (6.2).
He continued to build upon his earlier fields of research, he cooperated with
previous collaborators, and he found new collaborators for specific fields. The
latter included a growing number of students from Germany and abroad, whose
careers he would influence in decisive ways (6.3).

1 This Catholic Academy had a philosophical faculty including mathematics, and it had the
right to grant doctoral degrees. In 1902, it acquired the status of a university.
2 Klein had newly requested this reading room in order to make it part of the Seminar’s facili-
ties ([UAG] Math. Nat. 0012). See also FREWER-SAUVIGNY 1985. – In the fall of 1886, the
astronomer Wilhelm Schur was added as another co-director of the Seminar.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 325

R. Tobies, Felix Klein, Vita Mathematica 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75785-4_6
326 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

With a sense of responsibility for the university’s overall goals, Klein at-
tempted (as before) to reform existing committees, establish new committees, and
use them to achieve his aims. He revived his general ambition to connect mathe-
matics with other fields, particularly technical disciplines. During these years,
however, the success of these efforts was limited (6.4).
Not until H.A. Schwarz had accepted a professorship in Berlin and Klein had
declined an offer from the University of Munich in 1892 did the proper conditions
arise for Klein to pursue his goals in Göttingen without having to face much re-
sistance (6.5).

6.1 FAMILY CONSIDERATIONS

In Klein’s view, the following were motivating factors for his move to Göttingen:
“A house with a garden. Fewer administrative duties. Prussia.” He went on: “A
concentrated academic existence on the basis of a reasonable family life.”3 He
purchased an apartment at Weender Chaussee 6,4 and he invited his parents there
in May of 1886, so that they could “see for themselves how much more comfor-
table my family’s situation is compared to Leipzig.”5
When Anna and Felix Klein announced the birth of their fourth child, Elisa-
beth (b. May 21, 1888), the family decided to build a house of their own: Wil-
helm-Weber-Straße 3. They moved into it on May 22, 1889.6 It is located near the
botanical garden, which Klein could easily cross to be at the university building
where the mathematicians taught.

Figure 27: Felix Klein’s home in Göttingen, Wilhelm-Weber-Straße 3

(photographs courtesy of Dr. W. Mahler, May 31, 2014).

3 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Vorläufiges über Leipzig”), pp. 4–5.

4 On May 24, 1923, this street was renamed as Weender Landstraße; see TAMKE/DRIEVER
2012, p. 213.
5 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 156 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated May 15, 1886).
6 See Klein’s remarks in JACOBS 1977 (“Personalia”), 22 L, fol. 3.
 6.1 Family Considerations 327

In the new house, there was not only enough room for the family but also for do-
mestic help, Anna’s youngest sister Sophie, and guests. Adolf Hurwitz often ac-
cepted Klein’s invitations to stay with him. David Hilbert (Wilhelm-Weber-Straße
29) and Carl Runge (Wilhelm-Weber-Straße 21) would later also choose to settle
on this quiet and centrally located street.
Finally, Klein’s house would serve as the starting point of the famous walks
that the mathematicians in Göttingen would take on Thursday afternoons. Her-
mann Minkowski also took part in these outings when, from 1902 to 1909, he
lived nearby at Planckstraße 15.7 Initiated by Klein, this tradition was still alive
when Peter Debye came to Göttingen as a professor of physics in 1913. Debye
reported that Klein was the first to leave his house and he was joined one after the
other by Hilbert (with his dog Pussy), Carl Runge, and Debye himself. Cara-
théodory and Ludwig Prandtl waited at the corner, and they would be joined by
Edmund Landau, who lived on Herzberger Straße. They would walk together to
Rohns tavern on the Hainberg, where – in Debye’s words – “all the faculty
business was decided, independent of all the other people in the faculty!” Klein
had introduced this independent decision-making process on account of his ex-
periences with other members of the Philosophical Faculty.8

Figure 28: Rohns Tavern on the Hainberg (a historical postcard).

7 On January 1, 1898, this street was named after the judge Gottlieb Planck, an uncle of the
physicist Max Planck.
8 [Debye] 1962.
328 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

6.2 DEALING WITH COLLEAGUES, TEACHING, AND CURRICULUM

PLANNING

Here it will be shown how Klein attempted to get along with the colleagues who
had disapproved of his appointment to Göttingen, how he sought to win over the
Privatdozenten there, and that he developed new ideas for reorganizing the cur-
riculum.

6.2.1 The Relationship Between Klein and Schwarz

At first, Klein anticipated no problems dealing with Hermann Amandus Schwarz,

who was six years Klein’s senior. Thus he wrote to Adolf Hurwitz:
I am getting along with Schwarz quite well and better than expected. I have really gained a
good deal from interacting with him, and I find that we are on the same page when it comes
to practical matters. This is indeed someone who lives entirely for his job! From Leipzig, I
am used to people who put everything else first and only then care about advancing mathe-
matical knowledge and teaching, so that I gratefully appreciate anything that lies in this
direction.9

Klein’s letter indicates his efforts to reach an understanding with H.A. Schwarz,
even though he had not been fully aware of his unfriendly behavior. In March of
1886, Klein had sent Sophus Lie to Schwarz so that the two of them might form
an amicable relationship. Outwardly, at least, Schwarz was warm and agreeable
during this meeting. He welcomed Lie and had positive words to say about Klein:
Overall, his opinion of you was correct. Like you, he clearly has the best intentions. He
grumbled about Mittag-Leffler and Kronecker. It’s really an odd situation: he wants to join
forces with us against Kronecker. Like [Georg] Cantor, he mentioned that Weierstrass had
become so irritated with Kronecker that he refused to give any more lecture courses in Ber-
lin.10

Otto Hölder was also present at this meeting. In a letter to his parents, Hölder
mentioned that he was impressed with Lie, and he made critical comments about
Schwarz’s “annoying self-importance.”11 In his letters to Weierstrass, Schwarz
changed his tone about Klein:
Recently, Prof. F. Klein told me that Dirichlet’s writing is boring! That is quite a beautiful
new perspective that he has opened up on the matter. On top of this, there is his boundless
self-satisfaction! Mr. Klein informed me that he has recently worked out a study – especially
for me – regarding hyperelliptic σ-functions and their development according to moduli.12

9 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 156 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated May 15, 1886).
10 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 718 (an undated letter from Lie to Klein, ca. March 1886).
11 Quoted from HILDEBRANDT et al. 2014, p. 215 (Hölder to his parents, March 24, 1886).
12 [BBAW] NL Schwarz 1254: 222–23 (Schwarz to Weierstrass, April 3, 1886).
 6.2 Dealing with Colleagues, Teaching, and Curriculum Planning 329

For the sake of context, it should be mentioned that Klein, in his article “Ueber
hyperelliptische Sigmafunctionen” [On Hyperelliptic Sigma Functions] (see Sec-
tion 5.5.8), had cited Weierstrass’s theory of elliptic functions from H.A.
Schwarz’s book Formeln und Lehrsätze zum Gebrauche der elliptischen Functio-
nen [Formulae and Theorems on the Use of Elliptic Functions] (1885), because
Weierstrass’s lecture courses were unpublished.
On May 7, 1886, Schwarz wrote to his former teacher Karl Weierstrass that
Felix Klein had become a member of the Royal Society of London and that Klein
had invited him to republish his older articles from the Monatsberichte [Monthly
Reports] of the Berlin Academy in Mathematische Annalen.13 Klein thus wanted
Schwarz to become a contributor to his journal, and he wanted Schwarz’s work to
reach a wider international audience. Legally, nothing stood in the way of reprin-
ting Schwarz’s articles; after two years, publication rights reverted to the author.
Schwarz, who had never published anything in the Annalen, seemed willing at
first to accept Klein’s offer. Weierstrass suggested, however, that Schwarz should
instead collect his articles from the Monatsberichte and his studies on minimal
surfaces and print them in the form of a book.14 Consequently, Schwarz declined
Klein’s offer to cooperate and never published in Mathematische Annalen. This
reinforced the tensions that already existed between them (see also Section 6.2.2).
At this point, it should be mentioned that professors in Germany did not have
to be politically neutral like Klein, who never joined a party. Schwarz, for
example, was outspokenly political; during the German parliamentary elections of
1887, he vehemently supported the National Liberal Party, which backed Bis-
marck. He wrote to Weierstrass about this. Moreover, Otto Hölder was aware that
Schwarz went from town to town with a jar of glue in order to hang election pos-
ters.15

6.2.2 The Göttingen Privatdozenten Hölder and Schoenflies

When Klein came to Göttingen, there were two Privatdozenten whom he invited
to collaborate: Otto Hölder, whom he had already supported in Leipzig (see Sec-
tion 5.4.1), and Arthur Schoenflies.16
After earning a doctoral degree in Berlin,17 Schoenflies completed his Habili-
tation in Göttingen in November of 1884 with a thesis evaluated by M.A. Stern.

13 [BBAW] NL Schwarz 1254: 225–26.

14 Ibid. 1175: 323 (Weierstrass to Schwarz, May 15, 1886). The result of this undertaking was
Schwarz’s Gesammelte mathematische Abhandlungen, 2 vols. (Berlin: J. Springer, 1890).
15 Ibid. 1254: 249 (Schwarz to Weierstrass, March 15, 1887); HILDEBRANDT et al. 2014, p. 238.
16 Regarding Schoenflies’s biography, see KAEMMEL/SONNTAG 2006.
17 The title of Schoenflies’s doctoral thesis was “Synthetisch-geometrische Untersuchungen
über Flächen zweiten Grades und eine aus ihnen abgeleitete Regelfläche” [Synthetic-Geomet-
ric Investigations of Surfaces of the Second Degree, and a Ruled Surface Derived from
Them] (1887). See BIERMANN 1988, p. 354.
330 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

The probationary lecture that Schoenflies gave as part of his Habilitation proce-
dure – “Darstellung der Lehre der Zusammensetzung der Kräfte und der Be-
wegung eines festen Körpers im Anschlusse an die bezüglichen Untersuchungen
von Plücker und Ball” [A Representation of the Theory of the Composition of
Forces and the Motion of a Rigid Body in Light of the Relevant Investigations by
Plücker and [Robert Stawell] Ball]18 – contained several points of contact with
Felix Klein’s work. Erhard Scholz has also attributed Schoenflies’s interest in
studying proper (eigentliche) discontinuous motion groups to Klein.19 H.A.
Schwarz, however, wrote to Weierstrass that he had been the first person to in-
spire and encourage Schoenflies’s work in this research area.20 This was yet an-
other matter of contention between Klein and Schwarz.
On the first Sunday after the beginning of the semester, Klein invited both of
these Göttingen Privatdozenten to his home, where they were joined by Georg
Pick (a Privatdozent in Prague) and Eduard Study (a Privatdozent in Leipzig). As
in Leipzig, Klein wanted his mathematical colloquium in Göttingen to be a point
of attraction for students. He therefore invited Hölder and Schoenflies to partici-
pate, but he was surprised by their resistance to the idea. While a Privatdozent
himself, Klein had led his first research seminar together with Clebsch, and as a
professor he had grown accustomed to Privatdozenten willingly participating in
his colloquium. Hölder, however, feared being caught in between Schwarz and
Klein, and he also persuaded Schoenflies to decline Klein’s offer. During a trip to
Berlin in the fall of 1885, Hölder had met with his doctoral supervisor Paul du
Bois-Reymond, who told him that the relationship between Schwarz and Klein
might be strained:
Du Bois-Reymond wanted me to know that the disagreements between Schwarz and Klein
that I anticipated have already begun, at least when they are not in each other’s presence. If he
is to be believed, Klein has already behaved in a characteristically immodest manner in his
negotiations concerning the Seminar. For this reason, Schwarz supposedly wants to leave
Göttingen. Whenever I meet him, he puts his arm around me and explains in a sentimental
tone that he still wants to see me quite often this winter; you don’t know what the future will
hold.21

Schwarz was clearly anxious about Klein’s influence. Hölder remained cautious,
even though he was invited to socialize with both of the professors and their wives
together. On May 9, 1886, he reported to his parents that he had been invited to
the Schwarz family’s home, and that Anna and Felix Klein were also there: “Klein
in a tailcoat and his wife in a very elegant red gown.” Hölder nevertheless wrote
that he wanted to avoid having a dependent relationship with either of them:

18 [UAG] Phil. Fak. 170a, No. 39a.

19 See SCHOLZ 1989, pp. 121, 290.
20 [BBAW] NL Schwarz 1254: 291–93 (Schwarz to Weierstrass, November 20, 1888): “Two or
three years ago, I prompted Dr. Schoenflies to conduct a geometric study of discontinuous
motion groups.”
21 Quoted from HILDEBRANDT et al. 2014 (Hölder to his parents, November 17, 1885).
 6.2 Dealing with Colleagues, Teaching, and Curriculum Planning 331

Such a relationship could be disastrous for me if Schwarz and Klein have a falling out, which
is possible any day. Klein has to manage absolutely everything and everybody, and that can’t
be easy to tolerate. In fact, I find it somewhat harsh when he says that participating in his
colloquium (which, in the end, is just a seminar for students) is the only opportunity we might
have to work closely with him. At least he bid us farewell in an outwardly very friendly man-
ner.22

In 1886, Klein found another way to cooperate with Hölder, as the latter informed
his parents. Klein was not resentful, he wrote, and “my relationship with Klein is
now very good.” In another letter: “I’m now interacting more with Klein. Tomor-
row I’ve been invited to have another scientific discussion with him. He wants to
publish the work [in Mathematische Annalen] that I brought him as soon as pos-
sible, which is very pleasing to me.” Around a month later, he commented: “Poor
Klein […] is now suffering from rather severe asthma attacks.”23
In the fall of 1892, keeping in mind that other Privatdozenten might have si-
milar feelings about participating in his colloquium, Klein created a new forum
for communication: the Göttingen Mathematical Society (see Section 7.2). By
1894/95, however, Klein again found Privatdozenten (Burkhardt, Sommerfeld,
Ritter) and professor colleagues (Hilbert since April of 1895, later Minkowski and
others) to cooperate in his seminars.24
Arthur Schoenflies followed Klein’s advice more closely and had more suc-
cess as a teacher than Hölder.25 When Klein was preparing to teach mechanics for
the winter semester of 1886/87, Schoenflies coordinated with him and offered
“An Introduction to the Geometric Aspects of Mechanics.”26 In subsequent se-
mesters, Schoenflies took over the geometry lectures for beginning students.
When a general lecture course on mathematics was newly introduced for natural
scientists – “A General Introduction to Higher Mathematics” – Klein turned to
Schoenflies to teach it.27
Nevertheless, when an associate professorship became vacant on account of
Alfred Enneper’s death, it was offered to Hölder and not to Schoenflies. In 1899,
when Hölder left for a professorship in Tübingen, Klein was still unable to con-
vince the Philosophical Faculty to offer Hölder’s position to Schoenflies. Klein
tried again in 1891, explaining to Friedrich Althoff at the Prussian Ministry of
Culture: “I have no doubt that the reasons for this dismissive behavior has much
more to do with me than it does with Dr. Schoenflies. Because Dr. Schoenflies
had adopted my approaches in his teaching and in his research, the faculty fears
that hiring him would strengthen my position.”28 In the same letter, Klein argued

22 Ibid., p. 217 (a letter from Hölder to his parents dated May 9, 1886).
23 Ibid., pp. 219–26 (Hölder to his parents, June 15, June 27, and July 24, 1886).
24 [Protocols] vol. 12, pp. 371–76; and Section 8.2.4.
25 Hölder himself wrote to his parents about how few students he had compared to Schoenflies.
See ibid., p. 254 (a letter from Hölder to his parents dated November 13, 1887).
26 See Göttinger Nachrichten (1886), p. 471.
27 See ibid. (1887), p. 355.
28 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1C: 2, fol. 32 (Klein’s draft letter to Althoff, March 28, 1891).
332 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

[…] that in Göttingen we will not be able to maintain the previous high level of our mathe-
matical instruction if, as regards the needs of beginners and students of the natural sciences
(etc.), we cannot count on the support of our younger teachers. Indeed, simply leafing through
the course catalogues from the last few years reveals that, in this respect, we have continu-
ously relied on two mathematical assistants to do the most important tasks (first Hölder and
Schoenflies, then Schoenflies and Burkhardt).

Furthermore, Klein emphasized why Schoenflies (at 37 years old) should abso-
lutely receive the associate professorship: “Besides, he is Jewish and thus it will
be difficult for him to advance further in any case.” In vain, Klein attempted to
influence Althoff with the following sentence: “If it proves to be impossible to
promote Dr. Schoenflies, then instruction for beginners, as I envision it and as it
has recently been carried out with the help of Privatdozenten, will be disrupted for
many years to come.”29
Klein would first have to strengthen his position in Göttingen before he would
be able to realize this and other plans (see Section 6.5.2).

6.2.3 Klein’s Teaching in Context

Regarding his early years as a professor in Göttingen, Klein explained how his
teaching program related to that of Hermann Amandus Schwarz:
Because Schwarz insisted on teaching the main component of the curriculum, I was able to
revisit old ideas from my student years in Bonn and return to teaching physics, which I did by
offering general lectures on mechanics, potential theory, etc. In addition, I tried to complete
all the purely mathematical investigations I had begun in my previous special lectures.
However, as far as this seemed possible, I assigned individual problems to the students who
were best suited to solve them.30

Klein began the “special lectures” mentioned here in the summer semester of
1886 (April 28th to August 15th) with a four-hour lecture course on algebra: “On
the Solution of Algebraic Equations,” which had twenty-three students. He also
devoted his research seminar (Wednesdays, 11–1 o’clock) to this area of research:
“On Regular Solids and Triangular Functions.”31 In addition, Klein offered a two-
hour special lecture on elliptic modular functions (9 students). With his current
monograph project in mind, he saw these three courses as “consistent preparation
for a large lecture course for the summer of 1887 on single-valued functions with
linear transformations into themselves,” as he informed Hurwitz.32
As of the winter semester of 1886/87, Klein began to offer lecture courses on
mechanics and mathematical physics. In doing so, he fulfilled a wish of the physi-
cists at the university, which Eduard Riecke had conveyed to him as early as No-

29 Ibid., fol. 32v. – Regarding Klein’s opinion of Schoenflies, see also Appendix 6.2.
30 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 259–60.
31 For an analysis of Klein’s algebra course and seminar during this semester, see HELLER 2015.
32 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 156 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated May 15, 1886).
 6.2 Dealing with Colleagues, Teaching, and Curriculum Planning 333

vember 9, 1884.33 At the same time, this also corresponded to Klein’s own “me-
chanical program,” which he had first mentioned explicitly in the fall of 1881 (see
Section 5.5). At the beginning of his lecture course “An Introduction to Analytical
Mechanics” from 1886/87,34 he made the following notes about his goals:
“Expand my horizons and my own knowledge.”35 Klein had already taught
analytic mechanics while working in Erlangen and Munich (in Leipzig, this was
Adolph Mayer’s domain). Now he saw the opportunity to combine mechanical
topics with recent work on geometry and function theory. On March 8, 1887, he
wrote about this to Sophus Lie in Leipzig:
Perhaps Mayer has told you that I worked diligently on mechanics this winter. For the time
being, I have not extended myself to general theories; rather, I have intuitively treated special
examples, relying on studies from France and (in part) from England. I can’t even tell you
how much these matters interest me and how much I regret that I have had to wait until now
to come to them, now that my youth has passed and I struggle somewhat to understand and
formulate new ideas. If I am successful, I hope to continue to work on similar subjects, so that
in 2 or 3 years I will perhaps be at home with those as well. None of this should conflict with
my earlier work on geometry and function theory; in fact, all of these subjects can be
integrated organically.36

The number of enrolled students was low in all of Prussia at the time. Hurwitz
reported from Königsberg that he, Lindemann, and Hilbert had just two to four
students in their classes. Klein replied on November 9, 1886:
We are now deeply bogged down in the semester’s work. Of course, my enrollment numbers
are not as good as they could be: I have 17 students in mechanics and only 5 in my seminar
and special lecture course (on higher equations). Not one of them is from Göttingen! Luckily,
two Frenchmen have now shown up, students of Picard who seem good and are only hindered
by their poor German; this will provide us with some life. By the way, we will gratefully ac-
cept every older mathematics student who is sent to us; otherwise, it could really happen that
I would one day have to cancel my advanced lecture courses altogether!37

The French students whom Klein mentions here, and who came to him with rec-
ommendations by Darboux, were Paul Painlevé and Nicolas Cor. They partici-
pated in Klein’s 1886/87 seminar on group theory and algebraic equations, with-
out giving a presentation.38 Hölder was repeatedly astounded by all the “young

33 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 507.

34 For an edition of these lectures, see KLEIN 1991.
35 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Personalia”), 22 L, p. 1.
36 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated March 8, 1887.
37 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 166 (Klein to Hurwitz, November 9, 1886). In 1887, Hurwitz sent his
doctoral student Felix Klitzkowski to work with Klein (K.’s Königsberg thesis was titled
“Ueber die Integration der mten Wurzel aus einer rationalen Function” [On the Integration of
the mth Root from a Rational Function], 1887), and in 1893 Hurwitz sent the Swiss Charles
Jaccottet to Göttingen to complete his doctoral research under Klein.
38 [Protocols] vol. 8, p. 264. Later, Painlevé and his student Auguste H.L. Boulanger applied
Klein’s methods, and Painlevé had fond memories of his time studying under Klein [UBG]
Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 159 (Painlevé to Klein, February 19, 1896). Painlevé would also write
an article on ordinary differential equations for the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. II (1900).
334 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

mathematicians from this and the other side of the ocean” who came to sit at
Klein’s feet, whose work Klein encouraged, and whom Klein invited to his home:
The company at Klein’s home was very animated; the occasion was to celebrate his wife’s
birthday. Schwarz was the one man to attend wearing a tailcoat. […] Then there was the
crème de la crème of Klein’s seminar, which at the moment is very American. This time
around, all of these exotic plants also paid visits to us lowly Privatdozenten, even though we
made no efforts to approach them.39

Otto Hölder obviously found it difficult to interact with foreign mathematicians.

Klein’s renown was especially widespread in the United States. Harry W. Tyler,
who studied under Klein in the winter semester of 1887/88 and the summer se-
mester of 1888 (along with Haskell, Osgood, Thompson, H.S. White, and others),
reported to his parents after attending his first lecture by Klein:
Not till Thursday did I hear and see the great Klein (so to speak), whose fame as the greatest
mathematical teacher in Germany (consequently in the world) has attracted me to Göttingen.
He is a tall slender man of about 40, his hair is light brown, his eyes blue, keen and alert; the
strength of his face lies chiefly in his large nose and high forehead. He speaks rather quickly
and with a somewhat high voice, but clearly enough, and methodically, enunciating fre-
quently statements to be taken down verbatim. He lays much stress upon the notes taken, and
has one student write up the lectures, which after his own revision are put in the reading room
for general reference. His subject was Potential – a subject of mathematical physics, in which
I have no interest. In spite of my first disinclination, I am gradually concluding to take this
course – 4 lectures a week – partly for the sake of the Mathematics involved, mainly to hear
the man.40

Klein prepared Tyler to collaborate with Paul Gordan by giving him a suitable
seminar topic,41 and Tyler completed his doctorate in 1889 under Gordan at the
University of Erlangen. Osgood followed the same procedure: after studying with
Klein for four semesters, he went to Erlangen and relied on Max Noether’s as-
sistance to complete his thesis there in 1890. At the same time, Klein supervised
additional doctoral theses in Göttingen, seven from 1887 to 1893, five of which
were by Americans: Haskell, Bôcher, White, Thompson, and E.B. Van Vleck.
During these years, further students came to study under Klein from the
United States (Fabian Franklin, Frederick S. Woods, James Harrington Boyd),42
from Great Britain (Arthur Berry),43 France (Henri Padé), Italy (Ernesto Pascal),
Russia (B. Młodziejewski, a mathematician of Polish origin), the Polishmen

39 HILDEBRANDT et al. 2014, pp. 242–43 (Hölder to his parents, May 4 and May 23, 1887).
40 Quoted from BATTERSON 2009, p. 921.
41 Tyler’s presentation was titled “Referat über das erste Kapitel von Clebsch und Gordan’s
Abelsche Functionen unter Bezugnahme auf unser Colleg.” [Protocols] vol. 9, pp. 65–81.
42 The successes and failures of these students are described in detail in PARSHALL/ROWE 1994.
43 On April 9, 1887, Cayley had written to Klein: “I would be very much obliged for anything
you may be able to do for him [Berry].”[UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 8: 381. Berry attended
Klein’s course in the summer semester of 1887 (hyperelliptic functions), and in July of 1887
he gave a presentation in Klein’s colloquium titled “Differentialinvarianten, insbesondere Re-
ciprocanten” [Differential Invariants, Particularly Reciprocants]. [Protocols] vol. 8, p. 272.
 6.2 Dealing with Colleagues, Teaching, and Curriculum Planning 335

Stanisław Kępiński, K. Żorawski, and others,44 from Greece (A. Karagiannides45),

and elsewhere. Franklin already held a professorship, and some of the others had
already completed their doctoral degrees – Młodziejewski in Moscow (1889),
Żorawski under Sophus Lie in Leipzig (1891), Kępiński in Krakow (1891).
Klein felt as though he had achieved a sought-after goal, about which he
wrote to Althoff at the Ministry of Culture in October of 1891:
I may add, as you have perhaps already heard from other sources, that the quality of our stu-
dents in Göttingen has increased considerably (though their numbers have not), and that in re-
cent years we have finally achieved for the first time our goal of having a full and prestigious
international student body, as I had in mind in advance before moving to Göttingen.46

Klein thus felt sufficiently confident to coordinate the teaching program with his
colleagues: the full professors of mathematics Ernst Schering (see Section 2.8.1)
and H.A. Schwarz, the Privatdozenten Otto Hölder and Arthur Schoenflies, the
theoretical physicist Woldemar Voigt, and the astronomer Wilhelm Schur.47 Klein
attempted to accomplish four things in particular:
First, as in Leipzig, Klein strove to coordinate the times and themes of cour-
ses to best serve the interest of students. In June of 1887, he invited his colleagues
to participate in a novel “conference for the purpose of discussing lecture courses”
in order to organize the course offerings for the coming winter semester. That
there had never been a coordinated planning effort of this sort is clear from an
earlier letter by the Privatdozent Otto Hölder, who made the following complaints
to his parents before the beginning of the summer semester in 1886:
This time, it took a great deal of effort and second thoughts to schedule my course for next
semester. It is very unpleasant that we don’t discuss the matter together in advance. Now,
most of us don’t learn when and what the others are teaching until we see the final proofs of
the course listings. My previous course time has been taken away by Klein.48

The older full professors Schwarz and Schering found it difficult to agree with
one another. In 1887/88, they taught the same subject.49 Klein’s attempt to coordi-
nate the teaching schedule was only temporarily successful. In 1891, he reported
to Althoff in despair:

44 On further Polish students in Göttingen, see CIESIELSKA et al. 2019. Danuta Ciesielska, Lech
Maligranda, and Joanna Zwierzyńska are currently working on a project titled “Studies and
Scientific Research of Polish Mathematicians, Physicists, and Astronomers at the University
of Göttingen.” I would like to thank Danuta Ciesielska for informing me that, as she discov-
ered in an archive, Felix Klein was awarded an honorary doctorate in 1900 from the Jagiel-
lonian University in Krakow (Fig. 42). K. Zorawski had been a professor there since 1898.
45 Karagiannides refers to his “esteemed teacher Klein” in his little booklet on non-Euclidean
geometry (Die Nichteuklidische Geometrie vom Alterthum bis zur Gegenwart. Berlin: Mayer
& Müller, 1893, p. 34). – The author thanks M. Mattmüller for this reference.
46 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Althoff A I No. 84, pp. 82–83.
47 See https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/PPN6654655340_1886_SS.
48 Quoted from HILDEBRANDT et al. 2014, p. 209 (a letter dated February 14, 1886).
49 See ibid., p. 247. Both Schwarz and Schering planned to teach “An Introduction to the Theory
of Analytic Functions.” See Göttinger Nachrichten (1887), p. 355.
336 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

Ever since I came here, as you know, I have worked with the idea of coodinating the efforts
of all available colleagues. As I have already indicated to you, however, this system has
become more and more difficult to implement. Things took a turn for the worse in the sum-
mer of 1889 precisely because I was honored in one way or another by the Royal Ministry.50
[…] During the last winter semester, I followed the general Göttingen tradition by teaching
and working for myself alone, but I wonder whether this is really the right way to conduct
oneself here.51

Second, following the model established in Leipzig, Klein successfully reduced

the number of courses required of those studying mathematics as a minor field. To
this end, he established introductory lecture courses for natural scientists (taught
by Schoenflies). He thus wanted to remedy the “dilemma faced by mathematical
Dozenten: fragmentation,”52 and he wanted to be able to concentrate on his own
research-oriented teaching.
Third, as in Leipzig, Klein succeeded in introducing a new course on descrip-
tive geometry. H.A. Schwarz was willing to teach this subject, as Klein noted in
1888: “Descriptive geometry, offered by Schwarz with the assistance of Hölder
and Schoenflies.”53 Even though the title chosen for the course was not “Descrip-
tive Geometry,” Schwarz taught “On Curved Surfaces and Curves of Double Cur-
vature” during the summer semester of 1888/89. In December of 1888, Klein and
Schwarz successfully applied for 3,000 Mark in order to expand the model col-
lection and to offer exercises in “Constructive Geometry.”54 In the summer of
1890, Schwarz directed “Exercises in Geometric Construction”; Hölder offered
“On the Possibility of Ruler-and-Compass Construction,” and Schoenflies taught
“On the Regular Division of Space and Its Applications, Particularly to Crystal-
lography” (see also Section 6.3.7.2).55
Fourth, together with Eduard Riecke, Klein drafted a document titled “Advice
and Clarifications for Students of Mathematics and Physics,” which was distrib-
uted to incoming students upon their matriculation. In a report to Althoff dated
June 10, 1890, Klein sought support from the Ministry of Culture for this plan. A
few years would pass, however, before Althoff wrote back to him about it: “Your
curriculum for teaching candidates in mathematics and physics […] has been fa-
vorably received here, and we are considering whether the same plan ought to be
recommended as a model for other universities.”56
Within the context of his research-oriented teaching, Klein inspired talented
students to pursue their own ideas in various directions.

50 In 1889, Klein received the Order of the Red Eagle, 4th Class (Roter Adler-Orden vierter
Klasse) because he had been pressured to decline a visiting professorship in the USA (see
Section 6.3.7.1). Klein felt that the envy of some colleagues made his life more difficult.
51 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1C: 2, fols. 31–32 (Klein to Althoff, March 28, 1891).
52 Klein’s comment is quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Personalia”), 22 L, p. 1.
53 Ibid., p. 2.
54 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 2E: fol. 22.
55 Göttinger Nachrichten (1888/89), p. 7; (1889), p. 75; and (1890), p. 48.
56 [UBG] Cod. MS. Klein II, A, p. 3 (a letter from Althoff to Klein dated January 15, 1894).
 6.3 Independent and Collaborative Research 337

6.3 INDEPENDENT AND COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH

As before, Klein’s research-oriented teaching was an important springboard for

creative ideas, which he increasingly passed along to younger collaborators to
work on in greater depth. The following sections will focus on the trends that are
reflected in Klein’s publications at the time and in the work of his research part-
ners and students.

6.3.1 The Theory of Finite Groups of Linear Substitutions: The Theory of Solving
Equations of Higher Degree

As a professor in Göttingen, Klein took this area of research, which he had been
working on since his time in Erlangen, in two new directions:
First, in October of 1886, he submitted his article “Zur Theorie der allgemei-
nen Gleichungen sechsten und siebenten Grades” [On the Theory of General
Equations of the Sixth and Seventh Degree] to Mathematische Annalen.57 This
work had originated as a result of his first algebra seminar in Göttingen. Here,
Klein used his theory of equations of the fifth degree, as he had presented it in his
book on the icosahedron, to extend the problem to (general) equations of higher
degree. In the footnotes to this article, Klein referred to the work of his doctoral
students Willibald Reichardt and Frank Nelson Cole (see Section 5.4.2.2). When
Klein edited this article for his collected works, he also made sure to include refe-
rences to studies by Heinrich Maschke, who, together with Oskar Bolza, had par-
ticipated in Klein’s algebra seminars beginning in the fall of 1886.58
Klein submitted Maschke’s and Bolza’s results to the Royal Society of
Sciences in Göttingen. Especially noteworthy was Maschke’s work, which Klein
presented at the Society’s session on July 2, 1887, under the title “Über das For-
mensystem einer gewissen endlichen Gruppe quaternärer linearer Substitutionen”
[On the System of Forms of a Certain Finite Group of Quaternary Linear Substi-
tutions]. In order to make the results more apparent and create a reference to Ber-
lin mathematics, Klein induced Maschke to publish the article with a slightly dif-
ferent title: “Ueber die quaternäre, endliche, lineare Substitutionsgruppe der Bor-
chardt’schen Moduln” [On the Quaternary, Finite, Linear Substitution Group of
Borchardt’s Moduli].59 In a longer version of this article, which was published in
Mathematische Annalen, Maschke explained:

57 Math. Ann. 28 (1886), pp. 499–532; reprinted in KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 439–72. –
HELLER 2020 gives a detailed analysis of this work by Felix Klein.
58 See HELLER 2015. For two semesters, Klein held weekly private meetings with Bolza and
Maschke in his apartment. Both Bolza and Maschke went on to have careers in the United
States. Bolza’s doctoral research was not highly regarded in Berlin, so Klein accepted his dis-
sertation in Göttingen (the degree was awarded on June 28, 1886). See BOLZA 1936, pp. 15–
20; and PARSHALL/ROWE 1994, pp. 197–202.
59 Göttinger Nachrichten (1887), pp. 421–24.
338 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

The group named in the title was initially derived by Mr. Klein completely from line geome-
try, without any connection to hyperelliptic functions. Later, Mr. Klein showed that the so-
called Borchardt moduli of the hyperelliptic functions of genus p = 2 admit the same group of
linear substitutions, whereby the group, which so far only had the advantage of being one of
the few groups of linear substitutions of finite ordinal number – and indeed, apart from the
simplest cases, the first which was known in the quaternary domain – gained much more in-
terest. This interest will be of prime importance for many mathematicians if in the following I
can establish, at Professor Klein’s instigation, the full system of invariant forms for this
group.60

Klein’s final opinion on the matter was that “the transcendental problem here can
be solved without recourse to Borchardt’s moduli and directly with hyperelliptic
functions”61 (see also Section 6.3.2).
Second, closely related to this was the investigation of the relationship be-
tween the problem of the trisection of hyperelliptic functions and that of the 27
lines of the cubic surface. It was known from the work of Camille Jordan (1869)
that both problems have isomorphic groups. Klein outlined how the one problem
can be reduced to the other in a lecture that he delivered on April 13, 1887 to the
Société Mathématique de France in Paris. At Jordan’s request, Klein elaborated
his lecture for publication: “Sur la résolution, par les fonctions hyperelliptiques,
de l’équation du vingt-septième degré, de laquelle dépend la détermination des
vingt-sept droites d’une surface cubique.”62 Klein showed that a group-theoretical
treatment of the cubic surface with 27 straight lines is isomorphic with the trisec-
tion of hyperelliptic functions of genus 2.63 His results had arisen from the coop-
erative work in his algebra seminar of 1886/87. Klein referred explicitly to the
seminar participants Witting and Maschke. Maschke had given three presentations
with the title “Ueber die Gruppe derjenigen Gleichung, von welcher die 27
Geraden der Fläche dritter Ordnung abhängen” [On the Group of that Equation on
which the 27 Lines of the Surface of the Third Order Depend], and he later pub-
lished on the topic as well.64
Burkhardt expanded upon Klein’s outline and discovered in particular that,
“in the case of an equation of the 27th degree of the group under consideration,
one can specify explicit linear combinations of roots, which immediately admit

60 Math. Ann. 30 (1887), pp. 496–515, at p. 496 (emphasis original).

61 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 440. See also Anders Wiman, “Endliche Gruppen linearer Substitu-
tionen,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vo. I.1 (1899).
62 Felix Klein, “Extrait d’une lettre adressée à M. C. Jordan,” Journal de mathématiques pures
et appliquées 4 (1888), pp. 169–76; reprinted in KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 473–79. – See
also [Paris-ÉP] 114 (Klein to C. Jordan, August 17, 1887) and BRECHENMACHER 2016c.
63 On the term genus, which Klein borrowed from Riemann and Clebsch for the purpose of
classifying surfaces, see Section 3.1.3.1; also DEHN/HEEGAARD 1907, p. 200.
64 [Protocols] vol. 8, pp. 88–97, 115–19 (Nov. 3, and 17, 1886; Febr. 26, 1887); and Heinrich
Maschke, “Aufstellung des vollen Formensystems einer quaternären Gruppe von 51840 linea-
ren Substitutionen,” Math. Ann. 33 (1889), pp. 317–44.
 6.3 Independent and Collaborative Research 339

the same substitutions as the coordinates aik of a linear complex.”65 This problem
was taken up with new methods by the American mathematician Arthur B. Coble,
who was influenced by the mathematician Eduard Study.66

6.3.2 Hyperelliptic and Abelian Functions

Based on his earlier work (see Section 5.5.8), Klein taught a lecture course on
general hyperelliptic functions from the Easter of 1887 to the Easter of 1888. He
published results in the Göttinger Nachrichten and in Mathematische Annalen:
“Über hyperelliptische Sigmafunctionen (Zweite Abhandlung)” [On Hyperelliptic
Sigma Functions (Part Two)].67 Klein especially answered the question: “How do
I express by a single algebraic condition that a curve p = 3 becomes hyperellip-
tic?” He provided an overview of his lectures and demonstrated how recent devel-
opments can be extended to hyperelliptic functions of an arbitrary genus. Hurwitz
recognized Klein’s fundamental idea:
The remarkable circumstance that the hyperelliptic case p = 3 can be characterized by a single
algebraic condition is new evidence for the correctness of your approach in comparison with
Weierstrass’s. If I understand the matter correctly, the essential issue – in the algebraic for-
mulation of the question – is the transition to line coordinates [Linienkoordinaten].68

Klein later explained that vague conclusions by analogy had led him to these re-
sults.69 He inspired Heinrich Burkhardt to work out his ideas in greater detail:
The necessary complement that my presentation requires in its details is supplied in large part
by Mr. Burkhardt’s article published in the following, which I repeatedly have occasion to
cite […]. I should not refrain from mentioning that my scientific interaction with Mr. Burk-
hardt was also conducive in many respects to the ideas that I will develop below.70

Recommended by his teachers Dyck and Voss in Munich, Burkhardt had come to
Klein in 1887 after completing his doctoral degree with a thesis titled “Beziehun-
gen zwischen der Invariantentheorie und der Theorie algebraischer Integrale und
ihrer Umkehrungen” [Relationships between Invariant Theory and the Theory of
Algebraic Integrals and Their Inverses].71 Klein used his seminar of 1887/88 –
attended by Burkhardt, Johannes Schröder, M.W. Haskell, and H.D. Thompson –
to augment his lecture course material (on “Select Chapters of Hyperelliptic Func-

65 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 479. – Heinrich Burkhardt, “Untersuchungen aus dem Gebiete der
hyperelliptischen Modulfunctionen,” Math. Ann. 41 (1893), pp. 313–43.
66 See Arthur B. Coble, “Point Sets and Allied Cremona Groups (Part III),” Transactions of the
American Mathematical Society 18 (1917), pp. 331–72.
67 See Felix Klein in Göttinger Nachrichten (1887), pp. 515–21; Math. Ann. 32 (1888), pp. 351–
80; and KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 357–87.
68 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1063 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated February 21, 1888).
69 [Protocols] vol. 12, p. 10.
70 Klein in Math. Ann. 32 (1888), pp. 351–52 (reprinted in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 357-58).
71 H. Liebmann, “Zur Erinnerung an H. Burkhardt,” Jahresbericht DMV 15 (1915), pp. 185–95.
340 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

tions”) with presentations of his own.72 At the same time, Klein guided Schröder,
Haskell, and Thompson to the completion of their doctoral degrees. In his Ha-
bilitation thesis on the topic of hyperelliptic modular functions,73 Burkhardt fol-
lowed Klein’s example and combined the methods of Weierstrass and Riemann,
as he expressed in his article “Beiträge zur Theorie der hyperelliptischen Sigma-
funktionen” [Contributions to the Theory of Hyperelliptic Sigma Functions].74
Burkhardt’s work “Grundzüge einer allgemeinen Systematik der hyperelliptischen
Functionen I. Ordnung” [Fundamentals of a General Systematic of Hyperelliptic
Functions of the First Order]75 used Klein’s lectures from 1887/88 and provided,
on the basis of Klein’s classification of elliptic functions (his “level theory”), a
classification of hyperelliptic functions.
Recommended by Klein, Burkhardt spent the winter of 1893/94 in Paris. He
attended lectures by Picard (differential equations), Poincaré (partial differential
equations), and others. Afterward, he published additional works on function the-
ory, wrote a well-received book – Funktionentheoretische Vorlesungen [Function-
Theoretical Lectures] (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1897) – and served as the primary
editor for the second volume (analysis) of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE. Burkhardt received
a titular professorship in Göttingen in 1894; he was hired as a full professor by the
University of Zurich in 1897, and he accepted a full professorship in 1908 at the
Technische Hochschule in Munich, where he worked alongside Walther Dyck.
From Easter of 1888 to the fall of 1889, the theory of Abelian functions was
at the heart of Klein’s teaching (see also Section 5.5.2.3). Klein published on the
subject,76 and Hurwitz wrote enthusiastically that the Academy in Naples had of-
fered a prize for summarizing Klein’s results on the theory of Abelian functions.77
Klein also inspired younger mathematicians in this area of research. Wilhelm
Wirtinger, who had completed his doctoral studies in Vienna with Emil Weyr,
belonged to this group; he described Klein’s close supervision as follows:
In the summer semester of 1889, I went to Göttingen to study under Klein. The latter lectured
on Abelian functions and differential equations of physics; he involved the advanced students
in collaborative work as far as possible. At the time, the participants in the seminar were
Burkhardt, Haskell, Osgood, White, and myself. Klein encouraged and stimulated me imme-
diately. He understood extremely well how to clarify and work through budding ideas, and he
devoted a great deal of his time and energy to having periodic discussions with each of us.78

72 [Protocols] vol. 9, p. 271.

73 [UAG] Kur. 6238 (Burkhardt’s personnel file).
74 Math. Ann. 32 (1888), pp. 381–442, at p. 381.
75 Math. Ann. 35 (1889), pp. 189–296.
76 See Math. Ann. 36 (1890), pp. 1–83; reprinted in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 388–473.
77 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1083 (Hurwitz to Klein, September 8, 1890). – On the occasion
of the 100th birthday of N.H. Abel (in 1902), Klein received “le grade de Docteur-ès-mathé-
matiques (doctor mathematicae)” from the University of Christiania [Oslo].
78 [AdW Wien] Wirtinger 1939, p. 5. His first articles inspired by Klein were “Ueber das Analo-
gon der Kummer’schen Fläche für p = 3,” Göttinger Nachrichten, 1889, pp. 474–89; and
 6.3 Independent and Collaborative Research 341

Under Klein’s guidance, Wirtinger made a seamless transition “into the epistemic
world of mathematical modernity,” as Moritz Epple wrote in his 1999 Habilita-
tion thesis on the history of knot theory. Epple discerned Klein’s “intellectual he-
gemony.”79 This intellectual circle also included the Italian mathematician Ernesto
Pascal and Eduard Wiltheiss, who died young.80
Two decades later, Klein stated: “When I was a student, Abelian functions
were, as an effect of Jacobi’s tradition, considered the uncontested summit of
mathematics, and each of us was ambitious to make progress in this field. And
now? The younger generation hardly knows Abelian functions.”81 Despite the
open questions in this research area, mathematics advanced in new directions. For
this reason, Klein believed that thorough survey articles about old topics might
help to attract fresh interest and lead to further progress. This was one of his moti-
vations for undertaking the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project.
Klein’s collaborators at the time – Wirtinger, Burkhardt, and Osgood82 – later
became professors and contributors to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE. His doctoral students at
the time helped with other tasks: Haskell, as mentioned above, was the first to
translate Klein’s Erlangen Program into English,83 and Henry S. White organized
the Evanston Colloquium for Klein in 1893 (see Section 7.4.2).

6.3.3 The Theory of Elliptic Modular Functions (Monograph)

Klein requested further rounds of talks with Adolf Hurwitz to advance the mono-
graph that he had begun in Leipzig with Georg Pick (see Section 5.5.7).84 With
Hurwitz, Klein considered whether they might be able to learn more about ideal
theory from Dedekind’s work. Together, they contemplated formulating “prom-
ising problems” in this research area.85 Klein informed Hurwitz about the status of
his cooperation with Georg Pick and about his new collaborator Robert Fricke,
who would finally bring the project to a successful conclusion in 1892.86

“Untersuchungen über Abel’sche Functionen vom Geschlechte 3,” Math. Ann. 40 (1892), pp.
261–312, see also Wirtinger’s articles in Monatshefte für Mathematik und Physik (Vienna).
79 See EPPLE 1999, pp. 240–58.
80 See KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 322; and Wilhelm Wirtinger, “Eduard Wiltheiß,” Jahresbe-
richt DMV 9 (1901) I, pp. 59–63. Regarding Ernesto Pascal, see his book Repertorio di mate-
matiche superiori (Milan: U. Hoepli, 1898) and its German translation: Repertorium der hö-
heren Mathematik, ed. A. Schepp (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1900).
81 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 294.
82 Osgood, as mentioned above, submitted his dissertation – “Zur Theorie der zum alge-
braischen Gebilde ym = R(x) gehörigen Abelschen Functionen” [On the Theory of the Abelian
Functions Pertaining to the Algebraic Entity ym = R(x)] – to Max Noether at the University of
Erlangen (see Section 6.2.3, and also 7.4.2).
83 See the Bulletin of the New York Mathematical Society 2 (1893), pp. 215–49.
84 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 155 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated April 3, 1886).
85 Ibid., 77: 168, 190 (letters from Klein to Hurwitz, December 31, 1886; September 21, 1887).
86 KLEIN/FRICKE 1890/92. In English translation: KLEIN/FRICKE 2017 [1890/92].
342 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

From Klein’s correspondence with Robert Fricke, it is clear that they valued
Pick’s preliminary work but also thought that the monograph should be reorgani-
zed on the basis of Klein’s lecture course from the summer of 1886. Persuaded by
Fricke, Klein set aside his original intention “of underscoring that my ideas had
come before those of the French mathematicians.” “Of course,” he admitted, “this
concern is merely of a subordinate nature.”87
Klein gave further lecture courses with a view toward his plan, and he for-
warded his latest findings to Fricke. In June of 1889, despite his regular consulta-
tions with Fricke about the text of the monograph, Klein felt as though it still left
“a somewhat incomplete impression,” and this led him to a general remark:
The more I think about the text, the more I would like to summarize it in the following way:
Regarding the theory of elliptic functions, one should bring to bear modern mathematical dis-
ciplines that have been developed in the meantime […] This would explain earlier obscurities
and immediately enable new and further developments. This general program should now be
implemented in three directions: 1) Riemannian function theory in the discussion of modular
functions, 2) invariant theory, and last but most importantly 3) group theory.
However, other modern disciplines could have been drawn on, if only we commanded them
as well as we do 1), 2), and 3). For instance:
4) Modern formation laws of transcendent functions (Weierstrass – Mittag-Leffler …);
5) Modern number theory (Dedekind – Kronecker).
The limits within which we have treated our subject matter are therefore essentially subjec-
tive. We can’t change that, and we can also be content with it. When explaining the nature of
our work, I would thus like to avoid the expression “the theory of modular functions.” On the
one hand, it is too narrow, because we have not limited ourselves to modular functions; on the
other hand, it is too pretentious, because we remain quite far from presenting a systematic
theory.88

Klein and Fricke received the proofs for the monograph in November of 1889,
and they were able to add references to the latest scholarly literature. On New
Year’s Eve, Klein wrote: “Our book should remain relevant not only for a few
years, but for decades to come!”89 In March of 1890, before the final printing of
the book was set to begin, Fricke suggested that the material should be divided
into two volumes. Klein and the publishing house agreed; for the second volume
(1892), they were thus able to take into account works by Poincaré, H.A.
Schwarz, Lazarus Fuchs, and others that had yet to be published when their first
volume was released (1890).90
In September of 1890, Klein and Fricke sent copies of the first volume to
mathematicians in Germany and abroad. Hermite’s son-in-law Picard wrote to
Klein on June 24, 1892 that he and Hermite were eagerly awaiting the publication
of their second volume on modular functions. When Picard acknowledged receipt
of the second volume on October 17, 1892, he expressed his gratitude that his own

87 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from Klein to Fricke dated October 11, 1887.
88 Ibid. (Klein to Fricke, June 11, 1889).
89 Ibid. (Klein to Fricke, December 31, 1889).
90 [UA Braunschweig] Letters from Klein to Fricke, March 18, 1890 to October 17, 1892.
 6.3 Independent and Collaborative Research 343

results had received such positive attention. Picard praised Klein’s “belle illustra-
tion électrique des principaux problèmes,” and he emphasized that he shared
Klein’s opinion of Riemann’s significance. However, Picard also defended Her-
mite and others (H.A. Schwarz, L. Fuchs), referring to a few critical passages in
the book and cautiously noting “que la polémique dans un cours nous étonne un
peu.”91 Despite Klein’s occasionally polemical remarks, Hermite became increa-
singly interested in his work and ultimately arranged for many of his articles to be
translated into French.
In London, Alfred George Greenhill consulted the first volume of the Klein
and Fricke monograph (1890) when preparing his famous book The Applications
of Elliptic Functions.92 Greenhill, who became one of the world’s foremost ex-
perts on the applications of elliptic integrals to electromagnetic theory, cultivated
a close relationship with Klein over the years (see also Section 8.3.4).
The English translation of KLEIN/FRICKE 1890/92, which was published in
Beijing in 2017 and announced by the American Mathematical Society, is evi-
dence of the lasting interest in the subject.

6.3.4 The Theory of Automorphic Functions (Monograph)

On March 1, 1891, even before volume 2 of their Vorlesungen über die Theorie
der elliptischen Modulfunktionen (KLEIN/FRICKE 1892) was published, Klein sent
an “automorphic plan” for their next book to Fricke. Klein wrote that he “would
like to write a truly highly scientific book in which we can present the totality of
our convictions about geometric function theory.” For it, Klein considered his
“article in vol. 21 of Mathematische Annalen as a sort of program that I would
only like to supplement with one point (no. V below).”93 In his letter to Fricke,
Klein formulated the following five sections:
I. The general Riemannian theory.
Arbitrary closed surfaces, or also open surfaces with related boundaries (fundamental
domains) … developed up to form theory, including η-functions.
II. Automorphic groups.
The construction of all useable fundamental domains based consistently on non-
Euclidean geometry of the x + iy sphere.
III. Related functions (automorphic, homomorphic)
Their nature, their laws of formation.
IV. The fundamental theorems.
“Every Riemann surface can be presented by automorphic functions of any given type.”

91 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 209, p. 7 (Picard to Klein, October 17, 1892).
92 See GREENHILL 1892, p. ix. – Klein and A.G. Greenhill (Royal Artillery Institution, Wool-
wich) first began to correspond on January 25, 1886 ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 490–99).
93 For this and the following quotations, see [UA Braunschweig] Klein to Fricke, March 1,
1891. Klein is referring here to his article “Neue Beiträge zur Riemann’schen Functionen-
theorie” [New Contributions to Riemann’s Function Theory]; see KLEIN 1883.
344 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

V. Embedding the fundamental theorems within the general theory of linear differential
equations of the second order.

Regarding his fifth point, Klein explained in the same letter: “These are the things
I am currently pursuing by generally studying the representation of Riemann sur-
faces by related η-functions. I find that a Riemann surface can be mapped each
time by a related η onto a polygon where certain defining elements can be prescri-
bed ad libitum.94 The fundamental theorems are thus a special case of this, which
is especially interesting because it leads to automorphic functions. (The matter is
going to be quite good, but I still need more time to develop it clearly).”
In this letter, Klein linked his previous and future lectures to the five planned
book sections mentioned above: for I, his lectures on Abelian functions; for II, his
lectures on non-Euclidean geometry.95 He regarded the lecture course that he was
currently offering at the time (on linear differential equations) as the foundation
for III, IV, and V, which would be limited to Riemann surfaces where p = 0. Klein
wanted to devote future lectures to the case of p > 0. In the same letter, Klein
estimated that he would need three semesters to prepare the monograph. As it tur-
ned out, this would not be enough time.
In light of the critique that certain aspects of the monograph on elliptic mo-
dular functions received (KLEIN/FRICKE 1890/92), Klein took it upon himself to
delve deeper into certain research areas for the new book on automorphic functi-
ons.96 The areas in question included number theory, as Dedekind had criticized
the authors for treating it in an elementary manner, and the theory of linear
differential equations: here, Klein wanted to address the objections of Ludwig
Schlesinger (a student and son-in-law of Lazarus Fuchs), whose works he came to
appreciate more and more, especially Schlesinger’s Handbuch der Theorie der
linearen Differentialgleichungen [Handbook of the Theory of Linear Differential
Equations] (B.G. Teubner, 1895–98). As early as April of 1892, Klein mentioned
to Fricke that he wanted to do what he could to help before “handing over this
research field to you and the younger generation.”97 He could not have guessed
that his efforts to prepare the monograph on the theory of automorphic functions
would continue for decades to come (FRICKE/KLEIN 1897 to 1912; see also 8.2.1).

6.3.5 The Theory of Lamé Functions and Potential Theory

From 1888 to 1890, Klein continued to pursue these research areas, which he had
begun to work on in Leipzig (see Section 5.5.1.1). He offered lecture courses on
potential theory, differential equations of physics, and Lamé functions. On this

94 See Klein’s lecture courses on Riemann surfaces from 1891/92 and 1892: https://gdz.sub.uni-
goettingen.de/id/PPN592520080.
95 See https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/PN516972847.
96 [UA Braunschweig] Klein’s letters to Fricke dated March 25, April 4, and April 14, 1892.
97 Ibid. (a letter from Klein to Fricke dated April 23, 1892).
 6.3 Independent and Collaborative Research 345

basis, Friedrich Pockels and Klein’s American doctoral student Maxime Bôcher
made important contributions to the theory of boundary value problems.
Friedrich Pockels had completed his doctoral studies in 1888 under the super-
vision of the physicist Woldemar Voigt and had been influenced by Klein’s lec-
ture courses mentioned above.98 He was a brother of Agnes Pockels, an autodidact
whose pioneering research on surface tension provided the foundations of the
discipline of surface science. Her work was recognized by Rayleigh and published
in the journal Nature. Klein inspired F. Pockels to write the monograph Über die
partiellen Differentialgleichungen Δu + k2u = 0 und deren Auftreten in der
mathematischen Physik [On the Partial Differential Equations Δu + k2u = 0 and
Their Occurrence in Mathematical Physics].99 In his introduction to this book,
Pockels wrote that his own results arose from Klein’s lectures and from the in-
sights that he had gained from Rayleigh’s Theory of Sound.100 Pockels went on to
have a career as a professor of physics. Motivated by Klein, he also edited the
physics volume of Julius Plücker’s collected works.101 When George A. Campbell
(who later became an important industrial researcher in the United States) studied
in Göttingen in 1893/94, he gave a seminar presentation – proposed by Klein – in
which he offered a critical analysis of Pockels’s monograph from 1891.102
Bôcher’s book Über die Reihenentwickelungen der Potentialtheorie [On the
Developments of the Potential Function Into Series] (B.G. Teubner, 1894) was
based on his prize-winning doctoral thesis of the same name. The Philosophical
Faculty had formulated the problem for its annual prize on June 4, 1890, and in
1891 Bôcher was awarded for successfully representing the orthogonal systems
used in potential theory as special cases of the system of confocal cyclides.
Bôcher had used Klein’s oscillation theorem in order to determine the constants in
the differential equations that define the series.103 Bôcher became a professor at
Harvard, and Klein recruited him to write the article on boundary value problems
in ordinary differential equations for the ENCYKLOPÄDIE.104
Klein continued to conduct research in this field, and he followed internatio-
nal developments closely. Thus, for instance, he informed the Russian mathemati-
cian Andrey A. Markov about his own progress and that of his students:

98 Pockels’s thesis was published as “Ueber den Einfluss elastischer Deformationen, speciell
einseitigen Druckes, auf das optische Verhalten krystallinischer Körper,” Annalen der Physik
273/5 (1889), pp. 144–72.
99 POCKELS 1891.
100 John William Strutt Rayleigh’s Theory of Sound, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan & Co., 1877–
78) was translated into German by Friedrich Neesen as Die Theorie des Schalles (Braun-
schweig: Vieweg, 1880). Arnold Sommerfeld also made use of Rayleigh’s book in his article
“Randwertaufgaben in der Theorie der partiellen Differentialgleichungen,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE,
vol. II.A.7.c (1900), pp. 504–70.
101 PLÜCKER 1895/96.
102 [Protocols] vol. 11, p. 80.
103 On the validity of the oscillation theorem, see KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 592–600.
104 Maxime Bôcher, “Randwertaufgaben bei gewöhnlichen Differentialgleichungen,” in ENCY-
KLOPÄDIE, vol. II.1.1 (1900), pp. 437–63.
346 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

Let me tell you that I have meanwhile further pursued, from various perspectives, the ideas
upon which I had based my theorem in vol. 37 [of Mathematische Annalen]. In particular, I
created an application to Hermite’s form of Lamé’s equation. Here, the relationships are very
similar to those in your work, to the extent that the linear differential equation of the second
order has two particular solutions whose product is identical to a rational polynomial. For this
latter polynomial, I have determined the number and position of the real roots.105

In this letter, Klein added: “Mr. Van Vleck has taken up the further development
of the considerations that I myself could only sketch in my lecture course. In
doing so, he has analyzed in particular the questions that you had taken into ac-
count in Annalen 27 (“Sur les racines de certaines équations” [1886], pp. 143–50,
177–82).” Besides, Klein emphasized that he himself “was able to penetrate, in a
geometric manner, more deeply into the essence of linear equations of the second
order (i.e., into the functions defined by these differential equations).”106 Supervi-
sed by Klein, the American Edward Burr Van Vleck completed his doctoral de-
gree in 1893 with a dissertation titled “Zur Kettenbruchentwicklung Lamé’scher
und ähnlicher Integrale” [On the Development of the Continued Fractions of
Lamé’s and Similar Integrals]. Finally, Klein also encouraged the Swiss student
Charles Jaccottet (who had been sent to him by Hurwitz)107 and his American
student Mary F. Winston (see Section 7.5) to write dissertations on this topic.
Emil Hilb later judged that Bôcher’s exposition may have provided a formal
law for the formation of series, but a convergence proof was still lacking. Jaccot-
tet made a first attempt to fill this gap with his thesis “Über die allgemeine Rei-
henentwicklung nach Laméschen Produkten” [On the General Development of
Series According to Lamé’s Products] (1895). In 1906, Hilb himself would ulti-
mately achieve, on the basis of Hilbert’s integral equation theory and with Klein’s
inspiration, a rigid proof of Klein’s “continuity principle”.108
Looking ahead even further, I should note that Klein’s seminar during the
winter semester of 1906/07, which he co-directed along with Hilbert, Minkowski,
and Herglotz, also focused on the oscillation theorem.109 After presentations by
Hilbert (“Oscillation Theorems”) and Klein (“On the Oscillation Theorem and
Conformal Mapping”), Otto Toeplitz, Robert König,110 Ernst Hellinger (who pro-
vided yet another discussion of Bôcher’s work), and others analyzed the scholarly
literature on the topic. The Canadian-American mathematician Roland G.D. Ri-
chardson, who studied in Göttingen in 1908/09, was also inspired to achieve new

105 [Archiv St. Petersburg] (8), pp. 12–13 (Klein to Markov, Febr. 1, 1892); F. Klein, “Ueber die
Nullstellen der hypergeometrischen Reihe,” Math. Ann. 37 (1890), pp. 573–90; “Ueber den
Hermite’schen Fall der Lamé’schen Differentialgleichung,” Math.Ann. 40 (1892), pp.125–29.
106 [Archiv St. Petersburg] (8), p. 13 (Klein to Markov, February 1, 1892).
107 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1123 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein, November 29, 1893).
108 See Emil Hilb, “Die Reihenentwicklungen der Potentialtheorie,” Math. Ann. 63 (1906), pp.
38–53. Here, the continuity principle states that no eigenvalue is lost when the occurring pa-
rameters are continuously changed.
109 [Protocols] vol. 25.
110 The Hungarian mathematician Robert König spoke about “The Oscillation Theorem and the
Calculus of Variation”; however, the results that he presented proved to be erroneous.
 6.3 Independent and Collaborative Research 347

results in this research area. As of 1910, he published a number of papers on

Klein’s oscillation theorem, including an article in “Klein’s” Annalen: “Über die
notwendigen und hinreichenden Bedingungen für das Bestehen eines Kleinschen
Oszillationstheorems” [On the Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for the Exis-
tence of a Kleinian Oscillation Theorem]. Klein’s oscillation theorem for periodic
boundary conditions remained an important area of research.111

6.3.6 Refreshing His Work on Geometry

As early as 1884, Sophus Lie had signaled to Klein that the time had now come in
which his Erlangen Program would be better understood (see Section 3.1.1). It
was not until this 1872 Program, which was an attempt to systematize various
approaches to geometry, had captured the interest of Italian and French mathema-
ticians that Klein felt now (twenty years later) that he ought to reprint it in “his”
journal Mathematische Annalen. But he had other plans as well.
In order to combine his early geometric research and that of Sophus Lie with
more recent results, Klein held two cycles of lecture courses, one on non-Eucli-
dean geometry (1889/90, 1890) and one on higher geometry (1892/93, 1893). At
the same time, he also intended to reprint Lie’s early studies along with a report
on their collaborative work from the years 1870 to 1872. During the Easter break
of 1891, Klein traveled to Leipzig, where Lie consented to his publication plan. In
August of 1892, while vacationing on the island of Borkum, Klein wrote a first
draft about their collaborative work, which he revised yet again after receiving
Lie’s feedback (this latter version is dated November 1, 1892).112
This plan never materialized, however, because Klein and Lie had conflicting
views about what and how much each of them had contributed in their earlier
collaboration. For this reason, Klein reprinted only his Erlangen Program, with a
few added notes, in the Annalen.113 As mentioned above (see Section 5.8.3), Lie
had grown increasingly paranoid and felt as though people were systematically
working against him. When Lie had a chance to read Klein’s first cycle of lectu-
res, he was indignant that Klein had not sufficiently discussed his recent critiques
of Helmholtz’s axioms. In response to the draft of Klein’s report mentioned
above, Lie wrote numerous (partially contradictory) notes on the text, which he
never sent back to Klein but which are preserved in his Nachlass. Here one reads,
for instance: “Your investigations of non-Euclidean geometry from 1871 […] cer-
tainly have their own independent value. It is because of me, however, that you

111 Math. Ann. 73 (1913), pp. 289–304, with a correction in vol. 74 (1913), p. 312. See also R.C.
Archibald, “R.G.D. Richardson, 1878–1929,” Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society
56/3 (1950), pp. 256–65; and A. Howe, “Klein’s Oscillation Theorem for Periodic Boundary
Conditions,” Canadian Journal of Mathematics 23 (1971), pp. 699–703.
112 [Oslo] II (Klein’s second draft, dated November 1, 1892). This text is printed as an appendix
in ROWE 1992a, pp. 588–604. See also ROWE 1988, 1989a, and 2019b.
113 Math. Ann. 43 (1893), pp. 63–100; reprinted again in KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 460–97.
348 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

were able to operate there with the concept of a group and with infinitesimal
transformation” […] “You are responsible for developing the theory of disconti-
nuous transformation groups” […] “As much as I recognize the value of your Er-
langen Program, I have never felt that you could lay any claim to the theory of
continuous groups” […] “You realized that the methods of geometry are related to
a group.”114 In the time that followed, Lie’s behavior became excessively offen-
sive, and he demeaned Klein (and others). In the preface to the third volume of his
Theorie der Transformationsgruppen (1893), Sophus Lie wrote:
A simple image of a manifold with constant negative Riemannian curvature was provided by
Mr. Beltrami, who showed that, for n = 3, such a manifold can be mapped onto the interior of
a real surface of the second degree in R3. In this regard, I also point to Cayley’s projective
metric. As far as I can see, the merit of the related studies by Mr. F. Klein on non-Euclidean
geometry lies essentially in the fact that they have served to popularize the results of his
predecessors. Here, Klein also makes use of my concepts of infinitesimal transformation and
one-parameter group. […] The studies of the fundamentals of geometry by Messrs. v. Helm-
holtz, de Tilly, F. Klein, Lindemann, and Killing contain a series of crude errors, which are
ultimately due to the fact that the authors of these investigations possessed either no know-
ledge at all or very inadequate knowledge of group theory.115

Lie asserted further that he had already developed the concept of a finite con-
tinuous group during the years 1870 to 1872:
F. Klein, to whom I have communicated my ideas in the course of these years, was therefore
inspired to develop similar conceptions about discontinuous groups. In his Erlangen program,
where he describes his own and my ideas, he further discusses groups which, according to my
terminology, are neither continuous nor discontinuous. For example, there is mention both of
the group consisting of all Cremona transformations, and of distortion groups. That there is a
distinct difference between these kinds of groups and the groups described by me as
continuous, namely that my continuous groups can be defined on the basis of differential
equations, while such is not the case for the discontinuous groups, had obviously completely
passed him by. Nor does Klein’s programme include any trace of the theory of the very im-
portant differential invariant concept.116

Lie’s pronouncements in this preface culminated in the sentence: “I am no pupil

of Klein, and neither is the opposite the case, although this might be nearer to the
truth.” Klein was less concerned about himself than about his Annalen, and he
wrote to Hurwitz on November 12, 1893: “I have some concern about the Math.

114 [Oslo] IV, Nos. 3–5, pp. 14–15, 18.

115 LIE 1893, pp. xii–xiii. For a discussion of this preface, see, for instance, JI/PAPADOPOULOS
2015, pp. 16–17. The paper that Klein had sent to Lie in 1892 was not, however, a revised
version of his Erlangen Program, as Ji and Papadopoulos claim (ibid., p. 18). Rather, it was
Klein’s unpublished account of his and Lie’s collaborative work from 1870 to 1872 (“Ueber
Lie’s und meine Arbeiten aus dem Jahren 1870–72”). See [Oslo] II.
116 LIE 1893, pp. xvi–xvii. The English translation here is taken from STRØM 1992, p. 12. Accor-
ding to Thomas Hawkins, “Lie’s prodigious mathematical research activity between 1869 and
the winter of 1873–74 was not dominated by group-related considerations but involved a di-
verse spectrum of mathematical ideas” (HAWKINS 1989, p. 276). See also HAWKINS 1984,
2000; ROWE 2019c; and Sections 2.6.2.1 and 2.8.2 above.
 6.3 Independent and Collaborative Research 349

Ann. Lie’s behavior, which cannot be further described here, deprives me of a

number of co-workers who naturally belong to us; on the other hand, I have less
and less support from my contemporaries the more they rust.”117 Hurwitz, who
had meanwhile become a professor in Zurich, recommended that Paul Stäckel,
who could be counted on to do good works, should be brought in more as an
author, and continued:
As far as Lie is concerned, the entire world is in agreement that he suffers from excessive
delusions of grandeur and that his unfathomable behavior toward you is to be attributed to
that. You should be indifferent to what he says, because no one takes Lie’s remarks seriously.
However, I can imagine that Lie’s conduct must be painful for you on account of your old
friendship with him.118

Wilhelm Fiedler, who was likewise a professor in Zurich, wrote to Klein a multi-
page commentary on Sophus Lie’s pronouncements, at the end of which he asked:
But why did he do this, really? I see only one reason: “Because Klein’s students and friends
have repeatedly misrepresented the reciprocal relationship between Klein’s and my own
[Lie’s] work.” I don’t remember where and how this should have happened, only that you and
Prof. Mayer, from the very beginning, have gone out of your way on every occasion to stress
the importance of Lie’s ideas.119

Fiedler also remarked that he had compared Klein’s Erlangen Program from 1872
with the new edition and found “only painstaking references to Lie and his work.”
Fiedler rightly predicted: “Knowing how you operate, my esteemed colleague, I
of course have not doubted for a minute that you will do everything within your
power to bridge and close this divide instead of letting it grow even wider.”
David Hilbert, who had just become a full professor at the University of Kö-
nigsberg (as Lindemann’s successor), held Lie’s collaborator Friedrich Engel par-
tially responsible for the “inexplicable and entirely useless personal spitefulness
that pervades the third volume of Lie’s work on transformation groups,” as he
expressed in a letter to Klein dated November 15, 1893. Hilbert also wrote:
Even earlier, as I have heard, Lie wanted to publish these matters in Crelle’s Journal, but he
was rejected by the editors. In any case, his megalomania shines forth like a bright flame
from the pages of this third volume. I will have to delve into the matter itself next semester,
when I plan to teach non-Euclidean geometry. As it seems to me, Lie always approaches the
subject with a preconceived and one-sided analytic viewpoint.120

Hilbert taught his lecture course on non-Euclidean geometry in the summer of

1894, and he had also studied Klein’s lectures on geometry beforehand. In a letter
to Klein, he referred to these lecture courses as “convincingly clear,” and he also

117 [UBG] Math.Arch. 249 (Klein to Hurwitz, November 12, 1893).

118 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1123 (Hurwitz to Klein, November 29, 1893).
119 Ibid. 9: 24 (a letter from W. Fiedler to Klein dated November 8, 1893).
120 Quoted from FREI 1985, p. 101 (a letter from Hilbert to Klein dated November 15, 1893).
350 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

cited some of his own results in this context.121 The course ultimately led to his
1899 book Grundlagen der Geometrie [The Foundations of Geometry].122
Here it is worth mentioning, too, that in August of 1893, before Klein saw
Lie’s third volume (with the comments cited above), he had given lectures in the
United States in which he praised Lie’s work (see Section 7.4.2). After Klein had
seen Lie’s volume, he reacted with composure, for instance in his report in
Mathematische Annalen about his aforementioned lectures on higher geometry.123
There, he focused on the concepts of transformation, group, and system of coor-
dinates, and he referred to the latest relevant results by Sophus Lie. To Hermann
von Helmholtz, whom Klein would get to know better during his trip to the Uni-
ted States, Klein sent copies of his work, and he also commented on Lie’s remarks
from the volume in question:
You will understand if I refrain from going into the subjective remarks that the new volume
contains in such large number. Regarding the factual exaggerations and the one-sidedness of
Lie’s exposition, I would like to think that I have already countered such things in my
[American] lecture. Nevertheless, I hope that this same lecture succeeded in emphasizing the
great importance of Lie’s theory, which has too often been overlooked in Germany. The fact
that Lie’s work could be ignored by so many people for all of 20 years is the counter-image to
the pathological self-regard from which he is now suffering.124

Klein’s decency would come to expression yet again when the Russian mathema-
tician A.V. Vasilev (see Section 5.4.2.5) asked him to write an evaluation of Lie’s
third volume on transformation groups (the book with the humiliating remarks),
which Lie had submitted to be considered for the inaugural Lobachevsky Prize
announced by the Physical-Mathematical Society of the Imperial University in
Kazan. Vasilev had written to Klein on December 18, 1896, and Klein responded
positively after a short delay.125 In his evaluation, Klein stressed: “The volume
submitted by Prof. Lie stands so far above all the other works to which it might be
compared that there can hardly be any possible doubt that it should be granted the
prize.”126 Klein added further positive remarks on Lie’s book and referred once
more to the lectures that he had given as part of the Evanston Colloquium.127

121 See ibid. (Hilbert to Klein, February 14, 1894).

122 See also TOEPELL 1986.
123 Math. Ann. 45 (1894), pp. 145–49.
124 [BBAW] NL H. v. Helmholtz, No. 233, pp. 6 –7 (Klein to Helmholtz, December 1, 1893).
125 [UBG] Cod. MS F. Klein 12 (Vasilev to Klein, and Klein’s draft in response). Vasilev and
Klein had met on several occasions, for instance at the 1894 meeting of the German Mathe-
matical Society in Vienna, where Vasilev [Wassiljef] gave a talk titled “Lobatschefski’s An-
sichten über die Theorie der Parallellinien vor dem Jahre 1826” [Lobachevsky’s Views on the
Theory of Parallel Lines Before the Year 1826]; see Jahresbericht DMV 4 (1897) II, pp. 88–
90. Vasilev had a strong command of German, French, and English, and he participated (with
L. Laugel) in translating some of Klein’s articles into French, including Felix Klein, “Sur la
géométrie dite non euclidienne,” Annales de la Faculté des sciences de Toulouse: Mathé-
matiques 11/4 (1897), pp. G1–G62.
126 See KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 384–401, at p. 385.
127 Regarding the Evanston Colloquium, see KLEIN 1894a and Section 7.4.2.
 6.3 Independent and Collaborative Research 351

Klein used this evaluation as an opportunity to present his own views about the
fundamentals and axioms of geometry and to point out the contributions of re-
cently published scholarly literature.128 He concluded his review with a few com-
ments about Helmholtz, whose general ideas he considered brilliant, even though
some of their details were unsatisfactory. Later, when Leo Koenigsberger asked
him to contribute to writing Helmholtz’s biography, Klein expressed his opinions
yet again on the topic of Helmholtz, axioms, and Sophus Lie:
I remember in particular that Helmholtz asked me one day why Lie had attacked him so ve-
hemently in the Comptes rendus and whether he had been incited to do so by Bertrand. I ans-
wered that Bertrand certainly had nothing to do with it, but rather that the tone of Lie’s criti-
que could be explained by his own fierce and almost pathological temperament; Lie felt of-
fended by the fact that the mathematicians in Berlin constantly disregarded him. We then
spoke about the monodromy axiom of spatial geometry (among other topics);129 here Helm-
holtz stated that he was especially satisfied with the explanations that I had given in Math.
Ann., vol. 37, p. 565, the relation of which to Lie’s own developments I had explained shortly
before in Part II of my lectures on higher geometry, which have since been printed in litho-
graphic copies.130

It is remarkable that Eduard Study – a vocal critic of Klein – also condemned

Lie’s behavior towards Helmholtz and Klein. Study wrote to Rudolf Lipschitz: “In
any case, Helmholtz’s conclusion from the finite to the infinitesimal has not been
a gross error, and no worse than numerous mistakes Lie made himself before he
was able to systematically work on his theory through [Friedrich] Engel’s in-
volvement. [...] Lie’s entire stance against Helmholtz, as well as against Klein,
whom he also treated unfairly, can, I believe, be explained by his emotional disor-
der, which was a remnant of an illness that he had had, I believe in 1890.”131
Lie and Klein had attempted to axiomatize geometry with group-theoretical
methods. The development of modern axiomatics and algebraic topology did not
fully take off until after this time. In 1894, Klein formulated a question for a phi-
losophical prize in order to elucidate the topic further (see Section 8.3.2). Hilbert
primarily conceived his well-received book on The Foundations of Geometry
(1899) as a renewal of the fundamental structures of classical Euclidean geome-
try.132 In 1900, his fifth problem concerned the axioms of geometry. Here, he re-
ferred to Lie’s attempt to set up and prove “a system of geometric axioms with the
aid of the concept of continuous groups of transformations.” Hilbert noted that
this system of axioms was sufficient for geometry; Lie had assumed, however,
that the functions defining the groups could all be differentiated. Hilbert therefore
posed the question of “the extent to which Lie’s concept of continuous groups of

128 In particular, Klein mentioned the revised German edition (1894) of Giuseppe Veronese’s
Fondamenti di geometria a più dimensioni e a più specie di unità rettilinee, esposti in forma
elementare (Padova: Tipografia del Seminario, 1891).
129 On this topic, see M. NOETHER 1900, pp. 38–39; and the sixth chapter of BIAGIOLI 2016.
130 KOENIGSBERGER 1903, vol. 3, p. 81.
131 Quoted from SCHARLAU 1986, p. 203 (a letter from Study to Lipschitz, December 15, 1898).
132 On the origins of this book, see TOEPELL 1986. See also ROWE 1997.
352 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

transformation is approachable even without the assumption of the differentiabil-

ity of the functions.”133 Later, Hilbert’s fifth problem was reformulated in modern
terms, and today it is considered to have been solved.
In order to ensure that the topic of the principles of geometry would be prop-
erly elucidated in the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, Klein chose the Italian mathematician Fede-
rigo Enriques to write the article on it. Klein discussed the subject with him in
Italy in 1899 and also in 1903 during Enriques’s stay in Göttingen.134 In a section
on groups of motion, Enriques described the contributions of Helmholtz, Sophus
Lie, Poincaré, and Hilbert. Klein’s own contributions and viewpoints are also dis-
cussed.135 The revised French version of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (vol. 3) contains this
contribution as well – “Principes de la géométrie” – and Enriques is credited as its
sole author (in most of the French chapters, a French mathematician is added as a
coauthor).

6.3.7 Visions: Internationality, Crystallography, Hilbert’s Invariant Theory

This section will focus on aspects of Klein’s research that shed light on his
general modus operandi: his interest in developments abroad, his recognition of
new ideas, and his enthusiasm for promoting the development of new theories.

6.3.7.1 An Eye on Developments Abroad

In Göttingen, Klein found time to follow international developments more closely.

He traveled again to France and Great Britain. From the United States, a job offer
came to Klein, and he fostered additional contacts with Russian mathematicians.
For health reasons, the trip that Klein had planned to take to Paris in 1884 had
not taken place (see 5.5.7.1). When he finally refreshed his old contacts there in
1887 (see also 6.3.1), he was able to develop a close relationship with Charles
Hermite, who still dominated the scene despite his old age.136 Thus, two years
later, Klein sent his latest results to Hermite, who presented them to the Académie
des Sciences (on January 21 and February 11, 1889) and had them published in
the Comptes rendus: “Formes principales sur les surfaces de Riemann” and “Des
fonctions théta sur la surface générale de Riemann.”137 Klein’s new personal con-
tacts also led again to the publication of articles by French authors (P. Appell, E.
Picard, C. Hermite) in Mathematische Annalen.

133 Hilbert 1900, p. 269.

134 See Livia Giacardi’s article in COEN 2012, p. 224.
135 F. Enriques, “Prinzipien der Geometrie,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. III.1.1 (1907), pp. 107–12. –
See also the survey from Klein-Lie-Helmholtz to Weyl and Cartan in SCHOLZ 2016.
136 See Hermite’s letter to Klein dated September 11, 1887 (with greetings from Madame Her-
mite and Émile Picard) in [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 687. See also TOBIES 2016.
137 Published in Comptes rendus 108 (1889), pp. 134–36, 277–80.
 6.3 Independent and Collaborative Research 353

Klein had written to Hurwitz about the advances that had been made in
France: “My stay in Paris was very interesting. In recent years there, in any case,
they have done an amazing amount of work on function theory […]. The joy over
the new results is almost outweighed by the envy that one feels towards the lucky
discoverers. If we meet in the fall, we will have to speak about this at length.”138
Since 1888, Klein had been planning to travel in Great Britain with his old
friend William Robertson Smith (see Section 3.3), who had now “a small chair of
Arabic” at Trinity College in Cambridge.139 Before his trip, Klein had sent his
latest results to the London Mathematical Society, where his contribution “Ueber
die constanten Factoren der Thetareihen im allgemeinen Falle p = 3” [On the
Constant Factors of the Theta Series in the General Case of p = 3] was presented
(in German) at a meeting on April 11, 1889.140 He traveled in August and Septem-
ber of 1889, during which time he renewed his contacts and visited an ailing Ar-
thur Cayley in Keswick. Klein took note of the results that had been made in
Great Britain in the field of mechanics, which he would later use himself and help
to disseminate. At the same time, he promoted David Hilbert’s work, who had not
only discovered an error in Klein’s article “Zur Theorie hyperelliptischer Func-
tionen beliebig vieler Argumente” [On the Theory of Hyperelliptic Functions of
Arbitrarily Many Arguments]; he had identified an error in one of Cayley’s arti-
cles as well.141 Klein thus wrote Hilbert to tell him how well his work had been
received there, and he informed Hurwitz: “I rushed through England, then I hast-
ily revised my work on Abelian functions, and now I still have to plan my winter
lectures as quickly as possible.”142
When Klein’s close friends W.R. Smith and Arthur Cayley died in 1894 and
1895, respectively, it was above all Cayley’s former Cambridge student Andrew
Russell Forsyth who cultivated a relationship with Klein and kept him informed of
intellectual developments in Great Britain.143 Forsyth began working as a lecturer
at Trinity College in 1884. In his several textbooks, he regularly quoted Klein’s
results.144 In a letter from February 10, 1895, Forsyth asked Klein to support his
application to succeed Cayley with a “letter or testimonial” for the electors (who
included G.G. Stokes, G.H. Darwin, and R.S. Ball). Klein wrote this letter of

138 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 184 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated April 24, 1887).
139 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 1035, 1036 (Smith to Klein, May 22 and October 6, 1888).
140 See Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society (1889), pp. 235–37.
141 It was about Hilbert’s finitude theorem (see 6.3.7.3). Cayley had thought to have found an
abbreviation, but wrongly assumed that for every invariant and covariant the degree is equal
to the weight. ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1071, Hurwitz to Klein, February 6, 1889).
142 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 202 (Klein to Hurwitz, Dec. 31, 1889); and FREI 1985, pp. 21, 46–51.
143 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 61–75 (Forsyth’s letters to Klein, from November 24, 1889, to
November 24, 1912). – After Cayley’s death, Forsyth completed the edition of his teacher’s
Collected Mathematical Papers (12 vols., 1889–1897).
144 See, for example, A.R. Forsyth, A Treatise on Differential Equations, 6th ed. (London: Mac-
millan & Co., 1929), p. v; and Forsyth’s Theory of a Complex Variable, 2nd ed. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1900), p. vii.
354 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

recommendation at once, and Forsyth became the Sadleirian Professor of Pure

Mathematics at the University of Cambridge in 1895. Klein asked Forsyth to send
him biographical information about Cayley, and he immediately assigned Max
Noether the task of writing an obituary for this long-time contributor to Mathema-
tische Annalen.145 Forsyth’s letters to Klein contain commending words about the
female mathematician Frances Hardcastle, who translated Klein’s book On Rie-
mann’s Theory of Algebraic Functions (see Section 5.5.1.2 and Fig. 25). Forsyth
also advised further women to study under Klein; the latter included Grace
Chisholm in 1893, and Ada M. Johnson in 1894 (see also Section 7.5).
Forsyth’s letters document the great extent to which Klein’s work was ad-
mired in Great Britain; thus he conveyed, for instance, on November 10, 1893:
“Greenhill has undertaken to forward the [De Morgan] Medal to you.”146 Forsyth
notified Klein that Weierstrass had been awarded the Royal Society’s Copley
Medal in 1895, and he informed Klein on May 18, 1896 that he had been chosen
to receive an honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Cambridge –
“among the highest honours which lies in the power of the University to bestow.”
Klein made time to receive this honor in person; the occasion was celebrated on
March 11, 1897, and he attended the ceremony with his wife, his wife’s sister
Sophie, and one of his daughters.147 Because Klein had reoriented his research
agenda toward applied mathematics, he also used his stay to establish further
contacts, to which end he organized meetings with Osborne Reynolds, Lord Kel-
vin, and others.148 In the final letter that survives from Forsyth to Klein (Novem-
ber 24, 1912), Forsyth happily reported: “It is a real pleasure to know that you are
this year to receive the Copley Medal, the highest honour which the Royal Society
has to bestow. All your friends will rejoice at this recognition of the work you
have done in our science.”149
Back to the year 1889. In February, Klein had received an offer to teach as a
guest professor in the United States. Stanley Hall – a psychologist and the first
president of Clark University, which had been founded in 1887 in Worcester,
Massachusetts – asked Klein whether he might be interested in giving lectures
there during the upcoming semester. Klein would have gladly accepted this guest
professorship, as he expressed in clear terms to the Ministry of Culture: “If the
ministry can see and recognize how this undertaking might serve the public
interest, then I am ready to carry it out. Otherwise, I will not pursue it.”150
However, just as in 1883 the Saxon Ministry of Culture had not supported the
possibility of Klein working abroad, the Prussian Ministry of Culture in 1889 was
likewise uninterested in supporting such a prospect. Althoff recommended that

145 See Max NOETHER 1895.

146 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 66 (Forsyth to Klein, November 10, 1893).
147 As of 1910, Sophie Hegel would work as a teacher at a private school in Malvern, England.
148 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 74 (a letter from Forsyth to Klein, January 7, 1897).
149 Ibid., 9: 75 (Forsyth to Klein, November 24, 1912).
150 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Althoff B, No. 92, p. 63 (Klein to Althoff, February 23, 1889).
 6.3 Independent and Collaborative Research 355

Klein “should reject the offer, for we have no interest in you carrying out this mis-
sion.”151 At the time, Prussia was pursuing certain colonial and political interests
in negotiations with the United States;152 an organized scientific exchange was not
yet part of the plan. Klein therefore turned down the offer to teach in the United
States. In response, Althoff considered creating a new professorship for Klein at
the University of Berlin, but Klein rejected this idea.153 On June 20, 1889, he was
instead honored, by imperial decree, with the Order of the Red Eagle (Fourth
Class) – as already mentioned. This Prussian order of merit had existed since No-
vember 17, 1705, when it was founded as the Ordre de la Sincérité.
Klein’s efforts to expand his international relationships also involved seeking
further contacts with Russia and Eastern Europe, where he had already reached
out to a number of mathematicians during his time in Leipzig, in the interest of
finding new authors to Mathematische Annalen (see Section 5.4.2.5). On January
16, 1891, he wrote to Adolph Mayer, his coeditor at the journal: “To a certain de-
gree, I have faith in the future of Russian mathematics, and I believe that now
would be a good time to make contact with the mathematicians there.”154
With some authors, such as A.A. Markov in St. Petersburg, Klein had main-
tained regular correspondence in the meantime (he also arranged for Markov’s
books to be translated into German). Back when he was in Munich, he had Hur-
witz report about the works of Chebyshev, the head of the St. Petersburg school.
Later, Klein himself gave a lecture to the Göttingen Mathematical Society on
Chebyshev’s numerical methods (concerning interpolation by polynomials).155
Regarding the Moscow school, which for many years competed with the school in
St. Petersburg,156 it was above all P.S. Nekrasov with whom Klein cooperated; he
organized an exchange of journals with the Mathematical Society there. Nekra-
sov’s contributions to Mathematische Annalen supported Klein in his smoldering
academic dispute with Lazarus Fuchs (see Appendix 5). Nekrasov also put Klein
in touch with mathematicians in Kiev and Kharkiv.157 In Kazan, Klein’s contact
person was the aforementioned A.V. Vasilev.
Klein’s interest in Russian scholarship would later lead to him argue on behalf
of establishing a professorship for Slavic philology in Göttingen (this was part of
his program of “universalism”; see Section 8.3.2). In January of 1914, moreover,
he joined the newly founded German Society for the Study of Russia (Deutsche
Gesellschaft zum Studium Rußlands; see Section 9.1.2).

151 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1, B4 (Althoff to Klein, February 25, 1889).
152 See SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 1997a, p. 25.
153 Klein regretted that his alternative idea of only spending the fall semester at Clark University
was likewise “inhibited by Althoff’s diplomatic delays.” JACOBS 1977 (“Personalia”), p. 3.
154 Quoted from TOBIES/ROWE 1990, p. 188.
155 [UBG] Math. Arch. 49, pp. 133–36 (Klein’s lecture to the Göttingen Mathematical Society,
May 21, 1895). See also SINAI 2003.
156 Regarding this rivalry, see DEMIDOV 2015.
157 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 370 (a letter from Pokrovsky to Klein dated December 2 and
14, 1891). P.M. Pokrovky’s field of research was the theory of hyperelliptic functions.
356 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

6.3.7.2 Arthur Schoenflies and Crystallography

Klein’s ability to evaluate new theories in mathematics and the natural sciences
led him to recognize work that was ahead of its time. One example of this was the
field of crystallography.
Arthur Schoenflies had investigated “planar configurations and related groups
of substitutions,” and in doing so he had come across research on the structures of
crystals.158 After being introduced to this line of inquiry by H.A. Schwarz, who
presented Schoenflies’s first important study – “Ueber reguläre Gebietstheilungen
des Raumes” [On Regular Area Divisions of Space] – to the Göttingen Society of
Sciences,159 Schoenflies then made a major breakthrough after consulting with
Klein. In a subsequent article published in Mathematische Annalen, Schoenflies
acknowledged Klein’s inspiration as follows: “In a conversation, Mr. Klein drew
my attention to the useful idea of expanding the theory of motion groups with re-
ference to the concept of symmetry.”160 In another article by Schoenflies – “Ueber
das gegenseitige Verhältniß der Theorien über die Struktur der Krystalle” [On the
Reciprocal Relationship of Theories About the Structure of Crystals], dated June
7, 1890 – we read:
Three different theories come into question, namely 1) the theory of Bravais and Wulff, 2) the
theory of [Christian] Wiener and Sohncke, and 3) the theory that I recently presented here in
the pages of the Göttinger Nachrichten. I should remark that the need to further develop the
theory in accordance with the latter publication was first emphasized to me by Mr. Klein.161

Schoenflies was able to demonstrate the existence of 230 crystallographic space

groups, a finding that he summarized in his book Kristallsysteme und Kristall-
struktur [Crystal Systems and the Structure of Crystals] (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner,
1891). Correspondence with the Russian mineralogist E.S. Fedorov had supported
this result, for the latter had reached the same conclusion in another way as early
as 1885. Schoenflies would ultimately be the main author of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE
article on crystallography (1905), to which the mineralogists Theodor Liebisch
and Otto Mügge also contributed.
With characteristic foresight, Klein believed in the validity of Schoenflies’s
theory about the structure of crystals, even though it was rejected at the time by
many experts in the field. He later remarked: “About 1890 the experts were still
thoroughly accustomed to considering a crystal, or better a crystalline medium, as
a space-filling continuum having the same properties at all its points!”162 Convin-
ced by Schoenflies’s work, Klein presented the latter’s theory in 1893 in Chicago
as well (see Section 7.4.1). Finally, in 1912, Klein was enthusiastic to learn that a

158 For a detailed discussion of Schoenflies’s work, see SCHOLZ 1989, pp. 110 – 48.
159 Published in Göttinger Nachrichten (1888), pp. 223–87.
160 Arthur Schoenflies, “Ueber Gruppen von Transformationen des Raumes in sich,” Math. Ann.
34 (1889), pp. 172–203, at p. 172.
161 Göttinger Nachrichten (1890), pp. 239–50, at p. 239.
162 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 325.
 6.3 Independent and Collaborative Research 357

crystal lattice can be analyzed by X-ray diffraction – a finding that earned Max
von Laue the Nobel Prize and confirmed Schoenflies’s theory.163

6.3.7.3 Felix Klein and Hilbert’s Invariant Theory

This would be a good place to finally introduce David Hilbert in greater depth.
During these years, Klein clearly recognized Hilbert’s talent; he encouraged him
and supported his invariant-theoretical approaches. Klein even entertained the
idea of traveling to Königsberg himself to seek inspiration for his mathematical
research.
In August 1884, Klein had learned from Hurwitz that Hilbert had completed
his dissertation – “Über invariante Eigenschaften specieller binärer Formen, ins-
besondere der Kugelfunctionen” [On the Invariant Properties of Special Binary
Forms, Particularly Those of Spherical Functions], supervised by Lindemann –
and that he intended to come to Leipzig in 1885 (see Table 6).164 In November of
1885 in Leipzig, Hilbert summarized the results of his dissertation for publication
in Mathematische Annalen (vol. 27, 1886), and shortly thereafter he discovered
new findings, which Klein submitted to the Sitzungsberichte der Sächsischen Ge-
sellschaft der Wissenschaften (on December 7, 1885). These latter results culmi-
nated in Hilbert’s Habilitation thesis.165
Toward the end of Klein’s final semester in Leipzig (1885/86), Hilbert gave
his first presentations in Klein’s seminar. The works that Hilbert discussed sug-
gest that they were meant to prepare him for a trip to Paris, which Klein recom-
mended that he should take. Hilbert spoke about Picard’s work on integrals of the
first kind and algebraic surfaces (Journal des mathématiques pures et appliquées,
1885), and he analyzed studies by Riemann, Weierstrass, Poincaré, Picard, and
Frobenius in a presentation titled “Ueber periodische Funktionen zweier Variab-
ler” [On Periodic Functions of Two Variables].166
In March of 1886, when Hilbert traveled to Paris with a letter of recommen-
dation from Klein, Eduard Study was already there, and both of them continued to
receive letters from Klein with further advice. This included tips about mastering
the “art” of making contacts with people by attempting to understand their inte-
rests. At the same time, Klein also recommended that, when back in Germany,
they should make an effort to have further interactions with Paul Gordan and Max
Noether.167 Klein subsumed Hilbert and Eduard Study in his own research direc-
tion when he wrote to them about his start in Göttingen: “My relationship with

163 See ibid. – A summary of the latest results at the time is Max Born’s article “Atomtheorie des
festen Zustandes – Dynamik der Kristallgitter,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. V (1922).
164 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1000 (a postcard from Hurwitz to Klein, May 27, 1885).
165 Published in Math. Ann. 28 (1886).
166 [Protocols] vol. 7, pp. 218–25, 274–83 (Hilbert’s presentations, given on January 11, 1886
and February 15, 1886). Regarding the work of Georg Frobenius, see HAWKINS 2013.
167 See FREI 1985, pp. 7–8 (an undated letter from Klein to Hilbert and Study, April of 1886).
358 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

Schwarz has gotten off on the right foot; it remains to be seen, however, whether
it will really be possible to create an intimate mutual relationship between the
function theory of the Berliners and our own way of seeing things.”168
The surviving correspondence between Klein and Hilbert following this trip
to Paris documents a period of intensive exchange. Up until September 1, 1896,
Hilbert uniformly addressed Klein as “Esteemed Professor,” whereas Klein had
been addressing Hilbert since 1892 as “Dear Colleague” or “Dear Friend.” Follo-
wing Klein’s request, Hilbert sent him his latest results. Klein read these and
responded with references to works by German and foreign mathematicians with
relevance to the topic at hand. Hilbert studied these works immediately and con-
textualized them. From 1887 to 1889, Hilbert thus published seven articles in
Mathematische Annalen, and others appeared during this time in the Göttinger
Nachrichten. The latter included three notes “Zur Theorie der algebraischen Ge-
bilde” [On the Theory of Algebraic Entities],169 which concerned the finitude the-
orem on which Paul Gordan had already done such excellent work (see Section
3.5). Gordan, however, now regarded Hilbert’s results with skepticism.
It was Lindemann who had introduced Hilbert to Clebsch and Gordan’s ap-
proach to invariant theory. Since then, Hilbert had been led in new directions, es-
pecially by Hermite’s work.170 Klein appreciated Hilbert’s new approach, and he
encouraged him to pursue it further: “I find that your understanding of the task of
invariant theory is still too narrow – in the sense that it is still directly related to
the Clebsch-Gordan tradition – whereas I believe that the research area in question
has meanwhile been expanded and deepened in various ways.”171 In this letter to
Hilbert, Klein listed five points in which he discussed the approaches of other
mathematicians, and Hilbert indicated that Klein’s references had enabled him to
improve his longer article for the Annalen.172 Gordan, who was then “the king of
invariant theory” (see Section 2.4.1) and a member of Mathematische Annalen’s
editorial board, was at first reluctant to accept the validity of the new approach
that Hilbert presented in this work, which was titled “Ueber die Theorie der alge-
braischen Formen” [On the Theory of Algebraic Forms].173 In Klein’s opinion, it
was “the most important work on general algebra […] which the Annalen has ever
published.”174
When Klein, Hilbert, Minkowski, and others met in September of 1890 in
Bremen (see Section 6.4.4), Klein was able to give Hilbert further motivation to

168 Ibid., p. 8.
169 See Göttinger Nachrichten (1888), pp. 450–57 (dated December 5, 1888); ibid. (1889), pp.
25–34 (dated January 30, 1889); and ibid. (1889), pp. 42–30 (dated July 31, 1889).
170 See FREI 1985, pp. 44–45 (a letter from Hilbert to Klein dated December 12, 1888). See also
ROWE 2018a, pp. 160–67.
171 Quoted from FREI 1985, p. 53 (Klein to Hilbert, June 27, 1889).
172 See ibid., 54–55 (Hilbert to Klein, June 30, 1889).
173 Math. Ann. 36 (1890), pp. 473–534.
174 Quoted from FREI 1985, p. 62 (a letter from Klein to Hilbert dated February 18, 1890).
 6.3 Independent and Collaborative Research 359

take his work in a number-theoretical direction.175 Klein’s references to invariants

in number theory and to “Kronecker’s module systems” are taken into account in
Hilbert’s article “Ueber die vollen Invariantensysteme” [On the Complete Sys-
tems of Invariants].176 Hilbert reached out to Kronecker personally, he discussed
the topic with Hurwitz, and he applied arithmetic methods to algebraic problems.
Hilbert combined algebraic invariant theory with Kronecker’s theory of forms and
Dedekind’s theory of ideals and moduli. He thereby became the actual founder of
modern abstract algebra – a field to which Emmy Noether would later make im-
portant contributions.177
Klein was fully convinced of Hilbert’s abilities, so that when the next oppor-
tunity arose (a vacant professorship at the Catholic Academy in Münster) he wrote
the following to Friedrich Althoff at the Prussian Ministry of Culture:
Hilbert is “the rising man.” I have ranked him in last place here only because he is much
younger than the other candidates. The articles that he has published in the last two years at-
test to his quite extraordinary talent for abstract thinking. After not seeing him for four years,
I met him at the meeting of natural scientists [in Bremen] and was surprised by how much he
has matured in the meantime and how he has since thought through all possible mathematical
questions and raised new and important problems in every area of research. To me, whether
Hilbert will now be considered for this position seems to come down to the essential question
of whether preference will be given to someone with outstanding talent all around or to
someone with many previous achievements. In the present case, perhaps the latter would be
more suitable for the job than the former, and thus I would prefer a quiet man in Münster who
might then remain there for many years.178

A year later, when Althoff suggested that Hilbert should transfer to Göttingen as a
Privatdozent in Schoenflies’s place (by a “Umhabilitation”), Klein rejected the
idea categorically. He emphasized the necessity of Schoenflies’s position in Göt-
tingen and indicated that he had Hilbert’s long-term career development in mind:

175 On December 10, 1890, Klein wrote the following to Hurwitz: “For the Annalen, Bianchi has
now revised his theory of linear substitutions with coefficients a+bi, a+bρ by treating the
quadratic forms with complex coefficients by Dirichlet and Hermite exactly as I discussed the
matter with Hilbert and the others in Bremen” ([UGB] Math. Arch. 77: 214). Bianchi began
his article – “Geometrische Darstellung der Gruppen linearer Substitutionen mit ganzen com-
plexen Coefficienten nebst Anwendungen auf die Zahlentheorie” [A Geometric Representa-
tion of Groups of Linear Substitutions with Complex Integer Coefficients, Along with Appli-
cations to Number Theory] – as follows: “The geometric method on which Professor Klein
based the arithmetic theory of ordinary binary quadratic forms can be applied more broadly
with the same success” (Math. Ann. 38 [1891], pp. 313–33, at p. 313).
176 Math. Ann. 42 (1893), pp. 313–73.
177 See the article by B.L. van der Waerden in HILBERT 1933, pp. 401–03.
178 [StA Berlin] Rep. 93 Althoff B, No. 92, pp. 76–77 (a letter from Klein to Althoff dated Octo-
ber 23, 1890). The words “the rising man” appear in English in the original. In 1891, Althoff
ultimately offered the position (as an associate professorship) to Reinhold von Lilienthal, who
had previously taught for two years in Santiago, Chile. Lilienthal was made a full professor in
1902, and he remained in Münster for the rest of his career.
360 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

Also, I cannot accept the counterproposal that you made to me regarding Hilbert transferring
here. That would be a death sentence for Schoenflies, and I cannot allow that to happen.
Furthermore, Hilbert is not what I need here, and he would not provide what Schoenflies
already offers. Hilbert will go his own independent way; his rank is such that I would
consider him when my own position becomes vacant or when another professorship becomes
available alongside mine here. In the present case, however, what I need to find is someone to
help me teach the beginning students, given that all my time is taken up by my mid-level and
upper-level courses.179

In 1891/92, one of the participants in the “upper-level courses” mentioned here

was Fabian Franklin, who had completed his doctoral degree under James J. Syl-
vester at Johns Hopkins University, where he then became a professor in the De-
partment of Mathematics. While in Göttingen, Franklin attended Klein’s lecture
course on algebraic equations and prepared a presentation on Hilbert’s article
“Ueber die Theorie der algebraischen Formen,” which he would give in the re-
search colloquium (during that semester, the colloquium was run by the Privatdo-
zenten Burkhardt and Schoenflies).180 Klein regularly met with Franklin to discuss
Hilbert’s work, which Klein himself wanted to penetrate in greater depth. Impres-
sed by this work, Klein wrote to Hurwitz:
Our pride and joy, of course, is Prof. Franklin, with whom I have been diligently studying
Hilbert’s work. If Hilbert is now extending his ideas about finitude to questions of reality, that
seems like a fine and important development to me.181 Indeed, tell Hilbert that, if he has any
work that he considers fit for publication (especially concerning the application of Dirichlet’s
methods), I am more than willing to have it published in the Göttinger Nachrichten, just as I
have requested him not to withhold any of his more comprehensive studies from the Annalen.
In general, I would like to create even closer connections between here and Königsberg.
Above all, of course, I hope that you will be able to follow through with the plan that we dis-
cussed and stay with us here for a longer period of time over Easter. Then again, I am also se-
riously considering coming to Königsberg myself for a while. For, after concerning myself
over the past few years with applied mathematics, I now need to revive and enhance my theo-
retical interests, and I cannot think of a better way to do so than to have extensive conversati-
ons in person with you and Hilbert.182

Fabian Franklin visited Hilbert and Hurwitz twice in Königsberg, where, in March
of 1892, he completed a short note that would be published in Mathematische An-
nalen.183 Klein never made the trip himself, for he had to concentrate on a series
of new personnel changes in Prussia (and Bavaria). It is no surprise, however, that
when H.A. Schwarz’s position opened up in Göttingen in 1892, Klein wanted to
hire Hilbert or Hurwitz to work alongside him as his immediate colleague (see
Section 6.5.1.2).

179 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Althoff A I, No. 84, pp. 82–83 (Klein to Althoff, October 25, 1891).
180 [Protocols] vol. 10, p. 187.
181 Regarding these ideas, see Christian Tapp, An den Grenzen des Endlichen: Das Hilbertpro-
gramm im Kontext von Formalismus und Finitismus (Berlin: Springer, 2013).
182 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 222 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated November 6, 1891).
183 Fabian Franklin, “Bemerkungen über einen Punkt in Riemann’s ‘Theorie der Abel’schen
Functionen’,” Math. Ann. 41 (1893), p. 308.
 6.4 Bringing People and Institutions Together 361

6.4 BRINGING PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS TOGETHER

Klein continued to pursue Clebsch’s intended program of uniting mathematicians.

It is a lesser-known fact, however, that he was also instrumental in bringing
together all the instructors at the University of Göttingen (see Section 6.4.1).
With the overall interests of the university and its students in mind, Klein also
came up with the novel idea of combining the University of Göttingen with the
nearest Prussian Technische Hochschule, which was in Hanover (6.4.2).
Although he had only recently been made a full member of the Royal Society
of Sciences in Göttingen, Klein nevertheless thought of ways to reorganize this
“Academy” (6.4.3).
Shortly before the founding of the German Mathematical Society (Deutsche
Mathematiker-Vereinigung – DMV), which was initiated by Georg Cantor, Klein
became involved and worked in the background to ensure its coherent purpose,
organizational structure, and leadership (6.4.4).

6.4.1 The Professorium in Göttingen

Klein had learned to appreciate the Professorium in Leipzig, a professors’ asso-

ciation (see 5.7). Letters from Otto Hölder to his parents reveal that there had been
no such organization in Göttingen, and that Klein succeeded in creating one:
This “professors’ association” is a large organization that was brought into being by Klein
and planned in such a way that, if possible, the entire university can be involved in it. This
winter, it will cost me four additional evenings of dancing, on top of everything else. The
matter is of course in the interest of those who otherwise have little interaction with one
another, but for us it is just an added burden. It is hardly possible to avoid participating; I con-
firmed my membership, but tonight I’ll skip the constituent assembly.184

Otto Hölder was a staunch individualist; as it turned out, he drank beer with his
compatriots from Württemberg instead of attending the founding of the Profes-
sorium. The aim was for university teachers and their wives to get together at
cultural events. As a young professor in Erlangen, Klein had been a willing parti-
cipant in similar cultural gatherings (see Section 3.6.1). The Privatdozent Hölder,
however, felt that it was beneath his dignity to be involved in such things: “The
professors’ association will begin its activities at the end of this month; I was ex-
pected to be an actor in a play, but of course I have rejected this imposition.”185
The first gathering of the Göttingen Professorium took place on Tuesday, No-
vember 30, 1886, and Klein felt that it was worth mentioning in a letter to Hur-
witz: “Meanwhile, we have been living in a buzz of activity and with a lack of
sleep: the first Professorium got together the day before yesterday, with 182 par-

184 Quoted from HILDEBRANDT et al. 2014, p. 227 (Hölder to his parents, October 21, 1886).
185 Ibid., p. 231 (a letter from Hölder to his parents dated November 16, 1886).382
362 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

ticipants and three performances!”186 Hölder sent a more detailed report to his
parents, and here it is possible to detect how much care and organizational effort
Klein had devoted to the event:
After a long period of deliberation, debate, and planning, yesterday was the first evening of
the professors’ association. There were quite a few theater performances. First came [Ema-
nuel] Geibel’s play “Pure Gold Is Revealed in Fire,” a terribly serious piece full of love and
renunciation; really, it was not the right play for the occasion at hand because of its minimal
plot and long speeches. This piece had been chosen because of the “prima donna,” who
played the part very well; the same cannot be said of the other main role – that of a prince
played by a Privatdozent. The second play – “Youthful Love” by Wilbrandt! – was excellent.
It was truly funny, with well-acted roles; especially good were the characters of an old aunt, a
sentimental teenager, and an idle student (this latter role was acted quite naturally by a friend
of mine). After dinner, there was a third performance, a comedy set in a hospital […].
It was all very nice, but it was too much. There was an excess of gentlemen, and thus at first I
did not have a dinner partner; then, however, [Felix] Klein came over to me, who had an extra
lady to care for. Thus I had the honor of sitting next to the wife of Professor Benfey, the wi-
dow of the famous orientalist. […] I took part in two round dances and left before the end of
the whole event.187

In a time without radio, television, or other overstimulating media, Klein sought

to create a pleasant distraction in which he could include his wife. A grand ball
was planned for Saturday, January 16, 1887; in Hölder’s words, it was “instigated
by the professors’ association and will bring together nearly all of Göttingen’s
society.”188 In June of 1887, the association organized an excursion with dinner
and dancing in the evening. In October of 1887, Klein attempted to recruit Hölder
to join the Professorium’s organizing committee, but Hölder successfully rejected
the offer. This gesture was indicative, however, of Klein’s initiative.
For Klein, the Professorium was also a way to increase his profile within the
university as a whole. Almost twenty years later, his engagement on behalf of the
institution’s overall interests would culminate in his election to the Upper House
(Herrenhaus) of the Prussian State Parliament (Landtag) as the representative of
the University of Göttingen (see Section 8.3.4.1).

6.4.2 A Proposal to Relocate the Technische Hochschule in Hanover to Göttingen

The Polytechnical School in Hanover had belonged to Prussia since 1866, and it
was reorganized into a Technische Hochschule in 1879. From early on, Klein had
recognized the innovative achievements of the institution’s director, the engineer
Wilhelm Launhardt, and he especially admired Launhardt’s book Mathematische
Begründung der Volkswirtschaftslehre [The Mathematical Foundation of Econo-

186 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 166 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated December 2, 1886).
187 Quoted from HILDEBRANDT et al. 2014, p. 232 (Hölder to his parents, December 1, 1886).
188 Ibid., p. 234 (a letter from Hölder to his parents dated January 12, 1887). For Hölder’s further
remarks about the Professorium, see ibid., pp. 239, 246, 252.
 6.4 Bringing People and Institutions Together 363

mics] (1885). In May of 1887, when all the faculty members in Göttingen were
asked to nominate worthy candidates to be awarded an honorary doctoral degree
(the occasion was the 150th anniversary of the university, which was celebrated on
August 7, 1887), Klein argued vehemently for Launhardt. He persuaded a number
of colleagues – including H.A. Schwarz, E. Schering, E. Riecke, W. Schur, and
W. Voigt – to cosign his application. Klein knew from his time as a student in
Bonn that the granting of honorary doctorates could bring needed recognition to
newly established research directions (see Section 2.3.2). Within the university as
a whole, however, Klein’s proposal remained “in the minority.”189
Even before the twenty-nine-year-old Wilhelm II was crowned German Em-
peror and King of Prussia (June 15, 1888) and announced his initiative to reform
education, Klein had felt that the general objective of the university was insuffi-
cient. Since the summer of 1887, Klein had been serving on the examination
committee for teaching candidates, which led him to reflect even more on “the
general task of mathematical education” at the university level. He believed that
this task could be better achieved by relocating the nearby Technische Hochschule
in Hanover, which in his view was more practically oriented, to Göttingen.190
In order to meet the practical needs of students, Klein argued that the Univer-
sity of Göttingen and the Technische Schule should be combined. In the fall of
1887, Klein spent “a considerable amount of time in Hanover with Launhardt in
order to get to know the facilities there and the relevant literature.” On May 27,
1888, he wrote to Friedrich Althoff that he was “proposing to relocate the Techni-
sche Hochschule to Göttingen.” He enumerated the goals that this move would
achieve as follows:
1. A more comprehensive education of our students.
2. A healthier development of our disciplines.
3. The greater effectiveness of our institutions.
4. General cultural interest: A truly modern education.191

The ministry requested a more detailed proposal, so Klein composed a lengthy

memorandum and sent it to Berlin on October 6, 1888. This eighteen-page text
reflects the breadth of Klein’s thinking, including his concern for “all questions of
modern culture,” his idea that doctoral degrees should be allowed to be granted in
technical disciplines, and his wish to combine mathematics with the latest deve-
lopments in the natural and technical sciences. Regarding mathematicians, he
wrote:

189 A total of nine proposed candidates for this award were rejected. Recipients of the honor
included, among others, the Russian chemist D.I. Mendeleev (who created a version of the
periodic table of elements) and Johann A. Repsold (the director of a company in Hamburg
that produced astronomical and optical instruments). [UAG] Phil. Fak. 172a, No. 107k.
190 See Klein’s remarks in JACOBS 1977 (“Personalia”), p. 1.
191 Ibid., p. 2. Later, Klein would work together with Launhardt at the Prussian educational con-
ference in Berlin (1900) and also in the Prussian Parliament (Landtag).
364 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

One must say that we have long neglected to keep up with the advances of neighboring disci-
plines. Let me mention only that area of our science whose general importance is immediately
obvious even to non-experts: theoretical mechanics. Where is the university mathematician
who has absorbed the ideas that are involved in the new physical discipline of the mechanical
theory of heat192? Who has noticed that the theory of the motion of rigid bodies (kinematics)
has gained new content in the hands of mechanical engineers? Or that, in the field of statics,
the task of constructing bridges has led to the development of original and far-reaching
graphical methods?

Turning his attention to engineers and natural scientists, he went on:

Are those to whom such things should be a concern even aware of our profound theorems,
our brilliant conceptions? I maintain that, with respect to their education in the exact sciences,
German engineers are lagging behind their contemporaries in Italy and France. I maintain
that, as opposed to earlier, there has been a complete deterioration of mathematical education
among our physicists and astronomers. I maintain that German chemistry has fallen behind
because its representatives, on account of their lack of preliminary mathematical education,
are unable to follow the advances that have been made by others.193

Althoff responded to Klein’s suggestions with reservations, and the idea of com-
bining a university and a Technische Hochschule in Germany remained an unful-
filled wish. At this same time, however, there were already (private) American
universities with associated technical institutes, and Klein would have a chance to
acquaint himself with such arrangements in 1893 (see Section 7.4.3).

6.4.3 The Idea of Reorganizing the Göttingen Society of Sciences

Klein had belonged to the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen as a correspon-

ding member since 1872 (see Section 2.8). In 1886, he was listed as an associate
member. In order to be named a full member of this academy,194 there had to be a
vacancy. As the secretary of the academy, the classical philologist Hermann
Sauppe, who had supported hiring Klein in Göttingen (see 5.8.2), informed him
on December 28, 1886: “We would like to accept you into our academy, because
we all know how much more effective our community will become on account of
your creative energy.”195 Sauppe told Klein that the number of twenty-four mem-
bers for the existing three classes had long been established and that Klein could
not yet be elected. The reason was that Moritz Abraham Stern – whose professor-
ship at the university Klein held – had been assured that he could remain a full
member of the academy after his retirement. Sauppe did offer to allow Klein to

192 Klein was aware of the work on statistical mechanics and thermodynamics by Maxwell,
Boltzmann, and Josiah Williard Gibbs, and he supported their new theories. In a letter dated
January 17, 1889, Gibbs thanked Klein for trying to have his work on mechanical heat theory
published in book form; see KÖRBER 1961, p. 107.
193 [UAG] Kuratorialakten, 4 I, No. 88a, pp. 2–10 (quoted here from pp. 4–5).
194 On all members of this academy from 1751 to 2001, see KRAHNKE 2001.
195 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 656 (a letter from Sauppe to Klein, December 28, 1886).
 6.4 Bringing People and Institutions Together 365

participate in the society’s work immediately, attend its academic meetings, and
submit work for publication in the Göttinger Nachrichten. Klein was still barred,
however, from participating in the society’s administrative deliberations.196
Sauppe had been right about Klein’s “creative energy.” As early as New
Year’s Eve in 1886, Klein asked Hurwitz and his colleagues in Königsberg to
send him appropriate (shorter) articles for publication in the Göttinger Nachrich-
ten.197 In the society’s meeting on February 5, 1887, Klein presented Hurwitz’s
first work, which was especially momentous on account of the ongoing polemic
with Lazarus Fuchs (see Section 5.5.5 and Appendix 5). Hurwitz corrected one of
Fuchs’s errors and he included his relevant correspondence with Fuchs in an ap-
pendix.198 This was orchestrated with Klein and took place with H.A. Schwarz’s
support, who later explained Fuchs’s error to Weierstrass in a letter.199 At the
meeting held on July 2, 1887, Klein introduced three additional (algebraic) artic-
les – by Bolza, Maschke, and Aurel Voß.200 On November 5, 1887, Klein presen-
ted his own new results on hyperelliptic functions, and he was finally elected as a
full member of the mathematical class on November 12, 1887, with one dissenting
vote.201 Shortly thereafter, Klein submitted his plans for reorganizing the society.
The Göttingen “Academy” had little power to act, because it was not a “legal
entity.” For this reason, the orientalist Paul de Lagarde, who had earlier acted at
Schwarz’s instigation to thwart Klein’s appointment (see Section 5.8.2), had al-
ready composed a report of his own with ideas for reorganization the academy.202
Lagarde stated that universities were regressing and that the University of Göttin-
gen must cease to be a “provincial university.” His hope was that it could become
an institution with relevance throughout Europe. In addition to reforming educa-
tion in general, he believed that an overall reorganization of the Province of Göt-
tingen should be initiated by the Society of Sciences: “Göttingen must begin to be
what only Göttingen can be […].” He also proposed that members of the “Acad-
emy” should be chosen according to a new set of criteria: it would not benefit, he
thought, from electing “former luminaries” but rather from appointing “men who
can still become something.” The (new) objectives that Lagarde suggested were
restricted just to the philological-historical class.

196 [AdW Göttingen] Chron 4, 6: 41 (minutes from a meeting held on December 18, 1886).
197 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 168 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated December 31, 1886).
198 Adolf Hurwitz, “Über diejenigen algebraischen Gebilde, welche eindeutige Transformationen
in sich zulassen,” Göttinger Nachrichten (1887), pp. 85–107.
199 [BBAW] 1254 (a letter from Schwarz to Weierstrass dated March 15, 1887).
200 See Oskar Bolza, “Darstellung der rationalen ganzen Invarianten der Binärform sechsten
Grades durch die Nullwerte der zugehörigen δ-Functionen,” Göttinger Nachrichten (1887),
pp. 418–21; Heinrich Maschke, “Ueber die quaternäre, endliche, lineare Substitutionsgruppe
der Borchardt’schen Moduln,” ibid., pp. 421–24; and Aurel Voß, “Ueber bilineare Formen,”
ibid., pp. 424–33.
201 [AdW Göttingen] Chron 4, 6: 51. On that same day, Wilhelm Weber was made an honorary
member, and Ludwig Boltzmann was elected as an external member.
202 See LAGARDE 1894, pp. 162–77 (this report is dated January 24, 1887).
366 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

Although Klein did not agree with Lagarde’s political views, he did espouse a
few of the points made in Lagarde’s proposal.203 In his “Major Report on the Re-
organization and Expansion of the Society,” which was completed in December of
1888, Klein likewise argued in the general interest of improving education and
enhancing the status of the university. At the same time, Klein argued in favor of
combining “pure research” with technical applications. In this respect, he won the
support of the mineralogist Theodor Liebisch, the psychologist Georg-Elias Mül-
ler, the physicist Eduard Riecke, and the classical philologist Ulrich von Wila-
mowitz-Moellendorff. Together, they suggested that representatives of technical
disciplines should be accepted as members, and they gave some specific names:
Wilhelm Launhardt (the engineer in Hanover), Johann A. Repsold (an expert in
precision mechanics in Hamburg), and a mechanical engineer to be named later.204
The matter had to be approved by the Ministry of Culture, and Althoff, who was
skeptical of the idea, sent Klein’s report to the classical scholar and historian
Theodor Mommsen for further review.205 The concept of this new type of mem-
bership was ahead of its time, and it was never realized at any academy during
Klein’s life.
Klein was one of the most active members of Göttingen’s Royal Society. The
1889 volume of the Göttinger Nachrichten contains two articles by him (on the
theory of Abelian functions); moreover, he presented nine studies by his students
or colleagues at the society’s sessions: by Burkhardt (on a hyperelliptic multiplier
equation); Heinrich Maschke; Ernesto Pascal (one work on the theory of odd
Abelian sigma functions, another on the theory of even sigma functions of three
arguments); Eduard Wiltheiss (on the partial differential equations of Abelian
theta functions of three arguments); Wilhelm Wirtinger (on the analog of the
Kummer surface for p = 3); and three works by Hilbert.
Klein was thus deeply dismayed when his application to edit Riemann’s lec-
ture notes was rejected by the society. Klein had already recruited Heinrich Weber
to examine the material presumably located in Göttingen.206 Klein had submitted
an application to Schering and Sauppe, but during the meeting held on July 5,
1890, he received the answer that there was no unpublished Riemann material, a
fact that was later contradicted by M. Noether and W. Wirtinger’s edition of these
very notes. This edition was induced by Klein and published as a supplementary
volume to Riemann’s collected works in 1902.207
The negative vote was influenced above all by Ernst Schering, whom the
Royal Society of Sciences had commissioned to edit Gauß’s works.208 However,

203 See Klein’s remarks in JACOBS 1977 (“Personalia”), p. 2. Paul de Lagarde was a vocal anti-
Semite, an opponent of women’s rights, and a supporter of expansionist colonization.
204 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1 B: 3, p. 91.
205 See REBENICH/FRANKE 2012 (a letter from Althoff to Mommsen dated June 25, 1889).
206 Along with Richard Dedekind, Heinrich Weber had been one of the editors of Riemann’s
collected works (see RIEMANN 1876).
207 See Klein’s remarks in JACOBS 1977 (“Personalia”), p. 4.
208 See REICH/ROUSSANOVA 2013.
 6.4 Bringing People and Institutions Together 367

no new volume of that edition had been published since volume 6 (1876). Deeply
upset about his colleague Schering,209 Klein wrote to Robert Fricke:
For four years now in Göttingen, I have been working to establish, on the basis of our com-
mon academic interests, a positive relationship with my colleagues, from whom I had been
kept apart by historical tradition, and yesterday I finally had to register the fact that every-
thing was in vain, that my efforts have resulted in envy and hatred, and that I am more iso-
lated than ever.210

These events gave Klein even more incentive to attempt to reorganize the Royal
Society of Sciences in Göttingen by proposing new statutes. In 1892, when he
received a job offer from the University of Munich, he made sure that the Univer-
sity of Göttingen’s counteroffer included terms that would also allow him to re-
form the “academy” (see Section 6.5.2).

6.4.4 Felix Klein and the Founding of the German Mathematical Society

In 1899, when Georg Cantor took the initiative to bring together German mathe-
maticians,211 Klein’s initial response was one of cautious reservation. When Leo
Koenigsberger, speaking in 1899 at the annual meeting of the Society of German
Natural Scientists and Physicians in Heidelberg, announced Cantor’s proposal –
“It would be desirable to establish a more cohesive association of German ma-
thematicians than has heretofore existed” – Felix Klein was in Great Britain and
he was thinking about his failed opportunity to work as a visiting professor in the
United States. Upon his return, his student Walther Dyck informed him about the
meeting in Heidelberg, which would lead to the founding of the German Mathe-
matical Society (DMV) at the next year’s meeting of the Society of German Natu-
ral Scientists and Physicians in Bremen. This history has already been investiga-
ted in detail.212 Klein’s role in it can be summarized in five points.
First, Klein consciously decided to operate behind the scenes. He was aware
that he represented a specific group and that his presence might therefore deter
others from participating. Klein made his ideas known through Dyck and in letters
to Georg Cantor.
Second, Klein’s idea concerning the main role of the new association was that
it should commission “reports to be written about the development of various
branches of our science,” as Walther Dyck informed Cantor as early as October

209 Schering’s widow Maria Heliodora (née Malmstén) justified her husband’s negative vote,
remarking that he was bitter about the fact that he had received too little money and recogni-
tion for his edition of Gauss’s works. [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 682: her letter to Klein on
February 3, 1899.
210 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from Klein to Fricke dated July 6, 1890.
211 On Georg Cantor’s life and work, see DAUBEN 1979, PURKERT/ILGAUDS 1987.
212 TOBIES 1991a, TOBIES/VOLKERT 1998, pp. 125–57. On Walther Dyck’s involvement, see
HASHAGEN 2003, pp. 403–37.
368 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

12, 1889. This idea found its way into the statutes of the German Mathematical
Society. From the beginning, Klein made efforts to ensure that reports were writ-
ten on the areas of both “pure” and “applied” mathematics.213 These reports, many
of which were quite comprehensive, were published in the first ten volumes of the
Jahresbericht der DMV and were ultimately integrated into the ENCYKLOPÄDIE.
Third, the most widely discussed organizational question was whether the
new Society to be founded should hold its annual meetings in conjunction with
the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians. Georg Cantor argued for
separate meetings, following the model of the Société Mathématique de France.
Klein, in contrast, wrote to Cantor on May 14, 1890: “For my part, I cannot un-
derstand why it would be necessary to separate them; this can always happen later
if a majority of members is in favor of it and if the central leadership of the con-
ference of natural scientists turns out to be too tyrannical.”214 Cantor allowed him-
self to be convinced when Weierstrass made a similar argument in a letter to him
dated September 6, 1890.215 Until 1913, the German Mathematical Society and
the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians thus met together at the
same place and time. When the latter organization decided in 1920 to meet only
every other year, the mathematical society (together with the physical societies)
continued to have annual conferences.216
Fourth, Klein, more than others, made attempts to ensure that the proper per-
sonnel would be put in place to lead the society. Independent from one another, he
and Weierstrass both wrote to Cantor that it would be desirable to elect a com-
mittee in Bremen to oversee the planning of the association’s annual meeting.
Like most of the full professors in Berlin, however, Weierstrass did not participate
in the foundational meeting in Bremen. Klein decided to participate, and he sub-
mitted suggestions to Cantor regarding the election of the committee:
In Bremen itself, it will thus be essential to elect a perhaps four-member committee, which,
taking into account any other wishes expressed in Bremen, will also be responsible (as inde-
pendently as possible) for preparing for the meeting in 1891. The most important matter in
this case is undoubtedly the question of suitable personalities, and about this question I would
like to add as an aside that I am not standing for election (I would refuse being elected to the
committee, because I am in fact so busy with other matters that it would be impossible for me
to take on any further obligations). My stance on this issue is thus as objective as possible. In
advance, our basic principle should probably be to elect only those mathematicians who will
demonstrate their interest in the matter by being present in Bremen, and to give equal consi-
deration to mathematicians in northern and southern Germany.
As a potential representative from northern Germany, of course, you yourself would have to
be considered first of all, otherwise we should ask Kronecker (if he is there). If he should re-
ject this idea, [Hermann] Schubert would seem to be the most fitting. Among the southern

213 For example, Klein recruited Hilbert and Minkowski to write about number theory, Sebastian
Finsterwalder to write about photogrammetry, and August Föppl to write a report on technical
mechanics, to name just a few authors. See TOBIES 1989b.
214 [UA Freiburg] 36 (a letter from Klein to Cantor dated May 4, 1890).
215 For this letter, see TOBIES/VOLKERT 1998, p. 141.
216 See TOBIES 1996b.
 6.4 Bringing People and Institutions Together 369

Germans, I would like Dyck to be considered, whom you now recognize, at any rate, for his
abilities as an active administrator and bookkeeper. [Leo] Koenigsberger is another possibi-
lity, if he is interested. If he is not, then Lüroth immediately comes to mind. Lüroth is a man
who, despite his personal modesty, is socially adept, and he possesses a very broad scientific
perspective that also concerns disciplines adjacent to mathematics.217

Klein convinced further colleagues to participate in Bremen. Thus his long-time

allies at Mathematische Annalen, Paul Gordan and Adolph Mayer, traveled there,
as did several of his students and collaborators (Heinrich Burkhardt, Walther
Dyck, Franz Meyer, Erwin Papperitz, Hermann Wiener, Eduard Wiltheiss). Hil-
bert and Minkowski made the long journey from Königsberg. Hurwitz, after an
illness, had to go to a spa instead, and Lindemann also did not attend.
The words written by the Privatdozent David Hilbert to Klein on July 24,
1890 were well-suited to increase even more Klein’s trust in this young, like-min-
ded mathematician with a similarly broad horizon:
As Professor Hurwitz has already told me, and as I am now able to see on the program, you
will also travel to Bremen in the fall, and I am very pleased about this. For I am likewise
firmly determined to make this trip, and I especially hope that other mathematicians – young
and old – will be there in large numbers.
In fact, I believe that a closer personal connection between mathematicians would be very de-
sirable for our science, and I think that the suggestions contained in the Heidelberg protocol
[in 1889] are very timely in general. As it seems to me, mathematicians today understand one
another too little; they are not interested in one another enough and, as far as I can judge, they
are too unfamiliar with the classic works in our discipline. Moreover, many of them are wor-
king arduously on branches that are already dead.218

In Bremen, the resolution to establish the German Mathematical Society was rati-
fied on September 18, 1890 with thirty-three signatories.219 Two of these are not
pictured in Figure 29 (p. 370): Friedrich Simon Archenhold, a researcher at the
Berlin observatory directed by Wilhelm Förster, and Eduard Study, who was then
a Privatdozent in Marburg. Among the founding members, six had been present in
Heidelberg the year before when the original idea to create the society had first
been proposed: Georg Cantor, Dyck, Lothar Heffter, Papperitz, Ernst Schröder,
and Heinrich Weber. Nine had attended the conference of mathematicians that had
been held back in 1873 in Göttingen: P. Gordan, R. Hoppe, L. Kiepert, F. Klein,
E. Lampe, A. Mayer, E. Schröder, H. Schubert, and R. Sturm (see Section
2.8.3.4). Four of the founding members were mathematics teachers at secondary
schools in Bremen: H. Kasten, F. Klemm, G. Meyer, and H. Wellmann.

217 Quoted from TOBIES/VOLKERT 1998, pp. 142–43 (a letter from Klein to Cantor dated June
12, 1890). Lüroth did not come to Bremen and thus he was not elected to the committee.
218 Quoted from FREI 1985, p. 68 (a letter from Hilbert to Klein dated July 24, 1890).
219 For a list of the founding members, see Jahresbericht der DMV 1 (1890/91), p. 7 (“Chronik”).
A comparison of this list with the names under Figure 29 reveals that Roth and Ueltzen were
not among the signatories and were not DMV members (see also TOEPELL 1991). The persons
depicted could instead be the undersigned Enno Jürgens, professor of mathematics at the
Technische Hochschule in Aachen, and the secondary school teacher G. Meyer.
370 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

Figure 29: The founding members of the German Mathematical Society

(Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung, DMV), September 18, 1890 (a postcard)
 6.4 Bringing People and Institutions Together 371

The election of the first advisory board went according to Klein’s plans: Georg
Cantor as the chairman, Walther Dyck as the secretary, along with Hermann
Schubert (Hamburg), Emil Lampe (Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg/ Ber-
lin), and Theodor Reye (Strasbourg), who was not present in Bremen but had at-
tended the meeting in Heidelberg. Klein described his impression of the event in a
letter Hurwitz (October 19, 1890):
I see the resolutions in Bremen […] as being entirely favorable and promising. Cantor knows
(according to recent news) how to present the matter in such a way that Weierstrass, Kron-
ecker, and now also [Carl] Neumann are uniformly sympathetic to it! Now the task will be to
organize the conference in Halle to be as multifaceted as possible. I will also give a talk there,
though I will otherwise keep a low profile in the interest of the organization, so that it doesn’t
acquire a partisan character.220

The 1891 meeting of the German Mathematical Society took place (together with
that of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians) in Halle, where
Klein used his talk to discuss British results in the field of mechanics, particularly
Hamilton’s theory of integrating dynamic differential equations.221
By June of 1891, the German Mathematical Society had 205 registered mem-
bers; the fee for membership was two Mark. The society’s president Georg Can-
tor, who held a professorship at the University of Halle, invited Leopold Kron-
ecker to give the opening address at the meeting in September. Although Kron-
ecker had to decline on account of his wife’s death, he accepted his election to the
society’s board. Thus, as of January 1, 1892, the board would have consisted of
Georg Cantor (president), W. Dyck, P. Gordan, L. Kronecker, E. Lampe, and H.
Schubert.222 Kronecker died, however, on December 29, 1891.
Fifth, Klein continued to influence the organization through its secretary
Dyck, who sought Klein’s advice about drafting statutes, attracting additional
members, and choosing authors to write reports about the development of mathe-
matical research areas. This is documented, for instance, in the marginal notes that
Klein made on Dyck’s letter from March 30, 1891:
Consultation with [Heinrich] Hertz.
Hilbert. Report on algebraic functions? Who else?
Written requests from Dyck.
Opening address? – Cantor, at last. (Cantor’s own ideas: Leipzig)
Recruiting people who have yet to join.
(Bruns, Lipschitz, Wirtinger. The mathematical physicists.)223

Numerous mathematicians also joined from abroad; by 1901, there were 150
members from outside of Germany (that is, slightly more than 30% of the total of
498), including two women. Among non-German-speaking countries, the most
widely represented were the United States (32) and Russia (10). American mem-

220 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 210 (Klein to Hurwitz, October 19, 1890).
221 See Jahresbericht der DMV 1 (1890/91), pp. 35–36.
222 See ibid., pp. 4, 7, 11, 15–20 (“Chronik”).
223 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 8: 702 (Klein’s marginalia on Dyck’s letter, March 30, 1891).
372 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

bers included Klein’s students (Bôcher, Haskell, Snyder, E.B. Van Vleck, H.S.
White) and Charlotte A. Scott, who in 1898 – with Klein’s support – became the
first woman member (see Section 7.5). Among the Russians were Sintsov, Sonin,
Vasilev, Zhukovsky, and Nadezhda von Gernet (who studied under Klein and
Hilbert; she completed her doctoral degree under Hilbert in 1901 and became a
member that same year). Russian mathematicians presented new results (in
German) at the annual meetings of the German Mathematical Society from
relatively early on – in Munich in 1893, Vienna in 1894, Lübeck in 1895.224
When Georg Cantor left the position as the society’s president of his own ac-
cord in 1893, every later president served for a term of one year. Those elected to
the board could serve on it for a period of three years and serve as the chairman
for one of these years. For the first ten years after Cantor, the presidents were P.
Gordan (1894), H. Weber (1895), A. Brill (1896), F. Klein (1897), A. Voß (1898),
M. Noether (1899), D. Hilbert (1900), W. Dyck (1901), Franz Meyer (1902), and
F. Klein (1903). In 1908/09, Klein would serve as chair for the third time. Overall,
he served as a board member from 1895 to 1898, from 1903 to 1905, and from
October 1, 1907 to September 30, 1910.225
Although no Berlin mathematician took this position, this was not due to
Klein. In 1893, Klein had attempted to involve Georg Frobenius – a full professor
in Berlin since 1892 – as a board member. Hilbert had supported this,226 but Fro-
benius declined. Ulf Hashagen has shown that H.A. Schwarz, who had been in
Berlin since 1892, was trying to stir up opposition against the German Mathe-
matical Society.227 Frobenius had been a member since 1891, as had the Berlin-
based professors Weierstrass and Fuchs, while Schwarz did not join until 1894.228
Klein remained an active participant in the German Mathematical Society. He
initiated reports, section meetings, and committees, and he helped to prepare its
members for international conferences (in Zurich, Paris, Heidelberg, Rome, Cam-
bridge).229 He managed to secure the society’s support for projects that were im-
portant to him (the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, the edition of Gauß’s works, the international
bibliography, educational reform, etc.). On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary
of his doctoral degree (December 12, 1918) and his seventieth birthday (April 25,
1919), the German Mathematical Society named him its honorary chairman for
the fiscal year of 1918/19.230 In 1924, to mark the occasion of Klein’s seventy-
fifth birthday, he became the first honorary member of the society, which praised
him for his universality, leadership skills, and idealism.231

224 This statement is based on an analysis of the journal Jahresbericht der DMV.
225 See the annual reports published in the Jahresbericht der DMV. The organization’s fiscal year
at first began on January 1st, but this was later changed to October 1st.
226 See FREI 1985, pp. 94, 96.
227 See HASHAGEN 2003, p. 436.
228 See TOEPELL 1991, p. 352.
229 See also CURBERA 2009.
230 See Jahresbericht der DMV 27 (1918) Abt. 2, pp. 59–60.
231 See ibid. 33 (1925) Abt. 2, p. 4; and ibid. 34 (1926) Abt. 1, p. 89.
 6.5 The Pivotal Year of 1892 373

6.5 THE PIVOTAL YEAR OF 1892

At the beginning of year 1892, Klein greeted Hurwitz with these words:
Dear friend! Now, above all, accept my and my family’s best wishes for the new year. […]
Kronecker’s death will have made no less of an impression on you than it did on me. What
are all of our plans when a more powerful hand intervenes? And what should happen now? I
grow numb when I think about all of the conceivable possibilities, and the new professorial
appointments, which can happen one way or another, are not even the main issue. What is es-
sential is that the Berlin school has fallen apart beyond repair and that we, the survivors, now
have greater freedom but must also shoulder the great, great responsibility [for mathematics
in Germany]. Extend my greetings to Hilbert and Lindemann. Sincerely yours, F. Klein232

Klein obviously felt responsible for the development of German mathematics. At

the University of Berlin, there were then three mathematics professorships: Kron-
ecker’s, Weierstrass’s, and Lazarus Fuchs’s. Because Kronecker had died and
Weierstrass planned to retire, two vacancies opened up alongside Fuchs’s posi-
tion. Moreover, when Heinrich Eduard Schroeter died on January 3, 1892, another
full professorship had to be filled in Prussia at the University of Breslau. In Bava-
ria, too, a full professorship was available at the University of Munich because
Ludwig Seidel had retired in 1891. Felix Klein saw himself at the center of events.
Although he was unable to realize all of his ideas, both he and the University of
Göttingen profited from the final decisions that were made.

6.5.1 Refilling Vacant Professorships in Prussia

Friedrich Althoff had been the Senior Privy Counselor in the Ministry of Culture
since 1890. As such, he was able to make hiring decisions more or less indepen-
dently, but he increasingly relied on Klein’s judgment regarding the appointment
of mathematics professors at Prussian universities and other institutions. The first
hiring process in which Althoff turned to Klein for advice was the aforementioned
open professorship at the Catholic Academy in Münster, for which Klein, in addi-
tion to other input, had provide his euphoric statement about the talents of David
Hilbert (see Section 6.3.6.2). In what follows, I will discuss the hiring opportuni-
ties that arose in 1892 at the universities in Berlin, Breslau, and Göttingen.

6.5.1.1 Berlin, Breslau, and Klein’s System for Classifying Styles of Thought

Regarding Berlin and Breslau, Althoff wrote to Klein on Sunday, January 3, 1892:
“Under these circumstances, I would be very grateful if you would be so kind as
to share your full opinion about the situation and about what should happen.”233

232 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 224 (an undated postcard from Klein to Hurwitz, January 1892).
233 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1C: 2, fols. 1–1v. On Klein’s hiring policy, see TOBIES 1987b.
374 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

Althoff also sent letters of this sort to other mathematicians. Klein’s replies see-
med to convince him, however, that Klein had developed a useful system for clas-
sifying mathematical styles of thought, and that this system could be helpful in
guiding his hiring decisions. As early as January 6, 1892, Klein sent his requested
full report to Althoff. Here, he interwove his positive views of “universality” with
a critique of Kronecker’s one-sided or biased approach:
My only critique concerns the bias with which Kronecker opposed the philosophical view-
points of scientific approaches that differed from his own, and which prevented his students
from forming an accurate image of the scope and significance of today’s mathematics. This
bias lay less in Kronecker’s innate talent than in his character. Over time, his goal became to
acquire, as much as possible, an absolute command of all of German mathematics, and he
pursued this goal with the full range of his intelligence and with the utmost tenacity of his
will. Now that he is gone from the scene, it is little surprise that no one among the younger
generation of mathematicians in Berlin can be called his equal. Lazarus Fuchs can certainly
not be regarded as such.234

Lazarus Fuchs, whom Klein belittled here, had completed his doctorate in 1858
under Kummer and had been a professor in Berlin since 1884. Klein’s polemical
relationship with Fuchs would influence the hiring process in Berlin.
In his report, Klein developed a classification system for the three professor-
ships in Berlin:
Because the normal representation of mathematics at a large university is three full professor-
ships […] the candidates for such a position should not be chosen according to the special
field in which they work but rather according to the different nature of their mathematical
thinking. Given the variety that exists among individuals, one should avoid being too sche-
matic, but on the whole the following three types should be represented:
1) The philosophically minded mathematician who constructs from concepts;
2) The analyst, who operates essentially with the formula;
3) The geometrician, who proceeds from intuition [Anschauung].235

Using this system for classifying styles of thought, Klein categorized the follow-
ing mathematicians (and theoretical physicists): Weierstrass (type 1), Kronecker
(between 1 and 2), Kummer (2–3), Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (2), Helmholtz (3),
L. Fuchs (1), Georg Cantor (1), H. Weber (2–3), Frobenius (2), H.A. Schwarz (3),
Lindemann (3), Sophus Lie (3), Jacob Rosanes (2), and himself (3). Klein thus
recommended that Friedrich Althoff should consider hiring the following mathe-
maticians to work alongside Fuchs (type 1) in Berlin: as a type 2, Heinrich Weber
(then a professor in Marburg) or Georg Frobenius (then a professor in Zurich);
and as a type 3, Hermann Amandus Schwarz or Ferdinand Lindemann. Regarding
Schwarz, however, Klein added the following jab: “On the basis of the clarity of
his lectures and his enthusiasm for teaching, Schwarz would undoubtedly be at the
top of this list, if only his personality were not so utterly prosaic and stodgy.”236

234 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Althoff A I No. 84, fol. 5 (Klein to Althoff, January 6, 1892).
235 Ibid., fol. 7v.
236 Ibid., fol. 8.
 6.5 The Pivotal Year of 1892 375

Klein’s proposals for Breslau were formulated in the same report. At the Uni-
versity of Breslau, Jacob Rosanes (type 2) had held a professorship since 1877
alongside H.E. Schroeter. Klein recommended Hurwitz, Schottky, Lüroth, and
Dyck. In this regard, he made a point to stress Hurwitz’s extraordinary creativity
and that Hurwitz had a difficult time advancing his career on account of his Jew-
ish background.237 Klein described Lüroth and Dyck, in contrast, as being less
productive.238 Althoff, however, summoned Rudolf Sturm from Münster to Bres-
lau in 1892 and hired Wilhelm Killing as a professor in Münster to work along-
side Reinhold von Lilienthal. That is, Althoff did not follow Klein’s latest advice
but rather considered what Klein had written in 1890 regarding the hiring oppor-
tunity in Münster and the most appropriate candidates for the position.239
At the University of Berlin, H.A. Schwarz and Frobenius were appointed,
which corresponded to Klein’s classification system. It has often been discussed,
however, whether Klein himself would have gone to Berlin (and worked along-
side Lazarus Fuchs). A few of his comments suggest that he had at least expected
an offer. Thus we also read in his report to Althoff:
After the previous negotiations, it is obvious that I have recently thought about how I would
respond to receiving an offer to become a professor in Berlin, and so there is no point in
making a secret of it. […] My conclusion is that, in certain respects, I would be capable of
being effective in Berlin in the sense of type 3), but on the other hand I am missing an
essential characteristic: the hardiness of a big-city dweller […]. Thus, when I consider only
my own contentment, there is no doubt in my mind that I have to stay in place [in Göttingen].
Yet, regardless, I could understand that those in my circle of friends might feel as though it
would be my duty to accept the central position [in Berlin] if it were offered to me. Then I
would ask you to alter the position in such a way that I would be able delegate more duties
than I would have to perform myself. Thus, even today, I have to ask you not to regard me as
being inactive, if I make few public appearances. May a kind fate steer the course ahead! F.
Klein240

The sense of duty mentioned here was stressed by Robert Fricke, whose Habilita-
tion had been rejected at the University of Berlin. Yet Klein replied:
You claim that it would be my duty to accept a possible offer [from Berlin]. My ideas are ra-
ther moving in the direction of using this new situation to give new momentum and general
importance to the mathematical school in Göttingen. If I had a more demanding position, do

237 When Klein recommended Hurwitz for a professorship in Münster, Rudolf Sturm replied to
him: “I myself am far from being an anti-Semite, but we consider it pointless here to recom-
mend a Jew. You know that the process of hiring Protestants here does not always run
smoothly; the Ministry would simply ignore a Jewish candidate.” [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein
11: 1281 (a letter from Sturm to Klein dated August 13, 1890).
238 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Althoff A I No. 84, fol. 8v (Klein to Althoff, January 6, 1892).
239 In his letter to Althoff from October 23, 1890, Klein had written (in addition to his praise for
Hilbert): “[Hermann] Kortum is unproductive; in his scientific work, Killing is too closely
aligned with Sturm, though he is otherwise talented […]; von Lilienthal has yet to achieve
very much academically. […] Hurwitz as well as [Eduard] Wiltheiss and [Otto] Hölder are
suitable.” [StA Berlin Rep. 92 Althoff B, No. 92, fols. 76–77.
240 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Althoff A I No. 84, fol. 9v (Klein to Althoff, January 6, 1892).
376 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

you know that my health might not soon deteriorate as much as it did in 1882 in Leipzig?
And what do you estimate would be the tiny amount of time that I would still have for my
own scientific ideas? The issue is as double-edged as no other and, if necessary, it will have
to be decided thoughtfully and dispassionately.241

Adolf Hurwitz also thought that Klein should go to the University of Berlin:
You can imagine the deep impression that was made on us by Kronecker and Schroeter dying
in quick succession. About this matter, it seems as though the entire impartial world of ma-
thematics is in agreement that only you can fill that gap that has arisen in Berlin. The only
question is whether the Ministry would be able to withstand the opposition [to your appoint-
ment]. And then: would you accept the possible offer?242

The hiring committee in Berlin consisted of the astronomers Wilhelm Förster and
Friedrich Tietjen, the mathematicians Lazarus Fuchs and Karl Weierstrass, and
the physicists Hermann von Helmholtz and August Kundt. Förster had taken it
upon himself to seek Klein’s opinion. On January 15, 1892, Klein replied that he
had suggested Heinrich Weber and Georg Frobenius for Kronecker’s position, as
well as H.A. Schwarz and Lindemann as geometricians. In this letter, Klein also
expressed himself at length about his conflict with Fuchs (see Appendix 5 for
details). The Berlin committee members were aware that the Ministry of Culture
valued Klein’s advice highly. In order to exclude him from the list of candidates,
they downplayed his talents and achievements in their meeting.243
Weierstrass wanted to hire a “good analyst,” and he remarked: “For the public
at large, Klein and Schwarz are the top candidates. And we must only refrain from
considering them if they are absolutely not to be had.” Indeed, he preferred
Schwarz: “Schwarz stays on point. Good lecture. Klein rambles more. Dazzler.”
Fuchs commented in a similar vein: “I have to get along with him. Schwarz
has made some really valuable achievements – Klein, quite the contrary (his ico-
sahedron book is a compilation of Schwarz’s and Fuchs’s results in a journalistic
style).” Kundt stressed, however: “Klein is a fascinating teacher.” Förster, who
had asked for Klein’s opinion, summarized: “The general opinion is not much in
Klein’s favor. We have to include Klein’s name for the Ministry, but we have to
emphasize that it would be impossible to work with him here.”
Helmholtz mentioned: “The late Kronecker considered Klein a busybody/doer
[Faiseur].” Fuchs felt that it was necessary to add: “I should state that I have
nothing to put forward against Klein’s personal characteristics, only against his
deleterious approach to science. He does not work for the sake of the [common]
cause but rather writes textbooks based on the work of others.”
Ultimately, the committee members in Berlin suggested the same candidates
whom Klein had proposed: H.A. Schwarz and Frobenius. In their application to
the Minister of Culture, they justified their decision to exclude Klein as follows:

241 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from Klein to Fricke dated January 12, 1892.
242 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1101 (Hurwitz to Klein, January 14, 1892).
243 See BIERMANN 1988, pp. 305–07 (minutes of the committee meeting, January 22, 1892).
 6.5 The Pivotal Year of 1892 377

Above all, however, it had to be taken into consideration that the chosen candidates would be
suitable for guiding students toward the serious and selfless study of mathematical problems,
as has been practiced at our university for generations. For this reason, it was necessary to
reject such people as Professor Felix Klein in Göttingen (b. 1849). Opinions are very divided
regarding his scientific achievements, and his overall effectiveness as a scholar and teacher
conflicts with the tradition of our university mentioned above.244

Toward the end of February in 1892, Althoff traveled to Göttingen and informed
Klein personally that he would not be offered the position in Berlin on account of
his generally weak health and because of the faculty’s dismissive attitude toward
his candidacy.245 In a letter to Althoff dated April 10, 1892, Klein let him know:
“I personally greeted the news that I would not be offered the job in Berlin as a
fortunate turn of events; however, this news had a depressing effect in many cir-
cles.”246 Even if Klein would not have accepted the offer, he had at least counted
on it to improve his position in Göttingen. Paul Gordan wrote to him from Erlan-
gen: “I am sorry that you did not come to Berlin; with your comprehensive intel-
lect, you would have brought order to the mathematical conditions in Ger-
many.”247 Had the offer been made (and had he accepted it), Klein would have
faced a difficult problem because “his” journal, Mathematische Annalen, was ba-
sed in Göttingen, while its main competitor, Crelle’s Journal, was based in Berlin.
A year later, Klein acknowledged to his American student Henry S. White that
such a situation would have put him in a quandary.248

6.5.1.2 Hiring a Successor for H.A. Schwarz in Göttingen

On April 1, 1892, H.A. Schwarz was appointed to succeed Weierstrass at the Uni-
versity of Berlin. At the University of Göttingen, however, he remained a mem-
ber, along with Klein and Schering, of the hiring committee in charge of seeking
his own replacement. For some time, Klein had been corresponding directly with
Friedrich Althoff (that is, outside of official channels), and on March 21, 1892 he
wrote to Berlin to express his wishes regarding Schwarz’s successor. Again, his
argument was based on his system for classifying styles of thought:
If mathematics is to continue to grow on a healthy basis in Göttingen, I will need to be sup-
plemented with someone along the lines of Kronecker and Weierstrass (whom I have always
held in high regard, as little as I could approve of their exclusive prevalence). In this respect,
as I have mentioned on various occasions, I have always thought of just Frobenius, Hurwitz,
and Schottky. Only recently have I added the younger scholars Hilbert and Minkowski to this
list.249

244 Quoted from BIERMANN 1988, pp. 307–08.

245 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from Klein to Fricke dated February 26, 1892.
246 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Althoff A I No. 84, fols. 33v–34 (Klein to Althoff, April 4, 1892).
247 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 464, p. 75 (a letter from Gordan to Klein dated April 16, 1892).
248 See SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 1996, p. 18.
249 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Althoff A I No. 84, fol. 27 (Klein to Althoff, March 21, 1892).
378 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

Klein’s preferred candidate was David Hilbert, who had meanwhile turned thirty
years old (see Appendix 6.1). He saw no problem in the fact that Hilbert was just
a Privatdozent. At the age of twenty-three, Klein himself had been promoted from
the position of Privatdozent to full professor without ever having to hold an asso-
ciate professorship. Because the majority of the hiring committee in Göttingen
(Schering and Schwarz included) was opposed to hiring a Privatdozent, Klein
fought successfully on behalf of Hurwitz. His name was placed first on the list of
proposed candidates, so Klein was certain that he would be hired and even started
to make plans with him.250 Because the university’s Kurator had deemed it neces-
sary to name a third candidate, Heinrich Weber was added to the list by Klein’s
“opponents” (Schwarz and Schering).251
Despite Klein’s insistence (see Appendix 6.2), Althoff disregarded his wish.
Instead, Althoff first allowed Georg Frobenius to consider whether he might want
to work in Göttingen or Berlin. In a postcard dated April 2, 1892, Klein informed
Hurwitz: “Frobenius has turned down the offer, but now Althoff wants to negoti-
ate with Weber!” Then, in a letter dated April 7, 1892, Klein made it known to
Hurwitz that Heinrich Weber had accepted the position and would begin in the
fall:
For now, I am so agitated about this that I don’t know how organize my thoughts. That the
two of us could advance our common goals with mutual encouragement and daily interaction,
however, is obviously a thought for which the world is not yet ready and which we will have
to bury because it is too beautiful. Accept my heartfelt greetings, and my wife’s as well (she
would express herself much more vibrantly than I have done here), and also extend our
wishes to your bride, although we still haven’t met. May both of you happily overcome the
disappointment that you will understandably feel! Your old friend, F. Klein252

Through his conversations with Frobenius – whose career had begun in Berlin and
brought him to Zurich in 1875 – Klein was able to pave the way for Hurwitz. In a
telegram from Zurich sent on June 3, 1892, Hurwitz announced: “The Swiss De-
partment of Education has selected me to be Frobenius’s successor” at the Eidge-
nössisches Polytechnikum there.253

250 See [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 229 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated March17, 1892): “Un-
fortunately, I was unable to include Hilbert on the list of possible candidates because Göttin-
gen, which is so sure of itself, dismissed the idea that a Privatdozent could ever be hired as a
full professor. Luckily, your appointment [to Göttingen] will indirectly benefit him. […] If
my wife can be of any help arranging things for you here […], I hope that you will welcome
this assistance. Of course, you will have to stay with us again during the early stages of your
time in Göttingen.” Klein even coordinated his teaching with Hurwitz and told him that they
should “march separately but do battle together.”
251 In his letter to Althoff from March 21, 1892 (cited above), Klein mentioned that this proposal
had been made by his “opponents.”
252 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 234, 235 (letters from Klein to Hurwitz dated April 2 and 7, 1892).
253 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1115 (Hurwitz to Klein, June 5, 1892). The Eidgenössisches
Polytechnikum, which was renamed as the ETH (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule) Zu-
rich in 1911, received the right to confer doctoral degrees in 1908.
 6.5 The Pivotal Year of 1892 379

Klein let Althoff know that the ministry’s decision to hire Heinrich Weber
(instead of Hurwitz) would be regarded as an effort to lower Klein’s status in the
eyes of Göttingen’s Philosophical Faculty.254 However, Paul Gordan – who like
Hurwitz came from a Jewish family, though he converted to Protestantism (see
Section 3.5) – attempted to comfort Klein with the following words:
It was right of you to recommend Hurwitz in Göttingen; he has earned this distinction. How-
ever, it is fortunate for you that your suggestion was not followed, and for this you cannot
thank God enough. What would you have had with Hurwitz in Göttingen? You would have
had to accept complete responsibility for this Jew; every noticeable or apparent mistake by
Hurwitz would have been on your head, and everything that Hurwitz would ever said in the
faculty and senate meetings would have been considered to have been influenced by you.
Hurwitz would have been regarded as no more than an appendage of Klein. You can carry on
your scientific interaction with him just as well in writing.

Regarding Heinrich Weber, Gordan also looked on the positive side: “He can
make your teaching activity far easier; he will not take away the Americans and
other foreigners from you, because in this respect you are so far above him. You
will be able to get along with him very well; however, it would be good if you did
not collaborate with him scientifically.”255 This advice is surprising, for Weber
came from the tradition of the University of Königsberg, where he (like Clebsch)
had learned about Riemann’s intuitive approach to geometry from Richelot.256
As early as April of 1892, Klein traveled to Cassel (Kassel today) to meet
Heinrich Weber.257 The latter agreed with Klein’s ideas without any reservations.
Together as colleagues in Göttingen, they would go on to achieve a number of
important initiatives (see Chapter 7).

6.5.2 A Job Offer from the University of Munich and the Consequences

In July of 1892, Felix Klein received an offer – “as the first and only candidate” –
to succeed Ludwig Seidel at the University of Munich, with a salary of 12,000
Mark, the guarantee of an assistant with a salary of 1,500 Mark, and all of the re-
sources needed to run a Mathematical Seminar. Moreover, the chemist Adolf
Baeyer informed Klein in a letter from July 11, 1892 that the Bavarian Ministry of
Culture would “create a position for you through which you would be able to in-
fluence the organization of mathematical education in all of Bavaria.”258 The theo-
retical physicist Ludwig Boltzmann wanted Klein by his side, and he described
his “universality” and academic productivity with glowing words.259

254 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Althoff A I No. 84, fol. 33v.

255 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 464, pp. 75–76 (Gordan to Klein, April 16, 1892).
256 See KOENIGSBERGER 2004, pp. 108–09 (a letter from Weber to Koenigsberger).
257 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Althoff A I No. 84, fol. 35.
258 [UAG] Kur. 5956, fols. 38, 40–41v.
259 See HÖFLECHNER 1994, vol. 2, pp. 173–74 (a letter from Boltzmann to Paul von Groth).
Boltzmann’s remarks in this letter are quoted at greater length in my preface.
380 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

The offer from Munich was so generous that Althoff felt alarmed and did eve-
rything in his power to keep Klein in Göttingen. Klein had informed Althoff of
the offer on July 9, 1892, to which the latter replied immediately on July 11th,
saying that Munich had fired a “warning shot” and that he would soon be on his
way to Göttingen.260 Already on July 15th, Althoff, Klein, and the University of
Göttingen’s Kurator Ernst von Meier signed a (retention) contract:261
Göttingen – July 15, 1892
Professor Dr. Felix Klein will decline the offer from Munich […] provided that he is assured
of the following, whereby the question of reorganizing the Royal Society of Sciences – to
which Mr. Klein attaches the utmost importance – was already discussed yesterday at length
and is on its way to being implemented.262
1. It will be requested emphatically and resolutely that Mr. Klein should receive a salary inc-
rease of 2000 (two thousand) Mark beginning in October of this year. Until this is officially
ensured, Mr. Klein will receive this same sum in the form of an annual remuneration.
2. During this fiscal year and the next, an allowance of 3000 M. in total (either 1500 each
year or 1000 this year and 2000 M. in 1893/94) will be granted for the purpose of improving
the reading room of the Mathematical-Physical Seminar.
3. The University Library will receive 6000 M. in ca. 10 annual installments (the first in this
fiscal year) to fill in the gaps of its mathematical holdings (including physics and astronomy)
according to Mr. Klein’s requests.263
4. As of April 1, 1893, the remuneration for the assistant at the collection of mathematical in-
struments and models will be increased to 1200 M. According to Mr. Klein, this could also
take place in the form of a Dozent stipendium.
5. As soon as possible, care will be taken to ensure the creation of a budgeted associate pro-
fessorship for mathematics264 in Göttingen, whereas Schering’s full professorship can be abo-
lished in the future or used in another way, e.g. by converting it into an associate professor-
ship for geophysics.
6. The issue of changing the general rules concerning seniority in Göttingen (Weber and
Wellhausen, for instance, fall under these) will be considered.265
Read and accepted
Althoff (signed) F. Klein (signed) von Meier (signed)

260 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1 C: 2, p. 47 (a letter from Althoff to Klein, July 11, 1892).
261 [UAG] Kur. 5956, pp. 42–43 (Klein’s retention contract).
262 See also Section 6.4.3. On June 21, 1893, the Emperor and King ratified a new set of statutes
for the “Academy.” Its three previous classes would be converted into two (mathematical-
physical and philological-historical), each with 15 places for full members under the age of
75; 25 places for associate members, 75 places for corresponding members, and an unlimited
number of places for honorary members. See Göttinger Nachrichten (1893), p. 516.
263 Klein regularly submitted lists of scholarly works and newly founded mathematical journals
to be purchased, including works in the fields of technical physics, mechanics, pedagogy
([UAG] Kur. 5956, fols. 50–65: Klein to the Kurator). Klein was able to extend this source of
funding beyond its initial period of ten years. As late as July 15, 1927, Richard Fick, the di-
rector of Göttingen’s University Library, still referred to this “Felix Klein Fund in the amount
of 800–1000 M. annually.” [UAG] Math. Nat. 0047, No. 32.
264 Arthur Schoenflies received this associate professorship on April 1, 1893.
265 This point was not realized (JACOBS 1977,“Personalia”, p. 5). The older professors Heinrich
Weber and Julius Wellhausen (a theologian and orientalist) received a lower salary than Felix
Klein.
 6.5 The Pivotal Year of 1892 381

During the negotiations, Althoff became convinced that Klein’s wishes were in
the best interest of the University of Göttingen. For choosing to remain, Klein was
honored with another order of merit, this time the Order of the Red Eagle (Third
Class), with ribbon (November 14, 1892).266
Regarding Seidel’s successor at the University of Munich, Klein recommen-
ded his former student Ferdinand Lindemann, who had already threatened to end
their friendship because Klein had not considered him as a possible candidate to
replace H.A. Schwarz in Göttingen.267 The position in Munich had long been a
topic of discussion in the correspondence between Klein and Lindemann, who
wanted to leave Königsberg at all costs. Klein suggested that he might have a
chance in Munich. Lindemann had his doubts about this, however, because he had
learned from the University of Freiburg (Baden) that he had not been considered
for a position there for the sole reason that Klein had recommended him.268 But in
Bavaria, Klein’s word counted for something, and Lindemann was hired. In the
years to come, Lindemann would indeed commit some mathematical errors, in-
cluding an erroneous proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem in 1908.269 Nevertheless,
Lindemann supervised a number of good doctoral students, among them Emil
Hilb (who defended in 1903) and Arthur Rosenthal (1909). Both also participated
in projects initiated by Felix Klein.
Recommendations for professorships were often causes of friction. In De-
cember of 1892, for instance, Klein’s friend and colleague Paul Gordan in Erlan-
gen (Bavaria), who was fifty-five years old at the time, was deeply disappointed
that Klein had not recommended him for the position in Munich: “Instead of pro-
posing me for the vacant position, you nominated two of your students, Linde-
mann and Dyck, who should only have been able to have their turn if I had re-
jected the offer. [...] Everyone here is talking about how insignificant Gordan
must be if even his friend Klein doesn’t think him worthy to come to Munich.”270
In reality, however, Gordan was less active than he used to be, and he was less
open to new developments (see also Section 6.3.7.3).

266 [UAG] Kur. 5956, fol. 52.

267 Overestimating himself, Lindemann had written the following to Klein on February 29, 1892:
“I indeed have more important achievements to show for myself than Hurwitz. If you take
Hurwitz […] without considering me, you will embarrass me to the whole world; you will
inflict an insult on me that I did not deserve” ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1C: 2, fols. 7v–8).
268 Ibid., fol. 16v (a letter from Lindemann to Klein dated March 12, 1892).
269 This theorem, noted by Fermat in 1637, states that no three positive integers a, b, and c satisfy
the equation aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ for any integer value of n > 2. Paul Wolfskehl, who died in 1906,
had bequeathed 100,000 Mark toward the cause of proving this theorem. (Funding from this
bequest was used to cover the costs of series of lectures in Göttingen, for example Poincaré’s
lectures in April of 1909). The proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem required substantial new ideas
that were developed only in the second half of the 20th century and was finally provided by
Andrew Wiles (1995). – On the announcement of the Wolfskehl Prize Foundation and Klein’s
detailed commentary on the large amount of false evidence already submitted in advance and
on the nature of the peer review, see Jahresbericht der DMV 17 (1908) Abt. 2, pp. 111–13.
270 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 472 (A letter from Gordan to Klein, December 12, 1892).
382 6 The Start of Klein’s Professorship in Göttingen, 1886–1892

Figure 30: Felix Klein’s certification as a foreign member of the Società Italiana delle Scienze
[Accademia nazionale delle scienze (detta dei Quaranta)] on Februar 12, 1896
([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 114: 20).271

271 Originally called the “Società Italiana” (the title “Academy” was then reserved only for asso-
ciations operating within individual Italian states). It was composed of 40 members from the
various Italian states and 12 foreigners. The name “Accademia nazionale dei XL,” which
dates back to 1949, was changed to the present name in 1979, when the number of foreign
members was also increased to 25.
 7 SETTING THE COURSE, 1892/93–1895

During this period, Felix Klein laid the strategic groundwork for what would be-
come the famous international center of mathematics, natural sciences, and tech-
nology in Göttingen. Klein described the years after 1892/93 as “characterized by
a preponderance of organizational activity.”1 After the Prussian Ministry of Cul-
ture had informed Ernst von Meier, the Kurator of the University of Göttingen,
that H.A. Schwarz had accepted a professorship in Berlin, Klein became the do-
minant professor of mathematics on Göttingen’s faculty. Von Meier turned to
Klein for advice about how the Mathematical Institute should be organized. Thus,
Klein first set the agenda for the future of his own position and requested to take
over Schwarz’s previous duties as “director of the collection of mathematical in-
struments and models.”2 In addition, he suggested, in a long letter dated February
29, 1892, that the Institute’s hitherto separate facilities (the reading room, the
Seminar library, the model collection) should be combined under one roof and
that it would be necessary to hire a paid mathematical assistant and to create an
associate professorship (for Arthur Schoenflies).3
Klein was able to hire, for the first time, a government-funded mathematical
assistant at the University of Göttingen at the beginning of the summer semester
on April 1, 1892 (Section 7.1). After the appointment of Heinrich Weber on Octo-
ber 1, 1892, he was able to realize further ideas. Together they founded the Göt-
tingen Mathematical Society (7.2). At that same time, Klein also started an advan-
ced mathematical training course (continuing education course) for active secon-
dary school teachers (7.3). During the semester break in the summer of 1893,
Klein traveled to the United States (7.4), and this trip served as the starting point
for further new initiatives. The latter included the beginning of women studying
mathematics at the university level (7.5); the introduction of actuarial mathema-
tics as an official course of study (7.6); and the idea of establishing, with private
funding, the field of technical physics at the University of Göttingen (7.7). It was
during this period, too, that the initial ideas for the famous ENCYKLOPÄDIE project
were formed (7.8). Because these programmatic undertakings would continue to
guide Klein’s activity throughout the decades to come, I will both introduce them
in this chapter and discuss their long-term implications.
By convincing the administration and the Prussian Ministry of Culture to hire
David Hilbert, effective April 1, 1895, Klein also ensured that pure mathematical

1 KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), p. 23.

2 [UAG] Kur. 5956, fol. 25. The Prussian Ministry of Culture officially granted Klein’s request
on April 13, 1892 [UAG] Kur. 5691, fols. 15–15v.
3 [UAG] Kur. 5691, fols. 1–8v. This document is published in TOBIES 2019b, pp. 510–13.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 383

R. Tobies, Felix Klein, Vita Mathematica 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75785-4_7
384 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

research would continue to be conducted in Göttingen at a high level (see Section

7.9). By pushing through the associate professorship with his contract negotiations
(see 6.5.2), Klein also paved the way for the institutional development of the
applications of mathematics (see Section 8.1.2).
After the hiring of Heinrich Weber had been finalized, Klein immediately
reached out to him; as early as May of 1892, Klein wrote enthusiastically to
Robert Fricke: “In the meantime, my friendship with Weber has only grown
stronger. In the winter, we want to begin life anew under the banner of cheerful
optimism!”4 Klein also informed Althoff at the Ministry of Culture that Weber
would support his most important plans, which Schwarz had previously hindered:
the new associate professorship for Schoenflies, the transfer of Robert Fricke’s
Habilitation from Kiel to Göttingen, and the coordination of the curriculum.
Although Klein believed that Weber, who was seven years his senior, had al-
ready passed the peak of his abilities, he regarded him highly and later claimed
that Weber was perhaps the most versatile representative of his generation – a
generation of mathematicians “which has more or less kept up the contacts bet-
ween 1) invariant theory, 2) the theory of equations, 3) function theory, 4) ge-
ometry, and 5) number theory.”5
As early as the summer semester of 1892, Klein, who was eager to coordinate
the course schedule to suit the interests of students and instructors alike, created a
“conference of Seminar directors” to serve these ends. Schering took over the
courses that H.A. Schwarz had announced for this semester. Because Heinrich
Weber wanted to start by teaching number theory in the winter semester, Klein
assigned the Privatdozenten Burkhardt and Fricke to teach courses on function
theory. Schoenflies’s role was to teach descriptive geometry,6 offer beginners’
lectures, and direct exercises. Regarding his own broad and research-oriented tea-
ching program, Klein planned, as he informed Robert Fricke, to devote his efforts
first to higher geometry and then
[…] as soon as I see a new way ahead, I will revisit linear differential equations and publish
my thoughts about them in a coherent way. Then, finally, I will be able to turn to number the-
ory, probability theory, and mechanics and will thus be engaged in truly far-reaching mathe-
matical activity!7

Klein’s zeal for his work was hard to interrupt. Toward the end of April in 1893,
when he had to undergo a medical operation (which was successfully performed
by F.J. Rosenbach, the director of surgery at the university’s polyclinic), he set
aside his teaching duties for just a short while. Hurwitz learned that this procedure

4 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from Klein to Fricke dated May 19, 1892.
5 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 308. See also Aurel Voß, “Heinrich Weber,” Jahresbericht der DMV
23 (1914) Abt. 1, pp. 431–44.
6 Schoenflies started as an associate professor on April 1, 1893, with an annual salary of 2,000
Mark, plus a 540 Mark housing allowance. [StA Berlin] Rep. 76 Va Sekt.6 Tit. IV No.1, vol.
15, fols. 192–92v (Althoff to von Meier, May 18, 1893).
7 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from Klein to Fricke dated August 23, 1892.
 7.1 Klein’s Assistants and His Principles for Choosing Them 385

concerned an “old chest defect, dating back to 1857, which had recently caused a
disturbance.” Klein spent four and a half weeks recovering from this in bed, but
even from there, he gave fifteen lectures on number theory in May (see Section
8.2.2).8 Shortly thereafter, in June of 1893, he taught his lecture course on higher
geometry (II) and began his (first) seminar on probability theory.
On May 4, 1894, Felix Klein was elected as the dean (Dekan) of the Philo-
sophical Faculty at the University of Göttingen for one year. He received eighteen
of the thirty-one votes (thirteen faculty members had voted for the mineralogist
Theodor Liebisch).9 Klein used this position to enhance mathematics and the natu-
ral sciences at the university, which involved Walter Nernst’s appointment as a
full professor of physical chemistry, hiring Theodor Des Courdes to teach applied
electricity, promoting the field of technical physics, and hiring, as mentioned
above, David Hilbert.
Writing on June 24, 1894 to Hurwitz, who had accepted a professorship at the
Polytechnikum in Zurich in 1892, Klein downplayed his many activities, referring
to them as “all sorts of miscellaneous things” (allerlei Allotria):10
I have become a bad correspondent. This is probably due to the fact that, in addition to my
ongoing scientific activity, I have also taken on all sorts of miscellaneous things. Once more,
I am attempting (probably in vain) to create a closer connection between the university and
technology, for which your institution in Zurich is an illuminating model. Then, I have devo-
ted much time to getting closer to secondary school teachers: among other things, in May I
was in Wiesbaden at a conference of such gentlemen, and in any case I managed to convince
them to hold their next meeting in Göttingen. Lastly, as if my glass wasn’t already full
enough, I also have to serve as dean of the Faculty for one year, beginning on July 1st. I’ll be
happy if I succeed in carrying on with my own writing in the previous way and if I can also
continue to encourage the young people to conduct investigations that are dear to my heart.11

Klein was aware that his own creative work would suffer if he were distracted by
all these other activities. However, his decision to take on “all sorts of miscellane-
ous things” proved to be one of the necessary conditions for the creation of an
international center of mathematics, natural sciences, and technology in Göttin-
gen.

7.1 KLEIN’S ASSISTANTS AND HIS PRINCIPLES FOR CHOOSING THEM

As mentioned above, Felix Klein was the first mathematician at a German univer-
sity for whom a government-funded assistant was approved; this was in October
of 1881, while he was working at the University of Leipzig (see Section 5.2). Al-
though an assistant had been assigned to professors of descriptive geometry at
some Technische Hochschulen, Klein had to struggle at the Technische Hoch-

8 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 248 (Klein to Hurwitz, June 4, 1893).

9 [UAG] Phil.Fak. Protokollbuch (1889–1905), p. 102. Liebisch was made the dean in 1896/97.
10 The term that Klein uses here, Allotria, is Greek ἀλλότρια ‘miscellaneous things’.
11 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 253.
386 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

schule in Munich in order to receive one assistant for both himself and Brill in
1877, as neither of them held a professorship in that specific discipline (see 4.1.2).
Klein’s main argument then for justifying this position was that he needed
someone to oversee the collection of models. Thus, in April of 1892, when Klein
became the director of the collection of mathematical instruments and models in
Göttingen, he used this same argument in order to be granted an assistant there:
I would not be able to take over as the director of the model collection, however, unless I
have an assistant at my disposal who could perhaps also supervise the reading room, which is
now being done by a student, and who might be instructed to assist me in preparing copies of
my lectures (for the reading room). I have had to spend a disproportionate amount of time on
this task, which has been carried out in part by a changing set of students and in part by my-
self, and I have often wished to have an assistant who could properly guide new students,
especially foreigners, through the large number of copies of my lectures that are already ar-
ranged side by side in the reading room. Although this latter task is more closely related to
the reading room, I would nevertheless ask you to employ this assistant especially for the
model collection, since the reading room is a general Seminar facility and is thus, in principle,
under the control of the general directors of the Mathematical-Physical Seminar.12

On April 19, 1892, the Ministry gave its approval for hiring an assistant, who, in
accordance with Klein’s wishes, was assigned to the model collection and thus
answered to him alone. Three days later, Klein informed the Kurator that he
would like to appoint Fritz Schilling to this position. The Ministry then authorized
the appointment (retroactively to April 1, 1892), with “an annual remuneration of
600 M, under the condition that it could be terminated at any time with six weeks’
notice.”13 The contract further stipulated that the holder of the position would
also, in addition to managing the collection of models and instruments, assume the
duty of supervising the reading room. The candidate’s curriculum vitae and letters
of reference were to be sent to the ministry. All of the applications for this posi-
tion from 1892 to 1927 are archived today at the University of Göttingen.14
In addition to managing the model collection and the reading room, Klein’s
assistants also had to transcribe and edit his lecture courses. Klein would review
and approve these texts, which were reproduced in their handwritten form by the
B.G. Teubner press as so-called “autographs.” Klein explained: “This form of
publication […] is rather uncommon in Germany, but it is used quite often in
other countries, especially in France and Italy.”15 These copies of Klein’s courses
were available in the reading room for students, and Klein also sent them to seve-
ral colleagues in Germany and abroad. Since the 1920s, new editions of some of
his lecture courses have been published as printed books (see Section 9.2.3).
When Klein received the aforementioned job offer from the University of
Munich in July of 1892 (see Section 6.5.2), the Bavarian government included
1,500 Mark for an assistant. On this basis, Klein was able to negotiate a salary of

12 [UAG] Kur. 5691, fols. 1–8 (emphasis original).

13 [UAG] Kur. 5961, fols. 15–15v.
14 [UAG] Kur. 7554 (Assistants of the Mathematical Institute, 1892–1927).
15 KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), p. 23.
 7.1 Klein’s Assistants and His Principles for Choosing Them 387

1,200 Mark for his assistant in Göttingen, which means that he was able to double
Friedrich Schilling’s yearly pay. Schilling had already transcribed Klein’s lectures
on non-Euclidean geometry and now, with more funding, he performed the same
task for Klein’s lectures on higher geometry during the winter semester of
1892/93 and the following summer semester.16 Schilling remained Klein’s as-
sistant until September 30, 1893; he then completed his probational year as a se-
condary school teacher and earned his doctoral degree (under Klein’s supervision)
in 1894.17 After holding positions in Aachen and Karlsruhe, he returned to Göttin-
gen in 1899 to succeed Arthur Schoenflies as an associate professor of descriptive
geometry (see also Section 8.1.2).
Klein’s second assistant in Göttingen, Ernst Ritter, began on October 1, 1893.
He is yet another example of how Klein integrated talented students into his field
of research (which was then the theory of automorphic functions) and supported
their careers. Ritter had completed his doctoral degree under Klein in 1891, after
which he began an internship as a secondary school teacher and continued to
collaborate with Klein. As early as April of 1893, Klein attempted to secure a
scholarship for him:
Besides my current assistant, Schilling, […] Dr. Ritter was my best student during the seven
years that I have now been in Göttingen. Whereas Schilling is more geometrically talented,
Ritter’s efforts lie in penetrating conceptual analysis; he thus represents a mathematical type
that I value especially highly as a complement to my own exclusively intuition-oriented ap-
proach. […] Despite our usual guidelines, I have been able to publish the entirety of his ex-
tensive dissertation in Mathematische Annalen on account of its special significance, and I
have repeatedly presented his further studies on the same subject to our Society. Now, be-
cause his time here is running out, I am about to lose this distinguished man. […] In this case,
please do not leave me in the lurch, but rather gratify me with a favorable decision.18

In his letter to Althoff, Klein also made a more general argument. He claimed that
it was in the interest of secondary schools “to keep younger people engaged in
science for longer periods of time” and that otherwise “poor” Göttingen would
hardly be able to remain “competitive” with Berlin. In Berlin, he added, there
were several institutes – such as the Imperial Institute of Physics and Technology
(Physikalisch-Technische Reichsanstalt), which had been founded in 1888 and
whose president was Hermann von Helmholtz – where university graduates could
pursue careers in science. Such opportunities did not exist in Göttingen. Because
this scholarship application for Ritter was unsuccessful, Klein requested instead
that Ritter should be made his next assistant.

16 See https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/PPN595921786. A second edition of this text

appeared in 1907, and this formed the basis of KLEIN/BLASCHKE 1926.
17 For his dissertation, see Friedrich Schilling, “Beiträge zur geometrischen Theorie der
Schwarz’schen s-Funktion,” Math. Ann. 44 (1894), pp. 161–260.
18 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1C: 2, p. 71 (a draft of a letter from Klein to Althoff, April 1893).
For Ritter’s doctoral thesis, see Ernst Ritter, “Die eindeutigen automorphen Formen vom
Geschlechte Null, eine Revision und Erweiterung der Poincaré’schen Sätze,” Math. Ann. 41
(1893), pp. 1–82.
388 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

In this latter application, Klein emphasized “that I hope to gain in him a colla-
borator who might be suitable for joining our teaching staff later.”19 Ritter tran-
scribed and edited Klein’s lecture courses of 1893/94 (hypergeometric functions)
and of the summer semester of 1894 (second-order linear differential equations).20
In addition, Ritter completed his Habilitation in the summer of 1894,21 and he
received a stipend to work as a Privatdozent in October of that year, so that the
assistant position became vacant again. With his doctoral dissertation, Habilita-
tion thesis, and other studies, Ritter contributed to the development of the theory
of automorphic functions. Klein also sought his advice concerning the monograph
on automorphic functions that he was preparing with Fricke. In the preface to the
first volume of this book, the authors praise Ritter for his “painstaking and in-
sightful investigations” and thank him for the “valuable preparation” that he pro-
vided for the organization of the second volume.22 Recommended by Klein, Ernst
Ritter was offered a professorship at Cornell University in 1895 (see Section
7.4.3). Shortly after arriving in the United States, however, he died of typhus in a
New York hospital. This was painful news for Klein; Ritter was one of the few
people for whom Klein himself wrote an obituary.23
On October 1, 1894, the assistant position was taken over by Arnold Sommer-
feld. He had earned his doctoral degree under Ferdinand Lindemann in Königs-
berg with a dissertation titled “Die willkürlichen Functionen in der mathema-
tischen Physik” [Arbitrary Functions in Mathematical Physics] (1891), and he had
worked as an assistant for the mineralogist Theodor Liebisch in Göttingen. Som-
merfeld, however, was more interested in mathematics and, while working for
Liebisch, he studied Klein’s lectures on the partial differential equations of phys-
ics in the reading room. Klein had already involved Sommerfeld (one of Klein’s
intellectual heirs via Lindemann) in his work even before he chose him as his as-
sistant. At Klein’s instigation, Sommerfeld presented the results of his dissertation
to the Göttingen Mathematical Society (on December 5, 1893); afterwards, as
Sommerfeld reported to his mother, Klein directed him as follows:
Next, I was asked to give a lecture again, this time on recent French works. Klein organizes
everything around him; he doesn’t have the time to read all these things, so he wants to hear a
lecture about them. He has very cleverly thought out a particular area of work for me. On the
basis of my previous lecture, he wants me to write a short article for Mathematische Annalen
as soon as possible.24

19 [UAG] Kur. 7554, fol. 10.

20 Klein published summaries of these lectures in Math. Ann., and these were reprinted in KLEIN
1922 (GMA II), pp. 578–97. See also Klein’s remarks in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), p. 741.
21 See Ernst Ritter, “Die multiplicativen Formen auf algebraischen Gebilden beliebigen Ge-
schlechtes mit Anwendung auf die Theorie der automorphen Formen,” Math. Ann. 44 (1894),
pp. 261–374; and “Die Stetigkeit der automorphen Functionen bei stetiger Abänderung des
Fundamentalbereiches,” Math. Ann. 45 (1894), pp. 473–544; 46 (1895), pp. 200–48.
22 FRICKE/KLEIN 2017 [1897], p. xxviii. See also FRICKE/KLEIN 2017 [1912], p. xxvii.
23 Felix Klein, “Ernst Ritter †,” Jahresbericht der DMV 4 (1897) I, pp. 52–54
24 Quoted from ECKERT 2013, p. 80 (Sommerfeld to his mother, January 5, 1894).
 7.1 Klein’s Assistants and His Principles for Choosing Them 389

Whereas Sommerfeld soon regarded his earlier work with Liebisch as a waste of
time, Klein appealed to him. Klein, as Sommerfeld told his parents, was “witty,
knowledgeable, open, and honest.”25 It was through his discussions with Klein
(even before he began as Klein’s assistant) that Sommerfeld discovered a topic for
his Habilitation thesis, and he presented his preliminary results to the Mathemati-
cal Society in August of 1894. Klein submitted some of these early findings (on
the integration of the partial differential equation Δu + k2u = 0 on a Riemann sur-
face) to the Göttingen Society of Sciences for publication in the Göttinger Nach-
richten.26 Sommerfeld completed his Habilitation in mathematics on March 11,
1895, while Klein was recovering his health in Montreux, Switzerland. That is,
Klein trusted that his assistant Sommerfeld would be able to manage his Habilita-
tion procedure without him. Klein also trusted Sommerfeld to oversee the renova-
tion of the mathematical reading room (on the third floor of the lecture building
[Auditorium]). This involved taking into account the expectation that the number
of people who used the room would grow considerably, and it did (in the summer
semester of 1895, it was used by approximately 35 people, and this number of
users would increase to around 245 by the summer of 1905).
In the case of Sommerfeld, Klein deviated from his “basic principle of keep-
ing the same assistant for no longer than one year.”27 Sommerfeld remained in this
position for two years. He prepared copies of Klein’s lecture courses on the theory
of the spinning top and on number theory.28 About Klein’s courses, Sommerfeld
later reported: “Painstakingly prepared, vividly presented, and a stylistically well-
rounded masterpiece – every ten minutes, he summarized his thoughts in a con-
cise form.”29 Although Sommerfeld also acknowledged that Klein could be a de-
manding taskmaster, he was nevertheless willing to sacrifice much of his free time
for Klein’s projects. In addition to the project on the spinning top (see Section
8.2.3), there was also the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (see Section 7.8) and the task of prepar-
ing an index for the first fifty volumes of Mathematische Annalen. For this latter
job, Sommerfeld was able to enlist the help of his wife Johanna, who was the
daughter of Ernst Höpfner, the newly appointed Kurator of the University of Göt-
tingen.30 Johanna Sommerfeld coined the telling term “Felix duty” (Felix-Dienst)
to describe all this work.31 While collaborating on Klein’s projects, Sommerfeld
transformed from a mathematician into a physicist: in 1897, he became a profes-
sor of mathematics at the Mining Academy in Clausthal; in 1900, he accepted a
new position as a professor of mechanics at the Technische Hochschule in

25 Quoted from ECKERT 2013, p. 72 (Sommerfeld to his parents, June 27, 1894).
26 See Arnold Sommerfeld, “Zur mathematischen Theorie der Beugungserscheinungen,” Göttin-
ger Nachrichten (1894), pp. 338–42.
27 [UAG] Kur. 7554, fol. 15.
28 This work on number theory was also supported by Klein’s student Philipp Furtwängler.
29 SOMMERFELD 1949, p. 289.
30 Höpfner took over this position on April 1, 1894.
31 See ECKERT 2013, p. 132.
390 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

Aachen; and in 1906, he was ultimately hired as a professor of theoretical physics

at the University of Munich.
The Greek mathematician Constantin Carathéodory, who would become
Klein’s successor in 1913, wrote the following about Klein’s assistants:
Most of Klein’s assistants, who in principle changed every year, have become respected and
eminent researchers. What was remarkable was the certainty with which Klein was able to
choose someone from among his students to serve in this trusted position. Even more remar-
kable, however, was Klein’s skill in getting the most out of these young men, each according
to the nature of his respective talents, and how in doing so he never impeded the development
of the personality in question but rather promoted it. This extremely high level of worldly
wisdom, which never failed in any of the cases known to me, is the key to understanding the
unique influence that Klein exerted on the teaching, cultivation, and further development of
mathematics in Germany.32

A few exceptions aside, Carathéodory’s assessment was correct. Among the

eighteen assistants whom Klein hired from October 1, 1896 to September 30,
1921,33 there were a few who held the position for more than one year: C.H. Mül-
ler, R. Schimmack, A. Timpe, Ludwig Föppl,34 E. Hellinger, and a few others
after the beginning of the First World War, when there was a shortage of available
personnel. This lack of suitable candidates was probably responsible for Klein’s
sole error in this regard: offering the position to Walther Graefe (see Section 9.2,
Table 10). In general, Klein’s view was as follows:
I choose the candidate who would most diligently and effectively fulfill the duties of being
my assistant. Completing a doctoral degree in mathematics is something that can only be ac-
complished by concentrating on a single topic. The duties associated with serving as my as-
sistant (a role which I always limit to a short time, usually one year) stand in contrast with
this goal: given the way that things are currently done at our university, such duties prevent
the candidate from working towards his doctorate. They promote the development of his ge-
neral intellectual personality but not his scientific qualifications in a special area of research.35

Klein supported the careers of his assistants, but his letters of recommendation
were not always panegyrics, as is evidenced from his evaluation of Moritz Weber.
Weber was enthusiastic about working with Klein,36 but Klein was critical of his
abilities. After completing his degree in architectural engineering at the Techni-
sche Hochschule in Hanover, Weber served as Klein’s assistant during the winter
semester of 1896/97, after which he worked on such projects as creating an elect-
ric streetcar system in Berlin and building the water supply system at the Char-
lottenburg train station. In 1901, when Weber was being considered for a profes-
sorship in mechanics, Klein wrote:

32 CARATHÉODORY 1925, p. 2.
33 For a list of Klein’s assistants, see KLEIN 1923 (GMA III) Appendix, p. 14.
34 Ludwig Föppl, who was August Föppl’s son, completed his doctorate under Hilbert in 1912.
35 [UAG] Kur. 7554, fol. 93 (a letter from Klein to the Kurator of the University of Göttingen
dated September 6, 1906), emphasis original.
36 Moritz Weber, “Felix Klein,” Zeitschrift des VDI 69 (1925), p. 1118.
 7.1 Klein’s Assistants and His Principles for Choosing Them 391

Moritz Weber is a very pleasant and reliable man whom I would like to support whenever
possible. I must say, however, that I do not consider him to be highly talented (despite or
perhaps precisely because of the fact that, in his day, he had passed his exams in Hanover
with such distinction). As my assistant, he had prepared my elementary lectures on integral
calculus and differential equations, which I was giving to second-semester and third-semester
students, for the reading room. He worked on this task with unbelievable diligence (4–5 hours
a day!) without, however, being able to describe the essence of simple mathematical ideas in
a clear and precise manner.

Klein proposed the following solution for hiring professors of mechanics:

I see only one way that will slowly lead to improvements in this state of affairs, and this is for
Technische Hochschulen to hire, when possible, professors of mechanics who are mathemati-
cians with an open mind and an interest in technology, and for universities to hire, from time
to time, engineers who are theoretically inclined.37

Moritz Weber was nevertheless hired as a professor of mechanics (by the Tech-
nische Hochschule in Hanover in 1904 and by the Technische Hochschule in Ber-
lin-Charlottenburg in 1913). Yet Klein’s hiring guidelines would be followed in
other cases. Examples include his former assistants Arnold Sommerfeld and Karl
Wieghardt (see Section 8.2.4), who were hired as university-trained mathematici-
ans by Technische Hochschulen, and the appointment of the engineer Ludwig
Prandtl as a professor at the University of Göttingen (see Section 8.1.2).
Felix Klein was not only the first, but also, for a long time, the only professor
of mathematics at a German university to have an assistant. At first, Hilbert only
had private assistants.38 In 1904, Hilbert received state funding to pay for a part-
time (50%) assistant, while the remaining funding was allotted to H. Minkowski
to cover half the costs of their common assistant at the time, Ernst Hellinger. Hel-
linger’s salary then was 600 Mark, but it was soon increased to 900 Mark. After
Hellinger had completed his doctoral studies under Hilbert’s supervision, he then
worked as Klein’s assistant from October 1, 1907 to March 31, 1909. This was a
better-paying position, but it was more demanding as well.39 Carl Runge, who
began working as a full professor of applied mathematics in Göttingen in 1904,
had to make do with a part-time assistant as well, as did the aforementioned asso-
ciate professor Friedrich Schilling. Only after holding a successful visiting profes-
sorship in New York (1909/10) did Runge apply for a full-time assistant, a request
that was finally granted in 1912 with annual funding of 1,500 Mark.40 Internation-
ally, too, the position of a mathematical assistant was still uncommon then at most
universities.41

37 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1D, fols. 7–8 (a letter from Klein to Otto Naumann at the Prussian
Ministry of Culture, June 26, 1901), emphasis original.
38 See BORN 1978, p. 89.
39 Regarding Klein’s reputation as a demanding employer, it was humorously reported that he
put his assistants “in fetters.” See TOBIES 2012, p. 77.
40 [UBG] Cod. MS. Hilbert 93, p. 5; and [UAG] Kur. 7554, fols. 112, 131, 151.
41 See SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2001, pp. 123, 158, 161.
392 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

7.2 THE GÖTTINGEN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY

The Göttingen Mathematical Society, which Klein established with Heinrich We-
ber in the fall of 1892, brought together the professors of mathematics, Privatdoz-
enten, assistants, and doctoral students for weekly lectures (at first usually on Sat-
urdays) with discussions about recent research results.42 During the winter semes-
ter of 1892/93, the registered members of this society included (in addition to
Klein and Weber): the full professor Ernst Schering, the Privatdozenten Heinrich
Burkhardt, Robert Fricke, and Arthur Schoenflies, and Friedrich Diestel, who had
completed his doctoral degree in 1890 under Schering with a dissertation on the
calculus of interpolations.43 Franz Meyer gave one lecture as a guest from the
Mining Academy in Clausthal (see Table 7).
Table 7: Lectures at the Göttingen Mathematical Society, 1892/93
Prof. Heinrich Weber:
1) On the Theory of Abelian Functions of Genus p = 3.
2) Notes on Elliptic Modular Equations and on Invariants of Binary Biquadratic Forms.
3) Number-Theoretical Investigations from the Field of Elliptic Functions.
Prof. Felix Klein:
1) On Number-Theoretical and Geometric Developments (Especially with Reference to Her-
mite and Selling) and on Lattice Theory.
2) On [Sophus] Lie’s Sphere Geometry and on the Geometric Developments Based on the
Transformation of Higher Spatial Elements.
Prof. Franz Meyer (Mining Academy Clausthal):
On the Discriminants of Singularity Equations.
Dr. Arthur Schoenflies:
1) Geometric Theory of Rectilinear Triangles.
2) A Report on Hilbert’s Invariant Theory.
Dr. Heinrich Burkhardt:
1) A Contribution to the Theory of Vector Functions.
2) A Report on Schottky’s Book Die Abel’schen Functionen vom Geschlechte 3 [Abelian
Functions of Genus 3].
Dr. Robert Fricke:
1) On Arithmetical and Group-Theoretical Developments in the Theory of Automorphic
Functions.
2) On Form-Theoretical Methods in the Theory of Modular Equations.

As of the summer semester of 1893, two senior teachers at the Göttingen Gymna-
sium, Eduard Götting and Otto Behrendsen, also registered as members of the
society, though they did not give any lectures themselves. Klein had an opportu-
nity to build a good relationship with these two when he organized his first conti-
nuing education course for secondary school teachers in 1892 (see Section 7.3).

42 [UBG] Math. Arch. 191, fols. 171–86; and [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 20H, 20L, 21B, 21G
(Mathematical Society, 1907–1911, Klein’s notes). As of 1901, reports on the lectures given
at these meetings appeared in the Jahresbericht der DMV under the section (Abt. 2)
“Mitteilungen und Nachrichten” [News and Notices].
43 Diestel later worked as a librarian in Göttingen and Hanover; see TOEPELL 1991, p. 84.
 7.2 The Göttingen Mathematical Society 393

They were to become important allies in Klein’s efforts to enact educational re-
form. Both were qualified to teach mathematics, physics, and the natural sciences,
Behrendsen since 1878 and Götting (who was ten years younger) since 1884.44
Götting had earned a doctoral degree in 1887 under H.A. Schwarz – his disserta-
tion was titled “Bestimmung einer speziellen Gruppe nicht-algebraischer Mini-
malflächen, welche eine Schar von reellen algebraischen Kurven enthalten” [De-
termining a Special Class of Non-Algebraic Minimal Surfaces that Contain a
Family of Real Algebraic Curves] – and he had also attended Klein’s lectures on
hyperelliptic functions (1887) and Riemann surfaces (1891/92).45
Additional members of the Society included Klein’s first assistants (Schilling,
Ritter, Sommerfeld) and advanced students from abroad, who also attended
Klein’s lectures and seminars (the American Bôcher; the Hungarian Emanuel
[Manó] Beke; Alfred Loewy, who had been born in Rawicz near Poznań;46 Gino
Fano from Italy; Poul Heegaard from Denmark; Charles Jaccottet from Switzer-
land; and the Ukrainian Vladimir P. Alekseyevsky).47 There were other partici-
pants as well: Friedrich von Dalwigk, a doctoral student of Heinrich Weber who
worked for some time as Walther Dyck’s assistant at the Technische Hochschule
in Munich; and Eduard von Weber, who in 1893 completed his doctoral degree
under Dyck with a dissertation on the theory of differential equations.48
By the summer semester of 1895 – when Hilbert arrived – the society had
thirteen members, including Georg Bohlmann, whom Klein had recommended to
complete his Habilitation at the University of Göttingen in 1894 and to teach ac-
tuarial mathematics (see Section 7.6). By the summer of 1899, there were twenty-
eight registered members, now including Klein’s first female doctoral student
Grace Chisholm Young and Hilbert’s first female doctoral student Lucy Bos-
worth. The circle continued to expand.
Within this loose organization, which did not have any official statutes, Klein
was able to have scientific discussions together with his fellow teachers in Göttin-
gen, something which he had earlier tried to achieve in vain. He also used the so-
ciety as a venue in which to coordinate common objectives and projects. A few of
the aspects of Klein’s activity in this organization will now be described.
First, Klein’s own lectures document his interests at the time: his turn toward
number theory in 1892/93 (see Sections 6.3.4 and 8.2.2), his further analysis of
Sophus Lie’s works, the results from his research seminars, and his ideas on a
broad spectrum of mathematical applications (see Section 8.2.4). Klein also used
this forum to discuss psychology (see Section 8.3.3) and mathematical education
(see Section 9.3.2).

44 [BBF] Personalbögen [Personnel Files].

45 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7E.
46 Loewy continued his studies in 1894 and 1895 with Klein after he had completed his doctoral
degree under Lindemann in Munich.
47 See V.P. Alekseyevsky, “On the Reciprocity Law of Prime Numbers” [in Russian], Proceed-
ings of the Kharkov Mathematical Society 6/2 (1898), pp. 200–02.
48 See HASHAGEN 2003, p. 247.
394 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

Figure 31: The Göttingen Mathematical Society, 1902

([UBG] Cod. MS. K. Schwarzschild 23:1).

Second, Klein presided over meetings, prepared reports on scientific activities at

the beginning of every semester, announced changes in the teaching corps at the
university, and discussed the latest scholarly literature. In the meeting held on July
7, 1908, for instance, he drew attention to the “dissertation by Miss [Emmy]
Noether,” which had been published in Crelle’s Journal.49 At the beginning of
each semester, Klein asked: “Which topics should we discuss?” He stimulated
numerous debates: in 1905, on Poincaré’s work (see Section 10.1); in 1908, on the
“problem of flying”; in 1911, on the “relativity principle” (see Section 8.2.4); in
1918, on “Einstein’s theory” (see Section 9.2.2). Max Born was not the only
participant to remark that presenters had to be prepared for critical comments.50
Third, Klein promoted younger mathematicians by inviting them to give pres-
entations. Beneficiaries of this encouragement included Burkhardt, Fricke, and

49 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 20H, fol. 28. – See TOBIES 2006, p. 247; TOBIES/KOREUBER 2002.
50 See BORN 1978 [1975], p. 104.
 7.2 The Göttingen Mathematical Society 395

Sommerfeld. Tellingly, the Danish student Poul Heegaard reported that he had
been left uninspired by a trip to Paris (Zeuthen had sent him there), but that he
was subsequently greatly encouraged by Klein. Heegaard attended Klein’s lec-
tures in the summer semester of 1894 (differential equations, elementary geome-
try), and he gave his first presentation in the context of Klein’s research seminar,
reviewing works by Maxwell and Sylvester on spherical functions.51 Klein invited
him to give lectures at meetings of the Göttingen Mathematical Society, and Klein
ultimately led Heegaard to his dissertation topic:
Klein had me give two lectures in the “Mathematische Gesellschaft” with a summary of
Zeuthen’s work on enumerative geometry. He also discussed with me the idea that would la-
ter form the basis for my dissertation. Altogether, there was a scientific atmosphere which
stimulated me very much – stronger than anything I have ever met again.52

Heegard’s doctoral thesis, which he defended in Copenhagen in 1898, turned out

to be an important contribution to modern knot theory.53
Fourth, the Society proved to be an excellent venue for guest lectures. The
first guest speaker was Klein’s “student” Franz Meyer from the Mining Academy
in Clausthal, which was about 60 km away from Göttingen (see Table 7 and Sec-
tion 4.2.4.2). Meyer proposed the idea of writing a joint book with Klein – “The
Spirit of Modern Geometry, by F. Klein and F. Meyer”54 – and this in fact became
the inspiration behind the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project (see Section 7.8).
For special guests, Klein organized ceremonial meetings (Festsitzungen); thus
Klein’s assistant Sommerfeld wrote in the society’s minutes book on June 10,
1895: “Festsitzung in honor of [Henri] Poincaré’s presence in Göttingen.”55 Du-
ring this event, Klein commented in his introductory remarks on the successful
Göttingen meeting of the teachers’ association (see Section 7.3). Next spoke Poin-
caré – “Über den Existenzbeweis des räumlichen regulären Potentials, wenn die
Werte des Potentials auf einer Fläche S vorgeschrieben sind” [On the Existence
Proof of a Regular Spatial Potential when the Values of the Potential on a Surface
S are Prescribed] – and the recently appointed David Hilbert: “Die Grundzüge der
Diskriminante des Galois’schen Zahlkörpers” [Fundamentals of the Discriminant
of the Galois Number Field].
Klein planned additional ceremonial meetings (and speaking opportunities for
himself) when eminent researchers spent time in Göttingen. The latter included
the Dutch physicist H.A. Lorentz (Nobel Prize, 1902), who gave a series of lec-
tures in October of 1910 in Göttingen that was funded by the aforementioned
Wolfskehl Foundation (see 6.5.2). While the Nobel laureate Albert A. Michelson
was spending a semester as a guest professor in Göttingen as part of a German-

51 [Protocols] vol. 12, pp. 1–4 (Heegaard’s presentation took place on May 1, 1894).
52 Quoted from http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Heegaard.html. Later,
Heegaard would also contribute to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (see DEHN/HEEGAARD 1907).
53 See EPPLE 1999.
54 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 1245 (a letter from F. Meyer to Klein dated May 31, 1893).
55 [UBG] Math. Arch. 79: 1 (see also ECKERT 2013, p. 99).
396 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

American exchange program, Klein organized a session of the Mathematical So-

ciety for May 2, 1911, as well as more casual gatherings: “This evening: Michel-
son at the Rohns Tavern” (August 1, 1911). Albert Einstein (see Section 9.2.2)
and other renowned scholars were also welcomed as guest speakers by the
Society.
The minutes from the sessions reveal that Klein himself formally introduced
many of the special guests. Among these were David Eugene Smith from the
United States (on July 7, 1908) and Nadezhda N. Gernet from Russia (on July 21,
1908; August 9, 1909; and July 26, 1910). Smith was one of the translators of
Klein’s book Famous Problems of Elementary Mathematics (see Section 7.3), and
he became his close collaborator on the International Commission on Mathemati-
cal Instruction (ICMI; see Section 8.3.4). Gernet became a Dozent in St. Peters-
burg after she had attended Klein’s lecture course on function theory (1898/99),
gave a lecture in his research seminar,56 and completed her doctoral studies under
Hilbert (1901).57 She was a member of the German Mathematical Society.
Fifth, beginning in the fall of 1895, this form of organization, which Klein
had initiated, was carried on by Heinrich Weber at the University of Straßburg (as
of 1918/19 Université de Strasbourg). There, Weber and Adolf Krazer formed a
mathematical society “based on the Göttingen model,” as Weber informed
Klein.58 This tradition is still alive at German mathematical institutes today.
Even as a professor emeritus, Klein was still recognized as the driving force
behind the Göttingen Mathematical Society, as is clear from a speech that Hilbert
gave in 1918 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Klein’s doctoral degree:
Indeed, we have the good fortune of having the best part of you, namely your entire personal-
ity. You are our society’s founder, chairman, intellectual heart, and main source of energy.
We have also had the good fortune of seeing your scientific work emerge and reach maturity.
[…] The welfare of mathematics depends – unfortunately – not only on its scientific advan-
cement but also and essentially on the non-scientific activity of its representatives. […] In this
respect, you have now rendered services to mathematics such as no mathematician in Ger-
many has ever done before, and you have brought mathematics to prominence by the splendor
of your name and your personal prestige. As far as the Mathematical Society is concerned, I
would like to thank you today and urgently ask you to wield your influence wherever it may
benefit mathematics.59

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, a number of students considered

Klein to be an “unapproachably great scholar” (unnahbar grossen Gelehrten), and
they referred to him as “Felix Augustus.”60

56 [Protocols] vol. 15, pp. 113–31.

57 See TOBIES 1999b; ABELE/NEUNZERT/TOBIES 2004, pp. 139–40.
58 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 12: 210 (a letter from Weber to Klein, June 13, 1895).
59 [UBG] Cod. MS. Hilbert 575: No. 2 (Hilbert’s notes, dated December 12, 1918).
60 See LIETZMANN 1925, p. 257. The reference is to the first Roman emperor.
 7.3 Turning to Secondary School Teachers 397

7.3 TURNING TO SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS

It was an international trend at the time for teachers at secondary schools to form
associations in order to promote their interests. In England, an Association for the
Improvement of Geometrical Teaching had existed since 1871 (it was renamed the
Mathematical Association in 1894). Later, Mathesis was formed in Italy (1901),
the Association of Teachers of Mathematics (Vereinigung der Mathematiklehrer)
in Switzerland (1902), the Association of Teachers of Mathematics in New Eng-
land (1903), etc. The German organization was created in 1890: the Association
for the Promotion of Mathematical and Natural-Scientific Instruction (Verein zur
Förderung des mathematischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Unterrichts).61 Its
members strove for an equal position to that of their colleagues teaching philo-
logical-historical subjects and for a practical and up-to-date curriculum.
Early on, Klein had expressed his interest in the development of secondary
education (see Section 3.2). To bring new findings into schools, he organized the
first mathematical teacher continuing education course (Fortbildungskurs) to take
place in October of 1892 during the fall break in Göttingen. He modeled it along
the lines of similar courses in natural-scientific subjects that had already taken
place in 1890 in Berlin and Frankfurt am Main. Klein’s course in 1892 was fo-
cused on “models and the theory of the top.” The interest in models does not need
to be explained. The inclusion of the theory of the spinning top as material for
further education can be explained by the fact that Klein had become aware, while
in Paris in 1887, of Darboux’s edition of Théodore Despeyroux’s Cours de Mé-
canique (1884). Klein had used this book in his first seminar on top theory (1887)
and now, in view of his contacts with teachers and engineers, he returned to this
subject to examine a practical topic in more detail.
In agreement with the Ministry, the mathematical and scientific training cour-
ses for secondary school teachers were held every two years. The fact that Klein
decided to spend some time in the teachers’ classrooms shows how intensively he
prepared himself. He did this in March of 1893 in Hanover, with ministerial ap-
proval. As he informed Robert Fricke, Klein learned that, in a continuing educa-
tion course, it would be best to present only those things “which are of direct im-
portance to secondary school teachers (and yet lie outside the scope of their
school lessons).” Klein explained: “The motion of spinning tops, now the trans-
cendence of π, later the basic concepts of geometry, especially parallel theory and
the model collection,” and he stressed: “For teachers, a course on the axioms of
geometry has more direct educational value than one on algebraic curves, and a
course on probability theory has more than one on determinants.”62
In the second continuing education course in Göttingen, which took place
during the Easter vacation in 1894, Klein lectured on “select questions of ele-
mentary geometry.” The focus was on the famous three classical geometric prob-

61 For further discussion of Klein’s role in this association, see TOBIES 2000.
62 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from Klein to Fricke dated May 10, 1894.
398 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

lems that cannot be solved with a compass and a straight edge alone: the duplica-
tion of the cube; the trisection of an arbitrary angle; and the quadrature of the cir-
cle, which is not possible on account of the transcendence of π. Klein presented
historical results on these topics as well as the latest research approaches.
Later, in the spring of 1894, Klein traveled to Wiesbaden to attend the confer-
ence of the teachers’ Association for the Promotion of Mathematical and Natural-
Scientific Instruction. There he gave a report on his continuing education courses
and, in coordination with the teachers Otto Behrendsen and Eduard Götting –
whom he had already integrated into the Göttingen Mathematical Society (see 7.2)
– he successfully arranged for the association’s next annual meeting to be held in
Göttingen (June 3–6, 1895). Klein participated on the planning committee and in
large part determined the conference’s program, for which he planned to give a
plenary lecture and to prepare a commemorative text (Festschrift).63
This Festschrift, a small book – Vorträge über ausgewählte Fragen der Ele-
mentargeometrie (66 pages), which was given the English title Famous Problems
of Elementary Geometry – received rapidly international recognition. The way it
came about is interesting because it demonstrates Klein’s great skill at cooperative
management. A senior teacher named Friedrich Tägert had participated in Klein’s
continuing education course in early 1894, and even at that early stage he an-
nounced that he would be willing to edit the work. In preparation for this, Klein
gave a lecture course on the topic during the summer semester of 1894 and asked
the participants in the course to produce transcripts of its content. Klein sent these
transcripts to Tägert in Bad Ems (Hesse-Nassau).64 Hurwitz later discovered that
the proof of the transcendence of π which Klein had presented in this work (using
Lindemann’s approach from 1882) was incomplete.65 Nevertheless, the topic at-
tracted a great deal of interest. In his preface, Klein emphasized:
The more precise definitions and more rigorous methods of demonstrations developed by
modern mathematics are looked upon by the mass of gymnasium professors as abstruse and
excessively abstract, and accordingly as of importance only for the small circle of specialists.
With a view to counteracting this tendency it gave me pleasure to set forth last summer in a
brief course of lectures before a larger audience than usual what modern science has to say
regarding the possibility of elementary geometric constructions.66

The comment here about “a larger audience than usual” is a bit of an exaggera-
tion, for this lecture course had consisted of just fourteen people – most of them

63 KLEIN 1895b. In English translation: KLEIN 1897 [1895].

64 Friedrich Tägert was qualified to teach mathematics, physics, chemistry, minerology, botany,
and zoology ([BBF] Personnel Files).
65 Hurwitz notified him “that your proof according to Gordan in the lectures edited by Tägert is
not fully complete,” and he explained the details in [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1131 (Hur-
witz to Klein, Jan. 3, 1896). Klein reacted: “Your remark concerning π terrified me, and right
now I don’t have the time to think through the details again.” [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 262
(Klein to Hurwitz, Jan. 26, 1896). There were other, more elegant proofs by then.
66 Klein 1897 [1895], p. iv.
 7.3 Turning to Secondary School Teachers 399

from abroad, and two of them women.67 They clearly grasped the importance of
making mathematics accessible at the secondary school level. One of the women
involved was Klein’s British doctoral student Grace Chisholm, who already here
internalized the idea that it would be valuable to produce books for elementary
instruction (see also Section 5.6). Another participant was the Italian Gino Fano,
who had translated Klein’s Erlangen Program and had already begun, in 1894, to
propagate Klein’s pedagogical ideas in Italy.68 Likewise in Italy, Federigo Enri-
ques was inspired by Klein’s small book to write a series of monographs on ele-
mentary geometry in collaboration with his friends and followers.69 The afore-
mentioned Poul Heegaard (see 7.2) was also in attendance; while later working in
Denmark and Norway, he became actively involved in international educational
reforms.70 The American Charles A. Noble would return to Germany in 1926 to
analyze the Prussian school system and specifically explain mathematics instruc-
tion for American teachers (see 9.3.2). A few years later, he translated (with Earle
Raymond Hedrick) the first two volumes of Klein’s Elementary Mathematics
from an Advanced Standpoint, though the numerous shortcomings of their work
would necessitate the production of a new translation.71 Another participant, Wil-
helm Lorey, was also a firm supporter of Klein’s pedagogical projects.72
Klein’s Festschrift was soon translated into Italian (1896), French (1896),
English (1897), and Japanese (1897). The Italian translation was instigated by
Gino Loria. The impetus behind the French translation was a letter to Klein from
Jean Griess, a graduate of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and a teacher at
a Lycée in Algiers. He requested Klein’s permission to translate the book because
he was “delighted by its content and clarity.”73 In coordination with Klein, Griess
modified certain sections of the text for French readers. This French version
served as the basis for the English translation, which was undertaken by Wooster
W. Beman and David Eugene Smith.74 Its Japanese translator, Tsuruichi Hayashi,
was regarded in his homeland as “the Felix Klein of Japan.”75 Loria, Beman,
Smith, and Hayashi also became members of the German Mathematical Society.

67 The attendees were C.A. Noble, V. Snyder, W. Lorey, G. Fano, J. Wigger, C. Jaccottet, P.
Heegaard, G.F. Metzler, J. Ehlers, L. Schütz, Miss G. Chisholm, Miss M.F. Winston, G.A.
Campbell, and H. Siedentopf. [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7E.
68 See COEN 2012, pp. 210–45, esp. p. 214; and GIACARDI 2013.
69 See Livia Giacardi’s article in COEN 2012, esp. p. 225.
70 See https://www.icmihistory.unito.it/portrait/heegaard.php.
71 As G. Schubring explains in the new edition – Elementary Mathematics from a Higher Stand-
point (KLEIN 2016; see the preface to vol. 1) – even the title of the original translation (…
from an Advanced Standpoint) is somewhat misleading. Both Noble and Hedrick completed
their doctorates under Hilbert in 1901; their dissertations concerned the Dirichlet principle.
72 See LOREY 1916.
73 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 499D–E (a letter from Griess to Klein dated July 30, 1895).
74 Beman took part in the Mathematical Congress in Chicago in 1893; see MOORE et al. 1896, p.
ix; KLEIN 1894, p. vii; and also Section 7.4. Regarding D.E. Smith, see also Section 8.3.4.
75 See OGURA 1956, pp. 145–47. Hayashi founded the Tōhoku Mathematical Journal, and he
cofounded a mathematical institute on the basis of the Göttingen model together with M.
400 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

Klein’s activity in this field led to him being made a member of the advisory
board (comité de patronage) of the first international journal for mathematical
instruction: L’enseignement mathématique, founded in 1899 (see Section 8.3.4).
Back to the meeting of the teachers’ association in Göttingen in June of 1895.
Klein’s plenary lecture was entitled “On Mathematical Instruction at the Univer-
sity of Göttingen, Especially in Light of the Needs of Teaching Candidates.”
Klein used this speech to underscore the benefits of studying in Göttingen. He
spoke highly of the working conditions there, the curriculum, and the collabora-
tive spirit of the faculty. He also stressed that the following things should be
achieved when training future teachers: “1) A uniform foundation in elementary
matters […]; 2) A scientific concentration in one specific field […]; 3) An over-
view of the importance of higher mathematics to secondary education.”76 Klein
referred to the effort in Southern Germany, which had been ongoing for twenty-
five years, to organize secondary education in a more intuitive way. In order to
promote a similar undertaking in Prussia, he sent his report and his inaugural
address from Leipzig, which had meanwhile been published,77 to Robert Bosse,
who was then the Prussian Minister of Culture in Berlin.78
Following Klein’s suggestion, the Association for the Promotion of Mathe-
matical and Natural-Scientific Instruction chose as the theme of its 1896 confe-
rence “the relation of mathematical instruction to the training of engineers,” which
was then a widely discussed topic (see Section 7.7). In 1898, in fact, such discus-
sions led to new examination regulations for teaching candidates (see Section
8.1.2). As of 1900, and in connection with these regulations, Klein focused the
continuing education courses more strongly on the applications of mathematics.
The lectures that were given in these courses in 1900 and 1904 were edited by
Klein and the physicist Eduard Riecke as books.79 In the year 1909, Klein also
initiated the first continuing education course for mathematics teachers at the
newly established secondary schools for girls (see Section 8.3.4.1).
Klein’s cooperation with the Association for the Promotion of Mathematical
and Natural-Scientific Instruction turned out to be an influential factor in the edu-
cational reform that would be implemented, even though the organization’s long-
standing chairman, Friedrich Pietzker (who died in 1916), opposed Klein’s wish
for differential and integral calculus to be taught at secondary schools (see Section
8.3.4.1). On April 25, 1917, Klein was named an honorary member of this associ-
ation. Not until 1924 was differential and integral calculus made a component of
the Prussian curriculum, a cause for which Klein was still an active proponent at
the time (see Section 9.3.2).

Fujiwara, who attended Klein’s courses in 1909/10. See also KÜMMERLE 2018, KÜMMERLE
2021, and DAUBEN/SCRIBA 2002, pp. 289–95, 430–31, 440.
76 His report was published in the Zeitschrift für mathematische und naturwissenschaftlichen
Unterricht 26/5 (1895), pp. 3–8 (quoted here from p. 7).
77 KLEIN 1895a.
78 [UAG] Kur. 5956, fols. 77–90.
79 See KLEIN/RIECKE 1900, and KLEIN/RIECKE 1904.
 7.4 A Trip to the United States 401

7.4 A TRIP TO THE UNITED STATES

In 1883, Klein had turned down the opportunity to become Sylvester’s successor
at Johns Hopkins University (see Section 5.8.1), and in 1889 he had to decline an
offer to teach as a visiting professor at Clark University in Massachusetts (see
Section 6.3.7.1). In 1884, three of Klein’s students – Dyck, Lindemann, and
Wedekind – had tested out this foreign terrain.80 Finally, in 1893, the possibility
presented itself for Klein to travel to the United States, on an official basis, to at-
tend the World’s Fair in Chicago. With 3,000 Mark of funding from the Prussian
Ministry, he was chosen to serve as one of two “commissioners” (Kommissare)
tasked with “touring and reporting on the exhibition.”81
The state’s reoriented approach to policy would turn out to be a resource for
Klein’s scientific goals. Under Wilhelm II, who had been the German Emperor
and King of Prussia since 1888, the government’s cultural and educational poli-
cies became more closely attuned to developments abroad. Like Hermann von
Helmholtz, Alois Riedler, and others, Klein was enlisted to present the results of
German research in the New World. As early as January of 1893, Klein completed
an article on mathematics to be included in a book titled Die deutschen Universi-
täten, which was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture (and edited by his
Göttingen colleague Wilhelm Lexis) for the sake of being presented in Chicago.82
Klein was obviously emulating the preferred rhetoric of the day when, in ret-
rospect, he would speak of America as the “greatest possible and most fortunate
object of scientific colonization.” However, he was aware that Germany and the
United States could mutually benefit from one another, as is clear when he wrote
of “influencing the mathematical life of American universities increasingly from
our side – certainly not to the detriment of our own effectiveness and vigor.”83
Klein’s former students in Chicago were eager for him to come. By placing
him in the center of attention and by publishing his contributions, they increased
his international stature even more. By observing the developments there with
open eyes, Klein himself was able to adopt new ideas.

7.4.1 The World’s Fair in Chicago and the Mathematical Congress

In Chicago, the World’s Fair was held from May 1 to October 30, 1893 to ce-
lebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s arrival in the
New World in 1492 (the event was therefore called the World’s Columbian Expo-

80 [Lindemann] Memoirs, pp. 95–103; and HASHAGEN 2003, pp. 179–87.

81 Friedrich Schmidt (since 1920 Schmidt-Ott), an official at the Prussian Ministry of Culture,
asked Klein whether he would like to accept this position. [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 721
(a letter to Klein dated January 13, 1893).
82 See KLEIN 1893.
83 SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 1997b, p. 246 (a draft of Klein’s report to Althoff, October 11, 1893).
402 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

sition). This was the first World’s Fair to include an (international) exhibition on
all areas of education.84 Friedrich Schmidt (later named Schmidt-Ott), an official
at the Prussian Ministry of Culture, had been placed in charge of creating an exhi-
bit showcasing German education there. He soon sought the advice of Felix Klein,
whom he had already learned to appreciate while sitting in for the ailing Kurator
of the University of Göttingen from March to May in 1892.85 Together, Schmidt
and Klein developed the idea that the German exhibit in Chicago should have a
special focus on mathematics.
Klein was largely able to delegate to others the organizational preparation
leading up to the event. For an earlier exhibition in Munich, Walther Dyck had
already created a catalog of mathematical models and instruments, and now he
was (reliably but less enthusiastically) willing to come up with a new catalog con-
cept for Chicago. For this, Dyck compiled representative excerpts from nearly all
of German mathematical scholarship: textbooks, journal series, collected works,
dissertations, and Habilitation theses.86 Wanting to emphasize both mathematics
and its applications, Klein also initiated a Gauß-Weber exhibit with a presentation
on their telegraph, among other things. Heinrich Maschke and Oskar Bolza, who
were both professors at the recently established University of Chicago, fulfilled
Klein’s wish of keeping all the materials in order on site.
Klein focused mainly on preparing for the “International Mathematical Con-
gress held in connection with the World’s Columbian Exposition,” which was be-
ing planned by E. Hastings Moore, Oskar Bolza, Heinrich Maschke, and Henry S.
White. In May of 1893, while still recovering his health, Klein wrote personally
on behalf of the Ministry to potential authors, asking if they would produce writ-
ten contributions for Chicago, i.e., “short reports on recent and the latest devel-
opments in a given branch of mathematics,” which might attract particular interest
in the United States.87 Thus, besides congress contributions by American authors,
papers came from France (Ch. Hermite, É. Lemoine, M. d’Ocagne), Italy (A.
Capelli, S. Pincherle), Russia (I.M. Pervushin from Kazan), Austria (M. Lerch,
Eduard Weyr), and Germany. In addition to contributing himself, Klein had re-
cruited sixteen German authors (Burkhardt, Dyck, Fricke, Heffter, Hilbert, Hur-
witz, Krause, F. Meyer, Minkowski, Netto, M. Noether, Pringsheim, V. Schlegel,
Schoenflies, E. Study, and H. Weber), who together made up a large percentage of
the thirty-nine total authors represented in the Mathematical Papers Read at the
International Mathematical Congress.88 However, only four foreigners partici-
pated in the congress in person: Klein, Eduard Study (who was there seeking a
position; see Section 5.4.1), the Austrian astronomer Norbert Herz, and the Italian
mathematician Bernardo Paladini. Neither Herz nor Paladini presented a paper.

84 See WERMUTH 1894, p. 969.

85 See SCHMIDT-OTT 1952, p. 26. Regarding Schmidt-Ott, see also Section 9.4.1.
86 DYCK 1892; DYCK 1893. See also HASHAGEN 2003, pp. 425–28.
87 Quoted from FREI 1985, pp. 88–89 (a letter from Klein to Hilbert, May 19, 1893).
88 MOORE et al. 1896.
 7.4 A Trip to the United States 403

When Klein boarded the Lahn, a ship operated by Norddeutscher Lloyd,89 in

Bremen on August 8, 1893, he had numerous manuscripts by his colleagues in his
luggage. He reached New York on August 17th and arrived in Chicago one day
later.90 Here, the International Mathematical Congress took place from the 21st to
the 26th of August, and Klein was regaled as the “Imperial Commissioner” of the
German government. He gave one of the opening addresses as well as the conclu-
ding presentation. On the second day, Klein was given the title of Honorary Presi-
dent and he was made a member of the Executive Committee. This allowed him
to influence the further course of the conference, which involved the presentation
of papers in person or in absentia.91 Moreover, on three afternoons (Tuesday,
Wednesday, Friday), Klein was able to discuss and answer questions about the
materials in the exhibit on German education. In the closing session, he was than-
ked “for his very valuable contributions to the proceedings of the Congress and
for his interesting expositions of the mathematical material in the German Univer-
sity Exhibit at the Exposition.”92 The official German report, too, emphasized
Klein’s enthusiastic commitment: “His demonstrations and lectures gave the
mathematical exhibition real life. It was astonishing how many visitors were eager
to see and study this part in detail.”93
The talks that Klein gave at the congress are noteworthy because they intro-
duced so many visionary ideas to a new audience. In his opening address – “The
Present State of Mathematics” – he commented on the stronger tendency of the
time to unify branches of mathematics that had previously grown apart.94 He no-
ted that this unifying trend was made possible by the general concepts of the
function and the group, and he referred to the emergence of new sub-disciplines
such as geometric number theory. He added that this same tendency also extended
to the applications of mathematics, and in this regard he cited the examples of
Schoenflies’s results in the field of crystallography, which were based on group
theory (see Section 6.3.7.2), and Burkhardt’s results on the relations between
astronomical problems and the theory of linear differential equations. Klein built a
bridge between German and American mathematical achievements, and he pro-
claimed that mathematics was a global enterprise. He compared the tendency in
Göttingen to “return to the general Gaussian programme,” to projects initiated by
the German Mathematical Society, and to the unifying efforts in France that had
been instigated “by the powerful influence of Poincaré.” In order for his global
vision to be achieved, Klein recommended that mathematicians should join to-
gether to form “international unions.”

89 This shipping company became a paying member (28,000 Mark in all) of the Göttingen
Association for the Promotion of Applied Physics and Mathematics (see Section 8.1.1).
90 Klein’s comments in JACOBS 1977 (“Personalia”), p. 6; and KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 613.
91 For an overview of the conference program, see PARSHALL/ROWE 1994, pp. 328–30.
92 MOORE et al. 1896, p. xii.
93 WERMUTH 1894, p. 989.
94 MOORE et al. 1896, pp. 133–35; reprinted in KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 613–15.
404 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

In his final talk, which was on the development of group theory over the pre-
vious twenty years, Klein commented yet again on the need for mathematics to
take a practical turn: “For there is no question that, for the ongoing development
of our culture, more and more of such men will be needed who are in full com-
mand of the scientific premises both on the technical side and on the mathemati-
cal-physical side.”95 This would serve as Klein’s program throughout his remai-
ning years in Göttingen.

7.4.2 Twelve Lectures by Klein: The Evanston Colloquium

Even before his trip to the United States, Klein had made arrangements with
Henry Seely White to give an additional series of lectures while he was there.
These lectures were published in 1894 as Lectures on Mathematics: The Evanston
Colloquium.96 After completing his doctoral studies under Klein in Göttingen with
a dissertation on Abelian integrals (1891), White was hired as an assistant profes-
sor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. While in Evanston, Klein
stayed at White’s home, and his lecture series took place from August 24 to Sep-
tember 9, 1893. Three aspects of this event are noteworthy here.
First, for two straight weeks – Monday to Saturday – Klein gave a lecture
every day in English from 9 to 11 o’clock in the morning. The twenty-four people
in attendance included, in addition to White, Oskar Bolza, Fabian Franklin, Hein-
rich Maschke, James E. Oliver,97 Eduard Study, Harry W. Tyler, and Edward Burr
Van Vleck. The only woman in the audience was Mary F. Winston, who would
become Klein’s doctoral student (see Section 7.5). Another participant in the col-
loquium, Edwin M. Blake, came to Göttingen in 1896 and attended Klein’s cour-
ses on technical mechanics and number theory.98 The mathematician Alexander
Ziwet, born in Breslau (Prussia; now Wrocław, Poland), who was then a professor
at the University of Michigan, edited Klein’s lectures in Evanston and discussed
his work on them with Klein in the evenings after they were given.
Second, these lectures were meant to provide basic overviews of various sub-
jects, and they did not go into great detail. Klein discussed the developments of
mathematics that he himself had experienced and partially determined. He used
the occasion to emphasize, classify, and set apart his own research and that of his
students, and to underscore his research methods. In his first lecture (“Clebsch”),
he used his teacher as an important point of departure and then distanced himself
from the Clebsch-Gordan approach to invariant theory, for he had Hilbert’s new
approach in mind (see Section 6.3.7.3). Klein’s second and third lectures were
both titled “Sophus Lie,” and here he elucidated Lie’s early work in order to draw

95 MOORE et al. 1896, p. 136.

96 KLEIN 1894a. – See also PARSHALL/ROWE 1994, pp. 333–54.
97 On the relationship between Klein and James E. Oliver, see COCHELL 1998.
98 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7E.
 7.4 A Trip to the United States 405

a connection to his own work and that of his students, all the way up to Bôcher’s.
The fourth lecture was “On the Real Shape of Algebraic Curves and Surfaces,”
and on this topic he stressed not only earlier results but also Hilbert’s new appro-
ach to algebraic geometry.99 The focus of the fifth lecture, “Theory of Functions
and Geometry,” was the hypergeometric function and its applications in astro-
nomy and mathematical physics. In his sixth lecture, “On the Mathematical Char-
acter of Space-Intuition, and the Relation of Pure Mathematics to the Applied Sci-
ences,” Klein expressed his vision for approaching research in a particular way.100
Years later, he still considered the vision outlined here to be relevant, for this was
the only lecture from the Evanston Colloquium that he chose to reprint in his col-
lected works. In the seventh lecture, he recommended that the proofs of the tran-
scendence of the numbers e and π should become common knowledge, and he
would make the same case not long thereafter in his continuing education courses
for secondary school teachers in Germany (see Section 7.3). Klein used his eighth
lecture, “Ideal Numbers,” to discuss the ideas of Kummer, Kronecker, and Dede-
kind and to highlight his own approach to geometric number theory (see Section
8.1.2). In his ninth, tenth, and eleventh lectures – “The Solution of Higher Alge-
braic Equations,” “On Some Recent Advance in Hyperelliptic and Abelian Func-
tions,” and “The Most Recent Research in Non-Euclidean Geometry,” respec-
tively – he also concentrated on his own fields of research. In this latter lecture on
non-Euclidean geometry, he discussed Sophus Lie’s latest work and its relation to
Helmholtz at greater length than he had done in his own lectures in Göttingen du-
ring 1889/90 and in his 1890 article in the Annalen. At that time, Klein was un-
aware of comments that Lie would make in the third volume of his book on trans-
formation groups, which was published in the fall of 1893 (see Section 6.3.6). In
his final, twelfth lecture – “The Study of Mathematics at Göttingen” – Klein
explained the systematic approach to teaching that had been implemented at his
home institution. He remarked that his own lectures often have “an encyclopedic
character, conformable to the general tendency of my programme,” and that he
regarded his students “not merely as hearers or pupils, but as collaborators.” He
thus stated that he would be pleased to welcome more American students in Göt-
tingen so long as they were sufficiently prepared to take an active part in his own
research initiatives.
Third, around seventeen years later, William F. Osgood, who had not attended
Klein’s Evanston Colloquium, still considered these lectures to be useful for in-
troducing young students to mathematics. For this reason, he persuaded the Ame-
rican Mathematical Society to republish the book in 1911. In his preface, he
asked: “What is important in the development of mathematics?” Responding to
his own question, Osgood referred to Klein’s instinct “for that which is vital to
mathematics,” and he stressed that “the light with which his treatment illumines

99 In particular, he cited Hilbert’s article “Ueber die reellen Züge algebraischer Curven,” Math.
Ann. 39 (1891), pp. 115–38. See KLEIN 1894a, p. 28.
100 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 225–31. See also Section 8.3.2.
406 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

the problems here considered may well serve as a guide for the youth who is ap-
proaching the study of the problems of a later day.”101 Osgood had a very strong
command of the German language. He had not only completed his doctorate with
Max Noether after being prepared by Klein, but he was also the sole author of the
article on the general theory of analytic functions of one or several variables in the
ENCYKLOPÄDIE (vol. II, 1901). His work on this subject resulted in his Lehrbuch
der Funktionentheorie [Textbook on Function Theory], three editions of which
were published by B.G. Teubner in Leipzig (1907, 1912, 1921).102

7.4.3 Traveling from University to University

After his lecture series in Evanston, Klein remained in the United Stated for ap-
proximately four more weeks. Instead of spending this extra time sight-seeing, he
used it to familiarize himself with the institutions and faculty members at a num-
ber of universities. His former students and colleagues made it possible for him to
visit some of the most prestigious private universities in the country.103
Having left Illinois, Klein made his first visit to Cornell University in Ithaca,
New York, where he had been invited by James E. Oliver. In 1889–90, while al-
ready a professor, Oliver (twenty years older than Klein) had attended his courses
on non-Euclidean geometry in Göttingen, and later he sent a few male and female
students to study under Klein.104 It was Klein’s relationship with Oliver that led to
Klein’s student Ernst Ritter being hired by Cornell, as I mentioned earlier (see
Section 7.1). While in Ithaca, however, Klein was especially impressed by Cor-
nell’s Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering, which, since 1889, housed the
world’s first department of electrical engineering.105
Accompanied by his student Edward Burr Van Vleck, who had just completed
his doctoral degree in 1893 in Göttingen, Klein next traveled to Clark University
in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he had been offered (but had to decline) a
visiting professorship in 1889. His itinerary then took him to Harvard University
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he toured the imposing Harvard College
Observatory directed by Edward Charles Pickering.106 His next stop was the
nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the state of Connecticut, Klein
visited Yale University in New Haven, where he met the physicist Josiah Willard

101 KLEIN 1894a (quoted here from the 1911 reprint, p. v).
102 Osgood’s textbook can still be found today in the reading room of the Mathematical Institute
at the University of Göttingen. Klein’s influence on this book is clear to see, for instance, in
its section on Riemann surfaces (Ch. 3, § 8).
103 For an outline of Klein’s full itinerary, see PARSHALL/ROWE 1994, pp, 355–57.
104 These included Virgil Snyder, who earned a doctorate under Klein in 1895, and the Canadian
Annie L. MacKinnon. See TOBIES 2020a, pp. 12, 13, 32, and also COCHELL 1998.
105 See SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 1997b, p. 36.
106 Later, Klein would use this institution as a model for the Göttingen Association (see 8.1.1).
 7.4 A Trip to the United States 407

Gibbs107 (and where Klein would be offered a professorship in 1896). From there
he went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, where the father of his compa-
nion, John Monroe Van Vleck, worked as a professor of astronomy.
In New York City, where newspapers reported enthusiastically about his visit,
the Mathematical Society organized a meeting in Klein’s honor at Columbia Col-
lege.108 The meeting was chaired by the actuarial mathematician Emory McClin-
tock, and it was here that Klein was inspired to establish actuarial mathematics as
a course of study in Göttingen (see Section 7.6). In addition, Simon Newcomb
arranged for Klein to meet with Daniel Gilman, the president of Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore, who, ten years earlier, had invited Klein to become Syl-
vester’s successor and who had presented Klein with a bronze copy of the gold
medal with which Johns Hopkins had honored Sylvester upon his departure.109
The final stop on his tour was the College of New Jersey (Princeton University as
of 1896), where Klein was hosted by his Leipzig doctoral student Henry Burchard
Fine, who was then a professor there, and Henry Dallas Thompson, who in 1892
had completed his doctoral degree under Klein in Göttingen.110 Already during
this meeting in 1893, they agreed that Klein should return in 1896 and give lectu-
res on the occasion of the university’s 150th anniversary.111

7.4.4 Repercussions

From the 7th to the 17th of October in 1893, Klein returned from New York to
Bremerhaven aboard the Saale (another ship in Norddeutscher Lloyd’s fleet). As
it turned out, his trip to the United States had a variety of effects.
First, Klein’s stature increased in the international scientific sphere. It should
be said here that Klein himself was pleased with how things went at the Congress
and the Evanston Colloquium. On September 12, 1893, he wrote to Friedrich
Althoff (Prussian Ministry of Culture in Berlin) from Illinois:
So far, I have achieved everything here that I could hope to achieve. The Mathematical Con-
gress under the German flag went very well; I have enclosed a copy of the program. Then I
held the planned colloquium here in Evanston for fourteen days, and it was well attended by
scholars from all over the country. By speaking for more than two hours a day, I had the

107 Klein celebrated J.W. Gibbs’s use of Lagrangian formalism in his work on physical chemistry
(see Klein 1979 [1926], p. 226). Gibbs also made contributions to the theory of Fourier series;
and he made a breakthrough in vector analysis by drawing a connection between Graßmann’s
extension theory and Hamilton’s approaches (see KLEIN 1927, vol. 2, pp. 38, 45–47).
108 Founded in 1754, Columbia College is the oldest undergraduate college of Columbia Univer-
sity. It is located on the university’s main campus in Manhattan.
109 See HASHAGEN 2003, p. 182.
110 For his doctoral thesis, see Henry Dallas Thompson, “Hyperelliptische Schnittsysteme und
Zusammenordnung der algebraischen und transzendenten Thetacharakteristiken,” American
Journal of Mathematics 15 (1893), pp. 91–123.
111 See PARSHALL/ROWE 1994, p. 357; KLEIN 1897; and Section 8.2.3 below.
408 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

opportunity to develop a complete program of my scientific views, as I had wanted to do for

many years. These lectures will be published, and I hope to be able present finished copies
soon after my return.112

News about the Congress spread quickly. Hurwitz expressed his happiness about
the latest issue of the Bulletin of the New York Mathematical Society, from which
he gathered that Klein had been the “intellectual focus of the Congress.”113 With
the event in Chicago, Klein saw that a shift was beginning to take place in Ger-
man-American cultural policy. Whereas, previously, American students had come
to Germany without any special initiative from the German side, his appearance in
the States had actively promoted this kind of exchange. Already planned in 1893,
his trip to Princeton University in 1896, where he would give five lectures on the
theory of the top (see Section 8.2.3), happened in the same way. Bernhard vom
Brocke has already made the case that Klein’s trips to the United States served as
a starting point for a joint German-American scientific policy that ultimately led
to an official professorial exchange program.114
An outward expression of Klein’s recognition in the United States came in the
form of an honorary doctorate from Princeton in 1896. In that year, too, he was
made a member of the New York Academy of Sciences. In 1898, Klein was elec-
ted as a foreign associate member of the National Academy of Sciences of the
United States of America in Washington; the chemist Oliver Wolcott Gibbs was
the Academy’s president from 1895 to 1900 (see Fig. 44). Moreover, in 1904,
John Throwbridge, a physicist at Harvard University and vice-president of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, founded in Cambridge in 1780, wrote
to Klein to inform him that he had been chosen to replace the late Cremona as a
Foreign Honorary Member in the Academy’s Mathematics and Astronomy Sec-
tion.115
The Russian mathematician A.V. Vasilev, a member of the German Mathe-
matical Society since 1893, wrote to Klein in March of 1894 to tell him that he
had received Klein’s “Lectures on Mathematics from America and read it with
pleasure.”116 This was followed by Vasilev’s participation at the annual meeting
of the German Mathematical Society in Vienna (September 1894), by further coo-
peration between Klein and Vasilev (see Section 6.3.6), and by Klein receiving
the Golden Lobachevsky Medal in 1897.
Klein’s visit to the United States had an especially strong effect in Paris.
Hermite, whose paper “Sur quelques propositions fondamentales de la théorie des
fonctions elliptiques” was presented in Chicago and published in the Congress’s

112 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1B: 2, p. 80 (draft letter from Klein to Althoff, Sept. 12, 1893).
113 Ibid., 9: 1123 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated November 29, 1893).
114 See VOM BROCKE 1981.
115 In a letter expressing thanks (dated May 28, 1904), Klein stressed that he “had been indebted
and grateful to Cremona since his early years” and that he “had always regarded Cremona as
a model because he devoted his creative energy just as strongly to his scientific research as he
did to administrative duties in the service of science.” [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 114: 36.
116 Ibid., 12: 199 (a letter from Vasilev to Klein dated March 14/26, 1894).
 7.4 A Trip to the United States 409

proceedings (pp. 105–15), took notice of Klein’s Evanston Colloquium and im-
mediately had his seventh lecture (on the transcendence of e and π) translated into
French. Enthusiastic about this work, Hermite then arranged for the French trans-
lation of the entire Evanston Colloquium and additional works by Klein.117 The
translator, Léonce Laugel, corresponded with Klein on Hermite’s behalf, received
Klein’s permission to have the works translated, and kept Klein informed of Her-
mite’s reactions. Most of these translations appeared in the Nouvelles annales de
mathématiques, journal des candidats aux écoles polytechnique et normale, after
Hermite had reviewed them.
Having read a lecture that Klein had given in Vienna in 1894118 – “Riemann
und seine Bedeutung für die Entwicklung der modernen Mathematik” [Riemann
and His Significance for the Development of Modern Mathematics]119 – Hermite
remarked that it was like spending an hour in heaven.120 Hermite inspired the
French translation of Riemann’s collected works, and Klein agreed to the request
that his Vienna speech on Riemann may be printed as an introduction.121 On De-
cember 26, 1895, Hermite congratulated Klein on his election to the Academy of
Sciences in St. Petersburg and sent the message (via Laugel) to Klein that the
Academy in Paris intended to do the same at the next available opportunity. Klein
was elected on May 17, 1897, taking the place of the late J.J. Sylvester.122 All
told, Klein would become a member of fifty-one academies and societies.
Second, because of his international reputation, Klein was also able to achieve
an exalted position within the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physici-
ans (GDNÄ). In 1894, he was invited to give the aforementioned plenary lecture

117 For further discussion of this development, see TOBIES 2016, pp. 116–23.
118 This 1894 conference in Vienna played an important role in several contexts, and it will be
mentioned on several occasions below. For this reason, it should be noted here that Klein
gave two lectures there. Klein’s talk on Riemann was delivered on Wednesday, September
26, 1894 at the plenary session of the GDNÄ. Within the framework of the German Mathe-
matical Society, he lectured on second-order linear homogeneous differential equations bet-
ween two variables, published in the Jahresbericht der DMV 4 (1897) II, pp. 91–92.
119 [KLEIN 1894b]. Jahresbericht der DMV 4 (1897) II, pp. 71–87; reprinted in KLEIN 1923
(GMA I), pp. 482–97; and translated into English, Italian, and French.
120 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 627 (Laugel to Klein, Oct. 1, 1895): “Monsieur et très honoré
Professeur, Je prends la liberté de solliciter votre autorisation, nécessaire à la publication dans
les Nouvelles Annales de Mathématiques d’une traduction de ‘Transcendance des nombres e
et π’. Evanston Colloquium. C’est M. Hermite pour l’usage personnel duquel j’ai traduit tout
le Colloquium et pour qui je traduis en ce moment avec le plus grand plaisir et intérêt Rie-
mannsche Flächen et Hypergeometrische function [sic] qui m’a suggeré cette idée, dans le vif
désir de porter les études sur ces admirables productions, trop peu étudiées en France. Je lui ai
traduit aussi le discours ‘Über Riemann und seine Bedeutung’ dont il m’a écrit qu’en le lisant
‘il avait passé une heure comme dans le ciel’. En autoriseriez vous aussi la publication. […].”
121 Œuvres mathématiques de Riemann, traduites par L. Laugel, préface de Charles Hermite et
discours de Felix Klein (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1898); see also Figure 35 (p. 464).
122 “Nous sommes heurex d’avoir à vous annoncer que, dans la Séance de se jour, l’Académie
vous a nommé à la place de Correspondant, devenue Vacante dans la Section de Géométrie,
par suite du décès de M. Sylvester.” ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 114: 25).
410 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

(on Riemann’s significance) at the organization’s annual meeting, which was held
in Vienna. He informed Dyck on August 12, 1894: “I have been asked to give a
lecture in Helmholtz’s place, and I have agreed to do so. I intend to speak about
Riemann’s significance.”123 This represented a passing of the torch from Helm-
holtz to Klein, both formally and in terms of content. In 1893, the two men had
traveled to the United States and back on the same ship, though they attended
different conferences in Chicago.124
In his report to Leo Koenigsberger, Klein mentioned that his conversations
with Helmholtz on their return journey, which had taken place with the ship’s
captain in the smoking room, were pleasant enough but that their content was
somewhat backward-looking. Klein had tested out various topics of discussion –
including the problem of axiomatics (see Section 6.3.6) – and he noticed that
Helmholtz had taken hardly any interest in his Evanston Colloquium (Klein
already had the proofs of this publication with him on the ship). Furthermore,
even though Helmholtz was the president of the Imperial Institute of Physics and
Technology, he did not deem it necessary for technical physics to be taught at
German universities, an idea that Klein had brought back with him from the Uni-
ted States.125 Helmholtz suffered an accident on the ship. One year later, after suf-
fering a series of heart attacks, he died on September 8, 1894.
Klein used his talk in Vienna to spread his vision of unifying disciplines. The
topic of Riemann allowed him to paint a broad picture of the development of ma-
thematics and its applications. In particular, Klein compared Riemann’s and Wei-
erstrass’s different approaches to function theory, and he stressed that these ap-
proaches complemented one another. Because Riemann’s approach was based on
physics, Klein was able to build a bridge between Riemann and theoretical phy-
sics, including the results which had been achieved by British researchers (Fara-
day, Green, Maxwell), French scholars (Cauchy, Hermite, Picard, Poincaré), and
others.126 At the meeting in Vienna, the Society of German Natural Scientists and
Physicians appointed Klein to its board, as the successor of Koenigsberger.127
Third, Klein’s trip to the United States in 1893 also influenced the measures
that would be taken to develop the University of Göttingen. On December 10,
1893, Klein had sent a comprehensive report on his travels to the Ministry of
Culture. Even from Althoff’s short response to this report, we can gain a clear
picture of Klein’s closely interconnected goals:
Berlin – December 12, 1893
Esteemed Professor!
Your valuable report from the 10th of this month was extraordinarily interesting to me. Today,
however, I can only respond to it in brief […]. What you have written about women studying

123 [BStBibl] Dyckiania (a letter from Klein to Dyck dated August 12, 1894).
124 Helmholtz attended the International Electrical Congress in Chicago (August 21–25, 1893).
125 See KOENIGSBERGER 1903, vol. 3, pp. 93–94.
126 See Jahresbericht der DMV 4 (1897) II, pp. 71–87; and KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 482–97.
127 See the Tageblatt [Newsletter] of the Society’s meeting in Lübeck (September 16–21, 1895),
p. 9: https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/11458/1/4H.lit.2300_67.pdf; and FREI 1985, p. 111.
 7.5 The Beginnings of Women Studying Mathematics 411

at universities is fully in accordance with my views. Regarding teaching candidates, I will

speak with the gentlemen in our secondary-education department. At first glance, your ideas
about building relationships to technology seem plausible to me, and Göttingen seems like an
entirely appropriate place to make such an attempt in the direction that you have endorsed. As
you yourself remarked, however, all of this will require further consideration and can only be
implemented if the financial conditions will allow for it. It would therefore be better if per-
sonnel issues were not raised in connection with any of this. Apart from that, I will wait to re-
visit the matter in a personal conversation with you.
With the utmost respect,
Sincerely yours,
Althoff128

Althoff did not revisit the matter of his own accord. Instead, Klein had to work
actively to achieve his vision. In order to receive a green light to pursue his goals
– ambitions that were strengthened by his time in the United States – he regularly
had to write to Althoff and call attention to his main points, which involved the
right of women to study at universities, establishing relationships between secon-
dary and higher education, and focusing on technical areas of research.

7.5 THE BEGINNINGS OF WOMEN STUDYING MATHEMATICS129

After Sofya Kovalevskaya, with Weierstrass’s support, had earned her doctoral
degree in 1874 in Göttingen with the highest distinction (summa cum laude),
twenty-one years passed before the next woman, thanks to Klein, would be
awarded a doctorate in mathematics in Germany, incidentally from this same in-
stitution. It is a little-known fact that Klein had already admired Kovalevskaya’s
results as a young man. When he had read her dissertation,130 he recommended to
Sophus Lie, whose work he had just accepted for publication in Mathematische
Annalen,131 that a reference should be included to Kovalevskaya’s work:
What do you think about the work of Sophie Kowalevsky [Sofya Kovalevskaya] in Bor-
chardt’s journal? By a direct series development, she proves the existence of integrals as well
as their determination within certain boundaries. Indeed, it is always irritating that an integral
M, thought to be unlimited, runs through the whole R [Raum = space]. Could a remark not be
made about this in the revision of your article?132

Sophus Lie did not add any reference to Kovalevskaya, whose results went be-
yond what Lie and also Darboux published on the topic in the same year. Wei-
erstrass recognized the precedence of Kovalevskaya’s (his student’s) ideas,133 and

128 [UBG] Cod. MS F. Klein 2 A, pp. 1–2.

129 For further discussion of this topic, see TOBIES 1991b; 1999b; 2020a, and 2021a.
130 Sophie von Kowalevsky, “Zur Theorie der partiellen Differentialgleichungen,” Journal für
die reine und angewandte Mathematik 80 (1875), pp. 1–32. – See also TOLLMIEN 1997.
131 Sophus Lie, “Allgemeine Theorie der partiellen Differentialgleichungen erster Ordnung,”
Math. Ann. 9 (1875), pp. 245–96.
132 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated July 8, 1875.
133 See BÖLLING 1993, p. 198.
412 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

her innovation is still reflected today in the name of the Cauchy-Kovalevskaya

theorem.
Meanwhile in Göttingen, there had in fact been a few scattered attempts to
promote the higher education of women. At the beginning of the 1880s, H.A.
Schwarz, following the model of his teacher Weierstrass, considered training an
American woman on a private basis. Hurwitz informed Klein:
Not much new is happening here in Göttingen. Regarding mathematics, perhaps the most in-
teresting thing is that we now have a female colleague here who wants to further her educa-
tion with Prof. Schwarz. She is an American woman named Miss [Ella C.] Williams; I met
her yesterday evening at Schwarz’s home, and I was quite surprised to encounter a young
lady of about 22 to 26 years old who leaves an impression that is nothing short of emanci-
pated. Then I was personally very ashamed when I heard that Miss Williams reads Latin trea-
tises with ease – something which I still have some trouble doing myself.134

Whereas women in the United States had already won access to certain universi-
ties,135 and women in other German states had been permitted to attend university
courses as auditors, women in Prussia, the largest German state with the most
universities, were not allowed to attend any university. Beginning in 1869, for
instance, Kovalevskaya had studied in Heidelberg (Baden) under Weierstrass’s
former student Koenigsberger, but Weierstrass was not allowed to let her enroll in
Berlin (Prussia).136
In July of 1891, Klein had to turn away the American Ruth Gentry when she
asked whether she might be able to study under him. Likewise, Christine Ladd-
Franklin, who had been Sylvester’s student at Johns Hopkins, was not allowed to
attend Klein’s courses. In the fall of 1891, she had come to Göttingen with her
husband Fabian Franklin (see Section 6.3.7.3). The university’s conservative
Kurator at the time, the legal scholar Ernst von Meier, had brusquely rejected this
idea with the following remark to Klein: “This is worse than social democracy,
which only wants to do away with differences in property. They want to abolish
the difference between the sexes!”137
On April 8, 1893, when Heinrich Maschke wrote to Klein from Chicago to
ask whether Klein might be able to obtain permission for one of his talented fe-
male students to enroll in Göttingen, Klein addressed the request directly to the
Prussian Ministry of Culture to evaluate, during his planned trip to the United
States, the situation of women studying mathematics. The Ministry responded
quickly, for in 1891 the topic women’s access to higher education had been dis-
cussed in the Reichstag on account of the growing influence of the women’s
movement. On May 20, 1892, Althoff had created a new dossier with the title

134 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 937/3 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein dated January 18, 1883).
On Ella C. Williams, see PARSHALL 2015, p. 75.
135 See ROSSITER 1984; FENSTER/PARSHALL 1994; and PARSHALL 2015.
136 For a detailed discussion of Kovalevskaya’s graduate studies, see TOLLMIEN 1997.
137 Quoted from JACOBS 1977 (“Personalia”), p. 6: “Das ist schlimmer als die Sozialdemokratie,
die nur den Unterschied des Besitzes abschaffen will. Sie wollen den Unterschied der Ge-
schlechter abschaffen!”
 7.5 The Beginnings of Women Studying Mathematics 413

“The Request on the Part of Women for Permission to Matriculate and Attend
Lectures at the Royal State Universities.” Before Klein’s departure to the United
States, Friedrich Schmidt(-Ott) informed him (in a letter dated July 30, 1893):
With respect to women studying, I can confidentially say that, as I know from Privy Coun-
cillor Althoff, the Ministry will not hinder the matter, although it will not especially encour-
age such questions. Regarding their [women’s] participation in lectures, this custom will also
become more entrenched than limited; and if American women come to study in Germany,
they will not have difficulties here. Mr. Althoff is of the opinion that, without asking, you
could just arrange for your numerous female American admirers to come over.138

The student recommended by Maschke, Mary Frances Winston, who was then an
A.B. honorary fellow of mathematics at the University of Chicago, attended both
the 1893 International Mathematical Congress and Klein’s Evanston Collo-
quium.139 When Klein learned in Chicago that Winston had full financial support
for her studies,140 he immediately wrote to Althoff hoping that the Prussian Minis-
try of Culture would do everything in its power – “despite the legal regulations
still in place” – to allow Winston to be admitted as a visiting student during the
winter semester of 1893/94. Klein stressed that the other directors of the Mathe-
matical-Physical Seminar in Göttingen would support him and that Bolza and
Maschke regarded Winston as “the best student of mathematics at the University
of Chicago.” Anticipating a negative response from the university’s Kurator,
Ernst von Meier, Klein added: “I would like to ask you, if possible, to present the
matter […] in such a way that Mr. von Meier, the Kurator, has the opportunity to
express his dissenting view at an early stage and is in no way left with the impres-
sion that I have tried to circumvent him.”141
Klein was still on his way home when three women applied to study at the
University of Göttingen: Mary F. Winston; Grace E. Chisholm, who was recom-
mended by Forsyth in England; and the American Margaret E. Maltby, who
would earn a doctoral degree in physics under the supervision of Walther Nernst.
Felix Klein’s wife Anna took these students under her wing, welcomed them into
her family (see Fig. 32), and introduced them to the city and the university, where
Klein’s assistant at the time, Ernst Ritter, took care of them.
Having returned from the United States, Felix Klein immediately accepted the
official applications from these women and asked to have them forwarded to the
Ministry in Berlin. Although the Kurator Ernst von Meier appended a cover letter
to these applications (dated October 21, 1893), in which he stated that he conside-
red it “very worrisome to defy the existing regulations in favor of three foreign

138 [UBG] Cod. Ms. F. Klein 11: 726 (Schmidt(-Ott) to Klein, July 3, 1893).
139 Another woman who participated in the Congress in Chicago was Charlotte C. Barnum, who,
in 1895, became the first woman to earn a doctoral degree in mathematics from Yale Univer-
sity. See MOORE et al. 1896, p. ix.
140 Winston was financially supported by her own family and by Christine Ladd-Franklin. See
PARSHALL/ROWE 1994, p. 243.
141 Quoted from TOBIES 2020a, p. 26 (a draft of a letter from Klein to Althoff, Sept. 12, 1893).
414 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

women,” the Prussian Ministry of Culture nevertheless granted its approval within
five days.142 This was just one of several instances in which the university
Kurator felt that his opinion had been overruled. In February of 1894, he resigned
from his position because he was “disgruntled by the regiment enforced by the
shadow Kuratoren [Wilhelm] Lexis and Klein, who are supported by Althoff.”143
With the new university Kurator, the already mentioned Ernst Höpfner, Klein
finally had an ally who supported his initiatives.

Figure 32: Grace Chisholm and Luise Klein [Hillebrand]

A good deal has already been written about the participation of women in Klein’s
seminars, their growing numbers from various countries (the United States, Great
Britain, Russia, etc.), the career paths of academically trained women, and Klein’s
encouragement of their work.144 Here I would like to underscore six aspects of
Klein’s general attitude toward women studying at the university level.
First, until 1908, women studying in Prussia only had the status of auditors.
That meant that every woman had to ask each professor individually for permis-
sion to attend and then had to apply for admission from the Ministry of Culture. In
many cases, Klein personally helped to formulate applications. During his time
serving as dean in 1894/95 the number of women applying to study finally in-
creased to such an extent that the Ministry ceded admission decisions to the uni-
versities and simply requested lists of the women who had enrolled.
In 1893, Klein had expressed his support for the English system (with extra
colleges for women within universities). Yet after he had taught women in his
own courses, he endorsed their equal right to participate in all university classes.
In part because of Klein’s support for this development, the government decided,

142 See TOBIES 1991b, pp. 154–55.

143 Quoted from BROCKE 1980, p. 70.
144 For recent articles in English on this topic, see TOBIES 2020a and TOBIES 2021b.
 7.5 The Beginnings of Women Studying Mathematics 415

on August 18, 1908, to allow women to matriculate as official students at Prussian

universities. After all, such legislation had already been passed in the states of
Baden (1900), Bavaria (1903), Württemberg (1904), Saxony (1906), Saxon-Er-
nestine duchies (1907),145 and Hesse (May 29, 1908). The last German state to
follow was Mecklenburg in 1909.146
Second, Klein regarded mathematical achievement independently of gender.
Although there were still many people in Germany who opposed the right of
women to study, few of these opponents were mathematicians, and this is because
achievements in this discipline can be evaluated rather objectively. In 1897, Ar-
thur Kirchhoff published an anthology titled Die akademische Frau [The Aca-
demic Woman], in which he collected opinions about women’s access to higher
education from supporters, opponents, and from those who argued on behalf of
making special exemptions. The latter camp included Max Planck, whose often-
cited comment – “In the intellectual realm, too, Amazons are contrary to nature” –
implies that it is just as unnatural for women to participate in higher education as
it is for them to bear arms. Klein, on the contrary, was unambiguously supportive
on this issue:
I am all the more pleased to answer this question as the opinion prevailing in Germany, which
is that the study of mathematics must be virtually inaccessible to women, essentially blocks
all efforts directed toward the development of women’s higher education. In this regard, I am
not referring to extraordinary cases, which as such do not prove very much, but rather to our
average experiences in Göttingen. Though this is not the place to enter more deeply into the
matter, I would simply like to point out that during this semester, for instance, no fewer than
six women have participated in our higher mathematics courses and practica and have
continually proven themselves to be equal to their male classmates in every respect. The
nature of the situation is that, for the time being, these women have been exclusively
foreigners: two Americans, an Englishwoman, and three Russians, but certainly no one would
wish to assert that these foreign nations possess some inherent and specific talent that we are
lacking, and thus that, with suitable preparation, our German women should not be able to
accomplish the same thing.147

The lack of “suitable preparation” mentioned here would later incite Klein to in-
duce reforms for girls’ secondary schools in Germany (see Section 8.3.4.1).
Third, foreign women paved the way for German women; they had access to
education preparatory for university before this was offered at German schools for
girls. Klein supervised more than fifty doctoral students, and around thirteen of
these came from abroad. This latter group included Grace E. Chisholm from
England and Mary F. Winston from the United States. Winston’s first presentation
in Klein’s seminar took place on December 13, 1893, when she discussed the
results of Oskar Bolza (her former teacher in Chicago) on “The Connecting

145 This region, known as Thuringia since 1920, consisted then of four Saxon-Ernestine states,
which together funded the University of Jena.
146 See TOBIES 2008c, pp. 25–26.
147 Klein in KIRCHHOFF 1897, p. 241 (cf. the German original also in TOBIES 2019, p. 371). For
Max Planck’s comment, see KIRCHHOFF 1897, p. 256.
416 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

Formulae for the Main Branches of the P-Function.” Chisholm spoke on January
31, 1894 about “Spherical Trigonometry,”148 which would ultimately be the topic
of her dissertation.149 In the summer of 1895, Klein was quoted in an article on
women’s study at the university in the local newspaper:
“On June 22, 1895, under the government of our most merciful Emperor and Lord, Wilhelm
II, etc., and under the prorectorate of H. Schultze, etc., I, Felix Klein, the current dean of the
Philosophical Faculty and the lawfully appointed promoter, bestowed upon the learned Miss
Grace Emily Chisholm from London, who demonstrated her knowledge of mathematics,
physics, and astronomy with her published dissertation (“Algebraic, Group-Theoretical In-
vestigations of Spherical Trigonometry”) and her doctoral examination, which she passed
with distinction, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and Master of the Liberal Arts, and I
certified this diploma with the seal of the Philosophical Faculty.” The academic success of
[Miss Chisholm], as announced here, has also been attested by other university instructors.
Fourteen women are presently studying here during the summer semester, in contrast to five
during the previous winter semester.150

Fourth, Klein supported women and women’s education as the principal edi-
tor of the journal Mathematische Annalen, as president of the German Mathemati-
cal Society, and later as a member of the Prussian Parliament and other bodies.
Klein’s doctoral student Mary F. Winston became the first female author to
publish in Mathematische Annalen. Even before she completed her doctorate,
Klein had accepted her article “Eine Bemerkung zur Theorie der hypergeometri-
schen Funktion” [A Remark on the Theory of the Hypergeometric Function] (da-
ted October 1894) for publication in vol. 46 (1895).151 She submitted her disserta-
tion – “Ueber den Hermite’schen Fall der Lamé’schen Differentialgleichung” [On
Hermite’s Case of Lamé’s Differential Equation] – in Göttingen on July 17, 1896,
and she received her doctoral diploma on June 30, 1897. When Klein held a series
of lectures in Princeton in October of 1896, he made a point to emphasize Wins-
ton’s results (see Section 8.2.3).
Not coincidentally, it was under Klein’s presidency that the German Mathe-
matical Society accepted, in 1898, its first female member: Charlotte Angas Scott,
who was already a member of the London Mathematical Society and a board
member of the American Mathematical Society.152 As of 1885, after completing
her doctorate in London under Arthur Cayley (she was the first Englishwoman to
earn this degree), Scott chaired the mathematics department at the famous
women’s college Bryn Mawr in Pennsylvania.

148 [Protocols] vol. 11, pp. 297–302 and 317–22, respectively.

149 The original title of Chisholm’s doctoral thesis was “Algebraisch-gruppentheoretische Unter-
suchungen zur sphärischen Trigonometrie.” Her defense took place on April 26, 1895 in the
subjects of mathematics, astronomy, and physics. Klein’s evaluations of the dissertations by
Chisholm and Winston are printed in TOBIES 1999b.
150 Quoted from Elisabeth MÜHLHAUSEN 1993a, p. 196 (Göttinger Zeitung, August 2, 1895).
151 [Protocols] vol. 12, pp. 29–32 (Winston’s related presentation, on June 6, 1895).
152 See OAKES/PEARS/RICE 2005.
 7.5 The Beginnings of Women Studying Mathematics 417

At Bryn Mawr, Scott supervised female doctoral students.153 She also sup-
ported Frances Hardcastle’s translation of Klein’s short book on Riemann’s theory
of algebraic functions (see 5.5.1.2). A remarkable partnership developed between
Bryn Mawr and Göttingen. Scott and her British-born colleague James Harkness
recommended some of their female students to continue their studies in Göttingen.
On July 25, 1894, Harkness wrote to Klein: “Miss Isabel Maddison informs me
that she wishes me to write to you in support of her application for admission to
Göttingen University,” and he explained her qualifications in detail, mentioning
that, in addition to attending Bryn Mawr, she had also studied successfully in
Cambridge (U.K.).154 Klein, who admired Harkness and Frank Morley’s book A
Treatise on the Theory of Functions,155 supported Maddison’s studies in Göttin-
gen for two semesters, during which she attended his courses and gave two lec-
tures in his seminars.156 Moreover, Maddison took on the task of translating
Klein’s famous talk on the arithmetization of mathematics.157 One year later, she
completed her doctorate under Scott’s supervision at Bryn Mawr. On March 19,
1897, Scott wrote to Klein: “I expect to send two of my best students to Göttingen
next year. Both have been awarded a College Fellowship, and both are eager to
study under your direction for a year, if this is agreeable to you.”158 Klein and
Hilbert supported the students who were sent to them.
Klein appreciated Scott’s work on algebraic geometry. Her article, which in-
cluded the first geometric proof for an important theorem by Max Noether (up to
then, only algebraic proofs existed), became the second paper by a woman to be
published in Mathematische Annalen.159 It is noteworthy, too, that Felix Klein’s
daughter Elisabeth spent one semester at Bryn Mawr, from the fall of 1910 to
Easter in 1911. As a result, the third subject of her teaching examination, besides
mathematics and physics, was English.160 Up until the 1930s, Bryn Mawr re-
mained the only women’s college in the United States that offered a PhD program
in mathematics. From 1933 and until the end of the war, Emmy Noether and other
Jewish women from German-speaking countries (Olga Taussky, Hilda Geiringer)
were also able to find refuge there and a place to continue their academic work.
Fifth, Klein served as an example to his colleagues and students. Hilbert fol-
lowed in his footsteps by supervising sixty-nine doctoral students, six of them
women. Adolf Hurwitz and Heinrich Burkhardt in Zurich, Wilhelm Wirtinger and
Philipp Furtwängler in Vienna, George Pick in Prague, Virgil Snyder at Cornell,

153 See https://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=6965; and PARSHALL 2015.

154 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 547 A.
155 HARKNESS/MORLEY 1893. Robert Fricke’s ENCYKLOPÄDIE article on elliptic functions (1913)
was based on Harkness’s preparatory work.
156 [Protocols] vol. 12, pp. 123–26, 279–83 (Maddison’s lectures, Dec. 19, 1894, July 10, 1895).
157 See KLEIN 1895c. On this talk, see Section 8.2.3.
158 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 947. For more on Scott’s life and work, see LORENAT 2020.
159 Charlotte Angas Scott, “A Proof of Noether’s Fundamental Theorem,” Math. Ann. 52 (1899),
pp. 593–97.
160 [BBF] Personnel Files.
418 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

and Max Winkelmann at the University of Jena were the first to supervise female
doctoral students at their respective institutions. Klein’s former doctoral student
Johannes Schröder, who was a secondary school teacher in Hamburg, taught
mathematics to young women and was explicitly unbiased. He stressed:
Earlier, and for a long time, the prevailing prejudice was that women utterly lacked the pre-
disposition for mathematical thinking and that their feminine nature attracted them more to-
wards engaging with literary, linguistic, historical, and ethical questions than toward strict
logical thought, which mathematics has always required. Appropriately, [Felix] Klein pointed
out how unjustified and untenable the opinion is that mathematics is unsuitable for women.161

Sixth, Klein helped to make it possible for women to overcome other hurdles as
well. Until 1905, women were ineligible to take the teaching examination for se-
condary schools. When Klein asked his former student Wilhelm Lorey to write an
article on the topic of “Die mathematischen Wissenschaften und die Frauen”
[Women and the Mathematical Sciences] (1909), he advised him to contact the
women who had meanwhile become senior teachers of mathematics. Klein wrote
explicitly that Thekla Freytag had been “the first to struggle through all of these
difficulties (in Berlin).” She had studied successfully in Berlin, Munich, and Zu-
rich, but only after repeatedly applying to the Prussian Ministry of Culture did she
finally receive permission, in 1905, to take the examination.162 Freytag paved the
way for Elisabeth Klein, Iris Runge, and many others.
Women were not officially allowed to complete a Habilitation, the prerequi-
site for a professorship in Germany, until a regulation was passed on February 21,
1920.163 In this regard, attempts by the Göttingen mathematician Emmy Noether
to be treated as an exceptional case failed in 1915 and 1917.164 A third attempt
was needed, which Klein had largely been responsible for setting in motion,
before Emmy Noether became, in 1919, the first woman to be granted this
qualification in Germany (see Section 9.2.2).

7.6 ACTUARIAL MATHEMATICS AS A COURSE OF STUDY165

Wilhelm Lorey has reported that Klein was impressed by the business operations
of the Mutual Life Insurance Company, which had been founded in New York in
1843, and also by Emory McClintock’s work on actuarial mathematics.166

161 J. Schröder, Die neuzeitliche Entwicklung des mathematischen Unterrichts an den höheren
Mädchenschulen Deutschlands (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1913), p. 89. Schröder had completed
his doctoral thesis – “Über den Zusammenhang der hyperelliptischen σ- und ϑ-Functionen”
[On the Connection Between Hyperelliptic σ and ϑ Functions] – with Klein in 1890.
162 See, for further details, TOBIES 2017b.
163 [StA Berlin] Rep. 76 Va Sekt. 1, Tit. VIII No. 8, Adh. III, p. 162; TOBIES 1991a.
164 See in detail TOLLMIEN 1990 and 2021.
165 For further discussion of this topic, see TOBIES 1990b, 1992b.
166 See LOREY 1950, p. 45. McClintock was the author of the short book On the Effects of Selec-
tion: An Actuarial Essay (New York: Mutual Life Insurance Company, 1892).
 7.6 Actuarial Mathematics as a Course of Study 419

McClintock worked for this company from 1889 to 1911 and, as the president of
the New York Mathematical Society, he had given Felix Klein an especially warm
welcome in 1893 (see Section 7.4.3). Since 1886, this insurance company also had
agencies in Europe (Berlin, Hamburg, London).
Having returned from the United States, Klein discovered that the topic of
actuarial mathematics was the order of the day. Both in Germany and in Austria,
government officials and a growing number of insurance companies were inte-
rested in regulating the formal education of actuarial specialists. In 1893, the Mi-
nistry of Education in Vienna commissioned the mathematician Leopold Gegen-
bauer to prepare a report on the subject. Gegenbauer invited Ludwig Kiepert –
who, in addition to his professorship in Hanover, was also the director of an insur-
ance company – to give a talk at the aforementioned 1894 meeting in Vienna on
the mathematical education of insurance underwriters.167 Here, Kiepert explained
why a university education was necessary for such work.
While still in Vienna, Klein spoke with his colleague Albert Wangerin (Uni-
versity of Halle), and together they arranged for the topic to be discussed in the
Prussian Parliament. Funding was made available in surprisingly short order, so
that Althoff, Klein, Kiepert, and the university Kurator Ernst Höpfner were able
to meet in Göttingen in September of 1895 in order to establish an Actuarial
Science Seminar (Seminar Versicherungstechnik).168
The Seminar started on October 1, 1895 under the direction of Wilhelm Lexis,
who, in addition to being a professor of economics at the University of Göttingen
(since 1887), had also been working for Althoff at the Ministry of Culture since
1893. Klein described Lexis as the “reinventor of mathematical statistics.”169
Lexis was known above all for his dispersion theory concerning the fluctuations
of statistical time series.170
The Seminar, which included a mathematical and an administrative class, was
intended to train mathematicians and upper-level administrators for careers in the
public and private insurance industry.171 The candidates had to pass examinations
in “actuarial mathematics, actuarial economics and statistics, and practical eco-
nomics.” Graduates of the mathematical class had to pass an additional test in
mathematics, while those of the administrative class had to take an additional ex-
amination in insurance law. Klein recruited the Privatdozent Georg Bohlmann to
teach actuarial mathematics, and, as of February 29, 1896, Klein himself took
over the examinations in “pure mathematics” for these candidates.172

167 See Jahresbericht der DMV 4 (1897) II, pp. 116–21.

168 The second Seminar of this sort in all of Germany was created in 1896 at the Technische
Hochschule in Dresden, see VOSS 2003.
169 KLEIN 1914a, p. 315 (Klein’s obituary for Lexis).
170 Ladislaus von Bortkiewicz (Lexis’s doctoral student) described this method in his article on
the applications of probability theory to statistics, in vol. 1.2 of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (1901).
171 For the founding statutes of the Seminar, see TOBIES 1990b.
172 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein A 1: 10, No. 867; and JACOBS 1977 (“Personalia”), p. 7.
420 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

Bohlmann had studied in Berlin, but because he used [Sophus] Lie’s group
theory in his dissertation, he chose to submit his thesis to the University of Halle.
In 1894, he accepted Klein’s offer to complete his Habilitation in Göttingen. At
first, the enrollment in Bohlmann’s courses on actuarial mathematics was mini-
mal. Klein supported these courses, however, by steering some of his own stu-
dents toward this area of research. One of such students was Wilhelm Lorey, who
went on to have a great deal of success in the field.173 During the Easter break of
1900, Klein included a lecture on actuarial mathematics by Bohlmann in the con-
tinuing education course in order to draw greater attention to this new course of
study.174 Bohlmann also contributed to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, for which he wrote the
article on the mathematics of life insurance (vol. I, 1901). Klein arranged for
Bohlmann to receive the title of professor.
In 1897, there was a danger that the aforementioned Berlin branch of the
Mutual Life Insurance Company would lose its license. Because the Prussian Mi-
nistry of the Interior was interested in keeping the business in place, Klein was
asked to prepare a report on the matter. He agreed to do so in a letter dated June
27, 1897, and he was able to recruit Wilhelm Lexis and Georg Bohlmann to work
on it with him.175 Their efforts resulted in the branch staying in place, and for this
Klein was awarded “the [Prussian] Royal Order of the Crown (Kgl. Kronen-
orden), 2nd Class, in recognition of his valuable service in reporting on the state of
the insurance industry.”176 Bohlmann, who had done most of the work on the
report, accepted a position at this insurance company in 1903.
After Bohlmann’s departure, the astronomer Martin Brendel took over his
courses in Göttingen. In 1904, Klein supported the program by directing a seminar
(with the astronomers Brendel and Karl Schwarzschild) on probability theory, for
which he stressed that he had particularly considered “the interests of actuarial-
science candidates when choosing the topics.”177
Thanks to Klein, an official position was finally created for this subject.
Klein’s first move was to entice Felix Bernstein to transfer as a Privatdozent from
Halle to Göttingen (1907), then he ensured that Bernstein was made an associate
professor of actuarial mathematics, mathematical statistics, and probability theory
(1909). The status of the subject areas was increased even further by its integra-
tion into the examination for teaching candidates (as an elective for applied
mathematics). Klein continued to support this field of research and instruction by
directing a seminar with Bernstein in the summer semester of 1911 on actuarial

173 See TOBIES 1990b; SCHNEIDER 1989, p. 355; and Ulrich Krengel, “On the Contributions of
Georg Bohlmann to Probability Theory,” Electronic Journal for the History of Probability
and Statistics 7/1 (2011), pp. 1–13.
174 See KLEIN/RIECKE 1900.
175 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7K.
176 [UAG] Kur. 5956 (Klein’s personnel files), p. 143. – The Royal Order of the Crown was a
Prussian order of chivalry, instituted in 1861.
177 [Protocols] vol. 20, p. 177. There were eighteen participants in this seminar who gave lectu-
res, and Klein gave three lectures of his own.
 7.7 Contacting Engineers and Industrialists 421

mathematics.178 Despite Bernstein’s occasionally idiosyncratic behavior over the

subsequent years, an independent institute for mathematical statistics was created
in Göttingen in 1918. On June 7, 1919, Bernstein himself applied to be promoted
to the rank of full professor. The mathematical and natural-scientific division of
the Philosophical Faculty rejected his application, political reasons playing a role
in the background. Nevertheless, Felix Klein and David Hilbert, with the support
of Richard Courant and Carl Runge, wrote personal letters to the Ministry on
Bernstein’s behalf, so that he was ultimately made a full professor on October 13,
1921, under the new political conditions of the Weimar Republic. Klein argued
that, “for students of mathematics, and especially under the current circumstances,
all paths leading to liberal professions that might suit them should be kept open
(or should be reopened).”179

7.7 CONTACTING ENGINEERS AND INDUSTRIALISTS

Klein had repeatedly referred to the need for universities to incorporate technical
disciplines into their teaching and research. While in the United States, he witnes-
sed how the study of engineering could function within a university setting and
how this could be supported with private funding. Thus, in Göttingen as well, he
wanted to enliven physical research with the problems of technical praxis and,
vice versa, he hoped to infuse practical “mechanical engineering with the mathe-
matical-physical spirit of the trained theoretician.”180 As a short-term goal, he
imagined the establishment of an institute for technical physics, an objective
which he had already discussed with Helmholtz during their voyage home from
America on the same ship. Klein went into greater detail about this plan in his
travel report to Althoff, who responded by saying that the financial means were
lacking for such an undertaking. At that time, there were no such technical pro-
grams at German universities. Even at Technische Hochschulen, the first large-
scale laboratories for technical physics would not be established until later.181
Klein dutifully claimed that Friedrich Althoff had played a significant role in
the development of the center for mathematics, natural sciences, and technology
in Göttingen.182 However, the sources document that Klein himself was the engine
behind the structural changes that took place in German higher education at the
time. Limited government resources, low taxes, high military spending (on the

178 [Protocols] vol. 28. Seven presentations were given in this seminar, including one by the
Polish mathematician Stefan Mazurkiewicz (on the further development of dispersion theory)
and one by Arthur Rosenthal (on biometrics).
179 Quoted from TOBIES 1992b, pp. 23–24 (Klein to the Ministry, August 18, 1919).
180 KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), pp. 26–27.
181 Carl von LINDE (1984, p. 126) reported that the foundation of a laboratory for technical phy-
sics at the TH Munich, which deliberately combined theory and experimentation, had been
based on the movement initiated by Klein. See also HASHAGEN 2003, pp. 301–16.
182 See KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), pp. 24–25.
422 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

one hand), and the growing costs of equipping scientific-technical institutes (on
the other) forced the Prussian Ministry of Culture to adopt a policy of fostering
specific research concentrations at specific universities.183 In this regard, it was
Klein’s initiatives that steered developments at the University of Göttingen. The
bright idea for how he should proceed came to him in Düsseldorf on New Year’s
Day in 1894, while he was taking a walk with his brother Alfred Klein, a lawyer
with contacts to the industrialist Emil Schrödter.184 On March 24, 1894, Klein
informed Althoff:
I was in my hometown for a few days, and there I began to rethink things. I will have to
report to you about this at length. Proceeding from the conviction that industry itself must be
highly interested in the matter, I have established contact with distinguished experts in this
sector, and I have succeeded in assembling a committee whose stated purpose is to provide us
with material support.185

The members of the committee included Dr.-Ing. Emil Schrödter (Düsseldorf), the
chief executive of the Association of German Steel Manufacturers; Henry Theo-
dore Böttinger (Elberfeld), who became the most important patron for Klein’s
projects in Göttingen (see Section 8.1.1); Dr. Wilhelm Beumer (Düsseldorf), the
general secretary of the Association for the Protection of Common Economic
Interests in the Rhineland and Westphalia; Prof. Otto Intze (Technische Hoch-
schule in Aachen); Adolph Kirdorf, the director of the “Rothe Erde” steel mill in
Aachen (who, like Klein, had attended secondary school in Düsseldorf);186 and
Fritz Asthöwer, the technical director of the Krupp Company. Klein’s goal was to
find donors to fund specific research initiatives:
The first project will concern the physical properties (elasticity, strength, etc.) of crystals and
then of solid bodies in general, in their mutual dependence and as regards their chemical con-
stitution. For this I would like to receive a donation of 100,000 Mark from these gentlemen,
apportioned over five years. Of course, this would only be the beginning; additional funding
would have to follow as soon as our initial success is achieved.

Klein had developed these ideas with Walther Nernst, an associate professor of
physical chemistry and electrochemistry in Göttingen since 1891. Nernst had
published an outstanding textbook on theoretical chemistry in 1893 and, at Klein’s
instigation, was writing a textbook with Arthur Schoenflies: Einführung in die
mathematische Behandlung der Naturwissenschaften [Introduction to the Mathe-
matical Treatment of the Natural Sciences],187 when he received an offer for a full
professorship from Munich in 1894. As dean at the time, Klein traveled to see

183 See BROCKE 1980, 1991.

184 [UBG] Math. Arch. 51, p. 45.
185 Quoted from TOBIES 1991c, pp. 98–99 (a letter from Klein to Althoff dated March 24, 1894).
186 Kirdorf’s approach to business has been described as scientifically grounded (he was the first
to use the [Sidney Gilchrist] Thomas process in steel production) and as socially oriented. In
1912, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Technische Hochschule in Aachen.
187 NERNST/SCHOENFLIES 1895. This book was translated into English as The Elements of Diffe-
rential and Integral Calculus (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1900).
 7.7 Contacting Engineers and Industrialists 423

Althoff in Berlin in order to underscore Nernst’s importance for Göttingen. Now

it was the aforementioned patron Henry Theodore Böttinger, the business director
of the Elberfeld chemical dyestuffs factories (Elberfelder Farbenfabriken), who
offered his support. He knew Nernst from the newly founded Society for Physical
Chemistry. Althoff secured a donation from Böttinger for the purpose of creating
a full professorship for Nernst and establishing an institute for physical chemistry
in Göttingen. Nernst was thus able to remain in Göttingen for another ten years.
Josef-Wilhelm Knoke has shown that Böttinger’s generosity was not entirely
altruistic: through his donation, he gained the exclusive rights to the commercial
use of Nernst’s future inventions (Nernst won the Nobel Prize in 1920). When he
wanted to sell the patent for his “Nernst lamp” (1897) on the open market, he was
only able to do so after engaging in an arduous legal battle with Böttinger.188
Further progress was slow at first. At Althoff’s request, Klein prepared further
memoranda in which he argued on behalf of establishing a university institute for
technical physics. Althoff supported Klein’s continuing meetings with industria-
lists in Berlin, but he was cautious enough not to be too optimistic about their out-
comes. He forwarded Klein’s memoranda to his colleagues at the ministry and to
engineers, and among the latter group Klein’s plans sparked vehement opposition.
Klein’s choice of words – he wanted the “general staff officers of technology” to
be educated at universities and the “infantry of engineers” to be trained at Techni-
sche Hochschulen – was regarded as insulting by representatives at the latter in-
stitutions, who viewed the plans in Göttingen as competition. The heated debates
that followed have already been analyzed in detail by Karl-Heinz Manegold and
Susann Hensel.189 Although Eduard Riecke, Klein’s friend at the University of
Göttingen, was quick to support his initiatives, others needed more time to dispel
their fears that the university could become dependent on industry and that its
devotion to science might be compromised.
With the help of Carl Linde (see Section 4.3.1), Klein was ultimately able to
set the course of things to come. In September of 1894, he wrote to Linde:
Indeed, I have a major plan that I would like to discuss with you. It concerns the establish-
ment, at the university here, of a laboratory for applied physics, in which experiments would
be carried out in a similar way to those conducted in the various laboratories at the Munich
Polytechnikum, but for which a connection would have to be made to our lectures on mathe-
matics and mathematical physics. To achieve this, I am not only seeking direct contact with
industry, but also its material support. Just these few lines will suffice to tell you that this is a
project whose roots go back to the time that I spent with you in Munich, and that its aim is to
overcome, in the interest of everyone involved, certain inherent biases in the way that univer-
sities are organized today.190

Linde immediately expressed his support for Klein’s plan, and he put Klein in
touch with the Association of German Engineers (Verein Deutscher Ingenieure,

188 See KNOKE 2016, pp. 148–50. – On Nernst, see also KORMOS BARKAN 1999.
189 See MANEGOLD 1970 and HENSEL et al. 1989.
190 Quoted from LINDE 1984, p. 134 (Klein’s letter to Linde, dated September 1894).
424 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

VDI), of which Linde would serve as a board member in 1895 and 1896. In Au-
gust of 1895, Klein traveled to Aachen to attend the association’s annual meeting.
There he became a member of the association himself and found further support
for his plans. In Aachen, Linde helped to orchestrate a “truce” between Klein and
the Association. As part of this agreement, however, Klein had to set aside his
vision of training engineers at the university and limit his efforts “to providing
future teachers of mathematics and physics […] with insight into the applications
of these disciplines to technical areas, and to offering chemists, lawyers, and agri-
culturalists a basis for understanding the tasks involved with these careers that
have arisen from the importance of today’s industry.”191 On December 6, 1896,
Klein also presented his plans to the local branch of the Association of German
Engineers in Hanover.192
Before an even closer alliance between science, industry, and the government
would be forged in Göttingen (see Section 8.1.1), Böttinger, Linde, and the Mu-
nich-based locomotive producer Georg Krauß donated enough start-up funding to
get the new Institute for Technical Physics off the ground.193 Böttinger and Linde
were awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Göttingen in June of
1896.194 Professors of engineering at the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, especi-
ally the influential Alois Riedler (an Austrian who had joined the faculty there as
a professor of mechanical engineering in 1888) and Adolf Slaby (who became the
first professor of electro-technology there in 1886), were strongly opposed to this
development. Riedler wrote to Klein that his actions would be detrimental, “so
that I will have to stand up against your Göttingen institute at every opportu-
nity.”195 It would take several more years before Klein was able to make peace
with these opponents as well (see Section 8.1.1).
Klein wanted Carl Linde to serve as the director of the Göttingen institute.
Linde promised his further support, but he explained that he was tied to Mu-
nich.196 Toward the end of 1896, Richard Mollier, a Privatdozent of mechanics in
Munich, was hired as the first director of this Institute for Technical Physics and
as an associate professor of (agricultural) technology. After just one year, howe-
ver, he left for a professorship at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden. Mol-
lier’s successor in Göttingen, Eugen Meyer, likewise stayed for just a short while;
in 1900, he accepted an attractive offer to work in Berlin.
Things went similarly in the field of applied electricity, for which Klein, as
dean, likewise set the course by enticing Theodor Des Coudres to transfer his Ha-
bilitation from Leipzig to Göttingen in January of 1895. Although Des Courdres

191 Ibid., p. 135. See also LUDWIG/KÖNIG 1981, pp. 148–49.

192 Felix Klein, “Über den Plan eines physikalisch-technischen Instituts an der Universität
Göttingen,” Zeitschrift des Vereins deutscher Ingenieure 40 (1896), pp. 102–07; reprinted in
KLEIN/RIECKE 1900.
193 Böttinger donated 10,000 Mark, Linde 5,000, and Krauß 5,000.
194 See LINDE 1984, p. 137; and TOBIES 1991c, pp. 101–02.
195 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 4 C, p. 94 (a letter from Riedler to Klein dated March 16, 1896).
196 See LINDE 1984, Appendix (a letter from Linde to Klein dated July 7, 1895).
 7.8 The Encyklopädie Project 425

was made an associate professor in 1897, he moved on to a full professorship in

Würzburg in 1901.197
In Göttingen, the new applied disciplines would not have a secure footing
until Klein established new funding and hiring policies that enabled full professors
to be hired in these fields (see Section 8.1.2).

7.8 THE ENCYKLOPÄDIE PROJECT198

When all our names are no longer, or perhaps one or another have some historical interest,
distant generations will remain grateful to you for the magnificent work of the Encyklopädie,
whose realization required exactly a man like you with so much selflessness and self-sacri-
fice.199

David Hilbert made this statement in his speech commemorating Felix Klein’s
sixtieth birthday. Hilbert contributed as an author to the first volume of the
ENCYKLOPÄDIE.200 As late as 1909, he still regarded Klein as the head of this unfi-
nished project, which he admired. Of course, we know today that an encyclopedia
quickly reaches its limits or that, after its publication, it can soon be made obso-
lete by the discovery of new knowledge. Nevertheless, undertakings of this sort
are not only of historical value; by showcasing earlier and forgotten results, they
can also lead to something new. With the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, Klein wanted to create a
research tool that would make it easier to access previous knowledge:
In mathematics, as in other sciences, the same processes can be observed again and again.
First, new questions arise, for internal or external reasons, and draw the younger researchers
away from the old questions. And the old questions, just because they have been worked on
so much, need ever more comprehensive study for their mastery. This is unpleasant, and so
one is glad to turn to problems that have been less developed and therefore require less fore-
knowledge – whether the topic is formal axiomatics, or set theory, or some such thing! And
so there is nothing for it but to collect together the old subjects in good references – in the
Jahresberichte [the journal of the German Mathematical Society], the Encyklopädie, etc. – or
in monographs, so that later developments may tie in with them, if fate should so decree!201

The aim of the first six volumes of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE was not to provide a com-
prehensive historiographical account.202 Klein wanted above all to have the latest
findings in mathematics presented systematically. The work was meant to “put a
check on the ever-increasing fragmentation of science”203 In his introductory

197 [UAG] Phil. Fak. 4/Vb 248.

198 For further details on the development of this project, see TOBIES 1994a; HASHAGEN 2003,
pp. 439–70; GISPERT 1999; and GISPERT/VERLEY 2000.
199 Quoted from ROWE 2018a, p. 198; on the German orginal, see TOBIES 2019, p. 514.
200 See David Hilbert, “Theorie der algebraischen Zahlkörper, Theorie des Kreiskörpers,” in EN-
CYKLOPÄDIE, vol. I.2 (1900), pp. 675–732.
201 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 294 (on the German original, see also TOBIES 2019, p. 353).
202 Hélène GISPERT (1999) raised this question, comparing the German with the French edition.
203 [AdW Göttingen] Scient. 305, 1 No. 2a.
426 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

report for the first volume of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, Walther Dyck stressed that its
goal was to provide an overall picture of the position that “mathematics occupies
in present-day culture” – a goal that Klein pursued on many fronts (see Section
8.3). In 1928, the mathematician Karl Boehm (a student of Leo Koenigsberger)
stated that “scientific research in all areas of mathematics has been facilitated and
strongly supported by the Encyklopädie.”204
As mentioned earlier, the starting point of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE was Franz
Meyer’s idea of writing a book with Klein: “The Spirit of Modern Geometry, by F.
Klein and F. Meyer,” as he envisioned it in a letter to Klein dated May 31,
1893.205 In early September, 1894, Klein and Heinrich Weber went to visit Meyer
in Clausthal, a town in the Harz mountains.206 They stayed there for three days,
during which they hiked together and reshaped Meyer’s idea into a “mathematical
lexicon.” At the 1894 meeting of the German Mathematical Society in Vienna,
Franz Meyer was officially commissioned by the society to draft a plan for the
lexicon. The minutes of the society’s board meeting that year state that the project
“seemed like a fitting undertaking to be supported materially by the consortium of
academies created in 1893.”207 From his father-in-law, Klein was already familiar
with this sort of academy-based funding model for large-scale projects (see Sec-
tion 3.6.2). A short time later, when disagreements arose about Meyer’s concept,
Klein explained: “It was not Franz Meyer but rather I myself who, with [Heinrich]
Weber in Clausthal, came up with the idea for creating a lexicon to be funded by
academies.”208
Representatives of this “consortium” of learned societies (the academies in
Vienna, Munich, Göttingen, and Leipzig) were present at the 1894 conference in
Vienna, and they took on the task of persuading their respective institutions to
support this endeavor. The Austrians Gustav von Escherich (who was elected to
the board of the German Mathematical Society in 1894) and Ludwig Boltzmann
won approval from the Academy of Sciences in Vienna. Walther Dyck succeeded
to do the same in Munich, as did Klein in Göttingen. The first ENCYKLOPÄDIE
committee consisted of the following people: Dyck (chairman and the representa-
tive from the academy of Munich), Klein (academy of Göttingen), Escherich
(academy of Vienna), Boltzmann209 (as an advisor for specific scientific ques-
tions), and Heinrich Weber (as a representative from the German Mathematical

204 Karl Boehm, “Adolf Krazer,” Jahresbericht der DMV 37 (1928) Abt. 1, p. 23.
205 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 1246 (a letter from Meyer to Klein dated May 31, 1893).
206 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from Klein to Fricke dated September 13, 1894.
207 Jahresbericht der DMV 4 (1897) I, p. 5 (“Chronik”).
208 [BStBibl] A letter from Klein to Dyck dated January 24, 1896.
209 Klein numbered among the staunch advocates of Boltzmann’s statistical concept of nature, a
theory that was attacked by proponents of energetics (Georg Helm, Wilhelm Ostwald) at the
annual meeting of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians in 1895. See Ar-
nold Sommerfeld, “Ludwig Boltzmann zum Gedächtnis,” Wiener Chemiker Zeitung 47/3-4
(1944), p. 25. In the end, Klein ensured that Boltzmann’s theory received its due in vol. IV of
the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (on mechanics); see EHRENFEST/EHRENFEST 1909–1911.
 7.8 The Encyklopädie Project 427

Society). The title that was ultimately chosen for the project – Encyklopädie der
mathematischen Wissenschaften mit Einschluß ihrer Anwendungen [Encyclopedia
of the Mathematical Sciences, Including Their Applications] – was based on a
suggestion by Gustav von Escherich.210
The Royal Saxon Society of Sciences in Leipzig (see Section 5.7.3) was part
of this group of academies, but Sophus Lie discouraged it from supporting the
ENCYKLOPÄDIE undertaking. Shortly after publishing his disparaging remarks
about Klein (see Section 6.3.6), Lie wrote about his decision to Adolph Mayer and
spewed even more vitriol: “I liken Klein to an actress who, in her youth, was en-
chanting with her brilliant appearance but who gradually had to resort more and
more to reprehensible means to achieve success on third-rate stages.”211 Klein
convinced his colleagues to go ahead with the project even without support from
Leipzig. Thus, in May and June of 1896, the academies of science in Vienna,
Munich, and Göttingen signed a contract with B.G. Teubner in Leipzig to publish
the ENCYKLOPÄDIE.212
The Leipzig academy did not commit its support to the project until 1904,
when it was persuaded to do so by Otto Hölder (see Section 5.4.1), who had been
named Sophus Lie’s successor at the university there in 1899. In 1904, Hölder
also completed an article on Galois theory and its applications for vol. I of the
ENCYKLOPÄDIE (arithmetic and algebra). He now became Leipzig’s representative
on the project’s committee.
Founded in 1909, the Academy of Sciences in Heidelberg joined the consor-
tium of German-speaking academies in 1911 and likewise lent its support to the
ENCYKLOPÄDIE. Paul Stäckel represented Heidelberg on the committee.
Support was still lacking from the Berlin academy, even though the latter had
joined the consortium of academies in 1906.213 Klein avoided involving the Berlin
academy in the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project, however, because he had been told that
Frobenius dismissed the undertaking as “senescent [greisenhaft] science.”214
Klein responded to this in his course on the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (1902/03) by para-
phrasing the words of the historian Leopold von Ranke: “We nevertheless have to
try it!”215 This comment was inspired by Ranke’s preface to the first volume of his

210 Thanks to Escherich’s nomination (dated May 16, 1900), Felix Klein was made a foreign
member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna. In his letter supporting this nomina-
tion, Escherich emphasized Klein’s broad knowledge of both pure and applied mathematics,
technical mechanics included. See TOBIES 1994, p. 2.
211 Quoted from TOBIES 1994a, pp. 10–11.
212 The contract and its later addenda are published in ibid., pp. 69–75. Remarkably, the terms of
the contract include an “editor and author honorarium of 100 Mark per page,” 30 Mark of
which was to be paid by the publishing house, 25 Mark each by the academies in Munich and
Vienna, and 20 Mark by the Royal Society of Sciences (academy) in Göttingen.
213 [AdW Wien] Kartell, I 153; and LAITKO 1999.
214 Georg Frobenius made this remark in 1901 at a meeting of the Mathematical Society of
Berlin; see HASHAGEN 2003, pp. 469, 457.
215 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 19 B, fol. 32v: “Wir müssen es trotzdem versuchen!”
428 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

Universal History, in which he discussed the usefulness and the dangers of ency-
clopedic works.216 Klein continued to dwell on this matter, and he addressed Fro-
benius’s comment yet again in a course that he gave in 1910/11:
Regarding this matter [the ENCYKLOPÄDIE], someone made the rather unfortunate analogy
with antiquity: Great encyclopedias were produced in Alexandria, and science began to be
canonized when productivity ceased. Thus the opinion was expressed about our encyclopedia,
too, that the idea of it was a sign that mathematical productivity was coming to an end and
that there was nothing else to do but bring together the knowledge that already existed. Well,
we never had such a thought in our plan, and the development of science since 1894 has also
taken a different path. The Encyclopedia involves more than just gathering old ideas; it also
involves processing large amounts of heterogeneous material in a uniform way.217

In the year 1913, something that had been prophesied for Klein when he was a
young professor came to pass: “You will be made a member of every notable
academy on earth, and last of all by the Berliners!”218 Frobenius, Schottky, H.A.
Schwarz, and Planck nominated Klein to be elected as a corresponding member of
the Academy of Sciences in Berlin. In their nomination letter, they also men-
tioned: “It is to his credit […] that the great work of the mathematical encyclope-
dia was begun and has been carried out energetically” (see Appendix 9). When, in
1918, the Berlin Academy honored Klein yet again on the occasion of the fiftieth
anniversary of his doctoral degree, Klein responded by inviting this organization
to participate in the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project.219 In 1921, when all of the academies
involved signed a fifth addendum to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE’s publishing contract with
B.G. Teubner, the academy in Berlin was included. In the meantime, the Univer-
sity of Berlin had hired mathematicians who had already supported the project as
contributing authors: Richard von Mises, who wrote the article on dynamic prob-
lems in mechanical engineering (1911), and Ludwig Bieberbach, who supplied an
article on the latest investigations into functions of complex variables (1920).
From the beginning, the ENCYKLOPÄDIE was in high demand. By just the se-
cond year of its production, orders had been placed for nine hundred copies of the
first edition, for which a run of one thousand copies had been planned. The Teub-
ner publishing house thought about increasing the size of the first printing, and it
also considered possible translations. In France, Darboux indicated that he would
be in favor of such an undertaking. Thus, in a third addendum to the original
publishing contact (signed in June and July of 1900), the academies authorized the
production of a “French or English edition in collaboration with a different pub-

216 See Leopold von Ranke, Universal History: The Oldest Historical Group of Nations and the
Greeks, ed. G.W. Prothero (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1884), p. xiii: “We came to
the conclusion that perfection was not to be attained, but that it was none the less necessary to
make the attempt.”
217 These comments were made in a course that Klein taught on the modern development of
mathematical instruction during the winter semester of 1910/11 ([Hecke] p. 272).
218 This prediction was made by Wilhelm Ahrens, a heir of Klein, who completed his doctorate
with Otto Staude and also wrote an ENCYKLOPÄDIE article ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 117).
219 [BBAW] Bestand PAW, III b 137: 129 (Klein’s letter to the Academy, December 28, 1918).
 7.8 The Encyklopädie Project 429

lishing house.” This addendum entitled the academies, the ENCYKLOPÄDIE com-
mittee, and the authors of articles to choose the editors and translators of the for-
eign editions and to review the translated contributions. Large portions of an (ex-
panded) French edition were published; an English version never came to be.220
Alfred Ackermann-Teubner (see Section 5.6), who had meanwhile become
the treasurer of the German Mathematical Society and a member of the Société
Mathématique de France, cultivated contacts with Jules Molk, “the editor of the
French edition,” and with the Parisian publisher Albert Gauthier-Villars. Both of
these Frenchmen joined the German Mathematical Society in 1900. Klein had
been asked whether he considered Molk, a professor of mathematics at the Uni-
versité de Nancy, a suitable leader for the project, and he had given his approval.
He consulted with Molk over the course of several days, and together, at the EN-
CYKLOPÄDIE conference held in Leipzig in 1902, they revealed the first list of col-
laborators for the French edition of volumes I and II. In 1904, at the third Interna-
tional Congress of Mathematicians in Heidelberg, Klein and Molk presented the
first parts of the German and French editions. Molk (who died on May 14, 1914)
and Gauthier-Villars participated in further ENCYKLOPÄDIE meetings in Germany,
and up until 1914 they sent regular reports on the status of the French project.221
Klein’s way of working on the ENCYKLOPÄDIE can be summarized as follows:
First, Klein’s scientific role in the project was to provide upper-level mana-
gement. He tried as much as possible to delegate organizational tasks to others, in
which case Walther Dyck served as a loyal partner. Klein chose the editors (Re-
dakteure) for the individual volumes, while the academies themselves functioned
as the publishers (Herausgeber). He discussed the structure of the volumes with
the editors, and he discussed the structure and content of the articles with nume-
rous authors. Wilhelm Wirtinger and Heinrich Burkhardt were chosen to edit vol.
II (analysis). Wirtinger compared Klein’s activity to that of “a field commander
storming ahead.”222 That is, Klein controlled the project’s editors and authors and
urged them on. When he was unable to find a suitable editor for vol. IV (mecha-
nics), he took on the job himself (until Conrad H. Müller offered his services).
Second, Klein would recognize some relevant open problems in the area of
engineering mathematics through his work on the applied volumes of the ENCY-
KLOPÄDIE (see Section 8.2.4). On August, 1, 1898, he wrote to Hurwitz (at the
Polytechnikum in Zurich) about his idea of “engineering mathematics” (Ingenieur-
mathematik) and about a planned trip to penetrate deeper into the area:
[Heinrich] Burkhardt may have told you that, in the interest of the “applied” volumes, I plan
to take a long trip in order to get to know people and things. If we use the term “engineering

220 ENCYCLOPÉDIE (1904–16), reprint 1991–95; GISPERT/VERLEY 2000. – In 1901, the married
couple Grace Chisholm and William Henry Young were consulted regarding the original plan
for an English edition that was ultimately not realized. Regarding the sections on applied
mathematics, Klein also had thought of collaborating with Edward Hough Love.
221 These reports are archived in [AdW Wien]. See TOBIES 1994a, pp. 24–25.
222 Quoted from HASHAGEN 2003, p. 467.
430 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

mathematics” to describe a certain complex of disciplines, my question is: What is the state of
engineering mathematics in France, Italy, etc. from the mathematician’s point of view? No
one in Germany seems to know clearly.223

Third, as the quotation above shows, Klein wanted the ENCYKLOPÄDIE to have
an international profile. He sought to supplement Franz Meyer’s choice of (mostly
German) authors for vols. I and III. In his original design, Meyer estimated that
thirty-five collaborators would be needed for the whole project. In the end, ninety-
two authors would contribute to just the first three volumes (arithmetic and
algebra; analysis; geometry), thirty-three of whom were from outside of Germany.
Klein ensured that representatives of the Italian algebraic-geometric school
contributed; that French mathematicians were represented in the German version
of the volume on analysis and that contributions to the French edition were
translated for the German project (by Arthur Rosenthal);224 that British and Dutch
work on mechanics was written about by the experts themselves; and that
American, Russian, Scandinavian authors (etc.) took part in the project.
Klein realized that he would need to rely on foreign authors especially for the
ENCYKLOPÄDIE volumes on the applications of mathematics (vols. IV–VI: mecha-
nics, physics; geodesy, geophysics, astronomy) and for the planned seventh vo-
lume of the project (on the didactics, philosophy, and history of mathematics). In
his opinion, his German colleagues did not have sufficient knowledge of the rele-
vant scholarly literature in these fields:
Our German technical colleagues seem to have insufficient knowledge in this respect. Foreign
scientific literature – names such as Greenhill, Boussinesq – is known at best by hearsay,
even among the most distinguished representatives of these disciplines here, with whom I
have recently held repeated negotiations. Things are similar regarding our knowledge of di-
dactic literature. That, too, is limited by national boundaries; it will be quite an achievement if
we succeed in breaking through these limitations.225

This statement served as a successful argument for Klein to receive travel funding
from the academies and from the Prussian Ministry of Culture for the purpose of
recruiting potential authors. When Klein was invited to accept an honorary doc-
torate from the University of Cambridge, which was celebrated on March 11,
1897 (see Section 6.3.7.1), he planned his first (three-week) trip, which took him
to Manchester, Glasgow, and London in the interest of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE. During
these travels, he gained an overview of the state of “pure” and “applied” mathe-

223 [UBG] Math.Arch. 276 (Klein to Hurwitz, August 1, 1898). – Klein’s co-worker Heinrich
Burkhardt had been full professor at the University of Zurich since 1897.
224 A. Rosenthal, who in 1909 completed his doctorate under F. Lindemann in Munich, gave two
presentations in Klein’s research seminar in 1911. For the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (vol. II/3.2 [1923],
pp. 851–1187), Rosenthal translated and revised articles from the French Encyclopédie on
“Recherches contemporaines de la théorie des fonctions” (edited by Émile Borel).
225 Quoted from TOBIES 1994a, p. 22 (a letter from Klein to Dyck dated June 13, 1896). On
Greenhill, see Section 6.3.3 and 6.3.7.1. Regarding Joseph Boussinesq, Klein had the partici-
pants in his research seminar analyze the Frenchman’s fundamental equations for turbulent
hydrodynamics (see Section 8.2.4).
 7.8 The Encyklopädie Project 431

matics, and he considered this new-found information so important that, on April

27, 1897 he assembled his Göttingen colleagues to give a lecture on it.226 In 1898,
Klein embarked on another trip, this time with Arnold Sommerfeld, who had
agreed to take over the responsibility of editing of vol. V (physics).227 Before their
visit to the Netherlands, Klein explained to Hendrik A. Lorentz, a professor of
theoretical physics at the University of Leiden:
I have now taken it upon myself to establish necessary personal contacts abroad. Regarding
mathematical physics, of course, Holland deserves special attention. […] My wish would be,
before everything else, to discuss the entire mathematical-physical section with you yourself
and then, with the help of your mediation, to become more familiar with the Dutch circle of
mathematical physicists.228

Lorentz, who would win the Nobel Prize in 1902, agreed with this plan, and he
discussed the structure of the physics volume with Klein and Sommerfeld. Lo-
rentz also wrote three important articles for the volume.229 In Amsterdam, Klein
and Sommerfeld met with Johannes Diderik van der Waals (Nobel Prize, 1910),
who is known for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids. They
were able to recruit Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (Nobel Prize, 1913) and his student
Willem Hendrik Keesom to write the ENCYKLOPÄDIE article on this topic (1911).
In October of 1898, Klein traveled on his own to Paris in order to meet further
potential authors.230 In March of 1899, Klein began a longer ENCYKLOPÄDIE trip to
Italy (4–5 weeks). He gained an overview of the developments in mathematics
there, recruited a number of authors for the project, and lectured about his fin-
dings upon returning to Göttingen.231
In the fall of 1899, Klein’s next joint trip with Sommerfeld was to Great Bri-
tain, where Klein had already made connections in 1897. While in Cambridge,
they consulted with Joseph John Thomson, Joseph Larmor, Edward Routh, and
the eighty-year-old Sir George Gabriel Stokes. Lord Rayleigh invited them to his
estate in Essex. The first German edition of Routh’s book Dynamics of a System
of Rigid Bodies, with a preface by Klein (dated October 11, 1897), had just been
published by B.G. Teubner (see Section 5.6). Even though these distinguished
scholars did not write articles of their own for the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, they helped to
broaden the circle of contributors to include other younger authors. Gilbert Wal-
ker, for instance, was recruited to write an article on the mathematical aspects of

226 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22F, Bl. 92–95 (Klein’s concept of the lecture).
227 See ECKERT 2013, 137–47.
228 Quoted from TOBIES 1994a, pp. 21–22 (Klein to Lorentz, September 5, 1898).
229 H.A. Lorentz, “Maxwells elektromagnetische Theorie” (1903), “Weiterbildung der Maxwell-
schen Theorie – Elektronentheorie” (1903), and “Theorie der magnetooptischen Phänomene”
(1909). See ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. V.2, pp. 63–144, 145–280; vol. V.3, pp. 199–281.
230 [Deutsches Museum] HS 1977-28 (a letter from Klein to Sommerfeld, October 20, 1898).
231 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22F (a draft of Klein’s lecture). Klein persuaded the following
Italian mathematicians to contribute to volumes III and IV of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE: F. Enriques,
G. Fano, L. Berzolari, G. Loria, G. Castelnuovo, C. Segre, G. Jung.
432 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

sport and games,232 and contributions to vol. IV (mechanics) were made by

Augustus Edward Hough Love (1901) and Horace Lamb (1906). Klein also arran-
ged for a textbook by Love and one by Lamb to be translated into German (see
Section 5.6). When Klein and Sommerfeld visited George Hartley Bryan in
Bangor, Wales (see Fig. 33), they were quite familiar with Bryan’s work on ap-
plied mathematics. Together with Joseph Larmor,233 Bryan had already published
summary reports on thermodynamics (1891) and statistical mechanics (1894) for
the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Klein and Sommerfeld
persuaded him to write the article on the general foundations of thermodynamics
for the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (1910).

Figure 33: An ENCYKLOPÄDIE trip to Wales.

Felix Klein (seated in the middle) and Arnold Sommerfeld (left)
with George Hartley Bryan (standing in the middle) and Bryan’s family
([Deutsches Museum] CD 66310).

Through correspondence, Klein endeavored to recruit additional authors, includ-

ing Diederik Korteweg in Amsterdam, whom Klein and Sommerfeld had met in
1898.234 In 1895, Korteweg and his doctoral student Gustav de Vries had devel-

232 Gilbert Walker, “Spiel und Sport,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. IV.2 (1900).
233 Regarding Joseph Larmor and Felix Klein, see also Section 9.3.1.
234 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 536–38 (correspondence between Korteweg and Klein from
October 14, 1899 to May 4, 1900).
 7.8 The Encyklopädie Project 433

oped a non-linear partial differential equation (the Korteweg-de Vries equation)

for describing waves on shallow water surfaces. Klein wanted Korteweg himself
to write an article on this topic, but Korteweg tried to pass the task on to a student,
and the article never materialized.
Fourth, Klein did not write any articles himself. What he brought to the table
was his vast overview of knowledge, which he continued to expand through his
teaching. In his lecture course titled “The Encyclopedia of Mathematics” (winter
semester, 1902/03), he discussed arithmetic, algebra, and analysis. The fifty-six
students enrolled in this course included Paul Ehrenfest and Tatyana Afanasyeva,
who had already attended Klein’s lecture course on mechanics in 1902 and had
presented papers in his seminar on the principles of mechanics (1902/03). Klein
was quick to recognize their talent, and he recruited them to contribute as authors
to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE.235 In his lecture course on the “Encyclopedia of Geometry”
(summer semester, 1903), Klein reorganized the project’s third volume (geome-
try) because he was dissatisfied with Franz Meyer’s plan for it. Later supplements
were produced for this volume to take into account new research developments in
the field. Working with Hans Mohrmann and Wilhelm Blaschke in 1915 and
1916, Klein thus designed the concept for Part 4 of the geometry volume. Al-
though the final volume III ultimately did not include this part, the original plan is
interesting;236 it included the following eight articles:
Volume III (Geometry), Part 4
Art. 1: Developments concerning the spherical circle: [Franz] Meyer
Art. 2: Tetrahedron geometry: [Franz] Meyer – Zacharias.
Art. 3: Analysis situs: Tietze.
Art. 4: General theory of shapes: Hjelmslev.
Art. 5: Algebraic curves and surfaces according to the theory of shapes: Mohrmann.
Art. 6: Complex geometry: Dyck.
Art. 7: Invariant theory of particular geometric groups: Weitzenböck.
Art. 8: Infinite-dimensional spaces: [Gerhard] Kowalewski.237

Fifth, in 1896, Klein already outlined the structure of the planned final volume of
the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, which was intended to cover the history, philosophy, psycho-
logy, and didactics of mathematics. Work on this volume came to a halt on ac-
count of the outbreak of the First World War, which thwarted Klein’s ambitions to
collaborate with international authors.238 Nevertheless, Klein’s outline of this vo-
lume would later inform his own theoretical work on these topics (see 8.3).

235 See Paul Ehrenfest, and Tatjana Ehrenfest (1909–11), “Begriffliche Grundlagen der statisti-
schen Auffassung der Mechanik,” in: ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. IV.4, pp. 1–90.
236 Some of the planned articles were included in vol. III: Roland Weitzenböck, “Neuere Arbei-
ten der algebraischen Invariantentheorie: Differentialinvarianten” (1921); Heinrich Tietze and
Leopold Vietoris, “Beziehungen zwischen den verschiedenen Zweigen der Topologie”
(1929); Karl Rohn, “Algebraische Raumkurven und abwickelbare Flächen” (1926).
237 [Blaschke] A letter from Klein to Blaschke, 1915/16 (a meeting concerning the ENCYKLOPÄ-
DIE took place in Göttingen, Dec. 13 and 14, 1916).
238 On the attempts to realize this volume and their failure, see TOBIES 1994a, pp. 56–69.
434 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

7.9 KLEIN SUCCEEDS IN HIRING DAVID HILBERT

At his home university in Königsberg, Hilbert had become an associate professor

in 1892 (succeeding Hurwitz) and a full professor in 1893 (succeeding Linde-
mann). Klein indicated his approval of these developments to Friedrich Althoff in
the Prussian Ministry of culture. Klein continued to regard Hilbert as the up-and-
coming mathematician and to publish Hilbert’s latest results in Mathematische
Annalen or the Göttinger Nachrichten. Hilbert also studied Klein’s lectures on
higher geometry; he used them in his own courses, and he wrote to Klein about
corrigenda that he happened to notice. In his letters to Klein, Hilbert still ad-
dressed him as “Highly Esteemed Professor” (Hochgeehrter Herr Professor).239
When Heinrich Weber accepted an offer to succeed Elwin Bruno Christoffel
at the University of Strasbourg in 1895, the path to Göttingen was cleared for Da-
vid Hilbert. Already on December 6, 1894, Felix Klein, who was then the dean of
the Philosophical Faculty, wrote the following to Hilbert:
You may not know this yet, but Weber is leaving for Strasbourg. This is why the faculty is
meeting this evening, and although I can’t predict the final decision of the hiring committee,
which still has to be appointed, I want to let you know that I will make every effort to ensure
that you are hired here. You are the man whom I need here to complement my research: by
virtue of the nature of your work and the potency of your mathematical thinking, and in light
of the fact that you are still in your productive period. The mathematical school here is deve-
loping well and will continue to grow. I expect you to bring a new inner content, and that you
might perhaps have a rejuvenating effect on myself. […] It is impossible for me to know
whether I can enforce my own view on the Faculty, and it is even less clear whether the Mi-
nistry in Berlin will realize the appointment. However, the one thing that you have to promise
me today is that you will not reject the offer if it comes to you!240

Hilbert promised to accept the offer “without a moment’s hesitation and with
great pleasure.”241 The hiring committee consisted of Felix Klein, Heinrich We-
ber, Ernst Schering, the physicists Woldemar Voigt and Eduard Riecke, the as-
tronomer Wilhelm Schur, and the theologian Rudolf Smend (as a representative of
the philological-historical division of the Faculty).242 On December 13, 1894, the
committee unanimously agreed on two top candidates: Hilbert and Hermann Min-
kowski. Althoff settled the matter quickly. Klein learned from Hilbert on Decem-
ber 19, 1894 that he had promptly accepted Althoff’s offer, which included a
yearly salary of 4,600 Mark plus a housing allowance and moving costs.243 The
salary offered to Hilbert was less than half of what Klein was earning at the time.
Minkowski was hired to replace Hilbert as a full professor in Königsberg, and
a year later he accepted a professorship at the Polytechnikum in Zurich alongside
Hurwitz. The newly vacated position in Königsberg was taken by Franz Meyer

239 See FREI 1985, pp. 106–08 (a letter from Hilbert to Klein dated February 14, 1894).
240 Quoted from FREI 1985 (a letter from Klein to Hilbert dated December 6, 1894).
241 Ibid., p. 116 (a letter from Hilbert to Klein dated December 8, 1894).
242 [UAG] Phil. Fak. Protokollbuch (July 1, 1889–June 30, 1905), p. 112.
243 See FREI 1985, p. 117 (a letter from Hilbert to Klein dated December 19, 1894).
 7.9 Klein Succeeds in Hiring David Hilbert 435

(from Clausthal), so that Meyer’s former professorship of mathematics at the Mi-

ning Academy could serve as the springboard for Arnold Sommerfeld’s career.
Klein had preferred Hilbert because he regarded him as the most creative
mathematician at the time in the entire German-speaking part of the world. Even
before Klein had written his letter to Hilbert (quoted above), he had tried to
explain the matter to Hurwitz, who had replied:
Regarding the hiring opportunity in Göttingen, I immediately thought that you would con-
sider Hilbert. I approve of Hilbert’s appointment with all my heart, and I have no doubt that
you have made a good choice. My only concern is that the remarks in your letter make me
wonder whether it was hopeless from the beginning to think that I might be offered the posi-
tion.244

As is apparent from Klein’s response to Hurwitz, Klein clearly wanted to shy

away from the conflicts that might arise from the Faculty’s anti-Semitism; more-
over, he saw Hurwitz as being too closely aligned to his own approach to mathe-
matics, and he felt that Hurwitz and his family were in a good position in Zu-
rich.245 Klein expected that Hilbert’s presence would provide a stronger spark to
his own research, even though he was aware of their differing views. In early Ja-
nuary of 1895, after Hilbert had been in Göttingen for just a few days, Klein in-
formed Hurwitz:
We differ in many respects: I love the applications of mathematics, to which he is indifferent,
and I demand less of ordinary teaching candidates, whereas he might want to start off with the
strictest definitions, if possible in the first semester. I am eager to see how we will find com-
mon ground in this matter. I am all the more optimistic about how we work together scientifi-
cally.246

Regarding the coordination of the teaching schedule, Hilbert would prove to be a

congenial partner.247 On May 1, 1895, Klein and Hilbert started their first research
seminar together.248 As early as June 22, 1895, Klein managed to have Hilbert
elected (unanimously) as a full member of the mathematical-physical class of the
Royal Society of Sciences.249 Thus the road was paved for a new prince of mathe-
matics in Göttingen. Hilbert would remain faithful to Göttingen and to Klein
despite receiving enticing job offers from Leipzig, Munich, Berlin (twice), Hei-
delberg, and Bern.
When Hilbert received an offer from Leipzig (to succeed Sophus Lie), Klein
wrote extensively to the Prussian Ministry of Culture in Berlin on June 27, 1898,

244 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1129 (Hurwitz to Klein, December 4, 1894).
245 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 255 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated December 6, 1894). –
Regrading this context, see also Appendix 6.1 and 6.2 in this book.
246 Ibid., 77: 257 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz dated January 5, 1895).
247 See FREI 1985, p. 122 (a letter from Hilbert to Anna Klein dated March 6, 1895).
248 [Protocols] vol. 12. This seminar was devoted to differential calculus. Directed by Klein, it
was conducted with the assistance of Hilbert, Ernst Ritter, and Arnold Sommerfeld. Of its
seventeen participants, six were women.
249 [AdW Göttingen] Pers 16: 131; Chro 4, 6: 200.
436 7 Setting the Course, 1892/93–1895

and in this letter he underscored the differences between himself and Hilbert to
bolster his argument:
I insist and confidently hope that everything will be done to keep Hilbert at our university.
Hilbert is without doubt the most outstanding representative of our science in Germany
among the younger generation. [...] I would like to add that Hilbert’s mathematics is quite dif-
ferent from mine. He lacks interest in the applications of mathematics, as well as in the orga-
nizational questions to which I am primarily devoting myself at the moment. Instead, he is
completely focused on fundamental abstract investigations. I have always regarded this con-
trast to be a very fortunate addition […].250

When Hilbert refused to succeed Lazarus Fuchs at the University of Berlin in June
1902, he was assured an annual salary of 10,000 Mark in Göttingen (Klein’s was
then 11,000 Mark). At the same time, Klein was also supportive of Hilbert’s close
friend Hermann Minkowski receiving a so-called “personal ordinariate” position
alongside them. Klein’s wife Anna was privy to all events. When Hilbert rejected
an offer from Heidelberg in 1904, she wrote to her husband:
I just received your letter, and I am quite pleased by Hilbert being offered yet another posi-
tion. He is indeed an honorable and reliable man to have resisted this strong temptation, and
he certainly did so in the interest of preserving Göttingen’s reputation. […] Now he will pro-
bably be safely in place with us [in Göttingen].251

In Königsberg, Hilbert had not had any doctoral students. While in Göttingen, he
would supervise the doctoral procedures of sixty-nine mathematicians, including
six women. The first of these students, Otto Blumenthal, described the professors
Hilbert, Klein, and Heinrich Weber as follows: “[Hilbert], a man of middling sta-
ture who looked not at all like a professor, dressed unassumingly, and had a broad
reddish beard […], stood out so oddly against Heinrich Weber’s venerable, stoo-
ped figure and against Klein’s commanding presence and beaming gaze.”252
Paul Kirchberger, who also studied with Klein and Hilbert, completed his
doctoral thesis “Über Tchebychefsche Annäherungsmethoden” [On Chebyshev’s
Approximation methods]253 in 1902, and later he compared both mathematicians
as well. He described Klein’s tall, slender figure in tasteful clothing and his
friendly, self-confident appearance. With his Rhenish humor, according to Kirch-
berger, Klein stood out above everyone else in the Mathematical Institute. For
three decades, Klein would work harmoniously and amicably with the equally
prominent Hilbert. Hilbert’s nature, however, was diametrically opposed to
Klein’s in every respect.254

250 [StA Berlin] Rep.76 Va Sekt.6 Tit.IV Nr.1 Vol.XVII, fols. 97–97v.
251 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 284 (a letter from Anna Klein to Felix Klein, August 15, 1904).
252 Quoted from HILBERT 1935 (GA III), p. 399.
253 For an extract of this thesis, which was inspired by Hilbert, see Math. Ann. 57 (1903), pp.
509–40.
254 See KIRCHBERGER 1925, pp. 2–3.
 8 THE FRUITS OF KLEIN’S EFFORTS, 1895–1913

Felix Klein had set the course for numerous developments, and this chapter will
examine the results of his efforts up until the time of his early retirement. In 1912,
the final volume of Robert Fricke and Klein’s monograph on automorphic functi-
ons was published. In the preface, Fricke remarked that Klein’s “harmonic crea-
tions” (harmonische Schöpfungen), which he called the “aestheticizing branch of
present-day mathematics,” had resulted from “working out the inner relationships
of many different disciplines.”1 Klein responded to Fricke’s comments:
The fact that I myself left these “aestheticizing” developments behind is because I had al-
ready become fed up with them (by the time I came to Göttingen in 1886). Perhaps the possi-
bility of being productive, with which nature had endowed me in this respect, had diminished
by this point, but in fact I was piqued by other interests – by applied mathematics, by the en-
cyclopedia, and by coordinating educational reforms. These pursuits were no less inherent to
me and, given my advanced age, I was of course only able to promote them in an organizatio-
nal manner.2

At the University of Göttingen, Klein pursued his often-expressed vision (see

Sections 6.4.2 and 7.5.1) of establishing the fields – once represented by Gauß –
of mathematics, the natural sciences, and technology on a higher level. To this
end, he made use of government support and the backing of industry (Section
8.1). Klein struggled still to be received as a creative mathematician, and he for-
mulated open problems for the applications of mathematics (8.2). At the same
time, he increasingly devoted his time to the history, philosophy, psychology, and
education of mathematics – the topics which, in 1896, he had planned to be
addressed in the final volume of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE. This theoretical program was
closely related to the initiative of reforming all of mathematical education, from
kindergarten to the university level (8.3). Klein participated in further internatio-
nal projects, and he stood up against nationalistic tendencies (8.4). When the
number of his obligations increased to such an extent that they began to occupy
even his semester breaks, he decided to retire early (8.5).
On April 16, 1896, “His Majesty the Emperor and King” Wilhelm II signed
an official document that bestowed upon Felix Klein, who was then forty-seven
years old, the status of a privy government councilor (Geheimer Regierungs-Rat).3
Not until six months later, however, when Klein turned down a professorship at

1 FRICKE/KLEIN 2017, p. xxvi (German original FRICKE/KLEIN 1912, p. V).

2 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from Klein to Fricke dated December 4, 1911.
3 [UAG] 5956, fols. 104–07 (submitted by the dean Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Jan. 13, 1896).
Norbert Wiener compared: “In German science, I may say, the social position of a Geheimrat
was like that of a scientist in England who had been knighted” (WIENER 2017 [1956], p. 292).

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 437

R. Tobies, Felix Klein, Vita Mathematica 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75785-4_8
438 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Yale University, did he feel as though his efforts were fully supported by the Mi-
nistry. Only then did he rise to become an important advisor to the Ministry’s in-
fluential director Friedrich Althoff.4 During his time in the ministry, Althoff saw
many Prussian ministers of culture come and go, and he himself possessed the
right to report directly to the emperor. He was authorized to make many decisions
against the wishes of university faculties. About his own situation, Klein re-
marked: “The fact that I rejected this offer [to work at Yale University] without
any further negotiations – because I felt bound by the undertakings and plans that
I had initiated in Göttingen – ultimately tore Althoff away from his previous re-
servations […] and prompted him to provide active assistance.”5

8.1 A CENTER FOR MATHEMATICS, NATURAL SCIENCES, AND

TECHNOLOGY

The development of our cultural conditions is increasingly pushing toward the need for a
certain number of people who are capable of using, in technical areas, their university educa-
tion in mathematics and physics. […] You all know that Siemens has benefited from
employing theoretical physicists in its major ventures. Another especially interesting example
in this respect is the Zeiss Optical Institute in Jena, whose ever new and surprising achieve-
ments are the object of admiration abroad. This success has only been achieved because such
an outstanding mathematician and physicist as Prof. [Ernst] Abbe has put all his theoretical
knowledge at the service of the company.6

Klein expressed these thoughts in a talk that he gave on December 6, 1896, after
which he sent the text to Robert Bosse, who was the Prussian Minister of Culture
from 1892 to 1898. Despite the limitations that had been placed on him by his
“truce” with the engineers’ association in Aachen (see Section 7.7), Klein forged
ahead in his efforts to combine theory and technology. He was aware of the suc-
cess of Ernst Abbe, who in 1889 had founded the Carl Zeiss Foundation in Jena
with private resources and who used this foundation to support (state) institutions
such as the University of Jena.7 Klein was also familiar with the technical insti-
tutes that had been established at private universities in the United States (see
Section 7.4.3), and on this basis he developed a funding model that suited the
government-run University of Göttingen. He brought together university re-
searchers and scientifically inclined industrialists to form the “Göttingen Associa-
tion for the Promotion of Applied Physics and Mathematics” (the Göttingen As-
sociation, for short), and this will be the topic of Section 8.1.1 below.
The alliance that Klein organized among science, the state, and industry led to
the creation of new examination regulations for applied mathematics along with
new teaching assignments, professors, and institutes (Section 8.1.2).

4 On the so-called “Althoff system,” see BROCKE 1980.

5 KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), p. 29.
6 [UAG] Kur. 5956, fols. 99–100 (Klein’s speech, on December 6, 1896).
7 See TOBIES 1984 and 2020b. There were no private universities in Germany at the time.
 8.1 A Center for Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Technology 439

Klein was always early to recognize and promote the potential of new re-
search fields in applied mathematics. His own special engagement on behalf of
aeronautical research offers new insights into his approach (Section 8.1.3).

8.1.1 The Göttingen Association

Ever since the time of Gauß and W. Weber, it has been a tradition in Göttingen for mathe-
matics and physics to make advancements together, not independently. Klein safeguarded this
position with particular vigor, and he expanded it by including the technical sciences.8

In the article quoted here, Max Born compared Klein with Hilbert. Born was
aware that the technical sciences were necessarily more expensive and he
acknowledged (as did Hilbert) Klein’s ability to raise funding from industrialists
(see also Section 9.4.2), who in turn expected to benefit from new research results
and from the improvement of general education.
Industrial production in Germany had received a considerable boost from the
unification of the Empire in 1871. After the Franco-Prussian war, five billion gold
francs flowed into the German economy as war reparations, and this led to the
establishment of numerous scientific and technical companies. More than nine
hundred new joint-stock companies (Aktiengesellschaften) were formed during the
boomtime of the so-called “founding years” (Gründerjahre) from 1871 to 1873,
and an additional 1,860 companies were created during the period from 1874 to
1889.9 Representatives from these companies participated in the founding of che-
mical and electro-technical associations and were also won over to support
Klein’s goals in Göttingen.10
Founded on February 28, 1898, the “Göttingen Association for the Promotion
of Applied Physics” expanded its scope to include applied mathematics on De-
cember 17, 1900. The following figures participated in the extension meeting: the
chairman of the Göttingen Association, Henry Theodore Böttinger (a board mem-
ber of the Eberfeld dyestuffs factories); Felix Klein, deputy and secretary of the
minutes; Tonio Bödiker, chairman of the board at Siemens & Halske;11 Anton
Rieppel, who became the director of the Machine Works of Augsburg and Nur-
emberg (MAN) in 1898; the Kurator of the University of Göttingen, Dr. Ernst
Höpfner; and the Göttingen professors Theodor Des Coudres (applied electricity),
Hans Lorenz (technical physics), Eduard Riecke (experimental physics), Wolde-
mar Voigt (theoretical physics), Otto Wallach (organic chemistry),12 and Wilhelm
Lexis (economics). Two members of the Association were listed as excused: Dr.

8 Max Born, “Hilbert und die Physik,” Die Naturwissenschaften 10 (1922), pp. 88–93, at p. 93.
9 See Meyers Neues Lexikon, vol. 5 (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1973), p. 701.
10 See TOBIES 2002a, MANEGOLD 1968 and 1970, and also MEHRTENS 1990, pp. 377–401.
11 Bödiker served as the president of the Imperial Insurance Office from 1884 to 1897. From
1897 to 1903, he was the chairman of the board at Siemens & Halske.
12 Wallach was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1910.
440 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Emil Ehrensberger, a representative of Krupp Cast Steel Works in Essen,13 and

Theodor von Guilleaume, the general director of the Carlswerk Co. in Cologne,14
a wires and cables factory; it was here, in 1904, where the first telephone cable
would be manufactured that connected Europe and America.
In the session on December 17, 1900, Böttinger, Klein, and Rieppel had ar-
gued that applied mathematics and physics were complementary disciplines and
that the funding required to support mathematics was considerably lower than in
the case of electrical engineering and technical physics.15 The associate professors
Friedrich Schilling (descriptive geometry and graphical statics) and E. Wiechert
(geodesy, geophysics) were made university members of the Association.
The Göttingen Association was a novel institution designed to promote ap-
plied mathematics, the natural sciences, and technology research at the University
of Göttingen. Klein’s influence and role in this organization can be summarized in
the following six points.
First, Klein and Böttinger laid the groundwork for a scientist-driven research
organization with the Göttingen Association, which would later become typical
with the foundation, in January of 1911, of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the
Advancement of Science (since 1948, the Max Planck Society). The Göttingen
Association, however, functioned without any binding statute.16 Böttinger mana-
ged the finances; he himself made the largest personal donation to the organiza-
tion (128,000 Goldmark), and he contributed another 900,000 Goldmark from his
chemical company. As a successful entrepreneur, he recognized the value of inno-
vation, and as a member of various business associations, he recruited additional
industrialists to join the organization in Göttingen. All told, the Göttingen Associ-
ation was joined by approximately fifty representatives from the chemical, electri-
cal engineering, optical, and steel industries. By the time of Böttinger’s death in
1920 and the absorption of the Göttingen Association by the Helmholtz Society
(see Section 9.4.2), these members had donated a sum of 2,318,900 Goldmark to
promote its initiatives.
Second, in their efforts to develop institutes at the University of Göttingen,
Klein and Böttinger secured the collaboration of government authorities. Since
1889, Böttinger held a seat in the Second Chamber, the Lower House of Repre-
sentatives (Abgeordnetenhaus), of the Prussian Parliament (Landtag)17 as a dele-
gate of the National Liberal Party. In 1909, Böttinger became a member of the

13 When the promotion of aeronautical research became an urgent matter in 1909, Gustav Krupp
von Bohlen und Halbach himself became member of the Göttingen Association ([UGB]
Math. Arch. 5022: 10).
14 [StA Berlin] Nachlass Althoff, AI, No. 138, fol. 179. For a list of the fifty industrial members
of the Göttingen Association and their financial contributions, see TOBIES 1986a, pp. 130–32.
15 [StA Berlin] Nachlass Althoff, AI, No. 138, fols. 179–84.
16 See KNOKE 2016. Efforts to establish a statute for the Association failed on account of the
opposition of Anton Rieppel, who wanted to limit membership to the (founding) six to eight
members. [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 4F, fols. 78–79, 106–12.
17 For a list of delegates, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landtag_of_Prussia.
 8.1 A Center for Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Technology 441

First Chamber, the Upper House (Herrenhaus), of this governing body, and as
such he acquired state funding for projects in Göttingen. Friedrich Althoff, the
director of the Prussian Ministry of Culture, was made an honorary member of the
Göttingen Association on February 22, 1908, the year of his death (see Fig. 34).
Even after Althoff’s death, Klein was able to maintain good relations with the
Ministry because the University of Göttingen elected him as its representative in
the Upper House of the Prussian Parliament in Berlin, where he served from 1908
to 1918 (see Sections 8.3.4, and 9.1.2).

Figure 34: The Göttingen Association for the Promotion of Applied Physics and Mathematics.
An invitation to the celebration of its tenth anniversary, February 22, 1908.
Chairman: Henry Theodore Böttinger (the “crowned moon” in the upper right)
Deputy: Felix Klein (represented as the sun)
Honorary member: Friedrich Althoff (represented as Zeus giving his blessing)
([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 4E)

Third, it was Klein who gave reports about scientific advancements at the As-
sociation’s annual meetings. Here he also discussed his book projects on the ap-
plications of mathematics (the theory of the top) and on mathematical instruction
(the ICMI monograph series), the latest results in theoretical physics, etc. The
professors working in “applied” research areas had to prepare their own special
research reports, and Klein encouraged them to apply to the Göttingen Asso-
ciation to receive funding for books, scientific instruments, and other resources
that they might need to expand or renovate their institutes. It should be mentioned
that Klein also succeeded in including the “pure” mathematicians Hilbert, Min-
kowski, and Edmund Landau (an expert in analytic number theory) as members of
442 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

the Association.18 Landau’s participation in this organization is especially note-

worthy given that he (reportedly) regarded applied mathematics as “lube oil
mathematics” (Schmierölmathematik).19
Fourth, beginning in 1903, the industrial supporters of the Göttingen Asso-
ciation invited the members of this group to attend an additional annual meeting at
one of their places of operation, and these meetings included tours of factories,
museums, etc. The first of such gatherings took place in Elberfeld (at the dyestuffs
factories); in 1904, it was held in Essen (Krupp); in 1905, in Berlin (Siemens &
Halske); in 1907, in Nuremberg (MAN); and in 1908, at the B.G. Teubner pub-
lishhing house in Leipzig (see Section 5.6), for example. In May of 1912, Klein
arranged for such a meeting to take place in Jena at the Carl Zeiss optical com-
pany,20 but, for the first time, he was unable to attend for health reasons. In 1914,
he did attend the last of these meetings in Dessau, hosted by the German
Continental Gas Company (Deutsche Kontinental-Gas-Gesellschaft).21
Fifth, Klein sought, with the support of the Göttingen Association, to reach an
understanding with the engineers teaching at Technische Hochschulen who had
sparked an “anti-mathematics engineering movement.” The issue was the relation-
ship between theory and laboratory instruction in engineering education, in parti-
cular the extent and nature of the mathematical knowledge required of engineers.
For a long time in Germany, theoretical mathematical education had been domi-
nant, and some influential engineering professors opposed this.22 Klein reacted to
this with a lecture titled “Universität und Technische Hochschule,”23 which he
delivered in 1898 at the seventieth annual meeting of the Society of German Natu-
ral Scientists and Physicians in Düsseldorf. Here, he recognized the importance of
technical professions, but he argued for the necessity of their mathematical basis.
Klein based his argument on the example of the École Polytechnique in Paris,
where mathematics traditionally possessed a high status. Klein had closely fol-
lowed the developments taking place in technical disciplines. In his memorandum
from 1888 (see Section 6.4.2), he had already made the case that engineers should
be able to earn doctoral degrees (with the title “Dr.-Ing.”) from Technische
Hochschulen. Now, at Althoff’s request, he was asked to review the new regula-

18 Replacing the recently deceased Minkowski, Edmund Landau was made a member of the
Göttingen Association during its meeting in July of 1909 ([UBG] Math. Arch. 5022, fol. 9).
For a list of all the university-affiliated members of the Association, see TOBIES 2012, pp. 58–
59. Regarding Hilbert’s and Minkowski’s participation in the Association’s meeting in 1904
and Landau’s involvement in its meeting in 1913, see KNOKE 2016, pp. 155–56. Hilbert’s
participation is also mentioned in the Association’s records from the First World War, during
which a meeting was held on November 16 and 17, 1917. [UBG] Math. Arch. 5030, fol. 15.
19 See OSTROWSKI 1996, p. 105; and ECKERT 2013, p. 170.
20 [UBG] Math. Arch. 5028.
21 See KLEIN 1918, p. 227.
22 For details on this movement, see HENSEL et al. 1989, pp. 52–82.
23 Klein’s lecture was published in the Jahresbericht der DMV 7 (1899) II, pp. 39–50. It can
also be viewed online at https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ed/PPN517154005.
 8.1 A Center for Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Technology 443

tions governing the conferral of such a degree.24 On October 11, 1899, to mark the
centenary celebration of the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg (Berlin),
the Emperor of Germany and King of Prussia Wilhelm II ultimately bestowed
upon Prussian Technische Hochschulen the right to grant doctoral degrees.25
Klein and Böttinger were able to persuade Adolf Slaby and Alois Riedler, the
most vocal opponents against the efforts to develop the applied sciences in Göt-
tingen (see Section 7.7), to set aside their grievances. In July of 1900, Slaby and
Althoff came to Göttingen to sign a (new) “peace agreement” with Klein, and this
truce was communicated to the members of the Göttingen Association.26
Finally, the Association of German Engineers welcomed Klein’s suggestions
for educational reform “in light of the growing importance of commercial issues”
(see Section 8.3.4),27 and it invited him to discuss these matters with its members
in September of 1904. In 1905, this organization, whose chairman at the time was
Carl Linde, became a member of the Göttingen Association, and altogether it
donated 18,500 Goldmark to institutions at the University of Göttingen. This
coincided with a shift in attitude at the Association of German Engineers, which
now regarded mathematics as an (important) basis of engineering education. This
shift is reflected in the reports by the German Committee for Technical Education
(Deutscher Ausschuss für technisches Schulwesen), which was formed in 1908 by
the Association of German Engineers and the Association of German Mechanical
Engineers.28 The mathematician Paul Stäckel, who was then a professor at the
Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe, represented the domain of mathematics on
this committee. As Gert Schubring has shown, Stäckel coordinated closely with
Klein and was able to implement a number of his suggestions.29
Sixth, unlike the later Kaiser Wilhelm Society, which concentrated exclu-
sively on research, the Göttingen Association was a strong supporter of the
broader educational reforms that were being proposed at the time.30 Klein was
personally engaged in persuading the industrial members of the Göttingen Associ-
ation to provide financial support for the development of new curricula, for the
establishment of a new institute (Fachschule) for precision mechanics, for conti-
nuing education courses, for the creation of national and international education
committees,31 for the development of scientific and technical courses for lawyers
and administrators (the first of these took place in Göttingen and Hanover in the

24 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Althoff AI, No. 179, fols. 51–52v (Klein’s review, January 18, 1899).
25 Since 1900, this degree has also been granted in Saxony by the Technische Hochschule in
Dresden (“Dr.-Ing.”), and since 1901 it has been conferred in Bavaria by the Technische
Hochschule in Munich (there the title bestowed is “Doctor rerum technicarum”).
26 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Althoff AI, No. 138, fols. 179v–80. Regarding the earlier “Aachen
truce” in 1895, see Section 7.7.
27 Quoted from the Zeitschrift des VDI 48 (1904), p. 1473.
28 On this committee, see LUDWIG/KÖNIG 1981, pp. 256–59.
29 See SCHUBRING 1989a, pp. 190–91.
30 See SCHÜTTE 2007.
31 [UBG] Math. Arch. 5031, fol. 24.
444 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

summer of 1911), and for the establishment of a “Böttinger – Studienhaus” for ex-
change students, etc.32 On September 1, 1908, moreover, Böttinger donated
100,000 Mark to found a Wilhelm Foundation for Scholars to support members of
the scientific academies in Berlin and Göttingen, the instructors at Prussian uni-
versities and Technische Hochschulen, and librarians. After Althoff’s death, Wil-
helm II decreed on December 21, 1908 that this foundation, which had been na-
med in his honor, would henceforth be known as the “Friedrich Althoff Founda-
tion.” Klein and Böttinger were appointed to the board of this foundation.33
In a report to the members of the Göttingen Association written in April of
1911, Klein emphasized that the purpose of the organization was “to promote
scientific research in the areas of applied mathematics and physics as well as edu-
cation in the broadest sense.”34 The engineer and industrialist Anton von Rieppel
even described the improvement of pedagogical training as the decisive motiva-
tion behind the foundation of the Göttingen Association:
The founders of the association who came from industry were engineers. These included, in
addition to Mr. [Henry] von Böttinger, Director [Wilhelm] Schmitz from the Krupp Com-
pany, Professor von [Carl] Linde, Commerce Councilor [Georg] Krauß, Commerce Councilor
[Ernst] Kuhn,35 and myself. In his lectures, Privy Councilor [Felix] Klein established that we
should aim to achieve the following goals:
1. above all, to work toward improving the training of future teachers;
2. to promote increased research in the field of applied sciences; and
3. to steer university policy down a path that was more in touch with practical life than was
the case at the time.
Above all, we agreed that the first point was the most important one, because we had repea-
tedly been confronted with the fact that young engineers, because of the inadequate and im-
practical education that they had received at secondary school, had to waste their time at uni-
versity in order to make up for what, in our opinion, secondary schools could have provided
them quite well […]. The founding idea of the Göttingen Association was to help improve
these conditions.36

When Klein was formulating proposals for reforming mathematical education (see
8.3.4.1), he had also sent his suggestions to Rieppel, who responded approvingly:
If you succeed in having mathematics – analytic geometry, elementary differential and
integral calculus, the foundations of descriptive geometry – taught at secondary schools to the
extent that the needs of architects and chemists are met, your current opponents would surely
consider this a commendable success, and I would regard it as the fulfillment of many years
of wishes.37

32 [UBG] Math. Arch. 5015–5024.

33 The board consisted of sixteen members, included Adolf von Harnack, Friedrich Schmidt-Ott,
Hermann Diels, and Alfred Hillebrandt. [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 2E, fols. 33–26.
34 [UBG] Math. Arch. 5026, fol. 22.
35 Ernst Kuhn was the owner of the G. Kuhn machine factory in Stuttgart. In 1895 and 1896, he
was the chairman of the Association of German Engineers. See LUDWIG 1981, pp. 566, 576.
36 [UBG] Math. Arch., No. 5029, fols. 20–21 (a speech given by Rieppel on November 30,
1912).
37 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 2F, fol. 40 (a letter from Rieppel to Klein dated May 16, 1900).
 8.1 A Center for Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Technology 445

Rieppel donated 31,500 Goldmark to the Göttingen Association. At the organiza-

tion’s meeting in Nuremberg in 1907, he donated an additional 2,000 Mark with
the stipulation: “I request in particular that this sum be left at the disposal of Privy
Councilor Klein for the mathematical division.” This funding was used to con-
struct a new harmonic analyzer and to create mathematical tables (Tabellen-
werke).38 These instruments were used by Carl Runge, who, owing to the estab-
lishment of new examination regulations, had meanwhile been hired in Göttingen
as a full professor of applied mathematics.

8.1.2 Applied Mathematics in the New Examination Regulations and the

Consequences

Within the German Mathematical Society, the idea of new examination regulati-
ons for teaching candidates had been a topic of discussion since the 1890s. On
June 2, 1897, Klein wrote to Althoff about his new ideas for these regulations:
We are of the opinion that now might be the right time to redress the complaints of engineers
(etc.) about the insufficient training that mathematics teaching candidates receive in the ap-
plied sciences – insofar as these complaints seem justified. In this respect, we have introduced
three innovations to our plan, namely 1) the recognition of a certain number of semesters
spent at a Technische Hochschule, 2) the inclusion of professors from Technische Hochschu-
len on the examination board, and 3) an appropriate definition of academic requirements […].
We have […] come up with the idea of establishing a new Facultas [teaching qualification for
school teachers] for applied mathematics. I have written down the “requirements” on the back
of the next page.39

The idea of establishing a “new Facultas for applied mathematics” for secondary
school teachers was incited not only by the complaints of engineers but also by
the thought that, as a result, “the Ministry will no longer be able to avoid granting
appropriate teaching assignments at all universities and thereby creating an open
path for the necessary development [of applied mathematics].”40 Klein outlined
the following plan on the back of his letter to Althoff:
Requirements for a teaching certificate in applied mathematics [i.e. the Facultas]:
1. Lower level. Elements of analytic geometry and of differential and integral calculus. The
usual projection methods of descriptive geometry and the elementary aspects of technical
mechanics, basic geodesy.
2. Upper level. A command of differential and integral calculus and its geometric applicati-
ons. Projective geometry. Analytic mechanics. Advanced geodesy and probability the-
ory.41

38 [UBG] Math. Arch. 5019 (the source of the quotation here) and 5022, fols. 5–8.
39 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Nachlass Althoff B, No. 92, fols. 182v–183.
40 KLEIN 1914a, p. 317.
41 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Nachlass Althoff B, No. 92, fol. 185v.
446 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

On June 27, 1898, Klein insisted to Althoff that now would be the time to intro-
duce new examination regulations in order to support the intentions of the Göttin-
gen Association.42 As a consequence, these regulations – the “Ordnung der Prü-
fung für das Lehramt an höheren Schulen in Preußen” [Examination Regulations
for Teachers at Upper Schools in Prussia] – were decreed on September 12, 1898
and came into force on April 1, 1899. Klein remarked with certainty: “As soon as
we have organized instruction in all of these areas, then, in accordance with the
tradition of the university, new research clusters will be created everywhere.”43

Table 8: Applied Mathematics in the Prussian Examination Regulation for

Teaching Candidates at Secondary Schools
1898 1917
1. Descriptive Mastery of graphical and
geometry up to the numerical methods
theory of central (descriptive geometry,
projection and skills in graphical calculation,
graphical methods. approximate calculation)
and their application to at
2. Technical Mecha- least one of the following
nics: Mathematical fields:
methods, esp. 1. Astronomy
graphical statics. 2. Geodesy
3. Meteorology and
3. Basic geodesy and geophysics
elements of advanced 4. Applied mechanics
geodesy alongside the 5. Applied physics
theory of the 6. Mathematical sta-
adjustment of tistics and actuarial
observation errors. mathematics.
1921
Familiarity with the aspects of analysis most
important to applications – particularly its
computational, graphical, and instrumental
methods – with descriptive geometry,
mechanics (including graphical statics and
kinematics), probability and approximation
theory. More in-depth theoretical and
practical studies in at least one of the
following areas of application:
1. Astronomy, 2. Surveying,
3. Meteorology and geophysics, 4. Applied
mechanics, 5. Applied physics,
6. Financial mathematics, mathematical
statistics and actuarial mathematics,
7. Technical sciences (e.g. electrical
engineering, heat engineering, aeronautical
engineering, or the statics of structures).

By the year 1910, 178 students in Prussia had earned the new qualification to
teach applied mathematics.44 Most of the latter went on to teach at secondary
schools, though some of them found positions at special technical schools (Fach-
schulen). Because of this educational background, some of these graduates also
became important experts in industrial research. The list of possible elective
subjects that the new examination regulations made available (see Table 8) were
developed relatively early on at the University of Göttingen and the University of
Jena (the only university within the Ernestine duchies), both of which received
strong financial support from industry to create professorships for applied mathe-
matics and applied/technical mechanics. At most of the other German universities,
there was at first only a teaching position for descriptive geometry.

42 Ibid., fol. 206v (a letter from Klein to Althoff dated June 27, 1898).
43 Quoted from TOBIES 1988a, p. 563.
44 See SCHIMMACK 1911, p. 62.
 8.1 A Center for Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Technology 447

The mathematician August Gutzmer was a professor in Jena, and he ensured

(in close cooperation with Klein) that the Prussian examination regulations would
be adopted there on January 17, 1900, and that the Carl Zeiss Foundation would
finance the development of new institutions and the appointment of new profes-
sors. Klein’s former student Walther Dyck influenced similar developments in
Bavaria, where he was a member of the state’s highest Board of Education
(Oberster Schulrat).45
In a letter to Gutzmer, Klein expressed his vision of establishing full profes-
sorships for all applied areas of research:
Indeed, I would like the representatives of applied subjects to become full professors. Then,
however, we would need different representatives for applied mathematics and applied phy-
sics, at least two. In Göttingen, even if I leave aside Brendel and Bohlmann, we in fact still
have four (on the one hand, Schilling and Wiechert; on the other hand, Lorenz and Simon).46

Klein would need five years to achieve this vision.

Descriptive geometry / applied mathematics. The associate professorship that
Klein had secured for Arthur Schoenflies in 1892 had to be refilled in 1899 when
Schoenflies was made a full professor in Königsberg. Klein’s former doctoral stu-
dent (and his first assistant) Friedrich Schilling received this position, but he had
not been the first choice. Klein had formulated the following criteria for Schoen-
flies’s successor: “1. He must be a scientific man. 2. Within mathematics, he must
represent the geometric approach and possibly also know descriptive geometry. 3.
He must possess talent and experience as a teacher.” Regarding Schilling, Klein
had remarked that he “fulfills points 2) and 3) in an outstanding way, but there are
reservations about point 1).” At first, the top candidate for the position had been
Georg Scheffers, who had been influenced by Sophus Lie, but Scheffers did not
accept the offer. Thus a second shortlist of candidates was made, which Klein, as
the director of the Mathematical-Physical Seminar, forwarded to the Ministry in
Berlin: 1) Dr. Gino Fano, a lecturer at the University of Rome; and 2) Friedrich
Schilling, a professor at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe.47 Because the
Italian mathematician Fano turned down the offer (see Section 3.4), only Schilling
remained. Klein’s initial idea, which was to lobby for Schilling to be named a full
professor of applied mathematics just one year later, was thwarted by Hilbert.48
In 1902, Klein was able to improve the position of the associate professors of
applied mathematics by implementing a few innovations. First, Klein stepped
down from his position on the examination committee as the person in charge of
applied mathematics and nominated Schilling and Wiechert to take his place. Se-
cond, Klein made it possible for Schilling and Wiechert to participate as directors

45 On the developments in Jena, see TOBIES 2020b; in Bavaria, HASHAGEN 2003, pp. 347–60.
46 Quoted from TOBIES 1988b, p. 44 (Klein to Gutzmer, February 6, 1902). Martin Brendel, an
astronomer, became a professor in Frankfurt/Main in 1907. On Bohlmann, see Section 7.6.
47 [StA Berlin] Rep. 76 Va Sekt. 6, Tit. 4, No. 1, Vol. XVII, fols. 167–70v (hiring recommen-
dations in Klein’s handwriting, dated January 20 and February 11, 1899).
48 See SCHIRRMACHER 2019, p. 9.
448 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

in the administration of the Mathematical-Physical Seminar. Third, Klein arran-

ged for the former “collection of mathematical instruments and models” to be split
into two sections. He himself remained the director of Section A (mathematical
models), with which his own assistant was engaged, while Section B (graphical
exercises and mathematical instruments) was put in the hands of Schilling, with a
part-time assistant.49 In 1904, Schilling ultimately accepted a professorship at the
newly founded Technische Hochschule in Danzig (today: Politechnika Gdańska in
Poland). Now the path was clear in Göttingen for Klein to create the first full
professorship for applied mathematics in all of Germany.
This position was offered to and accepted by Carl Runge – “the founder of
modern numerical mathematics,” in the words of the numerical analyst Lothar
Collatz.50 Klein had kept Runge in his sights for a long time. As early as 1894,
Runge had sent to Klein his programmatic article “Ueber Anwendungen der Ma-
thematik” [On the Applications of Mathematics] and had explained, in a letter, his
new iterative methods for the approximate solution of ordinary differential equati-
ons (known today as the Runge-Kutta methods).51 Runge changed Klein’s (initi-
ally disciplinary) understanding of applied mathematics: “Ever since our collea-
gue Runge has been here, we have understood applied mathematics as the theory
of finalizing mathematics [die Lehre von der mathematischen Exekutive], i.e.,
numerical and graphical methods, of which descriptive geometry forms a side-
branch.”52
With Runge as a full professor, Klein was able to come closer to his goal of
developing “empirical sciences” into “calculating sciences.”53 In addition to cour-
ses on descriptive geometry, technical mechanics and geodesy, and astronomy,
which were available from the beginning as possible elective areas in the exams
for applied mathematics, other courses were gradually introduced: meteorology
and geophysics, financial mathematics, and further technical sciences, including
electrical engineering, heat engineering, aeronautical engineering, and the statics
of structures. These new additions are reflected in the later revisions that were
made to the examination regulations (see Table 8).
Geodesy / geophysics. Emil Wiechert had already achieved outstanding re-
sults while working as a Privatdozent in Königsberg. In 1897, around the same
time as the Scottish physicist Joseph John Thomson, he discovered the particle

49 [StA Berlin] Rep.76 Va Sekt. 6, Tit.4, No.1, Vol. XVII, fol. 167; and Vol. IX, fols. 164–72.
50 See COLLATZ 1990.
51 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 646 (Runge to Klein, April 6, 1894). Wilhelm Kutta developed
Runge’s methods further in his doctoral thesis at the Technische Hochschule in Munich,
which he wrote under Walther Dyck and defended in 1901. See also TOBIES 2012, pp. 60–79;
RICHENHAGEN 1985; and HENTSCHEL/TOBIES 2003, pp. 32–41.
52 [UBG] Math. Arch. 5029, fol. 25 (1908).
53 Carl Runge’s students, who included his own children Iris Runge and Wilhelm Runge, would
go on to develop branches of applied mathematics at Technische Hochschulen and in the field
of industrial research. See my own analysis of these developments in TOBIES 2012.
 8.1 A Center for Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Technology 449

that is known today as the electron.54 As an associate professor in Göttingen,

Wiechert made advancements in the fields of surveying and photogrammetry. He
also earned a reputation for his seismological research (for the Wiechert seismo-
graph, the Wiechert seismological station, and as the founder of the Association
Internationale de Séismologie in 1903). With strong support from Klein, Wiechert
received a so-called personal full professorship for geophysics.55 Thus one of
Gauß’s research fields was secured with an independent professorship.
Applied electricity. Hermann Th. Simon had come to Göttingen in 1901 to
succeed Th. Des Coudres as an associate professor of applied electricity (electrical
engineering). He became known for his invention of a so-called “singing arc
lamp,” which was a type of radiophonic instrument, and he founded a research
facility for wireless telegraphy at the university. In 1907, when he was made a
personal full professor in Göttingen, he thanked Klein for this promotion.56
Technical physics. Klein also intended to arrange for Hans Lorenz to receive a
personal professorship. In 1900, Lorenz had become an associate professor and
the director of the Institute of Technical Physics, which had been founded in 1895
(see Section 7.7). He was, however, still not the most fitting solution for this re-
search area in Göttingen. On the one hand, he proved to be rather uncooperative;
for instance, he turned down Klein’s offers to teach joint seminars with him. On
the other hand, Lorenz lacked mathematical sophistication, as is evident from his
own notes and from a critique of his papers by Richard von Mises.57 The univer-
sity records reveal that Klein and Böttinger worked together to ensure that Lorenz
would be lured away by a favorable offer from the newly founded Technische
Hochschule in Danzig (Gdańsk) in 1904 (much like Friedrich Schilling).58
In October of 1904, Lorenz’s position in Göttingen was filled by Ludwig
Prandtl, who came at the same time as Carl Runge, and also from the Technische
Hochschule in Hanover. Prandtl was a student of August Föppl, whose own doc-
toral research Klein had supported in Leipzig (see Section 5.3.1). In comparison
to Hans Lorenz, Prandtl possessed a deeper understanding of mathematics.59 Even
though Prandtl’s mathematical abilities would be surpassed by younger scholars
such as Theodore von Kármán and Richard von Mises,60 Lothar Collatz was right

54 In 1906, Joseph John Thomson was awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery.
55 A personal professorship was tied to a given individual; the salary for this position was simi-
lar to that of an associate professorship (Extraordinariat). On August 11, 1904, Anna Klein
wrote to her husband: “I’m curious when and how the decision about Wiechert will be made”
([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 283).
56 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 1003 (H.Th. Simon to Klein, January 13, 1907).
57 [Deutsches Museum] HS 1993-001 (Lorenz’s memoirs). Regarding Richard von Mises’s cri-
ticism, see SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2018, pp. 483–85.
58 See TOBIES 1988b, pp. 44–45; and TOBIES 1988a, p. 265. Both Klein and Böttinger accepted
an invitation from the Ministry of Culture to attend the inaugurating ceremony of the Techni-
sche Hochschule in Danzig, which took place in October of 1904.
59 Regarding Prandtl’s biography, see ECKERT 2019a [2017].
60 See SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2018, pp. 483–85.
450 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

to emphasize that Prandtl not only knew how to treat difficult hydrodynamic pro-
cesses numerically but also that he contributed in a significant way to the deve-
lopment of numerical methods.61 When the threat arose of losing Ludwig Prandtl
to the Technische Hochschule in Stuttgart, the University of Göttingen was able to
retain him by offering him a personal full professorship. In addition, the Göttin-
gen Association contributed to increase Prandtl’s salary substantially.62
From 1898 to 1908, the number of full professorships in Göttingen for physics
and mathematics grew from five to ten.63 Klein conducted joint seminars with
most of these new hires (see especially Section 8.2.4), and he paved the way for
the creation of new institutes for his young colleagues. Institutes were established
in Göttingen for technical physics (completed in 1897), applied electricity (1897),
geophysics (1898, renovated in 1901), inorganic chemistry (1903), and applied
mathematics and mechanics (1905, for Runge and Prandtl). The Institute for
Technical Physics was expanded. The Institute for Physical Chemistry was exten-
ded (1898–1900); facilities were constructed for an Institute of Agricultural Bac-
teriology (1901);64 renovations were made to the Physical Institute and to its ap-
plied-electricity division (1905); an experimental facility was built for systemati-
cally measuring air resistance (1907/08); and a research facility was constructed
for studying wireless telegraphy (1909). Klein’s dream of a new building for the
Institute of Mathematics, for which plans were made in 1909 and funding was
secured in 1914, would not be fulfilled until 1929 (see also Section 9.4.2).
In the following section, Klein’s engagement on behalf of these technical
institutions will be demonstrated with the example of aeronautical research.

8.1.3 Aeronautical Research

Since the 1890s, there was little doubt that it would soon be possible to build a
navigable aircraft.65 In his courses, Klein had already focused on questions of ap-
plied hydrodynamics (see 8.2.4), and he initiated a funding proposal with the re-
cently founded International Association of Academies. Beginning in 1900, Edu-
ard Riecke and Emil Wiechert were thus able to direct fundamental research in
this subject (at first on the topic of atmospheric electricity), and this work was
further supported with government funding (4,400 Mark).66
In 1903, the Wright brothers in the United States flew the first motor-operated
airplane, and this occurred around the same time that Wilhelm Kutta and the Rus-
sian mathematician and engineer Nikolay Y. Zhukovsky published their theories

61 See COLLATZ 1990, pp. 271–72.

62 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92, Nachlass Schmidt-Ott B 43, p. 16; and C 55, fol. 126.
63 See KLEIN 1908a.
64 This was the first institute for microbiology and genetics in Germany.
65 Ludwig Boltzmann, “Über Luftschifffahrt,” Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft deutscher Na-
turforscher u. Ärzte, 65. Versammlung, Nürnberg 1893, vol. 1 (Leipzig: Vogel, 1894), p. 90.
66 See KLEIN 1909, p. 131.
 8.1 A Center for Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Technology 451

of aerodynamic lift.67 During the same time, in 1903, Emperor Wilhelm II enacted
the establishment of the Telefunken Company for Wireless Telegraphy, LLC
(Telefunken Gesellschaft für drahtlose Telegraphie mbH) in order to equip the
army and navy with the latest technology (without any patent disputes between
the companies involved). In the fall of 1905, he proclaimed the foundation of a
Company for the Study of Motorized Aircraft, LLC (Motorluftschiff-Studienge-
sellschaft mbH), with a capital investment of one million Mark. Scientists, avia-
tion pioneers, and representatives from companies and the military were brought
together to coordinate research projects. At Althoff’s request, Klein – enthusiatic
about the possibility of flying – received an invitation to participate in the inaugu-
ral meeting of this organization, which took place in Berlin on October 28, 1906.
The meeting’s agenda was as follows:
1. Formation of a technical committee.
2. Proposal for the formation of groups.
3. Report by the managing director on the status of the issue of the motorized balloon and
on the question of whether the Zeppelin airship is worthy of support.68

The technical committee consisted of four groups: a meteorology group (spokes-

man: Richard Assmann), a dynamics group (Felix Klein), a construction group
(Director Otto Krell),69 and a machine group (Adolf Slaby).70
Klein saw an opportunity to attract additional funding for research on hydro-
dynamics and aerodynamics in Göttingen. He immediately incorporated Prandtl
and Wiechert into the dynamics group under his charge and he had them formu-
late a research proposal, which he sent to Berlin on December 15, 1906. They
applied for resources to construct a facility for testing airship models (Luftschiff-
Modellversuchsanstalt), with which they planned to investigate air resistance,
measure the distribution of pressure on model balloons, study the distribution of
airflow velocities on models to determine the ideal placement of propellers, test
the stability of various balloon shapes, etc.
At the next meeting in Berlin on January 7, 1907, Klein was promised 5,000
Mark to undertake preliminary work in Göttingen. He won a new member to join
the dynamics group: Sebastian Finsterwalder (A. Brill’s former doctoral student)
of the Technische Hochschule in Munich, who had written the article on aerody-
namics (1902) for vol. IV of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE and who had developed one of the
first methods for reconstructing spatial objects from survey photographs.
At this same meeting, Klein also successfully applied for Prandtl to become
an additional member of the construction group (headed by Otto Krell, see
above). According to the minutes, Klein had presented some of Prandtl’s recent

67 See BLOOR 2001; ECKERT 2019a [2017]; and SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2018.

68 For this quotation and the information below, see [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7C: 1–106.
69 Otto Krell was the director of the division of military and shipbuilding technology at the Sie-
mens-Schuckert Company in Berlin.
70 F. Althoff and some industrial members of the Göttingen Association (H. Th. von Böttinger,
among others) were shareholders of the Company for the Study of Motorized Aircraft.
452 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

work71 – published before the Göttingen wind tunnel was built – in order to justify
this membership. The work in question concerned flows with considerable density
fluctuations (gas dynamics) as well as supersonic flows and the resulting shock
waves, which had already been theoretically predicted in 1858 by the Göttingen
mathematician Bernhard Riemann.72
At a meeting on September 14, 1907, Klein reported that Henry Theodore von
Böttinger had acquired a plot of land in Göttingen and that this would allow the
university to move ahead quickly with the construction of the planned testing fa-
cility with the wind tunnel (Luftschiff-Modellversuchsanstalt).
In 1907, at Klein’s instigation, Carl Runge was also made a member of
Klein’s dynamics group. Initiated by Klein, Carl Runge, with his wife Aimée and
their daughter Iris, had recently begun to translate the first volume of Frederick
William Lanchester’s book Aerial Flight (1906).73
In 1908, Richard Assmann recommended studying the progress that was
being made abroad, and Klein arranged for Prandtl, Runge, and Wiechert to travel
to France.74 In Paris, this domain was being advanced by Paul Painlevé, who had
spent a semester studying under Klein in Göttingen (see Section 6.2.3). Together
with Émile Borel, Painlevé would publish a book on aeronautics.75 As early as
1908, Painlevé flew in one of the motorized airplanes designed by the Wright
brothers, and in 1909 he introduced aeronautics as a university subject (Prandtl’s
courses in Göttingen were thus not unique). Thanks to Klein’s initiative, Prandtl’s
teaching appointment was expanded to include “the entire area of scientific aero-
nautics,” for which, as of April 1, 1909, he received 4,000 Mark in additional sal-
ary during each of the next three academic years.76
When, on October 11, 1910, Wilhelm II declared the establishment of the afo-
rementioned Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the Advancement of Science, Klein ex-
pressed the idea, only six days later, of applying for the creation of a Kaiser Wil-
helm Institute to conduct basic research in the fields of hydro- and aerodynamics
in Göttingen.77 This idea was motivated in part by Prandtl’s argument that Göttin-
gen, “as a mathematics university par excellence,” would be the ideal location for
such an institution.78 Klein noted in 1913 that this institute had been approved

71 See Ludwig Prandtl, “Zur Theorie des Verdichtungsstoßes,” Zeitschrift für das gesamte Tur-
binenwesen 3 (1906) pp. 242–45; and “Neue Untersuchungen über die strömende Bewegung
der Gase und Dämpfe,” Physikalische Zeitschrift 8 (1907), pp. 23–30.
72 Regarding the context, see KLUWICK 2000.
73 See TOBIES 2012, pp. 71–74.
74 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1 D, fol. 145; and https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/DE-611-HS-
3214512 (p.14). For Runge’s report, see HENTSCHEL/TOBIES 2003, pp. 172–73.
75 Paul Painlevé and Émile Borel, L’aviation (Paris: Alcan, 1910).
76 [StA Berlin] Rep. 76 Va Sekt. 6, Tit. 4, No. 1, Vol. XXII, fols. 2–4. During the summer
semester of 1909, Prandtl gave a lecture course on the scientific foundations of airship travel,
and in the winter semester of 1909/10 he organized a seminar on the applications of aerody-
namics.
77 See ECKERT 2019b, p. 71.
78 [StA Potsdam] RMdI Nr. 89, 70/1, fols. 173–74.
 8.1 A Center for Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Technology 453

with the support of Böttinger, who had a seat on the Kaiser Wilhelm Society’s
board. On account of the First World War, however, only an expanded testing
facility was built as a Research Institute for the Navy and Army. The final estab-
lishment of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Fluid Dynamics in July of 1925 also
required the engagement of Felix Klein, who used its creation as leverage to en-
sure that Prandtl was not hired away by the Technische Hochschule in Munich.79
In October of 1908, the Göttingen Association discussed the topic of aero-
nautical research. From the 3rd to the 5th of November in 1911, an “Aeronautical
Research Congress” (Flugwissenschaftlicher Kongress) took place in Göttingen.
This led to the founding of a “Scientific Society for Aeronautics” (Wissen-
schaftliche Gesellschaft für Flugtechnik) on April 3, 1912, which brought together
scientists, engineers, industrialists, and government authorities who were active in
this domain. Its first board of directors consisted of Böttinger, Prandtl, and the
airship designer August von Parseval. The following mathematicians were origi-
nal members of the society: Otto Blumenthal (Aachen), August Gutzmer (Halle),
Felix Klein, Wilhelm Kutta (Stuttgart), Carl Runge, Horst von Sanden (Göttin-
gen), Aurel Voß (Munich), and N.Y. Zhukovsky (Moscow).80 At this point, the
Company for the Study of Motorized Aircraft had used up its capital, and its task
was considered to be complete. The company was dissolved, and the model test-
ing facility in Göttingen became the property of the Göttingen Association.81
Around the year 1900, not everyone had been pleased with Klein’s turn
toward organizing aspects of applied disciplines. Engineers had viewed this as an
encroachment into their territory. Some mathematicians, too, frowned upon this
activity, as can be seen from the following remarks by Otto Blumenthal:
Klein has now turned completely to the scientific-astronomical side. He is no longer a ma-
thematician; he is a general exact-scientific organizing angel, a change which can be very
pleasant for you and which I find very distasteful. Personal stimulation in the mathematical
field can no longer be expected from him.82

Blumenthal would first need to work at a Technische Hochschule (Aachen) – a

professorship for which he had been recommended by Klein and Sommerfeld –
before he likewise realized “that the inner content and outer appreciation of ma-
thematics would gain much if our most capable forces were to concentrate on en-
gineering mathematics and contribute to it.”83 Later, when Blumenthal dedicated a

79 It was Klein who garnered the necessary support for the establishment of this institute (see
TOLLMIEN 1987, p. 465). Regarding the support provided by the Ministry of Culture for this
undertaking, see SCHMIDT-OTT 1952, p. 27.
80 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92, Nachlass Schmidt-Ott, B 43, fols. 14–19.
81 [UBG] Math. Arch. 5029, fols. 10–12.
82 Blumenthal to the astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, August 15, 1898 (this English translation
is quoted from ROWE 2018b, p. 89).
83 [StB Berlin] Sammlung Darmstaedter, Blumenthal, H 1910 (15).
454 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

commemorative plaque at Klein’s birthplace, he ultimately extolled Klein and his

“unprejudiced, broad vision […].”84
Already in 1899, while a professor at the Polytechnikum in Zurich, Hermann
Minkowski had written approvingly about Klein’s applied program. Even though
he had a rather condescending view of the theory of the spinning top (see Section
8.2.3) and he believed that he himself would be able to do much better, he was
prepared to be supportive of Klein, as he informed Hilbert:
Otherwise, I still work a great deal on applications [of mathematics]. From thermodynamics, I
came to chemistry. I always think that, one day, I will defend Klein against his many oppo-
nents and show that mathematicians really can do something for practice (and something
better than merely determining the movements of the spinning top).85

When Hilbert turned down the aforementioned offer from the University of Berlin
in 1902 (to succeed Lazarus Fuchs), the Ministry of Culture agreed to hire Her-
mann Minkowski at the University of Göttingen on October 1, 1902, and thus
further strengthened the center for mathematical and scientific research there.86

8.2 MAINTAINING HIS SCIENTIFIC REPUTATION

I am of course very pleased that you have taken up the automorphic functions again, and also
for general reasons: We can only be effective in our organizational plans if, at the same time,
we maintain a scientific reputation among our colleagues in the field [of pure mathematics]!87

“When kings build, the carters have plenty to do.”88 Leopold Kronecker was of
the opinion, however, that this aphorism by Friedrich Schiller did not apply to
mathematicians, “for, among us, every researcher must be a king and a laborer at
the same time.”89 Nevertheless, Klein was able to find more than a few students to
take his sparkling ideas further and present them systematically. Of course, the
task of transcribing and editing his lectures, which many of his students and
assistants undertook, can also be described as drudgery.
One of Klein’s long-term collaborators of this sort – someone who benefitted
from the “king” but also did much of his hard labor – was Robert Fricke, who

84 BLUMENTHAL 1928, p. 3 (a speech on behalf of the German Math. Society, Oct. 12, 1927).
85 Quoted from MINKOWSKI 1973, p. 113 (Minkowski to Hilbert, February 11, 1899).
86 This third professorship for mathematics came about quickly because, upon Wilhelm Lexis’s
suggestion, the university was able to create it out of a “still vacant full professorship for in-
organic chemistry” (see TOBIES 1991c, p. 104).
87 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from Klein to Fricke dated October 13, 1903.
88 Schiller’s full distich, which concerns I. Kant and his interpreters, reads: “Wie doch ein ein-
ziger Reicher so viele Bettler in Nahrung / Setzt! Wenn die Könige bau’n, haben die Kärrner
zu thun” [“See how a single rich man gives bread to an army of beggars! / When the sover-
eigns build, carters have plenty to do.”]. The translation is by M. Mattmüller (see also C.D.
Warner, et al., Library of World’s Best Literature. New York 1897, vol. XXIII, p. 12905).
89 A letter from Kronecker to Georg Cantor (September 18, 1891), published in the Jahresbe-
richt der DMV 1 (1892) II, p. 23; and in KRONECKER 1930, p. 497.
 8.2 Maintaining His Scientific Reputation 455

completed their joint book project on automorphic functions during these years
(Section 8.2.1).
In the interest of this monograph on automorphic functions, Klein turned his
attention yet again to number theory. His results in this field, which he derived
geometrically, were held in high regard by Charles Hermite. However, Klein re-
cognized the limitations of his geometric approach, and he allowed Hilbert to di-
rect their joint seminar on number theory (8.2.2).
Arnold Sommerfeld can be regarded as another mathematical “laborer” who
worked under Klein’s direction (see Section 7.1), but he managed to produce a
multi-volume work based on Klein’s lectures on the theory of the top (8.2.3).
Klein’s broad interest in promoting the applications of mathematics led him to
recognize a number of open or unsolved problems, and thus with these in mind he
inspired innovative research in the domains of fluid dynamics, the statics of
structures, friction theory, and the theory of relativity (8.2.4).

8.2.1 Automorphic Functions (Monograph)

Certain aspects of this project have already been discussed above in Section 5.5.4.
The subject of the book was still in a state of flux, and Klein’s first plan for it (see
Section 6.3.4) was constantly being refined. Klein recognized the yeoman’s work
that Fricke was putting into it, and in a letter from September 13, 1894, he sug-
gested that Fricke’s name should come first on the title page. Yet soon thereafter,
when Fricke demanded a greater financial share in the book’s proceeds, Klein
reclaimed the project for himself. He noted that he had indeed allowed Pockels
and Bôcher to receive all the proceeds from their editions of his work,90 but the
latter did not have permanent positions. Fricke, however, had now become a pro-
fessor at the Technische Hochschule in Braunschweig. Klein wrote decisively:
Dear Robert!
[…] The fact of the matter is that this project is my own plan. It is part of my scientific life’s
work, which I have been preparing for five years now in all possible ways through my lecture
courses and through the work of others that I have instigated. And I have not stopped doing
so recently. Rather, I wrote to you in the summer that my current lecture on number theory
should directly benefit the planned first volume (by classifying and clarifying the material
from a different angle), and that I intend to give a major lecture on the subject of automorphic
functions in the coming years.91

Klein proposed to his nephew (by marriage) that they should “part in peace” and
that he only wanted to concentrate on his lecture courses. This prompted Fricke to
come around, and three years later the first volume of the book was finally pub-
lished with the subtitle Die gruppentheoretischen Grundlagen [The Group-Theo-
retical Foundations]. In his preface, Fricke explicitly mentioned the valuable pre-

90 On Pockels’s and Bôcher’s editions of Klein’s lectures, see Section 6.3.5.

91 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from Klein to Fricke dated November 18, 1894.
456 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

liminary work of H.A. Schwarz (on hypergeometric series) and Lazarus Fuchs (on
linear differential equations), he referred to Klein and Poincaré as “the real foun-
ders of the theory of automorphic functions,” and he listed the lecture courses
(Klein’s and his own) upon which the monograph was based.92
On December 9, 1900, by which point Klein’s time had increasingly been ta-
ken up by other projects, he now offered to split the proceeds of the second vo-
lume of the monograph two-to-one in Fricke’s favor.93 With a watchful eye,
however, Klein continued to follow and promote every new research approach.
For example, he wrote to Fricke on September 4, 1901:
You have touched right on the central difficulty that subjectively stands in the way of our
second volume on automorphic functions: the existence methods on which we have to base
our work have essentially only been created in the last fifteen years by the new French school
(Picard, Poincaré); neither of us worked on this at first, and yet now we are supposed to pro-
vide a full report on it! The situation is even worse when I add that the methods may have
been greatly simplified and generalized by Hilbert over the last two years, but his contributi-
ons are only partially available in a fully worked-out form. On the other hand, there is the
objective consideration that there is no better and more fruitful evidence for the new methods
(including all the ideas of set theory) than the theory of automorphic functions.94

Vol. II of the Lectures on the Theory of Automorphic Functions was given the
subtitle Die functionentheoretischen Ausführungen und die Anwendungen [The
Function-Theoretical Explanations and Applications], and it was published in
multiple fascicles. Klein repeatedly advised Fricke about how to proceed:
As far as the specific consideration of set theory is concerned, there is probably no essential
difference between your current view and the one that I advocate. This is in no way a matter
of improving the actual central idea of continuity, as it appears in my work and Poincaré’s,
but only of making this idea acceptable to such people who are less inclined to perceive con-
tinuity. This can be done by breaking it down into small steps in the language of set theory
with which they are familiar.95

Klein continued to work on the task of “making this idea acceptable,” and such
work included his aforementioned four-semester seminar with Hilbert and Min-
kowski, which ultimately resulted in Koebe’s proofs of Klein’s theorems (see
Section 5.5.4). Supervised by Klein, Wilhelm Ihlenburg also completed his doc-
toral thesis “Über die geometrischen Eigenschaften der Kreisbogenvierecke” [On
the Geometric Properties of Circular-Arc Quadrangles] (1909) in this area.
When Poincaré came to Göttingen to give a series of lectures in April of 1909,
Klein’s lecture on new developments in the area of automorphic functions was
included in the week’s program.96 In 1911, when a session on automorphic func-

92 FRICKE/KLEIN 2017 [1897], pp. xxv–xxviii

93 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from Klein to Fricke dated December 9, 1900.
94 Ibid., a letter from Klein to Fricke dated September 4, 1901 (emphasis original).
95 Ibid., a letter from Klein to Fricke dated October 13, 1903.
96 During Poincaré’s presence, the Göttingen Mathematical Society met additionally on Thurs-
day, April 23, with lectures by Hilbert and Klein; and on Tuesday, April 27, with lectures by
Landau and Zermelo; see Jahresbericht der DMV 18 (1909) Abt. 2, p. 79.
 8.2 Maintaining His Scientific Reputation 457

tions was held at the annual meeting of the German Mathematical Society in
Karlsruhe, it was Klein who gave the first talk on the panel, followed by Brouwer,
Koebe, Bieberbach, and Emil Hilb.97 The last fascicle of vol. II of the monograph,
which was published in 1912, included the latest research findings and culminated
in the continuity proofs of Klein’s theorems.98
In 1913, when Klein was nominated to become a member of the Berlin Aca-
demy, the professors H.A. Schwarz, G. Frobenius, F. Schottky, and M. Planck
wrote in their nomination letter that Klein had produced a large, multi-volume
textbook on analysis that was full of significant geometric methods (see Appendix
9). After a long delay – and after the deaths of Weierstrass, Kronecker, and L.
Fuchs – they finally paid tribute to Klein’s geometric style of thinking.
Conrad H. Müller, who would complete a Habilitation under Klein on the his-
tory of mathematics (see 8.3.1), classified Klein’s books published with Teubner:
In 1882, F. Klein published a book titled On Riemann’s Theory of Algebraic Functions and
Their Integrals, which, on an intuitive and geometric-physical basis, provides an exposition
of this theory and, at the same time, served as a foundation for his additional publications on
function theory. That book was followed in 1884 by his Lectures on the Icosahedron, the first
of several further books on the comprehensive theory of automorphic functions of one vari-
able. Here, the algebraic cases of these functions are settled in the simplest way with a func-
tion-theoretical treatment of the geometric theory of regular polygons. The first important
special case of transcendental automorphic functions is treated in Klein’s Lectures on Elliptic
Modular Functions (1890/92), which he wrote with Fricke’s editorial assistance, while Klein
continued to discuss the “general theory of automorphic functions” in his ongoing lecture
courses (1897 etc.). Riemann’s theta functions and the theory of characteristics are addressed
in the works of [Friedrich] Prym, [Adolf] Krazer – who published a book of his own on theta
functions in 1903 – and then further by [Georg] Rost, whereas the other side of this research
area is represented by [Friedrich] Schottky’s Theory of Abelian Functions (1880) and
[Wilhelm] Wirtinger’s Studies of Theta Functions (1895). Finally, [Hermann] Stahl wrote a
textbook on this area of study: The Theory of Algebraic Functions (1896) […].99

8.2.2 Geometric Number Theory

In fact, I am often pessimistic regarding my scientific performance. I have too many general
concerns and no time at all to concentrate on individual issues. Thus I am very much afraid
that you will be disappointed in my number theory. Perhaps closer interaction with Hilbert
will rejuvenate me!100

Klein was lecturing for four hours a week on number theory when he wrote this to
Hurwitz. In his lecture course, Klein had just finished discussing “Lagrange’s the-
ory of the continued-fraction development of quadratic irrationalities based on the
idea of the lattice,” but he was still uncertain about his own scientific output.

97 Reports in Jahresbericht der DMV 21 (1912) Abt. 1, pp. 153–66.

98 See FRICKE/KLEIN 2017 [1912], pp. 229–448; and Section 5.5.4 above.
99 In TEUBNER 1908, pp. xiv–xv. Like Krazer, Georg Rost was a student of Prym in Würzburg.
100 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 255 (a letter from Klein to Hurwitz, December 6, 1894).
458 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Klein had been excited when he discovered Gauß’s geometric approach to the
subject, according to which “any positive binary quadratic form ax2 + bxy + cy2
can be interpreted geometrically by a parallelogram lattice [Gitter].” He had al-
ready presented on this topic to the Göttingen Mathematical Society (see 7.2),
published his preliminary findings in the Göttinger Nachrichten, and lectured on
ideal numbers in his Evanston Colloquium (lecture 8). Going beyond Gauß, Klein
had emphasized that his approach, with the right choice of components, “could
produce theorems on the composition of forms directly by means of geometry.” 101
Hilbert spent the beginning of 1895 in Göttingen to prepare for his move there
from Königsberg. During this stay, Klein discussed with Hilbert his approach to
the theory of continued fractions, and he added in a letter: “Please tell me what
Minkowski has to say about my idea regarding continued fractions; I will pro-
bably have to follow this matter more closely these days.”102 Hilbert replied:
I spoke with Minkowski at length about your geometric interpretation of the ordinary contin-
ued fraction for quadratic irrationalities. Like me, he considers it to be new, and he only
brought to my attention Poincaré’s two notes in the Journal de l’École polytechnique (1880)
and the Comptes rendus (1884), which also present a geometric but less simple and applicable
conceptualization of continued fractions.103

In Minkowski’s Geometrie der Zahlen [Geometry of Numbers], we read that

Poincaré’s “geometric conceptualization of normal continued fractions (1880,
1884) is less applicable to the true nature of approximate fractions.”104 Encour-
aged by Hilbert’s letter, Klein chose the topic “Zur Theorie der gewöhnlichen
Kettenbrüche” [On the Theory of Ordinary Continued Fractions] for his upcoming
lecture at the 1895 meeting of the German Mathematical Society in Lübeck. Here
he mentioned, among other things, that new aspects pertaining to higher forms
would result from his approach, which his doctoral student Philipp Furtwängler
was developing further, and that the subject as a whole would be included in his
monograph on automorphic functions.105 After Klein had presented his results
again in Göttingen and published them,106 Hermite immediately arranged for
Klein’s article to be translated,107 and he expressed his enthusiasm about Klein’s
results in flowery language in a letter to the translator Léonce Laugel:
L’article de M. Klein sur la représentation géométrique des développ.[ements] en fract.[ion]
cont.[inue] dont vous m’avez envoyé la traduction m’a intéressé au plus haut point. Il est
l’aurore ; il contient l’annonce d’une conquête mathématique glorieuse à laquelle personne
n’applaudira plus que moi; vous savez que je l’ai entreprise vainement et n’ai jamais cessé de

101 See Göttinger Nachrichten (1893), pp. 106–09; repr. in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 283–86.
102 Quoted from FREI 1985, p. 120 (a letter from Klein to Hilbert dated January 10, 1895).
103 Quoted from ibid., p. 120 (Hilbert to Klein, January 16, 1895).
104 MINKOWSKI 1910, p. 162.
105 See Jahresbericht der DMV 4 (1897) III, pp. 153–54.
106 Göttinger Nachrichten: Math.-physik. Klasse (1895), pp. 357–59; reprinted in KLEIN 1922
(GMA II), pp. 209–11.
107 Felix Klein, “Sur une représentation géométrique du développement en fraction continue
ordinaire,” Nouvelles annales des mathématiques 15/3 (1896), pp. 327–31.
 8.2 Maintaining His Scientific Reputation 459

regretter mon insuccès. […] L’observation joue, je le crois, un rôle capital dans les recherches
sur les nombres; […] elle peut révéler les mystères qui se jouent de nos efforts, tant leur na-
ture est cachée. Les nombres s’offrent d’eux mêmes et tout d’abord à l’étude; ils se trouvent
comme en première ligne bien avant les transcendantes de l’analyse et ils se dérobent comme
jaloux de garder des secrets qui sont pour nous d’un si grand prix. […] Je serai heureux de
voir […] l’illustre Klein entrer comme un nouveau Josué dans la terre promise […].108

On account of Hermite’s enthusiasm about his work, Klein would soon be made a
member of the Section de Géométrie of the Académie des Sciences in Paris (see
Section 7.4.4); Hermite and Picard congratulated him in a telegram.109
After Hilbert had permanently resettled in Göttingen in 1895, Klein conducted
joint research seminars with him. In their seminar on number theory during the
winter semester of 1895/96, Klein let Hilbert direct the discussions concerning
more abstract methods. He explained this decision to Hurwitz as follows:
In the seminar that I am conducting with Hilbert, we have discussed the ideal theory of the
quadratic field under Hilbert’s direction, and I also intend to comment on this topic in the
summer semester. For me, Hilbert’s representation is too abstract. Of course, I understand all
the details, but the whole does not interest me in this form. Thus I hardly believe that I will
pursue my number-theoretical studies any further. My entire goal is to provide a clearer re-
presentation of the theory of binary forms, which will involve making extensive use of my
new representation of the development of the continued fraction (in the lattice) and of your
article in Mathematische Annalen 45, etc., etc. This will again result in an autograph publica-
tion of my lecture course.110

The publication of Klein’s lecture courses on number theory (1895/96 and 1896),
which were prepared by Sommerfeld and Furtwängler, contains his geometric in-
terpretation of continued fractions, his “theory of singular elliptic entities,” and
his “theory of singular values related to the icosahedron irrationality.” Klein
stressed in these courses that his geometric methods could certainly be useful for
higher areas of number theory, and he referred to the “approaches that Minkowski
has provided in the first part of his promising work (The Geometry of Numbers,
1896)”.111 In comparison to Minkowski’s theory of space lattices (Raumgitter),
however, Klein admitted that his own approach was less ambitious: “I have limi-
ted myself to clarifying already known fundamentals geometrically, whereas
Minkowski undertook the discovery of new things.”112 It was Klein who had in-
cited Minkowski and Hilbert to write the report on number theory for the German
Mathematical Society, and they had already presented a provisional plan for it in
1895 at the annual meeting in Lübeck. This work had resulted in the aforemen-

108 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 631/Anl. (Hermite to Laugel, January 6, 1896).
109 Ibid. 114: 25.
110 [UBG] Math. Arch 77: 262 (Klein to Hurwitz, January 29, 1896); [Protocols] vol. 12.
111 Felix Klein, “Autographirte Vorlesungshefte III (Ausgewählte Kapitel zur Zahlentheorie),”
Math. Ann. 48 (1897), pp. 562–88; reprinted in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), pp. 287–314 (the
quotations here are from pp. 287–88). – Minkowski’s complete book – Geometrie der Zahlen
(B.G. Teubner, 1910) – was published posthumously from his estate by Hilbert and the Swiss
mathematician Andreas Speiser, who had completed his doctorate in Göttingen in 1909.
112 KLEIN 1976 [1926], p. 309.
460 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

tioned first part of Minkowski’s book and in Hilbert’s book-length “Zahlbericht”

[Number Report] (1897).113
Klein continued to refine and explain his own methodological approach,114
which proved to be inspiring to younger mathematicians. Among those who were
stimulated by Klein’s approach was Georg Pick, who, in 1899, first described his
famous theorem (“Pick’s theorem”) for determining the area of polygons and who
referred to Klein’s geometric conceptualization of continued fractions in his
proof.115 Klein’s doctoral student Furtwängler expanded this topic to include any
number of dimensions; in doing so, he classified Klein’s approach as follows:
An especially intuitive representation of ideal theory is obtained by examining the decom-
posable forms belonging to the field and by interpreting them through spatial point lattices.
The quantities which are to be adjugated to the given field for the purpose of establishing
unique decomposability into prime factors then appear directly as entire algebraic numbers of
a higher number field and, what is more, are represented by the point lattices in a way that is
just as simple as it is intuitive. This idea was first proposed by Mr. F. Klein; the purpose of
the following article is to develop Klein’s lattice figure for any given algebraic number
field.116

Furtwängler achieved outstanding results in number theory, some of which have

been regarded as approaches to the solution of Hilbert’s twelfth problem.117 As a
professor at the University of Vienna, Furtwängler supervised numerous students
who would rise to prominence, Olga Taussky among them.
Algebraic, analytical, and geometric approaches to number theory all have
their legitimate place today. Some textbooks still refer to Klein’s results.118 The
more recent area of algebraic arithmetic geometry – Gert Faltings and Peter
Scholze were awarded the Fields Medal119 for their work on this topic – is based
on new epistemic foundations.120 Although Felix Klein concentrated on geometric
approaches, he appreciated Hilbert’s algebraic number theory and also held Ed-
mund Landau’s analytical methods in high esteem.121
Landau came to Göttingen on April 1, 1909 to replace Minkowski, who had
died on January 12th of the same year. Landau had written a thesis on a self-cho-

113 Hilbert, “Die Theorie der algebraischen Zahlkörper,” Jahresbericht DMV 4 (1897), pp. 175–
546; trans. I.T. Adamson, The Theory of Algebraic Number Fields, Berlin: Springer, 1998.
114 See KLEIN 2016 [31924], pp. 42–46.
115 Georg Pick, “Geometrisches zur Zahlenlehre,” Sitzungsberichte des deutschen naturwissen-
schaftlich-medicinischen Vereines für Böhmen 19 (1899), pp. 311–19 (see esp. p. 318).
116 P. Furtwängler, “Punktgitter und Idealtheorie,” Math. Ann. 82 (1921), pp. 256–79, at p. 256.
117 See MASAHITO 1994.
118 See, for instance, Harold M. Stark, An Introduction to Number Theory (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 1978); and Oleg Karpenkov, Geometry of Continued Fractions (Berlin: Springer,
2013), pp. 215–34, 249–79. – Many thanks to Nicola Oswald for this information.
119 The Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields devised $47,000 for a Fields Medal fund; in
1894/95, he had studied with Klein in Göttingen, see [Protocols] vol. 12, p. 371.
120 See Allyn Jackson, “The Work of Peter Scholze,” Notices of the American Mathematical
Society 65 (2018), pp. 1286–87; GRUBER 1990; and SCHAPPACHER 2007, 2010, 2015.
121 See KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 312–14.
 8.2 Maintaining His Scientific Reputation 461

sen topic and completed his doctorate under Frobenius at the University of Berlin
in 1899. As a Privatdozent there (since 1901), he had already offered lecture
courses on the theory of Riemann’s zeta function and its application to number
theory, and on the distribution of prime numbers.122 Whereas Landau’s career did
not advance in Berlin, he was recognized in Göttingen as a rising star. Even
though he was listed third in the hiring proposal (behind Hurwitz and Blumen-
thal), he was also deemed to be “the scientifically most multifaceted and effective
mathematician of his generation.” Among other things, the hiring committee re-
marked: “His most important works on number theory concern the question of the
density [Dichtigkeit] of prime numbers, and he has succeeded in transferring his
results, obtained here according to Riemann’s method, to prime numbers in arith-
metic progression and to the prime numbers of algebraic number fields.”123
On the day that he accepted the offer, Landau wrote to Klein, “[…] I am well
aware how much I owe this opportunity to your supportive advocacy on my be-
half.”124 The hiring committee had consisted of Hilbert, Klein, Karl Schwarz-
schild, and Woldemar Voigt.125 The hiring process confirmed Klein’s statement:
“When I served on hiring committees for pure mathematics, which were necessary
at the University of Göttingen, my primary aim was to add depth to the faculty by
attracting an excellent candidate whose expertise differed from my own.”126

8.2.3 A Monograph on the Theory of the Spinning Top

In the same letter from January 29, 1896, in which Klein had informed Hurwitz
that he had no interest in Hilbert’s abstract number theory, he also wrote enthu-
siastically about another one of his ongoing projects:
I am all the more pleased with my course on the motion of the top. In a curious way, I have
made good progress there beyond Hermite in that I represent the rotations by ζ = αZ + β and
γZ +δ
define α, β, γ, δ as a function of T [= time]; these will namely become simple Θ quotients
(with only one Θ in the numerator and denominator). But this is only incidental; my actual
purpose is to convey to my students, with the example of the top, a complete understanding of
the way in which movements occur and how these can be represented with formulae, so that
engineers and physicists might really benefit from this. The whole rivalry with Technische
Hochschulen aside, I hope to make the matter useful if I continue to go in this direction.127

Klein was inspired to work on the theory of the spinning top during his trip to
Paris in 1887 (see Section 7.3). He later revisited the subject when, with an eye

122 See BIERMANN 1988, pp. 175–77.

123 [StA] Rep.76 Va Sekt.6, Tit.4, No.1, vol.XXII, fols. 21–27v (at fol. 26v). See also Landaus’s
two-volume Handbook on the Theory of the Distribution of Prime Numbers (Teubner, 1909).
124 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 609 (Landau to Klein, February 15, 1909).
125 [UAG] Phil. Fak. III, vol. 5, fol. 50.
126 KLEIN 1923a (autobiography), p. 32.
127 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 262 (Klein to Hurwitz, January 29, 1896).
462 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

toward his contacts with teachers and engineers, he wanted to elucidate a practical
topic in greater detail. This idea was supported by Gustav Holzmüller, the director
of the Royal Provincial Trade School (Provinzial-Gewerbeschule) in Hagen,
whom Klein had visited in 1895.128 In his lecture courses of 1895/96, Klein dis-
cussed the rotation problem on the basis of the theory of functions of complex
variables and on the results presented in his icosahedron book. The coefficients α,
β, γ, δ (see the quotation above) were represented as appropriate functions of time
(T). In a short note submitted to the Göttinger Nachrichten on January 11, 1896,
Klein emphasized “that α, β, γ, δ (in Hermite’s notation) become such elliptic
functions of the second kind that contain only a single theta function in the nomi-
nator and denominator.”129 As early as January 27, 1896, Hermite reacted posi-
tively to the fact that Klein had attempted to approach the equations of motions of
the top with Hermite-Lamé differential equations.130
Putting in many hours of “Felix duty” (see Section 7.1), Sommerfeld worked
further on this topic and wrote their coauthored monograph Theorie des Kreisels
[The Theory of the Top] in four parts (1897, 1898, 1903, and 1910) – 966 pages
in all. Fritz Noether, a son of Max Noether, contributed extensively to the fourth
volume. A new edition of the first three parts was issued in 1921, and an English
translation of the entire book was published from 2008 to 2014.
Parts III and IV, which were devoted to applications, went beyond what Klein
himself had prepared in his courses, talks, and prior publications. There he had
worked out the theoretical foundations of the subject. The four lectures that he
gave in 1896 at Princeton University under the general title “The Mathematical
Theory of the Top” (October 12–15, 1896),131 and another lecture, “The Stability
of the Sleeping Top,” which he delivered at the conference of the American Ma-
thematical Society on October 17, 1896, quickly gained international recognition.
The latter lecture was immediately translated into French.132
In his third lecture at Princeton – “Concerning the Multiplicative Elliptic
Curves” – Klein was sure to draw attention to the dissertation of his student Mary
F. Winston: “Über den Hermiteschen Fall der Laméschen Differentialgleichung”

128 See KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 509, 658–59.

129 Felix Klein, “Über die Bewegung des Kreisels,” Göttinger Nachrichten (1896), pp. 3–4; re-
printed in KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 616–17.
130 Laugel had translated this article for Hermite: Felix Klein, “Sur le mouvement d’un corps gra-
ve de révolution suspendu par un point de son axe (der Kreisel),” Nouvelles annales de ma-
thématiques 15 (1896), pp. 218–22. Hermite had written about this work (on Jan. 27, 1896):
“Vous pensez combien j’ai été sensible à la communication extrêmement bienveillante dont
M. Klein vous a fait l’intermédiaire. Le résultat concernant les formules pour le mouvement
d’un corps pesant de révolution est d’une bien haute importance. Veuillez présenter tous mes
compliments les plus cordiaux à M. Klein” ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 632/Anl.).
131 KLEIN 1897; reprinted in KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 618–54. See also the Memorial Book of
the Sesquicentennial Celebration of the Founding of the College of New Jersey and of the Ce-
remonies Inaugurating Princeton University (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898).
132 Felix Klein, “Sur la stabilité d’une toupie qui dort (sleeping),” Nouvelles annales de mathé-
matiques 16 (1897), pp. 323–28. – A Russian translation was published in Moscow in 2003.
 8.2 Maintaining His Scientific Reputation 463

[On Hermite’s Case of Lamé’s Differential Equation]. Hermann Liebmann,

Klein’s assistant in 1897 and 1898, simplified the approaches of the Italian mathe-
matician Tullio Levi-Civita, who had used Sophus Lie’s theory of transformation
groups to treat the differential equations of the motion of tops in order to identify
integrable cases.133 In his dissertation “Zur Theorie des Maxwell’schen Kreisels”
[On the Theory of Maxwell’s Top] (1904), Klein’s doctoral student Max Winkel-
mann investigated the motions of a nearly symmetrical top (this study is cited in
the addenda to Klein and Sommerfeld’s monograph).134
In a section in the second part of Klein and Sommerfeld’s book – “On the
Motion of the Heavy Asymmetric Top” – mention is made of Sofya Kovalevs-
kaya’s work on the subject.135 In 1888, Kovalevskaya had discovered in the field
of classical mechanics the third integrable special case of solid bodies (solvable
by theta functions), which is known as the “Kovalevskaya top.”136 This case is
theoretically significant, but a technical application has still not been found for it.
In Moscow, the Russian mathematician and engineer Nikolay Y. Zhukovsky, one
of the founding fathers of aerodynamics (see Section 8.1.3), had arranged for
models to be constructed to illustrate the movements of tops, the Kovalevskaya
top included. He gave talks on this subject at the meetings of the German Mathe-
matical Society in Munich (1892) and Lübeck (1895).137 Klein ordered reproduc-
tions of these models and received them from Moscow.138
When Fritz Kötter criticized Klein and Sommerfeld’s exposition of the Ko-
valevskaya top as insufficient, they responded in the addenda to their fourth vo-
lume by remarking that a “full discussion of this case would have required too
long of an analytical exposition.”139 In the second part of the book, Klein and
Sommerfeld had only briefly summarized the representation of the motion of tops
by elliptic functions, referring to the book Einführung in die Theorie der analy-
tischen Funktionen [An Introduction to the Theory of Analytic Functions] (1897),
whose author was Klein’s collaborator Heinrich Burkhardt.

133 H. Liebmann, “Classification der Kreiselprobleme nach der Art der zugehörigen Parameter-
gruppe,” Math. Ann. 50 (1898), pp. 51–67 (cited in KLEIN/SOMMERFELD 1897, p. 161).
134 See KLEIN/SOMMERFELD 1910, p. 952.
135 See KLEIN/SOMMERFELD 1898, pp. 376–77. In English: KLEIN/SOMMERFELD 2010 [1898], pp.
376–77 (the pagination is the same in the German and English editions).
136 See Sophie Kowalevski, “Sur le problème de la rotation d’un corps solide autour d’un point
fixe,” Acta Mathematica 12 (1889), pp. 177–232. For this work, Kovalevskaya was awarded
the Prix Bordin by the French Academy of Sciences.
137 See Jahresbericht der DMV 3 (1893) II, pp. 62–70; and 4 (1897) III, p. 144–50.
138 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 19, 19A (letters from Zhukovsky to Klein dated December 8,
1895 and October 24, 1896).
139 KLEIN/SOMMERFELD 1910, p. 950.
464 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Figure 35: The title page of the French edition of Riemann’s Collected Works,
including Felix Klein’s speech (discours) on Riemann, KLEIN 1894.
(https://archive.org/details/oeuvresmathmat00riem)
 8.2 Maintaining His Scientific Reputation 465

8.2.4 Inspiring Ideas in the Fields of Mathematical Physics and Technology

Now that I see that Hilbert is turning his attention to physics and that Prandtl and his students
are making great strides in hydrodynamics, I can believe that a new era is dawning for ma-
thematical physics.140

In October of 1881, Klein had suspected that now he would only be able to come
up with original ideas in the fields of mechanics and mathematical physics (see
Section 5.5, p. 252). Since the late 1890s, he had defined the field of applications
for the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project, planned the new curriculum in applied mathe-
matics, focused his own teaching on applied subjects, and devoted his research to
formulating open-ended problems. Perhaps it is not too bold to suggest that
Klein’s unsolved problems in applied mathematics were almost as inspiring as
Hilbert’s famous unsolved problems in pure mathematics (see Section 10.1).
In 1904, Klein presented a report to the Göttingen Mathematical Society
about his seminars on applied mathematics: “In 1899/1900, we discussed the mo-
tion of ships, then descriptive geometry, geodesy, various branches of mechanics,
including celestial mechanics [astronomische Mechanik]. Now we are focusing on
hydrodynamics, and the next topic will be probability theory.” He went on:
Complete insight can only be gained by taking practical activity and experimentation into ac-
count. What is accomplished in the seminars is more like preliminary work, in that we discuss
original scholarly literature and classify it from a mathematical point of view. In doing so, I
hope to be of equal service to applications and to the science of mathematics. If I continue to
receive support from my younger colleagues, as I have done so far, then I think that I will al-
ways be able to include new areas of research, such as electrical engineering, when the op-
portunity arises.141

There was no lack of support from his younger colleagues. Klein arranged to coo-
perate with them by including newly appointed professors in his research semi-
nars on applied mathematics. With Hilbert, he had already conducted seminars on
mechanics in the winter semester of 1897/98 and the summer semester of 1898. In
1900, he conducted a seminar with Max Abraham on the technical applications of
elasticity theory. With the astronomer Karl Schwarzschild (hired in 1901), he di-
rected seminars on astronomy (1902), the principles of mechanics (1902/03),
graphical statics and the strength of materials (1903),142 and hydrodynamics
(1903/04). For the seminar on probability theory in 1904, Klein also included
Martin Brendel and Constantin Carathéodory.143 After Carl Runge and Ludwig

140 [UA Braunschweig] A letter from Klein to Fricke dated December 4, 1911.
141 [Protocols] vol. 20, pp. 133–42, at p. 133 (Klein’s report, February 9, 1904).
142 In the course listings for the summer semester of 1903, this seminar was announced with the
title “Statik der Baukonstruktionen” [The Statics of Structures].
143 Raised in Brussels, the Greek mathematician C. Carathéodory earned his doctorate in Göttin-
gen with Minkowski (October 1, 1904); recommended by Klein, he already completed his
Habilitation in 1905 ([UAG] Phil. Fak. 190a, V 31–43). After being appointed to professor-
ships at the Technische Hochschule (TH) in Hanover (1909) and the TH in Breslau (1910),
Carathéodory was made Klein’s successor in Göttingen (see Section 8.5.3).
466 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Prandtl had been appointed, Klein relied primarily on them to co-direct his semi-
nars, but he involved other experts as well: “Select Chapters in the Theory of
Elasticity” (1904/05, conducted by Klein, Carl Runge, Prandtl, and Woldemar
Voigt); “Electrical Engineering” (1905, conducted by Klein, Runge, Prandtl, and
Hermann Theodor Simon);144 “Hydrodynamics” (1907/08, Klein, Runge, Prandtl);
“Ship Theory and Dynamic Meteorology” (1908, Klein, Runge, Prandtl, and
Wiechert); “Statics and Structures” (1908/09, Klein, Runge, Prandtl); “The
Strength of Materials” (1909, Klein, Runge, Prandtl).
Hilbert followed Klein’s example. In parallel with Klein’s seminar on electri-
cal engineering, he thus offered a seminar of his own on electron theory together
with Minkowski, Wiechert, and Herglotz.145 The interdisciplinary research semi-
nars in Göttingen, which were unique at the time, helped to dispense with the idea
that German universities should focus exclusively on educating future school
teachers (see Section 7.7). The training offered here produced a number of promi-
nent engineers, physicists, and industrial researchers, including notable examples
such as Heinrich Barkhausen, George A. Campbell, Erwin Madelung, Reinhold
Rüdenberg, Henry Siedentopf, Stephen P. Timoshenko, and Iris Runge.146
Klein’s efforts to formulate open-ended problems in applied disciplines can
be shown with a few examples.

8.2.4.1 Hydrodynamics / Hydraulics

Klein had already assigned his students to analyze the literature on this topic when
he was a professor in Munich (see Section 4.1.2), and he was familiar with the
classic works by Helmholtz, Kirchhoff, and Zhukovsky on the relations between
function theory and hydrodynamics. Even though the importance of automorphic
functions to hydrodynamics – for modeling currents around a polygon to produce
an airfoil profile, for instance147 – had yet to be investigated systematically, Klein
attempted early on to classify such problems from a mathematical point of view.
After teaching a course on “The Mechanics of Deformable Bodies (Especially in
Hydrodynamics)” (1899/1900), Klein conducted a seminar of his own titled “Se-
lect Chapters of Hydrodynamics” during the winter semester of 1903/04. In his
introductory lecture in the seminar, he underscored the relationship between the-
ory and experiments and stressed that many technical problems could not be
solved mathematically without a sufficient amount of empirical data.148
After eight presentations by participants in the seminar, Klein gave his own
lecture about how the total course of a flow curve, the outflow problem, and the

144 For an analysis of this seminar on electrical engineering, see TOBIES 2014.
145 See the Vorlesungsverzeichnis (summer semester, 1905), p. 16.
146 Regarding Iris Runge in particular, see TOBIES 2012.
147 See MATTHIEU 1949.
148 [Protocols] vol. 20, pp. 1–6 (Klein’s introductory lecture, October 28, 1903).
 8.2 Maintaining His Scientific Reputation 467

problem of conduits could be better understood mathematically. Regarding the

outflow problem, he said:
[…] a simplification of the related potential problem suggested by Mr. Hilbert could be used.
This involves the assumption that the cross-section outflow opening is infinitesimally small.
And the treatment of this simplified potential problem would then naturally be followed by
one in which the cross-section is finite but very small (Poincaré’s perturbation theory […]).149

In another interim report, Klein categorized the problems of hydrodynamics and

hydraulics into three groups: those that are mathematically well defined, those that
are somewhat poorly defined, and those that very poorly defined:
In the first group belong the problems of outflow, overflows, and permanent waves on stand-
ing bodies of water. Theoretically, these are problems of potential theory, but they have not
been treated much so far because they do not involve fixed boundary surfaces with linear
boundary conditions. For these cases, numerous experimental observations have already been
made. It certainly seems possible to apply these observations and make progress with the de-
sired theory.
The second category includes the flow of water in pipes and channels, and also the chan-
nel waves (in flowing water). Whenever the movement is not very slow, the phenomenon of
turbulence appears. The latter, in any case, depends to a great extent on the nature of the
walls. One can ask whether, in very wide pipes, the turbulence fills its entire cross-section.
Experiences from balloon travel on the turbulence of airflow do not seem to support this. The
question of how the onset of turbulence should be explained theoretically still seems to be
unexplained; we will soon hear more about the previous approaches to this matter in the
presentations by Schwarzschild, Herglotz, and Hahn.150
The third category includes currents in natural rivers and the motion of groundwater
(both of which will likewise be discussed in further presentations). The course of rivers can
hardly be addressed theoretically, and this is because the flow forms the riverbed itself and
modifies its details while moving ahead. A natural riverbed always bends.
Experiments have further shown that the speeds in the cross-section are distributed very
unequally, that the maximum speed lies beneath the surface, etc. etc. Recently, researchers
have proceeded more and more by constructing their own river-engineering laboratories
(Engels in Dresden […]), where extensive studies are being done on, among other things, the
influence of railway bridges and other structures on the water beneath the surface.151

Klein ended his report by returning to the topic of turbulence:

In conclusion, the speaker [Felix Klein] used the sink in the collection room to demonstrate a)
the reduction of the turbulence of the stream flowing from the faucet by inserting a thin
screen (“stream regulator”), b) the hydraulic jump caused by this stream hitting the sink with
the appropriate force. (The idea of reducing the resistance of flow through a conduit by inser-
ting a screen from time to time and thereby eliminating turbulence. Analogous to Pupin’s te-
lephone?)152

149 [Protocols] vol. 20, pp. 63–65, at p. 64 (Klein’s interim report, Februry 9, 1904).
150 In their presentations, Karl Schwarzschild, Gustav Herglotz, and Hans Hahn analyzed turbu-
lent fluid motion on the basis of equations formulated by Boussinesq ([Protocols] vol. 20).
151 [Protocols] vol. 20, pp. 134–36. Hubert Engels, a professor of hydraulic engineering at the
TH Dresden, built the first experimental facility for river engineering in 1897.
152 [Protocols] vol. 20, pp. 140–41. – On M.I. Pupin, see also TOBIES 2012, p. 137.
468 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Here, Felix Klein used his analogic thinking and compared the possible reduction
of turbulent flow with the possible prevention of signal distortion in long-distance
telephone wires by inserting a “Pupin coil,” a device patented by the Serbian-
American physicist Mihajlo Pupin in 1894.153
Michael Eckert has confirmed that Klein had formulated in advance many of
the important research questions that defined later work in the domain of hydro-
dynamics by Ludwig Prandtl.154
Klein also recognized and fostered a number of young talents in this area,
including the Hungarians Győző Zemplén and Theodore von Kármán. Zemplén
developed a new mathematical approach to the theory of shock waves, based on
lectures that he gave in Klein’s seminar in 1904/05.155 Kármán reported, among
other things, that Klein was enthusiastic about his calculation of a swirling vortex
that formed after the flow of a fluid was disrupted by an object (his results were
published in 1911; the phenomenon is known today as the Kármán vortex street).
Having seen Kármán’s work, Klein prophesied: “I guarantee that you’ll get the
next chair in your line, just as soon as it becomes vacant.”156 This prophecy was
fulfilled in 1912, when Kármán was offered a professorship at the Technische
Hochschule in Aachen as the successor to Hans Reissner (Kármán accepted the
position in 1913).157 By this point, both Zemplén and Kármán had already contri-
buted as authors to vol. IV (mechanics) of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE.

8.2.4.2 Statics

Klein had enthusiastically mentioned the newer graphical methods of statics in

1888 (see Section 6.4.2). Klein had read and reviewed books of this field,158 he
had commissioned Lebrecht Henneberg (see Section 4.3.3) to write the ENCY-
KLOPÄDIE article on the graphical statics of a rigid body (1903), and he had
recruited Heinrich Müller-Breslau, a pioneer in this area, to join the editorial
board of the Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik in 1901 (see Section 5.6).
Beginning in 1900, Klein had the participants in his seminars analyze scho-
larly literature on statics (graphical and numerical methods by Culmann, Cre-
mona, Maxwell, Castigliano,159 August Föppl, and others). Klein categorized va-
rious topics of this domain and promoted new approaches. On April 29, 1903, he
opened his seminar with these words:

153 Pupin had obtained his PhD degree under Hermann von Helmholtz in Berlin.
154 See ECKERT 2019b.
155 [Protocols] vol. 21, pp. 35–47, 73–74.
156 KÁRMÁN/EDSON 1967, p. 73. Kármán, who came from a Hungarian Jewish family, was able
to continue his career as a pioneering aerospace engineer in the United States.
157 See also SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2018, pp. 493–94.
158 On the history of this field, see KURRER 2018, and regarding the reviews, see KLEIN 1889.
159 Klein himself spoke about Carlo Alberto Castigliano’s book Théorie de l’équilibre des
systèmes élastiques et ses applications (1879) in his seminar. [Protocols] vol. 27, pp. 277–79.
 8.2 Maintaining His Scientific Reputation 469

The statics of structures is concerned with the problem of determining tensile stress, compres-
sion stress, and other “tensions” that appear in parts of a structure when their static equi-
librium is influenced by external forces (“loads”).
A simple example of this is the horizontal, load-bearing beam whose individual cross-sections
are “stressed” in a certain way (which needs to be determined more closely) as a result of the
occurring deformation (it is “sagging,” for instance).
Iron structures provide further examples. Here in Göttingen, for instance: the train station, the
gasometer braces, the gas plant. Distinguished by its magnificence: the Müngsten bridge
(between Remscheid and Solingen).160
A third group of examples consists of “arches” and “domes.” Their weight and the wind pres-
sure “stress” parts of the dome. How great are the pressures that are consequently transferred
onto the walls and pillars on which the dome is based, and in which directions do they act?
Think of the Cologne Cathedral.161

Klein discussed how deformations associated with tensions could be represented

mathematically, and he referred to Edward Hough Love’s book A Treatise on the
Mathematical Theory of Elasticity (2 vols. 1892–93). The main purpose of this
seminar was to consider the simpler methods that engineers had developed to
achieve practical goals: “a) They are predominantly graphical, and b) they contain
error assumptions [Näherungsannahmen].” Klein explained these graphical meth-
ods by discussing, for instance, the problem “of finding, for an empirically given
curve, the enclosed surface area, the static moments, and the inertia moments, and
thus determining the numerical values of the integrals:
∫∫ dxdy; ∫∫ xdxdy; ∫∫ ydxdy; ∫∫ x2dxdy; ∫∫ xydxdy; ∫∫ y2dxdy.”162
He stressed that applied mathematics required not only knowledge but also practi-
cal skills; that is, mathematical methods necessarily had to be put into practice. He
thus paved the way for practical exercises of this sort to be taught at the university
level and for Carl Runge’s development of new graphical methods.163
Klein’s contributions to statics are also reflected in the work of his assistants.
Karl Wieghardt, assistant in 1899/1900, was the first student in Göttingen to earn
the teaching qualification (Facultas) in applied mathematics (1901), and in 1902
he completed a dissertation under Klein’s supervision – “Über die Statik ebener
Fachwerke mit schlaffen Stäben” [On the Statics of Planar Frameworks with Un-
strained Beams] – in which he treated a technical question with mathematical
rigor. Wieghardt continued this work with Klein; he edited the lecture that Klein
delivered at the Göttingen Mathematical Society (July 7, 1903)164 to underscore
the importance of Maxwell’s work, to which Henneberg had devoted insufficient

160 Here, Klein is referring to an achievement by Anton Rieppel, who oversaw, from 1894 to
1897, the construction of the highest railroad bridge in Germany.
161 [Protocols] vol. 10, pp. 101–02 (Klein’s introductory lecture, April 29, 1903).
162 Ibid., pp. 103, and 104–05.
163 See Carl Runge, Graphical Methods (New York: Columbia University Press, 1912).
164 See Felix Klein and Karl Wieghardt, “Über Spannungsflächen und reziproke Diagramme, mit
besonderer Berücksichtigung der Maxwellschen Arbeiten,” Archiv der Mathematik und
Physik 8 (1904), pp. 1–10, 95–119 (KLEIN 1922 [GMA II], pp. 660–91).
470 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

attention in his ENCYKLOPÄDIE article on statics (1903). Klein combined Max-

well’s approaches with the statics of load-bearing columns and beams, and he
underscored the central role of the “Airy function” (a stress function), with which
it is possible to solve analytically boundary value problems of linear planar elec-
trostatics.165 Wieghardt completed his Habilitation in 1904 at the Technische
Hochschule in Aachen with a thesis on highly indeterminate frameworks, and he
went on to teach statics as a professor at various Technische Hochschulen (Braun-
schweig, Hanover, Vienna, Dresden). He contributed the ENCYKLOPÄDIE article
“Theory der Baukonstruktionen, I und II” [Structural Theory, I and II] (1914).166
Aloys Timpe, who was Klein’s assistant in 1905 and 1906, continued along
these lines with his dissertation “Probleme der Spannungsverteilung in ebenen
Systemen, einfach gelöst mit Hilfe der Airyschen Funktion” [Problems of Stress
Distribution in Planar Systems, Simply Solved by Means of the Airy Function]
(1905).167 He referred to the practical uses of beam and arch problems, and he
demonstrated how such problems could be reduced to the integration of a single
linear differential equation. Timpe likewise proved to be a reliable collaborator on
the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project. With the Italian mathematician Orazio Tedone, he
wrote the articles “Allgemeine Theoreme der mathematischen Elastizitätslehre
(Integrationstheorie)” [General Theorems of the Mathematical Theory of Elasti-
city (Integration Theory)] (1900) and “Spezielle Ausführungen zur Statik elasti-
scher Körper” [Special Explications on the Statics of Elastic Bodies] (1906) for
vol. IV; and with Conrad Heinrich Müller, he wrote the ENCYKLOPÄDIE article
“Die Grundgleichungen der mathematischen Elastizitätstheorie” [The Basic Equa-
tions of the Mathematical Theory of Elasticity] (1906). He also translated the
book by Edward Hough Love mentioned above (see also Section 5.6).
Klein revisited the theory of beam problems and tension systems yet again in
his seminar “Statik der Baukonstruktionen” [The Statics of Structures] in 1908/09.
He induced his assistant Ernst Hellinger to write the ENCYKLOPÄDIE article on the
mechanics of continua;168 and Klein’s next assistant, Friedrich Pfeiffer, wrote the
article “Zur Statik ebener Fachwerke” [On the Statics of Planar Frameworks].169
Klein himself spoke three times in this seminar on Airy’s strained surfaces,170 and
on May 11, 1909, he gave a presentation to the Göttingen Mathematical Society
on “planar frameworks that are a projection of one-sided spatial polyhedra,
whereby he [Klein] resolved, by introducing double polyhedra, the contradictions
that initially result when determining the self-tensions of the framework.”171

165 See George Biddell Airy, “On the Strains in the Interior of Beams,” Philosophical Transacti-
ons of the Royal Society of London 153 (1863), pp. 49–80; see also KURRER 2018, p. 851.
166 Part I of this article was written with the assistance of Martin Grüning.
167 Published in Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik 52 (1905), pp. 348–83.
168 On Hellinger’s article, see ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. IV, pp. 601–94, and KURRER 2018, p. 892.
169 Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik 58 (1909/10), pp. 262–72.
170 [Protocols] vol. 27, pp. 236–52, 288–90.
171 Quoted from the summary of Klein’s lecture in Jahresbericht DMV 18 (1909) Abt. 2, p. 79;
see also Math. Ann. 67 (1909), pp. 433–44; reprinted in KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 692–703.
 8.2 Maintaining His Scientific Reputation 471

Stephen P. Timoshenko developed a beam theory that contains the classical

Euler-Bernoulli theory as a special case. For inspiring his mathematical approach,
Timoshenko thanked Felix Klein.172 He had attended Klein’s course on mechanics
in 1909 and had given a presentation in Klein’s seminar that year as well.173 Years
later, Klein’s influence in this field could still be felt in Dorothea Starke’s disser-
tation “Die Maximalmomentenfläche eines Gerberschen Balkens” [The Maximum
Momentum Surface of a Gerber Beam]. Starke completed her doctoral degree
under Klein’s former student Max Winkelmann in Jena, and she became an as-
sistant at Winkelmann’s Institute for Applied Mathematics; her position was fun-
ded by the Carl Zeiss Foundation.174

8.2.4.3 The Theory of Friction175

In 1909, Klein published two articles on this subject, the first of which sparked a
few new impulses in the field: “Zu Painlevés Kritik der Coulombschen Reibungs-
gesetze” [On Painlevé’s Critique of Coulomb’s Laws of Friction] and “Über die
Bildung von Wirbeln in reibungslosen Flüssigkeiten” [On the Formation of Vorti-
ces in Frictionless Fluids].176 Klein had advised Paul Stäckel while the latter was
writing his comprehensive ENCYKLOPÄDIE article “Elementare Dynamik der
Punktsysteme und starren Körper” [The Elementary Dynamics of Point Systems
and Rigid Bodies], in which he analyzed “friction” as a fundamental concept and
referred to Paul Painlevé’s surprising finding that Coulomb’s laws of friction lead
to logical contradictions.177 Because Klein felt that Painlevé’s results were unsat-
isfactory, he prompted Ludwig Prandtl to conduct experimental analyses and he
addressed the topic himself in his lecture courses on mechanics in 1908/09. In his
article, Klein formulated the farsighted idea that Painlevé’s works “could become
the starting point for the development of a new branch of technical mechanics.”178
This thought stimulated further discussion from Richard von Mises, Georg Hamel,
and Ludwig Prandtl, and Klein’s assistant Friedrich Pfeiffer included the topic in
his detailed study mentioned above.179

172 See TIMOSHENKO 1968; and C.R. Soderberg, “Stephen P. Timoshenko,” in Biographical Me-
moirs, vol. 53 (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1982), pp. 323–49.
173 [Protocols] vol. 27, pp. 338–46.
174 See BISCHOF 2014. The term “Gerber beam” goes back to Heinrich Gerber, who founded,
with Anton Rieppel, the “Gustavsburger school” of steel bridge construction.
175 I am indebted to Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze and Rolf Nossum, Kristiansand (Norway), for
calling my attention to Klein’s notable contributions in this domain.
176 Both articles appeared in vol. 58 of the Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik.
177 Stäckel in ENCYKLOPÄDIE Vol. IV.6 (1908), pp. 435–684, in particular p. 472. See Painlevé’s
publications in Comptes rendus 80 (1895), p. 596; 81 (1895), p. 112; 140 (1905), p. 702; 141
(1905), pp. 635, 847; and his book Leçons sur le frottement (Paris: A. Herman, 1895).
178 Quoted from KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 708.
179 These contributions are published in Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik 58 (1909/10).
472 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Writing in retrospect, Klein claimed that he wanted these contributions to give

expression to his creed: “In discussions of whatever sort of mechanical or physical
occurrences, if a certain idea is placed front and center, one should draw from this
idea all the conclusions that logically follow from it or are compatible with it,
even if the idea itself might not seem entirely suitable to physics.”180 What Klein
meant was that the numerical model is only an approximation, and even Cou-
lomb’s laws are only “an approximation of the conditions that appear in rea-
lity,”181 as he and Sommerfeld had already discussed in their book on the theory
of the top.182 The inconsistency that Painlevé discovered in Coulomb’s laws of
friction is known today as the “Painlevé paradox,” and it has since been the sub-
ject of numerous further studies. In a recent book, Le Xuan Anh even speaks of
“The Painlevé-Klein extended scheme” and of the “Painlevé-Klein problem.”183

8.2.4.4 The Special Theory of Relativity

Minkowski had introduced his colleagues to Einstein’s theory during one of their
walks together, and he himself first presented his famous work “Raum und Zeit”
[Space and Time] at a session of the Göttingen Mathematical Society on Novem-
ber 5, 1907. Klein reported enthusiastically about this at the annual meeting of the
Göttingen Association for the Promotion of Applied Physics and Mathematics,
which took place on October 16–17, 1908 in Leipzig:
Yet also pure mathematics has produced a result that does not seem unworthy of attention on
the part of the members of the Göttingen Association. The enormous significance of the the-
ory of electrons to physics and chemistry needs no explanation here. It was Mr. A. Lorentz
(the great Dutch physicist), who, in his relevant investigations from some years ago, had
come to the highly remarkable assumptions that every electron passing through space
contracts slightly in its line of motion as its speed approaches the speed of light. Now, Mr.
Minkowski has succeeded in reducing the common features of these assumptions to the
simplest mathematical expression, according to which the fundamental laws of electrodyna-
mics generally remain unchanged in such linear substitutions of the space coordinates X Y Z
and of the time parameter T if they leave the quadratic form x2 + y2 + z2 – c2t2 unchanged (c is
the speed of light). It can only be suggested here that, on the basis of this observation, the
hitherto insufficiently explained laws of the motion of electricity in moving conductors now
seem to take on a completely transparent form. Pure mathematicians are thus experiencing the
triumph that their investigations of quadratic forms, which they undertook decades ago and
which were then regarded from many sides as exaggerated, might now be of the utmost sig-
nificance to mathematical physics and, relatedly, to our natural-scientific conceptions of
space and time.184

180 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 704–13, at p. 13 (Klein’s commentary on his article).
181 Ibid., p. 708.
182 See KLEIN/SOMMERFELD 2010 [1903], pp. 537–83.
183 Le Xuan Anh, Dynamics of Mechanical Systems with Coulomb Friction (Berlin: Springer,
2003), pp. 70, 141, 176.
184 [UBG] Math. Arch. 5021, fols. 14–15 (Klein’s remarks at the meeting in Leipzig).
 8.2 Maintaining His Scientific Reputation 473

When Minkowski died unexpectedly, Klein, Hilbert, and others took it upon
themselves to carry on his work. In the winter semester of 1909/10, Klein taught a
course, which he had prearranged with Minkowski, on projective geometry to 109
students. Klein wanted to demonstrate how “the theory of the Lorentz group – or
the modern principle of relativity espoused by physicists (which is the same thing)
– can be classified as part of the general theory of the projective metric.”185 In
connection with this course, he gave a talk on May 10, 1910 to the Göttingen
Mathematical Society on the geometric foundations of the Lorentz group (“Über
die geometrischen Grundlagen der Lorentzgruppe”). Here he provided a detailed
historical overview based on Cayley’s invariant theory; he emphasized the role of
projective geometry, which he thought the current course program seemed to
neglect; and he made the following comparison:
What modern physicists call the theory of relativity is the invariant theory of the four-dimen-
sional space-time domain x, y, z, t (the Minkowskian “universe”) with respect to a particular
group of collineations – namely, the “Lorentz group.” Or, more generally, and leaning toward
the other side, one could say […] that the term “invariant theory relative to a group of trans-
formations” could be replaced by the term “the theory of relativity with respect to a group.”186

At the same time, Klein formulated a set of problems to be solved, a program:

It will be essential to produce a systematic invariant theory of the affine “universe,” for which
all of the elements in the multi-dimensional investigations by mathematicians are already
available, and on the basis of this theory it will be necessary to treat both types of mechanics
side by side, the old and the new. It will then become clear whether the old mechanics is a
boundary case of the new and to what extent it should thus be regarded as an approximation
of the latter. Who will carry out this program?187

In May of 1911, Klein initiated a debate on the principle of relativity at a meeting

of the Göttingen Mathematical Society, in which Hilbert, Runge, and Max Born
were the main participants.188 At the 1911 conference of the Society of German
Natural Scientists and Physicians in Karlsruhe, there was a special session on me-
chanics. The papers given in this session corresponded to Klein’s program: Karl
Heun spoke about various approaches to expanding classical mechanics (“Ansätze
zur Erweiterung der klassischen Mechanik”); Vladimir Varićak gave a talk on the
non-Euclidean interpretation of the theory of relativity (“Über die nichteuklidi-
sche Interpretation der Relativitätstheorie”); and Lothar Heffter delivered a lecture
in which he introduced Minkowski’s concept of the four-dimensional universe
(“Zur Einführung der vierdimensionalen Welt Minkowskis”).189 In 1911, the ex-
perimental physicist Eduard Riecke described the situation with these words: “The

185 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 533.

186 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 539 (emphasis original); first published in Jahresbericht der DMV
19 (1910) Abt. 1, pp. 281–300, and reprinted in the Physikalische Zeitschrift 12 (1911).
187 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 550–51.
188 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 21G, fol. 32v.
189 See Jahresbericht der DMV 20 (1911) Abt. 2, pp. 83, 166; and 21 (1912) Abt. 1, pp. 1–8,
103–27.
474 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

mathematicians are hypnotized by the elegance of the rules of calculation, the

physicists are critical.”190 In subsequent years, additional mathematicians partici-
pated in the search for equations to describe spacetime geometry. After the field
equations for the general theory of relativity had been formulated, Klein made yet
another foray into this research area (see Section 9.2.2).

8.3 PROGRAM: THE HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY, AND

INSTRUCTION OF MATHEMATICS

Felix Klein’s program of these mathematical border areas had its origins in the
ENCYCLOPÄDIE project (see Section 7.8), and over the following years it flowed
into further book projects and into a mathematical and scientific reform move-
ment that covered all areas of education and assumed broadly international di-
mensions. When the publishing contract for the ENCYKLOPÄDIE was signed in May
of 1896, the first plan for its contents also contained an outline for a final volume
(volume VII), which had been drafted by Klein and which looked as follows:
Final Volume.
A. History, Philosophy, Didactics.
1. History, i.e., an overview of the advances that have been made over the century in our
knowledge and understanding of previous periods of development.
2. Logic and Epistemology:
a) A critique of the fundamental mathematical concepts and of the mathematical
methods of proof. (See IA 1.3; II A1; II A1; III B1)
b) The applicability of mathematics to physical and psychic quantities.
3. Psychology:
a) The psychological conceptions of numbers, time, and space;
b) The psychology of mathematical thought: specific differences among individuals
and the resulting consequences for didactic issues.
4. The Calculus of Logic (symbolic systems of logical operations and their application to
mathematics).
5. The Didactics of Mathematics at educational institutions of all levels and purposes, in
Germany and abroad.
B. General overview of the development of mathematical sciences in the nineteenth cen-
tury.191

The concept of this volume served as a program for Klein’s own occupation with
the history, philosophy, psychology, and didactics of mathematics and for his ef-
forts to impel others to promote these fields. He sought out and vetted potential
authors and editors, among them Gustaf Eneström (Sweden) and Jules Tannery
(France).192 In order to make preparations for the philosophical section, Klein
himself traveled to Paris yet again in 1906.193 He initiated preliminary work and

190 Quoted from TOBIES 1994b, p. 345 (Eduard Riecke to Johannes Stark, October 13, 1911).
191 [AdW Wien] I 170 (Math. Encyklopädie).
192 See TOBIES 1994a, pp. 56–69.
193 For Klein’s report on this trip, see Jahresbericht der DMV 15 (1906) IV, p. 331.
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 475

recruited students, colleagues, and secondary school teachers to collaborate on the

project. Klein made use of prize competitions, conferences, and committees to
prompt discussions on these topics. His work to this end began with his own re-
search and teaching. The completion of additional book projects seemed impor-
tant to him, as the following remarks in the minutes of the 1910 meeting of the
ENCYKLOPÄDIE committee show:
Regarding volume VII, the committee approves the statement from Mr. F. Klein that, on the
one hand, the work of the “International Commission on Mathematical Instruction” and, on
the other hand, the essays planned for the project devoted to the “Culture of the Present” on
the psychological and epistemological foundations of mathematics and on the history of
mathematics could serve as preparations for this volume.194

I should first discuss the book series project Die Kultur der Gegenwart [The Cul-
ture of the Present],195 which is mentioned here, because its volume on mathe-
matics was intended to summarize (for the general public) possibly all of the as-
pects of the planned vol. VII of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (history, epistemology, didac-
tics). The overall project, which had been initiated by the historian Paul Hinne-
berg, a proponent of Leopold von Ranke’s historicism, was originally planned to
consist of sixty-two volumes. In the end, only twenty-five were produced.196 In
1906, when the first volume appeared, Klein expressed his dissatisfaction with the
overall plan and felt as though he had to intervene:
It must be called a misconception when, in numerous classifications of the sciences (thus
also, for example, in the new encyclopedic work “The Culture of the Present”), mathematics
is essentially thrown together with the natural sciences. […] At secondary schools, mathema-
tics and the natural sciences are indeed natural allies and are set apart from the other subjects.
Yet the science of mathematics has a great deal of significance even independent of every
other field of human knowledge; it has relations on the widest variety of fronts and, viewed
philosophically, it is not at all connected to any of the natural sciences: in itself, mathematics
is a pure human science [Geisteswissenschaft].197

The position of mathematics as a science of order and structure, as we would say

today, was something that Klein had hinted upon as early as his inaugural address
in Erlangen (see Section 3.2). He considered it important for this status to be made
clear within the framework of the large-scale cultural project. With Walther
Dyck’s support, he thus incited a flurry of activity beginning in August and Sep-
tember of 1908. He recruited authors for the mathematics volume and also for the
volumes on the natural sciences and technology. In coordination with the Prussian
Ministry of Culture, he also initiated and chaired a conference that took place in
Berlin from the 17th to the 19th of December in 1909. Just three years later, the
project had advanced to such an extent that Klein was able to plan the content,
authors, and even the page distribution for the contributions on mathematics,

194 [AdW Wien] I 170 (minutes from the meetings in Munich on April 15–16, 1910), fol. 2.
195 KLEIN 1912–14.
196 See TOBIES 2008b, which also informs the discussion below.
197 KLEIN 1907, pp. 136–37.
476 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

which were now arranged to be published as the first section of “Part III: The
Mathematical and Natural-Scientific Cultural Spheres.”
From Klein’s different plans (one proposed in June of 1912 and the other in
August of the same year), it is possible to see how his views developed. His first
plan differed from the second for the period of “modern mathematics”; he wanted
“the development of pure mathematics in the nineteenth century” to be presented
separately from applications. As for who should write the history of pure mathe-
matics in the nineteenth century, he noted: “possibly Klein”. Regarding the his-
tory of applied mathematics, Klein’s plan mentioned the potential authors Carl
Runge and Heinrich Weber, and he enumerated five sections: “1) Numerical and
Graphical Calculation, Descriptive Geometry, 2) Probability Theory, Statistics,
Actuarial Mathematics, 3) Measurement, 4) Mechanics and Astronomy, 5) Ma-
thematical Physics.” Everything, Klein added, should be written “exclusively
from the mathematician’s point of view.”198
In August of 1912, the Teubner press published the second plan, an announ-
cement in which no author is mentioned for the contribution on modern mathe-
matics [Neuzeit] (there one simply reads “N.N.” = nomen nominandum ‘author to
be named’; see Fig. 36). Klein was then recovering in a sanatorium (see Section
8.5.1), and he had gained two insights: first, that he would not be able to complete
such a contribution quickly because of his poor health; second, that it would be
difficult, in writing such an overview, to separate “pure” and “applied” mathema-
tics. On August 2, 1912, he explained to Heinrich Weber
[…] that I would also, however, leave the mathematics of the modern era unseparated. Eve-
rything that is to be said about applied mathematics can be included at the appropriate place
within the historical presentation of pure mathematics. This is recommendable because, in
many questions, it is hardly possible to draw a line between them.199

Figure 36: Klein’s updated plan for the volume “Die mathematischen Wissenschaften” of the book
series project Die Kultur der Gegenwart [The Culture of the Present],
August 1912 (B.G. Teubner’s publication announcement).

198 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7M: fol. 14 (Klein’s provisional plan for the volume “Die mathe-
matischen Wissenschaften” as part of the Kultur der Gegenwart project, June 9, 1912).
199 Ibid.: fol. 15 (A draft of a letter from Klein to Heinrich Weber, August 2, 1912).
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 477

The contributions on mathematics in the Kultur der Gegenwart project appeared

in three volumes. The first published volume (1912) contains the essay by H.G.
Zeuthen, which was based on his book Geschichte der Mathematik im Altertum
und Mittelalter [The History of Mathematics in Antiquity and the Middle
Ages].200 Paul Stäckel, who was involved in many of Klein’s other projects, never
completed the planned contribution on early-modern mathematics. The second
published volume (1914) contains Aurel Voß’s article “Die Beziehungen der
Mathematik zur allgemeinen Kultur” [The Relations of Mathematics to General
Culture] (pp. 1–49) and Heinrich E. Timerding’s article “Die Verbreitung mathe-
matischen Wissens und mathematischer Auffassung” [The Dissemination of
Mathematical Knowledge and Mathematical Understanding] (pp. 50–161). The
result of the fifth article noted in the announcement was Klein’s book Vorlesun-
gen über die Entwicklung der Mathematik im 19. Jahrhundert [Lectures on the
Development of Mathematics in the Nineteenth Century], which was edited post-
humously from Klein’s Nachlass and was based on lectures that he had given in
Göttingen from 1914 to 1918 (see Sections 8.3.1 and 9.2).201

8.3.1 The History of Mathematics202

My way of doing history: posing specific questions, then comparing the sources.203

Klein, too, had been influenced by Leopold von Ranke’s historicism. This ap-
proach to historiography was source-based; it sought to unearth the causes behind
the course of history, and it aimed to present the past as objectively as possible.
Klein had learned to appreciate this method back when he was a Privatdozent in
Göttingen (see Section 2.8.3.3). In 1871, while assisting Clebsch in his prepara-
tion of Plücker’s obituary, Klein thought it would be best to focus on the history
of science to contextualize Plücker’s achievements, and Clebsch was of the same
mind. In a letter to Plücker’s widow, Klein had explained: “The aim of the obitu-
ary would not be to provide a detailed history of his life but rather to represent in
broad strokes how Plücker influenced the development of science; it would thus
be a piece on the history of science, with Plücker foregrounded as the protago-
nist.”204 In the published obituary, we read in greater detail:
The history of science has […] the task of tracing the ideas that develop over the course of
generations and explaining general processes. As part of these processes, the discoveries of a
given individual represent symptoms rather than driving causes. According to this under-
standing, there will be fewer opportunities to say that a discovery anticipated its time or that
an individual exclusively defined the spirit of his era. Instead, the totality of science takes on

200 The original Danish version of this book was published in 1893, the German edition in 1896.
201 KLEIN 1926/27. The first volume was translated into English: KLEIN 1979 [1926].
202 See Pieper/Tobies 1988; Dauben/Scriba 2002; and Tobies 2002b.
203 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 20H.
204 [Canada] A letter from Klein to Antonie Plücker dated November 10, 1871.
478 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

an organic nature. Regarding certain details, of course, and especially in the case of phenom-
ena that were discovered at around the same time, it is still necessary to investigate the extent
to which one discovery causally influenced the other. It would be a mistake, however, simply
to confuse this temporal sequence with the causal effect as such.205

In the obituary, Clebsch and Klein focused on the oppositional pair of “abstract”
and “intuitive” mathematics as the defining feature of historical development, an
idea that Klein would return to again and again and that would ultimately influ-
ence his universal thinking:
As a significant moment with consequences for further developments, it ought to be stressed
that there have always been two directions whose opposition, whether more or less pro-
nounced, has accompanied all epochs of mathematical research, and which could be called
the abstract direction and the intuitive direction. Together, complementing and supplementing
one another, they encompass the whole of mathematical research, and neither can long do
without the accompaniment and influence of the other without doing severe damage to its
own inherent essence.206

The extent to which Klein valued sources is reflected in his engagement on behalf
of the collected works of Plücker, Clebsch, Möbius, Grassmann, Riemann, and
Gauss. It was Klein who, in 1894, initiated the edition of Plücker’s works as a
project of the Göttingen Academy, edited by F. Pockels and Schoenflies.207 After
Schering’s death (November 2, 1897), Klein took over the direction of Gauss’s
collected works, and as early as November 22, 1897 he expressed his program for
how things should proceed: with the “immediate edition of the works related to
non-Euclidean geometry” by P. Stäckel and F. Engel, and with a commitment
from the Teubner publishing house.208 Klein involved further experts in the pro-
ject and, with Martin Brendel and Ludwig Schlesinger, he prepared a scientific
biography of Gauss. He was still participating in this project in 1919, when he
recruited A. Fraenkel to edit Gauss’s works on algebra and the concept of num-
ber.209 Klein’s edition of Gauss’s scientific diary has been regarded as the begin-
ning of a “shift in Gauss research, in that it now became possible to investigate,
on a secure basis, the problem of the genesis of Gauss’s discoveries.”210
Despite Schering’s objectionable behavior (see Section 6.4.3 and Appendix
4.2), Klein wrote a brief obituary for him211 and supported the edition of Scher-

205 CLEBSCH 1872, p. 6.

206 Ibid., p. 2 (= Obituary on Plücker, prepared by Klein and Clebsch).
207 PLÜCKER 1895/96.
208 [AdW Göttingen] Chro 4,6:1894; Scient 105,2; 105,3; 107,5. See REICH/ROUSSANOVA 2013.
209 Materialien für eine wissenschaftliche Biographie von Gauß, collected by F. Klein, M. Bren-
del, and L. Schlesinger. Vol. VIII: Zahlbegriff und Algebra bei Gauß, ed. A. Fraenkel. With
an appendix by A. Ostrowski: “Zum ersten und vierten Gaußschen Beweis des Fundamental-
satzes der Algebra” (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1920), 58 pp.
210 K.-R. Biermann et al., eds., Mathematisches Tagebuch, 1796–1814, von C.F. Gauß (Leipzig:
Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1979), p. 10. – Klein’s editio princeps was published as a
Festschrift in 1901 and reprinted in Math. Ann. 57 (1903), pp. 1–34.
211 Felix Klein, “Ernst Schering,” Jahresbericht der DMV 6 (1899) I, pp. 25–27.
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 479

ing’s collected works by securing Robert Haussner, who had taken part in Klein’s
courses on elliptic functions in 1886 and had completed his doctorate under
Schering, as one of the editors.
With Klein as its chairman, the German Mathematical Society decided in
1908 to support the edition of Euler’s collected works, which had been initiated
by Ferdinand Rudio in Basel, and to establish an “archive of mathematicians”
(Mathematiker-Archiv) at the university library in Göttingen.212 Thanks to Klein’s
historical interests, moreover, commemorative plaques were placed on the former
residences of Clebsch, Dirichlet, Tobias Mayer, and Riemann in Göttingen, and a
Gauß-Weber memorial was installed there (it was unveiled on June 17, 1899).213
In order to elevate the level of general mathematical education, Klein recom-
mended that teaching candidates should study classical sources (Euclid, Archime-
des, Apollonius, and so on).214 He acquired mathematical-historical literature (by
Moritz Cantor, Zeuthen, and others) for the reading room, and he promoted the
publication of Gustaf Eneström’s historical journal Bibliotheca Mathematica with
the Teubner press (see Section 5.6), even though he did not accept Eneström’s
plan for the historical volume of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE.215
Klein inspired Conrad Heinrich Müller to practice a new type of historiogra-
phy. After studying mathematics, natural sciences, and Indic philology, Müller
completed his doctoral degree under Klein with a dissertation on Studies on the
History of Mathematics, Especially of Mathematical Instruction at the University
of Göttingen in the 18th Century in 1903. Müller’s stated goal in this work was
“to study the influence and stimuli that pure mathematics received from applied
mathematics.”216 He investigated the role of mathematics in “culture” (in a broad
sense) and the organization of scientific work. Three years later, Müller planned
his Habilitation in consultation with Klein.217 It has been overlooked until now
that this would result in the first venia legendi awarded in Göttingen for “mathe-
matics, in particular the history of mathematics.”218 Müller’s contributions to the

212 See Jahresbericht der DMV 17 (1908), p. 133; and GRENZEBACH/HABERMANN 2016.
213 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1B, fols. 145–46 (letters from Klein to the trustees of the Univer-
sity of Göttingen and to the mayor of Göttingen, Dr. Merkel, December 1889 and January
1890); and ibid. 9: 498 (a letter from Alfred George Greenhill to Klein dated July 4, 1892).
Greenhill had donated money to the cause and expressed to Klein his wish for the “success of
the combined Gauss-Weber Memorial.”
214 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 19C (Klein’s lecture notes, summer 1903).
215 [StB Berlin] Sammlung Darmstaedter (letters from Eneström to Klein dated September 13,
1899; September 28, 1899; and October 29, 1899). Eneström played a more prominent role in
the French edition of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (see GISPERT 1999).
216 Conrad Müller, “Studien zur Geschichte der Mathematik insbesondere des mathematischen
Unterrichts an der Universität Göttingen im 18. Jahrhundert,” Abhandlungen zur Geschichte
der math. Wissenschaften mit Einschluß ihrer Anwendungen 18 (1904), pp. 50–143, at p. 59.
217 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein (Klein’s notes from June 10, 1906).
218 In German: “Mathematik, namentlich Geschichte der Mathematik.” This information is lack-
ing in DAUBEN/SCRIBA 2002, p. 493.
480 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

ENCYKLOPÄDIE (with A. Timpe and A.N. Krylov)219 and the historical catalogue
that he produced for the Teubner publishing house on the occasion of the 1908
International Congress of Mathematicians in Rome220 were accepted as his Habili-
tation thesis.221 As a Privatdozent in Göttingen, Conrad Heinrich Müller offered
courses on the history of mechanics since Lagrange (1909/10) and on mathe-
matics in the work of Archimedes (1910).222 For the winter semester of 1910/11,
Müller had already announced a lecture course on the history of the discovery of
infinitesimal calculus, but he left Göttingen to become a professor at the Tech-
nische Hochschule in Hanover (as Carathéodory’s successor). There he continued
his research on the history of mathematics and continued to work for and with
Felix Klein on the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project.
Since his time working for the Kultur der Gegenwart,223 Klein had aimed to
conceptualize the history of mathematics and to familiarize himself with the
available literature on the subject. During the summer of 1908, Klein studied the
chapter on the development of mathematics in John Theodore Merz’s book A
History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century.224 Klein’s notes on this
chapter indicate that he was searching for the causes that had influenced the
course of the history of mathematics. In the context of Merz’s discussion of geo-
metry, for instance, Klein noted: “The practical stimulus.” Elsewhere we read:
“Number theory: here again there are practical and theoretical interests.” Hermann
Weyl supported Klein’s efforts by analyzing the development of more recent areas
of research such as set theory, differential geometry, analysis, etc.225
For both the winter semester of 1910/11 and that of 1912/13, Klein had an-
nounced that he would be offering a lecture course on the development of mathe-
matics in the nineteenth century, but it turned out that he was too busy (or unwell)
at the time to teach them. In the summer semester of 1914, he finally started a
colloquium on the history of mathematics, in which he was able to involve Ca-
rathéodory, Courant, Debye, and others.226 The lectures that he gave on this sub-
ject during later semesters culminated in his aforementioned book Vorlesungen
über die Entwicklung der Mathematik im 19. Jahrhundert [Lectures on the Deve-
lopment of Mathematics in the Nineteenth Century] (see Section 9.2.1).

219 Krylov’s pioneering theory of the oscillating motions of ships became internationally known
in the 1890s, and Klein had asked this Russian scientist to write the contribution “Die Theorie
des Schiffes” (1906/07) for vol. IV of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (mechanics), supported by Müller.
220 TEUBNER 1908.
221 [UAG] Kur. 6289 (Habilitation Conrad Müller). – In 1927, Otto Neugebauer would become
the next person to complete a habilitation on the history of mathematics in Göttingen ([UAG]
Math. Nat. 0047, fol. 32).
222 Even before this, Klein had arranged for Felix Bernstein to offer mathematics courses on
historical topics (in 1908 and 1908/09).
223 KLEIN 1912–14.
224 MERZ 1904–12, vol. 2, ch. 13.
225 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7M, fols. 16–42, esp. 16–29 (Klein’s notes on Merz’s chapter;
Weyl’s notes and letters to Klein, dated June 9, 1912 and August 16, 1912).
226 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22C, fol. 63.
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 481

Under Klein’s aegis, Wilhelm Lorey made further contributions to the history
of mathematics by focusing on its development at German universities.227 As the
editor of Lorey’s book, Klein supported the search for sources on the topic; he
demanded verifiable information, read the text critically, recommended additional
resources, and insisted that Lorey should leave out some caustic remarks.228 With
a similar level of engagement, Klein edited the other volumes of the German
ICMI-series on the history of mathematical education.229 Following Gert Schu-
bring, we would be right to call Klein one of the founders of the “social history of
mathematics.”230

8.3.2 Philosophical Aspects

I consider philosophy a beautiful thing, but its methods seem highly uncertain to me, given
that the best philosophers manage to reach precisely opposite opinions. I therefore draw no
conclusions about the philosophical questions that attract me until I have made a more tho-
rough philosophical investigation into these matters.231

Klein had written these words to Max Noether in 1877 to imply that this had been
his basic attitude while writing his Erlangen Program. Since then, he had had to
concern himself more closely with a number of philosophical questions. While a
member of the Philosophical Faculty in Göttingen, Klein had participated in for-
mulating mathematical-philosophical prize challenges. When the matter of hiring
professors of philosophy arose, he and Hilbert attempted to support mathemati-
cally inclined philosophers who seemed most suitable to them.232
In a letter of support for the critical and mathematically talented philosopher
Leonard Nelson,233 Klein argued that universities “should allow the individual
philosopher to have the utmost freedom in his productivity but should not allow
him to have dominion over others.”234 With this comment, Klein clearly had the
great Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in mind, for he added “Cf. Hegel.” The
grandfather of Klein’s wife Anna, Hegel had once managed to have the Privat-
dozent Friedrich Eduard Beneke expelled from the University of Berlin, presuma-
bly on account of the latter’s espousal of materialism. Beneke had then taught in
Göttingen and later received an associate professorship in Berlin after Hegel’s
death. All of this is worth mentioning because the consistorial councilor and
preacher Carl Gustav Beneke established, in memory of his brother Eduard, a

227 See LOREY 1916.

228 [UBG] Cod. MS. Philos. 182: F. Klein (Klein’s letters to Lorey).
229 KLEIN 1909–16.
230 See SCHUBRING 1986b.
231 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 12: 581 (a letter from Klein to Max Noether, August 16, 1877).
232 On this topic, see PECKHAUS 1990.
233 On Leonard Nelson, see ibid. and TOBIES 2012, pp. 92–97.
234 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 2G, fol. 34 (a draft of a letter from Klein to the university trustee,
March 23, 1917).
482 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Beneke Prize Fund to promote the study of philosophy. The University of Berlin
was unwilling to administer this prize, so it was taken over by the Philosophical
Faculty at the University of Göttingen. Because the Philosophical Faculty was still
undivided at the time, this made it possible for the Beneke Prize Fund to be used
to sponsor prize competitions in pure mathematics as well. Both Clebsch (in April
of 1872) and Klein (in 1892) had taken advantage of this opportunity.235 Now
Klein preferred to formulate mathematical-philosophical challenges with an eye
toward the philosophical section of the final volume of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE.
Klein was primarily concerned with the relationship between exactness (pre-
cision) and approximation in connection with space intuition (Raumanschauung)
and the applications of mathematics.236 In a lecture titled “Grenzfragen der Mathe-
matik und Philosophie” [Questions on the Border of Mathematics and Philo-
sophy], which he delivered on October 15, 1905 to the Philosophical Society at
the University of Vienna, he began with these remarks:
Although I received this invitation just three days ago, I am all the more willing to be here
because I number among those mathematicians who would like to have closer relations with
philosophical circles, for I am convinced that a great number questions should concern phi-
losophers and mathematicians alike. Of course, I have nothing new to say to the mathematici-
ans present here today. For I was invited to present some of the ideas that I have already dis-
cussed elsewhere about the inaccuracy of our conceptions of space.237

Already in his article “Über den allgemeinen Funktionsbegriff und dessen Dar-
stellung durch eine willkürliche Kurve” [On the General Concept of the Function
and Its Representation by an Arbitrary Curve] (1873), Klein had written about the
limited accuracy of perception or intuition (see Section 3.1.3). In 1883, Klein de-
cided to reprint this work, which had first appeared in the Sitzungsberichte der
physikalisch-medizinischen Sozietät zu Erlangen (December 8, 1873),238 after
Moritz Pasch had expressed his admiration of it (in 1882).239 Klein discussed this
problem further in his lecture courses,240 in his Evanston Colloquium (1893; lec-
ture 6); and in his presentation “Über Arithmetisierung der Mathematik” [On the
Arithmetization of Mathematics], which he delivered at the Royal Society of Sci-
ences in Göttingen on November 2, 1895, and which was subsequently translated
into English, Italian, and French.241 He also included it in his lecture courses titled
“Anwendung der Differential- und Integralrechnung auf Geometrie (Eine Revi-
sion der Prinzipien)” [The Application of Differential and Integral Calculus to

235 [UAG] II Phil. 13, vol. I, II (Beneke Prize Fund).

236 On this topic, see also Klaus VOLKERT 1986, esp. pp. 226–42.
237 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 247. The honorary president of the Philosophical Society, Alois
Höfler, had invited Klein to speak while Klein already happened to be in Vienna. It is known
that, among others, Wilhelm Wirtinger and Ludwig Boltzmann were in attendance.
238 Reprint in Math. Ann. 22 (1883), pp. 249–59; and KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 214–24.
239 See SCHLIMM 2013.
240 See, for example, a long quotation from his lecture course on the theory of linear differential
equations (summer 1891), which is printed in TOBIES 1992a, p. 761–62.
241 KLEIN 1895c.
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 483

Geometry (A Revision of Principles)] (1901), which served as the basis for the
third volume of his book Elementary Mathematics from a Higher Standpoint.242
Klein’s position can be summarized in five points:
First, in his article from 1873, Klein explained
[…] that one does not at all possess the ability to conceive even simpler examples of function
theory and infinitesimal calculus both precisely and intuitively at the same time, and that
space intuition [Raumanschauung] even fails when it concerns the details of those curves
which are represented by polynomials.243

However, Klein stressed the heuristic value of intuition (Anschauung). What he

meant was that, in the majority of cases, a sufficient degree of precision could be
achieved instinctively, and he added in a later commentary that his own intuitive
geometric approach “had often led to correct theorems of precision mathematics”
and to “the discovery of relations and their essential proofs.”244 David Rowe has
underscored that Klein “brought this anschauliche approach to bear on other
branches of mathematics – algebra, function theory, potential theory, etc.”245 In
space intuition or perception (Raumanschauung), Klein saw one possible source
for new analytical concepts:
We picture before us in space the infinite number of points and forms composed of them;
from this idea have sprung the fundamental investigations on sets of points and transfinite
numbers with which G. Cantor has opened up new spheres of thought to arithmetic science.246

In his lecture “Über Arithmetisierung der Mathematik” [On the Arithmetization of

Mathematics] (1895), Klein classified “Weierstrass’s rigor,” “Kronecker’s refusal
to employ irrational numbers,” and the work of Giuseppe Peano as instances of
this arithmetizing tendency.247 On the one hand, Klein used his lecture to under-
score the “extraordinary importance” of these developments; on the other hand, he
rejected the view that the content of mathematics was exhaustively contained in
this arithmetized science (arithmetisierte Wissenschaft). It was important for him
to emphasize that, in addition to formal methods, intuition (Anschauung) still
plays a crucial role (and, as an aside, he remarked that there is also an algorithmic
side to mathematics).

242 KLEIN 31928. In English: KLEIN 2016 [1928].

243 Quoted from KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 248.
244 Ibid., p. 213.
245 ROWE 1994, p. 191.
246 KLEIN 1896 [1895c], p. 244 (trans. Isabel Maddison); repr. in KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 235.
247 In coordination with Adolph Mayer, Klein had recruited Peano to contribute articles to Ma-
thematische Annalen, and some of his work was published there in volumes 32 (1888), 36
(1890), and 37 (1890). At first, Klein had a skeptical opinion of Peano’s logical-axiomatic
studies (on this matter, see SEGRE 1997). Klein overcame this skepticism – and his skeptical
view of Hilbert’s work – around the year 1908. In his Elementary Mathematics from a Higher
Standpoint (KLEIN 2016 [1924], p. 15), Klein expressed his belief that Peano’s book Arith-
metices principia nova method exposita (1889) was a more precise refinement of Hermann
Graßmann’s Lehrbuch der Algebra [Textbook on Algebra] (1861).
484 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Hurwitz wrote to Klein: “As far as your remarks on arithmetization are con-
cerned, I can subscribe to them in their entirety, though I am inclined to assign an
even higher scientific value to arithmetization than you do. Regarding the peda-
gogical side of the question, it is also my conviction that it would be wrong to
impose complete rigor when introducing the topic to students.”248 This pedagogi-
cal side will be discussed below in Section 8.3.4.2.
Here it should be stressed that Klein ultimately came to appreciate the higher
scientific value of arithmetization. In 1895, however, he remained highly skepti-
cal of Hilbert’s abstract approach, in particular. This attitude may seem surprising,
but it is clearly expressed in Klein’s notes from 1908 on the aforementioned book
by John Theodore Merz: “In Merz’s work, arithmetization still seems like a
completion, whereas now we know that it was only a beginning. (This was the
subjective reason why I wrote my article [KLEIN 1895c]. Room for applied mathe-
matics! Orientation against Hilbert).”249 In the meantime (that is, by 1908), Hil-
bert himself had turned part of his attention to applications, and Klein had come to
accept and promote more recent and more abstractly oriented approaches to
mathematics, though he himself was not an active researcher in this area.
Second, regarding an issue closely related to space intuition and non-Eucli-
dean geometry, Klein discussed the question of the epistemological value of axi-
oms. He had studied Helmholtz’s writing on the topic and had quarreled about it
with Sophus Lie (see Section 6.3.6). Together with Georg Elias Müller, Klein
formulated the following challenge for a prize competition in 1894: What is
sought is a representation “of the historical development of the basic concepts and
axioms that underlie recent mathematical analysis (number theory, differential and
integral calculus, function theory).” Candidates for the prize were expected to
focus on “the importance of this development to further work in mathematics and
possibly also on its logical and epistemological significance.” None of the sub-
missions were worthy of the prize, and therefore Klein withdrew the challenge in
1902. Nevertheless, he himself often returned to the theme. His thoughts about it
culminated in the following statement: “We ultimately perceive that space intui-
tion is an inexact conception, and that in order that we may subject it to mathema-
tical treatment, we idealize it by means of the so-called axioms, which actually
serve as postulates.”250 Klein rejected the view that axioms were merely arbitrary
propositions, which were agreed upon on the basis of conventions. In a discussion
of the “foundations of geometry,” he stated:
Many authors express themselves much more one-sidedly, however, so that in recent years, in
the modern theory of axioms, we have frequently ended up back in the direction of that
philosophy which has long been called nominalism. Here, interest in things themselves and

248 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 1131 (a letter from Hurwitz to Klein, January 3, 1896).
249 Ibid., 7M, fol. 4.
250 KLEIN 1896 [1895c], p. 243–44 (trans. Isabel Maddison); KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 235.
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 485

their properties is entirely lost. What is discussed is the way things are named, and the logical
scheme according to which one operates with the names.251

It should be noted that medieval and modern nominalism are not the same. Klein’s
critique was directed against conventionalism, a concept that Henri Poincaré had
introduced to mathematical thinking.252 According to this idea, mathematical axi-
oms and theorems are arbitrary conventions without objective content, and they
are only chosen on the basis of their convenience and “economy of thought.”253
Klein believed that this would lead to a loss of interest in things themselves and
their properties, thereby bringing about the death of all scientific inquiry: “The
axioms of geometry are – according to my way of thinking – not arbitrary, but
sensible statements, which are, in general, induced by space intuition and are de-
termined as to their precise content by expediency.”254 Klein ultimately accepted
Hilbert’s mode of expression, noting: “[…] one posits the axioms of ordering,
connection, and continuity, and erects a geometry upon them.”255 David Rowe has
discussed how both Klein and Hilbert used the keyword “intuition” (Anschauung)
in their geometric work and how both mathematicians were deeply indebted to
axiomatic thinking.256 It should be mentioned yet again that Klein had shown that
the consistency of non-Euclidean geometry could be reduced to proving the con-
sistency of the axioms of Euclidean geometry.
Third, on account of the acknowledged imprecision of space intuition, Klein
called for “precise approximation mathematics”: “For graphical methods, etc., I
asked for an error theory similar to the one that has been used since Gauß for all
exact measurements.”257 In the sixth lecture of his Evanston Colloquium, we read:
All this suggests the question of whether it would not be possible to create a, let us say,
abridged system of mathematics adapted to the needs of the applied sciences, without passing
through the whole realm of abstract mathematics. Such a system would have to include, for
example, the researches of Gauß on the accuracy of astronomical calculations, or the more re-
cent and highly interesting investigations of Chebyshev on interpolation.258

One of the problems formulated by Klein, Hilbert, and G.E. Müller for the 1901
Beneke Prize (approved by the Philosophical Faculty on February 24, 1898) asked
for a mathematical treatment of natural phenomena on the basis of the principle of
continuity. Klein’s old friend, the philosopher Carl Stumpf, reacted to this prob-
lem with the following words:

251 KLEIN 2016 [1925], p. 213 (the translation has been slightly modified).
252 See Henri Poincaré, Science and Method, trans. Francis Maitland (New York: Cosimo, 2009;
originally published in 1908); and BIAGIOLI 2016, pp. 166–88.
253 Klein also discussed this problem in his research seminar: [Protocols] vol. 29, pp. 25–27.
254 KLEIN 2016 [1925], p. 213.
255 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 139.
256 See ROWE 1994, p. 197.
257 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 212–13, 248 (emphasis original).
258 Ibid., p. 230 (emphasis original).
486 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

I read the short “Beneke” essay with the greatest interest. Here lies, without doubt, a cardinal
point of all of natural philosophy (in a lecture on the idea of evolution, I also once referred to
the difficulties of the continuity principle). But who can be expected to solve this problem?
You will certainly have to do so yourself.259

Once again, none of the submissions was worthy of the prize, so that Klein, in his
report, clarified that the judges had hoped for a more precise explanation of “the
inherent significance of continuity requirements, so as to know whether they are
more than just an aid to simplify the execution of mathematical investigations and
to what extent the results derived from these requirements have a claim to objec-
tive validity.”260 Formerly, according to Klein, mathematicians had not considered
this, while physicists and philosophers pushed the uncomfortable question aside,
but it needed to be clarified in order to achieve “a critical understanding of the
modern development of mathematics.” The report explained:
1. The tendency of arithmetization as a basis for the newer developments should be main-
tained.
2. If, however, the external world is to be investigated quantitatively, it must be asked which
simplifications are to be allowed, given that only a limited degree of accuracy can be ex-
pected from the results.
3. In Klein’s view, the solution to this problem requires “mathematicians and empiricists to
find common ground.” For mathematicians, the task will be to “develop, on the basis of
arithmetic science, a comprehensive theory of approximation methods and to cultivate a
special discipline, which Mr. Heun has recently and fittingly referred to as approximation
mathematics.” For empiricists, the task will be to “establish the degree of accuracy within
which their (external or internal) observations can be regarded as correct or within which
they hope to achieve reliable results.261

Klein stressed that his program was not really new. He referred repeatedly to
Gauß, Chebyshev, and to Weierstrass’s (famous) approximation theorem, which
states that “every continuous function defined on a closed interval can be uni-
formly approximated as closely as desired by a rational function of finite de-
gree.”262 What was new, according to Klein, was the need to make this question
the focus of applied mathematics and “to recognize that the approximative con-
ception of quantitative relationships pervades our entire thinking far more than
has previously been supposed.”263
In order to spread his vision of precise approximation mathematics, Klein
gave a course titled “Anwendung der Differential- und Integralrechnung auf Ge-

259 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 1251 (Stumpf to Klein, June 4, 1901); Carl Stumpf, Leib und
Seele: Der Entwicklungsgedanke in der gegenwärtigen Philosophie. (Leipzig: Barth, 1909).
260 Klein’s report was first published in the Göttinger Nachrichten (April 1901), pp. 40–47. It
was reprinted in Math. Ann. 55 (1902), pp. 143–48; and in KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), pp. 241–46
(quoted here from p. 243).
261 Ibid., pp. 244–45. Regarding the term “approximation mathematics” (Approximationsmathe-
matik) referred to here, see Karl Heun, “Die kinetischen Probleme der wissenschaftlichen
Technik,” Jahresbericht der DMV 9/2 (1901), pp. 1–123.
262 On this topic, see especially SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 1988 and 2016b.
263 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 245 (a quotation of Klein’s report from 1901).
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 487

ometrie (Eine Revision der Prinzipien)” [The Application of Differential and In-
tegral Calculus to Geometry (A Revision of Principles)] in 1901. As mentioned
above, this lecture course served as the basis of the third volume of Klein’s book
Elementary Mathematics from a Higher Standpoint. The eighty-six students who
attended the course included Mary Esther Trueblood from the United States, Ta-
kuji Yoshiye from Japan, Felix Bernstein, Georg Hamel, and Walther Lietzmann.
Later, when Klein was preparing these lectures for publication (see Section 9.2.3),
he decided to give the book the subtitle “Präzisions- und Approximationsmathe-
matik” [Precision Mathematics and Approximation Mathematics], for these were
the topics that best encapsulated the overall theme of his lectures.264 In his course,
Klein referred to the scientific and pedagogical value of the points of contact be-
tween the calculus of differences and differential calculus (Differenzen- und Diffe-
rentialrechnung), and he demonstrated, among other things, how Taylor’s theo-
rem had been formulated on the basis of the calculus of differences. Here, Klein
also devoted special attention to the works of Chebyshev, of which the St. Peters-
burg mathematicians Markov and Sonin had prepared a French edition.265
Klein had the participants in his seminars analyze related works on the inter-
pretation and approximation of functions of one variable, and he instigated Ger-
man translations of textbooks from the St. Petersburg school (see Section 5.6).
Around the year 1900, Klein was expressly emphasizing research areas such as
the calculus of differences and probability theory, which, more than twenty years
later, proved to be indispensable to quantum physics and were therefore devel-
oped further.266 There was nothing “anti-modern” about Klein’s promotion of
modern numerical mathematics (as compared to the more abstract and axiomati-
cally oriented “modern” mathematics); instead, it was an effort to advance a dif-
ferent type of modernity, which, on the basis of the computer, would later develop
into the areas of mathematical economics and techno-mathematics.267
Fourth: Universalism. On January 27, 1904, Klein gave a public lecture
whose primary intention was to preserve the unity of the Philosophical Faculty at
the University of Göttingen: “In that they have developed alongside one another
but are also built upon one another, the different elements of science should fit to-
gether to form a comprehensive whole. If you would like to have a particular term
for this, I could propose the word universalism.”268 In this speech, Klein commen-
ted on and welcomed the new and better position that the natural sciences and
technology had achieved in many parts of Germany on account of changes that
had taken place around 1900 (the right of Technische Hochschulen to confer

264 See KLEIN 2016 [1928], p. xiii.

265 Ibid., pp. 87–89.
266 See Alwin Walther, “Über die neuere Entwicklung der Differenzenrechnung,” Jahresbericht
der DMV 34 (1926), pp. 118–31.
267 See NEUNZERT/PRÄTZEL-WOLTERS 2015. Regarding the categories “modern” and “anti-mo-
dern,” see MEHRTENS 1990.
268 KLEIN 1904a, p. 271. This lecture was delivered in Göttingen on the occasion of Kaiser Wil-
helm II’s birthday, which was a common custom at the time at all German universities.
488 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

doctoral degrees; the equal status granted to the three types of secondary schools,
etc.). He also stressed the considerable expansion of mathematical, natural-scienti-
fic, and technical areas at the University of Göttingen and responded to the wishes
of the historical-philological division to separate from the Philosophical Faculty.
To justify the unity that he deemed necessary, Klein borrowed the argumen-
tation set forth at the Congress of Arts and Science in Saint Louis (1904), which
had been organized to underscore the unity and the mutual relations of the sci-
ences, and where the following classifications were made: Philosophy and mathe-
matics were categorized as normative sciences, followed by historical sciences,
physical sciences, and mental sciences (psychology and sociology).269 At the same
time, Klein specifically suggested that new professorships should be established
within the philological-historical branch of the Faculty: professorships for Slavic
languages (especially Russian), East Asian languages, the economics of world
trade, etc.270 Klein’s goal in this case was to increase the international nature of
philological and historical instruction, for in the meantime he had taught mathe-
matics to students from Russia, Poland, Japan, and elsewhere.271
Two years later, when Althoff requested Klein’s opinion yet again on the
unity of the Philosophical Faculty, he replied:
My view is in fact entirely different from that which has now emerged on the philological
side; I would like, to the extent that this is possible, a closer relationship to develop between
the two camps. We could learn an immense amount from each other, and we should support
one another in the tasks that we have in common (e.g., the education of teachers) by offering
mutual advice and comprehensive references (even though there may be all sorts of differen-
ces of opinion). Whenever it has seemed necessary to strengthen such support, I have tried to
do so in recent years, for instance by participating in the conference of German philologists
and educators in Hamburg. Moreover, I have also begun to study the relationship between
mathematics and philosophy.272

Klein was able to postpone the division of the Philosophical Faculty at the Uni-
versity of Göttingen, but he was ultimately unable to prevent it. On June 16, 1910,
the Faculty decided to create a mathematical-scientific section and a historical-

269 See Howard J. Rogers, ed., Congress of Arts and Science: Universal Exposition – St. Louis,
1904, vol. 1 (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1905), p. 13.
270 KLEIN 1904a, p. 272. Regarding Klein’s demands regarding foreign language learning and
studying abroad, see also Section 9.1.2.
271 Regarding Japanese students, it should be mentioned by way of example that Teiji Takagi and
Takuji Yoshiye attended Klein’s course on projective geometry in 1900/01; a total of 98 stu-
dents enrolled in this course ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7E). – Takagi later worked on Hil-
bert’s twelfth problem and achieved notable results in class field theory. See Teiji Takagi,
Collected Papers, ed. S. Iyanaga et al. (Tokyo: Springer, 1990); and Sasaki et al. 1994. –Ta-
kuji Yoshiye attended Klein’s courses for five semesters (1899–1902; see also Fig. 31). For
an indication of Hilbert’s influence on his work, see T. Yoshiye, “Anwendungen der Varia-
tionsrechnung auf partielle Differentialgleichungen mit zwei unabhängigen Variablen,” Math.
Ann. 57 (1902), pp. 185–94. See also SASAKI 2002 and KÜMMERLE 2021.
272 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 8: 8 Appendix (Klein’s letter draft to Althoff, February 19, 1906).
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 489

scientific section.273 Even as a professor emeritus, Klein was still involved in this
process, for, on January 29, 1921, “the committee for the separation of the Faculty
into two Faculties […] convened in the home of our colleague Klein.”274
Fifth, Klein had a range of discerning opinions about various philosophers. He
took the side of the Austrian Benno Kerry, who, in a review, had criticized Paul
du Bois-Reymond’s ideas about the concept of a function.275 Klein himself criti-
cized long-deceased Arthur Schopenhauer, who believed that mathematical truth
could be derived directly from intuition (Anschauung). For, even though Klein
deeply appreciated intuition as a heuristic principle, he claimed that “the last and
the only decisive instance is the logical proof emanating from the premises.”276
Klein’s opinion of Immanuel Kant was ambivalent, for the latter expressed
conflicting thoughts on the same topic. Klein rejected philosophers, however, who
relied on Kant’s “orthodox conception of space,” according to which three-dimen-
sional space is a necessary precondition for mathematical thinking. Discussing
Klein’s aforementioned lecture in Vienna, Boltzmann emphasized: “I completely
agree with Privy Councilor Klein’s opposition to Kant’s view. I do not understand
how one can speak of mathematical proof by intuition.”277
Klein (like Hilbert) promoted mathematically talented philosophers. The latter
included not only the aforementioned Leonard Nelson but also the forty-two-year-
old Edmund Husserl, who had earned a doctoral degree in mathematics and whom
Klein’s good friend Carl Stumpf had recommended for an associate professorship
in philosophy at the University of Göttingen.278
Like Max Planck and Carl Runge,279 Klein rejected Gustav Robert Kirch-
hoff’s idea that the goal of science was “not to explain natural phenomena but to
describe them completely and in the simplest way.” About this, Klein commented:

273 [UAG] Phil. Fak. III, vol. 5, fols. 80–81.

274 Ibid., fol. 251.
275 See KLEIN 2016 [1928], p. 16 (note 28); Benno Kerry, review of “Paul du Bois-Reymond,
Allgemeine Functionentheorie: Erster Theil, Tübingen 1882,” Vierteljahrsschrift für wissen-
schaftliche Philosophie 9 (1885), pp. 145–55. See also FISHER 1981.
276 KLEIN 2016 [1925], pp. 271–72. Regarding Schopenhauer, Klein was critical of the latter’s
book The World as Will and Representation, trans. Judith Norman et al. (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2010). The original German book was first published in a single
volume in 1819.
277 Ludwig Boltzmann et al., “Anhang: Aus der Diskussion über vorstehenden Vortrag,” in Wis-
senschaftliche Beilage zum neunzehnten Jahresbericht (1906) der Philosophischen Gesell-
schaft an der Universität zu Wien (Leipzig: Barth, 1906), pp. 8–10, at p. 8.
278 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 1251 (Stumpf to Klein, June 4, 1901). Husserl had completed
his doctoral thesis – “Beiträge zur Theorie der Variationsrechnung” [Contributions to the
Theory of the Calculus of Variations] – under Leo Koenigsberger’s supervision in Vienna.
Husserl had been raised Jewish but, following Koenigsberger’s example, he converted to Pro-
testantism in 1886. One year later, under Carl Stumpf’s supervision at the University of Halle,
Husserl completed his Habilitation in the field of philosophy with a thesis titled “Über den
Begriff der Zahl” [On the Concept of Number]. He had to wait until 1901, however, before
receiving his first salaried position as an associate professor in Göttingen.
279 On Planck and Runge, see HENTSCHEL/TOBIES 2003, pp. 22–24.
490 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

“I cannot conceal the fact that this conception of science is extremely antipathetic
to me, because it thwarts the joy of learning and the drive to research.” In this
context, Klein criticized the overwhelming approval of this idea “among positivist
philosophers, for example Ernst Mach.”280
In 1913, Klein nevertheless joined Hilbert, Einstein, Mach, G.E. Müller, and
twenty-nine other academics (in fields outside of mathematics) in signing an ap-
peal for the establishment of a Society for Positivist Philosophy. The aim of this
society was “to provide a comprehensive worldview on the basis of the empirical
material that the individual sciences have accumulated.”281 Even though Weyl
later denounced Klein’s involvement in this development – “In this case, [Klein]
remained tethered to the dogmas of his time: to empiricism and to a type of psy-
chology whose extreme representative is Mach and which seems increasingly
questionable to us today from an unbiased empiricist point of view”282 – Klein’s
opinion of Mach was far from uncritical. With respect to psychology, Klein’s
ideas were in fact shaped by other thinkers and factors, and this will be the topic
of the next section.

8.3.3 Psychological-Epistemological Classifications

Even though I am treating the matter of psychology separately here, it should be

stressed again that Klein typically thought about the philosophical, psychological,
and pedagogical aspects of his work in an integrative way. This is also evident
from his seminar “Über die psychologischen Grundlagen der Mathematik” [On
the Psychological Foundations of Mathematics], which he conducted with Felix
Bernstein and Leonard Nelson during the winter semester of 1909/10. The topics
that Klein introduced at the beginning of this seminar overlap to a great extent
with the overall plan for vol. VII of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE:
- The way in which creative mathematicians work
- How basic mathematical views (views of space and numbers) originate
- The creation and the epistemological value of axioms
- The different types of errors in mathematics
- Implications for education, from kindergarten to university
- The place of mathematics within the system of science.283

280 KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 206–07.

281 Quoted from “Aufruf!”, Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik 61 (1913), p. 13. The main
initiator of this society was Joseph Petzoldt, who had completed his doctoral studies under
G.E. Müller in Göttingen (see HENTSCHEL 1990, pp. 401–20).
282 WEYL 1930, p. 5.
283 [Protocols] vol. 29, pp. 1–72 (Klein’s introductory lecture, pp. 1–5). Klein kept a record of
what took place in this seminar in his own hand, in contrast to his typical procedure. The par-
ticipants in the seminar also included the Privatdozenten Otto Toeplitz and Ernst Zermelo.
During this same semester, Zermelo offered a course titled “Über die logischen Grundlagen
der Mathematik” [On the Logical Foundations of Mathematics], a topic that Klein included in
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 491

Some of these aspects have already been addressed, and the issues pertaining to
education will be examined below in Section 8.3.4. Here I would like to discuss
the first matter on Klein’s agenda: The way in which creative mathematicians
work. Klein sought to identify the defining moments that led mathematicians to
their approaches, creativity, and productivity. By cooperating with numerous ma-
thematicians, he had come to recognize a variety of research styles. One result of
this was his classification of different types of mathematicians (see 6.5.1.1).
Klein’s lecture “On the Mathematical Character of Space Intuition and the
Relation of Pure Mathematics to Applied Sciences,” which he delivered as part of
his Evanston Colloquium in 1893, contains remarks on the research styles of ma-
thematicians in different countries that could have been construed later as natio-
nalistic or racially biased. After commenting on the differing research styles in the
work of Euclid, Newton, G. Cantor, M. Pasch, and G. Peano, Klein conjectured:
Finally, it must be said that the degree of exactness of intuition of space may be different in
different individuals, perhaps even in different races. It would seem as if a strong naïve space-
intuition were an attribute pre-eminently of the Teutonic race, while the critical, purely logi-
cal sense is more fully developed in the Latin and Hebrew races.284

As others have already shown, Klein’s classification here was not intended to de-
nigrate any mathematical approach or “race.”285 He assigned equal value to the
different ways of achieving knowledge. Nevertheless, after his death, statements
of this sort were politically appropriated and misconstrued for anti-French or anti-
Semitic purposes. The most flagrant example of this was the activity of the ma-
thematician Ludwig Bieberbach during the Nazi era.286 Bieberbach was an adhe-
rent of the racial typologies proposed by the Nazi psychologist Erich Jaensch,
who referred to Klein as “a champion of German-natured science.”287
In his psychology seminar (1909/10), Klein had the participants analyze inter-
national literature on experimental psychology and talent research (Begabungsfor-
schung), and he also had them examine the ways in which preeminent mathemati-
cians were productive. He was interested above all in how someone discovered a
new result. Klein lectured here on his own research methods and those of Gauss
(here, he made use of Gauss’s diary) and Sophus Lie. Leonard Nelson, who parti-
cipated in the seminar, described Dirichlet’s methods; Felix Bernstein analyzed
Georg Cantor; and Erwin Freundlich gave a presentation on famous mental cal-
culators and chess players.

the plan for the final volume of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE. Presentations in this seminar were also
given by Hermann Weyl, Erwin Freundlich, the Belgian mathematician Alfred Errera and the
philosopher Paul Decoster, Bernhard Uffrecht (later a progressive pedagogue), Klein’s doc-
toral student Wilhelm Behrens, and Fritz Steckel from Marienburg (Malbork today).
284 KLEIN 1922 (GMA II), p. 228 (an original English quotation). – For current views on the then
common unscientific term “race,” see FISCHER et.al. 2020.
285 See ROWE 1986; and MEHRTENS 1990, pp. 215–19.
286 See MEHRTENS 1987 and 2004.
287 In German: “Vorkämpfer deutschgearteter Wissenschaft.” JAENSCH/ALTHOFF 1939. – See
also Klein’s critical comment about a draft of Bieberbach’s doctoral thesis in Appendix 7.
492 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

On November 16, 1909, Klein held a joint session of this seminar together
with the Mathematical Society in order to incorporate the views of the other ma-
thematics professors in Göttingen.288 Here, Klein put his classification (philoso-
phers, intuitionists, and algorithmists) from 1892 (see Section 6.5.1.1) up for dis-
cussion, and also raised the issue of Wilhelm Ostwald’s division of great thinkers
into classicists or romantics. One telling result from this meeting was the general
consensus that, when analyzing the work of researchers, it was necessary to take
into account not only their inherent talent but also environmental factors.
In general, Klein was hesitant to draw firm conclusions about psychological
questions. When, in a later seminar presentation (February 16, 1910), Felix Bern-
stein spoke about making a psychological distinction between different types of
mathematicians, Klein commented: “The material that the individual mathemati-
cian works on is determined less by the nature of his talent than it is by his educa-
tional background.” This area of research would have to be studied in greater de-
tail, Klein thought, before it would be possible “to write true-to-life biographies of
mathematicians.”289 Ultimately, Klein realized that the nature of talent has nothing
to do with nationality, religion, or gender but rather depends on educational con-
text. For this reason, Klein supported the idea that all children should be given an
equal opportunity to develop their individuality.290
Klein’s large editorial projects contain several contributions on the psychol-
ogy of mathematics. Regarding the ENCYKLOPÄDIE project, in 1899 Klein had al-
ready discussed psychological questions with Federigo Enriques in Italy, who had
associated his analysis of the genesis of postulates with psychological ques-
tions.291 They had continued this conversation in 1903 in Göttingen while prepar-
ing the article “Principien der Geometrie” for the ENCYKLOPÄDIE. Aurel Voß’s
article “Über die mathematische Erkenntnis” [On Mathematical Knowledge] for
the Kultur der Gegenwart (see Fig. 36) begins with a discussion of psychological
and logical matters. As the editor of the monograph series Abhandlungen über den
mathematischen Unterricht, Klein included a volume titled Psychologie und ma-
thematischer Unterricht [Psychology and Mathematical Instruction]. He com-
missioned the Göttingen Privatdozent David Katz to write this volume, and Katz
based his work not only on the research that he had conducted at the University of
Göttingen, where Georg Elias Müller had founded the world’s second Institute for
Psychology and had initiated, in 1904, a Society for Experimental Psychology. In
order to broaden the scope of Katz’s report on the topic, Klein had also sent him
to Wilhelm Wundt’s Institute for Experimental Psychology in Leipzig and to Wil-
helm Rein’s experimental “Laboratory School” in Jena.292

288 [Protocols] vol. 29, pp. 15–19.

289 Ibid., pp. 59–60.
290 See ABELE/NEUNZERT/TOBIES 2004, p. 32; and TOBIES 2018b.
291 See Livia Giacardi’s article in COEN 2012, esp. p. 224.
292 See D. Katz, Psychologie und mathematischer Unterricht (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1913). In
1933, Katz, who was Jewish, was forced to leave his professorship (University of Rostock);
in 1937, he became the first professor of psychology in Sweden (University of Stockholm).
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 493

8.3.4 The “Kleinian” Educational Reform

By and large, we are all influenced by the movement that was inaugurated by Prof. Klein and
further promoted by the German Commission.293

The Hungarian Emanuel (Manó) Beke spoke these words at the Fourth Interna-
tional Congress of Mathematicians held in Rome (1908). He had studied with
Klein in 1893/94, and already then he had been enthusiastic about Klein’s out-
reach to secondary school teachers.294 Early on, Klein had acquired an interna-
tional reputation in the domain of mathematical pedagogy through his book Fa-
mous Problems of Elementary Geometry, which was translated into several lan-
guages (see Section 7.3). He had been become a member of the editorial board of
the first international journal for mathematical instruction, L’Enseignement
mathématique (Fig. 37), founded in 1899.295
As the president of the German Mathematical Society at the time (see Section
6.4.4), Klein had made preparations for the conference in Rome, but he did not
travel there himself for scheduling reasons.296 As early as February 11, 1908, he
had entrusted Walther Dyck to give his promised lecture on the ENCYKLOPÄDIE,
and August Gutzmer attended the congress as Klein’s proxy for educational mat-
ters.297 In Rome, David Eugene Smith, a mathematics instructor at Columbia Col-
lege in New York City who had been one of the translators of Klein’s book Fa-
mous Problems of Elementary Geometry (see Section 7.3), proposed:
Convinced by the importance of a comparative investigation into the methods and teaching
plans of mathematical instruction at secondary schools in various countries, the Congress
commissions Messrs. Klein, Greenhill, and Fehr to form an international committee to study
these questions and to present a general report at the next Congress.298

This proposal was accepted in Rome on April 11, 1908; its mandate was set to be
fulfilled by the time of the next International Congress of Mathematicians in Cam-
bridge (UK) in 1912.299 Although the original assignment was restricted to secon-
dary schools, the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI)

293 Emanuel Beke, “Über den jetzigen Stand des mathematischen Unterrichts und die Reform-
bestrebungen in Ungarn,” in Atti del IV congresso internazionale dei matematici (Roma, 6–11
Aprile 1908), Roma: R. Accademia dei Lincei, 1909, vol. 3, p. 531.
294 [Protocols] vol. 11 (Beke gave three presentations in Klein’s seminar, all in January of 1894).
He also published two articles in Math. Ann. 45 (1894), pp. 278–300; and [UBG] Cod. MS. F.
Klein 8: 76A, 76B/1 (Beke’s letters to Klein, dated March 8 and August 21, 1895).
295 On the history of this journal, see CORAY et al. 2003; and GISPERT 2021.
296 Klein excused his absence in Rome because the congress coincided with his appointment to
the Upper House of the Prussian parliament; see Jahresbericht der DMV 17 (1908), p. 130.
297 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22H (Klein’s delegation of his plenary lecture to Dyck). – For
Gutzmer’s lecture, see Atti del IV congresso internazionale dei matematici (Roma, 6–11
Aprile 1908), Roma: R. Accademia dei Lincei, 1909, vol. 3, p. 445.
298 FEHR 1909, p. 1.
299 See TOBIES 1979; and also MENGHINI et al. 2008.
494 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

took all levels of education into account.300 Klein was thus able to follow the plan
that he had imagined for vol. VII of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, which was intended to
include a section on “The Didactics of Mathematics at educational institutions of
all levels and purposes in Germany and abroad” (see p. 474).
Klein managed the ICMI after he had been elected in Rome (in absentia) to
serve as its chairman. He had a good relationship with the deputy chairman
George Greenhill (United Kingdom) and with the general secretary Henri Fehr
(Switzerland), and he organized regular meetings to discuss the main topics of
educational reform (see also Section 8.3.4.1). Over time, he was able to recruit
representatives from seventeen countries to serve on sub-committees.
By that time, Klein was a member of thirty-nine academies and scientific so-
cieties, so that he found it easy to choose fitting ICMI delegates to represent the
individual countries involved. Walther Lietzmann, whom Klein had appointed as
his secretary for ICMI-related work, marveled at Klein’s “fabulous ability to seek
out the most appropriate man in every country.”301 These included the aforemen-
tioned Poul Heegaard as the Danish representative or Rikitaro Fujisawa, who was
the chairman of the Japanese sub-committee and in this capacity was also the
editor of the Summary Report on the Teaching of Mathematics in Japan (Tokyo,
1912), which was presented at the Congress in Cambridge.302
Fujisawa is noteworthy because he brought European mathematics to Japan
after he had studied in London, Berlin, and Strasbourg and had earned a doctoral
degree under Elwin Christoffel with a dissertation on partial differential equa-
tions. Fujisawa and his younger colleague Takuji Yoshiye were professors in the
College of Science at Tokyo Imperial University. In 1912, Fujisawa and Yoshiye
also donated money (as did Fehr, Greenhill, Heegaard, D.E. Smith, and many oth-
ers), so that Max Liebermann could paint a portrait of Felix Klein (see 8.5.2).
Klein was also largely responsible for choosing the members of the German
ICMI sub-committee. This body consisted of delegates for the ICMI (Klein, Paul
Stäckel, Peter Treutlein) and a national advisory board.303 For the latter board,
Klein recruited the editors of journals: August Gutzmer (Jahresbericht der DMV),
Heinrich Schotten (Zeitschrift für den mathematischen und naturwissenschaftli-
chen Unterricht), Friedrich Poske (Zeitschrift für physikalischen und chemischen
Unterricht), and Albert Thaer (Unterrichtsblätter für Mathematik und Naturwis-
senschaften). This proved to be an adept way to disseminate ideas for reform
within his own country. Gutzmer, Schotten, and Poske were already members of
the Breslau Education Commission (Breslauer Unterrichtskommission). Stäckel,
Treutlein, and Thaer later contributed books to the ICMI monograph series.

300 The English title “International Commission on Mathematical Instruction” was first intro-
duced in 1952. First, the German and French titles were used: Internationale Mathematische
Unterichtskommision and Commission Internationale de l’Enseignement Mathématique.
301 LIETZMANN 1960, p. 45. – Regarding Walther Lietzmann, see also HESKE 2018 and 2021.
302 Another member of the Japanese sub-committee was Takuji Yoshiye, who had studied under
Klein and played a part in composing the Summary Report. See FUJISAWA 1912, pp. viii–x.
303 On Treutlein, see Ysette Weiss’s article in WEIGAND et al. 2019, pp. 107–16.
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 495

Figure 37: The title page of the first issue of the journal L’Enseignement mathématique (1899),
which has been the journal of the ICMI since 1908.

Modern mathematical and scientific education was also regarded at the time as a
matter of international competition. In 1896, the Royal Commission on Technical
Instruction in London had reported the following about a study tour in Germany:
496 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

They [our foreign rivals] are convinced that the nation which has the best schools is the best
prepared for the great industrial warfare which lies before us, and no money appears to be
grudged for the creation, equipment, and maintenance of educational institutions of all grades,
and especially of the science laboratories which, as we have seen, are being multiplied in
Germany.304

International cooperation of the sort mustered to study mathematical instruction

did not exist then in any other discipline. In his public statements about educatio-
nal issues, Klein’s arguments were based above all on ideals, and therefore he was
able to convince an international band of mathematicians to join his side. He also
recognized, however, that arguments based on the premise of international com-
petition could be useful in his homeland:
The great attention that is now being paid in England and America, for instance, to education
in physics and chemistry (and also mathematics) is expressly based on the hope that such ef-
forts will strengthen the position of these populations in the international competition for in-
dustrial and military power! If we want the leading authorities to heed our demands, this is
certainly a more important and perhaps more appropriate reason than the idealistic considera-
tions with which we have otherwise operated.305

Within the ICMI, Klein was able to concentrate on questions of mathematical

education. As a member of German committees, Klein had to keep broader inter-
ests in mind in order to achieve his goals of educational reform. He wrote the fol-
lowing about the causes and beginnings of the reform in Germany:
The driving impulse is coming from technology and the natural sciences. By way of example,
the names of a few forerunners of the reform movement in Germany should be mentioned:
there is the physiologist [Emil] du Bois-Reymond; also Gallenkamp,306 a scion of the Lower
Rhine industrial area; and furthermore A. Wernicke from Braunschweig, who was influenced
by his father’s instruction at the old trade school. In short, the shift in interest toward the natu-
ral sciences and technology has also created a shift in the public evaluation of mathematics.
Whereas, formerly, it had been just a means of formal education – a whetstone of the intellect
– people are now beginning to see it also as the basis for understanding life around us.307

In 1877, Emil du Bois-Reymond had formulated: “Under the banner: Conic sec-
tions! No more Greek script! I dare say that I could convene […] a formidable
meeting for the purpose of reforming secondary education.”308 His aim was to
bring analytic geometry to secondary schools, where he hoped it would replace
synthetic Euclidean geometry (this demand was then being made internationally).

304 Philip Magnus et al., Report on a Visit to Germany, with a View of Ascertaining the Recent
Progress of Technical Education in that Country (London: Eyre/Spottiswoode, 1896), p. 412.
305 KLEIN 1907b, p. 203 (F. Klein, “Bericht an die Breslauer Naturforschungsversammlung über
den Stand des math. und physikalischen Unterrichts an den höheren Schulen”, 1904).
306 See Wilhelm Gallenkamp, Die Elemente der Mathematik: Ein Leitfaden für den mathema-
tischen Unterricht an Gymnasien und Realschulen (Mülheim/Ruhr: Jul. Bagel 1851, 41875).
307 Hermann Weinreich, “Der mathematisch-physikalische Ferienkursus an der Universität Göt-
tingen, Ostern 1914,” Zeitschr. für den math. und naturwiss. Unterricht 45 (1914), pp. 487–
510, at p. 493. This is a quotation from Klein’s lecture in the continuing education course.
308 BOIS-REYMOND 1877, p. 629.
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 497

Figure 38: Committees (etc.) in which Klein discussed educational issues.

As early as 1890, numerous discussions concerning educational reforms had al-

ready been held at a School Conference in Berlin.309 In the German Mathematical
Society, which had been founded in 1890, pedagogical issues had been a matter of
discussion since 1893. In 1890, German mathematics and science teachers formed
the Association for the Promotion of Mathematical and Natural-Scientific In-
struction (see Section 7.3). After Klein had been named to the board of the Soci-
ety of German Natural Scientists and Physicians (see Section 7.4.4), he “had a say
in integrating their sessions.”310 With this in mind, he not only initiated regular
joint sessions with mathematicians and physicists at the annual conferences but
also established the teachers’ association mentioned above as the responsible
party for the section on mathematical and scientific instruction within the Society
of German Natural Scientists and Physicians. This move had been influenced by
precedents abroad: “At the other large natural-scientific associations in England
(British Association for the Advancement of Science) and France (Association
française pour l’avancement des sciences), significantly more consideration is
given to educational issues than is the case here in Germany.”311

309 The aim of the conference in 1890 (under the aegis of Wilhelm II) was primarily to counter
the development of a “subversive educated proletariat.” The only present mathematician was
the trade school director Gustav Holzmüller, who supported the emperor’s (unrealized) idea
for education without Latin, but who later opposed the idea of modernizing the mathematics
curriculum by including analytic geometry and analysis (see SCHUBRING 2000).
310 Quoted from FREI 1985, p. 111 (a letter from Klein to Hilbert, October 4, 1894).
311 [StA Berlin] Rep. 76 Vc, Sekt. 1, Tit. XI, No. 8, Vol. VI, fol. 243.
498 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

At the next Prussian School Conference (June 6–8, 1900), where Klein pro-
posed suggestions for reform (see Section 8.3.4.1), he became an authority figure
to whom other experts also sent their desiderata and concerns. In the years that
followed, Klein strove to coordinate these various interests, an effort that he
clearly regarded as an urgent task: “The issue seems so essential to me that I
would like to raise my voice loudly to generate discussion among all who are
interested and knowledgeable in the matter.”312
Klein made this note in preparation for an advisory meeting, which was held
in Göttingen on December 11, 1901, with his university colleagues and local sec-
ondary school teachers in order to coordinate the interests of everyone involved.
The immediate occasion for this meeting was a letter from Karl Kraepelin to
Klein containing arguments from biologists,313 who were seeking to revive the
status of their discipline in secondary school curricula, from which the subject of
biology had been banned (see Section 4.3.3). Klein’s notes document the partici-
pation of all the experts present at the meeting and provide information about their
discussions concerning the content of lessons and the number of weekly hours of
instruction devoted to individual subjects at secondary schools.
In 1903, at the annual meeting of the Society of German Natural Scientists
and Physicians in Kassel, Klein proposed the formation of an education commis-
sion, which first convened in 1904 at the society’s next conference in Breslau.
This “Breslau Education Commission” formulated suggestions for reform that
were presented at the society’s subsequent meetings in Meran (1905), Stuttgart
(1906), and Dresden (1907).314
Within this twelve-member “Breslau Commission,” Klein served as the repre-
sentative from the German Mathematical Society; he successfully recruited A.
Gutzmer to be its chairman, K. Kraepelin to represent biology, Carl Duisberg to
represent chemistry and the chemical industry,315 two physicians, a representative
from the Association of German Engineers, and teachers from secondary schools.
This commission succeeded in taking into account the interest of women’s asso-
ciations (see Section 8.3.4.1), and it also managed to convince many representa-
tives of the humanities to support the demands of their colleagues teaching
mathematics and the natural sciences. Klein himself did much of the latter work
by attending and presenting at the annual conferences of the Association of Phi-
lologists and Educators (Verband der Philologen und Schulmänner) in Hamburg
(1905) and Basel (1907). With diplomatic skill, he was able to organize lecture
series with this group.316 Klein developed a coordinated approach to educational
reform using various committees and societies.

312 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 31, fols. 30–35v, at fol. 34v (Klein’s notes, 12 pp.)
313 Ibid. 31 (Kraepelin to Klein, November 23, 1901). – The reintroduction of biology into the
upper levels of secondary schools in Prussia was ultimately brought about by a decree issued
on March 19, 1908, [StA Berlin] Rep. 76 Vb Sekt. 1, Tit. 5, Abt. V. No. 12, Vol. I, fol. 33.
314 These reform suggestions were published in GUTZMER 1908.
315 On Duisberg, see KÜHLEM 2012.
316 See TOBIES 2000, pp. 35–37.
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 499

At the meeting of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians in

Dresden (September 1907), the work of the Breslau Commission was considered
complete, and a German Committee for Mathematical and Natural-Scientific In-
struction (Deutscher Ausschuss für den mathematischen und naturwissenschaftli-
chen Unterricht = DAMNU) was created to put the commission’s recommended
reforms into practice. Twenty-one mathematical and natural-scientific societies
were represented on this new committee. Klein and Stäckel served as representa-
tives from the German Mathematical Society, and Klein led DAMNU’s sub-
committee for teacher training.317
Klein was involved in three education committees nearly simultaneously:
DAMNU, ICMI, and a third committee in the Upper House (Herrenhaus) of the
Prussian Parliament, after the University of Göttingen had elected him, on De-
cember 14, 1907, as its representative there (in this position, he succeeded the late
Richard Wilhelm Dove; see Section 2.7.1). As was customary, the emperor Wil-
helm II made this a lifetime appointment (on February 17, 1908),318 but Klein’s
parliamentary position came to end in 1918 with the downfall of the German
Empire. With Konrad von Studt, the Minister of Culture from 1899 to 1907, Klein
formed a Commission for Education here as well (see Table 9). New elections for
the members of this commission were held at every parliamentary session, and, as
of 1908, Klein was repeatedly chosen to serve as its speaker.
The Prussian Parliament, which met in Berlin, was bicameral. The first cham-
ber (the Upper House) consisted of representatives from every Prussian university
and from the larger Prussian cities, of members appointed personally by the Em-
peror himself, and of noblemen (with hereditary status). The second chamber (the
House of Representatives) was based on a three-class franchise system (Dreiklas-
senwahlrecht). Both chambers possessed the right to pursue legislative initiatives.
In France and Italy, it was not unusual for mathematicians to serve in parlia-
ment or engage in other political activity. In Germany, we know that H.A.
Schwarz actively campaigned for Bismarck’s National Liberal Party during the
parliamentary elections of 1887 and that he held a local political office (as a
“Bürgervorsteher”) in Göttingen until 1892.319 Klein, who was not a member of
any party, was the only mathematician to have a seat in the Upper House of the
Prussian Parliament, but he was not the only university professor with such a po-
sition. During the First World War, he and the Sanskritologist Alfred Hillebrandt
argued for the benefits of studying abroad (see Section 9.1.2). As early as 1898,
Adolf Slaby, a pioneer of wireless telegraphy, had been appointed to the Upper
House by Wilhelm II, who was keenly interested in technology.

317 See GUTZMER 1914. DAMNU’s work came to an end with Gutzmer’s death in 1924.
318 Stenographische Berichte über Verhandlungen im Herrenhaus (1907/08), Fifth Session, p. 46.
319 [BBAW] NL Schwarz 1254, fols. 249, 300.
500 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Table 9: Members of the Commission for Education in the Upper House

(Herrenhaus) of the Prussian Parliament, formed on March 19, 1909
Member Category of Membership
1. Dr. von Studt, Konrad Imperial Appointment
(Minister of Culture, 1899–1907)
Chairman
2. Dr. Klein, Felix University
Full Prof., University of Göttingen
Deputy Chairman
3. Dr. Graf York v. Wartenburg, Heinrich Hereditary
District Commissioner (retired)
4. Knobloch, Alfred City of Bromberg
Mayor of Bromberg
5. Faber, Wilhelm Imperial Appointment
Consistorial Councilor
6. Graf v. Haeseler, Gottlieb Imperial Appointment
General Field Marshal (retired)
7. Dr. Hillebrandt, Alfred University
Full Prof., University of Breslau
8. Graf v. Königsmarck, Karl Family Association
Castle Governor, Rheinsberg
9. Cardinal Dr. v. Kopp, Georg Imperial Appointment
Bishop of Breslau
10. Graf. v. Kospoth, Karl August Imperial Appointment
Majorat Holder
11. Graf v. der Osten, Leopold Family Association
Major (retired)
12. Dr. Slaby, Adolf Imperial Appointment
Full Prof., Technische Hochschule in Berlin
13. Christian Ernst Hermann Fürst zu Stolberg- Hereditary
Wernigerode
14. Voigt, Georg City of Barmen
Mayor of Barmen
15. Dr. Zorn, Philipp Imperial Appointment
Full Prof., University of Bonn

8.3.4.1 Suggestions for Reform

The School Conference in June of 1900 concerned the content and structure of
education at secondary schools for boys. Konrad von Studt, then the Minister of
Culture, and eight government officials (including Althoff) invited thirty-four ex-
perts to attend, among whom were Felix Klein and Henry Theodore Böttinger. In
advance of the conference, printed reports were circulated on ten issues, including
reports on mathematical and scientific education by Bernhard Schwalbe (a school
principal), Adolf Slaby (a professor of electrical engineering at the Technische
Hochschule in Berlin), Wilhelm Lexis (a professor of economics), Emil Lampe,
and Guido Hauck (both professors of mathematics at the Technische Hochschule
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 501

in Berlin). Klein, however, was not initially asked to write a report. A letter from
Anna Klein to her husband from April 4, 1900 sheds some light on the context:
I believe that you will find much to do in Berlin, for it now seems as though Althoff wants to
make use of your ideas. This may be related to the fact that last week, when discussing the
cultural budget in parliament, Slaby mentioned the institutions here in Göttingen and your
name as the causes of problems, even condemning them as harmful. This was the old song
about encroaching on foreign territory and about “general staff officers.” [Johannes] Reinke
(Kiel) and [Gustav] Schmoller (Berlin) have defended your efforts. Now, today, Reinke re-
ceived a request from Althoff to send him your lectures on this matter.320

Almost immediately (on April 11, 1900), Klein had the Teubner press print copies
of the lectures in which he offered to cooperate with engineers, including a rejoin-
der that was addressed to Slaby in particular.321 After he had sent these documents
to the ministry, Klein was then asked to prepare, on short notice, his own report
on the issues to be discussed at the School Conference.322 Klein’s proposals were
innovative, and in several respects they would prove to be influential in the pro-
cess of educational reform.
First, Klein argued that the diplomas awarded by the three different types of
German secondary schools should be treated equally with respect to university
admissions, an argument that was in step with international trends. In his intro-
ductory report, Minister von Studt made it known that he was aware of the re-
forms being made in other countries, especially in France, where secondary
schools “without dead languages” had meanwhile been recognized as gateways to
universities.323 Von Studt formulated the alternatives: either a uniform school sys-
tem with an increased focus on practical subjects at the expense of classical lan-
guages or the equal treatment of diplomas from the existing school types. In the
heated debate that followed, Klein underscored that, for mathematics, equal rights
to admission already existed and that students from various educational back-
grounds were being accepted.324 Adolf Harnack325 made a motion for the equal
treatment of the different final examinations (Abitur). On November 26, 1900, the
emperor issued a decree that, regarding university admissions, placed the exami-
nations (Abitur) administered by Realgymnasien and Oberrealschulen on equal
footing with those of humanistic Gymnasien.326

320 Quoted from TOBIES 1989a, p. 11 (Anna Klein to Felix Klein, April 4, 1900). For Klein’s
remarks about how German universities should train the “general staff officers” of engineers,
while Technische Hochschulen should educate the “infantry of engineers,” see Section 7.7.
321 See KLEIN 1900.
322 For Klein’s report from May 22, 1900, see SCHUBRING 1989 and 2000.
323 [StA Berlin] Rep. 76, Sekt. 1, Gen. Z, No. 165, fols. 8, 40–43, 53.
324 Klein’s speeches are published in VERHANDLUNGEN 21902, pp. 29–31, and with his own
commentary in the Jahresbericht der DMV 11 (1902), pp. 128–41.
325 Klein cooperated with Adolf Harnack, a theologian and historian (the twin brother of Klein’s
former, already late doctoral student Axel Harnack). From 1911 to 1930, Adolf Harnack also
served as the president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society.
326 Some of the federal states still maintained special rules for the study of theology and law.
502 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Second, on the conference topic of “elevating the level of instruction in vari-

ous subjects,” Klein argued for a higher level of general mathematical educa-
tion.327 This means that areas of higher mathematics – which had so far only been
taught at universities or Technische Hochschulen – should be included in the
curriculum of secondary schools. In a speech on this topic at the School Confer-
ence, Klein explained:
Every expert will confirm that one can only understand the basis of the scientific explanation
of nature if one is at least familiar with the rudiments of differential and integral calculus and
with analytic geometry – that is, with the basic elements of higher mathematics. There have
always been teachers, even at humanistic Gymnasien, who to some degree have introduced
these rudiments to their pupils. The question should be whether room could be reserved for
these subjects in the general curriculum, at least in Realanstalten.328

Slaby, Hauck, and Lexis endorsed Klein’s idea, and the conference participants
recommended it unanimously to the government. Nevertheless, it was not incor-
porated into the new curricula for 1901.329 Thus, Klein continued to promote the
teaching of “practical differential and integral calculus, limited to the simplest
relations, and illustrating them by means of the natural processes with which stu-
dents [at secondary schools] are already familiar.”330 Klein argued for this by re-
ferring to the examples of Nernst and Schoenflies’s textbook (1895, English trans.
1900) and to John Perry’s textbooks on practical mathematics (1897, 1899).
Klein also cited recent developments in France, where differential and integral
calculus were made a required part of the curriculum at all secondary schools in
1902 and where the concept of the function played a central role in mathematical
instruction.331 Klein also invited a contribution on the same topic from the French
mathematician Francisque Marotte, who had visited him in Göttingen in
1894/95332 and studied the reform movement in Germany in 1901 and 1903. Re-
garding the situation in France, Marotte stressed: “Ces importantes notions de
fonctions et d’approximation, par lesquelles les mathématiques prennent contact
avec le monde physique et avec la réalité, nous allons les retrouver au centre de
l’enseignement mathématique.”333

327 At the same time, Klein supported Böttinger’s wishes for secondary schools to prepare gradu-
ates to study chemistry and for English to be introduced as a subject at humanistic Gymnasien
on account of its “great importance in global trade” (VERHANDLUNGEN 21902, pp. 188, 198).
Böttinger had grown up in England. Up until this point, chemistry had been the only subject
that could be studied at universities and Technische Hochschulen without the Abitur.
328 Quoted from VERHANDLUNGEN 21902, p. 154. Realanstalten denote Oberrealschule and
Realgymnasium, where more weekly lessons in mathematics and science were taught.
329 Lehrpläne und Lehraufgaben für die höheren Schulen in Preußen (Halle: Waisenhaus, 1901).
330 Jahresbericht der DMV 11 (1902), p. 137.
331 Felix Klein, “Zur Besprechung des mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Unterrichts auf der
nächsten Naturforscherversammlung,” Jahresbericht der DMV 13 (1904), p. 198.
332 See DECAILLOT 2011, p. 173.
333 F. Marotte, “Les récentes réformes de l’enseignement des mathématiques dans l’enseigne-
ment secondaire français,” Jahresbericht der DMV 13 (1904), pp. 450–56, at p. 451; idem,
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 503

The reformed German curriculum proposed in Meran by the Breslau Educa-

tion Commission in 1905 (the so-called “Meraner Reform-Lehrplan”) likewise
concentrated on the concept of the function and emphasized the importance of
graphical methods and analytic geometry. It also contained a compromise:
mathematical instruction should rise “up to the threshold (Schwelle) of infinitesi-
mal calculus.” That is, it remained unclear whether this subject matter should be
taught or not, as Klein pointed out years later in a Göttingen continuing education
course in April of 1914.334 This compromise was a result of the opposition cham-
pioned by Friedrich Pietzker, a teacher at a secondary school (Gymnasialprofes-
sor) and the longtime chairman of the Association for the Promotion of Mathe-
matical and Natural-Scientific Instruction. Pietzker insisted on preserving the
nineteenth-century notion of what a general mathematical education should be.
For many years in Prussia, the content of mathematical education at secon-
dary schools had been defined by Adolph Tellkampf.335 A paradigm shift eventu-
ally took place, but not before a long and arduous struggle. In a parliamentary
speech given on May 4, 1914, Pietzker was still, as a representative of his party
(Fortschrittliche Volkspartei), polemicizing against Klein and his idea to “intro-
duce infinitesimal calculus into the secondary school curriculum.”336 The Prussian
Ministry of Culture therefore recommended that the matter should first be tested
at reform schools and “be allowed to develop from the bottom up.” The reports
show that teachers increasingly adopted Klein’s ideas for reform.337
As the president of the ICMI, Klein organized sessions on the topic of tea-
ching infinitesimal calculus at secondary schools at this commission’s meetings in
Brussels (1910) and Paris (1914).338 As Ulf Hashagen has shown in this regard,
Klein’s former student Walther Dyck had enjoyed quicker success in Bavaria than
Klein did in Prussia. Infinitesimal calculus was made a mandatory component of
the curriculum in Bavarian secondary schools in 1914, whereas this would not be
the case in Prussia until 1925 – an initiative for which Klein would remain acti-
vely engaged until shortly before his death (see Section 9.3.2).339
Third, Klein elevated the didactics of mathematics to an independent disci-
pline. Inspired by Klein, the Austrian mathematician Alois Höfler wrote the first
ever German-language textbook on this subject, which was published in 1910 by
Teubner in Leipzig (see Section 5.6).340 Klein’s three-volume Elementary Mathe-
matics from a Higher Standpoint resulted from his lecture courses since 1901 (see

L’Enseignement des sciences mathématiques et physiques dans l’enseignement secondaire

des garçons en Allemagne (Paris: Impr. nationale, 1905).
334 See the report in Zeitschr. für den math. und naturwiss. Unterricht 45 (1914), pp. 493–96.
335 See FOLKERTS/SCHUBRING 2020.
336 See TOBIES 2000, pp. 30–32.
337 See TOBIES 2012; and LIETZMANN 1960, pp. 47–53.
338 Due to his health, Klein did not travel to Paris himself in 1914, but he had prepared eve-
rything in advance ([Paris] 83: A letter from Klein to Darboux dated March 25, 1914).
339 See HASHAGEN 2003, p. 358.
340 See HÖFLER 1910.
504 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

8.3.4.2) and follow the aim of improving the “methodological education of mathe-
matics teachers.”341 Here he stressed the importance of fusing different disciplines
– arithmetic and geometry, planimetry and stereometry – with the goal of pre-
venting the “one-sided teaching of planimetry while neglecting three-dimensional
space intuition.”342 Such a fusion of plane and spatial geometry had already been
treated quite well in Giulio Lazzari and Anselmo Bassani’s book Elementi di ge-
ometria (1891). A German translation of this book was published by Teubner in
1911, and in that same year Klein deliberately chose “Strenge und Fusion”
[Strictness and Fusion] to be the main topic of the ICMI meeting in Milan.
Supervised by Klein, Rudolf Schimmack became the first scholar in Germany
to complete a Habilitation in “didactics of the mathematical sciences” in 1911.
Schimmack continued to work on the fusion of disciplines in mathematical in-
struction at secondary schools. His introductory lecture in the context of his Ha-
bilitation procedure was “Über die Verschmelzung verschiedener Zweige des
mathematischen Unterrichts” [On the Fusion of Different Branches of Mathemati-
cal Instruction].343 Schimmack’s treatise on the development of the reform move-
ment in German mathematical education was accepted as his Habilitation thesis.
Schimmack’s success with this Habilitation was based on many years of col-
laboration with Klein, whose assistant he was from 1903 to 1905, and whose lec-
ture courses on mathematical instruction (winter semester, 1904/05) he prepared
for publication.344 Already his dissertation topic had been inspired by Klein; as
Schimmack noted, he had first come up with the idea “in connection with a his-
torical-mathematical seminar by Privy Councilor Klein on the principles of me-
chanics (winter semester, 1902/03).”345 Schimmack had published an article on
the subject in 1903,346 but initially he pursued a career as a secondary school
teacher. Therefore, it was not until January 19, 1908 that he passed his oral exa-
mination with distinction (Klein was the main supervisor of the dissertation, and
Hilbert was the co-supervisor). Previously, Schimmack had also passed his tea-
ching examinations with distinction. As of 1908, he was employed as a senior
teacher at the Gymnasium in Göttingen.
After his Habilitation, Schimmack taught as a Privatdozent at the university –
in addition to his permanent position as a schoolteacher. He took over Klein’s
seminars on the history of infinitesimal mathematics (as of November of 1911)
and on educational reforms in Germany, France, England, Austria, and the United
States (summer semester, 1912).347 For the winter semester of 1912/13, Schim-

341 SCHUBRING 2016, p. 7.

342 KLEIN 2016 [1925], p. 239.
343 [UAG] Kur. 6308 (Habilitation records).
344 See KLEIN 1907.
345 Rudolf Schimmack, Axiomatische Untersuchungen über die Vektoraddition [Axiomatic In-
vestigations of Vector Addition] (Halle: Erhardt Karras, 1908), p. 106.
346 Rudolf Schimmack, “Ueber die axiomatische Begründung der Vektoraddition,” Göttinger
Nachrichten (1903), pp. 317–25.
347 [Protocols] vol. 29, pp. 157–452.
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 505

mack announced his first lecture courses: “Ausgewählte Abschnitte der mathema-
tischen Didaktik” [Select Chapters of Mathematical Didactics].348 However, he
was not able to complete this course because, after a bout of scarlet fever, he suf-
fered a fatal heart attack on December 2, 1912.
“I could not have been dealt a heavier blow; I had based all my plans for the
near future on his collaboration.” Klein wrote these words the day after Schim-
mack’s death to Walther Lietzmann, whom he now encouraged to teach the di-
dactics of mathematics in Jena: “Once you have found your bearings, you would
then be able to operate at the university in a capacity similar to Schimmack’s. It
seems to be the nature of development that private approaches of this sort will
gradually become part-time teaching appointments (Nebenamt).”349 On October
20, 1913, Klein stressed more generally: “Apart from or beyond [independent
professorships for pedagogy], we need our own teaching appointments for the
didactics of various groups of disciplines.”350
In 1914, Klein enticed Lietzmann to move from Jena to Göttingen, where, in
addition to working as the director of a secondary school, he also received a tea-
ching appointment for “the didactics of the exact sciences” at the university.351
Lietzmann published works in the ICMI monograph series, articles on educational
reform, and, in 1916, a book titled Methodik des mathematischen Unterrichts [The
Methodology of Mathematical Instruction] (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 440 pp.).
Klein did not live to see the book written by Lietzmann during the Nazi era to
include Bieberbach’s racial typology.352
Klein steered further mathematicians toward didactics, among them Otto
Staude’s student Friedrich Drenckhahn (see Section 9.2, Table 10) and Paul
Zühlke (a contributor to the ICMI monograph series).353 Klein recommended,
moreover, that new professorships in the field of university didactics (Hoch-
schulkunde) should be established, and he was appreciated for his own didactic
articles on academic instruction. In 1912, he joined a Society for University Di-
dactics (Gesellschaft für Hochschuldidaktik).354
Fourth, in addition to engaging on behalf of the right for women to study
mathematics at the university level (see Section 7.5), Klein also supported initiati-
ves to reform girls’ schools. The Breslau Education Commission, mentioned
above, cooperated with engaged women and women’s associations, as is docu-
mented in a letter by the microbiologist Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner:

348 Verzeichnis der Vorlesungen, 1912/13 (Göttingen, 1912), p. 15.

349 [UBG] Cod. MS. Lietzmann I:202, 212 (Klein to Lietzmann, Dec. 3, 1912 and Febr. 2, 1913).
350 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22L, Personalia, fol. 19 (Klein’s notes for W. Lorey).
351 Ibid. F. Klein 2G, fols. 18–19, 23, 65.
352 Walther Lietzmann (with the assistance of Ulrich Graf), Mathematik in Erziehung und Unter-
richt (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1941). In 1945, Lietzmann lost his position as a director.
(See Tobies 1993b; HESKE 2018; HOLLINGS/SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2020, pp. 76–85, 271–84).
353 See TOEPELL 1991, pp. 89, 143. Regarding Drenckhahn’s work on didactics, see SCHUBRING
2016, pp. 10, 13–14.
354 [Hecke] Klein’s lecture course of 1910-11, pp. 318–20.
506 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Esteemed Professor!
I have allowed myself to send you […] 12 copies of the report undertaken by Miss Thekla
Freytag (who has passed the examination pro facultate docendi) and myself […]. The work
was carried out with the support of the Organization of Progressive Women’s Associations
(Mrs. Minna Cauer, Chairwoman), which in its time has offered input to the Education Com-
mission of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians. The General German
Women’s Association (Miss Helene Lange, Chairwoman), with which you are certainly fa-
miliar, is also in agreement with our report […].
In the hope that the Commission will keep us informed about its further deliberations, and
with the sincerest thanks for the goodwill that the Commission has shown to the cause of
women, I sign this letter with the utmost respect and also on behalf of Thekla Freytag,
Yours sincerely,
Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner355

A great deal of persistence was needed to implement the suggested reforms for
girls’ schools. When Klein reported to his wife about a meeting with the Prussian
Minister of Culture at the 1907 conference of the Society of German Natural
Scientists and Physicians, she replied: “This probably means that the Ministry
intends to take the issue of school reform seriously. Then your efforts will bear
fruit! The other day I read that they want to undo everything that seemed to have
been secured for the girls’ schools.”356 Their daughter Elisabeth was then atten-
ding Realgymnasium courses in Hanover, and there she had to take the Abitur
examinations externally at a Realgymnasium for boys (February 17, 1908), be-
cause there were still no girls’ schools in Prussia that led to this qualification. In
early 1908, she enrolled as an auditor at the University of Göttingen. In October
of that year, she was finally able to matriculate as a regular student after Prussia
had passed the aforementioned decree on August 18, 1908. This decree also
brought about a new structure for girls’ schools (with three types based on the
model of boys’ schools: one oriented toward the humanistic Gymnasium, the se-
cond toward the Realgymnasium, and the third toward the Oberrealschule). An
Abitur from one of these schools enabled young women to attend universities.
Klein’s first speech in the Upper House of the Prussian Parliament, delivered
on May 21, 1909, concerned the reform of girls’ schools. He argued for the con-
tinuing education of the teachers who taught at these reorganized schools, and he
planned the first course of this sort, which took place in Göttingen from the 4th to
the 16th of October in 1909 (with 74 participants). Klein also involved his daugh-
ter Elisabeth and her friend Iris Runge (Carl Runge’s eldest daughter) in the or-
ganization of this course. These two daughters of professors were then dominant
figures in the women’s student organization at the University of Göttingen, and
both benefited from the reform of secondary schools for girls.357

355 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 35, fols. 165–165v (a letter from Rabinowitsch-Kempner to Gutz-
mer dated December 12, 1905; Gutzmer, who managed the correspondence of the Breslau
Education Commission, forwarded the original letter to Klein). – Regarding Klein’s appre-
ciation of Thekla Freytag’s state teaching examination in 1905, see TOBIES 2017b.
356 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 322 (Anna to Felix Klein, September 17, 1907).
357 See TOBIES 2012, p. 71.
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 507

Klein was dissatisfied with what had been achieved. He regarded the new
girls’ curriculum for mathematics as being “uncritically copied, in its main prin-
ciples, from obsolete precedents used at schools for boys, without any under-
standing for recent developments.”358 In subsequent parliamentary speeches (on
March 15 and May 27, 1910), he argued that changes should be made and that
preliminary courses should be offered for female candidates with insufficient
educational backgrounds. In Göttingen, he also established courses of this sort in
1910. In the debate at the time about the central issue of coeducation in secondary
schools, Felix Klein took the side of Adolf Harnack, who made the point that girls
would have to be allowed to attend secondary schools for boys because not every
small city would be able to institute an upper school for girls.359
Fifth, at least since his lecture course of 1904/05,360 and then later in the
Prussian Parliament, Klein vehemently supported a better education at elementary
schools and at newly established continuation schools and vocational schools. He
was in favor of education for the masses, and he supported adult education along
the lines of the Perry movement in England.361
In parliament, Klein and the elderly Graf Haeseler (see Table 9) introduced a
legislative proposal (1909–10) to make education available to anyone up to eigh-
teen years of age. This proposal was unanimously approved. Regarding the issue
of elementary education, Klein explained in his speech on May 27, 1910:
In the case of my proposals for elementary schools, I have faced one objection in particular.
Competent parties have repeatedly told me that all of these needs undoubtedly exist, but it
costs money to meet them. The Finance Minister is not much inclined to make large sums
available for these matters. Yet, in this respect, I would like to request the educational admi-
nistration not to be too cautious, for the sums that we have in mind are minuscule in compari-
son with the 160 million that is already devoted to the educational budget. In my view, it
would be as if a machine manufacturer intentionally refrained from purchasing the proper tool
machines, even though such machines would make his factory better and cheaper. No practi-
cal person would do this.362

Klein’s efforts to analyze, study, and represent mathematical education from kin-
dergarten to higher education on a theoretical level were reflected in his lecture
courses and seminars, in the five volumes of the Abhandlungen über den mathe-
matischen Unterricht in Deutschland [Treatises on Mathematical Instruction in
Germany] that he edited (1909–16), and in the numerous ICMI reports that he
instigated (by 1920, these reports constituted 187 volumes, with contributions
from eighteen different countries).363

358 Quoted from TOBIES 1989a, p. 7.

359 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7D (a letter from Harnack to Klein dated January 6, 1909 and a
draft of Klein’s reply, dated January 8, 1909).
360 See KLEIN 1907, pp. 10–17.
361 While a student at the University of Göttingen, Iris Runge taught such adult education cour-
ses. See TOBIES 2012, pp. 96–97.
362 Quoted from TOBIES 1989a, p. 8.
363 See FEHR 1920, p. 339; and TOBIES 1979, p. 26.
508 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Klein’s commitment to practical improvements is clear from his speeches on

the cultural budget and from his contributions to proposed legislation. In a parlia-
mentary speech on April 7, 1911, he presented the following justifications for his
position in favor of increasing the cultural budget for “elementary education”:
Now I have to offer a word of apology, so to speak, for expressing my opinion about such
matters as a university professor. In my circles, the opinion is often held that we should only
concern ourselves with abstract science. It would be regarded as an abnormality if we were to
discuss the pedagogical approach at our own institutions, let alone the pedagogical approach
used in secondary schools. I myself am concerned here even with the teaching at elementary
schools [Volksschulen] and at related institutions. My right to speak about such matters, I
would expressly like to say, derives not only from my parliamentary position but also from
my position at the university. We university professors stand up for science in general, not
only for its further development but also, to the best of our abilities, for its prestige, and the
ideal that I have in mind is that we should regard education as a large whole, beginning with
kindergarten (with its own particular and highly interesting problems) and extending all the
way up to higher education and far beyond.364

Klein also explained his commitment to the improvement of the instruction at

elementary schools to a circle of secondary school teachers. He stressed: “In light
of the immense differences that divide our society, there is a social obligation for
us professionals not to remain indifferent to the educational issues that ultimately
affect 94% of our population.”365 In his lecture courses from 1910/11 on mathe-
matical pedagogy, Klein incorporated the debates that were being held at the time
in the Prussian Parliament, and he expressed his belief that the growing influence
of the Social Democrats would gradually cause other parties to lose their
“inhibitions” to act on behalf of elementary and continuing education.366

8.3.4.2 A Polemic about the Teaching of Analysis at the University

In his article on the arithmetization of mathematics from November of 1895

(discussed in Section 8.3.2), Klein remarked:
I must add a few words on mathematics from the point of view of pedagogy. We observe in
Germany at the present day a very remarkable condition of affairs in this respect; two oppo-
sing currents run side by side without affecting one another appreciably. Among the teachers
in our Gymnasia the need of mathematical instruction based on intuitive methods has now
been so strongly and universally emphasized that one is compelled to enter a protest, and vi-
gorously insist on the necessity for strict logical treatment. This is the central thought of a
small pamphlet on elementary geometrical problems which I published last summer. Among
the university professors of our subject exactly the reverse is the case; intuition is frequently

364 Quoted from TOBIES 2000, p. 33.

365 Felix Klein, “Aktuelle Probleme der Lehrerbildung,” Schriften des deutschen Ausschusses für
den mathematischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht 10 (1911), p. 2.
366 [Hecke] Klein’s (unpublished) lecture courses on mathematical instruction (1910/11), tran-
scribed by his assistant Erich Hecke, p. 58.
 8.3 Program: The History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Instruction of Mathematics 509

not only undervalued, but as much as possible ignored. This is doubtless a consequence of the
intrinsic importance of the arithmetizing tendency in modern mathematics.367

With respect to primary and secondary education, Klein adopted a “doctrine of the
middle way,” and this was reflected in his plans for reform. However, his polemi-
cal argument that the arithmetizing tendency in mathematics implied “not only a
false pedagogy but also a distorted view of the sciences”368 also found its share of
opponents. Klein believed that courses for beginning students of mathematics and
for future natural scientists and engineers should proceed on the basis of intuition.
Secondary school teachers, natural scientists, and engineers enthusiastically
agreed to this and promoted the idea of teaching such courses. One result of
Klein’s approach was his three-volume textbook Elementary Mathematics from a
Higher Standpoint (on arithmetic, algebra, analysis; geometry; precision mathe-
matics and approximation mathematics) which was printed in multiple editions,
has been translated into several languages, and remains popular today.369
Klein’s arguments against the arithmetizing tendency in mathematics courses
were not embraced by every mathematician. A heated polemic developed in par-
ticular with Alfred Pringsheim, who published a contrary opinion about how
analysis should be taught in first-year university courses. Pringsheim adhered to
Weierstrass’s teaching methods and argued: “Once the arithmetic foundations
[…] have been established, only then can geometrical intuition be introduced.”370
Klein preferred the opposite approach so as not to discourage beginning students
and because natural processes could not be explained with precision mathematics
but rather with the type of mathematics that can account for “those relations
which occur with limited accuracy!”371 With this approach, too, he wanted to take
the wind out of the sails of the anti-mathematics movement among engineers (see
Section 8.1.1), and his ideas found international confirmation in H.A. Lorentz’s
Leerbook der differentiaal- en integraalrekening (1882) and John Perry’s Calcu-
lus for Engineers (2nd ed., 1897), which Klein arranged to be translated into Ger-
man (see Section 5.6).

367 Klein 1896 [1895c], pp. 247–48. – The mentioned “pamphlet” is KLEIN 1895b (see 7.3).
368 Ibid., p. 248.
369 See KLEIN 31924, 31925, 31928. For the most recent English translation, see KLEIN 2016. On
the international influence of Klein’s textbook and on its whole or partial translations into
Spanish (1927, 1928), English (1932, 1939), Japanese (1959/60, 1961), Russian (1987), Por-
tuguese (2009–14), and Chinese (1989; repr. 1996), see Gert Schubring’s article in KAISER
2019, pp. 330–33. – In a paper presented at the Thirteenth International Congress on Mathe-
matical Education (Hamburg, 2016), Mary Silva da Silva and Diogo Franco Rios analyzed
the positive reception that these books received in Brazil before the First World War. – For a
comparison of the lectures on elementary mathematics by Klein, Heinrich Weber, and Max
Simon, see JAHNKE 2018 and ALLMENDINGER 2019. – For the domain “precision mathe-
matics and approximation mathematics” (Vol. III), see also Section 8.3.2.
370 Alfred Pringsheim, “Über den Zahl- und Grenzbegriff im Unterricht,” Jahresbericht der
DMV 6 (1899), pp. 73–83, at p. 82.
371 KLEIN 1899, p. 137. – On similar views by Charles Hermite, see GOLDSTEIN 2011b.
510 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Klein and Alfred Pringsheim differed in their pedagogical intentions. Whereas

Klein sought to take along all of his students, Pringsheim considered it “fortunate”
if certain unsuitable “elements would fundamentally be frightened away from
mathematics even in the introductory lectures.”372 Klein, in contrast, emphasized:
“In my elementary lectures, I strive above all to impart to my students an interest
in and understanding of the questions and the meaning and the purpose of the ma-
thematical treatment.” He explained that he did not neglect the deeper foundations
of mathematics but rather waited to teach them in his seminars for upper-level
students, which he conducted with Hilbert. Moreover, he added that he had “en-
thusiastic students” and that “the real aim of all teaching […] is to help students
think independently.”373
In 1913, Klein saw that this polarity in teaching methods had grown wider:
Incidentally, Klein and Pringsheim are no longer the extreme poles in this opposition. To my
left, for instance, there is [Carl] Runge with his practical exercises, and to the right of
Pringsheim there is now a youthful swarm of set theorists who do not hesitate to regale even
first-semester students with their most far-reaching abstractions.374

This polemic would be resurrected in the 1930s in order to portray Klein as a

unilateral supporter of intuition and thus as an especially “German” mathemati-
cian and to defame Pringsheim as a “Jewish” mathematician.375
Otto Toeplitz, who came from a Jewish family, took cues from Klein’s lecture
course on differential calculus (1911) and developed a “didactically oriented indi-
rect genetic method” for his own introductory lectures. In 1927, however, Toeplitz
remarked that nothing had changed regarding the polarized viewpoints toward
teaching. On the one hand, there was the exact approach, which had existed since
Weierstrass and which insisted on teaching mathematical strictness from the very
beginning (and thereby alienated 95% of students); on the other hand, there was
Klein’s intuitive approach, which sought to reach a wide range of students.376

8.4 INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC COOPERATION

Much has already been made in this book of Felix Klein’s interest in international
scientific cooperation, an interest that can be traced back to the influence of
Plücker and Clebsch. Through his travels and correspondence, Klein cultivated an
international exchange of ideas that yielded benefits for his own research, the

372 Alfred Pringsheim, “Zur Frage der Universitäts-Vorlesungen über Infinitesimalrechnung,”

Jahresbericht der DMV 7 (1899), pp. 138–45, at p. 142.
373 KLEIN 1899, pp. 132–33 (emphasis original).
374 [UBG] MS. Philos. 182, No. 4 (a letter from Klein to W. Lorey dated April 7, 1913).
375 See JAENSCH/ALTHOFF 1939 and, for criticism, MEHRTENS 1987; BERGMANN/EPPLE 2009.
376 See Otto Toeplitz, “Das Problem der Universitätsvorlesungen über Infinitesimalrechnung und
ihrer Abgrenzung gegenüber der Infinitesimalrechnung an den höheren Schulen,” Jahresbe-
richt der DMV 36 (1927), pp. 88–100. On this topic, see also FRIED/JAHNKE 2015.
 8.4 International Scientific Cooperation 511

journal Mathematische Annalen, book projects such as the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, and

reforms to mathematical education. After Klein had proposed the idea in 1893 of
forming “international unions” (see Section 7.4.1), the topic was discussed in
1894 at the conference in Vienna and in a great deal of correspondence,377 so that
finally the First International Congress of Mathematicians took place in Zurich in
1897. Felix Klein belonged to the international planning committee as a repre-
sentative of Germany,378 and he coordinated his proposals with Adolf Hurwitz.
The history of the International Congresses is well researched. Since 1900 in Paris
– where Hilbert gave his famous lecture on unsolved mathematical problems – the
mathematicians met every four years: 1904 in Heidelberg, where Klein was a
member of the organizing committee, 1908 in Rome, 1912 in Cambridge (UK),
then the interruption of the First World War.379 In this section, I will discuss some
of the lesser-known aspects of Klein’s activity and his international attitude.
Bernhard vom Brocke has described the Prussian Ministry of Culture’s
science policy, which was driven by the ideas of peacekeeping and international
understanding, as “a nearly forgotten alternative government policy of world
peace on the eve of the First World War.”380 Klein’s international engagement fit
neatly into this policy, which was shaped by Friedrich Althoff. By 1907, the inter-
national balance of power, which was partially a result of Bismarck’s elaborate
foreign policy, had been destabilized to such an extent that France (with fresh me-
mories of losing Alsace-Lorraine) was more closely aligned with Russia and Eng-
land, while Germany’s remaining (weak) allies were Austria-Hungary and Italy.
Among other things, this prompted Germany to reorient its cultural policy toward
improving international relations. German nationalism was on the rise even
despite the country’s internationally integrated corporations and despite its scien-
tific and technological innovations.381 Klein reflected that active countermeasures
needed to be taken to curb the surging nationalism of the post-Bismarck era:
Particularly in our time, when national chauvinism is at its orgiastic peak, it must be close to
the hearts of all truly educated people to counteract a movement that is increasingly intent on
alienating even the best citizens of different nations from one another. It is as though the
whole human spirit is vanishing along with the humanism that was once so rightly celebrated.
[…] Intellectual exchange between modern cultures does not entail the elimination of national
differences; rather, it leads to a clearer understanding of their true character and values, and
this higher knowledge creates a friendly relationship among nations.382

377 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 8:452 (G. Cantor to Klein, Sept. 16, 1895); ibid., 12:199 (Vasilev
to Klein, April 2, 1895); [UBG] Math. Arch. 258 (Klein to Hurwitz, March 29, 1895, etc.).
378 The fact that there were still tensions between Klein and the Berlin mathematicians was ex-
pressed by Hermann Minkowski in a letter to Hilbert, in which he commented that probably
no one from Berlin would participate in Zurich. See FREI/STAMMBACH 1994.
379 See also CUBERA 2009.
380 BROCKE 1991, p. 185. See also BROCKE 1981.
381 On German foreign policy at the time, see OSTERHAMMEL 2009. On the role of technology in
European integration, see the book series edited by SCHOT/SCRANTON 2013–2017.
382 [UBG] Cod. MS. Math. Arch. 5021, fols. 54–57v, at 56–56v (Klein, March 11, 1908).
512 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Klein had written these words on March 11, 1908 as part of a draft proposal for
establishing a Göttingen Institute for Foreigners (Göttinger Institut für Auslän-
der), which he sent to the Ministry of Culture in Berlin. Althoff, who would die
on October 20, 1908, helped to implement this idea by persuading H.Th. von
Böttinger to donate 100,000 Mark to support the undertaking. On November 28,
1908, Klein gave an inaugural address to commemorate the opening of the “Böt-
tinger-Studienhaus,” which would function as an academic center for foreign stu-
dents and provide information about language courses, lectures, summer pro-
grams, and excursions. When German nationalists criticized this institution, its
director defended its goal to establish friendly international relations and added
that its aims were analogous to those of the Alliance Française, the language
courses organized in England, the America Institute, and also the German-Ameri-
can professorial exchange, for which Klein’s travels in 1893 and 1896 were inter-
preted as starting points.383
Klein himself, however, was no longer willing to take another trip overseas,384
and thus in 1904, for instance, no German mathematician had attended the Inter-
national Exposition in St. Louis (see 8.3.2), whereas Darboux, Picard, Poincaré,
and the Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann all traveled there to participate.
Klein’s unwillingness to travel to this event had upset Althoff, but Klein was
able to compensate for this by collaborating on a number of international projects.
The latter included the International Catalogue of Scientific Literature (published
from 1902 to 1921), the formation of an International Association of Acade-
mies,385 a proposal for establishing Esperanto as an international language, and
the creation of the Internationale Wochenschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und
Technik [International Weekly Publication for Science, Art, and Technology],
which was initiated by Althoff.
While participating in these projects, Klein was concerned exclusively with
their scientific results; he deliberately avoided the promotion of any strict national
interests. In the mid-1890s, the Royal Society of London had begun the Interna-
tional Catalogue, and Klein stressed that Germany’s special interest in the project
was not to have it translated into German but rather that the “core of the entire
undertaking was international cooperation,” as he firmly stated in a letter to the
Ministry of Culture in Berlin.386 To prepare for the work ahead, Klein traveled
repeatedly to London, and he cooperated with the French council member Henri
Poincaré to determine the organization of the mathematics volumes.387

383 BROCKE 1991, pp. 224–25.

384 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7F, fols. 6–9, 35v; TOBIES 1990a, p. 39. In Klein’s place, Carl
Runge spent the academic year of 1909/10 in New York as an exchange professor of mathe-
matics. See HENTSCHEL/TOBIES 2003, pp. 173–79.
385 For a detailed discussion of this development, see HASHAGEN 2003, pp. 471–82.
386 [BStBibl] A letter from Klein to Dyck dated April 6, 1897, in which Klein discussed his cor-
respondence with the Ministry of Culture.
387 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7J: fols. 86v, 101. – International Catalogue of Scientific Litera-
ture: Fourth Annual Issue. A: Mathematics (London: Royal Society of London, 1905).
 8.4 International Scientific Cooperation 513

Regarding Esperanto, Klein proposed that an Academy project could perhaps

be devoted to the question of establishing a “global language.” This idea had been
suggested to him by the Leipzig-based physical chemist Wilhelm Ostwald (Nobel
Prize, 1909), who was actively involved in the movement to popularize the
constructed language (invented in 1887). Klein’s proposal, however, was met with
a “storm of indignation” from the philologists in Göttingen, and it was thus im-
possible to make any headway with such a project. These same colleagues rejec-
ted the idea yet again even after the first World Esperanto Congress had taken
place in 1905 (in France).388
Founded in 1907 in Berlin, the Internationale Wochenschrift für Wissenschaft,
Kunst und Technik had been conceived as a publishing platform for ideas related
to international academic exchange.389 The fifty-eight members of its advisory
board included prominent foreign scientists, Hendrik A. Lorenz and Henri Poin-
caré among them. As German mathematicians, the only board members in addi-
tion to Klein were Walther Dyck (Munich) and Emil Lampe (Berlin). The publi-
cation was supported by the Koppel Foundation for the Promotion of Germany’s
Intellectual Relations Abroad (Koppel-Stiftung zur Förderung der geistigen Be-
ziehungen Deutschlands zum Ausland),390 which had been created in 1905 with
1,000,000 Mark of initial capital (known as the Leopold Koppel Foundation as of
1913).391 The editor of the journal was the historian Paul Hinneberg, who, at the
same time, was also the director of the Kultur der Gegenwart project (see Section
8.3). Hinneberg emphasized that the goal of the publication was to foster “inter-
national communication […] without any national bias.” The inaugural issue ope-
ned with an essay titled “Über die Einheitsbestrebungen der Wissenschaft” [On
the Unifying Efforts of Science], in which the scientifically minded classical
philologist Hermann Diels intoned that, “at least on the neutral ground of science,
unifying love has become stronger than divisive hatred.”392 Two of Klein’s
speeches were published in the journal’s second volume.393
The unifying sentiments behind this publication quickly disintegrated with the
outbreak of war in August 1914. In October of that year, the signatures of thirteen
of its German board members appeared on a nationalistic declaration (see 9.1).

388 [BBAW] NL W. Ostwald, No. 1500 (Klein’s letters to Ostwald dated July 23, 1904 and Fe-
bruary 13, 1907).
389 This journal existed from 1907 to 1921, though it became a monthly (instead of weekly) pu-
blication in 1912.
390 The Koppel foundation also supported the German-American professors’ exchange and the
aforementioned Kaiser Wilhelm Society (the Max Planck Society today).
391 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1 E, fol. 36 (a letter from the Prussian Ministry of Culture concer-
ning a donation of 600 Mark from the Koppel Foundation for Klein’s collaboration). The
German-Jewish banker Leopold Koppel was socially engaged and was a strong supporter of
scientific research. Among other things, his foundation subsidized Albert Einstein’s salary in
Berlin.
392 Quoted from BROCKE 1991, p. 192.
393 See KLEIN 1908a and 1908b.
514 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

8.5 EARLY RETIREMENT AND HONORS

As early as the summer semester of 1910, Klein applied to be released from his
teaching duties. For a long time, he had felt overworked:
For me, the rest of the summer vacation (aside from the parliamentary sessions, which might
recommence soon) will be taken up by a series of conferences from which I cannot excuse
myself. In addition, and perhaps even more importantly, I have, despite my diligent efforts,
fallen behind with my scientific work in recent years, and I have left some of my work unfi-
nished […]. Over time, this yields a situation that is unbearable and unworthy of a scholar. If
I could be relieved from teaching my lecture courses in the summer semester, I have the hope
that I might in the main be able to overcome this unfortunate condition, whereas otherwise it
will only worsen.394

At Klein’s request, the Privatdozent Paul Koebe took over Klein’s already an-
nounced four-hour lecture course on the applications of differential and integral
calculus to geometry. A seminar announced by Klein and Zermelo on the inter-
sections of mathematics and philosophy was canceled and not replaced, because
Zermelo accepted a professorship at the University of Zurich. The summer vaca-
tion was filled with conference activity: Klein traveled to Brussels, for instance, to
attend the International Exposition, where he chaired the annual ICMI meeting
(August 9–10) and participated in the Fourth International Congress for Higher
Education (as of August 15). At this latter event, Klein and Peter Treutlein gave a
presentation on the German exhibit of mathematical models. Subsequently, Klein
also requested a reduced teaching load for the winter semester of 1910/11:
The reason for this request is that the pedagogical work I have undertaken – as a member of
the German Commission, the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction, and
also as a member of Parliament – now necessarily absorbs, on account of its urgent nature,
the majority of my time.395

Klein reduced the scope of his original plan, which was to teach lecture courses
on the development of mathematics in the nineteenth century (4 hours per week),
and instead he taught a course on the development of mathematical instruction (2
hours per week). On this latter topic, Klein had already lectured and published.396
Now, in 1910/11, he incorporated current reform discussions about all levels of
education in Germany and abroad.397 The topic of Klein’s seminar during this
semester aligned with that of his lecture course: “Einführung in die neuere päda-
gogisch-mathematische Literatur” [An Introduction to Recent Pedagogical-Mathe-
matical Literature].
During the subsequent summer semester of 1911, Klein’s activity piled up yet
again: teaching, meetings of the Göttingen Association, speeches in the Prussian

394 [UAG] Kur. 5956, fol. 156 (Klein to the Ministry of Culture, on April 4, 1910). Klein’s
request was approved on April 16, 1910 (see ibid., fol. 157).
395 Ibid., fol. 160.
396 See KLEIN 1907
397 [Hecke] Klein’s unpublished lecture course (1910/11).
 8.5 Early Retirement and Honors 515

Parliament, activity for the ICMI, managing the ICMI’s monograph series, the
ENCYKLOPÄDIE, the Kultur der Gegenwart project, and so on. He had appoint-
ments with different colleagues almost every day: with his assistant Erich Hecke,
who was editing Klein’s lectures on mathematical instruction;398 with Paul Koebe
on automorphic functions; with Conrad H. Müller concerning the ENCYKLOPÄDIE;
with Rudolf Schimmack to discuss didactics – to list just a few examples.
Thus, on August 4, 1911, Klein informed Walther Lietzmann: “Starting on
Tuesday morning, my address will be in Hahnenklee, with Dr. Claus [sic].”399 The
physician’s letterhead read: “Dr. Klaus, Neurologist, Hahnenklee Sanatorium for
Neurology and Internal Medicine – Patients in Need of Recuperation and Conva-
lescence.”400

8.5.1 Recovering and Working in the Hahnenklee Sanatorium

As of August 8, 1911, Felix Klein was convalescing in Bockswiese-Hahnenklee, a

village in the Harz mountains located approximately sixteen kilometers from
Goslar and around nine kilometers from Clausthal.

Figure 39: Bockswiese-Hahnenklee in the Harz mountains,

a view of the sanatorium (a historical postcard)

398 This already repeatly quoted unpublished lecture course of the winter semester 1910/11 is
kept in Erich Hecke’s estate [Hecke] at the University of Hamburg.
399 [UBG] Cod. MS. W. Lietzmann I: 118, 178.
400 See also Appendix 8.
516 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

The village of Hahnenklee had been founded as a mining settlement in the six-
teenth century; at the beginning of the twentieth century, it had just five hundred
residents. After the region’s natural resources (silver, lead, etc.) had largely been
extracted, tourism became its most important source of revenue; in 1882, Hah-
nenklee became a health resort. The Gustav Adolf Stave Church, which was con-
secrated there in 1908 and is the only church of this kind in Germany, has since
become a landmark. Today, the facilities of the former sanatorium, which are still
mostly preserved, are used as a retirement home.
Klein remained there at first for one month. Letters to his wife, to his daughter
Elisabeth, and to numerous colleagues document that he continued to pull the
strings in several ongoing projects. His wife Anna wrote to him on September 1,
1911: “So you still receive mathematical visits and go to see your colleagues in
Clausthal yourself?401 [...] When are you actually coming back?” One day later,
she commented: “And [Felix] Bernstein has a job offer! I don’t know where. [...]
He wants to come to Hahnenklee tomorrow, too [...]. A pity that you have to give
your blessing to absolutely everything that happens in Göttingen!”402
On September 6, 1911, Klein returned to Göttingen because he believed that
his presence was needed at several forthcoming conferences. On September 16th,
he traveled to Milan to chair the meeting of the ICMI. Lietzmann reported that
Klein managed everything as best he could, but he needed sleeping pills in order
to be fresh on the next day.403 This event was followed by the annual conference
of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians in Karlsruhe, where
the mathematicians had organized a session on non-Euclidean geometry and the
theory of relativity. In addition, on September 27, 1911, there was also an after-
noon-long session on automorphic functions, which Klein headed (see 8.2.1).
After this, Klein attended the Annual Meeting of the German Museum of
Masterpieces of Science and Technology (Deutsches Museum von Meisterwerken
der Naturwissenschaft und Technik) in Munich. He had been a member of the
museum’s board since December 21, 1907, when he replaced Nernst as a repre-
sentative from the Göttingen Society of Sciences.404 From 1910 to 1912, he acted
as the nominal chairman of this board. After some hesitation, he accepted this post
because he had been assured that Oskar von Miller would perform the actual du-
ties of the office.405 On October 28, 1911, having returned from Munich to Göttin-

401 It is conceivable that Klein helped to ensure that his son-in-law Fritz Süchting would be hired
by the Mining Academy as a professor of mechanics and electrical engineering in 1912.
402 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 371, 372 (Anna to Felix Klein, Sept. 1 and 2, 1911). Klein
wanted to retain Bernstein for the field of actuarial mathematics at the University of Göttin-
gen, and he managed to ensure that Bernstein’s position was improved (see Section 7.6).
403 See LIETZMANN 1960, pp. 259–60.
404 [AdW Göttingen] Scient. 255 (Deutsches Museum): fol. 26.
405 Oskar von Miller was the director of the German Museum, which had been founded in 1903.
The museum’s board members Walther Dyck and Carl Linde had invited Klein to give the ce-
remonial address at the main meeting of the museum’s stakeholders in 1908, which he delive-
red before “the top authorities of the entire Empire and representatives of science, technology,
 8.5 Early Retirement and Honors 517

gen, Klein honored the meeting of the Göttingen Royal Society of Sciences (Aca-
demy) there with his presence, and in the beginning of November, he took part in
the Aeronautical Research Congress that had been organized by the Göttingen
Association of Applied Physics and Mathematics (see Section 8.1.3).
It is thus no surprise that, at the beginning of the semester, Klein lacked the
energy to teach his scheduled courses: a lecture course on differential and integral
calculus II (4 hours per week), and a seminar on the history of calculus, in which
his daughter Elisabeth and Iris Runge had enrolled (among other students). Klein
did not make it through the first month, and he remarked on November 22, 1911:
“Over the last few weeks, my personal condition has not been great; I suffer from
fatigue. Perhaps I should relax for some time. The preparations for Cambridge
[the Congress in 1912], however, should not be affected by this.”406
Hermann Weyl and Klein’s assistant Wilhelm Behrens took over his lecture
courses, and Schimmack conducted the seminar. Klein returned to the sanatorium
on November 29, 1911, where he now stayed in the “Viktoria-Haus,” a villa for
which he was charged 6 Mark per day. Klein suffered from insomnia due to his
many unfinished projects. His wife Anna wrote to him on December 4, 1911:
“The main issue is that you can sleep again; then your powers will return.”407
Klein felt obligated to prepare the ICMI report for the Fifth International
Congress of Mathematicians, which was to be held in Cambridge (UK) in August
of 1912. To assist him with this, Lietzmann regularly made the walk from the
train station in Goslar to Hahnenklee. Klein spent Christmas in Göttingen, and he
organized, for December 27, 1911, an ICMI discussion with Lietzmann and with
Carl Runge, who was tasked with presenting a report in Cambridge.408 In July,
and thus shortly before the Congress, the New York-based mathematician D.E.
Smith (who, in Cambridge, would be named the ICMI’s vice president) spent time
in Hahnenklee to visit with Klein, as did Henri Fehr and George Greenhill; the
latter traveled with a copy of Heinrich Heine’s book The Harz Journey.409
Klein’s tireless efforts were rewarded on February 2, 1912 with the Star of the
Royal Order of the Crown, 2nd Class (Prussia), a silver four-pointed star.410 Not
even a month later, however, he had to respond by applying for another leave of
absence.411 The medical reports by Dr. Klaus in Hahnenklee contained a diagnosis
of neurasthenia and intestinal neurosis, caused by permanent overstrain (see

and industry” (see KLEIN 1908b). On June 12, 1909, Klein had agreed to serve as chairman of
the board; on January 10, 1912, he was named one of its permanent members. ([UBG] Cod.
MS. F. Klein 7D; and 114: no. 43)
406 [UBG] MS. W. Lietzmann I: 137/2 (Klein to Lietzmann, November 22, 1911).
407 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 378 (Anna Klein to her husband, December 4, 1911).
408 On the details of this report, see HENTSCHEL/TOBIES 2003, pp. 48–51.
409 [UBG] MS. W. Lietzmann I, 144, 260; and LIETZMANN 1925, p. 260.
410 Klein had already been awarded this order of the crown without the star; see Section 7.6.
411 [UAG] Univ.-Kuratorium, Personalakte F. Klein, 4Vb, no. 216 (a letter from Klein to the
Kurator dated March 10, 1912).
518 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Appendix 9). Klein himself spoke of excessive overwork.412 This had been a
recurring problem throughout his professional life. His need to convalesce had
been caused by his outsized ambition, his penchant for perfectionism, his sense of
being responsible for everything, combined with his inability to turn down an
honorary office.
As before, Klein’s solution to managing his health problems was to cut back
on his teaching. On August 5, 1912 he wrote to the university’s Kurator about his
ongoing but still incomplete projects: “I mention that here because my nervous
illness was certainly also caused by the fact that I saw too many unfinished tasks
ahead of me. Their completion has still not been reached, but it is getting closer.”
In the same letter, Klein indicated that he would yet again request a leave of ab-
sence for the upcoming semester, but that he would then have to decide whether
he should take early retirement, a possibility that he had already discussed with
Hilbert and Landau.
When Klein was unable to realize his “entirely individual” teaching program
in the winter semester of 1912/13, the faculty did not organize a substitute be-
cause the absence of Klein’s courses would not create “a systematic gap in our
instruction.”413 Thus, when Klein received the news from London that the Royal
Society had awarded him the Copley Medal (“on the ground of his researches in
mathematics”), he considered this honor “a symbolic conclusion to my past acti-
vity.”414 At the same time, in a letter dated December 31, 1912, he applied “for
permanent release from the obligation of teaching and for a replacement full pro-
fessor of mathematics to be hired at the university here.”415 He hoped that the po-
sition would be filled by April 1, 1913.
Klein wanted to reserve the right to teach courses again in the future, and he
also wanted to maintain his administrative oversight over the model collection and
the reading room (together with Landau, the co-director). These requests were
approved, whereby Klein was able to keep his full-time assistant (the assistant
was contractually associated with these facilities; see Section 7.1). Not until May
2, 1922 – and at Klein’s own request – did the Prussian Ministry of Culture re-
lieve him of “the duties of managing the mathematical reading room and the col-
lection of mathematical instruments and models.”416

412 [StB Berlin] Sammlung Darmstaedter H 1872 (9), Klein to Ludwig Elster, Ministry of Cul-
ture, June 2, 1912.
413 [UAG] Kur. 5956, fol. 182 (H.Th. Simon to the Kurator, November 12, 1912).
414 Ibid., fols. 184–85, 189. The medal, which was awarded by the Royal Society on November
30, 1912, was received on Klein’s behalf by a member of the German embassy.
415 Ibid., fols. 188–188v
416 Ibid., fol. 197.
 8.5 Early Retirement and Honors 519

8.5.2 Max Liebermann’s Portrait of Felix Klein

On August 19, 1912, Klein celebrated the fortieth anniversary of his professorial
career. In early 1912, Walther Dyck sent out a letter with seventy-one signatories
from Germany and abroad in order to invite donations for Klein’s portrait to be
painted. Even Gösta Mittag-Leffler and Henri Poincaré417 were among those who
signed the letter. By July 7, 1912, 331 of Klein’s friends, colleagues, and students
from all over the world donated a total of 7,060.34 Mark. The painter Max
Liebermann, who was one of the most significant representatives of German
Impressionism, typically charged 20,000 Mark for a portrait. He waived his nor-
mal fee, however, and was persuaded to paint Klein for about 6,000 Mark.418
“You are truly a wonder-worker for managing that with Liebermann,” wrote Klein
to Hilbert, and he mentioned that the painter intended to come to Hahnenklee on
August 10, 1912.419 Liebermann, who was two years older than Klein, painted the
portrait in the late summer of 1912 (see Fig. 40). To his friend Alfred Lichtwark,
Liebermann also related how Klein’s problems with sleep and time had prevented
him from devoting any attention to belletristic literature:
I painted a portrait of Privy Councilor Klein, the great mathematician, a few months ago in
Hahnenklee. When he complained of sleeplessness, I suggested that he should read a book,
and he responded that, for the last forty years, he has not held in his hand a single belletristic
book. And his wife is the granddaughter of Hegel! And this man is the King of Göttingen; he
appoints professors and rules not only over the University of Göttingen but over all Prussian
universities. He was Althoff’s favorite and the cock of the roost in all the Wilhelm Acade-
mies! Tempora mutantur!420

The portrait was presented to Klein in a celebration in Göttingen on May 25,

1913. On June 1, 1913, Walther Dyck sent to everyone involved around the world
a reproduction of the painting, a list of all the donors who had made it possible, a
copy of Eduard Riecke’s speech on the occasion of the presentation of the portrait,
and a copy of Klein’s response to the gift (see Appendix 10).
From a letter by Anna Klein to Walther Dyck, we know that not everyone was
equally pleased by the reproduction of the painting. In this letter, she also provi-
ded a rather impressive depiction of her husband:
Göttingen – January 10, 1913
Dear Privy Councilor!
I was very sorry to learn from your letter to my husband that you are dissatisfied with
Liebermann’s portrait. I would have liked to have seen the reproduction, because I believe
that this is to be blamed for your low opinion of the painting. It will probably be a while be-
fore the prints are mailed off, and so I would like to tell you today that I (and my children too)
am thoroughly satisfied with the portrait of my husband. However, the image does indeed fail

417 Poincaré died on July 17, 1912.

418 [UBG] Cod. MS. Hilbert 86: 11, 12, 13.
419 Quoted from FREI 1985, p. 139 (Klein to Hilbert, July 25, 1912).
420 Quoted from PFLUGMACHER 2001, pp. 393–94 (Liebermann to Lichtwark, November 24,
1912). Tempora mutantur = the times change.
520 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

to recreate the bright expression that my husband can have in stimulating conversations and
when he’s in a festive mood. Perhaps an artist who had known and observed my husband for
a long time would have been able to capture him more intimately and inwardly. But there is
no such artist, and I have to say that Liebermann, who did not know my husband at all and
was only able to see him in his reduced state at the sanatorium, captured him amazingly well
and characteristically reproduced his image. I have now looked at the painting often and at
length, and it has become ever dearer and more familiar to me, even though I am quite happy
that, in reality, my husband does not always look so imposing and vigorous. It is a ruler in his
realm who is seated there, and one is left with the impression that he is pleased to have left
behind a life full of work, full of energetic will and consequential activity. Moreover, the
painting does not depict him as though he’s striking a grand pose; rather, its composition is
extraordinarily simple, gray on gray, without any color effect. And yet, upon longer inspec-
tion, the image almost physically leaves the frame and is strikingly true to life, especially in
the posture of his head, the position of his hands, and the depiction of his gaze. In short, I am
very satisfied with it, and I’m sorry that you, who put so much effort into the matter, should
now be so unhappy with it. It is quite possible, however, that the reproduction has distorted
the painting’s details. The image is painted in the modern style, with thick brushstrokes, and
it is not meant for up-close viewing. It is also possible that the reproduction has made it look
entirely different. Of course, it would be a pity if all the donors were now to receive a false
and unfavorable impression of the picture, and this would also be highly regrettable for Lie-
bermann’s sake.
To my great pleasure, I can inform you that things are going steadily better for my hus-
band; especially recently, having luckily overcome a bad bout of flu, he is vigorous and
merry. He looks very good, has become stronger, and he keeps himself as fit as he was during
his best years. Unfortunately, I have less good news to report about his productivity. He still
tires quickly and does not take it well when something unforeseen has to be dealt with or
when multiple things require his attention at the same time. Even if one could hope that his
energy will increasingly be revived, it should not be assumed that my husband will be able to
lecture in the summer. And because he does not want to take another leave of absence, there
is no other choice than to obtain a permanent release from his teaching duties. My husband
came to terms with this idea already at the beginning of his illness. Nevertheless, it was a dif-
ficult decision, and I have only slowly grown accustomed to the idea that his position will
have to be filled by someone else. Of course, I have always anxiously wondered what would
happen if his life were to carry on at the same swift pace with which it began. And thus one
must ultimately regard it as a merciful solution to this question if it is only his professional
life that has to come a premature end, and not his life itself.
That said, there will be no lack of work and interesting activity for my husband as soon
as he has recovered enough to travel and participate in conferences. These days, nothing hap-
pens without conferences, and he is still unable to attend them. He already did far too much of
this in the past.
Now, however, I finally have to bring this letter to a close, dear Professor. I hope that
you, your wife, and your daughter, whom I have unfortunately yet to meet, are happy and
well. Our youngest is now about to take her final university examination; may it go well! For
me, the main value of her studies is that she has been able to help her dad in many ways and
that she shares his interests as much as I always wished and thought that she would.
With warm greetings from me and my husband to you and your wife,
I remain yours truly,
Anna Klein421

421 [Hillebrand] Anna Klein to Walther Dyck.

 8.5 Early Retirement and Honors 521

Figure 40: Max Liebermann’s portrait of Felix Klein (1912),

oil on canvas (112.5 x 90 cm), Mathematical Institute,
Georg August University of Göttingen.

The painting was not really just “gray on gray” (grau in grau), as Anna Klein
wrote. Leaders of the Berlin Secession, an impressionist art movement, asked to
present the portrait in their summer exhibit, noting: “Professor Liebermann places
great value on being represented by precisely this painting, which he considers
one of his best works.”422

422 [BStBibl] Dyckiana (managers of the Berlin Secession to Dyck, April 11, 1913).
522 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

William Henry Young, the husband of Klein’s former doctoral student Grace
Chisholm Young, rounded out the depiction of Klein’s physical appearance by
describing him as follows in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, a
society to which Klein had belonged as a foreign member since 1885: “Klein was
very tall, erect and slim, with rich brown wavy hair and characteristically spar-
kling light blue eyes, with a genial glance which has not been completely caught
in the photograph here produced.”423

8.5.3 The Successors to Klein’s Professorship

In a letter to Klein dated January 2, 1913, Edmund Landau explained that he

found it appropriate and gratifying “that you will continue to direct the model
collection and the reading room.” He wished him a full recovery, “so that then the
five of us – you, Hilbert, Runge, X, and myself can work together in full force to
maintain Göttingen’s status in mathematics.”424 Landau informed Klein that eve-
ryone was in agreement about the top candidate X to be appointed: the Greek ma-
thematician Constantin Carathéodory, whom Klein had already described as a
“talented geometrician” when evaluating his Habilitation thesis.425 There would
only be differences of opinion about the other possible candidates.
The administrative records reveal that Klein himself was a member of the hi-
ring committee (along with Hilbert, Landau, Mügge, Prandtl, C. Runge, W. Voigt,
Wallach, a representative from the other faculty division, and the current dean). At
the committee meeting on February 28, 1913, the members unanimously ranked
Weyl and Brouwer as equals in second place on the hiring list. The records also
contain an explanation for why Paul Koebe was not suggested as a possible can-
didate.426 This decision was based primarily on Koebe’s character. Eduard Riecke
reported Klein’s opinion that Paul Koebe had a high standing with respect to his
mathematical work, but that he was otherwise a “blatant egoist who always wants
to have something better and more special than what others have received.”427
Years later, Klein described Koebe as “somewhat difficult from a personal point
of view, because he is not always tactful and scientifically agnostic.”428 Klein also
may have been struck by Koebe’s insufficient knowledge of scholarly literature

423 W.H. YOUNG 1928, p. xix.

424 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 610 (Landau to Klein, January 2, 1913). Shortly after writing
this letter, Landau turned down an offer from the University of Heidelberg ([UBG] Math.
Arch. 80 Nachlass Margarethe Goeb: 11e).
425 [UAG] Phil. Fak. 190a, V, 35 (Klein’s evaluation, February 20, 1905).
426 Ibid., III, vol. 5, fol. 126.
427 [StB Berlin] Sammlung Darmstaedter (Riecke to an unknown colleague, June 1910).
428 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 2G, fol. 13 (a letter from Klein to Nernst dated February 21, 1917).
This letter concerned the replacement of H.A. Schwarz in Berlin. By saying that Koebe was
not “agnostic,” Klein meant, in particular, that Koebe was often unwilling to acknowledge
other people’s achievements.
 8.5 Early Retirement and Honors 523

when reading a draft of Ludwig Bieberbach’s dissertation, which Koebe had su-
pervised (see Appendix 7).
Carathéodory, who received Klein’s professorship on April 1, 1913, was not,
however, as devoted to the University of Göttingen as were Klein, Hilbert, Runge,
and Landau. Only a few years later, Carathéodory accepted an offer to replace
Georg Frobenius at the University of Berlin. Thus Klein experienced two further
successors, and in both cases he served on the hiring committees as a professor
emeritus. On December 13, 1917, the new list of candidates read: 1) Erich Hecke
(Basel), 2) Brouwer (Amsterdam) and Weyl (Zurich) ex aequo, and 3) Wilhelm
Blaschke (Königsberg).429 Hecke, the first candidate on the list, accepted the posi-
tion in Göttingen. He had earned his doctoral degree under Hilbert (1910), worked
as Klein’s assistant (1910/11), then as Hilbert’s, and had completed his Habilita-
tion in 1912, also in Göttingen. During the war, Hecke worked as a professor in
Basel. He too, however, did not remain long in Klein’s professorship; on October
1, 1919, he moved to the newly established University of Hamburg.
Now, on October 30, 1919, there was a new list of recommended candidates:
1) Brouwer (Amsterdam), 2) Herglotz (Leipzig), and 3) Weyl (Zurich).430 The
Ministry asked only Brouwer and Weyl whether they might be interested in the
job; both declined (Weyl after six months time to think it over). The dean of the
Philosophical Faculty at the University of Göttingen at the time informed the Mi-
nistry about this on July 14, 1920; he wrote that Herglotz had yet to be asked and
that no consensus could be reached in the Faculty about his candidacy. He enclo-
sed two separate votes. In one, Edmund Landau argued vehemently for his old
friend Issai Schur and offered an extensive positive assessment of his mathemati-
cal achievements. In the other, David Hilbert and Felix Klein made the case for
Richard Courant.431 The ministry followed Klein and Hilbert’s suggestion and
came to an agreement with Courant as early as August 10, 1920.432
Courant had begun his studies in Göttingen in 1908, and he had also attended
two of Klein’s lecture courses. For some time, he worked as Hilbert’s private as-
sistant, and it was under Hilbert that he earned his doctorate in 1910 with a dis-
sertation titled “Über die Anwendung des Dirichlet’schen Prinzipes auf die Pro-
bleme der konformen Abbildung” [On the Application of Dirichlet’s Principle to
the Problems of Conformal Mapping]. He completed his Habilitation in 1912. As
a Privatdozent in Göttingen, Courant involved himself in the coordinated cur-
riculum, but he eventually had to perform military service.
Like many intellectuals at the time, Courant was politically awakened by the
First World War. In 1918, he joined a workers’ and soldiers’ council, and during
the 1919 election he and his sister-in-law Iris Runge were active on behalf of the

429 [UAG] Phil. Fak. III, vol. 5, fol. 196.

430 Ibid., fol. 220.
431 [StA Berlin] Rep. 76 Va Sekt. 6, Tit. 4, No. 1, vol. xxvi, fols. 425–34.
432 Ibid., fol. 436.
524 8 The Fruits of Klein’s Efforts, 1895–1913

Social Democrats.433 When Courant and other Göttingen mathematicians ran for
office and were elected to the Göttingen City Parliament, they surely did so on the
basis of their own political engagement and convictions. This has been called into
question; according to oral history, “Courant was enjoined by Klein to run for
office as a member of the Social Democratic Party” for pragmatic reason.434
Records from the dean’s office of Philosophical Faculty in Göttingen docu-
ment that Courant was offered a full professorship in Münster on February 20,
1920 and that, after just one semester in Münster, he became the successor of
Klein, Carathéodory, and Hecke in Göttingen on October 1, 1920.435 Courant re-
ported that Klein was largely to thank for this arrangement.436
Courant embarked upon an intensive and successful period of activity. Sprin-
ger’s “yellow book series,” which Courant founded, would include a number of
Klein’s previously unedited lecture courses (see Section 9.2.3). When Courant’s
father-in-law Carl Runge died in 1927, however, the domain of applied mathema-
tics with numerical, graphical, and instrumental methods, which Runge (and
Klein) had introduced to the university, was abandoned – a development for
which Courant was largely responsible. Richard von Mises, who held a personal
full professorship for applied mathematics at the University of Berlin from 1920
to 1933, and whom Alexander Ostrowski regarded as the founder of “the first
mathematically serious German school of applied mathematics,”437 criticized the
decision that had been made about Runge’s successor in Göttingen.438 Carl
Runge’s students were able to develop his direction of applied mathematics in
industrial research and at Technische Hochschulen.439
Both Richard von Mises and Richard Courant were forced to leave Germany
by the Nazi regime and ultimately had successful careers in the United States.
Courant took a position in the Department of Mathematics at New York Uni-
versity, where the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences is named after him
to this day.

433 On this political engagement, see TOBIES 2012, pp. 105–21.

434 ROWE 2018a, p. 377.
435 [UAG] Phil. Fak. III, vol. 5, fols. 232, 255–56, 262.
436 See REID 1976, p. 83; and REID 1979, p. 98.
437 Alexander Ostrowski, “Zur Entwicklung der numerischen Analysis,” Jahresbericht der DMV
68 (1966), pp. 97–111, at p. 106.
438 See the debate between von Mises and Courant in the journal Die Naturwissenschaften
(1927). In a letter to Ludwig Prandtl dated March 24, 1930, von Mises also stated in clearly
exaggerated terms that “applied mathematics, under the leadership of Göttingen, will once
again be driven out of German universities” ([MPI Archiv] No. 1082). For further discussion
of these developments, see SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2018, pp. 502–03; and SIEGMUND-
SCHULTZE 2021.
439 See in detail TOBIES 2012.
 9 THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THE POSTWAR PERIOD

During the First World War, the November Revolution of 1918, and the period of
inflation in the Weimar Republic, Klein remained academically active as an
emeritus professor. After his period of recovery in the sanatorium (see Section
8.5.1), he resumed control over his ongoing affairs: book projects (the
ENCYKLOPÄDIE, the edition of Gauß’s collected works, the ICMI monograph se-
ries, the edition of his own collected papers and lecture courses); teaching; and his
work on university committees, for the Göttingen Association, in the Upper
House of the Prussian Parliament (until 1918), and on various education commit-
tees. He remained the preeminent expert in matters related to hiring decisions and
research funding. His broad vision and his diplomatic activity in the interest of
mathematics and its neighboring disciplines had earned him the unofficial title
“the foreign minister of German mathematics.”1 In the Göttingen Society (Aca-
demy) of Sciences and in the German Mathematical Society, he worked to ensure,
in 1917, that Gaston Darboux was honored with an obituary,2 that Georg Cantor
(previously a corresponding member) was made an external (auswärtiges) mem-
ber, that Paul Koebe was made a corresponding member in the seat vacated by
Cantor, and that Albert Einstein would be nominated as a corresponding member.3
Klein’s much-discussed signature on the “Manifesto of the Ninety-Three” and
his engagement during the war to promote studying abroad in an effort to avoid
future conflicts will be discussed in Section 9.1.
Section 9.2 provides an overview of his academic activity, which primarily
concerned the history of mathematics, substantial contributions to the theory of
relativity, and the edition of his own works on mathematics.
As a member of multiple education committees and as a recognized authority,
Klein successfully influenced new developments in educational policy (9.3).
In 1920, Klein agreed to serve as the first chairman of the committee on ma-
thematics, astronomy, and geodesy within the framework of the Emergency Asso-
ciation of German Science (Notgemeinschaft der deutschen Wissenschaft), the
future German Research Foundation. The Göttingen Association for the Promo-
tion of Applied Physics and Mathematics (see 8.1.1), was integrated into the
broader Helmholtz Society in 1920, and the latter no longer corresponded to
Klein’s universal line of thinking. Together with Courant, however, Klein was
able to secure some funding for mathematical projects in Göttingen (Section 9.4).

1 See Abraham FRAENKEL 2016 [1967], p. 138. In 1919, Klein had recruited Fraenkel to colla-
borate on the edition of Gauss’s works (see Section 8.3.1).
2 See Section 9.1.1.
3 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 3F, fols. 6, 9–11 (a text in Klein’s handwriting, July 1917).

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 525

R. Tobies, Felix Klein, Vita Mathematica 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75785-4_9
526 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

Klein received numerous honors on the occasion of his seventy-fifth birthday

(April 25, 1924). Sitting at his desk, he remained devoted to his work ethic until
his death on June 22, 1925 (Section 9.5).
The number theorist Edmund Landau, who had been a professor in Göttingen
since 1909, acknowledged Klein’s selfless activity in a special way when he wrote
the following, on April 16, 1920, to the Prussian Ministry of Culture:
[…] Allow me to raise another issue with you today, though I would like to state explicitly
that I am acting on my own initiative and that my colleague Mr. Klein may very well disap-
prove of my gesture (which I am making without his knowledge). Today I learned by chance,
in a letter from Mr. Klein about acquisitions for the reading room, that as an emeritus profes-
sor he has not received any allowance for the increased cost of living to date (previously, he
had purchased certain scientific journals for the reading room at his own expense and now he
no longer sees himself in a position to do so). I visited Privy Councilor [Erich] Wende and
expressed my opinion to him: “If an exception to the rule seems to be justified in any case,
this is the case of Klein. For, although retired, he continues to give lectures (partly at home;
they are courses on the history of mathematics and the like, which are of the greatest benefit
to our senior students), and he participates intensively in all the senate and faculty affairs, as
well as in the affairs of the Göttingen Association, which benefit our university. Moreover, it
is to Klein’s initiative that we owe the flourishing of pure and applied mathematics and
physics in Göttingen, not to mention the creation of several institutes.” Privy Councilor
Wende said that you alone could approve my suggestion and that, without further ado, you
could grant Klein cost-of-living allowances retroactively and in the future. […] Given your
great interest in our discipline and my certainty that you appreciate the outstanding impor-
tance of Klein to science and to the University of Göttingen, I hope that you will intervene to
make a permissible exception to the rule in this regard.
Respectfully yours,
Landau4

9.1 POLITICAL ACTIVITY DURING THE FIRST WORLD WAR

In 1908, Felix Klein had spoken out firmly against national chauvinism (see
Section 8.4). As a young man, and as the son of an official in a Prussian district
government (Rhineland Province), Klein had fulfilled his military duties during
the Franco-Prussian War, but he only served as a paramedic. This war experience
had done nothing to alter his relationship with French mathematicians. Rather, he
and Clebsch alike had been dismayed by the excessive nationalistic rhetoric of
Camille Jordan and others (see Section 2.7.1).
By the time the First World War broke out, Klein had already developed an
extensive international network. Like many other senior academics, however, he

4 [UAG] Kur. 10750, vol. 1, fols. 59–60v. This request was granted within four days. – Wende
had been an official at the Prussian Ministry of Culture since 1917; in 1920 he was made an
“expert councilor” there (Vortragender Rat). The recipient of this letter was Otto Naumann,
who had joined the Ministry of Culture as a government assistant in 1884 and, by 1920, was a
department director serving under the (Social Democratic) Minister Konrad Haenisch.
 9.1 Political Activity During the First World War 527

could not abstain from the campaign to mobilize morale on the home front (Sec-
tion 9.1.1).5 Yet during the war, Klein was actively engaged in the Prussian Parli-
ament to promote studying abroad and learning foreign languages in an effort to
increase intercultural understanding and possibly avoid future conflicts (9.1.2).

9.1.1 The Vows of Allegiance of German Professors to Militarism

Just when we were able to believe that our plans were all but certain to be executed, the terri-
ble war in which Germany is now embroiled threw everything into question. Yet precisely
because the future is as unclear as ever, I do not want to give up on the basic idea. […] Of
course, the precondition for all the hopes that we hold dear is that, culturally, we are not enti-
rely set back by the events to come.6

Klein wrote these words in August of 1914, shortly after the outbreak of the First
World War, in an article titled “Bericht über den heutigen Zustand des mathema-
tischen Unterrichts an der Universität Göttingen” [A Report on the Current State
of Mathematical Instruction at the University of Göttingen], which was published
in the Jahresbericht der DMV. His statement about plans that were close to being
executed was a reference to the construction of “his” new Mathematical Institute,
for which funding had already been secured (it would not be completed until
1929). Here, at the same time, Klein also expressed his concerns about the preca-
rious state of international relations. He referred to the efforts of the ICMI, to
Emanuel Beke’s 1914 report at the ICMI meeting over Easter in Paris, and to the
journal L’Enseignement mathématique. Klein mentioned the great number of fo-
reign students in Göttingen, of which he was always especially proud, and he
stressed: “The ideal was to contribute in a recognizable way to the advancement
of all-encompassing science, whose high arc vaults evenly over the differences
between nations.” He expressed his hope that mathematics might be able to
maintain a central position despite the pressing “social, economic, and political
issues” of the time.7
In August of 1914, the nationwide frenzy for war had compelled many young
Germans to enlist voluntarily in the military. On August 3, 1914, Klein reported to
Wilhelm Lorey, with whom he worked to complete the German ICMI monograph
series: “Now the first wave of commotion is behind me, because my son came
yesterday to say farewell and, at the same time, my daughter got married in a great
rush.”8 Klein’s son survived the war; his son-in-law Robert Staiger fell in battle
after a few weeks (see Section 3.6.3).
On October 14, 1914, more than three thousand German professors deemed it
necessary to demonstrate their loyalty to the state by signing a “Declaration of the

5 For a detailed discussion of this topic, see BROCKE 1985.

6 KLEIN 1914b, p. 427.
7 Ibid., p. 428.
8 [UB Frankfurt] B.I.1 (Klein to Lorey, August 3, 1914). – See KLEIN ed. 1909–16.
528 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

University Professors of the German Empire” (Erklärung der Hochschullehrer

des Deutschen Reiches). The philologist Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,
with whom Klein had cooperated during his time in Göttingen (see Section 6.4.3)
and who had been a professor at the University of Berlin since 1897, formulated
the declaration, which began as follows:
We teachers at German universities serve science and perform a work of peace. But it fills us
with indignation that the enemies of Germany, England at the forefront, allege, ostensibly in
our favor, that there is a contradiction between the spirit of German science and what they
call Prussian militarism. In the German army there is no other spirit than the one in the
German people, for both are one, and we also belong to it.

The declaration ends with this sentence:

Our belief is that salvation for the culture of Europe as a whole depends on the victory that
German ‘militarism’ will gain: manly discipline, loyalty, the courage to sacrifice found in
a peacefully harmonious, free German people.9

Although they had cultivated a wide range of international relations, a number of

even liberally minded professors – Klein, Hilbert, and Carl Runge among them –
pledged to offer their services to the war effort. Hilbert and Carathéodory wrote a
memorandum about the possible military uses of mathematics students: calcula-
ting ballistic tables, photogrammetry, teaching methods for determining the loca-
tion of airplanes, strength problems, etc.10 Klein mentioned the wartime activity of
the mathematical institute in a speech to the members of the Göttingen Associa-
tion, but he warned: “The danger of isolating theoretical speculation must be
avoided, as must sinking to a low level with respect to the use of applications.”11
He himself had turned his attention to the theory of relativity (see Section 9.2.2),
and he continued to keep his eye on the big picture.
There were other vows of allegiance to the war by public servants, and not
only in Germany.12 Published on October 4, 1914 in German newspapers, the
proclamation “To the Civilized World” created the biggest splash because it bore
the signatures of ninety-three German scientists, artists, and Nobel Prize winners,
including Wilhelm Förster, Ernst Haeckel, Max Liebermann, Walther Nernst,
Wilhelm Ostwald, Max Planck, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, and Wil-
helm Wundt (this text has come to be known as the “Manifesto of the Ninety-
Three”). That Felix Klein appeared on this list, as the only Göttingen professor
and as the only mathematician, was based on his fame at the time and on his fre-
quent presence in Berlin as a member of the Prussian parliament.13 As Klein later

9 The translation is based on Robert E. Norton, “Wilamowitz at War,” International Journal of

the Classical Tradition 15 (2008), pp. 74–97, at p. 97 (German in TOBIES 2019b, p. 451).
10 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7H (War Assistance [Kriegshilfsdienst]; a memorandum sent to
Otto Naumann, December 8, 1916).
11 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 4G, fols. 79–81, at fol. 80.
12 See AUBIN/GOLDSTEIN 2014.
13 [UB Frankfurt] Klein to Lorey, Oct. 30, 1914: “I always have to rest a lot in between and
have to live with extreme caution, but I have survived two trips to Berlin under these rules.”
 9.1 Political Activity During the First World War 529

explained to his former English doctoral student Grace Chisholm Young, how-
ever, he (like Max Planck and others) had been asked via a telegram to sign the
proclamation. Cordula TOLLMIEN (1993) has shown that Klein had been unaware
of what the text contained until it was published. He had (naively) assumed that
its intention would be to calm the storm brewing abroad. The opposite was true,
for the proclamation, which was mainly addressed to countries that were still
neutral, contained statements such as the following:
It is not true that Germany is guilty of starting this war. […]
It is not true that we trespassed in neutral Belgium. […]
It is not true that the combat against our so-called militarism is not a combat against our civil
nation, as our enemies hypocritically pretend it is. Were it not for German militarism, German
civilization would long since have been extirpated. For its protection, militarism arose in a
land which for centuries had been plagued by bands of robbers as no other land had been. The
German Army and the German people are one, and today this consciousness fraternized
70,000,000 of Germans, all ranks, positions, and parties being one.14

The proclamation “To the Civilized World” therefore denied the atrocities com-
mitted by Germans.15 The Académie des Sciences in Paris annulled the member-
ship of the document’s signatories.16 In Great Britain, however, German scientists
were not removed from academic bodies. Felix Klein and Max Planck made ef-
forts in Göttingen and Berlin to ensure that the membership of French scholars to
the academies in these cities would not be revoked.17 Émile Picard, a correspon-
ding member of the Royal Göttingen Society of Sciences since 1884, withdrew
from this Göttingen academy on his own accord in 1916/17.18
When Gaston Darboux (a corresponding member in Göttingen since 1883 and
a foreign member since 1901; in the Bavarian academy in Munich as of 1899)
died on February 23, 1917, he was honored with obituaries, in Göttingen, in Mu-
nich, and by the German Mathematical Society – where Klein served as honorary
chairman in 1918/19.19 After the war, and especially in France, the proclamation
“To the Civilized World” served as a main argument for excluding German scien-
tists from international committees.20
It may seem contradictory, but – politically – Klein remained loyal to the state
while – scientifically – he remained internationally oriented. In an obituary, Grace

14 Professors of Germany, “To the Civilized World,” The North American Review 210 (1919),
pp. 284–87. For further discussion, see UNGERN-STERNBERG/UNGERN-STERNBERG 1996. Re-
garding Göttingen in particular, see TOLLMIEN 1993, esp. pp. 172–77.
15 See, for example, THE MARTYRDOM OF BELGIUM 1915.
16 See GRAU 1993, p. 286. This announcement was made on March 15, 1915.
17 See TOLLMIEN 1993, p. 195.
18 See Göttinger Nachrichten: Geschäftliche Mitteilungen (1917), p. 2.
19 See David Hilbert, “Gaston Darboux,” Göttinger Nachrichten: Geschäftliche Mitteilungen
1917, pp. 71–75; and Aurel Voß, “Gaston Darboux,” Jahresbericht der DMV 27 (1918), pp.
196–217 (first published in Jahrbuch der Kgl. Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
1917). [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 12: 186E, fol. 220 (Aurel Voss to Klein, Dec. 25, 1917).
20 Regarding mathematicians, see especially SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2011.
530 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

Chisholm Young wrote the following words about her doctoral supervisor: “The
aim of his life was to knit together in unity of object and effort the world of
science, without distinction of nationality.”21 On December 7, 1918, Klein had
attempted to explain his attitude to her: “Everyone, in bright or dark days, will
remain loyal to his country, but we have to free ourselves from extreme passions
if, for everyone’s benefit, the international collaboration that we desire so dearly
is to regain its validity.”22
To understand Klein’s attitude, we have to keep in mind that he held a seat in
the Upper House of the Prussian Parliament until the demise of the German Em-
pire in November of 1918 and that he also directed the Göttingen Association for
the Promotion of Applied Physics and Mathematics. In order to bolster the posi-
tion of mathematics and the natural sciences, Klein sought to build good relation-
ships both with government authorities (regardless of their political affiliations)
and with the industrialist members of the Göttingen Association (most of whom
backed the war). On June 22, 1918, when the Göttingen Association met to cele-
brate its twentieth anniversary, Klein expressed his thanks to the industrialists and
to the government officials for supporting research and education. The longtime
officials in the Prussian Ministry of Culture, Otto Naumann and Friedrich
Schmidt-Ott – the latter served as the Minister of Culture from August 6, 1917 to
November of 1918 – were named honorary members of the association.23 Even
after 1918, both served as contacts for Klein in the scientific administration.
When the boycott against German scientists had begun to have concrete ef-
fects, Klein formulated the motto “keep quiet and work” in a letter to Grace Chis-
holm Young (July 15, 1919):
In general, my sense of objectivity prevents me from expressing myself about things that I
only know, if at all, from the subjective and contradictory reports by one newspaper or
another. Thus my approach throughout this entire war has remained: keep quiet and work. For
the few years that I have left, this will have to get me through. The world, however, will take
its course, and one day the nations will find themselves together again. For the time being, as
during the construction of the Tower of Babel, they no longer understand one another.24

Klein kept on working, but he hardly kept quiet. In order to smooth over the inter-
national discussions about the proclamation “To the Civilized World,” he and
Max Planck25 in Berlin hoped to initiate a declaration together:
Like others, I found it excellent, on your Academy’s Leibniz Day, how you [Sie] thought
about international scientific relations and our duty to continue our scientific work, and I be-
lieve that you [Sie] could succeed, to the extent that this is at all possible, in steering this

21 Grace Chisholm Young, “Obituary: Professor Klein,” The Times (July 9, 1925).
22 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 3A, fol. 14 (a letter from Klein to G. Chisholm Young dated
December 7, 1918). For further analysis, see also GRATTAN-GUINNESS 1972, esp. pp. 159–61.
23 [UBG] Math. Arch. 5038, fol. 4.
24 Quoted from TOLLMIEN 1993, p. 185 (Klein to Grace Chisholm Young, July 15, 1919).
25 Max Planck (Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918) had studied with Klein in 1877 (see 4.1.2).
 9.1 Political Activity During the First World War 531

difficult matter down a better path. Let me indicate that I myself am prepared to collaborate
on writing the text of the declaration that should be offered.26

An explanation of this sort, however, never materialized.27 Klein had to accept

being excluded from things that he himself had once put in motion: mathematics
conferences and his associations with international academies. As the president of
the Conseil International de Recherches (founded in 1919), Émile Picard, who in
1912 had numbered among the donors who funded Max Liebermann’s portrait of
Klein (see Appendix 10), was among the driving forces behind banning German
scientist from participating in this organization.28

9.1.2 A Plea for Studying Abroad

Felix Klein repeatedly used the word “universal” (allseitig). We can trace this
back to his interest in the work of pedagogues such as Pestalozzi, Fröbel,
Diesterweg, and others, whose motto was: “Teach everything to everyone!” In
this respect, Klein made continued efforts not only to promote mathematical and
scientific education but also to advocate foreign-language learning and studying
abroad. The fact that he took on a special initiative to do this during the war is
worthy of further explanation.
Klein acted in coordination with Carl Heinrich Becker, who had been ap-
pointed in 1916 as a professor of oriental philology at the University of Berlin and
who, in the same year, had become a (politically independent) advisor in the Prus-
sian Ministry of Culture. Even after the November Revolution, Becker remained
at this Ministry, and he also served as the Minister of Culture for a time. In 1916,
he wrote a “Memorandum on the Future Expansion of Foreign Studies at Prussian
Universities” (Denkschrift über den künftigen Ausbau der Auslandsstudien an den
preußischen Universitäten). Becker was fully in favor of promoting a better un-
derstanding of other cultures, with the justification that such knowledge might
make future conflicts avoidable. His memorandum was discussed in both cham-
bers of the Prussian Parliament.
Induced by the philologist Alfred Hillebrandt (see Table 9), Klein devoted
himself extensively to this issue. Klein composed a twelve-page text titled “Be-
merkungen über die Aufgaben der Universitäten nach dem Kriege, insbesondere
in der Richtung auf ein verbessertes Studium der Verhältnisse des Auslandes”
[Remarks on the Objectives of Universities After the War, Particularly Toward an
Improved Study of the Situation in Foreign Countries], which he submitted to the
Parliament’s academic committee. Klein had discussed this text with some col-

26 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 3A, fols. 2–4 (a letter from Klein to Planck dated September 8,
1919). “Leibniz Day” was a regularly held celebration on the occasion of the birthday of
G.W. Leibniz, who had initiated the founding of the Berlin Academy of Sciences in 1700.
27 See TOLLMIEN 1993, pp. 186–96.
28 See SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2011.
532 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

leagues (Constantin Carathéodory, August Gutzmer, Edmund Landau, Carl

Runge). It also contains nationalistic undertones:
In the great crucible [of war], the ethos and also the abilities of those trained at universities
stood the test with flying colors. Wherever there are shortcomings, however, it remains
necessary to repair them and, in the heightened competition among nations to be expected
after the peace agreement, to preserve the superiority of German education and thus that of
the German people.

This nationalistic rhetoric sprang apparently from the fear that the Ministry of
Culture might reduce the available funding for science and education. Klein based
his argument on historical precedent as well:
Given that Prussia, in the midst of its deepest humiliation in 1809/10, mustered the courage
and means to create the University of Berlin, it will possess enough insight and strength, after
the hopefully victorious end to the terrible struggles for the status of Germany as a great po-
wer, to further honorably preserve the heritage of the past.29

Klein formulated concrete suggestions for modern language studies, which he

enumerated in a parliamentary speech on July 8, 1916:
Besides French and English, additional foreign languages should be taught, especially Russ-
ian, Polish, and Italian; but Hungarian, Scandinavian, Dutch, and oriental philology should
also be established at universities.
Education in modern languages should not be elective but rather obligatory.
Travel stipends should be made available for language studies.
The universities should be expanded to accommodate such studies.30

In this context, however, Klein also did not fail to mention his particular fields of
interest: “the institutes for applied mathematics and physics in Göttingen and
Jena, which were built by the governments with support from private donors,” and
he stressed: “This course of development should resolutely be pushed ahead.”31
Overall, he argued that the objective of the university was to provide universal
education, and he explained that new institutes, new professorships, and funding
for scientific staff, libraries, and travel were indispensable.
Like Becker, Klein and Hillebrandt believed that officials might be more re-
ceptive to their ideas during the war, and thus that they could implement certain
initiatives that they had already wanted to accomplish for years. On April 12,
1913, for instance, the Slavicist Erich Berneker had informed the Indo-Euro-
peanist Herman Lommel that, as early as 1901, Felix Klein had been the driving
force behind the creation of an associate professorship for Slavic philology in
Göttingen,32 and that Klein could certainly be recruited to join a “German Society
for the Study of Russia” (Deutsche Gesellschaft zum Studium Rußlands). This

29 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1A, fols. 1–58, at fol. 2. This text is initialed by Carathéodory and
Landau, and also archived in [StB Berlin] Nachlass Runge – Du Bois-Reymond: 604.
30 See TOBIES 1989a, p. 9.
31 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1A: 5, fol. 8.
32 See also Klein’s speech in Göttingen on the occasion of the emperor’s birthday (January 27,
1904), which is discussed above in Section 8.3.2.
 9.1 Political Activity During the First World War 533

society had been founded on October 16, 1913, and its goal was “to promote the
knowledge of Russia in Germany while maintaining a thoroughly unpolitical
character.”33 Herman Lommel, a son of the physicist Eugen Lommel and thus a
nephew of Klein (see Fig. 2), had turned to him on May 30, 1913. Klein immedi-
ately had a proposal ready: “To send fifty available teaching candidates to Russia
for one semester,” with the aim of placing ten each in the foreign service, the
chamber of commerce, secondary schools, libraries, and universities. In a letter
dated January 10, 1914 to Otto Hoetzsch, the secretary of the new society and
(since 1913) an associate professor of Eastern European history and geography in
Berlin, Klein had expressed his willingness to join the society and had outlined
additional ideas to round out the program that Hoetzsch had developed:
1) Attention should be paid to the importance of Russia’s scientific literature in the exact
sciences.
2) The study of Russian should be linked to a “qualification,” i.e., a Facultas for Russian
should be introduced to the examination regulations for teaching candidates, as is already
the case for Danish, Polish, etc.34

The developments after the war, when Friedrich Schmidt-Ott not only took over
the leadership of the Emergency Association of German Science (Notgemein-
schaft der deutschen Wissenschaft; see 9.4.1), but also chaired the German Soci-
ety for the Study of Russia, followed a direction that was oriented toward foreign
policy.35 Germany sought to establish closer relations with Soviet Russia. During
the 1920s, representatives from the government and science – experts in aeronau-
tics, engineers, pedagogues, and also mathematicians – traveled there for various
purposes. Klein renewed his correspondence with Russian mathematicians.36
Younger Russian mathematicians (P.S. Aleksandrov and P.S. Urysohn) came to
him with a letter of recommendation by the Moscow mathematician Nikolai N.
Luzin, who had studied in Götttingen from 1910 to 1914.37 In a report on its activ-
ity from 1922 to 1927, the Leningrad Physical-Mathematical Society listed Klein
and Hilbert as its only foreign corresponding members.38
Klein had been consulting with Carl Heinrich Becker since 1916 on measures
to be implemented after the war.39 Klein’s notes from June of 1918, which he
made in preparation for a conversation with Becker, indicate that he had sought to
identify causes for possible upheaval even before the November Revolution of
1918:

33 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1A: 5, fols. 1–16.

34 Ibid., fol. 14. Hoetzsch was defamed as pro-Bolshevist and forced into retirement in 1935.
35 See KIRCHHOFF 2003, pp. 130–36.
36 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 202 (a letter from Vasilev to Klein, February 18, 1924).
37 The author received this letter from the late mathematician Martin Kneser in Göttingen. See
TOBIES 1990c and TOBIES 2003; see also DEMIDOV et al. 2016.
38 For this report, see www.mathsoc.spb.ru/rus/reporter.html (Klein was a member until 1925;
see p. vii of the report). I would like to thank Danuta Ciesielska for refering me to this source.
See also JUSCHKEWITSCH 1981.
39 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 4G: fol. 79 (Klein’s note from June 5, 1916).
534 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

The driving forces:

- Democratization (elementary school teachers).
- Military requirements, economic concerns.
- Governmental requirements, “as I understand them.”40

Regarding “governmental requirements,” Klein’s program of new ideas extended

far beyond the promotion of studying abroad. He also wanted to discuss the fol-
lowing problems with Becker: the unity of pure and applied research; the estab-
lishment of areas such as mathematical statistics,41 photochemistry, radiology,
history of mathematics, and the didactics of exact disciplines; the creation of pro-
fessorships in the field of education,42 and the establishment of a professorship for
applied mathematics at the University of Berlin43; academy projects and projects
of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society44; the future of the International Commission on
Mathematical Instruction; and advanced training courses for the expected influx
of students after the war.45

9.2 HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS, THE “CRY FOR HELP OF MODERN

PHYSICS,” AND EDITION PROJECTS

In his aforementioned report from August of 1914, which appeared in the Jahres-
bericht der DMV, Klein remarked:
Two decades ago, the theory of algebraic functions and the transcendental functions that can
be immediately derived from them stood at the center of general interest. Algebraic curves
and surfaces, elliptic functions and theta functions, linear differential equations in the
complex domain – and perhaps also algebraic numbers – formed the armory within which the
mathematician sought out his problems. Entirely different areas are in the foreground today.
First there is the development of mathematics towards abstraction, as has emerged in modern
axiomatics, set theory, the new function theory of real and complex variables, and in the refi-
ned analysis situs. Furthermore, and in apparent contradiction to this, there has also been a
revival of long-forgotten practical questions: the calculus of variations and probability theory
are once again being worked on diligently; the integral equations are a means to finally solve
important old problems of mathematical physics. And, in addition to this, there is the cry for
help of modern physics, which, in its turbulent and indeed revolutionary development, is cal-
ling for the support of mathematicians and threatens to consume a great deal of our working
energy!46

40 Ibid. 5A: fols. 14–15 (Klein’s notes, June 23, 1918).

41 Felix Bernstein was appointed as a full professor of this discipline in 1921 (see Section 7.6).
42 In 1920, Herman Nohl became associate professor for practical philosophy at the University
of Göttingen; in 1922, this position was turned into a full professorship for pedagogy.
43 In 1920, Richard von Mises became a personal full professor of applied mathematics at the
University of Berlin.
44 Klein’s initiative was still required to ensure that Göttingen’s Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for
Fluid Dynamics was finally established in 1925 (see Section 8.1.3).
45 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 5A: fols. 14–15 (Klein’s notes, June 23, 1918).
46 KLEIN 1914b, p. 422.
 9.2 History of Mathematics, the “Cry for Help of Modern Physics,” and Edition Projects 535

This quotation from Klein’s 1914 article demonstrates that he maintained a com-
prehensive overview of the latest trends in mathematics. In the courses that he
taught as of the winter semester of 1914/15, he concentrated first on the develop-
ments of mathematics in the nineteenth century (Section 9.2.1). He set this topic
aside when the general theory of relativity began to capture his interest (Section
9.2.2). When he was encouraged to produce an edition of his own collected
mathematical works, Klein devoted his attention to writing commentaries on his
articles for the edition in question. After completing the three volumes of his
works, he even started a new task: the production of new editions of his older
lecture courses (Section 9.2.3). His assistant Hermann Vermeil, who had comple-
ted his doctorate in 1913 under Otto Hölder in Leipzig and was severely injured in
the war, produced a tabular outline of Klein’s teaching and research activity du-
ring the First World War and up to the year 1922 (Table 10):

Table 10: Felix Klein’s Courses and Other Activity, 1914–192247

Assistant Semester Content Comments
Graefe48 1914/15 Development of math. in the 19th c., Ed. by Elisabeth Staiger
Pt. 1: The first decades (née Klein) (10 participants)
Graefe 1915 Development of math. in the 19th c., Ed. by Elisabeth Staiger
Pt. 2: Mathematics to ca. 1850; (née Klein)
mathematical physics to ca. 1880. (24 participants)
Baade49 1915/16 Development of math. in the 19th c., Ed. by Käthe Heinemann & Helene
Pt. 3: The theory of functions, 1850- Stähelin
ca. 1900 (13 participants)
Baade 1916 An introduction to Einstein (13 participants)
Baade 1916/17 The special theory of relativity Ed. by Walter Baade
on an invariant basis
Spring of 1917 (2 Notebooks) (7 participants)50
Baade 1917 The general theory of relativity
(foundations)
Baade 1917/18 Editing the latter
(1 notebook) until New Year’s Day
Baade 1918 3 publ. on Einstein and Hilbert KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), 553–612.

47 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22C, fol. 63 (a handwritten document by H. Vermeil). Klein’s
courses from 1915 to 1920/21 were also announced in the course listings as the “Mathemati-
cal-Physical Seminar” (Wednesdays 11–1 o’clock, later without a specific time). On the par-
ticipants from 1914 to 1916, see [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 7E.
48 Walther Graefe was the one assistant with whom Klein was dissatisfied. The records reflect a
suspicion of forgeries and indicate that Graefe produced copies of Klein’s lecture courses and
sold them without his knowledge ([UAG] Kur. 7554, fol. 180). After his military service,
Graefe became a teacher at secondary schools ([BBF]).
49 Walter Baade became a famous astronomer and worked in the United States from 1931 to
1959. Before he earned his doctorate (examination subjects: astronomy; mathematics, geo-
physics) in Göttingen in 1919, he served as Klein’s assistant, and in 1917 and 1918 he had to
work for eight hours a day at the aerodynamics research facility in addition.
50 On the participants in 1916/17, see ROWE 2020, p. 6.
536 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

Assistant Semester Content Comments

Baade 1918/19 Lectures in the Math. and Phys. 50th anniversary of doctorate
Soc.; and in my room.
Ostrowski Lectures on reprinting A.M. Ostrowski, W. Schmeidler,
Priv. Ass. my collected works, Gerda Laski, […]
1.2.1919- Spring of 1919: Line geometry
31.10.1920 and Plücker’s models
Baade; 1919 Non-Euclidean geometry, Ostrowski, Emmy Noether,
Ostrowski Erlangen Program Jakob Nielsen, F. Drenckhahn,
W. Windau […]
Vermeil; 1919/20 Before Christmas:
Ostrowski Shapes of algebraic entities, Ostrowski, H. Vermeil, H. Kneser,
Spring of 1920: Influenza Antonie Stern51, […]
Vermeil 1920 Klein: work on the ENCYKLOPÄDIE –
article by Krazer (see 5.4.1)

Vermeil 1920/21 Late fall 1920 – Christmas: Vermeil, E. Noether, P. Bernays,

Variation principles of mechanics E. Bessel-Hagen52, H. Kneser,
and the theory of relativity W. Windau […]
Klein: Work on the ENCYKLOPÄDIE
article by W. Pauli
Spring of 1921: Intuitive studies on
algebra, groups of linear sub-
stitutions und algebraic equations
Vermeil 1921 As of March 1921: Vermeil takes Vermeil, Bessel-Hagen,
over the edition of Vol. II of the E. Noether, W. Krull, H. Kneser,
collected works W. Windau
Late summer 1921:
Discussions about algebra Vermeil, Bessel-Hagen, Ostrowski
Priv. Ass: 1921/22 Oscillation theorems and Vermeil, Bessel-Hagen, E. Noether,
Vermeil; linear differential equations E. Artin, A. Bokowski, H. Kneser,
Bessel- February 1922: Influenza W. Pauli, R. Minkowski, W. Windau
Hagen
Vermeil; 1922-23 From mid-March 1922:
Bessel- Edition of Vol. III
Hagen

9.2.1 Remarks on Klein’s Historical Lectures

It should be stressed yet again that Klein’s conception of the (unrealized) seventh
volume of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE and the subsequent Kultur der Gegenwart project
formed the starting point for his more detailed historical works. He had been wor-
king intensively on this subject since 1908, and he had involved numerous collea-
gues in it as well (see Section 8.3). As early as the winter semester of 1910/11, he

51 Antonie Stern earned her doctorate with Courant in 1925; she emigrated to Palestine in 1938.
52 Erich Bessel-Hagen had completed his doctoral thesis under Constantin Carathéodory at the
University of Berlin, in 1920.
 9.2 History of Mathematics, the “Cry for Help of Modern Physics,” and Edition Projects 537

had announced a lecture course on mathematics in the nineteenth century, but this
plan had to be changed on account of his health (see Section 8.5).
Klein was finally able to teach courses on this topic during the war (see Table
10). Klein’s seminar of 1914/15 was not officially announced in the university
calendar; on his seminar from 1915, we read the following in the university’s
course catalogue: “Seminar on the development of mathematics since 1850: Prof.
Klein with Prof. Carathéodory, Wednesday 11–1, privatissime and free.”53 The
university’s course catalogue for 1915/16 stated: “Continuation of the lectures on
the development of mathematics in the 19th century: Prof. Klein, Wednesday
11–1, privatissime and free of charge.”54
The typewritten transcriptions of “Seminar Presentations on the History of
Mathematics in the Nineteenth Century” were prepared by Klein’s widowed
daughter Elisabeth Staiger (winter semester, 1914/15; summer semester, 1915)
and by Käthe Heinemann and the Swiss mathematician Helene Stähelin (winter
semester, 1915/16).55 These texts served as the foundation for the first volume of
Klein’s posthumously published Vorlesungen über die Entwicklung der Mathe-
matik im 19. Jahrhundert (1926), which has been available in English since 1979
as Development of Mathematics in the 19th Century. Richard Courant and espe-
cially Otto Neugebauer prepared this text for publication in [Julius] Springer’s
“yellow book series.”56 In this work, they were also able to rely on the support of
Constantin Carathéodory, Dirk Struik, Conrad Heinrich Müller, and Erich Bessel-
Hagen. Nowhere in the book, however, is there any mention of the women who
had prepared the original text.57 Published from Klein’s Nachlass, the book was
highly acclaimed,58 even though Klein himself never considered it to be finished.
Records in his estate show that some of the sections originally planned for the
book never made it into the final publication, such as his reflections on the 1900
Congress of Mathematicians in Paris, on Hilbert’s unsolved problems (see Section

53 https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/PPN654655340_1915 (p. 14).

54 https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/PPN654655340_19151916 (p. 14)
55 Käthe Heinemann, who had passed teaching examinations in mathematics, physics, chemis-
try, and botany, earned a doctoral degree in botany on August 2, 1922 and became a school-
teacher (see [BBF]). Helene Stähelin completed her doctoral studies in 1924 in Basel (under
Hans Mohrmann and Otto Spiess); she had completed the typewritten text of Klein’s 1915/16
lectures on October 17, 1918 in Basel, complete with figures drawn by Erwin Voellmy, who
had just completed his own doctorate there under Erich Hecke.
56 Regarding Klein’s influence on Neugebauer, see PYENSON 1979 and PYENSON/RASHED 2012.
57 See also KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), Appendix, p. 11: “These lectures were edited (in part by
Klein himself) and reproduced in multiple typescript copies.”
58 In 1937, a trans. into Russian was published: http://ilib.mccme.ru/djvu/klassik/razvitie.htm. –
Iris Runge wrote to her mother, in a letter dated February 25, 1938: “[T]his is a truly magnifi-
cent book: Klein has surely been a remarkable personality. Perhaps it would be even more
necessary to write his biography instead!” Iris Runge meant that it was perhaps even more
important to write Klein’s biography than the biography of her father Carl Runge, which she
herself had just begun to write; see TOBIES 2012, p. 331–35 (quotation on p. 333).
538 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

10.1), and on set theory, among other topics.59 As it stands, the book can leave a
false impression about what Klein held important and wanted to discuss.
Regarding set theory, it should be noted once more that Klein and A. Mayer
had accepted Georg Cantor’s seminal articles on the topic for publication in
Mathematische Annalen and that Klein had instigated both Schoenflies’s compre-
hensive reports on set theory (the first of their kind in German) and the first Eng-
lish book on the subject: The Theory of Sets of Points (1906), which was written
by the married couple Grace Chisholm Young and William Henry Young.60 Klein
accepted set theory as an important fundamental subject of mathematics. He did
not, however, regard it as a reasonable basis for elementary mathematical instruc-
tion. The third edition of his multi-volume book Elementary Mathematics from a
Higher Standpoint (1924–28) includes lengthy passages about set theory, and he
wrote: “But it is all the more admirable that, thanks to the conceptual definition of
our point set, it is actually possible to assert something about it. It has been a par-
ticular merit of Georg Cantor (1845–1918) to make this possible; Cantor was the
first to show how infinity could itself be the object of mathematical considera-
tions.”61 In the third volume of this book, Klein’s collaborator Friedrich Seyfarth
supplemented the footnotes with the latest results at the time on set-theoretical
topology and dimension theory.62

9.2.2 Felix Klein and the General Theory of Relativity

In 1918, as can be seen in Table 10 above, Klein published three articles related to
Einstein and Hilbert. Einstein had accepted an invitation to give a series of lec-
tures in Göttingen in June and July of 1915.63 Nearly simultaneously in November
of 1915, Hilbert and Einstein published articles with gravitational field equations.
In this regard, there is a mountain of literature about whose ideas came first.64
Klein did not enter the discussion until he had looked into the matter in greater
detail. His Nachlass contains handwritten notes with the following titles: “Notizen
aus Hilberts Vorlesung über die Grundlagen der Physik” [Notes from Hilbert’s
Lecture on the Foundations of Physics] (August 26, 1916), “Die neuen Arbeiten
von Einstein 1911 bis 1915” [The Recent Works by Einstein, 1911 to 1915]
(September 24, 1916), “Weiterbildung der Theorie bei Hilbert 1915” [Further De-

59 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22A, fols. 74–83 (Klein’s notes from the winter of 1915/16).
60 See SCHOENFLIES 1898, and 1900/1908; YOUNG/YOUNG 1906; MÜHLHAUSEN 2020, p. 126.
61 KLEIN 2016 [31928], pp. 117–70, at p. 123. See also KLEIN 2016 [31924], pp. 274–92.
62 This resulted from the aforementioned study visits of Aleksandrov and Urysohn in Göttingen
(see Section 9.1.2).
63 On June 29, 1915, Einstein delivered a lecture titled “Über Gravitation” to the Göttingen
Mathematical Society (see Jahresbericht der DMV 24 [1915] Abt. 2, p. 68). In the same
week, he gave six lectures, which were funded by the Wolfskehl Foundation (see EINSTEIN
1997, vol. 6, pp. 586–91).
64 See, in particular, SAUER 1999, SAUER/MAJER 2009, ROWE 1999, and ROWE 2020.
 9.2 History of Mathematics, the “Cry for Help of Modern Physics,” and Edition Projects 539

velopment of Hilbert’s Theory, 1915], and “Notizen zu [Gustav] Mie: Grundlagen

einer Theorie der Materie” [Notes on Mie’s Foundations of a Theory of Matter].
About Einstein, Klein noted:
Einstein’s achievement. – Not bringing up arbitrary curvilinear coordinates – but rather new
physical ideas. A general move toward unifying theoretical physics. The inner connection
between gravitation and inertia. The Gμν are far away from matter – at a great spatial distance
– as earlier. No longer Rn = 0 but more general, the universe = the gravitational field, whereby
a distinction must be drawn between the field outside of matter and within matter. Matter is
conceived as filling the universe: a phenomenological point of view.65

The lecture courses that Klein gave from 1916 to 1918 (see Table 10) were offi-
cially announced as “Lectures on Selected Aspects of Newer Mathematics,” to be
held on Wednesdays at the same time. From 1917/18 on, no specific time was
given; the course listings stated simply: “hours to be determined.” These lectures
resulted in the second volume of Klein’s posthumous book Vorlesungen über die
Entwicklung der Mathematik im 19. Jahrhundert, which was published in 1927.
The editors of this volume, Richard Courant and Stefan Cohn-Vossen, who did
most of the work, furnished it with the subtitle “Die Grundbegriffe der Invarian-
tentheorie und ihr Eindringen in die mathematische Physik” [The Fundamental
Concepts of Invariant Theory and Their Infiltration into Mathematical Physics].
This edition was again supported by Dirk Struik, Otto Neugebauer, and others. It
is evident, however, that there are many omissions, and also added material.
Unlike the first volume, it has yet to be translated into English.66
When teaching his courses on Einstein’s theories, Klein had sought to colla-
borate with others on the topic; he sent his lectures to Sommerfeld and to Einstein
himself almost as soon as they were ready. Together with Carl Runge, Klein ar-
ranged for the Göttingen Mathematical Society to discuss the wide-ranging lite-
rature on Einstein: Emmy Noether, Klein, Hilbert, and Runge gave presentations
on this theme in January, May, June, and July of 1918.67
Moreover, Klein’s Nachlass in Göttingen contains thirty-eight postcards or
letters that Klein and Einstein exchanged from March 26, 1917 to April 28, 1920,
twenty-one by Einstein and seventeen (drafts) by Klein.68 Most of this correspon-
dence took place in 1918, when Klein published the three articles mentioned
above, and it concentrated on two topics above all: 1) the interpretation of the
conservation of energy (the integral conservation laws); and 2) the question of the
structure of space of constant curvature in cosmology. Much has already been
written about this,69 and therefore the following remarks will concentrate on a few
specific aspects that concern Klein in particular.

65 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22B.

66 There is a Russian translation from 2003.
67 For these presentations, see Jahresbericht der DMV 27 (1918) Abt. 2, pp. 28, 42–47.
68 For the printed letters, see EINSTEIN 1998.
69 For discussion, see TOBIES 1994b and 2005; RÖHLE 2002; ROWE 1999, 2018a, and 2021.
540 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

First, regarding Einstein’s and Hilbert’s works on gravitational equations,

which appeared in November of 1915, Klein did not think that there should be any
debate about whose ideas came first. When Klein included his essay “Zu Hilberts
erster Note über die Grundlagen der Physik” [On Hilbert’s First Note About the
Foundations of Physics] (dated January 25, 1919) in the first volume of his col-
lected works, he supplemented it with the following commentary:
Einstein’s “Zur allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie” was published in the Sitzungsberichte [Pro-
ceedings] of the Berlin Academy from Nov. 11 to Nov. 25, 1915 […], Hilbert’s first note
(commented on above) […] appeared on Nov. 20, 1915. The question of precedence is not an
issue, because both authors follow completely different trains of thought (so much so that
their results did not seem compatible at first). Einstein proceeds inductively and immediately
thinks of arbitrary material systems. Hilbert deduces […] from the aforementioned principles
of variation. […] It was only in his […] communication to the Berlin Academy on October
29, 1916 that Einstein established the connection between the two approaches.70

Second, Klein cooperated in particular with Emmy Noether. As he wrote in the

commentary quoted above, which was directed toward Hilbert: “You know that
Miss Noether continues to advise me in my works and that it is only because of
her that I was able to delve into the present material.”71 In his article “Über die
Differentialgesetze für Erhaltung von Impuls und Energie in der Einsteinschen
Gravitationstheorie” [On the Differential Laws for the Preservation of Momentum
and Energy in Einstein’s Gravitational Theory] (dated July 19, 1918), Klein than-
ked Emmy Noether for her “supportive participation,” and he referred to her work
“Invariante Variationsprobleme” [Invariant Variation Problems], which Klein
himself presented to the Göttingen Society of Sciences on July 26, 1918.72 Emmy
Noether continued to revise this article until September of 1918, and she dedica-
ted it to “F. Klein on the fiftieth anniversary of his doctoral degree.” She also ex-
pressed that her work and Klein’s had “mutually influenced one another.” The
article contains the two theorems that are named after her (the “Noether theo-
rems”), which remain important in modern physics because they combine three
great principles: symmetries, conservation laws, and extremal principles.73
Klein relied on Emmy Noether’s assistance when he was editing his article
from July 19, 1918 for the first volume of his collected works (1921). Here, in his
supplementary commentary, he stressed that his “main theorem” in § 2 was just “a
special case […] of the wide-reaching theorem proved by Miss Noether,” and that
E. Noether, in her work, had furthermore generalized and proved a theorem by
Hilbert. In this commentary, Klein quoted both of Noether’s theorems in full.74

70 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 566.

71 Ibid., p. 559.
72 Felix Klein, “Über die Differentialgesetze für Erhaltung von Impuls und Energie in der Ein-
steinschen Gravitationstheorie,” Göttinger Nachrichten: Math.-physikal. Klasse (1918), pp.
171–89, at p. 189. See Emmy Noether, “Invariante Variationsprobleme,” in ibid., pp. 235–57.
The latter article would become Emmy Noether’s Habilitation thesis.
73 See TOBIES 2004 and, especially, TOLLMIEN 2018. – See also ROWE 2021 (Chapter 3).
74 KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), p. 585.
 9.2 History of Mathematics, the “Cry for Help of Modern Physics,” and Edition Projects 541

Shortly thereafter, Klein read the draft of Wolfgang Pauli’s ENCYKLOPÄDIE

article on the theory of relativity (see Table 10). In response, he sent Pauli copies
of his own lectures on the topic and referred him to works by mathematicians
(Poincaré, Hilbert, “E. Noether’s theorems”) that Pauli’s draft failed to mention.75
In his final version, Pauli cited works by Poincaré, Hilbert, and Klein, but he
made no reference to Emmy Noether’s theorems; there is also no mention of her
in Kottler’s ENCYKLOPÄDIE article on gravitation and the theory of relativity.76
Klein made further efforts, however, to disseminate Emmy Noether’s results. Just
a few weeks before his death, on April 13, 1925, Klein wrote to Max Planck:
If I judge the matter correctly, there is now agreement between you and me, but not with our
colleague [Max] von Laue. The situation is dealt with quite clearly in Miss Noether’s work in
the Göttinger Nachrichten from 1918 […]. There, on p. 255, clear mathematical reasons are
given for why the actual conservation laws apply in the case of the special theory of relativity
but not in the general theory of relativity. Unfortunately, Miss Noether’s work is written very
concisely, and its full scope is difficult to grasp on account of the generality of the presenta-
tion. This may be the reason why physicists have not read the work. – Incidentally, colleague
[Max] von Laue comes very close to the facts of the matter on pp. 175–77 in the second vo-
lume of his book on the theory of relativity; he only interrupts the conclusive mathematical
development with an example in which he draws upon ideas from traditional physics.
Whether one wants to accept the general theory of relativity or not is a question of its own,
and I have no firm opinion about it. Yet if one accepts it, its mathematical development is
inevitable; only in this sense am I a “purist.”77

Einstein had written to Klein about Emmy Noether’s work as early as December
27, 1918: “Upon receiving the new paper by Miss Noether, I again feel that it was
a great injustice that she be denied the venia legendi. I would very much support
our taking an energetic step at the Ministry.”78 Klein reacted immediately, and on
January 5, 1919, he turned to the aforementioned Otto Naumann:
Your Excellency,
Surely you remember the application, submitted by the faculty here, for Miss Noether to
be allowed to complete a Habilitation in mathematics. Vigorously supported by the repre-
sentatives of mathematics, this application was rejected at the time for general reasons, but an
agreement has been reached whereby Miss Noether is nevertheless still able to be effective.
At the time, of course, I understood the circumscribed decision of the Ministry very well, but
I would like to ask whether it will continue to be upheld in all cases. If not, then I would like
to arrange for the faculty here to address the matter yet again.

75 See HERMANN/V. MEYENN/WEISSKOPF 1979, p. 27 (Klein to W. Pauli, March 8, 1921).

76 See Wolfgang Pauli, “Relativitätstheorie,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. V.2 (1920), pp. 593–775
(in English: Theory of Relativity, trans. G. Field [Oxford: Pergamon, 1952]); and Friedrich
Kottler, “Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie,” in ENCYKLOPÄDIE, vol. VI.2.2 (1922), pp. 159–
237. On the transmission of E. Noether’s theorems, see also KOSMANN-SCHWARZBACH 2011.
77 [UA Frankfurt] A letter from Klein (written in his daughter Elisabeth’s handwriting) to Max
Planck dated April 13, 1925. I would like to thank Dieter Hofmann, Berlin, for referring me
to this source. See also LAUE 1921.
78 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22B (Einstein to Klein, December 27, 1918). The English transla-
tion here is from EINSTEIN 1998, vol. 8, p. 714.
542 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

In today’s circumstances, there can be no doubt that many people will regard Miss
Noether’s current position as an inequitable restriction, especially because Miss Noether’s
scientific achievements have far surpassed all of our expectations. In the past year, she has
completed a series of theoretical investigations that are superior to the achievements ac-
complished by everyone else here during this same time (the work by full professors inclu-
ded). Through her discussions and presentations in the Mathematical Society, she has also
had a positive influence on the collaborative efforts of like-minded mathematicians. The re-
quirements for treating this as an exceptional case have thus been met to the fullest extent. In
light of the recent decision to allow women to work in the broadest variety of state offices,
however, it is perhaps no longer necessary at all to argue on the basis of exceptional achieve-
ments.
A brief reply is all I request.
Sincerely yours,
Kln79

Klein’s intervention was successful. In May of 1919 (on her third attempt), Emmy
Noether was finally able to habilitate, and in 1922 she received an unofficial
(nichtbeamtete) associate professorship. The conservative establishment at the
time did not allow any woman in Prussia to hold a full professorship.80
Third, on account of his knowledge of projective and non-Euclidean geo-
metry, the theory of invariants, and group theory, Klein was able to embed
Einstein’s theory into his Erlangen Program and make substantial contributions to
it. In this respect, he differed from mathematicians who sought to replace Ein-
stein’s mathematics with inadequate methods (Eduard Study),81 from theoretical
physicists who outright rejected the theory of relativity (Max Abraham), and from
Nobel-Prize-winning experimental physicists who did not understand the theory
and who were blatantly anti-Semitic (Philipp Lenard, Johannes Stark). In order to
clarify the relationship between his articles on the theory of relativity and his
Erlangen Program, Klein made eleven points in the commentary that he added to
the first volume of his collected works. These will not be discussed here in detail;
Kleins concluding remark was: “It hardly needs to be said that [Hermann] Weyl’s
further development of Einstein’s theory can also be made to fit just as well with
the scheme of the Erlangen Program.”82
Fourth, in his discussions of the two cosmological models of the universe,
proposed by Einstein and the Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter, Klein was able
to clarify a central point of dispute.83 Einstein and Weyl, who had engaged in a
polemic with de Sitter, had argued that spacetime singularities had to exist in de
Sitter’s model. They thought that this refuted de Sitter’s contention that this solu-
tion of the cosmological field equation was free of matter. Klein could show,
however, that the apparent singularities (in de Sitter’s model) disappear under

79 Quoted from TOBIES 1991b, p. 172.

80 See TOLLMIEN 1990 and 2021; TOBIES 2008c. – See also KOREUBER 2015; and ROWE 2021.
81 See HARTWICH 2005, pp. 133–35.
82 See KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. 565-67, quotation on p. 567. – See also SCHOLZ 2001; 2016.
83 Both models were understood as static back in 1917-18, when no one imagined an expanding
universe. I am indebted to David E. Rowe for pointing this out to me. See also RÖHLE 2002.
 9.2 History of Mathematics, the “Cry for Help of Modern Physics,” and Edition Projects 543

appropriate coordinate transformations.84 That is, de Sitter’s solution was indeed

free of singularities.
When Einstein received Klein’s article “Über die Integralform der Erhal-
tungssätze und die Theorie der räumlich-geschlossenen Welt” [On the Integral
Form of Conservation Laws and the Theory of the Spatially Closed Universe], he
responded positively to Klein’s work in a letter:
I am thrilled with your new paper like a child who gets a piece of chocolate from his mother,
What you plant squarely on its feet is exactly what is crookedly limping and lurching every
which way with me. Now I am sending you the proofs of a new paper that relies far more on
physical than on mathematical support […]. A brief note with your opinion of it would be of
great interest to me.85

Einstein – thirty years younger than Klein – still found reasons to reject de Sitter’s
alternative model, but Klein recognized in him someone whose methods were
akin to his own. Einstein, as Klein expressed to him in a letter, was always recep-
tive to new ideas and willing to put them to productive use:
In this context I hope to succeed in giving a condensed presentation of your theories in
particular, from my formal, mathematical point of view. From the outset I do feel that I am in
agreement with you in principle, as far as the scope of the different appoaches is concerned:
in contrast to the majority of your followers, who see the latest form of your theories as final
and binding, you have maintained the freedom to look for increasingly refined formulations
of the general foundations and simultaneously, in accordance with each individual problem
under consideration, for specific assumptions that sufficiently approximate the relevant
circumstances. In heartily concurring with you in my own way of thinking, I also welcome in
particular your new speculations […].86

Fifth, it was mathematicians (Klein foremost among them) who proved to be Ein-
stein’s allies when he had to defend himself against strident attacks from physi-
cists and philosophers.87 Klein convinced Einstein to become a member of the
German Mathematical Society in 1918. In 1920, when the journal Mathematische
Annalen moved from the publishing house of B.G. Teubner to Julius Springer,
Klein ensured that Albert Einstein succeeded Walther Dyck as one of the principal
editors, alongside Hilbert, Blumenthal, and himself (see also Section 2.4.3). Klein
explained to Einstein in a letter dated April 28, 1920:

84 See Felix Klein, “Über Einsteins kosmologische Ideen 1917,” Jahresbericht der DMV 27
(1918) Abt. 2, pp. 42–43, 44 (a lecture delivered at the Göttingen Mathematical Society on
May 7, 1918); idem, “Bemerkungen über die Beziehungen des Sitter’schen Koordinatensys-
tems B zu der allgemeinen Welt konstanter positiver Krümmung,” Koninklijke Akademie van
Wetenschappen te Amsterdam: Proceedings 20 (1918), pp. 614–15; idem, “Über die Integral-
form der Erhaltungssätze und die Theorie der räumlich-geschlossenen Welt,” Göttinger
Nachrichten (1918, December 6), pp. 394–493 (repr. KLEIN 1921 [GMA I], pp. 586–612).
85 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22B (a letter from Einstein to Klein dated April 14, 1919). The
English translation here is from EINSTEIN 2004, vol. 9, p. 19.
86 This English translation is from EINSTEIN 2004, vol. 9, p. 22 (a letter from Klein to Einstein
dated April 22, 1919). See also TOBIES 1994b, p. 351.
87 See Klaus HENTSCHEL 1990.
544 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

Today’s physical production, as presented for ex. in the Physikalische Zeitschrift, suffers
from a restlessness which is hardly compatible with the depth that is necessary for mathe-
matical works. Therefore, I would be particularly grateful if you would help assure the appea-
rance of suitable papers for the Annalen.88

Beginning with volume 81 (1920) of Mathematische Annalen, further mathemati-

cians and theoretical physicists were integrated into the extended editorial board
of this journal, among them Max Born, Theodore von Kármán, and Arnold Som-
merfeld. Max Born, who knew that Klein was open-minded about new theories,
wrote to Klein
[…] that traditional mathematical physics – with its continuum as the basic idea for space,
time, and the physical world – was on the wrong path. The method of partial differential
equations does not correspond to the essence of the processes to be described. The more that
physics and chemistry approximate one another and blend together, and the more that the
atom is understood as the building block of all bodies, the more it becomes clear that we do
not have adequate mathematical processes and methods, or at least, if they do exist some-
where hidden within the great realm of mathematics, that we do not recognize them in their
significance.89

It was in Göttingen where Max Born – a full professor of theoretical physics there
from 1921 to 1933 – would find the necessary mathematical background to make
advancements in quantum physics.90 Regarding the theory of relativity, Robert
Fricke, who was then the chairman of the German Mathematical Society, in-
formed Klein about the much-discussed session at the Society of German Natural
Scientists and Physicians’ 1920 meeting in Bad Nauheim (the first meeting of this
organization to take place after the First World War):
The sensational session on relativity went extraordinarily well and filled me with the utmost
enthusiasm. The development became a triumph for Einstein, who really is a superior intel-
lect. I was proud for having instigated the session, and I am pleased that, after it was over, I
was able to express my sentiments personally to Einstein […]. In the discussion, Einstein’s
superiority over Lenard was palpable even to a layperson.91

88 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22B (Klein to Einstein, April 28, 1920), the English translation is
modified from EINSTEIN 2004, vol. 9, p. 333 (German original in TOBIES 2019b, p. 463: “Die
heutige physikalische Produktion, wie sie sich zum Beispiel in der Physikalischen Zeitschrift
darstellt, leidet an einer Unrast, welche mit der für mathematische Arbeiten notwendigen
Vertiefung schwer verträglich ist. Ich würde Ihnen besonders dankbar sein, wenn Sie sich
demgegenüber für das Zustandekommen für die Annalen geeigneter Arbeiten einsetzen.”) –
Einstein stayed on as an editor until vol. 100 (1928). Hilbert, who was less diplomatic than
Klein, acted as the sole editor beginning with vol. 101 (1929), with Otto Blumenthal and
Erich Hecke supporting him (“Unter Mitwirkung”, see, for example, Fig. 7). From 1925 to
1933, Blumenthal also served as an editor of the Jahresbericht der DMV.
89 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 5C, fol. 69v (Max Born to Felix Klein, July 15, 1920).
90 See also SCHIRRMACHER 2019.
91 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9 (Fricke to Klein, September 28, 1920). For a survey of the key
points discussed at this session, see Hermann Weyl, “Die Relativitätstheorie auf der Naturfor-
scherversammlung in Bad Nauheim,” Jahresbericht der DMV 31 (1922), pp. 51–63.
 9.2 History of Mathematics, the “Cry for Help of Modern Physics,” and Edition Projects 545

9.2.3 The Golden Anniversary of Klein’s Doctorate, and Edition Projects

In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Klein’s doctoral degree (December 12,

1918), his friends and colleagues donated money with the following wish in mind:
“They would like to encourage your decision to produce a uniform edition of your
collected works.”92 The result was three volumes (KLEIN 1921/22/23), which are
probably unique in nature. Klein furnished his works with commentary and classi-
fied them. He wrote comments about how they originated, and he supplemented
them with recent results in the research areas at hand. With these volumes, Klein
created a picture of himself, his works, and many of his collaborators. It is well
known that he attempted to present everything as objectively as possible. The ex-
tent to which he managed to do so in each individual case, however, is worthy of a
special analysis of its own and will not be addressed here.
Throughout the process of producing this edition, Klein was able to rely on a
number of assistants. His first collaborator is especially noteworthy. Born in Kiev,
Alexander Ostrowski was the primary editor of the first volume (1921). While
doing this editorial work, he also completed his dissertation: “Über Dirichlet’sche
Reihen und algebraische Differentialgleichungen” [On Dirichlet Series and Al-
gebraic Differential Equations] (submitted on March 16, 1920). In the enclosed
vita, he expressed his thanks above all to Klein, “with whom I have had discussi-
ons about his mathematical works almost every day over the last year and a half.
Anyone who has had the good fortune of being close to this famous researcher
will be able to judge the extent to which my education and inspiration are indeb-
ted to these conversations.”93 Together, Klein and Edmund Landau evaluated Ost-
rowski’s dissertation and declared that he passed with distinction; in their review,
they wrote that Ostrowski had “solved a famous and hitherto unsolved problem
from Hilbert’s lecture in Paris (1900)” (in fact, the dissertation made an essential
contribution to solving Problem 13). In a later article, Ostrowski also mentioned
that, while editing the first volume of Klein’s collected works, he was inspired by
the Erlangen Program (which was reprinted in this volume) to engage with new
sets of questions in the area of algebraic invariant theory.94
Klein’s responses during the anniversary celebrations make it clear that he
was not surprised by the wish of his colleagues, friends, and doctoral students. By
this point, in fact, he had already recruited his first important collaborators for the
project.

92 The founding charter of this fund is printed in KLEIN 1921 (GMA I), pp. vii–x (quoted here
from p. ix). Because of the period of high inflation after the war, the fund, which was held in
a bank account in Göttingen and managed by Robert Fricke, was insufficient to cover the
costs of the project, but additional funding from the Göttingen Association and from the
Emergency Association of German Science (see Section 9.4) was provided to pay for as-
sistants to work on volumes II and III.
93 [UAG] Phil. Fak. Prom. Vol II (1920–21), No. 2 (Ostrowski).
94 Alexander Ostrowski, “Eine neue Fragestellung in der algebraischen Invariantentheorie,”
Jahresbericht der DMV 33 (1925), pp. 174–84.
546 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

The celebrations themselves are noteworthy for two reasons: first because
Klein planned, in advance, the day’s program and the exact words that he would
like to say at various points (and we can thus see what was particularly important
to him);95 and second because we have Heinrich Behnke’s first-hand account of
Paul Koebe’s keynote speech.
From Klein’s notes, we learn that a deputation was expected to arrive at noon:
the rector, four deans (from the four university faculties), two secretaries from the
Society of Sciences (Academy), and the university’s Kurator. In his first thank-
you speech, Klein wanted to mention his “student years in Bonn”; his time as a
Privatdozent in Göttingen with Clebsch and his interactions with “the like-minded
[Aurel] Voß, [Max] Noether, [Eduard] Riecke”; the “seminar with [Georg]
Waitz”; his “first presentation at the [Royal] Society of Sciences [in Göttingen],
January 4, 1869,” his election to the position of assessor there, and his “first ac-
quaintance with [Friedrich] Althoff.”
Next on the agenda were congratulatory remarks on behalf of the Göttingen
Mathematical Society (by Hilbert; see Section 7.2), the German Mathematical
Society, and on behalf of the friends who donated money to fund the edition of
Klein’s collected works (by Robert Fricke). Regarding his reply, Klein sketched
the following notes: “Klein’s response: the joy of collaborating. The objective and
goal of reprinting my collected works (Ostrowski). Personal thanks to Fricke for
35 years of work.”
After a break for lunch, Klein invited “mathematical colleagues to tea” at 4:30
and intended to tell stories about his experiences in elementary school, where he
learned to “make calculations in his head” and where he received his first
“natural-scientific inspiration” from a student teacher (see Section 2.2.3).
This was followed, at 6 o’clock, by a special session of the Mathematical So-
ciety, where Paul Koebe gave a keynote lecture about Klein’s work on the uni-
formization theory. From Heinrich Behnke, however, we learn that Koebe instead
gave a panegyric in praise of himself: “The organizers and the many guests felt
embarrassed, but Klein, in his thank-you speech, set everything right as though it
was the most natural thing in the world, and everyone’s mood lightened.”96
Klein’s preparatory notes for this response indicate that he wanted to place him-
self in Wilhelm Ostwald’s system of categories: “[I am] a romantic, not a classic.
Implementation of my universal [allseitig] program in Göttingen, from 1893 on
by organizational means. Long live Göttingen!”97
At 4 o’clock on Wednesday, December 18th, there was then “coffee at the
Rohns Tavern, organized by the student body.” Here, among other things, Iris
Runge recited a poem, which is unfortunately lost. Klein spoke about “his” ma-
thematical student unions (in Bonn, Göttingen, and Berlin), and he recommended
that current unions should “once again be organized more freely, without compul-

95 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1: 22 (4 pages of Klein’s notes).

96 BEHNKE 1978, p. 38. On Behnke, see HARTMANN 2009.
97 [UBG] COD. MS. F. KLEIN 1: 22. – Regarding Ostwald’s categories, see W. OSTWALD 1909.
 9.2 History of Mathematics, the “Cry for Help of Modern Physics,” and Edition Projects 547

sory affiliations [Verbindungszwang].”98 He discussed the beginnings of the right

of women to attend university, his doctoral students “Miss Winston” and “Miss
Chisholm,” and concluded by stressing the “importance of the exact disciplines to
the general public.”
When the work on his three-volume Gesammelte Abhandlungen was coming
to an end (see Table 10), Klein noted on June 9, 1922: “What to do when vol. 3 is
completed? Will I still have assistants at my disposal, without whom it just won’t
do?”99 Richard Courant found a new edition project for Klein: re-editing his lec-
ture courses that existed only in autograph (handwritten) reproductions and pub-
lishing them as printed books in the yellow Springer series. Klein divided this edi-
tion program into two groups, and he started to prepare these works for publica-
tion with the help of suitable collaborators.
The first group consisted of his mathematical special lecture courses: on non-
Euclidean geometry, higher geometry, hypergeometric functions, linear differen-
tial equations, Riemann surfaces, and number theory. Klein was unable to com-
plete everything himself, but he began working on non-Euclidean geometry with
his private assistant Walther Rosemann, who in 1922 had earned his doctoral
degree under Hilbert with a dissertation on geometry. It is highly remarkable that,
in the university course listings, Klein still announced two four-hour lecture cour-
ses on related topics: “Elementary Projective Geometry with Non-Euclidean Ge-
ometry” for the winter semester of 1924/25, and “Line Geometry” for the summer
semester of 1925 (Mo, Tu, Th, Fr, 8:00–9:00).100 By the time that Klein died on
June 22, 1925, the corrected proofs of the first chapters of his Vorlesungen über
nicht-euklidische Geometrie [Lectures on Non-Euclidean Geometry] had already
been sent to him, as Rosemann mentions in the book’s preface.101
The new edition of Klein’s lectures on higher geometry was taken over by
Wilhelm Blaschke,102 who had already published his own lectures on differential
geometry, using Klein’s Erlangen Program as a guiding light. Hans Reichert, who
published a new edition of Blaschke’s Einführung in die Differentialgeometrie
(Berlin: Springer, 1960), wrote about Klein’s influence on Blaschke’s work:
“Klein’s suggestion to divide not only geometry into different areas – depending
on which transformation group the respective geometric entities are compatible
with – but also, conversely, to proceed from any given transformation group of a
manifold and to build the related theory of invariants geometrically was realized
by Blaschke, together with an ever growing number of collaborators, in his affine

98 That is, Klein was in favor of scientific student unions and was against fraternity-like associa-
tions with (conservative) political agendas.
99 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 5E: fol. 159v.
100 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22J (course preparations as of 1923).
101 KLEIN/ROSEMANN 1928.
102 KLEIN/BLASCHKE 1926.
548 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

differential geometry.”103 Further lecture courses by Felix Klein from this group
were not published as printed books until much later.104
The second group of lectures in Klein’s edition program – a project which he
undertook at the same time – concerned his three-volume book Elementarmathe-
matik vom höheren Standpunkte aus [Elementary Mathematics from a Higher
Standpoint] (see Section 8.3.4.2). All three volumes were prepared for a third,
printed edition; previously, only autograph copies existed.
As a collaborator, Klein recruited Friedrich Seyfarth, who in 1916 had earned
a doctoral degree under Max Winkelmann (Klein’s doctoral student) at the Uni-
versity of Jena and who, as of April 1, 1920, had been working as a teacher (his
examination subjects were pure mathematics, applied mathematics, and physics)
at the Oberrealschule in Göttingen, which is known today as the Felix-Klein-
Gymnasium.105 In these volumes, Klein largely left his original text unchanged;
he added notes and had Seyfarth add supplementary comments in the appendix.
The first volume (on arithmetic, algebra, and analysis; dated Easter 1924) and the
second volume (on geometry, dated May 1925) were published with prefaces by
Klein himself. In the two months before his death, Klein was still giving direc-
tions about how to proceed with the third volume, even suggesting that the title
should be changed.106 The translation of these volumes into numerous languages,
including their recent (second) translation into English, has been mentioned above
in Section 8.3.4.2.

9.3 MATHEMATICAL EDUCATION – INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL

One of Klein’s main concerns was to lead the work of the International Commis-
sion on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI) to a good conclusion. (Regarding the
foundation of the ICMI, see Section 8.3.4). In 1920, there was a break in this
commission’s activity; however, the German subcommittee continued formally to
exist within the framework of the German Mathematical Society (see 9.3.1).
Because of the lost war, an anti-technology movement arose in Germany, and
governmental efforts were made to reduce the number of hours devoted to
mathematics and science lessons in schools. In cooperation with allies, Klein took
decisive initiatives to counteract this development (Section 9.3.2).

103 Hans Reichardt, “Wilhelm Blaschke†,” Jahresbericht der DMV 69 (1966), pp. 1–8, at p. 6.
104 See KLEIN 1986, KLEIN 1987, and KLEIN 1991.
105 Seyfarth became the school’s director in 1947, and he succeeded in having its name changed
to the Felix-Klein-Oberschule in April of 1948 (as of 1956: Felix-Klein-Gymnasium).
106 In the first and second editions, the title of this third volume was Anwendung der Differential-
und Integralrechnung auf Geometrie (Eine Revision der Prinzipien) [The Application of Dif-
ferential and Integral Calculus to Geometry (A Revision of Principles)]. In the third edition, it
was changed to Precision Mathematics and Approximation Mathematics (see also Section
8.3.2). – There was no translation into English until 2016. The first translation of vol. III was
into Chinese in 1989 (together with vols. I and II).
 9.3 Mathematical Education – International and National 549

9.3.1 The International Commission on Mathematical Instruction

Klein succeeded in bringing the ICMI Abhandlungen [Treatises] on mathematical

instruction in Germany to a conclusion in 1916.107 In the prefaces to these vol-
umes, which were written during the war, Klein also made references to the mili-
tary importance of mathematics. He had sent some volumes to the Ministry of
Culture and received a green light to carry on the ICMI’s international activities in
cooperation with neutral Switzerland and its representative Henri Fehr.108 In Cam-
bridge in 1912, the mandate of the commission had been extended to the next
(fifth) International Congress of Mathematicians. This Congress was planned to
take place in Stockholm in 1916,109 and Klein intended to give a final report on
the project there.
The next international congress, however, did not take place until 1920 (Sep-
tember 22–30) in Strasbourg, a location chosen for political reasons (after the
Franco-Prussian war, it had fallen into German hands, and now after the First
World War it had been reclaimed by France). Even though German mathematici-
ans had not been invited there, it is interesting to know that several of them were
prominently mentioned. Because Einstein’s theory of relativity was on everyone’s
lips,110 the Irish physicist Joseph Larmor had been invited to give the first plenary
lecture. Larmor, who had devised the formulas for Lorentz transformation before
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz himself,111 referred to both Hilbert and Klein in his lec-
ture “Questions in Physical Interdetermination”:
Thus one can concur with Hilbert and Klein that the essential feature of the new analysis,
which has merged gravitation in the scheme of space and time, is that the extremal relations
that determine extension after Riemann on the basis of distance are now involved in altered
form along with the extremal relations of Action that determine dynamical sequence.112

Although Fehr, Greenhill, D.E. Smith and other members of the ICMI attended
the conference in Strasbourg, the commission’s final report was not presented.
Instead, it was published in the journal L’Enseignement mathématique.113
The proceedings of the congress in Strasbourg had not yet been published
when Klein, after the 1920 conference of the German Natural Scientists and Phy-
sicians (Gesellschaft deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte, GDNÄ) in Bad Nau-

107 See KLEIN 1909–16.

108 Regarding this history, see also GISPERT 2021.
109 In Sweden, a prize question had already been formulated in preparation of this scheduled
Congress; see Jahresbericht DMV 24 (1915) Abt. 2, p. 69.
110 Observations of the solar eclipse on May 29, 1919 had verified Einstein’s theoretical predic-
tion (based on his general theory of relativity) that the path of light is altered by gravity.
111 Klein was familiar with Larmor’s book Aether and Matter (1900) and he mentioned Larmor’s
results in lectures on the theory of relativity (1916–18); see KLEIN 1927, p. 72.
112 See Joseph Larmor, “Questions in Physical Interdetermination,” Comptes Rendus du Congrès
International des Mathématiciens (Strasbourg, 22–30 Septembre 1920), ed. Henri Villat
(Toulouse: Libraire de l’Université, 1921), pp. 3–40, at p. 28.
113 See FEHR 1920, and Jahresbericht der DMV 29 (1920) Abt. 2, p. 43.
550 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

heim, arranged for meetings in Göttingen. He had stopped traveling for health
reasons, and he wanted to pass the baton to younger researchers without with-
drawing completely. Under the motto “the younger generation should steer the
course,” he invited Walther Lietzmann and Georg Wolff to discuss matters with
him on September 27 and 28, 1920, and he had conversations on September 30th
with Friedrich Poske, Georg Hamel, Rudolf Rothe, and Heinrich E. Timerding to
test their suitability for certain offices.114 Timerding had been the chairman of the
German Committee for Mathematical and Natural-Scientific Instruction (Deut-
scher Ausschuss für mathematischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht =
DAMNU) since 1912, and he had been supported in this capacity by Lietzmann
since 1919. Now, in 1920, Klein managed to have Lietzmann, Rothe, and Wolff
appointed to the German ICMI subcommittee. At the same time, Klein proposed
that this subcommittee should submit a report to L’Enseignement mathématique.
By preserving the German subcommittee, “the continuity of work will be main-
tained, and it will be ensured that the valuable achievements of the ICMI will not
go to waste,” as was stated in the Jahresbericht der DMV.115 One year later, how-
ever, Ludwig Bieberbach, who was then the secretary (Schriftführer) of the Ger-
man Mathematical Society, reported:
After the Entente countries had placed their mutual scientific exchange on a new basis, by fo-
cusing on academic conferences held among allies, and had thereby limited this interaction
“pour le moment,” as Fehr believes, to allied nations and a few neutral countries, the ICMI’s
board members (Klein, Greenhill, Fehr, [David Eugene] Smith) were asked for their opinion,
and they decided to dissolve the ICMI, which had been founded on a different basis.116

In the following years, the German Mathematical Society nevertheless continued

to list the ICMI subcommittee as an existing commission.117
Klein did not live to see the revival, in 1928, of the ICMI’s activities at the
International Congress of Mathematicians in Bologna, under the presidency of
D.E. Smith. There, German mathematicians were once again allowed to partici-
pate,118 whereas they had still been excluded from the 1924 congress in Toronto.
Klein, as ever, continued to keep a close eye on international developments, and
after the war he renewed his correspondence with scholars abroad; his former
doctoral student Virgil Snyder, for instance, reported to him about the attitude of
American mathematicians toward the Toronto decision (see Appendix 11).

114 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 5D, fol. 10v. About Rudolf Rothe, for instance, Klein concluded
that his perspective was “too narrow.”
115 See Jahresbericht der DMV 30 (1921) Abt. 2, p. 29.
116 Ibid. 31 (1922) Abt. 2, p. 59.
117 As late as 1927, we read in Jahresbericht der DMV 36 (1927) Abt. 2, p. 1: “Internationale
Mathematische Unterrichtskommission, einges.[etzt] 1908: W. Lietzmann, R. Rothe, G.
Wolff (seit 1920).”
118 Nationalistic tendencies still remained, however; see SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2016a.
 9.3 Mathematical Education – International and National 551

9.3.2 Countering the Restriction of Mathematics and the Natural Sciences

When statements pertaining to secondary education threatened to impede intel-

lectual development, Klein weighed in on the conversation:
I imagine the goal of all education to be a product of two factors, α ⋅ β , where α refers to the
development of ethics, willpower, and – for all I care – also to physical training, while β re-
fers to intellectual development and general ability. It may be that, for some time, our secon-
dary schools failed to give enough consideration to factor α. That said, it recently seems as
though the importance of factor β is in danger of being underestimated. And yet the recon-
struction of our country largely depends on the presence of enough people who have a suffi-
cient amount of β at their disposal. To train such people in a systematic way seems, to me, to
be the real objective of our secondary schools. In order to improve this situation, I have long
supported the reform movement in mathematical instruction, which aims to create an imme-
diate relationship between the instructional material and the tasks of practical life […].119

Klein prompted Lietzmann to publish this explanation of his views in the Zeit-
schrift für mathematischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht. It was a res-
ponse to statements made by the Association of Academically Trained Teachers
in Germany (Verband akademisch gebildeter Lehrer Deutschlands), which, at a
conference held in Jena in May of 1921, had concentrated primarily on ethical
education, a trend that had already become apparent during the war.
In the spring of 1917, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) had put forth a
resolution in parliament calling for a national School Conference to be held after
the war in order to discuss matters relating to pedagogy, education legislation, and
the organization of schools.120 Mathematical and scientific education did not fea-
ture at all in these discussions. As early as November 17, 1917, Klein had there-
fore sent invitations to a debate, hosted by the Göttingen Association for the Pro-
motion of Applied Physics and Mathematics, “on the lessons of the war with re-
spect to the teaching of mathematics, mechanics, and physics.” Numerous guests
of honor (from the Ministry of Culture, DAMNU, the military, etc.) had accepted
the invitation to attend. They adopted a resolution to underscore the importance of
mathematics and science.121 On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the
Göttingen Association in 1918, Klein had argued yet again:
Moreover, I would like to say that our resolution is by no means intended to oppose the gene-
ral movement in schools, which are now more strongly focused on developing the students’
willpower and thus on cultivating ethical subjects. We do not, however, want instruction to
lose itself again in the indeterminate perception of vaguely imagined generalities; rather, we
want instruction to be tied to a clear knowledge of reality that is adjusted to suit each level of
education. Nor do want this knowledge to be merely practical but rather, if possible, combi-
ned with theoretical insight.122

119 Walther Lietzmann, “F. Klein über die Aufgaben unserer höheren Schulen,” Zeitschrift für
mathematischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Unterricht 52 (1921), pp. 267–68.
120 See REICHSSCHULKONFERENZ 1920, pp. 11–12.
121 [UBG] Math. Arch. 5036, esp. fols. 53–54, 135–37.
122 KLEIN 1918, p. 224.
552 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

On December 15, 1918, Klein wrote to Konrad Haenisch, who had meanwhile
been made the SPD Minister of Culture in Prussia. Klein thanked him for the
congratulatory telegraph on the golden anniversary of his doctorate, three days
earlier, and he added: “I would like to be able to provide modest assistance with
the forthcoming educational reform.”123 Klein enclosed with this letter the
publications of DAMNU and the most recent volumes of the German ICMI
treatises on mathematical instruction. He referred to the aforementioned resolution
by the Göttingen Association, and he diplomatically emphasized his continuing
efforts to promote the interests of the overall educational system.
The year 1919 had barely begun when Klein, on January 7th, gave a lecture in
a session of the Göttingen Mathematical Society titled “Mathematischer Unter-
richt an den verschiedenen Schularten” [Mathematical Instruction at the Different
Types of Schools]. The goals of this talk were, first, to provide a retrospective
overview of his work on the topic and, second, to raise prospective pedagogical
questions with an eye toward school reform.124 Prospectively, he formulated the-
ses that accorded with his long-held ideas and also pertained to the issue of a uni-
fied school system (Einheitsschulsystem), which was much-discussed at the time:
a) The entire school system should form an ideal whole, so that its individual levels pro-
perly fit together […].
b) If they are not to atrophy, all of these things have to be anchored at the university. […]
An even more varied training in state-economic disciplines. Cf. philosophy, psychology.
New professorships for general pedagogy. But also for the didactics of individual sub-
jects.
c) Consider changes in the teaching staff? […] Only a few to teach the highest levels of ma-
thematics, others with a broader foundation. (Make researchers and teachers separate).
[…]125
d) To do everything to ensure that mathematics (or, more generally, the exact disciplines)
will gain even more validity in the schools and in Germany’s public life.

In order to respond to the educational issues that were being discussed throughout
Germany, the Philosophical Faculty at the University of Göttingen formed a
pedagogical committee on March 24, 1919, and it announced on May 19, 1919:
“Messrs. Klein and [Edward] Schröder have been asked to prepare materials for
the issues to be addressed at the Reich School Conference and to work in con-
junctions with the representatives from Berlin.”126 Klein added Walther Lietz-
mann to this committee and sent him as a delegate to this School Conference,
which took place from June 11 to June 19, 1920 in Berlin under the direction of
the Minister of the Interior.

123 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 2E, fol. 72 (a draft of a letter from Klein to Haenisch, December
15, 1918).
124 Ibid. 22F, fols. 1–3v.
125 Klein had added here: “I wanted to combine everything but, over the years, I was only able to
do so by alternating [between research and teaching] (after I had earlier pushed myself past
the breaking point [mich kaputt gemacht hatte])” (ibid., fol. 3).
126 [UAG] Phil. Fak. III, vol. 5, fols. 208, 210.
 9.3 Mathematical Education – International and National 553

The subjects of mathematics and the natural sciences, however, played no

more than an ancillary role at the Reich School Conference. Not a single report or
committee was explicitly devoted to them. In comparison to the Prussian school
conferences (1890, 1900), there was a far greater number of participants: repre-
sentatives from state governments, district and school administrations, and various
groups of teachers from all of Germany. With respect to mathematical and scienti-
fic subjects, Lietzmann functioned as the representative for the German Commit-
tee for Mathematical and Natural-Scientific Instruction (DAMNU), and Friedrich
Poske participated as a representative of the (teachers’) Association for the Pro-
motion of Mathematical and Natural-Scientific Instruction (Verein zur Förderung
des mathematisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Unterrichts). There were also eight
representatives from the German Committee for Technical Education.127 Everyone
involved, including Lietzmann, engaged primarily in discussions about the orga-
nizational and structural issues of the school system. Lietzmann was the only par-
ticipant to criticize the planned reduction of educational hours for mathematics
and the sciences, and in doing so he followed Klein’s example by citing the cases
of France and England, where schools placed a greater emphasis on the exact
sciences.128 Ultimately, the idea of creating a unified school system throughout
the entire German Empire never came to fruition; in Jena alone, it was decided
that elementary school teachers were required to have a university education – one
of the aspects discussed at the Berlin conference.
At the aforementioned meetings held in September of 1920 in Göttingen (see
Section 9.3.1), Klein discussed the new educational reforms taking place in Ger-
many. He asked the participants: “Who is now creating the new curricula? Who is
working on the examination regulations? […] We also have to prepare ourselves
to create curricula for the new institutions at universities.”129
Furthermore, Klein was familiar with Georg Hamel’s idea of establishing an
alliance: a Federation of Mathematical Societies and Associations in Germany
(Reichsverband mathematischer Gesellschaften und Vereine) in order to coordi-
nate proposals for educational reforms, and he supported it. Hamel, who had
earned his doctorate in Göttingen and had worked as Klein’s assistant in
1901/02,130 had presented this idea in September of 1920 at the aforementioned
GDNÄ meeting in Bad Nauheim. Now, Klein encouraged Hamel “simply to take
the initiative, without pushing Berlin into the forefront.”131 Adolf Krazer, then a
board member of the German Mathematical Society, informed Klein:

127 Regarding this Deutscher Ausschuss für technisches Schulwesen, see Section 8.1.1.
128 See REICHSCHULKONFERENZ 1920, p. 706.
129 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 5D, fol. 10v.
130 In his dissertation – “Über die Geometrieen, in denen die Geraden die Kürzesten sind” [On
the Geometries in which the Straight Lines Are the Shortest] (1901) – Georg Hamel had
combined Hilbert’s axiomatic tendencies with Klein’s mechanical orientation.
131 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 5D, fol. 10v.
554 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

I have recently been busy carrying out the resolutions of the Bad Nauheim meeting. Regar-
ding the Federation suggested by [Georg] Hamel, I believe that I will be able to bring the
matter to a satisfactory conclusion. Given that the opinion was unanimously expressed in Bad
Nauheim that this federation would neither be a mathematical association nor that it would
disturb the independent work of existing associations, the “German Federation of Technical-
Scientific Associations” can serve as a model. Founded in 1916, the latter […] includes 13
large associations and it pursues similar purposes to those which Hamel had in mind. In this
sense, I will prepare a draft for the organization and circulate it soon.132

The new Federation of Mathematical Societies and Associations was formed on

January 6–7, 1921 at a special meeting of the German Mathematical Society,
which was held at Klein’s home in Göttingen. Hamel was named its chairman.
Together, this Federation, the German Committee for Mathematical and Natural-
Scientific Instruction, and the Association for the Promotion of Mathematical and
Natural-Scientific Instruction sent a joint resolution to the Ministry of Culture in
Berlin on January 20, 1921. The items in this resolution had already been agreed
upon at the 1920 conference in Bad Nauheim, and they followed Klein’s ideas:
that mathematics (and sciences) should not be reduced in the school curriculum;
that, for mathematical instruction, the basic ideas of the Meran reform should still remain
significant, but a stronger emphasis should be placed on applications to technology and busi-
ness;
that teaching appointments for didactics would be welcome, but they should be instituted at
all universities and Technische Hochschulen.133

In 1901, when secondary-school curricula were discussed under Klein’s leader-

ship,134 four weekly hours of instruction were devoted to mathematics and two to
the natural sciences (physics and chemistry) in the upper classes of Prussian hu-
manistic Gymnasien (whose main task was to provide a thorough education in the
classical languages). In the Realgymnasien, five weekly hours were devoted to
both mathematics and the natural sciences; and in the Oberrealschulen, five hours
were reserved for mathematics and six for the natural sciences. The primary ob-
jective of Realgymnasien and Oberrealschulen was to prepare students to study
engineering and the natural sciences. The German defeat in the First World War
gave rise to an anti-technology sentiment, and thus educational authorities wanted
to reduce the number of instructional hours devoted to mathematics and the sci-
ences at Realgymnasien and Oberrealschulen in favor of so-called cultural sub-
jects. In addition to the three types of boys’ schools mentioned above, there were
also secondary schools for girls and newly established Deutsche Oberschulen,
where mathematics was only taught to a limited extent or on an optional basis.
With Klein’s guidance, Lietzmann published an article about the state of the
reform in which he encouraged secondary school teachers to become involved, as
was the case in France, Italy, and the United States. Lietzmann concluded the

132 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 4A: 29, fol. 10 (Krazer to Klein, October 11, 1920).
133 K. Körner, “Die 86. Versammlung der GDNÄ in Bad Nauheim vom 19.–25. September
1920,” Zeitschrift für mathematischen und naturwiss. Unterricht 52 (1921), p. 83.
134 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 31, fol. 1.
 9.3 Mathematical Education – International and National 555

article with these words: “It stands to hope that, in this matter, the creation of the
Federation of Mathematical Societies will cause things to change.”135
The federation was officially constituted on September 23, 1922 at the mee-
ting of the Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians in Leipzig.
Despite Klein’s warnings, however, its working committee consisted entirely of
mathematicians from Berlin.136 An advisory council was formed to represent the
individual societies and associations; in 1922, the representatives from Göttingen
were Felix Klein, Richard Courant, Walther Lietzmann, and Emil Wiechert.137
Even though Klein could hardly leave his house by this time, he remained en-
gaged. He recognized that the danger of reduced mathematical instruction at se-
condary schools had not been averted. When, in March of 1924, a memorandum
was presented by the then Prussian Minister of Culture Otto Boelitz, who was a
member of the German People’s Party (Deutsche Volkspartei),138 on the “The
Reorganization of Prussian Secondary Education,” Klein wrote the following to
Theodor Valentiner, who was then the Kurator of the University of Göttingen:
“I am especially eager to discuss with you the reforms of secondary education that
Boelitz’s Ministry has considered and about which a potentially decisive confer-
ence will be held in Berlin tomorrow.”139
In Boelitz’s memorandum, the opinion that mathematical and scientific in-
struction could be reduced at secondary schools was justified with the authority of
Georg Kerschensteiner, who as a reform pedagogue and honorary professor in
Munich had taken part in the 1920 School Conference in Berlin. Kerschensteiner,
who had once been Klein’s student, had completed his doctorate in 1883 under
Alexander Brill’s supervision at the University of Munich. He now let Klein know
that he had by no means endorsed such a reduction.140 Equipped with this new
information, Klein prompted, in June of 1924, the Mathematical and Natural-
Scientific Faculty of the University of Göttingen to formulate a resolution in op-
position to the key points of Boelitz’s memorandum: its biased emphasis on so-
called cultural subjects such as German, religion, history, and geography; its
restriction of mathematics and the natural sciences; its plan to eliminate Realgym-
nasien; and its general opinion that “the economic and technical age lies behind
us.”141

135 Walther Lietzmann, “Die Mathematik in der Schulreform,” Jahresbericht der DMV 30 (1921)
Abt. 1, pp. 59–68.
136 In 1933, this working committee (led by Georg Hamel and Ludwig Bieberbach) immediately
expelled its Jewish members. See MEHRTENS 1989 [1985], and 1987; TOBIES 1993b.
137 For a full list of members on this council, see Jahresbericht der DMV 32 (1923) Abt. 2, p. 14.
138 Boelitz held this office from November 17, 1921 to January 6, 1925. The national liberal Ger-
man People’s Party, which was created in 1918 under the leadership of Gustav Stresemann,
occasionally formed coalitions with the Social Democratic Party.
139 [UAG] Kuratorial-Akten, 4 Vb/216 (Klein to Theodor Valentiner, May 20, 1924).
140 See KLEIN 2016 [31924], p. 300.
141 [UAG] Math.-Nat. Generalia: No. 25; 21. Regarding the planned changes, see Jahresbericht
der DMV 33 (1925) Abt. 2, pp. 61–67 (p. 62 contains a commentary by Felix Klein).
556 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

This resolution from Göttingen – along with protests from other associa-
tions142 – had an influential effect on new Richtlinien für die Lehrpläne der
höheren Schulen Preußens [Guidelines for the Curricula of Prussia’s Secondary
Schools], which was edited by the ministerial official Hans Richert and published
in 1925.143 The “Richert Reform,” which introduced new organizational measures
and a more “civic” orientation to secondary education, ultimately paved the way
for differential and integral calculus to become a binding feature of the Prussian
mathematics curriculum at the Realanstalten. In the third edition of Klein’s Ele-
mentary Mathematics from a Higher Standpoint (vol. 2), Klein and Seyfarth com-
mented in 1925 that these guidelines now corresponded to the revised curriculum
proposed in Meran by the Breslau Education Commission (see Section 8.3.4.1).144
In July of 1924, after a ten-year hiatus, a continuing education course for tea-
chers was offered again in Göttingen (with 113 participants), introduced by Carl
Metzner, an official at the Prussian Ministry of Culture – who had passed his
teaching examinations in Göttingen in 1902 (mathematics, physics, geography).145
In 1925, at the next course of this type after Klein’s death, Metzner gave a com-
memorative speech in his honor in which he promised to continue to forge ahead
with Klein’s vision and, “in Klein’s spirit, to convey to the youth and keep alive
the cultural significance of mathematics and its applications.”146

9.4 SUPPORT FOR RESEARCH

After Germany’s defeat in the First World War, the slogan “science as a substitute
for power” (Wissenschaft als Machtersatz) came to define the development of the
scientific policy and scientific organization in the Weimar Republic. Discourses
about Germany’s weaknesses in other areas served to mobilize the resources of
science, which had itself entered a state of emergency on account of the war and
the subsequent period of inflation. Industrialists, government officials, and scien-
tists (each with their own set of goals) were all interested in new ways of orga-
nizing research funding. Felix Klein played an active role in these activities, and
he directed funding to mathematical projects.

142 Oppositional opinions were collected and published in a book: Das höhere Schulwesen: Stim-
men gegen die Neuordnung des preußischen höheren Schulwesens, edited by the Deutscher
Verband technisch-wissenschaftlicher Vereine (Berlin: VDI Verlag, 1924).
143 Charles A. Noble, an American mathematician who had studied under Klein and Hilbert (see
Section 7.3) and later became a professor at the University of California (Berkeley), visited
Germany in 1926 and wrote an analysis of the state of mathematical education there. See his
article “The Teaching of Mathematics in German Secondary Schools and the Training of
Teachers for These Schools,” The American Mathematical Monthly 34/6 (1927), pp. 286–93.
144 See KLEIN 2016 [31925], p. 302.
145 [BBF]; [UAG] Math.-Nat. Fak 25 (on the continuing education course in 1924).
146 Regarding Metzner’s speech, see “Zum Gedächtnis von Felix Klein,” Deutsches Philologen-
Blatt 33 (1925), pp. 492–93.
 9.4 Support for Research 557

9.4.1 The Emergency Association of German Science

The Emergency Association of German Science (Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen

Wissenschaft) was created in Berlin on October 30, 1920 (since 1929, it has been
known as the German Research Foundation – Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).
Friedrich Schmidt-Ott, the repeatly mentioned official at the Prussian Ministry of
Culture, became the president of this “self-governing umbrella organization,” the
purpose of which was to promote and regulate humanistic, scientific, technical,
and medical research.147 Its first vice president (by rank) was the mathematician
Walther Dyck,148 and its second vice president was the chemist Fritz Haber149.
The organizations for which the Emergency Association was responsible in-
cluded the universities and Technische Hochschulen affiliated with the Associa-
tion of German Universities (Verband Deutscher Hochschulen, established in
1919), the academies of science, the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, the Society of Ger-
man Natural Scientists and Physicians (including its affiliated professional socie-
ties), and the Federation of Technical-Scientific Associations (est. 1916). Funding
came primarily from the state budget and, to a lesser extent, from an (industrial)
donors’ organization. A central committee, which was chaired by Adolf von Har-
nack, processed applications from expert committees and directed them to special
committees (committees devoted to publishing, research stipendiums, apparatuses
and materials, research travel, etc.). On November 23, 1920, the presidium and the
central committee of the Emergency Association resolved to allow, at first provi-
sionally for one year, the academies of science and the Association of German
Universities to determine the organization of the expert committees. Schmidt-Ott,
who visited Klein in Göttingen at the end of June in 1920,150 informed him offici-
ally on January 10, 1921:
The composition of the expert committee for mathematics, astronomy, and geodesy was put
in the hands of the Society of Sciences [Academy] in Göttingen. The latter elected you to
serve as the chairman of this expert committee. In addition to yourself, the committee will
consist of Privy Councilor Professor A. Krazer (Karlsruhe), Professor I. Schur (Berlin), Privy
Councilor Professor Dr. Louis Krüger (Potsdam), and Professor Dr. Bauschinger (Leipzig).151

Schmidt-Ott expressed his hope that “you are prepared to accept the position of-
fered to you in the overall interest of German science.” Klein replied that he had

147 On the establishment of the Emergency Association and on the term “umbrella organization”
(Dachverband), which did not imply a democratic institution but rather a union against “the
specter of Bolshevism” and a lobby for promoting the interests of science against the new
SPD government, see Jochen KIRCHHOFF 2003 (the quotation here is from p. 77).
148 On Walther Dyck’s activity on the Emergency Association, see HASHAGEN 2003, pp. 619–51.
149 In 1918, Fritz Haber was a Nobel laureate in chemistry for his invention of the catalytic
synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen (the industrial procedure is known as the
Haber-Bosch process), but he had also developed poisonous gases and masterminded their
use as weapons of mass destruction in the First World War.
150 [StA Berlin] Rep. 92 Schmidt-Ott, No. 2 (a letter from Klein dated July 2, 1920).
151 This and the following quotation are from [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 4A, fol. 61–61v.
558 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

not only accepted this role but that he had also already conducted (in Göttingen)
the first committee meeting. For future meetings in Berlin, Klein requested that
Issai Schur should act as his proxy. On January 5, 1921, Fritz Haber already had
written that Klein could send a representative to attend the meetings in Berlin, and
he added the following bit of praise: “The weight of your personality remains, and
the sum of judgment, experience, and personal connections that you embody in
your chairmanship is extremely useful for the matters at hand.”152
A letter by Richard von Mises dated November 6, 1920 indicates that he
thought Klein would include him on the expert committee:
I returned from Göttingen on Monday evening with good success. I was very happy to find
Klein still in very good shape; he is quite the same, with an amazing mental freshness and ac-
tivity, although it seems that he is paralyzed in his legs. […] Since I have now become the re-
presentative of applied mathematics in the Emergency Association of German Science […],
there is new work for her [my secretary]. Unfortunately, this “emergency” will also lead to a
meeting in Göttingen during the Christmas holidays.153

In addition to mathematics, the expert committee chaired by Klein also repre-

sented astronomy and geodesy. The members chosen to serve on it tended to be
older and established professors who were less keen to promote their own perso-
nal agendas. Carl Runge, a professor of applied mathematics, was similarly cho-
sen to lead the expert committee for physics in order to balance out competing
interests. In December of 1920, Richard von Mises, who was more than twenty
years younger than Klein and Runge, had submitted an application to the Emer-
gency Association to receive funding to purchase instruments for his institute,154
but his application was rejected because the Emergency Association did not allo-
cate funds for the purpose of a given institute’s teaching capabilities.155
Klein’s correspondence with Adolf Krazer documents their coordinated ap-
proach to supporting certain projects. On November 9, 1920, Klein wrote to him:
It is still unclear what authority and, especially, what financial means each committee of the
Emergency Association has. Nevertheless, I am happy to continue our provisional discussi-
ons. […] I have intentionally excluded all individual journals, including Crelle’s Journal and
even the Archiv der Mathematik und Physik. Otherwise, we would experience a competition
not only among editorial boards but also among publishers, and we would waste the funding
at hand or sustain certain publications that ought to die off (under today’s circumstances, the
number of journals must be reduced). – An exception is the Jahresbericht [der DMV], if we
can succeed in providing it with the character of a generally valid bulletin of current events.
In this respect, I am open to different publishers and forms of publication. I certainly have
nothing against Teubner in itself. But without corporate profit. […] My suggestions are made

152 Ibid., fol. 52 (Fritz Haber to Klein).

153 A letter from Richard von Mises to his mother dated November 6, 1920. The English transla-
tion here is slightly modified from SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2020, p. 11.
154 Thanks to funding from the Göttingen Association and the Carl Zeiss Foundation, instruments
of the kind von Mises wished for had long been available at the University of Göttingen and
the University of Jena; they were used especially for teaching purposes. For von Mises’s
efforts to equip his institute in Berlin accordingly, see SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2021.
155 See the analysis in TOBIES 1981b.
 9.4 Support for Research 559

with great caution, and with this same caution I approach the reorganization of the German
Mathematical Society and the Mathematical Federation.156

Klein and Krazer agreed early on that the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, the edition of Gauß’s
works, the review journal Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik, and the
Jahresbericht der Deutschen Mathematiker-Vereinigung should receive financial
support.157 These projects were deemed to be of primary importance when Expert
Committee 5 (for mathematics, astronomy, geodesy), which Klein chaired, met on
January 7–8, 1921 in Göttingen. Carl Runge, as the chairman of Expert Commit-
tee 6 (for physics, astrophysics, geophysics, and meteorology), and Richard Cou-
rant (as a secretary [Schriftführer]) had also been invited to this meeting.
The majority of funding for mathematics came from the publications com-
mittee. By March 31, 1922, “Klein’s” committee received 792,755 Mark to sup-
port publications and 174,800 Mark in support of individual research projects.
This placed it in seventh place among the twenty expert committees (behind
physics, theology, chemistry, biology, mineralogy, and classical philology).158
Klein thought beyond disciplinary boundaries; together with Otto Blumenthal and
in coordination with Dutch scientists, for instance, he helped to organize means
for the Emergency Association’s library committee to acquire missing specialist
literature (e.g. missing journal volumes from the war period) from abroad.
At the peak of hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic, the Emergency Associ-
ation also provided funding for the edition of Klein’s collected works. In Novem-
ber of 1922, 50,000 Mark were granted to support the second volume and 100,000
Mark were allocated for the third.159 An additional 300,000 Mark of funding were
directed to the project in January of 1923.160 By this point, however, Klein had
already stepped down from his position as the chair of the expert committee.
Klein had withdrawn his candidacy when the committees were to be newly
elected in March 1922 for the following four years. His colleagues knew that, to a
great extent, the successes were due to his personal engagement and diplomatic
skills. Bauschinger urgently requested Klein to maintain his role: “There is no one
there who could replace you to any extent.”161 Issai Schur wrote to Klein:
In any case, this success is new evidence for how extraordinarily difficult it would be to
replace you as the chairman of the expert committee. I still have not given up hope that Mr.
Courant will inform me that you have set aside your intention to resign and that you would
not object to being reelected.162

156 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 4A, fol. 18 (a draft of Klein’s letter to Krazer, November 9, 1920).
157 Ibid., 4A: 29, fol. 7 (a letter from Krazer to Klein dated November 7, 1920).
158 See Bericht der Notgemeinschaft über ihre Tätigkeit 1921/22 (Berlin, 1922), p. 12.
159 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 4A, fol. 96 (Schmidt-Ott to Klein, March 20, 1922).
160 Ibid., fols. 315, 323 (letters from Schmidt-Ott to Klein, Nov. 11, 1922 and January 26, 1923).
On the funding provided for other mathematical works and projects, see TOBIES 1981b.
161 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 4A, fol. 214 (Bauschinger to Klein, September 4, 1921).
162 Ibid., fols. 219–219v (Issai Schur to Klein, September 16, 1921).
560 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

On September 11, 1921, Klein had let Schmidt-Ott know that, going ahead, he
would have to concentrate all of his remaining energy on editing his collected
works.163 He also shared with him the names of the elected members of the new
expert committee. They were the same as before: Krüger (geodesy), Bauschinger
(astronomy), two members for “pure” mathematics (Krazer and Issai Schur), and
additionally Carl Runge for applied mathematics (he was no longer the chairman
of the expert committee for physics, where – as Klein wrote – “the names Einstein
and Stark are the focus of two enemy camps.”)164 The election of the committee
members for “pure” mathematics had already taken place on September 20, 1921,
at the annual meeting of the German Mathematical Society in Jena.165 Ludwig
Bieberbach, however, managed to replace Issai Schur on the committee.166
Klein continued to remain available as an advisor. On July 19, 1922, Schmidt-
Ott asked for Klein’s opinion about how to concentrate the distribution of funding
more strongly “on research devoted to large problems and on the production of
summary reports on broader areas.” In his response, which is dated July 27, 1922,
Klein told him that the promotion of “general undertakings” (the ENCYKLOPÄDIE,
the edition of Gauß’s works, and the review journal Jahrbuch über die Fort-
schritte der Mathematik, which was edited by Leon Lichtenstein at the time),167
still seemed to be of the greatest importance, as he had already stressed in his re-
port from January. Klein thought that other new scientific plans would be “ham-
pered by the progressive deterioration of general conditions.”168
Meanwhile, Klein managed all of this from his home. From here, he also saw
to it that the Göttingen Association, which he had founded in 1898, was handed
over in an orderly manner to a new organization, though he was somewhat disap-
pointed by this transition.

9.4.2 The Gauss-Weber / Helmholtz Society

Under the Treaty of Versailles, which was signed on June 28, 1919, the German
chemical industry was stripped of all its patents and trademarks. Industrialists in
this branch therefore developed a keen interest in reviving innovation and estab-
lishing organizations for the promotion of chemistry: the Emil Fischer Society for
the Promotion of Chemical Research (est. June 15, 1920), the Adolf Baeyer So-

163 Ibid., fols. 225, 257 (Klein’s drafts of letters to Schmidt-Ott, Sept. 23, and Nov. 7, 1921).
164 Ibid. 5E, fol. 5 (Klein to Schmidt-Ott, Jan. 20, 1921). The reference here is to the outspoken
anti-Semitism of the physicist and Nobel-Prize winner Johannes Stark, who for this reason
had been rejected as a possible candidate to succeed Eduard Riecke (d. 1915) in Göttingen.
165 See in detail Jahresbericht der DMV 30 (1921) Abt. 2, p. 104 (TOBIES 2019, p. 474).
166 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 4A: 254 (Issai Schur to Klein, November 14, 1921).
167 On the history of this review journal that time, see SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 1993, pp. 40–44.
168 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 4A, fols. 308–09v (a letter from Schmidt-Ott to Klein dated July
19, 1922; a draft of Klein’s reply dated July 27, 1922). Regarding the further development of
support for mathematical projects, see TOBIES 1981b.
 9.4 Support for Research 561

ciety for the Promotion of Chemical Literature (est. June 16, 1920), the Justus
Liebig Society for the Promotion of Chemical Education (est. 1920). Klein kept
an eye on these developments. He joined the new Society for Technical Physics
(1919), offered advice about its statutes,169 and attempted to acquire further finan-
cial support for mathematical, physical, and technical research in Göttingen.
Henry Theodore von Böttinger, who had been highly active on behalf of the
University of Göttingen (see Section 8.1.1), died on June 9, 1920, and Klein an-
nounced his passing to the members of the Göttingen Association for the Promo-
tion of Applied Physics and Mathematics on June 21st. The following day, Klein
wrote to the Krupp manager Emil Ehrensberger in order to secure funding for the
construction of his envisioned Mathematical Institute. He concluded his letter
with the words: “Let’s not despair but rather develop new initiatives.”170
Before his death, Böttinger had suggested that Carl Duisberg should replace
him on the board of the Göttingen Association. Duisberg had been a general di-
rector and board member of the Friedrich Bayer dyestuff factories since 1912. He
directed the Liebig Society mentioned above, managed the establishment and the
statutes of the Emergency Association’s donors’ organization (est. December 14,
1920), and developed numerous other initiatives, so that, as far as Göttingen was
concerned, he saw himself as no more than a “liquidator.”171 The Göttingen Asso-
ciation’s decision to operate on the basis “of the free collaboration of its mem-
bers” and without any formal statutes now had an unfavorable effect. The indus-
trial members were now less willing to donate. Personnel changes in Göttingen
meant that professorships in mathematics and physics remained unoccupied for
some time. Duisberg thus sought to incorporate the association into a new and
larger society for the promotion of physical and technical research, one that would
support not only such research in Göttingen but throughout Germany at large.
Duisberg appointed Dr.-Ing. Albert Vögler, the general director of the Deutsch-
Luxemburgische Bergwerks- und Hütten A.G. (a mining company headquartered
in Dortmund), to serve as the chairman of this new organization, which was called
the Helmholtz Society for the Promotion of Physical-Technical Research (est.
October 28, 1920).172 Vögler, who was conservative and nationalistic, had suppor-
ted an aggressive annexation policy during the First World War, and later he made
large donations to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party.173
Klein noted: “All sorts of scruples concerning the new society.” He felt that it
lacked a sufficient number of “outstanding scholars” on its first administrative
board; he felt that it lacked the ability to organize research activity. Only the
interest accrued by the Helmholtz Society was allowed to be donated, whereas the

169 Ibid. 5B, fols. 57, 64–71, 124–28 (Klein’s correspondence with Georg Gehlhoff, the founder
of this society, 1919).
170 Ibid. 5C, fols. 42–43v (Klein’s letters, June 21 and 22, 1920).
171 Ibid. 5D, fols. 36–39 (a letter from Duisberg to Klein dated November 13, 1920).
172 Ibid. 4B, fols. 1–3.
173 See KOHL 2002.
562 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

Göttingen Association had thrived off the funding from entry fees and annual dues
(5000 Mark to join, plus a minimum yearly contribution of 500 Mark). Klein
dismissed the new society as a “collection box” of capital.174
Klein was also displeased that the new society was named after Helmholtz,
who, in 1893, had argued against the creation of university institutes for technical
physics. Klein’s suggestion that it should be called the Gauß-Weber Society – in
order to underscore the tight bond between mathematics and physics – had been
rejected by Duisberg with the comment that Helmholtz’s name was more widely
known. The new society established its headquarters in Munich, even though
Duisberg had written to Klein on July 20, 1920 that it would be in Göttingen.
Mathematics did not appear in the new name, even though Duisberg had spoken
of mathematics.175 Education was likewise dropped as a funding sector.176
In the interest of the Göttingen Association, Klein continued to play a role in
hiring new physics professors: Max Reich to replace the late Hermann Theodor
Simon, Max Born to replace Peter Debye, James Franck to replace Woldemar
Voigt. When Born informed Klein on July 15, 1920 that he and Franck were
interested in actively maintaining the connection between science and industry,
this was clearly an effort to gain Klein’s support.177 This special connection in
Göttingen, however, was nearing its end. Born had written:
I am very pleased that the Göttingen Faculty wants to recommend Prof. Franck to the Mi-
nistry. It is indeed a considerable responsibility that I have taken upon myself by declaring, in
such definite terms, that someone is the right person for physics in Göttingen; I believe, how-
ever, that I am quite certain about the matter, because Franck is indeed suited to the grand
style of education. […] Franck is certainly well aware of the Göttingen Association […] He
will certainly be, just as I am, willing to offer you his full assistance to achieve your great
goal of harnessing science to stimulate industry and, conversely, interesting industry in pro-
moting science. Your new foundation, the Gauß-Weber Society, is in fact a matter of the ut-
most importance; it is remarkable that you were able to bring it about despite the difficulties
that your poor health has caused you. For I myself have begun to campaign in a similar way.
For years, my idea has been to create a “Calculation Institute for Theoretical and Technical
Physics.” […] If I can be of any use to the goals of your undertaking, I stand with heart and
soul at your disposal.178

174 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 4B, fols., 5, 7. Duisberg informed Klein on January 22, 1921 that
industry would prefer to donate funding for specific purposes. For the Helmholtz Society, 35
million Mark had meanwhile been raised, whereas the industrial donations to the Emergency
Society (for “science in general”) were very low. Klein felt that the field of fluid dynamics
was in need of more support, and he wanted to secure 1 million Mark of funding from the
Helmholtz Society to keep Ludwig Prandtl in Göttingen. Duisberg rejected this proposal.
175 Ibid. 5C; 5D (Duisberg’s letters to Klein; drafts of Klein’s letters to Duisberg and Vögler).
176 Ibid. 5E, fols. 117–18, 131. The mayor of Göttingen wrote to Klein (Febr. 17, 1922) and
asked him to apply for funding from the Helmholtz Society to support the Göttingen School
of Mechanics (initiated by the Göttingen Association). The Helmholtz Society rejected this
proposal on April 27, 1922 with the justification that its sole purpose was to support research.
177 See SCHIRRMACHER 2019, pp. 75–78.
178 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 5C, fols. 68–69 (Max Born to Klein, July 15, 1920).
 9.4 Support for Research 563

With Duisberg’s approval, Klein was able to ensure that the Leverkusen dyestuffs
factory would donate (via the Göttingen Association) funding of 15,000 Mark to
pay for the printing costs of the first volume of his collected works:
In expressing my especially great joy about the fact that it is possible for us to repay a small
portion of our debt of gratitude to you, the founder and guiding spirit [spiritus rector] of the
Göttingen Association, I remain, with the wish that things might go better for you in the year
that has just begun than they went for all of us last year in our downtrodden German father-
land, admiringly and sincerely yours, C. Duisberg.179

For the transition of the Göttingen Association, Klein ultimately found a two-
pronged approach, which he explained as follows to the physicist Wilhelm West-
phal, who was also an advisor to the Prussian Ministry of Culture:
Beginning on October 1, 1921, the Göttingen Association was in fact absorbed by the Helm-
holtz Society, whereby a small portion of the sums allotted by the industrialists to the
Helmholtz Society – it may be 450,000 Mark – was expressly reserved for the institutes
created by the Göttingen Association. Prof. Prandtl became a board member of the Helmholtz
Society, while I have been named an honorary member.
On the other hand, in addition to the funding that the Göttingen Association had accumulated
for the construction of the Mathematical Institute, which totals approximately 350,000 Mark,
we also have a sum of 700,000 Mark, which the donors’ organization of the Emergency As-
sociation expressly made available to the institutes of the Göttingen Association in order to
create a special “Foundation for Mathematics and Physics, Particularly Their Applications”
for the University Association here. Within the University Association, this foundation is un-
der the control of a particular board of trustees, which includes Duisberg180 from the indus-
trial side and Courant, [Carl] Runge, and myself from the university side. Courant has taken
on the managing role. In general, as is the case with Helmholtz Society, only the interest
earned from the capital of this foundation is to be used; its future is thus hard-pressed by the
progressive devaluation of the Mark. My younger colleagues will thus have to make an effort
to create, each according to his own opportunities, a broad basis of support and wide-ranging
relations within this new foundation. I myself feel as though I am too old to adapt to these
new conditions.181

Klein had already expressed the idea of creating a foundation within Göttingen’s
University Association (Universitätsbund) in a letter to Schmidt-Ott on August 3,
1920. From this correspondence, it is also clear that he hoped to preserve the
300,000 Mark that the Ministry of Finance had once promised him for the con-
struction of the Mathematical Institute.182
On July 3, 1922, Klein (as the former co-chair of the Göttingen Association)
and Richard Courant (as the director of the new foundation) sent a final protocol
of the Göttingen Association as well as the statutes of the “Foundation for Ma-
thematics, Physics, and Their Applications (formerly the Göttingen Association)”
to all the members. They informed them that “the goals previously pursued by the

179 Ibid. 8: 533/A and A/1, fols. 91 and 92 (Duisberg to Klein, January 6, 1921).
180 Alongside Dr.-Ing. Carl Still from Recklinghausen, and Dr.-Ing. Max Walter, the director of
Norddeutscher Lloyd in Bremen (see NEUBAUR 1907, pp. 612–13).
181 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 5E, fol. 144 (Klein’s draft of a letter to Westphal, June 8, 1922).
182 Ibid. 5D, fol. 127 (a draft of a letter from Klein to Schmidt-Ott dated August 3, 1920).
564 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

Göttingen Association would be carried forward in light of further developing

conditions and, if necessary, in light of the special wishes of future donors.” The
foundation’s assets were managed by Göttingen’s University Association.183 On
the basis of this support (and with Rockefeller funding provided by the Interna-
tional Education Board), Courant saw to it that the opening of the new Mathe-
matical Institute on Bunsenstraße would be celebrated in 1929.184

9.5 END OF LIFE

Heinrich Behnke, who was a student in Göttingen at the time, related a story about
how Klein, in the winter of 1918/19, planned ahead for his death:
About Klein, [Erich] Hecke later told the following macabre story. One evening, Klein sum-
moned one of his closest collaborators and explained to him that he would die overnight. He
was to come back early in the morning, collect this report, then go to the registry office, then
to the publishing house, etc. etc. Assigned with these tasks, the man came as wished the next
morning at the appointed hour. But Klein was not dead. He was extremely annoyed, however,
that fate had not followed his program.185

This not only indicates the great extent to which Klein planned everything pro-
grammatically. It also reveals that Klein’s illness was already quite advanced. To
Schmidt-Ott, Klein reported in 1921 that he was suffering from “muscular atro-
phy, which the doctors are unable to stop,” so that he was only able to walk
around in his room “with difficulty and with a cane.”186 Klein informed Arnold
Sommerfeld about his “extensive muscular rheumatism.”187 As early as December
6, 1919, after learning of the death of Adolf Hurwitz, Klein had written the fol-
lowing to the historian Alfred Stern in Zurich, the son of M.A. Stern:
Dear Friend! This card lay addressed but still unwritten on my desk for several days. There
was far too much to do. Many thanks for your news about Hurwitz’s death and for the other
information! When one thinks about the misery of our conditions, one may become envious
of those who have passed away before us. Whether we like it or not, we still have to muddle
through. My wife and I myself now number among those whose physical abilities have
greatly suffered. It bothers me the most that I can no longer walk properly, but I have also ob-
served that I work much more slowly […] than before. That said, I am still active in general
university affairs and scientifically – in the latter case, for instance, with the goal of preparing
an edition of my old works. Given the current circumstances, however, it is doubtful whether
I will find a publisher for it.
Best regards from your old
F. Klein188

183 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 5D, fols. 2–6.

184 See SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2001, pp. 144–56, 277–78.
185 BEHNKE 1978, p. 35.
186 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 5E, fol. 5v (Klein to Schmidt-Ott, January 20, 1921).
187 [UBG] Cod. MS. Teubner 49 (a postcard from Klein to Sommerfeld, December 12, 1922).
188 [Deutsches Museum] HS 1968-4 (a postcard from Klein to Alfred Stern, December 6, 1919).
 9.5 End of Life 565

Klein, of course, was able to find a publisher, and we also know that he remained
active until his last breath. When his seventy-fifth birthday came around on April
25, 1924, his former students and colleagues insisted on honoring him, even
though his health prevented him from celebrating.189 In 1924, the Carl Zeiss Foun-
dation in Jena, which had donated 100,000 Mark to establish an Ernst Abbe Me-
morial Prize, chose Klein to be its first recipient (for his mathematical works).
The committee members who had made this decision were Paul Koebe, Robert
Fricke, and Hermann Weyl.190 In the same year, the German Mathematical So-
ciety, then chaired by Otto Blumenthal, named Klein its first honorary member.
In 1924, too, Richard von Mises published biographical essays about Klein in
the Zeitschrift für angewandte Mathematik und Mechanik and in the Deutsche
Allgemeine Zeitung. There he described Klein’s multifaceted activity and wrote in
awe about his “extraordinary diligence and dutifulness.”191 In 1921, when the
German Association of Engineers decided to publish the Zeitschrift für ange-
wandte Mathematik und Mechanik, Klein expressed his “special satisfaction and
joy that engineers and mathematicians had found common ground.”192 Von Mises,
who, along with Ludwig Prandtl and Hans Reissner, was a board member of the
Society for Applied Mathematics and Mechanics (Gesellschaft für angewandte
Mathematik und Mechanik), which had been founded in 1922, also worked to en-
sure that Klein was named an honorary member of this organization.193 Moreover,
as the interim vice chancellor (hoc tempore procancellarius) of the University of
Berlin, Richard von Mises arranged for Klein to receive a honorary degree
(“Doctoris rerum politicarum dignitatem et ornamenta”) in 1924 (see Fig. 46).
Representatives of applied mathematics, physics, and technology – fields
which Klein had long supported – were able to set aside nationalistic grudges so-
mewhat earlier than the governing body of the International Congress of Mathe-
maticians. Thus, in 1924 and at the initiation of Theodore von Kármán, the first
International Congress for Applied Mechanics was held in Delft in the Nether-
lands.194 The executive committee of the Congress sent the following telegram to
Klein:
The International Congress for Applied Mechanics, which met from April 22nd to the 28th in
Delft, and which includes members from America, Australia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslo-
vakia, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Russia, Scotland,
Spain, Switzerland, and Turkey, sends on the occasion of your 75th birthday its best wishes in

189 [MPI Archiv] 1078, fol. 4 (a letter from Prandtl to Richard von Mises dated February 21,
1924). I am indebted to Reinhard Siegmund-Schultze for bringing this letter to my attention.
190 See Jahresbericht DMV 30 (1921), p. 74, Math. Ann. 94 (1925), p. 176, and TOBIES 2020b.
191 MISES 1924.
192 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 5D, fol. 106 (a letter from Klein to Diedrich Meyer, the director of
the German Association of Engineers (VDI), written in February of 1921), published in
Zeitschrift des VDI 65 (1921), p. 332, reprinted in ZAMM 5 (1925), pp. 358–59; English trans.
in SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2020a (Appendix B), p. 26.
193 [MPI Archiv] 2378, fol. 60 (a letter from von Mises to Prandtl, December 12, 1923).
194 See BATTIMELLI 2016; KÁRMÁN 1967.
566 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

grateful recognition of the inestimable services that you have rendered both to the science of
mathematics and to mechanics!195

On his way back from Delft, von Mises delivered to Klein the certificate of his
honorary membership in the Society for Applied Mathematics and Mechanics
and, as well, the certificate of his honorary doctorate from Berlin. He reported:
On my way back from Delft, I spent a few hours in Göttingen to visit Klein. Despite his 75
years and his severe illness, which leaves him entirely immobile, he sits upright at his desk
and painstakingly works. Everything that he needs is within reach, and the neighboring room
is not occupied by a nurse but rather by his assistant, to whom he dictates letters and manu-
scripts, etc. There has never been such a phenomenon of will.196

N. Wiener described the situation a few months before Klein’s death. He saw him
[…] in his great study, a pleasant, high, airy room lined with bookcases and with a large table
in the middle covered with an orderly disorder of books and open periodicals. The great man
sat in an armchair behind the table, with a rug about his knees. He was bearded, had a fine,
chiseled face, and carried about him an aura of the wisdom of the ages.197

Lietzmann, who was there more often, provided further details about the rooms:
The pictures on the wall (engravings by Raphael), […] the desk, the round conference table in
front of the sofa, the bookcases here as well as in the neighboring room and in the bedroom,
the locations where the recent publications were placed, and so on. When Klein was no longer
able to leave his bed, a place for it, too, was found in his study.198

On June 23, 1925, David Hilbert composed a brief eulogy after Klein had died the
evening before (see Appendix 12). As his last will, Klein had insisted that his fu-
neral should not involve any official pageantry and speeches.199 The funeral took
place on Thursday, June 26th at 3:30 at the chapel of Göttingen’s central ceme-
tery,200 where the only speaker besides the pastor was Carl Runge. The Göttingen
Mathematical Society and the directors of the Mathematical Institute organized a
public memorial celebration, which was held on July 31, 1925 at 11 in the mor-
ning in the university auditorium on Wilhelmsplatz. Hilbert signed the invitation,
and Richard Courant gave the eulogy.201
Klein’s programmatic planning extended beyond his death. After his death,
Klein’s extensive library was acquired by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
whose construction had begun on July 24, 1918. In December of 1923, Paul
Koebe had attempted, with the help of the Carl Zeiss Foundation, to acquire
Klein’s library for Jena. Klein, however, had replied that now was not the time to

195 C.B. Biezeno and J.M. Burgers, eds., Proceedings of the First International Congress for
Applied Mechanics in Delft, 1924 (Delft: J. Waltman, Jr., 1925), p. xv (original in German).
196 A letter from Richard von Mises to his mother, May 7, 1924. I would like to thank Reinhard
Siegmund-Schultze for bringing this source to my attention.
197 Norbert WIENER 2017 [1956], p. 292.
198 Walther LIETZMANN 1960, p. 54.
199 [MPI Archiv] 1078, fol. 33 (Prandtl to Richard von Mises, June 25, 1925).
200 [Archiv TU München] A letter from Carl Runge to W. Dyck dated June 24, 1925.
201 See COURANT 1925.
 9.5 End of Life 567

sell the library and that he had already made an agreement with his relatives and
with Richard Courant a year and a half earlier.202
For his gravestone (see Fig. 45), Klein himself had chosen the Latin words
sincere et constanter (honestly and steadily), thus borrowing the motto of the
Prussian Order of the Red Eagle.203 On July 25, 1925, Klein’s family returned, as
was obligatory, his orders of merit to the Prussian state: the Order of the Red
Eagle (2nd Class with oak leaves, bestowed at the 150th anniversary of the Göttin-
gen Society of Sciences), the Order of the Crown (2nd Class), and the stars be-
longing to both orders. His Bavarian Maximilian Order, which he had received in
1898 (see Section 4.3.1), also had to be surrendered.204
Felix Klein’s son Otto, who then lived in Hanover, took care of affairs for his
mother and ensured that she would receive her (one-time) entitled payment of
1,400 Mark from the university’s retirement fund for the widows and orphans of
professors. This process dragged on until 1926, and it involved providing detailed
information about the family’s financial conditions and taking into account the
service time that Klein had accrued outside of Prussia (13 years and 182 days).
The value of Anna Klein’s property was estimated to be 45,000 Mark. In the end,
Felix Klein’s total annual income had been 13,690 Mark (11,550 Mark plus a
cost-of-living allowance of 1,140 M and fringe benefits of 1,000 M). For Anna
Klein, an annual widow’s allowance of 6,571.80 Mark was calculated and paid in
monthly installments of 547.65 Mark.205
Anna Klein died two years after her husband, on October 18, 1927. On No-
vember 27, 1927, her sister Sophie Hegel, who had taken care of her to the end,
wrote to Walther Dyck in Munich:
She pined greatly for the end. This thought has repeatedly consoled me whenever I feel ter-
ribly lonely in the old, familiar rooms where I spent so many lovely years with the two dear
people. I have much to thank them for, and my good sister also decided that I should remain
in the house and have two rooms on the second floor; in addition, “the children” want to keep
their father’s former study for themselves in order to have a place to stay in their parents’
house. That is also a very pleasant thought to me, and thus, in the future as well, the Klein
home will always remain open to old friends.206

The rest of the family remained connected. Together with her niece Elisabeth
Staiger (Felix Klein’s youngest daughter, then a teacher in Kiel), Sophie Hegel
spent the Christmas of 1927 in Magdeburg at the home of her nephew Otto
Klein.207 On October 12, 1927, Felix Klein’s daughter Elisabeth and his brother
Alfred both attended the unveiling of a commemorative plaque on his birthplace
in Düsseldorf. The Göttinger Zeitung reported on March 13, 1928 that the street

202 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 509B (Koebe to Klein, December 9, 1923, with a draft of
Klein’s reply).
203 See Georg Prange, “Felix Klein zum Gedächtnis,” Hannoverscher Kurier (August 2, 1925).
204 For Klein’s honors, see http://hans.sub.uni-goettingen.de/nachlaesse/Klein.pdf (pp. 94–98).
205 [UAG] Kur. 9038, fols. 7, 9–25.
206 [BStBibl] Dyckiania (a letter from Sophie Hegel to Dyck, November 27, 1927).
207 Ibid. (a letter from Elisabeth Staiger to Dyck dated December 28, 1927).
568 9 The First World War and the Postwar Period

formerly known as Lindenstraße had been renamed the Felix-Klein-Straße. In

Düsseldorf and in Erlangen, where Klein first worked as a professor, streets were
also named after him.
In Munich, Constantin Carathéodory stated: “It is only by illuminating him
from all angles that one can come to understand his significance.”208

Figure 41: Felix Klein, a drawing by Leonard Nelson

[Hillebrand].

208 CARATHÉODORY 1925, p. 2.

 10 CONCLUDING REMARKS
I wish to quote Cantor, who once said: “The essence of science lies in its freedom,” that is,
mathematics can deal with anything it desires, as long as it draws only correct conclusions
from premises. While I theoretically accept Cantor’s sentence, I add a practical restriction,
which seems to me essential, namely that everyone who has freedom also has responsibility. I
do not want, therefore, to plead for an absolute arbitrariness in the construction of mathemati-
cal ideas, but I do want to recommend to everyone that they keep in mind the whole of
science.1

Felix Klein extended Georg Cantor’s maxim, which in its original form pertained
only to mathematics,2 to science as a whole. Klein’s sense of responsibility for
mathematics and its broad range of application may very well have led to his in-
clusion, on June 7, 1923, into the Order Pour le Mérite für Wissenschaften und
Künste along with Albert Einstein, the writer Gerhart Hauptmann, the sculptor
Hugo Lederer, and the painter Max Liebermann.3 The Weimar Constitution of
1919 had banned all Orders, among them the military class of this Prussian Order
of merit, the history of which dates back to 1667. The peace class of this Order,
however, which had been introduced in 1842 at the suggestion of Alexander von
Humboldt, became, since the 1920s, a self-supportive “loose association of emi-
nent scholars and artists,” and it still exists today. Before Klein, the following
mathematicians had been made members of the peace class (when it was still a
distinction conferred by the Prussian state): Gauss (1842), Jacobi (1842), Cauchy
(1849), Poncelet (1863), Weierstrass (1875), Hermite (1878), G.G. Stokes (1879),
Carl Neumann (1897), Luigi Cremona (1902), and Ludwig Sylow (1904).
Even though outstanding scholars were and continue to be responsible for ad-
vancing mathematical knowledge, such people do not act in isolation but rather
within a certain framework with given conditions. In their remarks about the
history of science in Plücker’s obituary (see Section 8.3.1), Clebsch and Klein
made it clear that it is necessary to take these conditions and circumstances into
account when evaluating and classifying the achievements of mathematicians.
In what follows, I will revisit the thesis formulated in my introduction
concerning the continuity of Klein’s activity, and I will take another look at the
other questions that guided my research (10.1). In addition, I will also outline the
extent to which Klein can be regarded as a pioneering figure (10.2).

1 KLEIN 2016 [31928], p. 170.

2 See Georg Cantor, “Ueber unendliche, lineare Punktmannichfaltigkeiten, 5,” Math. Ann. 21
(1883), pp. 545–91, at p. 564: “The essence of mathematics lies precisely in its freedom.”
This translation is from EWALD 1996, p. 896. See also SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2016b, p. 230.
3 See Orden Pour le Mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste, Die Mitglieder des Ordens: Zwei-
ter Band, 1882–1952 (Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1978), p. 310; and FUHRMANN 1992.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 569

R. Tobies, Felix Klein, Vita Mathematica 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75785-4_10
570 10 Concluding Remarks

10.1 A SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

The sources that I have analyzed confirm the thesis that Klein’s career path was
characterized much more by continuity than discontinuity. Such continuity is evi-
dent in his “universal” view of mathematics and its applications, his creation of
effective organizational conditions for mathematical activity, and his focus on
mathematical instruction in schools. The way in which he managed his health
problems also remained remarkably consistent.

On the Continuity of Klein’s Field of Research

Klein recognized early on that it would be insufficient to focus his research on

geometry alone and that he would have to expand his interests to include other
areas and applications. His wide-ranging perspective, which he acquired from
Plücker and Clebsch, was evident from early on, for instance in his application to
supplement the mathematics and physics collection of the Erlangen University
Library in November of 1872 (see Appendix 2). After meeting the Scottish ma-
thematical physicist Peter Guthrie Tait, moreover, Klein wrote the following to
Sophus Lie on September 14, 1873:
Of the mathematicians known outside of England, I have so far only seen Tait from Edin-
burgh. He espouses a research direction that seems to be overpowering in England and threa-
tens to become the only approach in the near future – the direction that appreciates mathema-
tical research only to the extent that it might lead to direct applications. […] Remarkably,
Cayley is respected very little by this group. […] When I expressed a different opinion, Tait
replied with the question: “What good are the 27 lines of the F3 [cubic surface]?” You will
perhaps be even more irritated by such a view than I am. It made an impression on me in the
sense that I would like to discuss some example of its applications later on in order to de-
monstrate to people that we really are much better at mathematics than they are – and this is
aside from the fact that I am interested in physics as well as mathematics. Above all, how-
ever, I am astonished by this opposition that I am encountering here. In Germany, I am ac-
customed to a completely different type of opposition, namely that between geometricians
and the function-theoretical school, which, whenever possible, attempts to deny that we are
mathematicians at all. Here in England, we are regarded as the genuine mathematicians, but
for that very reason we are also regarded as being superfluous.4

Klein’s impulse to balance out opposite views and to integrate new research areas
into his arsenal of methods led him to function theory, both to the geometric and
physical approach taken by Riemann and to the analytical methods used by
Weierstrass and his students (see Section 5.5.2).
At the same time, Klein delved more and more into applied fields – without
setting aside his pure mathematical research. In his inaugural address at the Uni-
versity of Erlangen in 1872 (see Section 3.2), Klein admittedly expressed the

4 [Oslo] A letter from Klein to Lie dated September 14, 1873. Regarding the twenty-seven lines
of the cubic surface, see Fig. 11 in Section 2.8.2, and Section 6.3.1.
 10.1 A Summary of Findings 571

opinion that technical applications were outside the purview of academic mathe-
matics, but his mind changed when he encountered engineers and scientists con-
ducting research at the Technische Hochschule in Munich (see Section 4.3.1),
where he was employed from 1875 to 1880. This is reflected in his 1880 inaugural
address in Leipzig, in which he emphasized the “universal applicability” of
mathematics (see 5.1). He declared that the applications of mathematics to tech-
nology were urgently needed at a time when such applications were still largely
regarded as “dirty” (schmutzige) mathematics by the German mathematical com-
munity. As early as 1881 in Leipzig, he had formulated a research program for
mechanics and mathematical physics (see 5.5). He was briefly distracted from this
program by his intensive discussion with Poincaré (see 5.5.3 to 5.5.5).
His 1888 memorandum to the Prussian Ministry of Culture (see Section 6.4.2)
and his many other activities, articles, speeches, and lectures (especially during
his first trip to the United States in 1893; see Section 7.4.1) evidence his broad,
Gauss-oriented program. The year 1895, when Hilbert began his professorship in
Göttingen – at Klein’s instigation – did not interrupt or deeply change his
program,5 given that he had begun to pursue his all-embracing goals before this
time. Klein himself regarded 1893 as a special year in which he increasingly
succeeded in implementing his program (see Chapter 7 and p. 546), which had
long been in the works, in Göttingen. With his own program (Klein used the term
“program” excessively) and with the appointment of Hilbert, Klein strove to
develop mathematics and its applications in a universal way. Klein regarded
Hilbert as his scientific descendant – trained by Hurwitz and Lindemann. Klein
had praised Hilbert as “the rising man” (see Sections 6.3.7.3 and 7.9), who, like
himself, “favored unified, holistic approaches,” as David Rowe succinctly put it.6
Klein’s aforementioned interlude with uniformization theory and his ex-
changes with Poincaré came at a time when he thought that he had already handed
over this research domain to Hurwitz (see 5.5). Only in retrospect did Klein
(rightly) consider his results in this area the absolute high point of his research. He
was especially pleased that his original idea of proof (by continuity) for the
uniformization theorems eventually proved to be effective (see 5.5.4.4 and 8.2.1).
There were some previous highlights, however, that Klein described as his
“peak,” and there were some later ones as well. So far, there has been little discus-
sion of the fact that Klein’s book on the icosahedron culminates in his own proof
of one of Kronecker’s theorems.7 Kronecker himself had yet to find a valid proof
for it, and Klein rejoiced in November of 1876 (and even later) at the results that
he had achieved (see Sections 4.2.1 and 5.5.6). During the period when his re-
search concentrated mainly on applied mathematics, he did not neglect pure ma-

5 On the presumed change in Klein’s undertakings in 1895, see ROWE 2019c.

6 ROWE 1997.
7 KLEIN 1884. The English translation of this book, which was first published in 1888, has been
reprinted as recently as 2019.
572 10 Concluding Remarks

thematics (see Section 8.2.1). He continued, for example, to carry out his work on
automorphic functions with Fricke, Hilbert, Minkowski, Koebe, and Brouwer.
The emphasis of Klein’s activity did shift over the years, yet this shift was not
qualitative but quantitative – also toward the writing of (more) monographs.
When he decided to summarize his results in monographs, however, this was not a
fallback solution due to health problems – as one repeatedly reads. Rather, Klein
was following the French example of publishing books, which he had already un-
derscored in his inaugural address in Leipzig in 1880 (see 5.1). The manuscript of
his first monograph, Ueber Riemann’s Theorie der algebraischen Funktionen,8 in
which he first described the “Klein bottle,” was completed in October of 1881,
before he studied Poincaré’s work in greater depth (see 5.5.1.2). He also wrote his
second monograph (on the icosahedron) on his own; and for his later books he
sought and found collaborators. It is true that Klein’s students eventually worked
out many of his ideas, but this cannot be described as a radical change. Klein
passed along his bright ideas to students from early on in his career, even while he
was still a Privatdozent.9 The fact of the matter was that, over time, he had more
and more students and a growing staff as well.
Klein’s way of writing mathematics remained largely consistent. He explained
mathematics with a rich vocabulary, and from early on he preferred the French
manner of writing at the time (see Section 2.6.3). He wanted his findings to be
understood by everyone – not just by specialists in a given area. Thus he later re-
garded symbolic logic’s “banishment of common language” and Russell and
Whitehead’s “dispute over the finite number of words” as “grossly one-sided ap-
proaches” that have “lost sight of the overall purpose of mathematics.”10 Never-
theless, Klein would eventually attempt to delve into all new areas of research and
even to promote those areas that were further away from his own (such as Ed-
mund Landau’s analytic number theory; see Section 8.2.2).

Creating Favorable Conditions for Good Scientific Work

Even as a young man, Klein felt responsible for this. He contributed to review
journals, including the Bulletin des sciences mathématiques et astronomiques in
France and the Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik in Germany (see
Sections 2.6.1 and 2.8.3.4). Since his first professorship, Klein cared deeply about
the holdings of the mathematical library (see Appendix 2). In order to increase the
library’s holdings of international literature, he organized an exchange of publica-
tions between the Societas Physico-Medica Erlangensis and British societies (see

8 KLEIN 1882. The English translation appeared in 1893 (see also Fig. 25).
9 On his first doctoral students J. Diekmann and F. Lindemann, see p. 107 and p. 115.
10 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22A, fol. 74a (Klein’s notes from 1915). See Bertrand Russell and
Alfred North Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1910–13).
 10.1 A Summary of Findings 573

Section 3.3), whereas his later colleagues eschewed any efforts of this sort (see
Section 5.7.3).11 Even before Klein became an editor of Mathematische Annalen,
he had established an exchange between this journal and Darboux’s Bulletin (see
Section 2.4.2). Klein also fostered academic interaction with Eastern Europe (see
Section 5.4.2.5). His sense of responsibility for the state of the mathematics lib-
rary in Göttingen did not end with his retirement, as is evident in a letter from
Edmund Landau to the Ministry of Culture (see the introduction to Chapter 9).

Focusing on Problems of Mathematical Instruction at Schools

Klein did not wait to direct his attention to this issue until the leaders of industry
began to call for educational reforms in science and mathematics. As early as his
doctoral examination from 1868, he made a statement about changes that ought to
be made in the mathematical curriculum of secondary schools (see Section 2.3.4).
In a letter to Gaston Darboux in 1872, Klein expressed his opinion about this, and
he used his inaugural addresses as a professor (both in 1872 in Bavaria, and 1880
in Saxony) to stress this issue as well. In the spring of 1893, Klein himself visited
secondary schools in order to learn which topics might be useful for advanced
continuing education courses, which he first began to organize for Prussian tea-
chers of mathematics in 1892 (see Section 7.3).
During the later stages of the German Monarchy, Klein became a driving
force behind new educational reforms. This had international effects. He was not
only elected chairman of the first International Commission on Mathematical In-
struction; he also became a model for people who instigated similar developments
in other countries. For example, Tsuruichi Hayashi, the Japanese translator of
Klein’s book Famous Problems of Elementary Geometry,12 was even referred to
in his homeland as the “Felix Klein of Japan” (see 7.3 and 8.3.4).
At the beginning of the Weimar Republic, Klein took steps to influence new
developments in educational reform (see 9.3.2). With respect to educational poli-
cy in Germany, Klein’s activity was consistent regardless of historical upheavals.

Klein’s Handling of His Health Problems

His illness in the fall of 1882 – often discussed, also by Klein himself, in the con-
text of his correspondence with Poincaré – should not be described as a “mental
collapse” or as a case of “lethargy and depression.”13 This would imply that Klein

11 Klein established mathematics as one of the Societas Physico-Medica Erlangensis’s official

fields of interest (see the introduction to Chapter 3), and he was the driving force behind the
reorganization of the academies of sciences in Leipzig and Göttingen (see 5.7.3 and 6.4.3).
12 KLEIN 1895b.
13 Quotation from PARSHALL/ROWE 1994, p. 186.
574 10 Concluding Remarks

had lost his inner drive to go on working, but he remained mathematically active
(see esp. Section 5.5.2.3). The sources reveal that he suffered from overwork,
asthma, and digestive problems (see 5.3.1). This pattern of symptoms accompa-
nied Klein both before and after this particular point in time. His way of coping
with his health problems was the same whenever they flared up: he would reduce
the number of lecture courses that he had to teach while continuing to focus on his
research seminars and other projects (see 4.4, 5.3.1, and 8.5.1). In 1912, a spa
doctor ultimately diagnosed him as having neurasthenia – chronic exhaustion – on
account of “overexertion in his profession” (see Appendix 8). Klein decided to
retire, but he remained active as an emeritus professor.
Klein regularly expressed self-doubt about whether he could accomplish his
broad research program and do justice to the high scientific demands that he made
on himself. In 1892, when he complained to Paul Gordan that “I have lost the
strength to delve into particular mathematical problems because of all the general
issues that I have in mind,” Gordan consoled him:
So it is for everyone who compares his meager human achievements with the ideal. Now,
your ideal is greater than that of other people, and thus this rift is more gaping. […] You are
deeply immersed in a large part of mathematics, more deeply than most people; you see the
threads that connect the different domains, and you want to create a unified form of mathe-
matical thinking. That is too difficult for one person. You must be satisfied with the testimony
of your peers that you are an extremely useful member of the scholarly world who breathes
life into things when the strength of others is already waning.14

A Summary of the Aspects that Guided the Research for the Present Biography

Regarding the first of these aspects, which was how Klein was able to become an
internationally renowned mathematician, it should be stressed that Klein already
showed himself to be a citizen of the world at the young age of twenty-three. He
stated then that “mathematics is a thoroughly international science and that the
progress of the productive mathematician is considerably hindered if he does not
have a universal overview of the findings of others at the same time” (see Appen-
dix 2). In this respect, Klein followed Clebsch’s program of “uniting people and
research areas” (see Section 2.4.1) and his approach differed from that of more
narrowly oriented mathematicians (see Section 5.5.2.4). Klein created connections
between different areas of mathematics (geometry, algebra, function theory, num-
ber theory), and he also made connections between mathematics and its neigh-
boring disciplines (applications, philosophy, history, psychology, education). He
oriented himself toward international developments, and he found numerous like-
minded people in Germany and abroad to follow his visions.

14 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9: 469 (a letter from Gordan to Klein dated October 14, 1892). For
Klein’s letter to Gordan, which is dated October 8, 1892, see ibid., 12: 508.
 10.1 A Summary of Findings 575

Through Plücker and Clebsch, Klein had been integrated into the international
research community at an early stage, and he had maintained and strengthened his
contacts through his repeated trips to France, Great Britain, Italy, the United Sta-
tes, and elsewhere (see Sections 2.6, 3.3, 3.4, 6.3.7.1, 7.4, and 7.8). On the basis
of his edition of Plücker’s work on line geometry,15 Gaston Darboux had reached
out to the twenty-year-old Klein as early as March of 1870, which was even be-
fore Klein traveled to Paris for the first time. Beginning in 1880, Darboux sent a
string of young French mathematicians to study with Klein. Klein also developed
close relations with numerous British mathematicians (Cayley, Sylvester, Green-
hill, Forsyth, among others) and also with the algebraic-geometric school in Italy
(see 3.3 and 3.4). Francesco Brioschi was instrumental in instigating Klein’s first
Italian publication: “Sull’equazione dell’icosaedro nella risoluzione delle equa-
zioni del quinto grado” (1877). In 1877, the Reale Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e
Lettere in Milan became the first foreign academy to elect Klein as a member.
Young Italian mathematicians had been coming to study under him since 1878; he
benefited from their results, which he disseminated in the proceedings of various
academies and in Mathematische Annalen (see 3.4 and 4.2.1). In the interest of the
latter journal, whose program he defined for decades, Klein deliberately expanded
his contacts to Eastern Europe as well (see 2.4.2, 5.4.2.5, and 6.3.7.1).
Klein’s lecture courses and research seminars became a point of attraction.
Already during Klein’s time in Erlangen, Sophus Lie recommended that Scandi-
navian mathematicians should not go to Berlin but rather to Klein in Erlangen,
where their research would be better supported. Enthusiastic reports by the likes
of Irving W. Stringham (USA), Poul Heegaard (Denmark), and Wilhelm Wir-
tinger (Austria) indicate that Klein went out of his way to create a productive
work environment. Word spread beyond Germany’s borders that Klein was able
to recognize talent, steer it in the right direction, and publish the results quickly.
In this way, he created an international network that extended as far as Japan and
India.16 The remarkable scope of this network is clear from the large number of
foreign researchers whom Klein was able to recruit as contributors to the
ENCYKLOPÄDIE (see the Index of Names at the end of this book) and as partici-
pants in the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction, not to men-
tion the number of foreign mathematicians who donated money to entice Max
Liebermann to paint Klein’s portrait (see Section 8.5.2 and Appendix 10).

Klein’s influential and inspirational effect on people was based on his col-
laborative way of working, which brings us to the second aspect that guided my
research. The prominent Berlin mathematician Leopold Kronecker believed that
mathematicians did not need to form a (scientific) school and that collaborative

15 PLÜCKER 1869.
16 In 1910, Klein became an honorary member of the Calcutta Mathematical Society ([UBG]
Cod. MS. F. Klein 114: 41).
576 10 Concluding Remarks

work would hinder progress in the field.17 Klein, in contrast, aspired to reproduce
Clebsch’s model and thus to create “a school of geometric production.” As a
young researcher, Klein spoke about his “social urge to have an effect on others”
(see 2.8.3.4 and 3.1.2). His general way of working was based on his approach to
mathematical research, which required cooperation. Perpetually analyzing him-
self, the twenty-two-year-old Klein wrote to Max Noether:
Incidentally, the longer I am engaged in mathematics, the more I feel that I am not very well
suited to conduct such fundamental investigations. I like to imagine science as a line that
connects two points, and it is at these points where the actual scientific work is going on. The
one point leads to expanding development [ausbreitende Entwicklung], the other to funda-
mental deepening [principielle Vertiefung]. I am among the workers at the first point.18

Klein surveyed and systematized developments in mathematics, but he needed

discussion partners in order to dig deeper into the state of research and to add
greater depth to his own many ideas: “If only I had someone here with whom I
could talk reasonably about things. I understand matters very well when I can
question someone about them, but hardly at all when I am staring at the printed
material in front of me.” He wrote these words to Max Noether on June 30,
1885.19 Klein tested out as many colleagues and students as possible for their po-
tential as collaborators. Whichever partner he preferred to work with at any given
phase of his career – male or female (Emmy Noether) – depended on his specific
research area, book project, or other activity at the time in question. From a re-
search perspective, his most important cooperation partners were Sophus Lie, Paul
Gordan, and Adolf Hurwitz, but there were many other collaborators, as I have
shown throughout these pages. The main features of Klein’s collaborative ap-
proach warrant further emphasis and will be summarized below.
Klein inspired talented young researchers to achieve new results. He super-
vised his first doctoral student while he was still a Privatdozent in Göttingen (see
Section 2.8.2). During his brief time in Erlangen as a young professor, he super-
vised six doctoral theses and one Habilitation thesis. The Habilitation candidate,
Aurel Voss, described how well Klein conveyed his ideas and how he instinc-
tively knew how to steer his students in the direction that best suited them (see
3.1.2). This proved to be a constant feature of Klein’s career as a teacher, as is
clear from the way he guided his later students Luigi Bianchi and Hurwitz (see
4.2.4.2). Klein’s “intellectual hegemony,” as Moritz Epple has called it (see
6.3.2), led not only to his supervision of more than fifty doctoral students,20 two of
whom were women (Grace Chisholm and Mary F. Winston). He also succeeded in
instilling new self-confidence in gifted but “discouraged” mathematicians who
had earned their doctoral degrees elsewhere. Examples include Georg Pick (see
Section 5.5.7.2) and Wilhelm Wirtinger, the latter of whom remarked:

17 See Kronecker’s comments in Jahresbericht der DMV 1 (1892) II, p. 24.

18 [UBG] Cod MS. F. Klein 12: 534 (Klein to Max Noether, March 12, 1871).
19 Ibid., 12: 605 (a letter from Klein to Max Noether dated June 30, 1885).
20 The list in KLEIN 1923 (GMA III), Appendix, pp. 11–13, is incomplete.
 10.1 A Summary of Findings 577

Forgive me for taking a few minutes of your time at the beginning of the New Year to thank
you yet again for so much scientific inspiration and for much more, namely for restoring my
confidence, my pleasure in working, and my self-regard. And if I may also express one wish,
it is to promote, among the widest circles, the notion that the sciences exist to inform and
support one another and should not be confined within proud, rigid, unapproachable, and of-
ten useless systems.21

Klein guided and delegated affairs, and such efforts pertained to his students, his
own research and book projects, curriculum planning, academic committees, etc.:
“Klein has to manage absolutely everything and everybody,” in the (slightly dis-
approving) words of Otto Hölder (see Section 6.2.2). Wirtinger, who worked as an
editor on the second volume of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (on analysis), referred to Klein
as the “onrushing field marshal” of this project (see Section 7.8). In 1911, Anna
Klein wrote to her husband, who was then in a sanatorium, that he did not have to
give his blessing to everything that happens in Göttingen (see Section 8.5.1), but
Klein remained involved in many respects until 1924.
Whenever someone seemed unwilling to cooperate with Klein’s program,
such as the Siegmund Günther and Wilhelm Schüler in Bavaria or Hans Lorenz in
Göttingen,22 Klein could be quite stern. Only a few people – Otto Hölder, Eduard
Study,23 and Max Born, for instance – opposed Klein’s leadership (and usually
just temporarily). Hölder ultimately came around to recognize Klein’s professio-
nal competence, saw that he was “not vindictive,” and became involved in Klein’s
projects. Study benefited from a positive letter of recommendation that Klein
wrote in his support to the Prussian Ministry of Culture (see Section 5.4.1), and
Study’s donation to fund Max Liebermann’s portrait of Klein (see Appendix 10,
Fig. 43) could be interpreted as an acknowledgement of Klein’s assistance (and
perhaps even as an apology).
Klein’s interactions with most of his colleagues were characterized by his
diplomatic behavior. In this way, he differed from Hilbert, who was known to be
“impulsive.” A notable example of this was when Klein asked Hilbert to attend
the meetings of the Göttingen Academy (important for voting), but Hilbert refused
to participate as long as the reactionary Germanist Edward Schröder was a mem-
ber of the executive board in this organization (in a sense, Hilbert thereby ceded
the stage to Schröder).24 Klein had skillfully assembled and managed the interdis-
ciplinary editorial board of the journal Mathematische Annalen, and as late as

21 [UBG] Cod MS. F. Klein 12: 365 (Wirtinger to Klein, December 30, 1889).
22 Lorenz, who was Prandtl’s predecessor in Göttingen, was hired away by the Technische
Schule in Danzig (see Section 8.1).
23 On Eduard Study, see in particular HARTWICH 2005.
24 Hilbert wrote to Klein on March 7, 1918: “I will not come to the Society of Sciences as long
as no one protests against the fact that a man like Schröder has a seat on the board” (FREI
1985, p. 144). E. Schröder, a prominent mediaevalist, was a member of the Alldeutsche Ver-
band, an association that pursued an aggressively nationalistic, militaristic, anti-Semitic, and
anti-feminist agenda. As early as 1909, Schröder had attempted to make it difficult for two of
Hilbert’s female Jewish students to obtain doctoral degrees. See KÖNIG/PRAUSS/TOBIES 2014.
578 10 Concluding Remarks

1920 he diversified it further by including Einstein and other theoretical physicists

(see Sections 2.4.2 and 9.2.2). Hilbert was unable to keep this editorial team to-
gether after Klein’s death.
Klein remained diplomatic even when his cooperation partners behaved inap-
propriately (as in the case of Sophus Lie; see 6.3.6) or adopted a backward-look-
ing attitude toward scientific progress. Klein had formed a sort of symbiosis with
Lie and Gordan. For a long time, that is, Klein edited mathematical articles for Lie
and Gordan, in the sense that he wrote down their (in part) orally communicated
results and shaped their ideas into a systematic form. Max Noether reported that
Gordan (like Lie) was “clumsy with the pen” (see 3.5). Later, Klein (together with
Adolph Mayer) arranged for Lie to be supported by Friedrich Engel – and Gordan
would later receive help from Max and Emmy Noether.
Klein had brought Gordan to Erlangen to work alongside him in 1874 (see
3.5) and benefited from his algebraic knowledge, especially his theory of invari-
ants of binary forms.25 However, when Gordan opposed Hilbert’s modern theory
of invariants, Klein took Hilbert’s side and encouraged him to break away from
the old Clebsch-Gordan approach to invariant theory (see 6.3.7.3). In 1894, when
Gordan, who was then the president of the German Mathematical Society, oppo-
sed adding Hilbert to the editorial board of Mathematische Annalen, Klein diplo-
matically waited and later pushed through with his decision. About a meeting that
took place in Vienna in 1894, Klein reported the following to Walther Dyck, who
had been a member of the journal’s editorial staff since 1888 (see 2.4.2 and 5.4.1):
Gordan is a peculiar man. In all seriousness, he had a discussion with Max Noether about the
question of whether the volume of the Annalen could be reduced by the a priori exclusion of
certain research areas, e.g. number theory! And yet I am convinced that number theory is the
very subject in which the greatest progress will be made in the near future! For some time, he
has probably believed that this is a sensible idea and that he is powerful enough to trim the
Annalen back to the standpoint of Clebsch’s school in the early 1870s! When I then spoke
with him in Vienna [in 1894] and described such tendencies as reactionary, he backed down
from this position.26

Whenever Klein recognized a new mathematical approach to be correct, he en-

dorsed it even despite the oppositional views of his collaborators, and yet he
maintained his friendship with them.
Klein and his best student and collaborator Adolf Hurwitz maintained a good
relationship (see Sections 4.2.4.2, 5.4.1, and 6.3.3), even though Klein had ranked
Hurwitz behind the “impulsive, red-bearded” Hilbert when the latter began to
outshine Hurwitz scientifically (see Sections 6.3.7.3, 7.9, and Appendix 6). As an
important source of creative support, Hurwitz had contributed substantially to the
theoretical foundations of Klein’s monographs on elliptic and automorphic functi-

25 Klein included long appreciations of Gordan’s work in his own collected treatises; see KLEIN
1922 (GMA II), pp. 255–61, 380–84, 426–38.
26 [BStBibl] A letter from Klein to Dyck dated August 12, 1894.
 10.1 A Summary of Findings 579

ons.27 Klein did not, however, want to squander Hurwitz’s creative mind on the
grunt work of writing these books (see Section 5.5.7.2). As late as 1918, Klein
still trusted and relied on Hurwitz’s judgment, as is clear from the following letter:
Thanks to a fund established by my friends, now I really can produce an edition of my old
works. I have been busy making preparations for this for some time by introducing the mate-
rial to the assistant I have recruited, Mr. Alexander Ostrowski from Kiev. We will furnish the
edition with more or less detailed explanations. I would like to ask you in advance whether
you might allow me to send you proofs of the papers related to your field of work, with the
request that you might check the correctness and completeness of my explanatory commen-
tary.
Best wishes from my house to yours, K.28

Hurwitz predeceased his doctoral supervisor and thus could not contribute.
While it is true that Henri Poincaré did not become one of Klein’s mathe-
matical collaborators (unlike so many Italian mathematicians, for instance) but
rather a rival, this was not due to Klein but rather to the nationalistic animosities
that had been stirred up by his French colleagues (see 5.5.3.2). This did nothing to
prevent Klein from evaluating Poincaré’s achievements as outstanding and from
calling him, among other things, “the French genius,” a “singular phenomenon,”
and a “modern Cauchy.”29 In coordination with Darboux, Klein proposed that
Poincaré should be named the first winner of the János Bolyai Prize in 1905 (see
5.4.2.4). In this context, Klein arranged, in 1905 and 1906, for the Göttingen Ma-
thematical Society to host lectures on a number of Poincaré’s works.30
Poincaré was twice an invited guest in Göttingen, in June of 1895 (see Section
7.2) and in April of 1909 – when Hilbert, in Poincaré’s presence, also gave a
speech on the occasion of Klein’s sixtieth birthday.31 In 1910, when the idea arose
in France to nominate Poincaré for the Nobel Prize, Klein abstained from voting.32
When Paul Appell and Gaston Darboux asked him, in a letter dated March 13,
1914, to serve on a committee intended to prepare a permanent tribute to Poin-
caré, Klein agreed immediately.33

27 KLEIN/FRICKE 2017 [1890/92]; FRICKE/KLEIN 2017 [1897/1912].

28 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 272 (a postcard from Klein to Hurwitz dated December 20, 1918).
29 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22A, fols. 76a, 77 (Klein’s notes in preparation for his historical
lectures, Nov. 23. 1915). See also KLEIN 1979 [1926], pp. 355–61; KLEIN 1927, pp. 68–69.
30 See Jahresbericht der DMV 14 (1905) V, p. 586; and 15 (1906) IV, pp. 153, 274.
31 Henri Poincaré visited Göttingen from April 22–28, 1909 to give a series of lectures. For the
titles of these lectures, see Jahresbericht der DMV 18 (1909) Abt. 2, pp. 78–79 (see also
Section 8.2.1). Klein wrote somewhat critically to Robert Fricke on May 15, 1909: “The
Poincaré days were quite satisfactory on a superficial level. On a deeper level, their returns
were lower, because Poincaré limited himself to discussing his latest papers, which only ela-
borate his older ideas. He refrained from highlighting general points and presented the details
to a rather uncomprehending audience. Poincaré is also very reserved in conversation. He
listens kindly to what he is told, but he replies very little” (quoted from [UA Braunschweig]).
32 [Paris] 82: Klein to Darboux, January 21, 1910.
33 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 369A (Appell and Darboux to Klein, March 13, 1914); [Paris]
83: Klein to Darboux, March 25, 1914.
580 10 Concluding Remarks

When David Hilbert (the second winner of the Bolyai Prize, likewise agreed
upon by Klein and Darboux), who was thirteen years younger than Klein, failed to
become the mathematical collaborator whom Klein had hoped to have a “rejuve-
nating effect” on own work (see 7.9), this was not Hilbert’s fault. Hilbert stood by
Klein to the end and cooperated with him in seminars and on other academic
matters. It was due to Klein himself, who had been somewhat slow to accept the
turn toward the new conceptual mathematics and its abstract methods (see 8.2.2,
8.3.2). When Hilbert, with Minkowski’s encouragement, began to divert more of
his attention to mathematical physics, Klein rejoiced and felt that one of the im-
portant goals of his wide-ranging Gaussian program had been achieved (8.2.4).
The twenty-three unsolved mathematical problems that Hilbert presented at
the second International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris in 1900 would go
on to influence mathematics considerably. Klein accepted this without any fee-
lings of envy. David Hilbert became, in Hermann Minkowski’s words, the “di-
rector general” of mathematical research.34
A document from early 1916 from Klein’s estate reveals that, when he was
working on his overview of nineteenth-century mathematics, he wondered how he
might appropriately acknowledge Hilbert’s contributions. Klein revisited Hilbert’s
famous talk and wrote: “How shall I commemorate these ‘problems’ in my re-
port? Perhaps as the conclusion (of the century)? As evidence that mathematics is
not dead.”35 He outlined the problems, adding notes of his own (in italics below):
Interplay between thinking and experience. Strictness is simplicity.
Clear axiomatization in each case!
1. Cardinality of the continuum.36
2. The inconsistency of arithmetic.
Merely postulated. Mathematically, that which is consistent exists.
3. Volume equality of two tetrahedra.
4. The straight line as the shortest connecting line. Minkowski’s geometry.
5. Lie groups without differentiability. Functional equations in general.
6. Axioms of physics. Probability theory. Mechanics.
7. The irrationality (etc.) of certain numbers.
8. Prime number problems.
9. The most general laws of reciprocity.
10. The solvability of Diophantine equations.
11. Quadratic forms with algebraic numerical coefficients.
12. Kronecker’s theorem on Abelian fields arbitrarily extended.
This is what I need first of all! Achieved for root functions.
Function-theoretical analogies.
None of [Hilbert’s] numerous students has understood this. See Fueter […].37
13. Seventh-degree equations cannot be solved nomographically.

34 See MINKOWSKI 1973, p. 108.

35 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22A, fols. 83–83v (Klein’s notes, February 4, 1916).
36 Klein grouped together problems 1 through 6 as “foundations.”
37 The Swiss Rudolf Fueter dealt with this topic in his dissertation – “Der Klassenkörper der
quadratischen Körper und die komplexe Multiplikation” [The Class Field of Quadratic Fields
and Complex Multiplication] (1903, supervised by Hilbert) – and in later works as well.
 10.1 A Summary of Findings 581

14. The finiteness of systems of forms.

15. Schubert’s enumerative calculus.
16. The topology of curves and surfaces.
17. Definite forms and squares.
18. Tiling space by fundamental regions.
[p. 286 Analytical functions, not other classes of functions].38
19. The analytic nature of regular variational problems.
20. The general boundary-value problem.
21. Linear differential equations with a prescribed monodromy group.
22. Uniformization of analytic relations.
23. Further development of the calculus of variations.
(Only here individual explanations).
Mathematics as a unified whole!39

Hilbert maintained the role of “director general” in these topics of research, while
Klein succeeded in formulating important unsolved problems in some areas of
applied mathematics: in fluid dynamics (before he brought Ludwig Prandtl to
Göttingen), the statics of structures, the theory of friction, and the special theory
of relativity (see 8.2.4). After the general theory of relativity had been worked out
in 1915, Klein made some acknowledged contributions to it, mainly in coopera-
tion with Emmy Noether (see Section 9.2.2).

Regarding the third aspect that guided my research – Klein’s political stance
– it was relevant to consider his roles as a scientific organizer and education
policy-maker. At the same time, it was also necessary to examine his views on
general political issues and his political attitude during times of war.
The issues of scientific organization and educational policy had been on
Klein’s agenda long before Hilbert arrived in Göttingen in 1895. Even after Klein
had retired, Hilbert left these matters in his hands, so that Abraham Fraenkel, as I
have mentioned on more than one occasion, dubbed Klein the “foreign minister”
of German mathematics. Working as just such a “foreign minister,” Klein created
an alliance among science, the state, and industry that had previously never ex-
isted at German universities. That is, in the interest of mathematics, science, and
technology, Klein cooperated not only with government officials but also with
industrialists. Friedrich Althoff, the dominant official at the Prussian Ministry of
Culture (who outlived several ministers and had the ear of the emperor), turned to
Klein as his preferred advisor for hiring decisions in mathematics and for other
matters, especially after Klein had turned down an offer to work at Yale Univer-
sity in 1896. Althoff created a science policy based on international understan-
ding, and Klein played a part in this. To support Althoff’s goals, he participated in
numerous international projects, including the establishment of the Internationale
Wochenschrift für Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik – a publication whose edito-

38 The page number here (p. 286) refers to Hilbert’s article in the Göttinger Nachrichten
(HILBERT 1900). Here, in his eighteenth problem, Hilbert had cited FRICKE/KLEIN 1897.
39 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 22A, fols. 83–83v (Klein’s notes, February 4, 1916). For the
German original, see TOBIES 2019b, pp. 487–88.
582 10 Concluding Remarks

rial board also included Henri Poincaré and H.A. Lorentz. Klein’s initiative to
create a Göttingen Institute for Foreigners (Göttinger Institut für Ausländer),
which he accomplished in coordination with Althoff and with funding from the
industrial donor Henry Theodore Böttinger (who had been raised in England), can
also be seen in this context (see Section 8.4).
It was this same Böttinger who, with his fortune earned in the German dye in-
dustry, supported Klein’s applications-oriented initiatives in Göttingen and even
served as the chairman of the Göttingen Association for the Promotion of Applied
Physics and Mathematics (see 7.7 and 8.1.1). What was special about this asso-
ciation was that it functioned without a formal statute and that the industrialists –
around fifty of them, from all of Germany – donated money not only to support
specific research projects at the University of Göttingen but also mathematical
and scientific educational reforms and specific educational institutions. Klein
regretted that the Helmholtz Society, which succeeded the Göttingen Association
in 1920, abandoned this commitment to educational projects (see 9.4.2).
In reference to the Göttingen Association, the theoretical physicist and Nobel
laureate Max Born later commended Klein’s “wise counsel,” which “had been of
such great advantage” to the University of Göttingen.40 The standard by which
Klein measured any undertaking was the extent to which it might serve the inter-
ests of mathematics, its applications, and education. Whenever he felt that the
position of mathematics was in danger, he would present all conceivable argu-
ments (historical as well as military arguments) in its favor. Before, during, and
after the First World War, he assembled and mobilized forces in order improve
mathematical and scientific education and to ward off those who sought to do it
harm (see Sections 8.3.4, 9.1.2, and 9.3). Lewis Pyenson has described Klein’s
initiatives as “a carefully constructed programme to preserve the traditional
prerogatives of pure mathematics in a material-industrial age.”41 Of course, Klein
worked to promote both pure and applied mathematics.
In all of his collaborations, including those with government officials and in-
dustrialists, Klein’s activity adhered to the concept of appropriately using every
resource for the development of mathematics (its applications and instruction
included) (see Section 1.2). As one of Klein’s long-term collaborators on educati-
onal projects, Walther Lietzmann had the following impression of him:
In the image that he created of someone, Klein understood how to separate the essential from
the inessential (that is, the factors unrelated to this person’s ability to do a certain task). He
was able to ignore things […] such as vanity, boastfulness, opportunism, and even more so
political, national, racial, and religious differences. As Hilbert stated in the eulogy which he
gave at the Göttingen Mathematical Society on the day after Klein’s death, the secret to his
success lay in his incorruptible objectivity.42

40 BORN 1978, p. 208.

41 PYENSON 1979.
42 LIETZMANN 1925, p. 259. For Hilbert’s eulogy, see Appendix 12.
 10.1 A Summary of Findings 583

Regarding his general political position, Felix Klein has often been referred to as
a nationalist. Samuel Patterson, for instance, has called him a cosmopolitan and a
nationalist,43 while David E. Rowe has recently described him as “an ardent natio-
nalist.”44 These rather strongly worded categorizations, however, do not stand up
to a more nuanced analysis.
During his first stay in Berlin (1869/70) and also on many later occasions,
Klein criticized nationalistically oriented Germans who made condescending
remarks about foreign science and scientists (see Sections 2.5.2 and 5.5.2.4). After
studying in Paris with Sophus Lie in the spring and summer of 1870, Klein served
for several weeks as a paramedic during the Franco-Prussian War. While doing
so, he continued to work on mathematics (see 2.7.1). Even before the peace treaty
was signed, moreover, Klein reestablished contact with Gaston Darboux. Whereas
Darboux responded positively to Klein’s overtures, other French (Camille Jordan,
for instance) and German scientists maintained strong nationalistic positions (see
2.7.1). In 1870, Jordan himself annulled his membership in the Royal Society of
Sciences (academy) in Göttingen. During the First World War, Felix Klein in
Göttingen and Max Planck in Berlin ensured that the French members of the
academies there would not be expelled. Émile Picard left the Göttingen Royal
Society (as Jordan once had) of his own volition (see 9.1.1). Picard was instru-
mental in banning German scholars from the Académie des Sciences in Paris. His
main reason for doing so was to punish those who had signed the so-called appeal
“To the Civilized World.” The appearance of Klein’s signature on this much-dis-
cussed document, however, should not be considered in isolation.
As of 1911, Anna Klein’s letters to her husband begin to mention the “unrest
in the world” and the “cries for war.”45 Felix Klein had clearly perceived the rise
of chauvinism, and in this respect it is remarkable that, as early as 1908, he expli-
citly opposed “national chauvinism” in an official document and called for some-
thing to be done about it (see Section 8.4). In doing so, he was in agreement with
the policy promoted by representatives in the Prussian Ministry of Culture.
Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War in August of 1914, Klein sub-
mitted an article to the Jahresbericht der DMV in which he emphasized the inter-
national character of mathematics and mentioned the international projects that
were in danger (see Section 9.1.1).
As Bernhard vom Brocke has already shown, older faculty members at Ger-
man universities were unable to evade the “campaign to mobilize morale on the
home front.”46 More than three thousand university instructors in Germany (inclu-
ding Hilbert and Klein) felt compelled to demonstrate their loyalty to the state in
declarations (see Section 9.1.1). There were several of such declarations, and Cor-
dula Tollmien has analyzed the extent to which Göttingen’s professors participa-

43 See PATTERSON 2016.

44 ROWE 2018a, p. 377.
45 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 10: 376 (Anna to Felix Klein, September 29, 1911).
46 BROCKE 1985.
584 10 Concluding Remarks

ted in them.47 Felix Klein, who remained a member of the Upper House of the
Prussian Parliament until the end of the German Empire in 1918 and was thus
more widely known, was the only mathematician asked (via telegram) to lend his
signature to the aforementioned appeal “To the Civilized World.” Tollmien’s re-
search makes it clear, however, that he had not seen the text and that he had nai-
vely assumed that the appeal was meant to calm the turbulence stirring abroad.
Little attention has been paid, until now, to the fact that Klein, in the midst of
the war in 1916, emphatically supported a parliamentary memorandum in favor of
expanding study-abroad programs. The aim of this initiative was to prevent future
international conflicts (see Section 9.1.2). Furthermore, it should be stressed that,
in 1917 and 1918, German journals published obituaries of the French mathemati-
cian Gaston Darboux, and these were written with Klein’s consent. The obituary
published by Aurel Voss in the Jahresbericht der DMV in 1918 was both longer
and more detailed than that published by Hilbert the year before (see 9.1.1).48
Despite what some authors have written, the sources do not support the image
of Klein as a professor who was predominantly “loyal to the emperor” (and this
initially surprised me as well). In several speeches given in the Upper House of
the Prussian Parliament, Klein vehemently argued on behalf of improving educa-
tion for all children (including those in kindergarten, elementary school, vocatio-
nal school, and schools for girls). He was inspired, among other things, by the
Perry movement and by books written by the mathematician and education refor-
mer Benchara Branford in Great Britain. Klein did not belong to any political
party. He judged parties according to their results and thus even acknowledged, on
occasion, the positive influence of the Social Democrats (see Section 8.3.4.1). He
did so as early as 1911, during the imperial era, and the Social Democratic Party
was hardly “loyal” to the emperor, even though it finally consented to his wartime
loans. It should be noted that, as a result of the approval of these loans, the Inde-
pendent Social Democratic Party of Germany (Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische
Partei Deutschlands = USPD) splintered off from the Social Democratic Party
and that this new party was joined by Emmy Noether and Leonard Nelson, whose
careers Klein helped to promote.49
After the end of the First World War, Klein immediately offered his support
to the new Prussian Ministry of Culture, which was led by Social Democrats (see
9.3.2). As the mathematician Kurt Otto Friedrichs reported, Klein deeply regretted
the assassination of the Jewish Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau in 1922, and
he feared for the prospects of the young republic.50 Klein also rejected the nation-
alism that flared up after the war, as is clear from his autobiographical sketch

47 See TOLLMIEN 1993.

48 See Jahresbericht der DMV 27 (1918) Abt. 1, pp. 196–217. In 1918, August Gutzmer, the
editor of the Jahresbericht der DMV and one of Klein’s close collaborators, also published a
profile of Klein, who served as an honorary chairman of the German Mathematical Society in
1918/19.
49 See TOBIES 2012, pp. 105–20.
50 See ROWE 2018a, pp. 376–77.
 10.2 A Pioneer 585

published in 1923: “The few foreigners who worked with us in Göttingen at that
time seemed to be a stimulating force in general; then there was no trace of the
nationalistic antagonism that is now so prevalent in the public sphere.”51
Together with former students and colleagues from abroad, Klein helped to
restore international relations after the war. To this end, he renewed contacts with
scholars around the world and he made sure that corresponding members were
elected to join the Göttingen Academy. The latter included W.F. Osgood and Da-
vid George Birkhoff in 1922, Guido Castelnuovo in 1923, and Luigi Bianchi in
1924 (see also Section 9.1.2 and Appendix 11).52
Klein’s tireless work ethic, which he had already internalized as a teenager
(see 2.1.1), remained with him until his dying day. Klein made reforms when
there was something to reform, and he also offered resistance when he deemed it
necessary. He passed on this trait (at least) to his daughter Elisabeth, who, in
1933, was demoted from her position as a school principal and had to transfer to
another school, as a teacher, on account of her opposition to the regime.53

10.2 A PIONEER

Felix Klein was someone who renewed, reconfigured, and reformed many aspects
of mathematics and the organization of mathematical research. Not restricted to
Germany, these efforts often had international effects. In what follows, I will once
again summarize the extent to which he was a pioneer or even a reformer of the
academic world.
Let us look first at the extent to which Klein can be regarded as a pioneer
from an international perspective. With respect to his mathematical research, it
must be emphasized that he was the first to rid non-Euclidean geometry of any
“mystical” connotations. He did so by combining it with Arthur Cayley’s metric
and von Staudt’s metric-free projective geometry (see 2.5.2; 2.5.3). Moreover,
Klein was the first to create a unified system to account for the various approaches
to geometry at the time. This he did by means of the group concept in his
Erlangen Program, which Richard Courant likened to the “ordering force” of the
periodic table of elements.54 It should stressed again that Klein used his intuitive
concept of the group (see 2.6.2.1) to classify other areas of mathematics (see 4.2),
and that he also identified applications in mechanics and the theory of relativity
(see 9.2.2).

51 KLEIN 1923a, p. 15.

52 Klein nominated Birkhoff to become a corresponding member at the suggestion of W.F. Os-
good. ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 152–53, letters from Osgood to Klein, December 31,
1921; February 5, 1922; June 17, 1922; and [AdW Göttingen] Pers. 20: 1088, on Castel-
nuovo, Pers. 20: 1105, on Bianchi. The latter two nominations are written in Klein’s hand).
53 On Elisabeth Staiger (née Klein), see TOBIES 1993a and 2008a.
54 COURANT 1926, p. 200. See also JI/PAPADOPOULOS 2015 and RATAJ/ZÄHLE 2019.
586 10 Concluding Remarks

Klein’s contemporaries likewise thought of him as a pioneer for his role in

bringing prominence to Riemann’s geometry program and physical-geometric
style of thinking. Addressing Klein in 1909, Hilbert stated: “Riemann was the
name that stood on your flag and under whose sign you have been victorious right
down the line – victorious against opponents because of the correctness of your
ideas […].”55 In Courant’s words, Klein was “the most passionate and successful
apostle of the Riemannian spirit.”56 When Riemann’s works were edited in Paris
(Œuvres mathématiques de Riemann, 1898), Hermite had arranged for Klein’s
famous talk on Riemann (KLEIN 1894, 22pp.) to be printed after his own five-page
Préface (see Section 7.4.4, and Fig. 35).
In 1893, Klein became the first (and, until 1950, only) foreign mathematician
to be awarded the De Morgan Medal by the London Mathematical Society. As
early as 1883, Klein became the first German mathematician to be offered a pro-
fessorship at the University of Oxford (to succeed Henry Smith), and in the same
year he received an offer – likewise as the first German mathematician – for a
professorship in the United Stated (to succeed James Joseph Sylvester at Johns
Hopkins; see Section 5.8.1). Even though Klein turned down these opportunities –
as he later did to a second offer from the United States (in 1896, he was offered a
professorship at Yale University) – they can be interpreted as indications of his
pioneering role.
Klein traveled across the Atlantic in 1893 and again in 1896. In the United
States, Klein not only disseminated mathematical results developed in Germany
and Europe – with the support of his many American former doctoral students.57
At the Mathematical Congress in Chicago, he also was the first to declare that
mathematicians should come together internationally (see Section 7.4.1). This
resulted in the International Congress of Mathematicians, which has been held
since 1897. With his trips to North America, Klein has also been regarded as a
trailblazer for establishing German-American professorial exchange programs.58
Klein’s efforts to reform mathematical education also led to international re-
cognition: at the fourth International Congress of Mathematicians, which took
place in Rome in 1908, he was named the first president of the International
Commission on Mathematical Instruction (ICMI), even though he was not even
present at the conference himself (see Section 8.3.4).
It was because of Klein’s strong backing that, for the first time, a foreign ma-
thematician was hired as a full professor at a German university: the Norwegian
Sophus Lie at the University of Leipzig (1886), the only Saxon university. The
extent to which this was unusual at the time is clear from the protests by many
German mathematicians, chief among them the prominent Berlin mathematician
Karl Weierstrass, whose (political) influence luckily did not extend as far as

55 Quoted from ROWE 2018a, p. 198 (German original in TOBIES 2019b, p. 514).
56 COURANT 1926, p. 202.
57 See, in particular, PARSHALL/ROWE 1994.
58 See BROCKE 1981.
 10.2 A Pioneer 587

Saxony (see Section 5.8.3). In 1880, Klein had received the first professorship at a
German university devoted exclusively to geometry (this was in Leipzig).59 In
Sophus Lie, Klein was able to find a worthy successor for this position (at that
time, it was possible for Klein himself to serve on the committee appointed to hire
his own replacement, and his views swayed the committee’s decisions).
In 1913, when Klein was (finally) elected as a corresponding member of the
Academy of Sciences in Berlin, the letter of nomination stated that he was “one of
the few mathematicians still able to survey the whole of mathematics” (see Ap-
pendix 9). The scientists who supported his election included not only Friedrich
Schottky and Max Planck, with whom Klein was on good terms, but also
Hermann Amandus Schwarz and Georg Frobenius, with whom Klein had carried
out a number of disputes. From today’s perspective, we can probably call Klein,
Hilbert, and Poincaré the last of the great “generalists” working in mathematics.
Thanks to Klein, the following research areas were established at a German
university for the first time:
First: descriptive geometry and applied mathematics. Klein introduced the
field of descriptive geometry (sometimes called constructive geometry) – which
had originated as part of engineering education – at the University of Erlangen in
1874,60 at the University of Leipzig in 1881 (see 5.3.1), and at the University of
Göttingen in 1888 (see 6.2.3). This discipline was closely related to kinematics
and graphical statics. In 1898, Klein integrated these areas into a new teaching
qualification for applied mathematics within the framework of the Prussian exa-
mination regulations for teaching candidates (see 8.1.2). In 1904, he was able to
establish, at the University of Göttingen, the first full professorship for applied
mathematics at a German University (for Carl Runge); this position included de-
scriptive geometry and was intended to promote the development of numerical,
graphical, and instrumental methods and their applications to scientific and tech-
nical fields. By arguing for the establishment of a precise form of approximation
mathematics (see 8.3.2), Klein ultimately paved the way for the development of
modern industrial mathematics (engineering and business mathematics).61
Second, Klein played an instrumental role in institutionalizing the field of
insurance science, including actuarial mathematics, at the University of Göttingen
in 1895, and this was likewise a first at a German university. This later led to the
establishment of a separate Institute for Mathematical Statistics (see Section 7.6).

59 Up to that time, geometry professorships, but only for descriptive geometry, had existed at
Technische Hochschulen, based on the model of the École Polytechnique in Paris (see also
BARBIN/MENGHINI/VOLKERT 2019).
60 [UBG] Cod. MS. W. Lietzmann 1: 43 (a letter from Klein to Lietzmann, June 24, 1910).
61 On the beginnings of this field, see TOBIES 2012; TOBIES/VOGT 2014; regarding its modern
developments, see NEUNZERT/PRÄTZEL-WOLTERS 2015, and FRAUNHOFER ITWM 2019. We
can also trace a connection between Klein’s promotion of A.A. Markov’s books and so-called
“Markov chain Monte Carlo methods,” which are used today for calculating numerical ap-
proximations of multi-dimensional integrals (for instance in Bayesian statistics, computa-
tional biology, computational physics, and computational linguistics).
588 10 Concluding Remarks

Third, the creation of several new professorships and institutes for scientific-
technical fields – related to mathematical applications – can also be traced back to
Klein’s initiative: technical physics, applied electricity (electrical engineering),
and geophysics (see 7.7 and 8.1.2). Similarly, aerodynamics was established as a
university subject in 1909. In the same year, incidentally, aerodynamics was also
introduced in Paris, where Paul Painlevé, who had studied with Klein in 1886 and
1887, established it as an official area of study (see 6.2.3 and 8.1.3).62
Fourth, not only did Klein work on the history of mathematics and reflect on
his approach to this subject; in the words of Gert Schubring, he can rightly be
called “a founder of the social history of mathematics” in Germany (see Section
8.3.1). Klein established this area of research at the University of Göttingen by
ensuring that the first venia legendi for this subject would be awarded in 1908.
This was revealed in my examination of the Habilitation files of the candidate in
question, Conrad Heinrich Müller (see Section 8.3.1).63
Fifth, on account of Klein’s initiative, Rudolf Schimmack was awarded, in
1911 and likewise in Göttingen, the first ever venia legendi for the didactics of
mathematics (see Section 8.3.4.1). Klein also pointed other mathematicians in this
direction. As early as 1910, he had arranged for the first textbook on the didactics
of mathematics to be published by B.G. Teubner – just as he influenced Teubner’s
publication program in the fields of pure and applied mathematics (see 5.6).
Sixth, it is possible to see in Klein’s visions the origins of research fields that
would not be established until later on, and these should be summarized here. In
letters to the Prussian Ministry of Culture in Berlin written at the beginning of the
Weimar Republic, Klein suggested that professorships should be established for
the didactics of all exact subjects, for general pedagogy, and for university peda-
gogy. Most surprisingly, the records revealed that Klein considered it sensible to
offer specific mathematics courses tailored to meet the different needs of teaching
candidates or prospective researchers (see Section 9.3.2). The idea was based on
what he saw to be the “double discontinuity” between mathematical instruction at
the secondary-school and university levels, which could also be described as a
sort of twofold act of forgetting: when someone begins to study mathematics at a
university, he or she is told to forget about school mathematics, and yet when the
same person returns to secondary school as a teacher, he or she is told to forget all
about university-level mathematics. One of the goals of Klein’s published lecture
courses, Elementary Mathematics from a Higher Standpoint, was to resolve this
problem of double discontinuity.64

62 This is not mentioned in the excellent biography of Ludwig Prandtl (ECKERT 2019a).
63 This information is lacking in the important standard work on the topic (DAUBEN/SCRIBA
2002, p. 493).
64 Klein raises this issue of “double discontinuity” in the preface to the first volume of this
book; see KLEIN 2016 [31925], p. 1.
 10.2 A Pioneer 589

Regarding the organization of mathematical activity, we have seen that Klein

was likewise pioneering in many respects, some of which seem to be taken for
granted today.
By the time that Klein proposed, in 1893 in Chicago, the aforementioned idea
of forming “international unions” of mathematicians, he had already been invol-
ved in the creation of numerous discussion groups and societies in Germany, and
he had also reorganized a number of existing committees there. Noteworthy in
this regard is that he had realized Clebsch’s plan to organize the first conference
of mathematicians from all over Germany in 1873 (see Section 2.8.3.4). Klein
served three terms as the chairman of the German Mathematical Society (founded
in 1890), and he was ultimately named the first honorary member of this organi-
zation (see 6.4.4). The Göttingen Mathematical Society, which Klein founded in
1892, served as a model at other universities for the creation of similar colloquia
intended to promote the discussion of the latest mathematical results (see 7.2).
Throughout his career, whenever Klein arrived as a newly appointed professor
at a university or Technische Hochschule, he focused his attention immediately on
its institutional framework. In Erlangen, he and the physicist Eugen Lommel
created a Mathematical Seminar to train teaching candidates, and he established
this university’s first associate professorship – alongside the full professorship –
in the field of mathematics (see Section 3.5). At the Technische Hochschule in
Munich, he founded its first Mathematical Institute, which included a collection
of models (see Section 4.1.1).65 While in Leipzig, he likewise created the first
Mathematical Seminar, which he was later able to expand into a Mathematical
Institute with a model collection, reading room, and a reference library for stu-
dents (which was even open on Sunday; see Section 5.2). As a professor in Göt-
tingen, where a seminar and model collection already existed, he was able to add
the university’s first reading room for students of mathematics.
Of course, collections of mathematical models had already existed before
Klein. What was new, however, was Klein’s theoretical approach to the construc-
tion of models (see Sections 2.4.3, 2.7.2, and 2.8.2), the mathematical exercises
that he devised with them, and the way in which he organized their production
and widespread distribution (4.3.3). Klein also recognized the importance of
mathematical instruments, and in 1874, as a professor at the University of Erlan-
gen, he became the first German professor of mathematics to acquire a (French-
made) mechanical calculating machine (Thomas’s Arithmomètre; Fig. 16). Klein
also made use of other instruments and technical achievements, a case being that
he was the first German mathematician to use (following the example of intellec-
tuals in France and Italy) novel lithographic processes to reproduce mathematical
exercises and to publish autograph copies of his lectures (see Section 4.1.2).
Klein’s efforts to coordinate the mathematical curriculum with his colleagues
led to lasting innovations that were adopted by other institutions: to the creation of
new mathematics courses for engineering students in 1877 (see 4.1.2) and to the

65 Regarding the structural difference between seminars and institutes, see SCHUBRING 2000b.
590 10 Concluding Remarks

first explicit degree programs recommended for teaching candidates in Saxony in

1882 (see Section 5.3.1) and at Göttingen’s university (Prussia) in 1890 (see Sec-
tion 6.2.3, p. 336). Klein established interdisciplinary research seminars, in which
he significantly involved the participation of his younger colleagues.66 Even con-
tinuing education courses for secondary school teachers of mathematics, which
still exist today, can be traced back to Klein. He first created such courses in Göt-
tingen in 1892. As late as 1925, Carl Metzner, an official at the Ministry of Cul-
ture who had studied under Klein, vowed to continue these courses “in Klein’s
spirit” (see Section 9.3.2).
Felix Klein was the first and, for a long time, only professor of mathematics
in Germany to have his own state-funded assistant (internationally, too, this posi-
tion would not become well-established until later on). At the time, the main
justification for this position was his need for someone to manage the model
collection and the reading room. Klein first acquired an assistant in 1877 while
working at the Technische Hochschule in Munich; he was assigned one in 1881
(beginning with his third semester) at the University of Leipzig, and again in 1892
(beginning with his twelfth semester) at the University of Göttingen (see Section
7.1). Hilbert and Minkowski did not obtain a (shared) assistant until 1904.
In order to finance mathematical, scientific, and technical research and in-
struction at the University of Göttingen, Klein pursued an approach that had not
existed before in Germany – with the exception of the Carl Zeiss Foundation in
Jena, which was established by Ernst Abbe in 1889.67 The Göttingen Association
for the Promotion of Applied Physics and Mathematics, which Klein established
in 1898/1900, raised a considerable amount of funding from industry (see Section
8.1.1). In 1920, when new sources of funding for mathematical projects were
made available by the Emergency Association of German Science (known as the
German Research Foundation since 1929), it was the emeritus Klein who became
the first chairman of this organization’s expert committee for mathematics, as-
tronomy, and geodesy (see Section 9.4.1).
Klein played a pioneering role in ensuring that women obtained the right to
study mathematics at Prussian universities. As of 1893, he made it possible for
foreign women to attend lectures and seminars (see Section 7.5), though the Prus-
sian government would not enact a law permitting the official enrolment of wo-
men until 1908. On December 14, 1907, when the University of Göttingen elected
Klein to serve as its representative in the Upper House of the Prussian Parliament
(he was the first professor of mathematics to serve in this capacity), one of the
main focuses of his parliamentary speeches concerned the expansion and impro-
vement of women’s (and girls’) education (see Section 8.3.4.1). By carrying out

66 On the seminars that Klein conducted with Hilbert and Minkowski, see Section 5.5.4.4; on his
interdisciplinary seminars on applied mathematics, see Section 8.2.4. Regarding the few cases
in which Klein’s colleagues were unwilling to participate in his seminars (most notably Otto
Hölder and Hans Lorenz), see Sections 6.2.2 and 8.1.2.
67 Regarding Klein’s appreciation of this model in Jena, see Sections 8.1 and 9.3.1.
 10.2 A Pioneer 591

his (unofficial) duties as the so-called “foreign minister”68 of German mathe-

matics, Klein worked together with Albert Einstein to ensure that Emmy Noether
would become the first female mathematician to be awarded the Habilitation
qualification (see Section 9.2.2). He thus paved the way for a ministerial decree
issued on February 21, 1920, which stated: “Belonging to the female sex may not
be regarded as an impediment to receiving the Habilitation.”69
In accordance with his universal way of thinking (see 8.3.2), Klein became
the first and only mathematician to join the Association of German Engineers (in
1895; see 7.7). In January of 1914, he became the only mathematician to join the
German Society for the Study of Russia, which had been founded the year before
(see 9.1.2), and in 1913 he also cosigned the founding appeal to establish a Soci-
ety for Positivist Philosophy (see 8.3.2). A philosophical attitude of this sort,
which rejects metaphysical thinking and bases knowledge on “positive” (that is,
empirical and verifiable) findings, was introduced to Klein early on by Darwin’s
theory of evolution and its German proponent Ernst Haeckel (see 2.3.2 and 4.3.3).
Overall, it is safe to say that Klein’s trans-disciplinary and international per-
spective enabled him, in the nineteenth century, to foresee developments and ini-
tiatives that would help to secure the position of mathematics in the twentieth
century.70 In this respect, we can rightly underscore the words of the mathemati-
cian Helmut Neunzert, who stated that Felix Klein was a reformer of the academic
world not only in Germany but, in part, internationally as well.
In conclusion, it remains necessary to emphasize Klein’s generally open-min-
ded attitude toward new scientific ideas, among them not only Einstein’s theory of
relativity but also Arthur Schoenflies’s theory of crystallography based on group
theory (see Section 6.3.7.2) or Ludwig Boltzmann’s statistical mechanics. To un-
derstand why he was so successful and why he was able to bring so many people
into his sphere of influence, we have to acknowledge that a large part of this was
due to his ability to put his past achievements behind him, eschew the stubborn-
ness of old age, and stay true to his youthful approach. Klein had studied Kron-
ecker’s methods, for instance, but he later criticized them for being one-sided (see
Sections 5.4.2.4 and 6.5.1.1), and they ultimately failed to gain acceptance. Writ-
ing in retrospect about Weierstrass, who had suffered greatly from Kronecker’s
polemics, Klein thus wrote:
Now we would almost like to say that he shouldn’t have taken it so hard; it is only an instance
of the fact that all earthly things are subject to the eternal law of motion. The survivor must
come to terms with his fate, that for the younger generation it is other ideas that come to the
fore. None of us can hinder the world from moving away from and beyond us. We cannot
even wish to as, when we were young, we likewise pushed aside the ruling opinions.71

68 FRAENKEL 2016 [1967], p. 138.

69 Quoted from TOBIES 1991b, p. 160.
70 In this regard, see also DASTON 2017.
71 KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 266-67.
592 10 Concluding Remarks

Figure 42: Felix Klein’s diploma for his honory doctorate from the Jagiellonian University of
Krakow (Uniwersytet Jagiellonski w Krakowie), 1900.
([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 113: 5)
 APPENDIX: A SELECTION OF DOCUMENTS1

1) A letter from Felix Klein to Heinrich von Mühler, the Prussian Minister of
Religious, Educational, and Medical Affairs (Minister of Culture).2

Your Excellency, Düsseldorf – December 19, 1870

In a request dated March 7th of this year, I took the liberty of asking for diplomatic
recommendations to travel to France and England for the purpose of undertaking a
scientific trip. At the same time, I had offered to submit reports on the conditions
of mathematics in these countries upon my return. On March 26th, I was fortunate
enough to receive a reply from your Excellency (U 7737) to the effect that the
diplomatic recommendations in question had been granted to me, and that your
Excellency would be pleased to receive reports on the present state of French and
English mathematics.
Under the prevailing conditions, unfortunately, the trip could not be underta-
ken in the way that I intended. My stay in Paris, where I had arrived on April 19th,
was suddenly interrupted by the declaration of war on July 16th. I rushed home
(Düsseldorf) and, because I was deemed unfit for military service at the moment
by the relevant authorities, I joined an association for voluntary medical care,
which had meanwhile been established in Bonn. As a member of this association,
I spent the period from August 16th to October 2nd, when I was discharged to re-
turn home on account of my poor health, in the theater of war.
Having only recently recovered, I did not want to make the trip to England
because of the time that I had lost. Rather, I have already applied to habilitate in
Göttingen and become a Privatdozent of mathematics there, and I intend to move
there at the New Year.
Given that it is not possible for me to send you reports on French and English
mathematics in the way that I intended, I would at least like to enclose a copy of a
short report on French mathematics, which I composed together with one of my
student friends (Dr. Lie from Christiania), to demonstrate that I had worked along
these lines during my stay in Paris. We had prepared this report for the mathema-
tical [student] union at the University of Berlin and had sent it to this organization
on July 7th.
At the same time, allow me to enclose an article, “Sur une certaine famille de
courbes et de surfaces,” which my friend Lie and I coauthored. We presented this
work to the Académie des Sciences in two sessions, on the 6th and 13th of June,
and the Académie published it in its Comptes Rendus. By choosing this publica-

1 The original German documents are published in TOBIES 2019, pp. 495–524.
2 [Stabi] Sammlung Darmstaedter. See also Section 2.6.3.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 593

R. Tobies, Felix Klein, Vita Mathematica 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75785-4
594 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

tion venue, we hoped to gain deeper insight into the conditions there and to be-
come personally acquainted with a large number of French mathematicians, and
we succeeded in doing so.
Finally, allow me to add that we obtained further results – “Ueber die Haupt-
tangenten-Curven der Kummer’schen Fläche vierten Grades mit 16 Knotenpunk-
ten” [On the Main Tangent Curves of the Fourth-Degree Kummer Surface with 16
Nodal Points] – and we recently informed Professor Kummer privately about
them. At his request, we submitted this work to the Academy of Sciences in Ber-
lin, which will publish it in its monthly reports with the date of December 15th.
By expressing my deepest thanks to your Excellency for your friendly appro-
val of my initial request and by asking for more of your kindness in the future, I
remain your Excellency’s most respectfully devoted Dr. Felix Klein.

2) An application submitted by Felix Klein to the Academic Senate of the Univer-

sity of Erlangen for funding to improve the collection of the University Library’s
mathematical section (November 15, 1872).3

Royal Academic Senate!

For the purposes of a mathematician, a small library may be sufficient, but it must
be entirely at his disposal, for he must constantly refer to it in the interests of his
research and teaching. The mathematical section of the University Library here,
however, is unfortunately not in a state that meets even the most modest re-
quirements. Allow me to begin by briefly explaining its main lacunae to the Royal
Senate.
The so-called mathematical section of the University Library consists of ap-
proximately 1,200 volumes. A great majority of these, however, is utterly
worthless for today’s university purposes because they pertain to engineering,
architecture, etc. The smaller minority of genuinely mathematical and related
works was not collected according to a uniform principle; rather, chance has
played an ever-shifting role in these acquisitions, so that, besides the several
works that are worthy of attention, there are also almost unbelievable gaps.
Of the works by older authors, for example, the writings of Galileo and New-
ton are available almost in their entirety, but the library has only the last three
volumes of the new complete edition of Kepler’s works, and it lacks the most im-
portant items in its collection of works by Huygens, Euler, and Lagrange.
Regarding the collection of mathematical journals, the German ones (to the
extent that they should be considered) are all available, but the foreign journals
are entirely lacking. This is all the more regrettable because mathematics is a tho-
roughly international science, and the progress of a productive mathematician is
considerably hindered without him having a universal overview of the findings of
others at the same time. In light of the burden that the ongoing acquisition of an

3 [UA Erlangen] Ph. Th. I Pos. 20 V, No. 8. On the context of this application, see Section 3.3.
 Appendix: A Selection of Documents 595

additional journal represents for the library’s budget, however, I believe that I
should limit my requests. My only proposal is that it should subscribe to a French
journal which contains up-to-date reports on recent publications: the Bulletin des
sciences mathématiques et astronomiques, edited by Darboux.
Some time ago, a number of astronomical journals had also been acquired.
With the sole exception of the Annalen published by the observatory in Munich,
all of them break off at different times without any apparent reason. For example,
complete holdings of the Berliner [Astronomisches] Jahrbuch exist from its be-
ginning in 1776 to 1861. I suggest that the missing volumes should be purchased
and that the subscription to this Jahrbuch should be renewed.
As far as recent books are concerned, geometry is relatively the best-repre-
sented of the mathematical disciplines, given that a preference for geometry has
always been cultivated in Erlangen. Yet it is far from the level of completeness
that I would hope for it to achieve over time; in particular, the collection lacks
certain handbooks that seem to be suited for providing an introduction to the spe-
cial study of geometry.
Other branches of mathematics are in part almost entirely unrepresented, and
these are hardly unimportant. On mechanics, for example, there is nothing aside
from Poisson’s excellent book; likewise, the most important new works on diffe-
rential and integral calculus are also lacking; there is nothing to be found on ma-
thematical physics, unless there happens to be something useful in the physics
section. In these disciplines, it is necessary to create adequate conditions by filling
in the discernible gaps, so that the most necessary items are available – failing
which constructive instruction is not conceivable at all.
I therefore take the liberty of requesting the Royal Academic Senate to apply
to the highest authority [the Bavarian Ministry of Culture] for a sum of 350 Gul-
den to be allotted from the University’s surplus funds for the purpose of comple-
ting the mathematical section of the University Library on the basis of an enclosed
cost estimate, the individual items of which are justified in the explanations
above.
Respectfully and with devotion to the
Royal Academic Senate,
Felix Klein
Professor of Mathematics4

4 Dean Eugen Lommel, a professor of physics known today for the Lommel function and the
Lommel differential equation, forwarded Klein’s application with an expert opinion to the
Bavarian Ministry of Culture, which granted his request for 350 Gulden ([UA Erlangen] Ph.
Th, I. Pos. 20 V. No. 8). – Klein’s abbreviated book titles list (see below) is translated into
English; “G” designates a book by a German author or a translation into German; for exam-
ple: L. Cremona, Einleitung in eine geometrische Theorie der ebenen Curven (Greifswald:
Koch, 1865); Poinsot’s Elemente der Statik, als Lehrbuch für den öffentlichen Unterricht und
zum Selbststudium (Berlin: Rücker, 1835); Duhamel, Lehrbuch der reinen Mechanik (Braun-
schweig: Vieweg, 1853).
596 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

Cost Estimate for Completing the Mathematical Section of the University Library

Older Works Kepler’s Collected Works. Vols.1–5 ................................... 25.-

Euler. Introductio in analysin ............................................ 5.-
Calculus differentialis ............................................. 7.20
Mechanica ............................................................... 6.-
Methodus inveniendi lineas curvas ......................... 4.-
Lagrange. Mécanique analytique ........................................... 15.-
Huygens. Horologium oscillatorium ....................................... 3.-
Updating the Journal Collection.
Darboux. Bulletin. Two volumes ........................................... 11.-
Astronomical Yearbook. Ten volumes G .............. 20.-
Geometry. Grassmann. Extension Theory 1, 2 G ........................................... 3.15
Plücker. Analyt. geometr. Developments G ........................... 1.10
Algebraic Curves G .................................................. 1.25
Hesse. Lectures. Space, Planes G ......................................... 4.20
Salmon. Geometry of Planes, of Space G .............................. 9.14
Reye. Geometry of Position G ........................................... 3.-
Cremona. Plane Curves G ........................................................ 2.20
Durège. Curves of the Third Order G .................................... 2.80
Sturm. Surfaces of the Third Order G ................................. 2.20
Lamé. Coordonnées curvilignes ......................................... 2.-
Mechanics. Jacobi. Lectures on Dynamics G ......................................... 6.-
Schell. Theory of Motion G ................................................. 4.20
Poinsot. Statics G................................................................... 2.10
Jullien. Mécanique rationnelle ............................................. 4.20
Duhamel. Mechanics G ............................................................ 2.20
Differential and Integral Calculus. Function Theory.
Serret.* Differential-Integral Calculus ................................. 7.-
Bertrand. ** Differential Calculus ............................................. 12.20
Integral Calculus ..................................................... 9.-
Casorati. *** Function Theory ....................................................... 3.15
Durège. Elliptic Functions G ................................................. 3.-
Function Theory G................................................... 1.18
Koenigsberger. Elliptic Functions G ................................................. 1.10
Heine. Spherical Functions G.............................................. 2.-
Lommel. Bessel Functions G .................................................. 1.-
Neumann. Bessel Functions G ................................................... -.20
Baltzer. Elements G .............................................................. 3.15
Mathematical Physics.
Beer. Optics G ................................................................... 2.-
Elasticity, Capillarity G ........................................... 1.10
Clebsch. Elasticity G .............................................................. 2.20
Lamé. **** Heat ......................................................................... 2.-
Elasticity ................................................................. 2.-
Total 205.20

205 Taler, 20 Silbergroschen = 359 Gulden, 55 Kreuzer Klein

* J.-A. Serret, Cours de calcul différentiel et intégral, 2 vols. (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1868);
revised German ed. by Axel Harnack, vol. 1 (Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 11884).
** J. Bertrand, Traité de calcul différentiel et de calcul intégral (Paris: G.-Villars, 1864–70).
 Appendix: A Selection of Documents 597

*** F. Casorati, Teorica delle funzioni di variabili complesse, vol. 1 (Pavia: Fratelli Fusi, 1868).
**** G. Lamé, Leçons sur la théorie analytique de la chaleur (Paris: Mallet-Bachelier, 1861);
Leçons sur la théorie mathematique et l’elasticité des corps solides (Paris: Bachelier, 1852).

3) Nomination of Dr. Felix Klein, full professor of mathematics at the Technische

Hochschule in Munich, to be made an extraordinary member of the mathematical-
physical class of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, June 7, 1879.5

Since the death of our full member Dr. Otto Hesse, Dr. Felix Klein has been
employed as a full professor of mathematics at the Technische Hochschule here
(after previously holding the corresponding professorship at the University of Er-
langen for a few years). A student of Plücker in Bonn and of Clebsch in Göttin-
gen, he can be described as one of the most productive and ingenious representa-
tives of that younger mathematical school in Germany which has received its
direction especially from Clebsch and, like him, has chosen a certain border area
between geometry and algebra as its main area of activity. – The enclosed list of
publications to date, which is unusually long for such a young author, admittedly
contains a few repetitions (in that the author has had some of his articles reprinted
essentially unchanged in different places) and several variations on the same
theme (first, for instance, a provisional announcement of an idea, which is then
presented in more detail and later provided with further explanations). Moreover,
some of the more significant works owe their origin to impulses provided by the
publications of others (e.g., by Schwarz in Göttingen concerning the connection of
the so-called hypergeometric series with the icosahedron equation and, in general,
with a new way to solve equations of the fifth degree), but even so there is enough
left over to cast the author’s mathematical talent, ingenuity, and astuteness in a
favorable light, to secure lasting recognition for his work, and to justify further
expectations for the future. Furthermore, he has rendered valuable services as one
of the editors of Mathematische Annalen, the primary publication venue of the
younger school mentioned above, which counts Klein as one of its most outstan-
ding representatives. In his editorial role, he has also performed a valuable service
by occasioning the publication of instructive [mathematical] models, especially
pertaining to Plücker’s works.
Because a vacancy has arisen on account of our associate member Dr. J. Vol-
hard’s departure to Erlangen, we believe that no scholar here other than Klein who
does not already belong to the Academy and whose work is as relevant to our

5 [AdW München] 18791 (minutes of the election sessions). The Royal Bavarian Academy of
Sciences had existed since 1759, and Klein was made a member of it on June 25, 1879. The
election process involved two stages, one in the mathematical-physical class (in which Klein
received 15 of 15 votes), and the other in a general meeting (where 29 of 34 votes were cast
in Klein’s favor). When Klein moved to Leipzig, his extraordinary membership was conver-
ted into a corresponding membership. Regarding Klein’s election, see also Paul Gordan’s as-
sessment, which is quoted in Section 4.4.
598 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

[mathematical-physical] class could justifiably be given the seat that has become
vacant. We therefore propose to the class and eventually the entire academy that
Professor Dr. Felix Klein
be elected as an extraordinary member of the mathematical-physical class of the
Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences.
(We have also sought and received the consent of our absent colleague
Dr. C. von Bauernfeind.)
Munich – June 7, 1879 Dr. Ludwig Seidel Dr. Gustav Bauer

4) A report by the Philosophical Faculty at the University of Göttingen concerning

its decision to propose Felix Klein as the successor to Moritz Abraham Stern,
along with separate opinions by the professors Ernst Schering and Hermann
Amandus Schwarz (January 1885).

4.1) A report on the Faculty’s hiring proposals for the (third) full professorship for
mathematics, to be sent to the Royal Prussian Minister of Culture (Dr. Gustav von
Gossler).6

Your Excellency, Göttingen – January 18, 1885

We are honored to submit our most respectful request for the appointment of a full
professor of mathematics to fill the chair that has been vacated by the retirement
of Professor Stern. The departure of this man, who devoted a long and successful
career to our university and whose thorough lectures contributed in no small mea-
sure to the flourishing study of mathematics here, has left a conspicuous gap in
our teaching staff, and it seems urgently necessary to fill this gap as soon as pos-
sible.
Out of the glorious past of our university, which counts a number of Ger-
many’s most prominent mathematicians as its own, arises our duty to maintain
and promote, with all the means at our disposal, the flourishing of mathematical
studies at the university and its importance to the progress of mathematical re-
search.
The large range of mathematical disciplines, however, has long made it im-
possible for any one individual to master and till the field as a whole, and thus the
subject of mathematics is represented at all of our universities by multiple teach-
ing positions, and at the larger universities by several full professorships. If our
university has been the seedbed in which a relatively large number of today’s rep-
resentatives of mathematics received their education, it has achieved this success
in large part because its larger number of full professorships in mathematics has
made it possible to represent the various branches of this highly ramified science
and thus to offer students a wide-ranging education. In this regard, we would like
to stress that, up until the death of Hofrath [Privy Councilor] Ulrich, there were

6 [UAG] Phil. Fak. 170a, No. 41ss–41tt. Regarding the context of this report, see Section 5.8.2.
 Appendix: A Selection of Documents 599

four full professorships for the subject of mathematics here, whereas presently,
after the departure of Professor Stern, there are only two scholars working as full
professors of mathematics in our midst. In their teaching and research, the re-
maining two professors have preferred to focus on the theory of analytic func-
tions, mechanics, number theory, curved surfaces, and curves of double curvature.
It is therefore our conviction that the most effective way to complement their ac-
tivities would be to appoint a representative of the geometric-algebraic approach
to work alongside them.
As such, our first recommendation is Dr. Felix Klein, a full professor of geo-
metry in Leipzig who was born in 1849. Klein began his mathematical studies in
Bonn and, having obtained his doctorate there, spent several semesters in Göttin-
gen and Berlin completing them. He finished his Habilitation in Göttingen in
1871, and just a year later he was appointed a full professor in Erlangen. In 1875,
he accepted a professorship at the Technische Hochschule in Munich, and he
moved to Leipzig in 1880. Even in his earliest works, which proceeded in the di-
rection initiated by Plücker and Cayley, it was possible to recognize the out-
standing talent of their author. They were characterized as much by the wealth of
their geometric intuition as they were by the breadth of their geometric perspec-
tive, and they created the expectation that their author would not limit himself in
the further development of his scientific career to the narrow field of purely geo-
metric investigations but would rather also, with the support of the tools of ge-
ometry, turn to other problems of mathematics. In fact, his more general exami-
nation of the various methods of geometric research led him at first to the theory
of transformation groups. This formed the center of his further scientific activity,
and since then he has earned a generally respected name in the scientific world
through his numerous and extensive studies, which bear witness to the versatility
of his intellect.
Klein is an excellent teacher whose personality fills his students with sincere
admiration and who knows how to inspire his students to conduct mathematical
research and to encourage them to carry out independent scientific investigations.
He is also very productive as an editor of the Leipzig-based journal Mathemati-
sche Annalen, and he is known to be a tireless worker in all the endeavors that he
has touched. We would therefore be especially pleased if we were to succeed in
bringing this excellent scholar to our university, and we have good reason to be-
lieve that he himself is likely inclined to exchange Leipzig for Göttingen for per-
sonal reasons.
Should we not succeed, however, in gaining Mr. Klein for our university, we
are honored to dutifully suggest to your Excellency the following gentlemen se-
cundo loco et pari passu [on equal footing in second place]:
Dr. Aurel Voß, born in 1845, currently a professor in Dresden, who was
appointed to the Technische Hochschule in Munich at Easter this year; and Dr.
Alfred Enneper, born 1830, an associate professor at our university.
In this respect, we are aware that the direction of Professor Enneper’s scienti-
fic activity is less in line with the focal points mentioned at the beginning of this
report. Only if we fail to fill the vacant professorship with a geometrician of Pro-
600 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

fessor Klein’s caliber do we believe that it might be appropriate to take into ac-
count the years of loyal service that Professor Enneper has rendered to science and
to our university. […]
Should unforeseen obstacles stand in the way of appointing Mr. Klein, Mr.
Voß, or Mr. Enneper, we obediently ask your Excellency to grant the faculty the
opportunity to offer new proposals.
The Philosophical Faculty. The Dean. W.[ilhelm] Müller (signed)

4.2) A separate opinion (Separatvotum) on the Faculty’s report, by Ernst Scher-

ing, a full professor of mathematics at the University of Göttingen.7

Your Excellency, Göttingen – January 22, 1885

The humble signee is taking the liberty of submitting, in the most respectful man-
ner, his opinion, in so far as it deviates in essential points from the proposal made
by the majority of the members of the Philosophical Faculty.
The content of the latter hiring recommendation is based on an overestimation
of projective geometry, which, in my opinion and in the opinion of other compe-
tent experts, leads to a false impression of the benefits that appointing Professor
Felix Klein to Göttingen might bring to our university.
In contrast to this proposed appointment, the appointment of our Associate
Professor Alfred Enneper or Professor Georg Hettner in Berlin as a full professor
in Göttingen would be of considerably greater benefit to the study and further
training of the strict methods that were introduced by the great Göttingen mathe-
maticians Gauss and Dirichlet and were also used with brilliant success by Rie-
mann. Furthermore, such an appointment would also be of greater benefit to the
education of the mathematics teachers to be employed at secondary schools, for
whom certainty and clarity of thought are the most important matters.
The promotion of […] Associate Professor Enneper would give well-deserved
recognition to the merits of his now twenty-six successful years of academic tea-
ching and to his valuable scholarly achievements, and it would ensure that a
greater number of scholarly disciplines formerly taught by Professor Stern would
still be well-represented by a full professor.
In addition, this would create the possibility of appointing a new scholar to
the vacant associate professorship [i.e., Enneper’s], who could also […] provide a
necessary supplement to the courses offered here for the education of secondary
school teachers.
As a Privatdozent in Göttingen and as an associate professor in Berlin, Mr.
Hettner has developed his academic activity with unusual success, not only in
terms of the number of students who attend his courses but also in his ability to
teach them with strictly correct and clear thinking. Regarding his research, he has

7 [UAG] Kur. 5956, fols. 9–10v.

 Appendix: A Selection of Documents 601

made significant contributions with his investigations of determinants composed

of hyperelliptic integrals.
That Mr. Hettner has not published anything during his appointment at the
University of Berlin is essentially due to the fact that the conditions imposed upon
him there require him to take on […] a heavy teaching load.
His intimate familiarity with the highest branches of various mathematical
fields guarantees, however, that he will go on to produce extremely valuable
scholarly achievements. His research areas overlap perfectly with the disciplines
represented by Professor Stern.
Schering (signed)

4.3) A separate opinion (Separatvotum) on the Faculty’s report, by H.A. Schwarz,

a full professor of mathematics at the University of Göttingen.8

Your Excellency, Göttingen – January 25, 1885

Please allow me to present my views, which differ in some points from the report
submitted by the majority of my colleagues and which agree in essential respects
with the opinion of my immediate colleague, Prof. Schering, regarding the candi-
dates to be considered for the appointment of a third full professor of mathematics
to our faculty.
One of the merits of Prof. Stern, who has now retired, was his ability to meet,
with tireless dedication and lasting success as long as his energies allowed, the
needs not only of advanced students of mathematics but also of beginners.
It is to his great credit that the students of mathematics at our university have
always had the opportunity in recent decades to become acquainted with the un-
avoidable foundations of almost all higher mathematical disciplines (algebra, dif-
ferential and integral calculus, and elementary mechanics) through the lectures of
an excellent teacher and through the seminar exercises that he conducted. It is in
great part due to this merit of Prof. Stern, which cannot be appreciated highly
enough by his immediate colleagues, that the study of mathematics at our univer-
sity could so greatly flourish.
If other scholars were able to devote their mathematical lectures to the culti-
vation of special disciplines and were able to find a larger number of well-prepa-
red students to attend them, this was undoubtedly only made possible by the fact
that the most urgent needs of mathematical instruction were already taken care of
in the best possible way by Prof. Stern. This aspect of providing sufficient care for
the most urgent needs of mathematical education will also remain, in the future, of
the utmost importance for the training of capable secondary school teachers.
I am convinced that it will only be possible to maintain the flourishing of
mathematical studies at our university if, in selecting the scientist to succeed Prof.
Stern, we insist on the requirement that he must not only possess indisputably

8 [UAG] Kur. 5956, fols. 11–14.

602 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

outstanding teaching abilities but must also offer the guarantee that, together with
the other representatives of mathematics on our faculty, he will adequately tend to
the needs of beginners.
The subject of algebra is represented by neither of the two current full profes-
sors of mathematics here [Schwarz, Schering]; this subject, which is extremely
important for the training of future secondary school teacher, is likewise not one
of the disciplines represented by the current associate professor of mathematics
[Enneper].
Professor Schering and I agree that, in the interest of the fullest possible re-
presentation of mathematical disciplines at our university, it is highly desirable
that Professor Stern’s successor should be able to take over the representation of
algebra in its entirety – without, of course, having his teaching activity restricted
in any other way.
Likewise in agreement with Prof. Schering, I humbly believe that Dr. Georg
Hettner, born in 1854 and currently an associate professor at the University of
Berlin, can be described to your Excellency as just such a scholar.
Prof. Hettner conducted his algebraic studies under the direction of the most
prominent researcher in the field of algebra among all living mathematicians, Mr.
Kronecker in Berlin. Moreover, Prof. Hettner is also one of the most talented stu-
dents of Mr. Kummer and Mr. Weierstrass in Berlin. Regarding the praise that
Prof. Hettner has earned, I agree with all of the points made by Prof. Schering in
his separate opinion, both with respect to the value of his scientific work and in
terms of his eminent talent as a teacher.
With respect to the proposals that the majority of the Faculty submitted to
your Excellency concerning the appointment of Prof. Stern’s successor, I cannot
oppose the proposals in favor of Professors Felix Klein and Aurel Voß. If the ap-
pointment of Prof. Klein is successful, an outstanding teacher and an important
scholar will be gained for our university and for our Prussian fatherland. The same
applies to Prof. Voß.
In light of the criteria presented above, however, I regret very much that I
cannot accept the suggestion to promote Prof. Enneper to full professor as Prof.
Stern’s successor.
Your Excellency’s most obedient
H.A. Schwarz (signed)
 Appendix: A Selection of Documents 603

5) On the scientific polemic between Felix Klein and Lazarus Fuchs. An excerpt
of a letter (in draft form) from Felix Klein to Wilhelm Förster (a professor of
astronomy at the University of Berlin), January 15, 1892.9

[…] Here are just a few more remarks about my relations with Fuchs. The en-
closed package contains, above all, the autograph edition of a lecture that I gave in
the summer of 1891.10 There, on pp. 66–89, you will find a presentation on the
historical development of the study that, ten years ago, brought about the polemic
between Fuchs and myself. Although this presentation was of course originally
meant for my students’ ears, it will hopefully be intelligible to someone reading it
at some remove. My intention in this presentation, in which I provide a precise
account of my earlier ideas, is to leave an impression of utmost candor. You will
also gather from the booklet that I am once again working energetically on these
very issues and that I am in the process of preparing a final presentation on the
entire area of research. [[From the same text, incidentally, you will also learn how
I consider the task of the geometrician, which is to understand the whole field of
mathematics – and, I might add, its applications – from the perspective of geo-
metric intuition.]]11
I should further point out that there have also been two indirect conflicts bet-
ween Fuchs and myself in recent years […]:
1) Fuchs publishes a theory that turns out to be just plain wrong.
2) A younger mathematician [Hurwitz] notices this, addresses Fuchs himself
about it, and discovers that the latter is not as understanding as he had hoped.
3) He [Hurwitz] sends me his view on the matter12 for publication in the Göttinger
Nachrichten or Mathematische Annalen, which I, finding them correct, in turn
published after smoothing out the manner of his expression when necessary.
As it was with Hurwitz in 1887,13 so it is now with the Russian mathematici-
ans Nekrasov and Anisimov.
To speak only of the latter: The false developments that Fuchs had originally
published in Crelle’s Journal 75 were replaced by him by other erroneous state-
ments, after Anisimov had pointed out his errors, in Crelle’s Journal 106, though
now in a form with which A. felt personally dissatisfied. Nekrasov provided the

9 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1C: 2. On the context of this letter, see Section 6.5.1.1; regarding
this polemic, see also Sections 5.5.5 and 5.8.2.
10 The lecture in question was on the theory of linear differential equations.
11 Klein later deleted the sentence printed here in double brackets.
12 In response to Lazarus Fuchs’s article “Über diejenigen algebraischen Gebilde, welche eine
Involution zulassen” (published in the Sitzungsberichte of the Berlin Academy, July 1886),
Hurwitz had written to Klein: “I recently found that all of these curves can be represented by
equations f(s2, z) = 0, from which it immediately follows that they are by no means exhausted
by the hyperelliptic curves, as has recently been claimed […].” ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9:
1034, letter, Dec. 28, 1886).
13 For further details, see TOBIES 2019, pp. 505–506.
604 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

correct theory in Annalen 38,14 but he made a mistake in one of his secondary
points, namely when he wanted to uncover the inner reason for the mistake made
by Fuchs in vol. 106. Fuchs noticed this and reacted in vol. 108 with an abrasive
reply and held firm, without any reservation, about the theory that he had pre-
sented in vol. 106! This was followed by passionate letters from Nekrasov and
Anisimov to myself, which I just now, during the Christmas holiday, put into a
subdued form and will soon publish in Mathematische Annalen.15
Of course, every incident of this sort only serves to renew and increase the
blind hatred16 that Fuchs has directed toward me. He has gone so far as to disre-
gard the basic laws of decency. My student, Dr. Fricke, who has been living in
Berlin in recent years (and whom I hold in exceptionally high esteem both perso-
nally and as a mathematician), has told me a few stories about this. A year ago, he
sent Fuchs the first volume of my book on elliptic modular functions, which
Fricke edited (and which contains no polemics whatsoever), with a request for a
personal letter of reference: he received no reply at all. It was precisely at that
time when Fricke approached Kronecker (whose research was closely aligned
with his own) with the question of how Kr[onecker] would assess his application
to the Berlin faculty for approval to submit his Habilitation. Kr[onecker] flatly
replied that he was in no position to support an application about which the
faculty would yet have to make a decision.
If you take all of this together, then the question of how the relationship bet-
ween F[uchs] and myself would develop if we were to work together at the same
university is self-evident. I would certainly not behave provocatively but would
rather avoid all external conflicts as much as possible. However, I would not
abandon my research plan any more than I would cease publishing what I think is
right. No one can demand that I should deny my entire past for the sake of recei-
ving a professorship in Berlin. (And even the mere fact that I might be summoned
to Berlin would be a grave insult to Fuchs.) Personally, this perspective doesn’t
really frighten me very much – my concerns, which I expressed in a letter to
A[lthoff], are of a completely different nature – but I do not know how the matter
looks from a more general point of view and whether you would want to take
responsibility for having helped to bring about such unpleasant conditions. […]

14 See P.A. Nekrassoff [Nekrasov], “Ueber den Fuchs’schen Grenzkreis,” Math. Ann. 38 (1891),
pp. 82–90. This article concludes with the following words: “Thus, the cases in which
Fuchs’s theorems do not apply should by no means be called exceptional cases.” Hurwitz
informed Klein: “Fuchs, [Meyer] Hamburger, and their colleagues are reportedly extremely
agitated about Nekrasov’s publication in the Annalen […].” ([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 9:
1090, a letter dated May 1891).
15 See W.A. Anissimoff [V.A. Anisimov], “Ueber den Fuchs’schen Grenzkreis,” Math. Ann. 40
(1892), pp. 145–48. – Anisimov had graduated in Moscow and completed his doctoral thesis,
The Fuchsian Boundary Circle and its Applications, at the University of Warsaw in 1892.
16 Later, in this drafted letter, Klein replaced the term “blind hatred” with “feeling of antipathy.”
 Appendix: A Selection of Documents 605

6) Letters concerning the potential successor to H.A. Schwarz’s full professorship

at the University of Göttingen.17

6.1) An excerpt of a letter from Klein to Adolf Hurwitz, February 28, 1892.18

[…] Althoff spent three days here and brought the new appointments in Berlin to
a conclusion. Besides Frobenius, Schwarz will be appointed full professor [in
Berlin] on April 1st. – I myself, if I may say so here, am quite pleased with the
way things have turned out. For I feel as though I was treated rather honorably,
and I have also gained some freedom of movement.
But to remain on point: now it will be necessary to fill Schwarz’s position
here in Göttingen, and this should happen in the near future.
I also know exactly what suggestions I would like to make to the Faculty
(although you must keep in mind, of course, that I am not the Faculty; I even ex-
pressly want to reserve the freedom to modify my current ideas over the course of
the forthcoming negotiations): You will roughly guess that I intend to propose you
and Hilbert as the only two people who would be able to help me safeguard the
status of our scientific reputation in relation to Berlin […].
And now the great difficulty, which required a great deal of deliberation be-
fore I decided to write to you about it myself. It goes without saying that I will
name you first and Hilbert second. There are, however, a number of concerns
about appointing you, and the question is to what extent I should express these
concerns and perhaps even admit outright that Hilbert’s presence here might ulti-
mately meet our needs to a greater extent than yours. The first matter is that of
your unstable health, the importance of which I do not want to overstate, but I
cannot ignore it entirely. Second, there is the far more subtle reason that you are
much closer to me than Hilbert, not only personally but also in the way that you
think mathematically, so that your activity here would perhaps lend Göttingen
mathematics an excessively one-sided character. The third issue – I have to bring
it up, as repugnant as the matter is to me and as much as I know how justifiably
sensitive you are about it – is the Jewish question. It is not that your appointment
would pose any difficulties; these I could overcome. However, we already have
Schoenflies, to whom I am always interested in offering a permanent position here
(a salaried associate professorship). And I will never be able to accomplish this
with the faculty or with the minister if you and Schoenflies are employed side by
side!
But I must come to an end. For me, the decision between you and Hilbert
would be difficult enough if I merely had to weigh the reasons for or against
either of you objectively. Now, however, there is also the subjective difficulty,
which is that I would like least of all to offend you in the present situation; rather,
I would like to do everything I can to be helpful to you. Please write me a line of

17 For the context of these developments, see Section 6.5.1.2.

18 [UBG] Math. Arch. 77: 228.
606 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

reassurance immediately, if possible; but in any case, please speak your mind
against me just as unreservedly as I have done here. The faculty meeting is sche-
duled to take place on Thursday, and I will certainly have your answer by then!19
Whatever the outcome, promise me that our personal relationship will not suffer
from it.
With best wishes I remain
Yours,
Felix Klein

6.2) An excerpt of a letter (draft) from Felix Klein to Friedrich Althoff, March 7,
1892.20

Esteemed Senior Privy Councilor!

Please allow me to submit a report to you today, even before the faculty’s new
hiring proposals are ready, concerning Dr. Schoenflies [a Privatdozent at the Uni-
versity of Göttingen]. You touched upon the question of anti-Semitism. The im-
pression I have from all sides is that no one would take any offence at all with one
Jew, but that the appointment of two Jews simultaneously would be considered
inadmissible.21 So if Hurwitz were to come here (as I still advocate), then I would
have to sacrifice Schoenflies. I would deeply regret that, because I have come to
appreciate Schoenflies’s unique talent more and more, not only from a personal
perspective but also in the interest of our university. In essence, Schoenflies is a
highly gifted man; he has a penetrating mind and, what is more, outstanding tea-
ching abilities in the popular sense. I have repeatedly praised his geometric talent.
If he lacks anything, it is consistent energy: he must be forced to do things from
the outside, but then he works just as quickly as he does surely. (I have no doubt
that you will receive different opinions about Sch[oenflies] from other sources.
Yet in contrast to what you may hear, I would like to refer to the fact that, from
Christmas onwards, I attended the two-hour seminar conducted by Schoenflies
and Burkhardt no less than eight times; they were truly scientifically lively, and
any doubt about the qualifications of the seminar leader, who repeatedly gave
lectures himself, is out of the question for me.)
As I have already noted, however, the decisive factor for me is the considera-
tion of the intended appointment [i.e. Schwarz’s successor]. […]

19 Klein was unable at the time to implement Hilbert’s appointment (Hilbert was still a Privat-
dozent then), and so he fought on behalf of appointing Hurwitz.
20 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 1C: 2, fol. 22. See Section 6.5.1.2.
21 Klein was aware of the widespread anti-Semitism at the time, but he made his own judge-
ments on professional grounds. On December 13, 1887, for example, Moritz Pasch, who
came from a Jewish family, had written to Klein about Klein’s recommendation that Max
Noether and Adolf Hurwitz would be fitting candidates for a professorship at the University
of Gießen: “Of course, I was not allowed to include any Jewish colleagues on the list, other-
wise scholars such as [Max] Noether and Hurwitz would not have been left out of it” (quoted
from SCHLIMM 2013, p. 198).
 Appendix: A Selection of Documents 607

In this respect, I have no doubt that our main goal in the present situation
should be to appoint someone who complements my interests and can thus lead to
the creation of a more rigorous school. Prof. Schwarz was excellent in this
respect; Prof. Lindemann will not be equally so. […]22
After he had enjoyed the encouragement of a particularly gifted teacher of
synthetic geometry at school, Prof. Hurwitz originally studied with me, then also
in Berlin with Kronecker and especially with Weierstrass. Prepared in this way, he
brings together all the premises for the epitome of modern research, which aims to
combine function theory (as a central discipline) with number theory and geo-
metry. And to these premises, Hurwitz also adds a brilliant level of productivity,
which never falters despite the obstacles that his somewhat delicate health puts in
his way. The number of his publications, and the number of different subjects that
Hurwitz has written about, is very high: In my ranking (from my subjective point
of view), his best works are those in which he tackles the problems of geometric
function theory which I originally raised, and takes them much further than I ever
could have done. This work represents the complement that I have been looking
for, and it does so in tangible reality and the most satisfying completeness. […]

7) Felix Klein on the draft of Ludwig Bieberbach’s dissertation, which was super-
vised by the Privatdozent Paul Koebe at the University of Göttingen.23

Dear Mr. Bieberbach! Göttingen – May 15, 1909

I have just read through your dissertation, and I have great reservations about Part
I. What is right is not new, and what is new is wrong. The proof:
Ad. 1. That the canonical cut systems are by no means determined by the pe-
riods of Abelian integrals is not only pointed out but also explained in Math. Ann.
XXI, pp. 184–85.24 – Fricke refers to this in Vol. 1 of the Automorphen [Funktio-
nen], p. 324, where he proves that two operations are sufficient to produce all ca-
nonical cuts.25
Ad. 2. The theorem on the generation of all binary period transformations in
the hyperelliptic case by the monodromy of branching points is only correct for p
= 2; for p = 3, there are already 36 separate families [Scharen]. I had H.D.
Thompson treat this matter in his dissertation (American Journal XV, available in
the reading room […]).26

22 What follows here are some laudatory words about Lindemann, because Lindemann had
complained about Klein’s preference to appoint the younger Hurwitz and Hilbert.
23 [Deutsches Museum] Nachlass Ludwig Bieberbach. I am indebted to Reinhard Siegmund-
Schultze for bringing this letter to my attention. – Regarding the context, see Section 8.5.3.
24 Klein’s reference here is to his own article: “Neue Beiträge zur Riemann’schen Functionen-
theorie,” Math. Ann. 21 (1883), pp. 141–218.
25 See, for the English translation, FRICKE/KLEIN 2017 [1897], pp. 263–64.
26 See H.D. Thompson, “Hyperelliptische Schnittsysteme und Zusammenordnung der algebrai-
schen und transcendenten Thetacharacteristiken,” Amer. J. of Math. 15 (1893), pp. 91–123.
608 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

But it is also false to reduce the question of any given Riemann surface to
two-sheeted surfaces. The source of the error is the fact that Clebsch-Lüroth did
not understand the “sheet” of a R[iemann] surface as a piece of the surface that
covers the […] plane exactly once, but rather only as any simply connected piece.
Now, what should happen in this situation? I am unfortunately extremely busy
these days in light of the negotiations that are about to begin again in the Upper
House [of Parliament]. Nevertheless, let me ask you to come to the mathematical
collection room on Monday at noon. By the way, would you also please show this
letter to Dr. Koebe?27
Yours sincerely, F. Klein

8) Dr. Klaus, a neurologist at the Sanatorium for Neurology and Internal Medicine
in Hahnenklee: two reports on the state of Felix Klein’s health.28

Report from March 9, 1912

The full professor of mathematics, Privy Councilor Klein from Göttingen, has
been in my sanatorium since December of last year. Owing to years of overexer-
tion in his profession, and due to the fact that he has never allowed himself a ne-
cessary period of rest and relaxation, he suffers from a state of extreme exhaustion
and irritability of his nervous system. There is no trace of an organic disease. This
is a matter of genuine neurasthenia, i.e., a temporary and curable weakness of a
healthy nervous system. The duration of the healing process will of course be
quite long, given the extent and intensity of the damage that has been done. Even
though the patient set aside his courses for the winter semester of 1911/12 and
came here for a cure, and even though there has been a slight but unmistakable
improvement in the state of his nervous exhaustion, it is nevertheless from a
medical point of view entirely impossible that Mr. Privy Councilor Klein should
be allowed to lecture again in the summer semester of 1912. If he were to return
to work prematurely, he would undoubtedly, as a consequence, relapse to his
previous state of weakness and thereby prolong the difficult healing of his suf-
fering. I therefore humbly request, for the urgent reasons mentioned above, that
my patient be granted further leave until the winter semester of 1912/13. He will
continue to remain up here in my sanatorium.
Dr. Klaus – Neurologist (signed)

27 Bieberbach had attended Klein’s seminar from 1906/07 to 1908 (which Klein directed to-
gether with Hilbert and Minkowski) and he transcribed (with Max Caspar) the lectures that
Klein gave on automorphic functions from May 1 to July 31, 1907 (see [Protocols] vol. 26).
As a full professor, Klein had to evaluate Bieberbach’s dissertation – “Zur Theorie der auto-
morphen Funktionen” [On the Theory of Automorphic Functions] – which had been super-
vised by the Privatdozent Paul Koebe. For a brief biography of Bieberbach, including his
grades and the subjects of his doctoral examination, see TOBIES 2006, pp. 58. – For Bieber-
bach’s support of Nazism, see in particular MEHRTENS 1987; 1990; 2004.
28 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 2D, fols. 65, 66. See Section 8.5.1.
 Appendix: A Selection of Documents 609

Report from October 10, 1912

At the end of September of this year, Privy Councilor Professor Dr. Klein, Göttin-
gen, left my sanatorium, where he had been staying since the beginning of the
year, and returned to his university town. In the peace and quiet that prevails up
here, he ultimately felt so rejuvenated that he regained the hope of teaching his
lecture course in the winter semester of 1912/13. I have now examined Mr. Klein
in detail since his departure from the sanatorium, and I unfortunately found that
his nervous system is still very easily exhausted and that he had suffered from
especially severe bouts of intestinal neurosis. As a result, the patient became very
ill again, though only temporarily. Given the rapid change of environment and the
cessation of his cure, such relapses are not alarming and are not a sign of a worse-
ning prognosis. However, it is necessary to take them into serious consideration.
In order to prevent Privy Councilor Klein from falling victim to greater ex-
haustion again, I have to prohibit him, from a medical point of view and in the
interest of his health and full recovery, from giving lectures in the winter semester
of 1912/13.
Dr. Klaus

9) Nomination of Felix Klein to be made a corresponding member of the Royal

Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin, February 27, 1913.29

The undersigned have the honor of proposing to the Academy the election of Pro-
fessor Felix Klein as a corresponding member in the field of mathematics. Klein
was born on April 25, 1849 in Düsseldorf. He studied in Bonn, Göttingen, and
Berlin; received his doctorate in Bonn in 1868; became a Privatdozent in Göttin-
gen in 1871, a full professor in Erlangen in 1872, and from there he went to the
Technische Hochschule in Munich in 1875. In 1880, he accepted an appointment
at the University of Leipzig, and he has been teaching at the University of Göttin-
gen since 1887.30
Klein, one of the few mathematicians still able to survey the whole of mathe-
matics, was originally a geometrician. Familiar with the ideas of the ingenious
Plücker, he began his career with work pertaining to the theory of line complexes.
He set up a simple form for the equation of a second-degree surface in line coor-
dinates; determined, together with Sophus Lie, the main tangent curves of Kum-
mer’s surface; and provided, for the line complexes, an analogue of Dupin’s theo-
rem of curvature. His own investigations and his knowledge of the ideas of Plü-
cker, Staudt, and Sophus Lie led him to consider the questions treated by his pre-
decessors from a common point of view, and in his inaugural address in Erlangen
he united all the geometric ideas that were new at the time into a whole by pre-

29 [BBAW] Bestand PAW (1812–1945), II-III-135, fols. 70r–71v (Friedrich Schottky’s hand-
writing).
30 The year 1887 is incorrect; Klein began working in Göttingen in April of 1886.
610 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

senting thoughts rather than formulas.31 For a geometrician who thought in such
general terms, Riemann’s theory of Abelian functions must have had a strong
attraction. The interest that Klein always showed for Riemann is particularly evi-
dent in his book on elliptic modular functions. This book – two imposing volu-
mes32 – contains lectures given by Klein and includes many of his previously pub-
lished articles. One fine chapter in it contains Klein’s presentation of Riemann’s
theory. Essentially, the book is concerned with a single, but highly important,
function: the modular function. Its function-theoretical character had first been
recognized by Gauss, who never published anything about it himself; however, a
page from his estate with a few characteristic drawings by Gauss was discovered
and published in time to establish Gauss’s priority on this point. Modular functi-
ons were already associated with highly interesting algebraic research by Gauss
and Jacobi, and Klein treated these ideas with new means and in a new form.
Klein, however, regarded this entire work as just a preliminary stage for conduc-
ting a comprehensive investigation of those functions which were discovered
around that time (in some cases much earlier); Poincaré called these Fuchsian
functions and Kleinian functions, while Klein referred to them as automorphic
functions. If, as Klein did, we take the Gauss-Jacobi modular functions as our
starting point, we have the first example of an automorphic function, and this im-
mediately reveals some of the depth and difficulties of the theory that Klein for-
mulated in competition with Poincaré. If the issue at hand were to define, in a di-
rect way, the simplest and essentially most important functions newly developed
by German mathematicians at the time, then one would have to proceed differ-
ently. Besides Poincaré, however, it was Felix Klein who did the most work on
automorphic functions. These investigations also fill two imposing volumes.33
Klein also made his other Göttingen lectures, which contain the most impor-
tant results of his work, accessible to wider circles by having them reproduced in
autograph copies. The latter include lectures on the icosahedron, on non-Eucli-
dean geometry, on the application of differential and integral calculus to geometry
(a revision of principles), on the hypergeometric function, and on Riemann surfa-
ces. It is to be hoped that all of these will be printed as books.34 Then there will
exist a large multivolume textbook on analysis, full of unique geometric methods
and with a geometric inclination, for Germany – and this is very desirable.
Felix Klein’s tireless activity has not been restricted to his own scientific re-
search. It is to his credit that the difficult task of publishing Gauss’s Nachlass has
now been achieved almost completely and in an exemplary manner, and that the

31 What is meant here is not Klein’s inaugural address [Antrittsrede] in Erlangen (see Section
3.2) but rather his booklet Erlangen Program (KLEIN 1872).
32 See KLEIN/FRICKE 2017 (1890/92).
33 See FRICKE/KLEIN 2017 (1897/1912).
34 Klein’s lectures on the icosahedron – Vorlesungen über das Ikosaeder (Leipzig: B.G. Teub-
ner, 1884) – already appeared as a book in its first edition (English trans., 1888; repr. 2019).
The other lectures mentioned here were first reproduced in handwritten (autograph) copies.
Later, Klein himself prepared some of them to be published as books; see Section 9.2.3.
 Appendix: A Selection of Documents 611

great work of the mathematical ENCYKLOPÄDIE was begun and vigorously conti-
nues. He was indefatigably active at congresses to promote the union of mathe-
maticians and to identify important goals. Almost all academies and mathematical
societies count him among their members, and several universities have awarded
him an honorary doctorate. In recent years, his zeal has mainly been devoted to
elevating the level of mathematical education at universities and secondary
schools, and he has been just as tireless in these efforts as he was as a mathemati-
cian in the decades before.
H.A. Schwarz,
[Georg] Frobenius,
[Friedrich] Schottky,
[Max] Planck35

10) Speeches given on May 25, 1913 upon the presentation of Max Liebermann’s
portrait to Felix Klein.36

10.1) A welcome speech by the physicist Eduard Riecke.

Dear friend! Old age is generally a somewhat dubious asset; today, however, I am
grateful for it, for it gives me the beautiful duty and heartfelt pleasure of address-
ing a few words to you on behalf of our colleagues.
I still vividly remember Clebsch’s course that we attended, where I saw you
for the first time and where I, without having exchanged a word with you, told
myself that there was something special behind those eyes and that forehead.
When I got closer to you over the course of the semester, I recognized that my
eyes had not deceived me. During the following semesters, the events of the war
took you away from Göttingen, and it was not until the summer of 1871 that we
reunited as Privatdozenten in Göttingen. In addition to the geometric problems
that occupied you at that time, you had a lively interest in physics; you also gave a
lecture course on the theory of light, accompanied by experiments. The Fresnel
mirror that was constructed at the time is still in the Institute of Physics today,
though not entirely in its original state.37
When Stern resigned from his professorship in 1885,38 the distant hope of
winning you back to Göttingen appeared. The endeavor was successful, despite

35 Klein’s election as a corresponding member of the Berlin Academy took place at the same
sessions as Hilbert’s. In the mathematical-physical class, both were elected unanimously on
May 29, 1913. In the election that took place during the Academy’s general assembly on June
10, 1913, Klein received 40 out of 44 votes, while Hilbert was elected unanimously.
36 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 107. Regarding the context, see Section 8.5.2.
37 In 1816, the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel had first described his double-mirror
experiment, which was used to demonstrate interference phenomena.
38 Moritz Stern had already applied to be released from his duties on April 19, 1884, and his
request was approved on October 1, 1884 (see Section 5.8.2).
612 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

the great difficulties involved. Althoff, who was sympathetic to the plan itself,
feared that it would be rejected. I accompanied him on the way back from the ob-
servatory into town [Göttingen], and it was then that his resolution was made. At
the corner where the Schildweg branches off from the yard of the barracks, he
asked me: “Can you promise that Klein will accept?” “Yes,” I replied, and there-
upon he agreed to initiate your appointment.
I was well aware that you, as our new colleague, would not be guided by the
saying “quieta non movere,”39 but that is precisely why I considered your appoint-
ment so important and why it seemed to me to be a matter of life and death for our
university. At that time, there was a danger that it would sink to the level of a pu-
rely provincial university, so a new impulse from the outside was urgently needed.
That we were not mistaken in this assumption is clear from the history of the last
decades: the reorganization of mathematical instruction, the reorganization of the
Society of Sciences [i.e., the Academy], the Göttingen Association – to name only
those things that pertain especially to Göttingen. In all of this organizational work,
we have always admired three things above all: the high standpoint and the broad
perspective with which you embraced all the issues under consideration; the way
in which you knew how to recognize the relationship between the most varied
things in order to direct all of them toward one and the same goal; finally, your
perfect sense of justice toward all matters and people, and the idealism and
selflessness with which you put your work at the service of the general public.
In the end, everything depends on the point of view from which one looks at
things; the higher this is, the more personal opinions disappear, and the more
clearly objective interests appear. Thus, the way that you have been working for
the good of our university, for the good of science, and for the good of our whole
culture has unintentionally had another effect. Surely the highest values of man do
not lie in the intellectual but in the ethical sphere. Many of your friends and
colleagues may have experienced that after chatting with you, they felt like a hiker
in the pure mountain air high above the daily hustle and bustle of people, which
disappears in an unsubstantial glimmer far below. Everything petty and limited
has vanished and fallen away, and the soul is filled with great and pure feeling.
For some of your students, this effect may have even been of deeper significance
than the immediate effects of your teaching, and so an especially warm thanks for
this as well.
I am not merely standing here, however, as a representative of your Göttingen
colleagues but rather on behalf of a large number of friends, admirers, and stu-
dents from all parts of the world, and on their behalf I would now like to read
what they have to say to you today, what they would like to thank you for, and
what their wishes are for you.40

39 Quieta non movere = “Do not move settled things,” i.e., “Don’t rock the boat.”
40 The message that Riecke then read out contains nothing new. What is interesting, however,
are the seventy-one names of the people who signed an appeal for donations for the portrait at
the beginning of 1912: A. Ackermann-Teubner, L. Bianchi, O. Blumenthal, M. Bôcher, H. v.
 Appendix: A Selection of Documents 613

10.2) Felix Klein’s acceptance speech.

My dear colleagues and friends!

For the extraordinary honor that you have bestowed on me with your words and
with this painting, I would like to express my deepest thanks to you and to those
who commissioned it. I regard this picture as a symbol for the hope that the con-
struction of the independent Mathematical Institute, as we have planned to build it
in the immediate vicinity of the Institute of Physics, will in fact come about.41
May it there find its place as a symbol of my efforts to bring the mathematical
sciences into a lively relationship with their neighboring disciplines to form a
large and versatile whole, which goes beyond the achievements of any individual
and certainly beyond my own modest contributions. Your address, however, is a
dear reminder to me of the many friends and colleagues with whom I have been
able to establish a relationship along my way. Cooperation with like-minded
people has always been my real element of life. I also hope, on this basis, to be
able to encourage the continuation of the summarizing works that I have been
managing for years despite the inhibitions that the state of my health imposes on
me. In the meantime, new life is blossoming around me, enriching me and
pushing me ever onward and upward, and I accompany its increasing importance
with ever more participation. I could wish for nothing better than to have the time
in which I worked appear later, in retrospective contemplation, as a time that
prepared the way for a new ascent. I thank you again and ask you to convey these
thanks in a suitable form to everyone involved.

Böttinger, A. v. Brill, H. Burkhardt, C. Carathéodory, G. Darboux, R. Dedekind, W. v. Dyck,

E. Ehlers, F. Enriques, H. Fehr, L. Fejér, R. Fricke, R. Fueter, P. Gordan, G. Greenhill, G.B.
Guccia, A. Gutzmer, J. Hadamard, O. Henrici, D. Hilbert, E.W. Hobson, A. Höfler, O. Höl-
der, A. Hurwitz, G. Kerschensteiner, P. Koebe, J. König, A. Krazer, E. Landau, E. Lange, W.
Lietzmann, C. v. Linde, F. Lindemann, F. Mertens, F. Meyer, O. v. Miller, G. Mittag-Leffler,
J. Molk, E.H. Moore, C.H. Müller, M. Noether, W. Osgood, E. Picard, H. Poincaré, E.
Riecke, K. Rohn, C. Runge, R. Schimmack, H. Schotten, F. Schur, A. Sommerfeld, P. Stä-
ckel, V.A. Steklov [W. Steckloff], O. Taaks, A. Thaer, P. Treutlein, A.V. Vasilev [A. Wassi-
liew ], G. Veronese, W. Voigt, V. Volterra, K. Von der Mühll, A. Voss [Voß], E. Waelsch, H.
Weber, A. Wiman, W. Wirtinger, H.G. Zeuthen. (Not all of those who signed this appeal
were themselves among the donors, see Figure 43).
The appeal attracted 331 donors. They came from Austria-Hungary (J. König, G. Rados, G.
Zemplén ...), Australia, Belgium, Canada (J.C. Fields), Denmark (P. Heegaard...), France (P.
Appell, E. Borel, B. Boutroux ...), Germany, Great Britain (A. Berry, G. Darwin, A.E.H.
Love), Greece (C. Stephanos), India, Italy (G. Castelnuovo, G. Loria, E. d’Ovidio, E. Pascal,
C. Segre, ...), Japan (R. Fujisawa, T. Yoshiye), the Netherlands (L.E.J. Brouwer, ...), Portugal
(F.G. Teixeira). They were Polish mathematicians (S. Dickstein, K. Zorawski), came from
Russia (including Nadezhda N. Gernet, A.N. Krylov [Kriloff], A.A. Markov [Markoff], D.M.
Sintsov [Sinzov], ... ), from Sweden, Switzerland (including E. Fiedler, C. Jaccottet, F. Rudio,
A. Weiler), the USA (F.N. Cole, F. Franklin, M.W. Haskell, D.E. Smith, V. Snyder, H.W.
Tyler, E.B. Van Vleck, F.S. Woods, ...).
41 As mentioned, the institute (Bunsenstraße 3–5) was not completed until 1929; see 9.4.2.
614 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

Figure 43: A list of donors

who sponsored Max Liebermann’s painting of Klein’s portrait in 1912 [Hillebrand].
 Appendix: A Selection of Documents 615

Figure 43: A list of donors

who sponsored Max Liebermann’s painting of Klein’s portrait in 1912 [Hillebrand].
616 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

Figure 43: A list of donors

who sponsored Max Liebermann’s painting of Klein’s portrait in 1912 [Hillebrand].
 Appendix: A Selection of Documents 617

Figure 43: A list of donors

who sponsored Max Liebermann’s painting of Klein’s portrait in 1912 [Hillebrand].
618 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

11) Virgil Snyder from Ithaca (New York) to Felix Klein, a letter, dated July 4,
1924, concerning the International Congress of Mathematicians in Toronto,
Canada from 11 August to 16 August 1924.42

Dear Mr. Privy Councilor,

My sincerest thanks for your kind letter, which arrived here just as I had to go to
the hospital for an operation. I would now like to return your greetings and, at the
same time, explain my position regarding the upcoming Congress in Canada.
It was during my stay in Rome two years ago that I first learned that the next
Congress would be held in the United States, but I heard nothing then about the
participation or non-participation of various nations. As far as I know, the matter
was never discussed by the American Mathematical Society; it certainly, in any
case, never came to a vote.
Professor R.C. Archibald,43 who was in Rome at the same time, and I made
plans to invite at least some of the mathematicians who would participate in the
Congress to give lectures, after its conclusion, at our universities, perhaps in the
form of shorter courses that could be taught in a few weeks. In this way, we hoped
that the students and faculty at our universities could get to know these men and
that we could ease the financial burden of the long journey for the mathematicians
themselves.
It will interest you to hear that Castelnuovo, Enriques, Levi-Civita, Segre, and
Severi,44 to whom I communicated this plan, found it extremely acceptable, and
each of them wished that such invitations would also be sent to representatives
from Central Europe.
I never learned why the financial support that was initially promised to us was
then withdrawn, but this made it necessary to cancel the American invitations.
As soon as the invitation from Canada arrived and was accepted, I presented
our plan (Archibald’s and mine) to the chairman of the Committee of the Cana-

42 [UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 11: 1040A (the original letter, written in German, is published in
TOBIES 2019, pp. 521–23). Snyder had spent four semesters (1892/93 to 1894) attending
Klein’s lecture courses, and he twice lectured in Klein’s seminar. On the basis of Snyder’s
presentation on sphere geometry ([Protocols] vol. 11, pp. 265–73), Klein steered him toward
his dissertation: “Ueber die linearen Komplexe der Lie’schen Kugelgeometrie” [On the Li-
near Complexes of Lie’s Sphere Geometry] (1895). As of 1910, Snyder was a full professor
at Cornell University (Ithaca, New York). Following in Klein’s footsteps, he concentrated his
research primarily on the field of algebraic geometry. See also PARSHALL/ROWE 1994.
43 The Canadian-born Raymond Clare Archibald (as of 1908 at Brown University, Rhode Is-
land, USA) had completed his doctorate in 1900 with Theodor Reye in Straßburg.
44 About these Italian mathematicians, Klein wrote: “The general algebraic problem of biratio-
nal transformation of surfaces was then developed further [after Clebsch and M. Noether],
especially by the young Italian school, to which belonged Segre, Veronese, Enriques, Castel-
nuovo, and Severi” (KLEIN 1979 [1926], p. 295).
 Appendix: A Selection of Documents 619

dian Congress, Professor J.C. Fields45. He approved it and asked me to develop it

further, etc. There was no talk about restricting the invitations.
I then sent inquiries to the universities of Chicago, Harvard, and Cornell.
From Chicago I received the news that participation in the Congress would be
restricted. I was asked to abandon my plan because it would only serve to embar-
rass the Canadian committee. When I asked for further clarification, I received a
long letter from Professor Dickson.46
He wrote that the whole world was aware of the situation – why rustle eve-
rything up again? But at the meeting of the Mathematical Society in New York
soon thereafter, nobody knew anything about it. I spoke with about forty partici-
pants. After a long discussion with Mr. Fields, however, I realized that I could not
carry out my plan and I gave it up.
Yet now I have an opportunity to implement something that is very dear to
my heart. Various American organizations (the Mathematical Society, the Physi-
cal Society, the National Academy, etc.) were asked to appoint representatives to
form the American group of the International Mathematical Union. Of these re-
presentatives – seventeen in all – three have now been elected as delegates to To-
ronto. The elected delegates are Coble, Richardson,47 and Snyder.
We were asked to submit the following proposal: “Resolved that the Interna-
tional Mathematical Union request the International Research Council to consider
whether the time is ripe for removing the restrictions on membership in the Inter-
national Union, now imposed by the rules of that Council.”48
Should this matter not be considered, we have decided to withdraw comple-
tely from the [Mathematical] Union.49
In the hope that you are back in good health, and with best regards to you, I
am
Your devoted
Virgil Snyder

45 The aforementioned Fields Medal donor, see Section 8.2.2. In the winter semester 1894/95,
John Charles Fields had attended Felix Klein’s lectures on number theory ([UBG] Cod. MS.
F. Klein 7E, p.175v) and participated in his seminar without giving a lecture.
46 Primarily an expert in algebra and number theory, Leonard Eugene Dickson had studied at the
University of Chicago under H. Maschke, O. Bolza, and E.H. Moore. Dickson had also spent
time studying under Sophus Lie in Leipzig and C. Jordan in Paris. He was aware of the anti-
German attitude that then prevailed among French mathematicians. See also Section 9.1.1.
47 Regarding A.B. Coble, see also Section 6.3.1. R.G.D. Richardson had studied in Göttingen,
before earning his doctorate from Yale (1906). He became a professor at Brown University.
48 This quotation appears in English in the letter.
49 The proposal made by the American delegates in Toronto in 1924 was supported by partici-
pants from Denmark, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. Snyder, the
president of the American Mathematical Society in 1927/28, also served as a delegate at the
1928 Congress in Bologna, where German mathematicians were once again allowed to parti-
cipate, though not without heavy resistance from nationalistically minded mathematicians
(see SIEGMUND-SCHULTZE 2016a).
620 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

Figure 44: The certification of Felix Klein’s election as a foreign associate

of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, April 21, 1898
([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 114: 22).
 Appendix: A Selection of Documents 621

12) David Hilbert’s eulogy for Felix Klein, delivered at the session of the Göttin-
gen Mathematical Society held on June 23, 1925, one day after Klein’s death.50

Ladies and Gentlemen.

Allow me to say a few words before today’s agenda begins. Our dear teacher,
colleague, and friend Felix Klein passed away gently in his sleep last night. His
end was peaceful and painless; it did not come as a surprise but was long foreseen.
Now that it is here, however, the event has touched us all deeply and has shocked
us all in the most painful way. For until that moment, Felix Klein was still with
us; we could visit him, listen to his advice, and see how vivaciously he partici-
pated in matters of all sorts. Now this is over. A great spirit, a strong will, and a
noble character has been taken from us. –
This is not the place to pay tribute to Klein; no such tribute could be made in
just a few words. For his activity and work were so varied and so enormous that it
is impossible to focus on any single aspect. It is even impossible to decide
whether he was most effective as a teacher, as a researcher, or as a personality.
As a teacher, we commemorate here above all his brilliant presentations and
lectures. But if we want to identify his great feature, we would have to describe
how, in contrast to the prevailing trend toward abstraction and formal aspects, he
always emphasized what was intuitive [das Anschauliche] and applicable, thus
expressing and underscoring the multifaceted nature of mathematics. And with
this tendency he was successful, despite strong countercurrents. And the scientific
sign in which he conquered was the name Riemann,51 which he wrote onto his
banner.
As far as Klein the researcher is concerned, there is hardly a single mathe-
matical field that has not been cultivated by him. Especially geometry and, in par-
ticular, geometric function theory. It was precisely the most profound theorems
about uniformization that he first foresaw; he also provided the bases for the
proofs, and today the whole structure stands strong, elaborated by his students.52
He used the remaining energy of his final years to give us an especially precious
gift: the three volumes of his collected works, a prime example of how to edit the
works of a scholar.53
Yet even if Klein’s activities for the world and for science may be the main
issue, for us there is still the essential question of what he created for Göttingen: a
new golden era [Blütezeit], and for this he not only laid the foundations but also
issued the guidelines for how to perpetuate it into the future. Everything that you
see here is the product of his personality: the reading room, the model collection,
the […] institutes, the appointments, the goodwill of the ministry, the important
figures from industry whom he won over [as Göttingen’s patrons]. We owe this to

50 [UBG] Cod MS. Hilbert 575: No. 3.

51 An allusion to the Latin expression “In hoc signo vinces” [In this sign thou shalt conquer].
52 See Section 5.5.4.
53 KLEIN 1921/1922/1923.
622 Appendix: A Selection of Documents

his personality, through which he always and everywhere had success on his side.
But what was it about his personality that led to such success? The secret to his
success lay in his incorruptible objectivity. Grand goals, never petty or personal
ancillary goals. Thus did Klein also bequeath his spirit to us, so that we might
continue to work in his spirit. Let us continue as long as this spirit does not fade
away.

Figure 45: Felix and Anna Klein’s gravestone in Göttingen’s old city cemetery
(photograph courtesy of Dr. W. Mahler).
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
[AdW Göttingen] Archiv der Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen.
[AdW Leipzig] Archiv der Sächsischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig (Record F.
Klein: 1 fol. personal data).
[AdW München] Archiv der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften München.
[AdW Wien] Archiv der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien (Vienna).
[Archive St. Petersburg] Archive of the Russian Academy of Science, St. Petersburg (Election
proposals in 1895; Estate of A.A. Markov: Fond 173, Opis 1, No. 40).
[Archiv TU München] Directorium der Kgl. Polytechnischen Schule München (Dr. Felix Klein,
Kgl. o.ö. Professor, Registratur II 5; X2d).
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H.v.Helmholtz; W. Ostwald, H.A. Schwarz [Schwarz to Weierstraß, No. 1254; Weierstraß to
Schwarz, No. 1175]); Bestand PAW 1812-1945).
[BBF] Archiv der Bibliothek für bildungsgeschichtliche Forschung Berlin: Personalbögen [Per-
sonnel files of Prussian secondary school teachers].
[BHSt] Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv München, Akten des Kgl. Staatsministeriums des Innern für
Kirchen- und Schulangelegenheiten.
[BStBibl] Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München, Handschriftenabteilung, Dyckiania.
[Blaschke] Estate of Wilhelm Blaschke. Mathematical Society in Hamburg (MHG), Klein’s letters
to Blaschke (made available by Prof. Dr. Alexander Kreuzer, Jahrverwalter of the MHG).
[Canada] Canada Institute for Scientific and Technological Information, National Research Coun-
cil, Ottawa. K.A. Ø S 2.
[Debye] Kuhn, T.S.; Uhlenbeck, G., Interview with Peter Debye dated May 3, 1962. Rockefeller
Institute, New York City.
[Deutsches Museum] Archiv des Deutschen Museums München; Dept. Sondersammlungen.
[Gymnasium Düsseldorf] Zeugnis der Reife Felix Kleins (2.8.1865); schriftliche Abiturarbeiten.
[Hecke] Estate of Erich Hecke, Mathematical Institute, University of Hamburg.
[Hillebrand] Private Estate of the Barbara and Meinolf Hillebrand family in Scheeßel.
[Innsbruck] Estate Otto Stolz (Klein’s letters to Otto Stolz, transcribed by Christa Binder).
[Lindemann] Private Estate of Irmgard Verholzer née Balder (Ferdinand Lindemann’s
granddaughter): Ferdinand Lindemann’s Memoirs, 1911.
[Math. Institute Leipzig] Klein, unedited lectures (kept by Frau Ina Letzel).
[MPI Archiv] Max-Planck-Archiv Berlin-Dahlem, Repertorium Prandtl, III. Abt., Repositur 61.
[Oslo] Nasjonalbiblioteket, Estate of Sophus Lie (I. Klein’s letters to Lie; II. Klein: “Ueber Lie’s
und meine Arbeiten aus den Jahren 1870–72” dated Nov. 1, 1892 (published in ROWE 1992a,
588–604); III. Unpublishcd records by Friedrich Engel, prepared for Lie’s Collected papers).
[Paris] Bibliothèque de l’Institut de France, Faculté des Sciences de Paris, MS 2719 (Lettres de
Klein à Gaston Darboux).
[Paris-ÉP] École polytechnique. Archives. Art. VI §2 Sect. a2 (Klein’s letters to Jordan).
[Pisa] Scuola Normale Superiore Pisa, Biblioteca, Fondo Enrico Betti.
[Protocols] vols. 1-29. Protocols of Klein’s Mathematical Seminars. [UBG], online:
http://www.uni-math.gwdg.de/aufzeichnungen/klein-scans/klein/
[Roma] Rom, Istituto Matematico “G. Castelnuovo,” Università di Roma (Felix Klein’s letters to
Luigi Cremona).
[StA Berlin] Staatsarchiv Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Abt. Merseburg.
[StA Dresden] Sächsisches Staatsarchiv Dresden, Ministerium für Volksbildung 10210; 10281.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 623

R. Tobies, Felix Klein, Vita Mathematica 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75785-4
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[StA Potsdam] Staatsarchiv Potsdam, Reichsministerium des Innern (RMdI).

[StB Berlin] Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, Handschriftenabteilung.
[UA Bonn] Archiv der Universität Bonn.
[UA Braunschweig] Archiv der Technischen Universität Braunschweig (Estate Robert Fricke:
Felix Klein’s letters to Fricke).
[UA Erlangen] Archiv der Universität Erlangen.
[UA Frankfurt] Universitätsarchiv Frankfurt am Main (Estate of Max von Laue).
[UA Freiburg] Archiv der Universität Freiburg i.Br. (DMV 1, Korrespondenzbuch. Vorbereitung
und Gründung der DMV, 1889–1895).
[UAG] Archiv der Universität Göttingen.
[UB Erlangen] Handschriftenabteilung der Universitätsbibliothek Erlangen (Records of the Physi-
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[UB Frankfurt] Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt am Main, J.C. Senckenberg, Na 42 (Estate of
Wilhelm Lorey).
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(Cod. MS. F. Klein: http://hans.sub.uni-goettingen.de/nachlaesse/Klein.pdf; Cod. MS. Hil-
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Figure 46: Felix Klein’s diploma for his honory doctorate (doctoris rerum politicarum dignitatem
et ornamenta) from the University of Berlin, April 25, 1924.
([UBG] Cod. MS. F. Klein 113: 10)
 INDEX OF NAMES

In the index, “DMV” denotes a member of the German Mathematical Society,

“Enc” denotes a contributor to the ENCYKLOPÄDIE, and “Enc(f)” indicates a con-
tributor to the French edition of the ENCYKLOPÄDIE (Encyclopédie des sciences
mathématiques pures et appliquées). Names appearing in figures are included in
the index only if they appear elsewhere in the book or if they belong to par-
ticularly important mathematicians.

Abbe, Ernst 1840–1905, physicist, math., Anisimov, Vasily A. 1860–1907, Russian

entrepreneur, DMV: 35, 438, 565, 590.
Abel, Niels Henrik 1802–1929, Norweg.
math.: vii, 25, 47, 63, 67-69, 80, 98,
108, 153, 178, 180, 216, 228, 261, 264,
272, 292, 298, 309, 322, 339, 344, 366,
392, 405, 457, 580, 607, 610
Abraham, Max 1875–1922, theor. physicist,
DMV, Enc: 44, 394, 465, 542
Ackermann-Teubner, Alfred Gustav Bene-
dictus 1857–1941, publisher, DMV:
215, 300, 301, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307,
429, 612, 614, 624
Afanasyeva (md. Ehrenfest), Tatyana A.
1876–1964, Russian math., Enc: 433
Ahrens, Wilhelm 1872–1927, math., DMV,
Enc: 428
Airy, George Biddell 1801–1892, British
math., astronom: 470
Aleksandrov, Pavel S. 1896–1982, Russian
math., DMV: 533, 538, 649
Alekseyevsky, Vladimir P. 1858–1916,
Ukrainian math.: 393
Althoff, Friedrich 1839–1907, Prussian
official: 7, 83, 86, 233-34, 242, 318-
19, 331-32, 335-36, 354-55, 359-60,
363-64, 366, 373-75, 377-81, 384, 387,
401, 407-08, 410-14, 419, 421-23, 434,
438, 440-46, 451, 488, 491, 500-01,
510-12, 519, 546, 581, 605-06, 612,
626, 633, 642, 649
Amelung, Julius *1864, stud., teacher: 201
Ameseder, Adolf 1858–1891, Austrian
math.: 231, 248
Amsler-Laffon, Jakob 1823–1912, Swiss
math., eng.: 146
math.: 603, 604
Appell, Paul 1855–1930, French math.,
Enc(f): 268, 352, 495, 579, 613-14
Archenhold, Friedrich Simon 1861–1939,
astr., DMV: 369
Archibald, Raymond Clare 1875–1955,
Canadian-American math., hist., DMV:
347, 618
Argelander, Friedrich Wilhelm 1799–1875,
astronom: 30, 31
Aronhold, Siegfried 1819–1884, math.: 48,
53, 119
Artin, Emil 1898–1962, Austrian math.,
DMV: 536
Ascoli, Giulio 1843–1896, Ital. math.: 153
Assmann, Richard 1845–1918, meteorolo-
gist: 451-52
Asthöwer, Fritz 1835–1913, eng.: 422
Augustus, né Gaius Octavius 63 BC–14 AD,
Roman emperor: 396
Baade, Walter 1893–1960, astronom, DMV:
535, 536
Bach, Carl von 1847–1931, eng.: 304, 614
Bacharach, Isaak 1854–1942, math., DMV:
204
Bäcklund, Albert Victor 1845–1922, Swe-
dish math., DMV: 136
Baeyer, Adolf (as of 1885 Ritter von) 1835–
1917, chem.: 379, 560
Ball, Robert Stawell 1840–1913, Irish math.,
astromomer: 150, 330, 353
Baltzer, Richard 1818–1887, math.: 102,
311-12, 596
Barkhausen, Heinrich 1881–1956, physicist:
466, 614

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 655

R. Tobies, Felix Klein, Vita Mathematica 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75785-4
656 Index of Names
Barnum, Charlotte Cynthia 1860–1934,
American math.: 413
Bartling, Friedrich Gottlieb 1798–1875,
botanist: 89
Battaglini, Giuseppe 1826–1894, Italian
math.: 40, 41, 44, 76, 87, 153-56
Bauer, Gustav 1820–1906, math., DMV:
124, 172-73, 193-94, 209, 241, 598
Bauer, Max 1844–1917, mineral.: 115
Bauernfeind, Karl Maximilian (Max) von
1818–1894, geodesist: 171, 173, 206,
598
Baumgart, Oswald, math.: 230
Bauschinger, Johann 1834–1893, math.,
construction eng.: 172-73, 201
Bauschinger, Julius 1860–1934, astronom,
DMV, Enc: 201, 557, 559-60
Bayer, Friedrich 1851–1920, entrepreneur:
561
Bechmann (as of 1891 Ritter von), August
1834–1907, legal scholar: 144
Becker, Carl Heinrich 1876–1933, oriental.,
politician: 531-34
Beer, August 1825–1863, math., physicist,
chemist: 596
Beetz (as of 1876 von), Wilhelm 1822–
1886, physicist: 172, 173
Behnke, Heinrich 1898–1979, math., DMV:
64, 546, 564, 625, 631
Behrendsen, Otto 1850–1921, Gymn.-Prof.:
392-93, 398, 614, 636
Behrens, Wilhelm 1885–1917, math., PhD
with Klein, DMV: 491, 517, 614
Beke, Emanuel (Manó) 1862–1946, Hunga-
rian math., DMV: 393, 493, 527
Beltrami, Eugenio 1835–1900, Italian math.:
54, 87, 102-03, 154-56, 247, 256, 348,
382, 634
Beman, Wooster Woodruff 1850–1922,
American math., DMV: 399, 635
Beneke, Carl Gustav 1800–1864, pastor:
481
Beneke, Friedrich Eduard 1798–1854, phi-
losopher: 481-82, 485-86
Benfey, Bruno 1891–1962, pastor: 170
Benfey, Theodor 1809–1881, orient.: 362
Bernays, Paul 1888–1977, math., DMV:
536
Berneker, Erich 1874–1937, Slavicist: 532
Bernstein, Felix 1878–1956, math., DMV:
168, 302, 394, 420, 480, 487, 490-92,
516, 534, 614, 649
Berry, Arthur 1862–1929, British math.,
DMV: 334, 613-14
Bertheau, Ernst 1812–1888, orient.: 90
Bertini, Eugenio 1846–1933, Italian math.:
153, 157
Bertrand, Joseph 1822–1900, French math.:
84, 312, 351, 572, 596
Berzolari, Luigi 1863–1949, Italian math.,
Enc: 431
Bessel-Hagen, Erich 1898–1946, math.,
DMV: 281, 536-37
Betti, Enrico 1823–1892, Ital. math.: 154,
156-157, 199, 623
Beumer, Wilhelm 1848–1929, teacher,
politician: 422
Bezold, Wilhelm von 1837–1907, physicist,
meteorol.: 202-03
Bianchi, Luigi 1856–1928, Italian math.:
195, 198, 200-01, 210, 214, 359, 576,
585, 612, 614
Bieberbach, Ludwig 1886–1982, math.,
DMV, Enc: 428, 457, 491, 505, 522,
550, 555, 560, 607-08, 614, 639
Biedermann, Paul *1862, math., PhD with
Klein: 67, 226, 230, 293, 311, 614
Biot, Jean-Baptiste 1774–1862, French
math.: 37
Bischof, Johann N. 1827–1893, math.: 172-
73, 175, 212
Bischof, Karl Gustav 1792–1870, geo-
chemist: 32
Bismarck, Otto von 1815–1898, politician:
28, 84, 329, 499, 511
Blake, Edwin Mortimer 1868–1955, Ame-
rican math.: 404
Blaschke, Wilhelm 1885–1962, Austrian
math., DMV: 131, 387, 433, 523, 547-
48, 623, 636
Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich 1752–1840,
zoologist, anthropol.: 45
Blumenthal, Otto 1876–1944, math., DMV:
v, 57-58, 394, 436, 453-54, 461, 543-
44, 559, 565, 612, 614, 626, 644
Bobek, Karl 1855–1899, Austrian math.,
DMV: 230, 248
Bôcher, Maxime 1867–1918, American
math., PhD with Klein, DMV, Enc:
100, 302, 334, 344, 345-46, 372, 393,
405, 455, 612, 614, 625
Bödiker, Tonio 1843–1907, Prussian
official: 439
 Index of Names
Boehm, Karl 1873–1958, math., DMV: 237,
426
Boelitz, Otto 1876–1951, pedag., politician:
555
Börnstein, Richard 1852–1913, physicist:
97
Böttger, Adolf, math., teacher: 230, 232
Böttinger (as of 1907 von), Henry Theodore
1848–1920, industrialist: 422-24, 439-
41, 443-44, 449, 451-53, 500, 502, 512,
561, 582, 613-14, 637
Bohlmann, Georg 1869–1928, math., actua-
ry, DMV, Enc: 393, 419-20, 447, 614,
636
Bokowski, Adalbert 1899–1948, math.,
DMV: 536
Boltzmann, Ludwig 1844–1906, Austrian
physicist, DMV, Enc: vii, 119, 306,
364-65, 379, 426, 450, 482, 489, 512,
591, 632, 637
Bolyai, János (Johann) 1802–1860, Hunga-
rian math.: 70, 72-73, 101-02, 126,
250, 579-80, 642
Bolza, Oskar 1857–1942, math., DMV:
168, 337, 365, 402, 404, 415, 614
Bolzano, Bernhard 1781–1848, Bohemian
math., philosopher, theologian: 139
Boole, George 1815–1864, Engl. math.: 56
Borchardt, Carl Wilhelm 1817–1880, math.:
63-64, 247, 267, 282, 284, 337-38, 365,
411
Borel, Émile 1871–1956, French math., Enc,
Enc(f): 302, 430, 452, 613-14
Born, Max 1882–1970, physicist, DMV,
Enc: viii, 301, 357, 394, 439, 473, 544,
562, 577, 582, 614, 626
Bortkiewicz, Ladislaus von 1868–1931,
Polish-Russ. statistician, Enc: 419
Bosse, Robert 1832–1901, lawyer, poli-
tician: 400, 438
Bosworth (md. Focke), Anne Lucy 1868–
1907, American math.: 393
Boulanger, Auguste 1866–1923, French
math., Enc(f): 333
Boussinesq, Valentin Joseph 1842–1929,
French math., physicist: 430, 467
Boutroux, Pierre 1880–1922, French math.,
Enc(f): 613-14
Boyd, James H. 1862–1946, American
math.: 334
Branford, Benchara 1867–1944, Scottish
math., : 302, 584
657
Brater (md. Sapper), Agnes 1852–1929,
writer: 163
Brater, Karl Ludwig Theodor 1819–1869,
publicist: 163
Brater (neé Pfaff), Pauline 1827–1907: 163
Brauer, Richard 1901–1977, math., DMV:
289
Braun, Wilhelm *1852, Math., PhD with
Klein: 133, 136
Braune, Christian 1831–1892, anatomist:
310, 313
Bravais, Auguste 1811–1863, French phy-
sicist, crystallographer: 356
Brendel, Martin 1862–1939, astronom,
DMV: 420, 447, 465, 478, 614
Bretschneider, Wilhelm 1847–1931, math.,
teacher, prof., PhD with Klein, DMV:
108, 133-35, 614
Brill (as of 1897 von), Alexander 1842–
1935, math., DMV: 47-50, 53, 87, 119-
20, 161, 173-77, 191, 193, 195, 202-04,
206-07, 209-10, 212, 221, 227, 249,
264, 270, 372, 386, 451, 555, 613-14
Brill, Ludwig, publisher: 108, 175, 206
Brioschi, Francesco 1824–1897, Italian
math.: 153-54, 157, 180-84, 186, 189,
209, 288, 575
Brouwer, Luitzen 1881–1966, Dutch math.,
DMV: 57- 58, 279-80, 457, 522-23,
572, 613-14, 652
Bruhns, Karl Christian 1830–1881, astrono-
mer: 222
Brunel, Georges 1856–1900, French math.,
Enc: 10, 230, 244-45, 268, 270
Bruns, Heinrich 1848–1919, math., astr.,
DMV: 67, 114, 222, 229-30, 308, 371,
614, 648
Bryan, George Hartley 1864–1928 British
applied math., Enc: 432
Buchheim, Arthur 1859–1888, British math.:
150, 230, 244
Budde, Emil A. 1842–1921, physicist: 42,
614
Büttner, Friedrich 1859–1915, math.,
teacher 230, 268
Burkhardt, Heinrich 1861–1914, math.,
DMV, Enc: 172, 263, 331-32, 338-41,
360, 366, 369-70, 384, 392, 394, 402-
03, 417, 429-30, 463, 606, 613-14, 638
Burnside, William 1852–1927, Engl. math.:
283, 624
658 Index of Names
Busch, Wilhelm 1832–1908, poet, illus-
trator: 163
Campbell, George Ashley 1870–1954, Ame-
rican math.: 345, 399, 466
Cantor, Georg 1845–1918, math., DMV:
54, 64, 130, 192, 239, 361, 367-72,
374, 454, 483, 491, 511, 525, 538, 569,
627, 631, 642
Cantor, Moritz 1829–1920, math. historian,
DMV: 208, 303-04, 306, 479, 495
Capelli, Alfredo 1855–1910, Italian math.:
402
Carathéodory, Constantin 1873–1950, Greek
math., DMV: 1, 4, 57, 123, 327, 390,
465, 480, 522, 523, 524, 528, 532, 536,
537, 568, 613-14, 626
Cartan, Élie Joseph 1869–1951, French
math., Enc(f): 131, 352, 646-47
Casorati, Felice 1835–1890, Italian math.:
154, 596
Cassirer, Ernst 1874–1945, philosopher:
131, 244, 625
Castelnuovo, Guido 1865–1952, Italian
math., Enc: 431, 585, 613-14, 618, 623
Cauchy, Augustin-Louis 1789–1857, French
math.: 44, 217, 223, 295, 410, 412,
569, 579
Cauer (née Schelle), Wilhelmine (Minna)
1841–1922, educator: 506
Cayley, Arthur 1821–1895, British math.: 4,
37, 47-48, 52, 54, 66, 70-73, 87, 90,
101-03, 147-52, 190, 192, 199, 204,
211, 214, 242, 290, 314-15, 334, 348,
353, 416, 473, 570, 575, 585, 599
Chasles, Michel 1793–1880, French math.:
50, 68, 74-75, 79, 84, 105, 108, 130,
192, 197, 241
Chebyshev, Pafnuty L. 1821–1894, Russian
math.: 177, 250, 355, 436, 485-87
Chisholm (md. Young), Grace 1868–1944,
Engl. math., PhD with Klein: xix, 302,
354, 393-94, 399, 413-16, 429, 522,
529-30, 538, 547, 576, 631, 640, 653
Christoffel, Elwin Bruno 1829–1900, math.:
120, 264, 434, 494
Cicero, Marcus Tullius 106–43 BC, Roman
statesman, philos.: 23
Clausius, Rudolf 1822–1888, physicist: 147
Clebsch, Alfred 1833–1872, math.: 2-3, 6,
9, 10, 12, 17, 32, 37, 39-40, 45-55, 57-
59, 61-65, 67-69, 74-75, 77, 88-93, 95-
98, 100-02, 106-11, 113, 116, 118-20,
124-26, 128-29, 132-34, 136-37, 139-
40, 153, 155-56, 158-60, 162, 173, 185,
191-92, 198, 209, 212, 216-17, 221,
223, 249, 260, 264-65, 299, 330, 334,
338, 358, 361, 379, 404, 477-79, 482,
510, 526, 546, 569-70, 574-76, 578,
589, 596-97, 608, 611, 618, 627, 638,
642, 647, 650, 652
Clifford, William Kingdon 1845–1879,
Engl. math.: 4, 48, 103, 148-49, 152,
192
Coble, Arthur Byron 1878–1966, American
math.: 339, 619
Cohn-Vossen, Stephan 1902–1936, math.,
DMV: 237, 257, 539, 632
Cole, Frank Nelson 1861–1926, American
math., PhD with Klein: 231, 246, 290,
337, 613-14
Collatz, Lothar 1910–1990, math., DMV:
448-50, 627
Columbus, Christopher ca. 1451–1506, Ita-
lian explorer: 401
Comba, Paul G. 1926–2017, Italian-Ameri-
can amateur astronomer: 27
Copley, Godfrey Sir 1653–1709, English
landowner: 38, 151, 354, 518
Cornelius, Hans 1863–1947, philos.: 231
Courant, Richard 1888–1972, math., DMV:
vii, 117, 421, 480, 523-25, 536-37, 539,
547, 555, 559, 563, 566-67, 585-86,
614, 627, 643
Cram (md. Klein), Myrthel, American
daughter-in-law of F. Klein: x, 166
Crelle, August Leopold 1780–1855, math.:
63, 628
Cremona, Luigi 1830–1903, Italian math.,
DMV: 7, 38, 52, 87, 108, 154-58, 190,
206, 216, 246, 339, 348, 382, 408, 468,
495, 569, 595-96, 623, 627, 633, 639
Culmann, Karl 1821–1881, German-Swiss
eng.: 73, 468
Czapski, Siegfried 1861–1907, physicist:
114
Czermak, Johann Nepomuk 1828–1873,
physiologist: 219
Czuber, Emmanuel, 1851–1925, Austrian
math., DMV, Enc: 495
Dalwigk, Friedrich von 1864–1943, math.,
DMV: 393
Darboux, Gaston 1842–1917, French math.:
6, 14, 44, 74-76, 80, 83-85, 87, 96, 99,
100, 102, 107-08, 120, 123, 126-27,
 Index of Names
132, 138, 161, 181, 192, 195-96, 209,
213, 244-45, 250, 254, 268, 270, 292,
311-12, 322, 333, 397, 411, 428, 503,
512, 525, 529, 573, 575, 579-80, 583-
84, 595-96, 613-14, 623, 627, 630, 643
Darwin, Charles Robert 1809–1882, British
biologist: 36, 205, 591, 633
Darwin, George Howard 1845–1912, British
astronomer, Enc: 353, 613-14
Debye, Peter 1884–1966, Dutch physicist,
DMV, Enc: 327, 480, 562, 623, 645
Decoster, Paul 1886–1939, Belgian philoso-
pher: 491
Dedekind, Richard 1831–1916, math.,
DMV: 51, 94, 108, 184-85, 232, 249,
264, 282, 284, 341-42, 344, 359, 366,
405, 613-14, 643, 645
Dehn, Max 1878–1952, math., DMV, Enc:
95, 338, 395, 614, 627, 640
Des Coudres, Theodor 1862–1926, physi-
cist: 229, 424, 439, 449, 636
Despeyroux, Théodore 1815–1883, French
math., physicist: 397
Deussen, Gustav Adolf Hugo *15.10.1837,
religion teacher: 23
Dickson, Leonard Eugene 1874–1954,
American math.: 619
Dickstein, Samuel 1851–1939, Polish math.,
math.hist., DMV: 130, 613-14
Diekmann, Joseph 1848–1905, math., PhD
with Klein: 107, 113
Diels, Hermann 1848–1922, classical scho-
lar: 444, 513
Diestel, Friedrich 1863–1925, math., libra-
rian, DMV: 392, 394, 614
Diesterweg, Adolph 1790–1866, educator:
531
Dingeldey, Friedrich 1859–1939, math.,
PhD with Klein, DMV, Enc: 230, 232,
262, 309, 614
Dini, Ulisse 1845–1918, Italian math.: 157,
199
Dirichlet [Lejeune Dirichlet], Peter Gustav
1805–1859, math.: vii, 9, 32, 45, 62,
69, 92, 254, 258, 261-63, 271, 276,
288, 328, 359-60, 399, 479, 491, 523,
545, 600, 640
Domsch, Paul 1860–1918, math., PhD with
Klein, DMV: 100, 230-31, 264-65, 310
Donadt, Alfred *1857, math., teacher: 219
Dove, Heinrich Wilhelm 1803–1879, physi-
cist, meteorologist: 69, 88
659
Dove, Richard Wilhelm 1833–1907, Canon
Law scholar: 88, 499
Drenckhahn, Friedrich 1894–1977, math.,
pedag., DMV: 505, 536
Dressler, Heinrich, math. teacher, author:
230, 232, 262, 614
Du Bois-Reymond, Emil Heinrich 1818–
1896, physiologist: 62, 65, 496, 628
Du Bois-Reymond, Paul 1831–1889, math.:
65, 220, 237, 322, 330, 489
Duhamel, Jean-Marie Constant 1797–1872,
French math., physicist: 595-96
Dühring, Eugen 1833–1921, philos.: 116
Duisberg, Carl 1861–1935, chemist, indus-
trialist: 498, 561-63, 614, 637
Dupin, Charles 1784–1873, French math.,
eng.: 80, 99, 609
Durège, Heinrich 1821–1893, math.: 296,
596
Dyck (as of 1901 Ritter von), Walther 1856–
1934, math., PhD with Klein, DMV,
Enc: 7, 56-57, 87, 151, 177, 193-95,
200, 204, 208, 210-11, 219, 223, 225-
27, 230, 233-34, 260-61, 266, 270, 285,
296, 299, 303-05, 308, 311, 339-40,
367, 369-72, 375, 381, 393, 401-02,
410, 426, 429, 430, 433, 447-48, 475,
493, 503, 512-13, 516, 519-21, 543,
557, 566-67, 578, 613-14, 628, 632
Ebert, Hermann 1861–1913, physicist: 169,
614
Ehlers, Ernst 1835–1925, zoologist: 135,
150, 613
Ehlers, J., student: 399
Ehrenfest, Paul 1880–1933, Austrian physi-
cist, Enc: 426, 433
Ehrenfeuchter, Friedrich 1814–1878, theolo-
gian, University prof.: 90
Ehrensberger, Emil 1858–1940, chemist,
industry manager: 440, 561, 614
Einstein, Albert 1879–1955, physicist,
DMV: ix, 44, 57, 168, 235, 394, 396,
472, 490, 513, 525, 535, 538-544, 549,
560, 569, 578, 591, 628, 632, 643, 650
Eisenstein, Gottlob 1823–1852, math.: 199
Elster, Ludwig 1856–1935, economist,
senior officer: 518
Eneström, Gustaf 1852–1923, Swedish
math., hist., DMV: 232, 304-05, 474,
479
Engel, Friedrich 1861–1941, math., DMV:
68, 77, 81, 104, 128, 231, 233, 239,
660 Index of Names
240, 287, 303, 313, 320, 349, 478, 578,
614, 623, 638
Engels, Hubert 1854–1945, hydraulic eng.:
467
Enneper, Alfred 1830–1885, math.: 18, 93,
95, 120, 238, 317-18, 331, 599-600,
602
Enriques, Federigo 1871–1946, Italian
math., math.hist., Enc: 103, 302, 352,
399, 431, 492, 613, 618
Epsteen, Saul *10.8.1878, American math.,
DMV: 394
Epstein, Paul 1871–1939, math., DMV:
222, 614
Errera, Alfred 1886–1960, Belg. math.: 491
Escherich, Gustav von 1849–1935, Austrian
math., DMV: 426-27
Euclid, ca. 300 BC, Greek math.: 44, 70-72,
101, 103, 105, 116, 126, 143, 149, 183,
351, 479, 485, 491, 496, 629
Euler, Leonhard 1707–1783, Swiss math.:
9, 114, 160, 240, 471, 479, 594, 596,
626
Faltings, Gerd *28.7.1954, math., DMV:
460
Fano, Gino 1871–1952, Italian math., DMV,
Enc: 10, 41, 130-31, 154, 393, 399,
447, 648
Fanta (Fanla), Ernst 1878–1936, Austrian
math., DMV: 394
Faraday, Michael 1791–1867, British physi-
cist: 410
Fedorov, Evgraf S. 1853–1919, Russian
math., mineralogist: 6, 356
Fehr, Henri 1870–1954, Swiss math., DMV:
493-94, 507, 517, 549-50, 613-14, 629
Fellmann, Emil 1927–2012, Swiss science
historian: 13
Fermat Pierre de 1607–1665, French poly-
math., lawyer: 381
Fick, Richard 1867–1944, librarian: 380
Fiedler, Ernst 1861–1954, Swiss math., PhD
with Klein, DMV: 231, 248, 293, 614
Fiedler, Wilhelm 1832–1912, German-Swiss
math., DMV: 41, 71, 102, 248, 349,
652
Fields, John Charles 1863–1932, Canadian
math., DMV: 460, 613-14, 619
Fine, Henry Buchard 1858–1928, Americ.
math., PhD with Klein: 231, 246, 407
Finsterwalder, Sebastian 1862–1951, math,
DMV, Enc: 49, 174, 176, 368, 451,
629
Fischer, Emil 1852–1919, chemist: 560
Fischer, Gottlob, math., Klein’s first assis-
tent: 177
Fischer, Otto 1861–1916, math., physiolo-
gist, PhD with Klein, DMV, Enc: 226,
289, 311, 313, 614
Fleck, Ludwik 1896–1961, Polish and Israeli
physician, biologist: 8
Fleischer, Hermann, math., PhD Göttingen,
DMV: 394
Flender (née Klein), Aline Leonore 1847–
1914, F. Klein’s sister: x, 21
Flender, Hermann August 1839–1882, ma-
nufact., F. Klein’s broth.-in-law: x, 21
Föppl, August 1854–1924, mech., DMV,
Enc: 222-23, 368, 390, 449, 468, 614
Föppl, Ludwig 1887–1976, math., mech.,
DMV: 223, 390, 614
Förster, Wilhelm 1832–1921, astronomer:
369, 376, 528, 603
Ford, Lester Randolph 1886–1967, Ameri-
can math.: 255, 629
Forsyth, Andrew Russell 1858–1942, British
math.: 103, 258, 353-54, 413, 575
Fourier, Jean Baptiste Joseph 1768–1830,
French math.: 48, 94, 146, 195, 237,
241, 293, 407
Fraenkel, Abraham A. 1891–1965, German-
born Israeli math., DMV: 12, 478, 525,
581, 591, 629
Frahm, Wilhelm 1849–1875, math.: 191
Franck, James 1882–1964, phycisist: 562
Franklin, Fabian 1853–1939, American
math., DMV: 290, 334, 360, 404, 412-
13, 613-14
Frege, Gottlob 1848–1925, logician, DMV:
56
Fresnel, Augustin Jean 1788–1827, French
physicist, eng.: 206, 611
Freundlich (Finley-Freundlich), Erwin
1885–1964, math. astron., DMV: 491
Freytag (md. Loeschcke), Thekla 1887–
1932, teacher: 418, 506, 650
Fricke (née Flender), Leonore 1873–1912,
Klein’s niece: x, 21
Fricke, Robert 1861–1930, math., PhD with
Klein, DMV, Enc: ix, x, 4, 11, 13, 21,
169, 184, 189, 196, 200, 226, 231-32,
258, 272-73, 279-81, 290-91, 293-95,
 Index of Names
297-98, 341-44, 367, 375-77, 384, 388,
392, 394, 397, 402, 417, 426, 437, 454-
57, 465, 544-46, 565, 572, 579, 581,
604, 607, 610, 613-14, 624, 630, 636
Friedrich, Georg *1860, math. PhD with
Klein: 231, 293
Friedrich Wilhelm III 1770–1840, King of
Prussia: 28
Friedrichs, Kurt Otto 1901–1983, math.,
DMV: 584
Friesendorff, Theophil 1871–1913, Russian
math., eng., DMV: 301
Frobenius, Georg 1849–1917, math., DMV:
66, 108, 357, 372, 374-378, 427-28,
457, 461, 523, 587, 605, 611, 632
Fröbel, Friedrich 1782–1852, pedag.: 531
Fuchs, Lazarus 1833–1902, math., DMV: 4,
6, 64, 97, 181, 247, 253, 267, 274, 282,
284-85, 318, 342-44, 355, 365, 373-76,
436, 454-57, 603
Fueter, Rudolf 1880–1950, Swiss math.,
DMV: 580, 613, 615
Fujisawa, Rikitarō 1861–1933, Japanese
math.: 494, 613, 615, 630
Fujiwara, Matsusaburō 1881–1946, Japanese
math., historian, DMV: 399-400
Furtwängler, Philipp 1869–1940, math.,
PhD with Klein, DMV, Enc: 389, 417,
458-60, 615
Galilei, Galileo 1564–1642, polymath.,
astronomer, physicist: 594, 648
Gallenkamp, Wilhelm 1820–1890, teacher,
author: 496
Galois, Évariste 1811–1832, French math.:
6, 25, 60, 74, 77, 79, 100, 181, 186,
188, 196, 238, 395, 427, 626, 631
Gauss [Gauß], Carl Friedrich 1777–1855,
math., astr.: 1, 9, 30, 45, 72-73, 90, 92,
94-95, 101, 114, 126, 129, 151, 156-57,
183-85, 263, 288, 295, 301, 366-67,
372, 402, 437, 439, 449, 458, 478-79,
485-86, 491, 525, 559-60, 562, 569,
571, 600, 610, 642
Gauthier-Villars, Albert 1861–1918, French
publisher, DMV: 76-77, 192, 409, 429,
464, 596, 627, 634, 643
Gay-Lussac, Joseph Louis 1778–1850,
French chemist, physicist: 203
Gegenbauer, Leopold 1849–1903, Austrian
math., DMV: 295-96, 419
Gehlhoff, Georg 1882–1931, physicist: 561
Gehring, Franz 1838–1884, math.: 30-31
661
Geibel, Emanuel 1815–1884, poet: 362
Geiringer (md. Pollazcek, md. von Mises),
Hilda 1893–1973, Austrian-American
math., DMV: 417
Geiser, Carl Friedrich 1843–1934, Swiss
math.: 87
Geißler, Heinrich 1814–1879, glass blower,
mechanic: 34, 36, 628
Gentry, Ruth 1862–1917, American math.:
412
Gerbaldi, Francesco 1858–1934, Italian
math., DMV: 154, 231, 247, 285
Gerber, Carl von 1823–1891, Saxon Minis-
ter of Culture: 211, 216, 218, 315, 319
Gerber, Heinrich 1832–1912, eng.: 471
Gernet, Nadezhda N. 1877–1943, Russ.
math., DMV: 372, 396, 613, 615
Gibbs, Josiah Willard 1839–1903, American
physicist: 406-07, 637
Gibbs, Oliver Wolcott 1822–1908, Ameri-
can chemist: 408, 620
Gierster, Josef 1854–1893, math., PhD with
Klein, DMV: 177, 188, 195-96, 204,
228, 270, 285, 295, 311
Gilman, Daniel Coit 1831–1908, American
educator, academic: 315, 407
Goeb, Margarethe 1892–1962, teacher: 522
Göpel, Adolph 1812–1847, math.: 265
Görres, Joseph 1776–1848, philosopher,
publisher: 22
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 1749–1832,
poet: 23, 30-31, 135, 220
Götting, Eduard 1860–1926, teacher, DMV:
392-93, 398, 615, 636
Gontschareff, A., Russian fellow student of
Klein: 29
Gordan, Paul 1837–1912, math., DMV: 47,
48, 53-55, 57, 120, 127, 133-34, 137,
144, 158-60, 178, 182-83, 187-89, 191-
92, 195, 198, 208-12, 214, 223, 234,
242, 248-49, 264-65, 267, 278, 288,
299, 315, 334, 357-58, 369-72, 377,
379, 381, 398, 404, 574, 576, 578, 597,
613, 615, 641
Goßler, Gustav von 1838–1902, Prussian
Minister of Culture: 236, 598
Graefe, Walther *26.8.1892, teacher: 390,
535
Graf, Ulrich 1908–1954, math., DMV: 505
Grassmann, Hermann Günther 1809–1877,
math.: 2, 37, 90, 104-05, 107, 120,
126, 129, 217, 240-42, 301, 303, 312-
662 Index of Names
13, 407, 478, 483, 596, 631, 642, 644,
646, 650
Green, George 1793–1841, British math.,
physicist: 343, 479, 494, 517
Greenhill, Alfred George Sir 1847–1927,
British math., DMV: 343, 354, 430,
479, 493-95, 549-50, 575, 613, 631
Griess, Jean French math.: 399
Groth, Paul von 1843–1927, mineralogist:
vii, 379
Grüning, Martin 1869–1932, eng.: 470
Gruson, Johann Philipp 1768–1857, teacher,
math.: 164
Guccia, Giovanni Battista 1855–1914,
Italian math., DMV: 613, 615
Günther, Siegmund 1848–1923, math., geo-
grapher, math. historian, DMV: 132-
34, 172, 577
Guilleaume (Freiherr von), Theodor 1861–
1933, entrepreneur: 440
Gundelfinger, Sigmund 1846–1910, math.,
DMV: 191, 208
Gutzmer, August 1860–1924, math., DMV:
6, 120, 304, 306, 447, 453, 493-94,
498-99, 506, 532, 584, 613, 615, 631,
649
Haber, Fritz 1868–1934, chemist: 557-58
Hadamard, Jacques 1865–1963, French
math.: 613, 615
Haeckel, Ernst 1834–1919, zool.: 36, 205,
240, 528, 591, 629, 643, 653
Haenisch, Konrad 1876–1925, journalist,
politician: 526, 552
Haeseler, Gottlieb Graf v. 1836–1919,
officer: 500, 507
Hagemann, Eberhard 1880–1958, lawyer, F.
Klein’s son-in-law: x, 166, 170
Hahn, Hans 1879–1934, Austrian math.,
DMV: 467, 615, 646
Hall, G. Stanley 1846–1924, psychol.: 354
Halphen, Georges Henri 1844–1889, French
math.: 79, 241-42, 249, 267, 269
Hamburger, Meyer 1838–1903, math.,
DMV: 604
Hamel, Georg 1877–1854, math., DMV:
394, 471, 487, 550, 553, 555, 615
Hamilton, William Rowan 1805–1865, Irish
math.: 104-05, 114, 168, 198, 243,
371, 407
Hammerschmidt (md. Klein), Maria Cathari-
na 1787–1871, paternal grandmother of
F. Klein: x, 17
Hankel, Hermann 1839–1873, math.: 124
Hankel, Wilhelm Gottlieb 1814–1899, phy-
sicist: 321
Hanstein, Johannes von 1822–1880, bota-
nist: 31-32
Hardcastle, Frances 1866–1941, Engl.
math.: 257-59, 354, 417, 634
Harkness, James 1864–1923, Engl., Amer.,
Canad. math., Enc: 184, 258, 417, 630
Harnack (as of 1914 von), Adolf 1851–
1930, theol.: 163, 444, 501, 507, 557
Harnack, Axel 1851–1888, math., PhD with
Klein: 135-36, 163, 179, 191-92, 212,
216, 232, 237, 311, 321, 501, 596
Hartnack, Eduard 1826–1891, optometrist:
36
Haskell, Mellen Woodman 1863–1948,
American math., PhD with Klein,
DMV: 127, 130, 285, 334, 339-41,
372, 613, 615, 634
Hauck, Guido 1845–1905, math., DMV:
304, 500, 502
Haussner, Robert 1863–1948, math., DMV:
479, 615
Hayashi, Tsuruichi 1873–1935, Japanese
math., hist., DMV: 399, 573
Hecke, Erich 1887–1947, math., DMV, Enc:
184, 508, 515, 523, 537, 544, 615, 623
Hedrick, E. Raymond 1876–1943, American
math., DMV: 399
Heegaard, Poul 1871–1948, Danish math.,
DMV, Enc: 81, 95, 338, 393, 395, 399,
494, 575, 613, 615, 627-28, 638
Heffter, Lothar 1862–1962, math., DMV:
229, 369-70, 402, 473
Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Karl (Ritter von)
1813–1901, hist., Klein’s fath.-in-law:
x, 35, 116, 161, 163-65, 167, 637
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 1770–
1831, philosopher: x, 164, 481
Hegel, Georg, 1856–1933, Bavarian colonel,
Klein’s broth.-in-law: x, 166
Hegel (md. Lommel), Louise Friederike
Caroline 1853–1924, Klein’s sist.-in-
law: x, 166
Hegel, Maria 1855–1929, Klein’s sist.-in-
law: x, 166-67
Hegel (née Tucher von Simmelsdorf), Maria
Helene Susanne 1791–1855: x, 164
Hegel, Sophie Louise 1861–1940, Klein’s
sist.-in-law: x, 166-67, 286, 354, 567
 Index of Names
Hegel (née Tucher von Simmelsdorf),
Susanne 1826–1878, F. Klein’s mother-
in-law: x, 165
Hegel, Wilhelm Sigmund 1863–1945, gov.
councilor, F. Klein’s broth.-in-law: x,
166-67
Heimsoeth, Friedrich 1818–1877, class.
philologist: 35
Heine, Eduard 1821–1881, math.: 119, 596
Heine, Heinrich 1797–1856, poet, writer:
ix, 22, 210, 517
Heinemann, Käthe *8.5.1889, math., botan.,
pedag.: 535, 537
Hellinger, Ernst 1883–1950, math., DMV,
Enc: 346, 390-91, 615
Helmert, Robert 1843–1917, geodesist,
DMV, Enc: 304, 615, 648
Helmholtz, Hermann von 1821–1894,
physicist, physician: 64, 94, 96, 112,
119, 157, 323, 347, 348, 350-52, 374,
376, 387, 401, 405, 410, 421, 440, 466,
468, 484, 525, 560-63, 582, 625, 637
Henneberg, Lebrecht 1850–1933, math.,
DMV, Enc: 207, 468, 469-70, 615
Henrici, Olaus 1840–1918, math., DMV 48,
146, 185, 192, 613, 615
Hensel, Kurt 1861–1941, math., DMV, Enc:
288-89, 615, 637
Herglotz, Gustav 1881–1953, math., DMV,
Enc: 346, 466-67, 523, 615
Hermite, Charles 1822–1901, French math.:
viii, 6, 56, 131, 180, 183-84, 186, 192,
265, 267-68, 270, 282, 288, 292, 342,
346, 352, 358-59, 392, 402, 408, 409-
10, 416, 455, 458-59, 461-64, 509, 569,
586, 631, 643
Herrmann, Oskar *1859, teacher, PhD with
Klein: 228, 230
Herrmann, Theodor, math.: 230
Herschel, John 1792–1871, Engl. astr.: 258
Hertz, Heinrich 1857–1894, physicist: 371
Herz, Norbert 1858–1927, Austrian astrono-
mer, DMV: 402
Heß, Wilhelm 1858–1937, math.: 195, 615
Hesse, Otto 1811–1874, math.: 47-49, 139,
172, 176, 178, 596-97, 634
Hettner, Georg 1854–1914, math., DMV:
256, 317-18, 600-02
Heun, Karl 1859–1929, math., DMV, Enc:
473, 486, 615
Hilb, Emil 1882–1929, math., DMV, Enc:
278, 346, 381, 457, 615
663
Hilbert, David 1862–1943, math., DMV,
Enc: viii, ix, 1, 6, 8-11, 39, 48, 50, 57,
65, 87-88, 104, 159, 168, 184, 192,
197, 199, 223, 228-29, 231, 235-37,
241-43, 246, 250, 257-58, 263, 269,
279-81, 286, 303-04, 307, 311, 321,
324, 327, 331, 333, 346, 349-53, 357-
60, 366, 368-73, 375, 377-78, 383, 385,
390-96, 399, 402, 404-05, 417, 421,
425, 434-36, 439, 441-42, 447, 454-61,
465-67, 473, 481, 483-85, 488-90, 497,
504, 510-11, 518-19, 522-23, 528-29,
533, 535, 537-41, 543-47, 549, 553,
556, 566, 571-72, 577-84, 586, 587,
590, 605-08, 611, 613, 615, 621, 624,
629-30, 632, 640-45, 647, 650
Hildebrand, Rudolf, math.: 231, 615
Hillebrand, Meinolf Rudolf *3.3.1937, F.
Klein’s great-grandson: v, x, 13, 17-21,
166-67, 414, 520, 568, 614-17, 623
Hillebrandt, Alfred 1853–1927, philologist:
444, 499-500, 531-32
Hinneberg, Paul 1862–1934, hist.: 475, 513
Hirst, Thomas Archer 1830–1892, British
math.: 48
Hirzebruch, Friedrich 1927–2012, math.,
DMV: 222, 629
Hjelmslev (Petersen), Johannes 1873–1950,
Danish math.: 433
Hobson, Ernest William 1856–1933, British
math., Enc: 613, 615
Hoeck, Karl Friedrich Christian 1794–1877,
hist., philol., librarian: 89-90
Höckner, Georg 1860–1938, math., actuary:
230
Höfler, Alois 1853–1922, Austrian math.-
didact., philos., DMV: 306, 482, 503,
613, 615, 632
Hölder, Otto 1859–1937, math., DMV, Enc:
57, 60, 71, 220-21, 231-34, 238, 246,
266-67, 301, 328-36, 361-62, 375, 427,
535, 577, 590, 613, 615, 632
Höpfner, Ernst 1836–1915, pedag., Prussian
official, curator: 389, 414, 419, 439
Hoetzsch, Otto 1876–1946, historian: 533
Hofmann, August Wilhelm 1818–1893,
chemist: 36
Holst, Elling Bolt 1849–1915, Norwegian
math.: 70, 137, 191, 324, 633
Holzmüller, Gustav 1844–1914, math.,
DMV: 462, 497
664 Index of Names
Hoppe, Heinrich 1857–1899, math., teacher,
DMV: 230-31, 262
Hoppe, Reinhold 1816–1900, math., DMV:
120, 208, 369-70
Hoüel, Jules 1823–1886, French math.: 75-
76, 102, 630, 632
Humboldt, Alexander von 1769–1859,
natural scientist: 569
Humboldt, Wilhelm von 1767–1835,
academic: 22
Hurwitz, Adolf 1859–1919, math., DMV:
10, 13, 51, 56, 117, 177-78, 183, 192,
195-99, 210-11, 214, 223, 225, 227-30,
233-36, 238, 240, 242, 248, 252, 255,
260-62, 268, 270-72, 274-75, 284-86,
291-99, 308-09, 311-12, 314, 316, 320-
21, 323, 326-28, 332-33, 339-41, 346,
348-49, 353, 355, 357, 359-62, 365,
369, 371, 373, 375-79, 381, 384-85,
398, 402, 408, 412, 417, 429-30, 434-
35, 457, 459, 461, 484, 511, 564, 571,
576, 578-79, 603-07, 613, 615, 624,
632, 641, 644, 652
Hurwitz, Julius 1857–1919, math., DMV:
641
Husserl, Edmund 1859–1938, philos.: 489
Huygens, Christiaan 1629–1695, Dutch
math., physic., astr.: 594, 596
Ihlenburg, Wilhelm *1884, math., PhD with
Klein: 456
Intze, Otto 1843–1904, eng.: 422
Jaccottet, Charles 1872–1938, Swiss math.,
PhD with Klein, DMV: 333, 346, 393,
399, 613, 615
Jacobi, Carl Gustav Jacob 1804–1851,
math.: vii, 9, 37, 47-48, 63, 69, 180,
183, 235, 264-65, 272, 288, 294-95,
299, 341, 569, 596, 610
Jacobs, Konrad 1928–2015, math., DMV: 6
Jaensch, Erich R. 1883–1940, psychol.: 491
Jahnke, Eugen 1861–1921, math.: 305, 615
Jerrard, George 1804–1863, British math.:
180
Johnson Ada M. *1870, British math.: 354
Jordan, Camille 1838–1922, French math.:
4, 6, 52, 54, 60, 74, 77-79, 85, 87-88,
90, 100, 104, 130, 140, 153, 180-81,
189, 192, 198, 240, 245, 267, 288, 338,
526, 583, 619, 626
Joubert, Charles 1825–1906, French math.:
180
Jürgens, Enno 1849–1907, math., DMV:
369-70
Jullien, Michel Marie 1827–1911, French
Jesuit, scholar: 596
Jung, Giuseppe 1845–1924, Italian math.,
Enc: 157, 190, 208
Kamerlingh Onnes, Heike 1853–1926,
Dutch physicist, Enc: 431
Kant, Immanuel 1724–1804, philosopher:
116, 489
Kantor, Seligmann 1857–1903, Austrian
math.: 230, 248
Karagiannides [Carajianides], Athanasios
1868–?, Greek math., DMV: 335
Kármán, Theodore von 1881–1963, Hunga-
rian-American math., eng., DMV, Enc:
449, 468, 544, 565, 633
Kasner, Edward 1878–1955, American
math.: 131, 246
Kasten, H. math. teacher in Bremen, DMV:
369-70
Katz, David 1884–1953, psychol.: 492, 615
Kayser (née Schleicher), Eleonore 1793–
1875, F. Klein’s mat. grandmother: 20
Kayser, Christian Gottfried 1791–1849,
wool merchant, F. Klein’s mat. grand-
father: 20
Keesom, Willem Hendrik 1876–1956, Dutch
physicist, Enc: 431
Kekulé, August 1829–1896, chemist: 36
Kępiński, Stanisław 1867–1908, Polish
math., DMV: 283, 335
Kepler, Johannes 1571–1630, math., astro-
nomer: 14, 594, 596
Kerry, Benno 1858–1889, Austrian philoso-
pher: 489
Kerschensteiner, Georg 1854–1932, math.,
DMV: 555, 613, 615
Ketteler, Eduard 1836–1900, physicist: 31,
35
Kiepert, Ludwig 1846–1934, math., DMV:
16, 61, 66-68, 116, 119, 161, 184, 186,
199-200, 208, 212, 224, 233, 236, 369,
419, 615, 633
Kiesel, Karl 1812–1903, school director: 22
Kirchberger, Paul 1878–1945, math.,
teacher, author: 21, 436, 634
Kirchhoff, Arthur 1871–1921, writer: 415
Kirchhoff, Gustav Robert 1824–1887, phy-
sicist: 374, 466, 489
Kirdorf, Adolph 1845–1923, mining indus-
trialist: 27, 422
 Index of Names
Klaus, Dr., neurologist: 515, 517, 608-09
Klein, Alfred 1854–1929, lawyer, F. Klein’s
brother: x, 17-22, 166-67, 422
Klein (md. Flender), Aline 1847–1914, F.
Klein’s sister: x, 21
Klein (née Hegel), Anna Maria Caroline
1851–1927, F. Klein’s wife: viii, x,
161-63, 166-70, 176, 214, 286, 324,
326, 330, 435-36, 449, 501, 517, 519-
21, 567, 577, 583, 622
Klein, Carl 1842–1907, mineralogist: 317
Klein (md. Staiger), Elisabeth Marie Aline
1888–1968, teacher, F. Klein’s daugh-
ter: viii, x, 166-68, 213, 326, 418, 535,
537, 541, 567, 585, 649-50
Klein, Eugenie 1861–1910, F. Klein’s sister:
x, 22, 167
Klein, Johann Peter Friedrich, 1777–1858,
smith, F. Klein’s grandfather: x, 17
Klein (md. Süchting), Luise (Louise) 1879–
1961, F. Klein’s daughter: x, xix, 166-
67, 169, 414
Klein, Otto Karl 1876–1963, eng., F. Klein’s
son: x, 166-69, 567
Klein, Peter Caspar 1809–1889, Prussian
official, F. Klein’s father: x, 18
Klein, Sophie Elise (née Kayser) 1819–
1890, F. Klein’s mother: x, 19-20
Klein (md. Hagemann), Sophie Eugenie
1885–1965, F. Klein’s daughter: x, 21,
166, 167, 169
Kleine, Friedrich Peter *1731, farmer, F.
Klein’s great-grandfather: 17
Kleine (née Schürfeld), Catharina Marga-
rethe, F.Klein’s great-grandmother: 17
Klemm, F. math. teacher in Bremen, DMV:
369-70
Klingenfeld, Friedrich August 1817–1880,
math.: 172, 211
Klinkerfues, Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm 1827–
1884, astronomer: 92-93, 95, 120
Klitzkowski, Felix, b. in Danzig [Gdansk],
math.: 333
Kluckhohn, August von 1832–1893,
historian: 212
Kneser, Helmuth 1898–1973, math., DMV:
536
Kneser, Martin 1928–2004, math., DMV:
533
Knoblauch, Johannes 1855–1915, math.,
DMV: 89, 229
665
Koebe, Paul 1882–1945, math., DMV: 6,
269, 273, 279-81, 307, 456-57, 514-15,
522-23, 525, 546, 565-67, 572, 607-08,
613, 615, 651
König, Julius 1849–1914, Hungarian math.,
DMV: 102-03, 120, 249-50, 615
Koenigsberger, Leo 1837–1921, math.,
DMV: 9, 47, 48, 53, 64, 260, 275, 295,
351, 367, 369, 379, 410, 412, 426, 489,
596, 637
Kötter, Fritz 1857–1912, math., mech.,
DMV: 463
Kohlrausch, Wilhelm 1855–1936, physicist:
168
Kollert, Julius 1856–1937, physicist, DMV:
230, 262
Kopp, Lajos 1860–1928, Hungarian math.:
130
Koppel, Leopold 1854–1933, banker: 513
Korkin, Aleksandr N. 1837–1908, Russian
math.: 250
Korteweg, Diederik J. 1848–1941, Dutch
math.: 432
Kortum, Carl Arnold 1745–1824, physician,
poet: 163
Kottler, Friedrich 1886–1965, Austrian-
American physicist: 541
Kovalevskaya (née Korvin-Krukovskaya),
Sofya V. 1850–1891, Russian math.:
56, 97-98, 411-12, 463
Kowalewski, Gerhard 1875–1950, math.,
DMV: 243, 433, 637
Kraepelin, Karl 1848–1915, biologist: 46,
498, 648
Krause, Martin 1851–1920, math., DMV:
402
Krauß (as of 1905 Ritter von), Georg 1826–
1906, entrepreneur: 203, 424
Krazer, Adolf 1858–1926, math., DMV,
Enc: 231, 233-34, 237-38, 264-65,
396, 426, 457, 536, 553-54, 557-60,
613, 615 (here Krager=Krazer)
Kregel von Sternbach, Karl Friedrich 1717–
1789, philanthropist: 239
Krell, Otto 1866–1938, eng., industr.: 451
Krieg v. Hochfelden, Franz 1857–1919 stud.
math.: 231
Kronecker, Leopold 1823–1891, math.,
DMV: 3, 35, 54, 56, 63-64, 68, 180,
182, 184, 188, 196-97, 229, 235, 237-
38, 240, 249-50, 260-61, 264, 266, 288-
89, 292-93, 296, 322, 328, 342, 359,
666 Index of Names
368, 371, 373-74, 376-77, 405, 454,
457, 483, 571, 575-76, 580, 591, 602,
604, 607, 626, 637, 642, 645
Krüger, Louis 1857–1923, math., surveyor,
DMV: 557, 560, 615
Krull, Wolfgang 1899–1971, math., DMV,
Enc: 240, 536, 637
Krupp von Bohlen und Hallbach, Gustav
1870–1950, entrepreneur: 170, 422,
440, 442, 444, 561, 615
Krylov [Kriloff], Alexej, N. 1863–1945,
Russ. naval eng., math., Enc: 480, 613,
615
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1922–1996, American
physicist, philosopher: 8, 629
Kummer, Ernst Eduard 1810–1893, math.:
1, 35, 59-63, 65-67, 71, 77-81, 84-88,
98-100, 150, 194, 206-07, 221, 227,
229, 233, 250, 298, 309, 340, 366, 374,
405, 594, 602, 609
Kundt, August 1839–1894, physicist: 376
Kutta, Wilhelm 1867–1944, math., DMV:
448, 450, 453
Ladd-Franklin, Christine 1847–1930, Ame-
rican math., psychologist: 412-13
Lagarde, Paul Anton de 1827–1891,
orientalist: 318, 365-66, 638
Lagrange, Joseph-Louis 1736–1813, French
math.: 9, 114, 160, 179, 457, 480, 594,
596
Laisant, Charles-Ange 1841–1920, French
math.: 76, 305
Lamb, Horace 1849–1934, British math.,
physicist, Enc: 302, 432
Lamé, Gabriel 1875-1870, French math.,
physicist: 253-54, 344, 346, 416, 462,
463, 596
Lampe, Emil 1840–1918, math., DMV: 76,
119-20, 305, 369-71, 500, 513
Lanchester, Frederick W. 1868–1946, Bri-
tish polymath., eng.: 452
Landau, Edmund 1877–1938, math., DMV:
viii, 327, 441-42, 456, 460-61, 518,
522-23, 526, 532, 545, 572-73, 613,
615, 647
Landolt, Hans Heinrich 1831–1910, Swiss
chem.: 31-32, 97
Lange, Ernst *1858, math., Saxon official,
PhD with Klein: 222, 228, 230, 232,
308, 615
Lange, Helene 1848–1930, pedag.: 506
Larmor, Joseph 1857–1942, Irish physicist,
math.: 431-32, 549
Laski, Gerda 1893–1928, Austrian physicist:
536
Laue, Max von 1879–1960, theor. physicist,
DMV, Enc: 357, 541, 615, 624
Laugel, Léonce 1859–1936, French math.,
trans., DMV: 350, 409, 458-59, 462,
464, 634-35, 643
Launhardt, Wilhelm 1832–1918, eng.: 362-
63, 366
Lederer, Hugo 1871–1940, sculptor: 569
Legendre, Adrien-Marie 1752–1833, French
math.: 30, 252, 272
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 1646–1716,
polymath.: 310, 530-31
Lemoine, Émile 1840–1912, French math.:
402
Lenard, Philipp 1862–1947, physicist: 542,
544
Lerch, Matyás 1860–1922, Czech math.,
DMV: 402
Levi-Civita, Tullio 1873–1941, Italian
math., DMV: 200, 463, 618
Lexis, Wilhelm 1837–1914, statistician,
economist: 401, 414, 419-20, 439, 454,
500, 502, 615, 634, 635
Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph 1742–1799,
physicist, satirist: 45
Lichtenstein, Leon 1878–1933, Polish-
German math., DMV, Enc: 57, 254,
263, 281, 560
Lichtwark, Alfred 1852–1914, art historian:
519, 642
Lie, Sophus 1842–1899, Norwegian math.,
DMV: viii, 1, 5-6, 14, 16, 19, 26, 41,
56-57, 59, 61, 65-71, 73-86, 88-91, 95-
96, 98-102, 105, 107-08, 110, 117, 120,
123, 125-31, 133, 136-38, 143, 147-50,
153, 156, 158-61, 181, 183, 206-09,
223, 225, 239-40, 243, 253, 267-68,
277, 285, 287, 303, 312, 314-15, 320-
24, 328, 333, 335, 347, 349, 350-52,
374, 389, 393, 404, 411, 427, 435, 447,
463, 484, 491, 517, 519, 570, 575-76,
578, 583, 586, 609, 619, 623, 627-28,
630, 633, 638, 641, 643, 644, 648, 653
Liebermann, Max 1847–1935, painter: ix,
243, 494, 519-21, 528, 531, 569, 575,
577, 611, 614-17, 642
Liebig (as of 1845 Freiherr von), Justus
1803–1873, chemist: 561
 Index of Names
Liebisch, Theodor 1852–1922, mineral.,
Enc: 317, 356, 366, 385, 388
Liebmann, Heinrich 1874–1935, math.,
DMV, Enc: 302, 339, 463, 615, 638
Lietzmann, Walther 1880–1959, math.,
didactics, DMV: 396, 487, 494, 503,
505, 515-517, 550-55, 566, 582, 587,
613, 615, 624, 629, 632, 638
Linde (as of 1897 Ritter von), Carl 1842–
1934, eng., inventor, entrepreneur:
172, 201-03, 423-24, 443, 516, 613,
615
Lindemann, Ferdinand 1852–1939, math.,
PhD with F. Klein, DMV: 5, 13, 20,
40, 48, 63, 87-88, 94-97, 113, 115, 117,
120, 133-35, 137, 150, 159, 162-63,
171, 191-92, 198, 208-09, 216, 229,
236, 264-65, 311, 321-23, 333, 348-49,
357-58, 369, 373-74, 376, 381, 388,
393, 398, 401, 430, 434, 571-72, 607,
613, 616, 623, 627, 653
Liouville, Joseph 1809–1882, French math.:
74, 85, 102, 639
Lipschitz, Rudolf 1832–1903, math., DMV:
30-33, 41-42, 63-64, 113, 120, 217,
351, 371, 645
Lissajous, Jules Antoine 1822–1880, French
physicist.: 136
Listing, Johann Benedikt 1808–1882, math.,
physicist: 92-95, 120, 235
Lobachevsky, Nikolai I. 1792–1856,
Russian math: 70-73, 101, 126, 251,
324, 350, 408
Loewy, Alfred 1873–1935, math., DMV:
393, 616
Lommel (as of 1892 von), Eugen 1837–
1899, physicist, DMV: x, 124, 160,
166, 533, 589, 595-96
Lommel, Herman 1885–1968, philologist,
Indo-Europeanist: 532
Lorentz, Hendrik Antoon 1853–1928, Dutch
physicist, Enc: 150, 304, 395, 431,
472-73, 509, 549, 582
Lorenz, Hans 1865–1940, techn. physicist,
DMV: 439, 447, 449, 513, 577, 590
Lorey, Wilhelm 1873–1955, math., DMV:
30, 48, 51, 66, 89, 94, 96, 107, 114,
133, 145, 176-77, 219, 232, 275, 313,
399, 418, 420, 481, 505, 510, 527-28,
616, 624, 639, 646
667
Loria, Gino 1862–1954, Italian math., hist.,
DMV, Enc: 42, 135, 399, 431, 613,
616, 635
Lotze, Rudolf Hermann 1817–1881, philo-
sopher: 89, 116
Love, Edward Hough 1863–1940, British
math., Enc: 302, 429, 432, 469, 470,
616
Ludwig, Carl 1816–1895, physiologist: 2,
310, 312-13
Ludwig II, Otto Friedrich Wilhelm von
Wittelsbach 1845–1886, King of
Bavaria: 124, 171-72
Lüders, Otto 1844–1912, class. philol.: 35
Lüroth, Jacob 1844–1910, math., DMV: 40,
47-48, 50, 53, 87, 100, 120, 173, 208,
212, 313, 369, 375, 608
Luther, Robert Karl Theodor 1822–1900,
astronomer: 27
Luzin, Nikolai N. 1883–1950, Russ./Soviet
math.: 533
Mach, Ernst 1838–1916, Austrian physicist,
philosopher: 296, 490
MacKinnon (md Fitch), Annie Louise 1868–
1940, Canadian-American math.: 406
Maddison, Ada Isabel, 1869–1950, British
math.: 417, 483-84, 635
Madelung, Erwin 1881–1972, physicist:
466
Magnus, Gustav 1802–1870, physicist: 62
Maltby, Margaret Eliza 1860–1944, Ameri-
can physicist: 413
Mangoldt, Hans von 1854–1925, math.,
DMV: 311
Mansion, Paul 1844–1919, Belgian math.,
DMV: 127-28, 495, 634
Mariotte, Edme ca. 1620–1684, French
physicist: 203
Markov [Markoff], Andrey A. 1856–1922,
Russian math.: 6, 250-51, 301, 345-46,
355, 487, 587, 613, 616, 623, 651
Marotte, Francisque 1873–1945, French
math., teacher: 502
Maschke, Heinrich 1853–1908, math.,
DMV: 337-38, 365-66, 402, 404, 412-
13, 619, 640
Massenbach, Leo Freiherr von 1797–1880,
lawyer, Prussian official: 19
Maxwell, James Clerk 1831–1879, Scottish
physicist: 150, 169, 364, 395, 410,
463, 468-69
668 Index of Names
Mayer, Adolph 1839–1908, math., DMV: 6,
47, 53-57, 75, 91, 100, 118, 120-21,
123, 157, 161, 181-83, 193-95, 208-09,
211, 213-15, 219, 222, 225-27, 239-40,
250, 267, 303, 308, 311-12, 321-22,
324, 333, 335, 349, 355, 369-70, 427,
479, 483, 538, 578, 651
Mazurkiewicz, Stefan 1888–1945, Polish
math.: 421
McClintock, Emory 1840–1916, American
actuary: 407, 418
Mehmke, Rudolf 1857–1944, math., DMV,
Enc: 146, 302-04, 616
Meier, Ernst von 1832–1911, lawyer,
curator: 380, 383, 412-13
Mendeleev, Dmitri I. 1834–1907, Russian
chemist: 363
Merkel, Friedrich 1845–1919, anatomist:
115, 117, 479
Mertens, Franz [Franciszek] 1840–1927,
Polish Austrian math.: 613, 616
Merz, John Theodore 1840–1922, German
British chemist, historian, industrialist:
480, 484, 640
Metzler, G.F., listener with Klein: 399
Metzner, Carl 1876–1939, teacher, Prussian
official: 556, 590
Meyer, Diedrich, building officer, VDI
director: 565, 616
Meyer, Eugen 1868–1930, techn. physicist,
DMV: 424, 616
Meyer, Franz 1856–1934, math., DMV,
Enc: 4, 12, 108, 193-94, 204, 243, 299,
305, 369-70, 372, 392, 395, 426, 430,
433-34, 616
Meyer, Georg, math. teacher in Bremen,
DMV: 369-70
Meyerstein, Moritz 1808–1882, mech.: 120
Michelson, Albert Abraham 1852–1931,
American physicist: 395
Mie, Gustav 1868–1957, physicist, DMV:
307
Mill, John Stuart 1806–1873, British philo-
sopher, economist: 36
Miller (ab 1875 von), Oskar 1855–1934,
civil eng.: 516, 613
Minding, Ferdinand 1805–1885, German-
Russian math.: 136
Minkowski, Hermann 1864–1909, math.,
DMV, Enc: viii, 57, 236, 279, 286,
327, 331, 346, 358, 369-70, 377, 391,
402, 434, 436, 441, 454, 456, 458-60,
466, 472-73, 511, 572, 580, 590, 640
Minkowski, Rudolph 1895–1976, German-
American astronomer: 536
Minnigerode, Bernhard 1837–1896, math.,
mineralogist: 52, 93, 95, 120
Mises, Richard von 1883–1953, math.,
DMV, Enc: 7, 266, 304, 428, 449, 471,
524, 534, 558, 565-66, 640, 647, 654
Mittag-Leffler, Gösta 1846–1927, Swedish
math., DMV: viii, 56, 130, 212, 250,
272, 277, 295, 305, 315, 328, 342, 495,
519, 613, 616, 640, 643, 648
Młodziejewski, Bolesław 1858–1928,
Polish-Russian math.: 334
Möbius, August Ferdinand 1790–1868,
math.: 37, 104, 114, 140, 208, 215,
217, 237, 248, 257, 301, 310-312, 478,
629, 653
Mohrmann, Hans 1881–1941, math., DMV,
Enc: 433, 537
Molien, Theodor 1861–1941, German-
Baltic/Soviet math., DMV: 231, 251,
293, 311
Molk, Jules 1857–1914, French math.,
DMV, Enc(f): 429, 613, 616, 628, 630
Mollier, Richard 1863–1935, applied
physicist, eng.: 424
Mommsen, Theodor 1817–1903, historian:
366, 642
Monge, Gaspard 1746–1818, French math.:
37, 44, 224, 625
Moore, Eliakim Hastings 1862–1932, Ame-
rican math., DMV: 313, 399, 402-04,
413, 613, 616, 619, 640, 641
Morera, Giacinto 1856–1909, Italian math.:
156, 231, 247-48, 293, 311
Morgan, Augustus de 1806–1871, British
math: 151-52, 354, 586
Morley, Edward Williams 1838–1923,
American chemist: 417
Morrice, George Gavin 1859–1936, British
scientist, transl.: 290
Mügge, Otto 1858–1932, mineralogist, Enc:
356, 522, 616
Mühler, Heinrich von 1813–1874, Prussian
Minister of Culture: 39, 82, 593
Müller, Conrad Heinrich 1878–1953, math.,
math.hist., PhD with Klein, DMV, Enc:
390, 394, 429, 457, 470, 479, 515, 537,
588, 613, 616
 Index of Names
Müller, Felix 1843–1928, math., teacher,
DMV: 118, 120
Müller, Georg Elias 1850–1934, psychol.:
258, 317, 484-85, 490, 492, 616
Müller, Hans math., PhD Göttingen (1903),
DMV: 394
Müller, Reinhold 1857–1939, math., DMV:
370
Müller, Wilhelm 1812–1890, Germanist:
600
Müller-Breslau, Heinrich 1851–1925, struc-
tural eng.: 304, 468, 634
Nachtweh, Alwin 1868–1939, eng.: 168-69,
616
Naumann, Otto 1852–1925, Prussian
official: 391, 526, 528, 530, 541
Neesen, Friedrich 1849–1923, math.,
physicist: 34, 96-97, 108-09, 113-15,
120, 166-67, 208, 345
Nekrasov, Pavel A. 1853–1924, Russian
math.: 355, 603-04
Nelson, Leonard 1882–1927, philos.: xx,
481, 489-91, 568, 584, 616
Nernst, Walther 1864–1941, physical che-
mist: 385, 413, 422-23, 502, 516, 522,
528, 637, 640
Netto, Eugen 1848–1919, math., DMV, Enc:
66, 67, 120, 402
Neugebauer, Otto 1899–1990, Austrian-
American math.hist., DMV: 480, 537,
539, 642
Neuhäuser, Joseph 1823–1900, philosopher:
30-31
Neumann, Carl 1832–1925, math., DMV:
46-48, 53-55, 63, 108, 140, 215, 221-
23, 227, 229, 253-56, 262, 306, 311,
321, 323, 569, 596, 652
Neumann, Franz 1798–1895, physicist: 47
Newcomb, Simon 1835–1909, Canadian-
American math., astronomer: 246, 407
Newton, Isaac 1642–1727, British math.,
physicist: 31, 491, 594
Nielsen, Jakob 1890–1959, Danish math.,
DMV: 536
Nimsch, Paul *1860, math., PhD with Klein:
230, 293
Noble, Charles Albert 1867–1962, Amer.
math.: 399, 556
Nöggerath, Johann Jakob 1788–1877, mine-
ralogist, geologist: 31-32
Noether, Emmy 1882–1935, math., DMV:
ix, 50, 160, 178, 359, 417-18, 536, 539-
669
42, 576, 578, 581, 584, 591, 637, 641,
644-45, 650, 651
Noether, Fritz 1884–1941, math., DMV: 50,
462, 616, 637
Noether, Max 1844–1921, math., DMV: 10,
13, 47, 49, 50, 53, 57-59, 64-65, 68-71,
77, 79, 84, 103, 107, 113, 118-20, 124,
147-48, 155, 158-62, 178, 182, 188-89,
204, 208, 236, 248-49, 278, 285, 296,
323, 334, 341, 351, 354, 357, 366, 372,
402, 406, 417, 462, 481, 576, 578, 606,
613, 616, 618, 643
Nohl, Herman 1879–1960, philosopher,
pedagogue: 534
Ocagne, Maurice d’ 1862–1938, French
math., Enc(f): 302, 402, 645
Ohrtmann, Carl 1839–1885, math., teacher:
118, 120
Olbricht, Richard 1859–1912, math., school
director, PhD with Klein: 230, 616
Oliver, James Edward 1829–1895, Ameri-
can math.: 404, 406
Osgood, William Fogg 1864–1943, Ameri-
can math., DMV, Enc: 249, 280, 334,
340-41, 405-06, 585, 613, 616, 625
Ostrowski, Alexander M. 1893–1986, Ukrai-
nian-Swiss math., DMV: 442, 478,
524, 536, 545-46, 579, 641
Ostwald, Wilhelm 1853–1932, physical
chem.: 2, 426, 492, 513, 528, 546, 637
Ovidio, Enrico d’ 1842–1933, Italian math.:
153-54, 247, 613, 616
Padé, Henri Eugène 1863–1953, French
math.: 130, 334
Padova, Ernesto 1845–1896, Italian math.:
157
Painlevé, Paul 1863–1933, French math.,
Enc: 333, 452, 471-72, 588
Paladini, Bernardo 1863–?, Italian math.:
402
Papperitz, Erwin 1857–1938, math., PhD
with Klein, DMV, Enc: 231, 280, 369-
70, 616
Parseval, August von 1861–1942, airship
designer: 453
Pascal, Blaise 1623–1662, French math.:
139
Pascal, Ernesto 1865–1940, Italian math.:
156, 334, 341, 366, 613, 616, 634
Pasch, Moritz 1843–1930, math., DMV:
100, 120, 482, 491, 606, 645
670 Index of Names
Pasquier, Ernest 1849–1926, Belgian math.:
120, 127-28
Pasteur, Louis 1822–1895, French micro-
biologist: 36
Pauli, Wolfgang Ernst 1900–1958, Austrian
physicist, Enc: 536, 541, 632
Peano, Giuseppe 1858–1932, Italian math.:
483, 491, 647
Peipers, Johann Philipp David 1838–1912,
philosopher: 116-17
Perry, John 1850–1920, Irish eng., math.:
169, 302, 502, 507, 509, 584, 641
Pervushin, Ivan M. 1827–1900, Russian
math.: 402
Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich 1746–1827,
Swiss pedagogue: 531
Petermann, August Heinrich 1822–1878,
cartographer: 36
Petzoldt, Joseph 1862–1929, philos.: 490
Pfaff, Friedrich 1825–1886, geologist, mine-
ralogist: 145
Pfaff, Hans Ulrich Vitalis 1824–1872,
math.: 124, 145, 163
Pfeiffer, Friedrich 1883–1961, math., DMV:
470-71, 616
Pfitzer, Ernst 1846–1906, botan.: 32
Picard, Charles Émile 1856–1941, French
math.: 131, 253, 268, 292, 333, 340,
342-43, 352, 357, 410, 456, 459, 495,
512, 529, 531, 583, 613, 616
Pick, Georg 1859–1942, Austrian math.,
DMV: 10, 248, 293-97, 321, 330, 341,
460, 576
Pickering, Edward Charles 1846–1919,
American astronomer: 406
Pieri, Mario 1860–1913, Italian math.
Enc(f): 130, 639
Pietzker, Friedrich 1844–1916, teacher,
DMV: 400, 503, 616
Pincherle, Salvatore 1853–1936, Italian
math., DMV, Enc: 402, 635
Planck, Gottlieb 1824–1910, lawyer: 327
Planck, Max 1858–1947, physicist, DMV:
14, 177-78, 204, 327, 415, 440, 457,
489, 513, 528-30, 541, 583, 587, 632
Plato ca. 428–348 BC, Greek philos.: vii,
35-36, 117, 143
Plücker, Albert, son of Julius P.: 39
Plücker (née Altstätter), Antonie, Julius P.’s
wife: 40, 97, 111, 477
Plücker, Julius 1801–1868, math., physicist:
vii, 2, 9-10, 17, 22, 28-42, 46-48, 52-
53, 58-62, 65-69, 71, 80, 88-89, 92-93,
96, 111, 113-14, 126, 128-29, 134, 138-
39, 151, 154-55, 206, 208, 216, 233,
300, 301, 309, 330, 345, 477-78, 510,
536, 569-70, 575, 596-97, 599, 609,
627-29, 642, 653
Pockels, Agnes 1862–1935, physico-che-
mist: 345
Pockels, Friedrich 1864–1913, math., physi-
cist, DMV, Enc: 302, 344-45, 455, 616
Poincaré, Henri 1854–1912, French math.:
viii, 4-6, 102, 130, 189, 215, 245, 250,
252-53, 258, 267-85, 295, 340, 342,
352, 357, 381, 387, 394-95, 403, 410,
456, 458, 467, 485, 495, 512-13, 519,
541, 571-73, 579, 582, 587, 610, 613,
631, 640, 642-43, 646, 651, 652
Poinsot, Louis 1777–1859, French math.:
177, 595-96
Poisson, Siméon Denis 1781–1840, French
math., physicist: 595
Pokrovsky, Petr M. 1857–1901, Russian
math., DMV: 355
Poncelet, Jean-Victor 1788–1867, French
math., eng., physicist: 1, 37-38, 68, 70,
127, 569
Pontani, Bernhard *27.10.1845, teacher: 29
Poske, Friedrich 1852–1925, pedag.: 494,
550, 553, 616
Prandtl, Ludwig 1875–1953, eng., mech.,
DMV, Enc: viii, 4, 7, 307, 327, 391,
449-53, 465-66, 468, 470-71, 522, 524,
562-63, 565-66, 577, 581, 588, 616,
623, 628, 637
Prange, Georg 1885–1941, math., DMV,
Enc: 114
Pringsheim, Alfred 1850–1941, math.,
DMV, Enc: 204, 509-10, 616
Pringsheim, Nathanael 1823–1894, botanist:
36
Prym, Friedrich 1841–1915, math., DMV:
65, 237, 256, 264, 457
Puiseux, Victor 1820–1883, French math.:
108
Pulfrich, Carl 1858–1927, physicist: 35
Pupin, Mihajlo Idvorski 1854–1935, Ser-
bian-American physicist: 467-68
Rabinowitsch-Kempner, Lydia 1871–1935,
bacteriol.: 505, 506
Radicke, Gustav 1810–1883, physicist: 32
 Index of Names
Rados (Raussnitz), Gusztáv 1862–1942,
Hungarian math., DMV: 103, 231,
248-50, 616
Ranke (as of 1865 von), Leopold 1795–
1886, historian: 116, 164-65, 427-28,
475, 477
Raphael 1483–1520, Italian painter: 566
Rathenau, Walther 1867–1922, industrialist,
liberal politician: 584
Rausenberger, Otto 1852–1931, math.,
teacher: 274-75
Rayleigh (Lord), Strutt, John William 1842–
1919, British physicist.: 151-52, 345,
431
Reeß, Maximilian 1845–1901, botanist: 135
Reger, Maximilian (Max) 1873–1916, com-
poser: 167
Reich, Max 1874–1941, physicist: 562
Reichardt, Hans 1908–1991, math., DMV:
73, 548, 642
Reichardt, Willibald A. 1864–1924, math.,
PhD with Klein: 231, 311, 337, 616
Rein, Wilhelm 1847–1929, pedag.: 492
Reinke, Johannes 1849–1931, botanist: 501
Reissner [Reißner], Hans 1874–1967, eng.,
math., physicist, DMV, Enc: 468, 565,
616
Repsold, Johann A. 1838–1919, instrument
maker: 363, 366
Réthy, Mór (Moritz) 1846–1925, Hungarian
math., DMV: 120
Reye, Karl Theodor 1838–1919, math.,
DMV: 69, 73, 78, 87, 120, 208, 215,
240, 371, 596, 618
Reynolds, Osborne 1842–1912, British
physicist: 354
Ricci-Curbastro, Gregorio 1853–1925,
Italian math., DMV: 199-200
Richardson, Roland George Dwight 1878–
1949, Canadian-American math.,
DMV: 346-47, 619
Richelot, Friedrich Julius 1808–1875, math.:
47, 119, 223, 379
Richert, Hans 1869–1940, teacher, education
politician: 556
Richter, Otto math. student: 231
Riecke, Eduard 1845–1915, physicist,
DMV: 96, 110-17, 120, 161, 235, 305,
316-20, 325, 332, 336, 363, 366, 400,
420, 423-24, 434, 439, 450, 473-74,
519, 522, 546, 560, 611-12, 616, 636,
643
671
Riedler, Alois 1850–1936, Austrian eng.,
professor in Germany: 401, 424, 443
Riemann, Bernhard 1826–1866, math.: vii,
2, 4-6, 9, 45, 48-49, 51, 53, 58, 65, 68,
72-73, 92, 95, 98, 101, 103, 126, 128-
29, 135-36, 139-43, 149, 153-54, 156-
57, 178-81, 184-86, 194, 203, 217, 222-
23, 228, 237, 249, 252-53, 255-60, 262-
65, 268, 270-74, 276-78, 280, 282-85,
288, 294-95, 338, 340, 342-44, 352,
354, 357, 360, 366, 379, 389, 393, 406,
409-10, 417, 452, 457, 461, 464, 478,
479, 547, 549, 570, 572, 586, 600, 607-
08, 610, 621, 631, 634, 638, 640, 643-
44, 646, 648, 651, 653
Rieppel (as of 1906 von), Anton 1852–1926,
eng.: 439-40, 444-45, 469, 471, 616
Ritter, August 1826–1908, astrophysicist,
prof. of mechanics, DMV: 370
Ritter, Ernst 1867–1895, math., PhD with
Klein, DMV: 331, 387-88, 393, 406,
413, 435
Rockefeller, John D. 1839–1937, American
entrepreneur: 564, 647
Rodenberg, Carl Friedrich 1851–1933,
math., DMV: 97, 108, 309, 370
Rohn, Karl 1855–1920, math., PhD with
Klein, DMV, Enc: 193-94, 204, 206-
07, 220-23, 226, 236, 298, 308-09, 311,
433, 613, 616
Rohns, Christian Friedrich Andreas 1787–
1853, architect: 169, 327
Rohr, Moritz von 1868–1940, math., inven-
tor: 114, 650
Rosanes, Jacob 1842–1922, math., DMV:
374, 375, 616
Rosemann, Walther 1899–1971, math.: 257,
547, 636
Rosenbach, Friedrich Julius 1842–1923,
physician, surgeon: 384
Rosenhain, Johann Georg 1816–1887,
math.: 236
Rosenthal, Arthur 1887–1959, math., DMV,
Enc: 381, 421, 430, 616
Rost, Georg 1870–1958, math., DMV: 457
Rothe, Rudolf 1873–1942, math., DMV:
550
Routh, Edward John 1831–1907, British
math.: 302, 431
Roux, Karl 1826–1894, painter: 210
Rudio, Ferdinand 1856–1929, German-
Swiss math.: 317, 479, 613, 616
672 Index of Names
Rüdenberg, Reinhold 1883–1961, eng.: 466,
616
Ruer, Wilhelm 1848–1932, judicial counci-
lor, poet, Klein’s classmate: 27, 616
Runge, Carl 1856–1927, math., DMV, Enc:
viii, 25, 62, 89, 168, 177-78, 229, 261,
303, 327, 391, 421, 445, 448-49, 452-
53, 465, 469-70, 473, 476, 489, 506,
512, 517, 522-24, 528, 532, 537, 539,
558-60, 566, 587, 613, 616, 632, 643
Runge, Iris Anna 1888–1966, math., chem.,
physicist: 418, 448, 466, 506-07, 517,
523, 537, 546, 650
Russell, Bertrand 1872–1970, British
philosopher, polymath.: 353, 572
Sachs, Eva Henriette 1882–1936, classical
scholar, teacher: 35
Sachs, Julius 1832–1897, botanist: 36
Sagorski, Ernst 1847–1929, Klein’s fellow
student, teacher: 29, 35, 44
Salmon, George 1819–1904, Irish math.:
40-41, 47, 71, 87, 102, 248, 596, 645
Sanden, Horst von 1883–1965, math., DMV:
453, 616
Sartorius Freiherr von Waltershausen,
Wolfgang 1809–1876, geol.: 90
Sauppe, Hermann 1809–1893, classical phi-
lologist: 317, 364-66
Scheffers, Georg 1866–1945, math., DMV:
447
Scheibner, Wilhelm 1826–1908, math.,
DMV: 206, 215-16, 222, 229-30, 233,
237, 239, 308, 311-12, 321
Schell, Wilhelm 1826–1904, math., mech.,
DMV: 596
Schellbach, Karl Heinrich 1805–1892,
math., pedagogue: 63, 65
Schering, Ernst Christian Julius 1833–1897,
math., astr., DMV: xvii, 11, 92, 93, 95,
98, 120, 235, 236, 317, 318, 325, 335,
363, 366, 367, 377, 378, 380, 384, 392,
434, 478, 598, 600, 601, 602
Schering (née Malmstén), Maria Heliodora
1848–1920: 367
Schiller, Friedrich 1759–1805, poet, play-
wright: 25, 454
Schilling, Carl 1857–1933, math., DMV:
370, 616
Schilling, Friedrich (Fritz) 1868–1950,
math., DMV: 302, 386-87, 391, 393-
94, 440, 447, 449, 616, 636, 645
Schilling, Martin publisher: 175
Schimmack, Rudolf 1881–1912, math.,
didactics, DMV: 302, 390, 446, 504-
05, 515, 517, 588, 613, 616, 635, 645
Schläfli, Ludwig 1814–1895, Swiss math.:
140-41, 257, 309, 633
Schlegel, Victor 1843–1905, math., teacher,
DMV: 313, 402
Schlesinger, Ludwig 1864–1933, Hunga-
rian-German math., DMV: 344, 478,
616
Schlömilch, Oscar 1823–1901, math., DMV:
303
Schmeidler, Werner 1890–1969, math.,
DMV: 536
Schmidt, Carl, theologian: 155
Schmidt, Erhard 1876–1959, math., DMV:
394
Schmidt (as of 1920 Schmidt-Ott), Friedrich
1860–1956, science politician: 303,
401-02, 413, 444, 450, 453, 530, 533,
557, 559, 560, 563-64, 645
Schmitz, Wilhelm 1846–1900, manager in
the company Krupp: 444
Schmoller (since 1908 von), Gustav 1838–
1917, economics scholar: 501
Schneider, Jakob 1818–1898, F. Klein’s
math. teacher: 25
Schoenflies (Schönflies), Arthur 1853–1928,
math., DMV, Enc: 4, 10, 96, 103-04,
154, 296, 329-32, 335-36, 356, 359-60,
380, 383-84, 387, 392, 402-03, 422,
447-78, 502, 538, 591, 605-06, 617,
633, 640, 642, 646
Scholze, Peter *1987, math., DMV: 460
Schotten, Heinrich 1856–1939, teacher,
DMV: 494, 613, 617
Schottky, Friedrich 1851–1935, math.,
DMV: 234, 256, 265, 270, 283, 375,
377, 392, 428, 457, 587, 609, 611
Schouten, Jan Arnoldus 1883–1971, Dutch
math., DMV: 131, 302, 646
Schröder, Edward 1858–1942, Germanist,
mediaevalist: 577
Schröder, Ernst 1841–1902, math., DMV:
120, 369-70
Schröder, Johannes 1865–1937, math.,
teacher, PhD with Klein, DMV: 339,
418
Schrödter, Emil 1855–1928, eng.: 422
Schroeter, Heinrich Eduard 1829–1892,
math., DMV: 64, 87, 373, 375-76
 Index of Names
Schubert, Hermann Cäsar Hannibal 1848–
1911, math., DMV, Enc: 50, 67, 100,
119-20, 241, 368-71, 581
Schüler, Wilhelm, math.: 172, 176-77, 577
Schütz, L., a student in Klein’s courses: 399
Schur, Friedrich 1856–1932, math., DMV:
219, 223, 233-34, 236, 251, 308, 311,
323, 613, 617
Schur, Issai 1875–1941, math., DMV: 523,
557, 558, 559, 560
Schur, Wilhelm 1846–1901, astronomer,
DMV: 325, 335, 363, 434
Schwalbe, Bernhard 1841–1901, math.,
teacher, DMV: 500
Schwarz, Hermann Amandus 1843–1921,
math., DMV: 11, 13, 65, 69, 98, 120,
181, 185, 207, 212, 233, 235-36, 238,
256, 261-62, 266, 269, 276, 280, 282-
83, 295-96, 317, 318-23, 325-26, 328-
32, 334-36, 342-43, 356, 358, 360, 363,
365, 372, 374-78, 381, 383-84, 387,
393, 412, 428, 456-57, 499, 522, 587,
597-98, 601-02, 605-07, 611, 623, 640
Schwarzschild, Karl 1873–1916, astrono-
mer, DMV, Enc: 394, 420, 453, 461,
465, 467, 617, 636
Scott, Charlotte Angas 1858–1931, British-
American math., DMV: 258, 416-17,
639
Seeger, Johannes, physicist: 44
Seeliger (Ritter von), Hugo 1849–1924,
astronomer, DMV: 222, 304
Segre, Corrado 1863–1924, Italian math.,
DMV, Enc: 6, 41-42, 130, 154, 431,
483, 613, 617-18, 626, 644, 647
Seidel (as of 1882 Ritter von), Ludwig
1821–1896, math., DMV: 173, 193-94,
206, 209, 241, 373, 379, 381, 598
Selenka, Emil 1842–1902, zoologist: 135
Selling, Eduard 1834–1920, math., DMV:
392
Serret, Joseph Alfred 1819–1885, French
math.: 232, 596
Severi, Francesco 1879–1961, Italian math:
49, 618, 640
Seyfarth, Friedrich 1891–1960, math.,
teacher, DMV: 538, 548, 556, 636
Shafarevich, Igor R. 1923–2017, Russian
math.: 47, 50, 647
Sibley, Hiram 1807–1888, American entre-
preneur: 406
673
Siedentopf, Henry 1872–1940, physicist:
399, 466
Siemens, Werner von 1816–1892, eng.,
entrepreneur: 438-39, 442, 451
Simon, Hermann Theodor 1870–1918, phy-
sicist: 306, 447, 449, 466, 518, 562,
617
Simon, Max 1844–1918, math., hist., DMV:
67, 120, 509, 617
Simony, Oscar 1852–1915, Austrian math.:
208
Sintsov (Sinzow), Dimitrii M. 1867–1946,
Russian math. DMV: 130, 251, 372,
613, 617
Sitter, Willem de 1872–1934, Dutch astr.:
542-43, 643
Slaby, Adolf 1849–1913, eng.: 424, 443,
451, 499-502, 635
Slodowy, Peter 1948–2002, math., DMV: 5,
179, 290, 634, 648
Smend, Rudolf 1851–1913, theologian: 434
Smith, David Eugene 1860–1944, American
math., hist., pedag., DMV: 396, 399,
493-94, 517, 549-50, 613, 617, 635
Smith, Henry John Stephen 1826–1883,
British math.: 148-52, 183, 192, 196,
199, 244, 314, 586
Smith, William Robertson 1846–1894, Scot-
tish orientalist, Old Testament scholar:
96, 105, 123, 147, 183, 353
Snyder, Virgil 1869–1950, American math.,
PhD with Klein, DMV: 372, 399, 406,
417, 550, 613, 617-19
Sohncke, Leonhard 1842–1897, physicist:
356
Sommerfeld, Arnold 1868–1951, math.,
physicist, DMV, Enc: 4, 7, 11, 50, 253,
256, 303-04, 331, 345, 388-89, 391,
393, 395, 426, 431-32, 435, 453, 455,
459, 462-63, 472, 539, 544, 564, 613,
617, 628, 636, 648
Sommerfeld (née Höpfner), Johanna 1874–
1955: 389
Sonin, Nikolay Y. 1849–1915, Russian
math., DMV: 251, 372, 487
Speiser, Andreas 1885–1970, Swiss math.,
DMV: 459
Spiegel-Borlinghausen, Adolph von 1792–
1852, officer, Prussian official: 18
Spiess, Otto 1878–1966, Swiss math., hist.:
537
674 Index of Names
Spiro, Eugen (Eugene) 1874–1972, German-
American painter: ix
Spitzer, Simon 1826–1887, Austrian math.:
208
Springer, Anton 1825–1891, art hist.: 30-31
Springer, Julius 1880–1968, publisher,
DMV: 57, 301, 307, 543, 635
Stäckel, Paul 1862–1919, math., hist., DMV,
Enc: 302, 304-05, 349, 427, 443, 471,
476-78, 494, 499, 613, 617
Stähelin, Helene 1891–1970, Swiss math.:
535, 537
Stahl, Hermann von 1843–1909, math.,
DMV: 457
Staiger, Robert 1882–1914, musicologist, F.
Klein’s son-in-law: x, 166-68, 527
Stark, Johannes 1874–1957, exp.physicist:
474, 542, 560
Starke, Dorothea 1902–1943, math. 471
Staude, Otto 1857–1928, math., PhD with
Klein, DMV, Enc: 71, 100, 221, 228,
230, 233, 236-37, 264-65, 311-12, 428,
505, 617, 632
Staudt, Karl Georg Christian von 1789–
1867, math.: 70, 73, 79, 97, 103, 123-
24, 126, 138, 141, 215, 585, 609, 640
Steckel, Fritz 1884–1915, teacher: 491
Steindorff, Ernst 1839–1895, hist.: 116-17
Steiner, Jakob 1796–1863, math.: 37, 47
Steinitz, Ernst 1871–1928, math., DMV,
Enc: 42
Steklov (Steckloff), Vladimir A. 1863–1926,
Russian math.: 613, 617
Stéphanos, Cyparissos 1857–1917, Greek
math., DMV: 130, 495, 613, 617, 642
Stern, Alfred 1846–1936, hist.: 116-17, 564
Stern, Antonie 1892–after 1967, math.,
DMV: 536
Stern, Moritz Abraham 1807–1894, math.,
DMV: 51-52, 92-95, 107, 116, 120-21,
127, 132, 235, 317, 329, 364, 564, 598,
601-02, 646
Still, Carl 1868–1951, eng., entrepreneur,
DMV: 563
Stöhr, Friedrich, student: 230
Stokes, George Gabriel 1819–1903, Irish
math., physicist: 353, 431, 569
Stolz, Otto 1842–1905, Austrian math.,
DMV: 6, 14, 61, 66-67, 69-71, 100,
107, 116, 119-20, 123, 128, 138-39,
161, 183, 208, 210, 213, 218, 221, 295-
96, 623, 625
Stresemann, Gustav 1878–1929, politician:
555
Stringham, Irving W. 1847–1909, American
math.: 10, 230, 245, 575
Struik, Dirk 1894–2000, Dutch-American
math., hist., DMV: 537, 539
Struve, Ludwig von 1858–1920, German-
Baltic math., astronomer: 231
Studt, Konrad von 1838–1921, Prussian
Minister of Culture: 499-501
Study, Eduard 1862–1930, math., DMV,
Enc: 50, 87, 131, 224, 233, 240, 242-
44, 246, 323, 330, 339, 351, 357, 369,
402, 404, 542, 577, 617, 627, 631, 637
Stumpf, Carl 1848–1936, philosopher: 115-
16, 485-86, 489, 648
Sturm, Rudolf 1841–1919, math., DMV:
42, 120, 208, 369-70, 375, 596
Süchting, Friedrich (Fritz) Wilhelm 1874–
1969, eng., F. Klein’s son-in-law: 166-
67, 169, 516, 641
Sylow, Ludwig 1832–1918, Norweg. math.:
240, 569
Sylvester, James Joseph 1814–1897, British
math.: 37, 47-48, 87, 148, 151-52, 245,
246, 314-316, 360, 395, 401, 407, 409,
412, 575, 586, 641
Tägert, Friedrich 1863–1950, math. teacher:
398, 635
Tait, Peter Guthrie 1831–1901, Scottish
math., physicist: 94, 96, 105, 147-48,
256, 570
Takagi, Teiji 1875–1960, Japanese math.,
DMV: 488
Tannery, Jules 1848–1910, French math.:
75-76, 302, 474
Taussky-Todd, Olga 1906–1995, Austrian,
later Czech-American math., DMV:
417, 460
Taylor, Brook 1685–1731, Engl. math.: 487
Tedone, Orazio 1870–1922, Italian math.,
DMV, Enc: 470
Teixeira, Francesco Gomes 1851–1933, Por-
tuguese math., hist.: 495, 613, 617
Tellkampf, Adolph 1798–1869, math.,
pedag.: 503, 629
Terquem, Orley 1782–1862, French math.:
304
Thaer, Albrecht 1855–1921, math., pedag.,
DMV: 494, 613, 617
Thomae, Johannes 1840–1921, math.,
DMV: 124
 Index of Names
Thomas de Colmar, Charles Xavier 1785–
1870, French inventor: 145-46
Thomas, Sidney Gilchrist 1850–1885, Engl.
inventor: 422
Thompson, Henry Dallas, American math.,
PhD with Klein: 334, 339, 407, 607
Thomson, Joseph John 1856–1940, British
physicist: 431, 448-49
Thomson, William (Lord Kelvin) 1824–
1907, British physicist: 94, 96, 146-47,
205, 256
Tietjen, Friedrich 1834–1895, astron.: 376
Tietze, Heinrich 1880–1964, Austrian math.,
DMV, Enc: 433, 617
Tikhomandritsky, Matvey A. 1844–1921,
Russian math.: 250
Tilly, Joseph Marie de 1837–1906, Belgian
math.: 348
Timerding, Heinrich Emil 1873–1945,
math., DMV, Enc: 4, 476-77, 550
Timoshenko, Stephen P. 1878–1972,
Ukrain.-Amer. mechan.: 466, 471, 649
Timpe, Aloys 1882–1959, math., PhD with
Klein, DMV, Enc: 302, 390, 470, 480,
617 (Trimpe=Timpe)
Toeplitz [Töplitz], Otto 1881–1940, math.,
DMV, Enc: 14, 346, 490, 510, 617, 630
Tollens, Bernhard 1841–1918, chemist:
115, 117
Treitschke, Heinrich von 1834–1896, hist.:
117
Treutlein, Peter 1845–1912, math., pedag.,
DMV: 494, 514, 613, 617, 638
Troschel, Franz Hermann 1810–1882,
zoologist: 31-32
Trueblood, Mary Esther 1872–1939,
American math.: 487
Tyler, Harry Walter 1863–1938, American
math., DMV: 249, 334, 404, 613, 617
Uffrecht, Bernhard 1885–1959, math.,
pedagogue: 491
Ulrich, Georg Karl Justus 1798–1879,
math.: 92-94, 120
Uppenkamp, August 1824–1909, teacher:
23
Urysohn, Pavel S. 1898–1924, Russian
math.: 533, 538
Valentiner, Herman 1850–1913, Danish
math.: 189, 247
Valentiner, Theodor 1869–1952, lawyer,
univ. curator: 555
675
Van Vleck, Edward Burr 1863–1943, Ame-
rican math., PhD with Klein, DMV:
334, 346, 372, 404, 406, 613, 617
Van Vleck, John Monroe 1833–1912, Ame-
rican astronomer: 407
Varićak, Vladimir 1865–1942, Serbian
math., DMV: 473
Vasilev [Wassiliew], Alexander V. 1853–
1929, Russ. math., DMV: 251, 350,
355, 372, 408, 495, 511, 533, 613, 617,
635
Vermeil, Hermann 1889–1959, math.,
DMV: 107, 535-36
Veronese, Giuseppe 1854–1917, Italian
math., DMV: 154, 230, 246-47, 351,
613, 617-18
Vietoris, Leopold 1891–2002, Austrian
math., DMV, Enc: 433
Virchow, Rudolf 1821–1902, physician:
205, 653
Vögler, Albert 1877–1945, entrepreneur:
561-62, 637
Voellmy, Erwin 1886–1951, Swiss math.,
teacher, DMV: 537
Voigt, Woldemar 1850–1919, theor. physi-
cist, DMV: 317, 325, 335, 345, 363,
434, 439, 461, 466, 522, 562, 613, 617
Volhard, Jakob 1834–1910, chemist: 597
Von der Mühll (VonderMühll), Karl 1841–
1912, Swiss math., DMV: 47, 53-55,
57, 120, 215, 219, 222, 227, 613, 617
Voss [Voß], Aurel 1845–1931, math., DMV,
Enc: 4, 41, 51-52, 54, 59-60, 94-95,
97, 100, 108, 119-20, 124, 132-33, 136,
138, 146, 158, 160, 163, 258, 301, 317-
19, 321-23, 339, 365, 372, 384, 419,
453, 476-77, 492, 529, 546, 576, 584,
599-600, 602, 613, 617, 652
Vries, Gustav de 1866–1934, Dutch math.,
DMV: 432
Waelsch, Emil 1863–1927, Czech math.,
DMV: 231, 248-49, 613, 617
Waerden, Bartel Leendert van der 1903–
1996, Dutch math., DMV: 241, 359
Wagner, Ernst Leberecht 1829–1888, phy-
sician: 258
Wahrendorff, Ferdinand 1826–1898, physi-
cian: 324
Waitz, Georg 1813–1886, hist.: 89, 116-17,
164, 546
Walker, Gilbert 1868–1958, British math.,
physicist, meteorologist: 431-32
676 Index of Names
Wallach, Otto 1847–1931, chemist: 115,
439, 522, 617, 625
Walter, Max 1857–1935, eng.: 563, 617
Waltershausen, Wolfgang Sartorius von
1809–1876, geol.: 90
Walther, Alwin 1898–1967, math.: 487
Wangerin, Albert 1844–1933, math. DMV,
Enc: 419
Warnstedt, Adolf von 1813–1897, lawyer,
univ. curator: 318
Weber, Carl Maria von 1786–1826, com-
poser: 35
Weber, Eduard Ritter von 1870–1934,
math., DMV, Enc: 393
Weber, Ernst Heinrich 1795–1878, physi-
cist, physician: 308
Weber, Heinrich 1842–1913, math., DMV,
Enc: 11, 47, 51, 57, 249, 282, 304,
366, 369-70, 372, 374, 376, 378-80,
383-84, 392-93, 396, 402, 426, 434,
436, 476, 509, 613, 617, 643, 645
Weber, Moritz 1871–1951, eng., DMV:
390-91
Weber, Wilhelm Eduard 1804–1891, physi-
cist: 89, 92-94, 97, 111-12, 120, 235,
317, 326-27, 365, 439
Wedekind, Ludwig 1843–1908, math., PhD
with Klein: 129, 133-37, 139, 147,
191, 401
Weichold, Guido *1857, math., PhD with
Klein: 230, 261-62, 264-65
Weierstraß, Karl 1815–1897, math., DMV:
9, 13, 35, 41, 48, 50-51, 56, 61, 63-69,
71-72, 97, 119, 139, 142, 151, 183,
192, 197-200, 204, 207, 212, 217, 222,
229, 233, 235, 237-38, 249, 256, 260-
61, 263-66, 268, 291-92, 294-95, 298-
99, 318-19, 321-23, 328, 329-30, 339-
40, 342, 354, 357, 365, 368, 371-74,
376-77, 410-12, 457, 483, 486, 509-10,
569-70, 586, 591, 602, 607, 623-26,
632-33, 637, 644-45, 647, 652
Weiler, Adolf 1851–1916, Swiss math., PhD
with Klein, DMV: 42, 97, 108, 110,
132-34, 137
Weingarten, Julius 1836–1910, math.,
DMV: 100, 200
Weinreich, Hermann 1884–1932, math.,
pedagogue, DMV: 302, 496
Weiß, Wilhelm 1859–1904, Austrian math.,
DMV: 40, 54, 177, 231, 248-49
Weitzenböck, Roland 1885–1955, Austrian
math., DMV, Enc: 433
Welcker, Friedrich Gottlieb 1784–1868,
class. philologist, archeologist: 35
Wellhausen, Julius 1844–1918, biblical
scholar, orientalist: 147, 380
Wellmann, H. math. teacher, DMV: 369-70
Wende, Erich 1884–1966, lawyer, adminis-
trator: 526
Wenker, Albert †1871, F.Klein’s school
friend: 26, 60-61, 85-86, 89
Wernicke, Alexander 1857–1915, math.,
mech., pedagogue, DMV: 496, 617
Westphal, Wilhelm 1882–1978, physicist:
563
Weyl, Hermann 1885–1955, math., DMV:
2, 131, 142, 243, 480, 491, 517, 544,
565, 617, 645-46, 648
Weyr, Eduard 1852–1903, Czech Austrian
math.: 402
Weyr, Emil 1848–1894, Czech Austrian
math., DMV: 76, 248, 340
White, Henry Seely 1861–1943, American
math., PhD with Klein, DMV: 334,
340-41, 372, 377, 402
Whitehead, Alfred North 1861–1947, British
math., philosopher: 244, 572, 639
Wiechert, Emil 1861–1928, geophysicist,
DMV, Enc: 440, 447-52, 466, 555,
617, 636
Wiedemann, Eilhard 1852–1928, physicist:
222
Wieghardt, Karl 1874–1924, math., PhD
with Klein, DMV, Enc: 391, 469, 617
Wiener, Christian 1826–1896, math., DMV:
48-49, 118, 239
Wiener, Hermann 1857–1939, math., DMV:
231, 233-34, 239, 369-70, 617
Wiener, Norbert 1894–1964, American
math., DMV: 437, 566
Wigger, Julius 1871–1934, teacher: 399
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Ulrich von
1848–1931, class. philologist: 35, 366,
437, 528, 626
Wilbrandt, Adolf von 1837–1911, writer:
362
Wiles, Andrew *1953, British math.: 381
Wilhelm I 1797–1888, German Emperor and
Prussian King: 84, 320
Wilhelm II 1859–1941, German Emperor
and Prussian King: 363, 401, 416, 437,
443-44, 451-52, 487, 497, 499
 Index of Names
Williams, Ella Cornelia, American math.
teacher: 412
Wiltheiss, Eduard 1855–1900, math., DMV:
370
Wiman, Anders 1865–1959, Swedish math.,
DMV, Enc: 99, 189, 247, 288, 338,
613, 617 (Wimmer=Wiman)
Windau, Willi 1889–1928, math., DMV:
536
Winkelmann, Max 1879–1946, math., PhD
with Klein, DMV: 418, 463, 471, 548,
617
Winston (md. Newson), Mary Frances
1869–1959, American math., PhD with
Klein: 346, 404, 413, 415-16, 462,
547, 576, 632
Wirtinger, Wilhelm 1864-1945, Austrian
math., DMV, Enc: 4, 131, 141, 184,
280, 292, 340, 341, 366, 371, 417, 429,
457, 482, 575, 576, 577, 613, 617, 628,
630, 643, 653
Wirtz, Karl 1861–1928, prof. of electrical
engineering: 231, 617
Witting, Alexander 1861–1946, math., PhD
with Klein, DMV: 231, 338, 617, 653
Wöhler, Friedrich 1800–1882, chemist: 45
Wolff, Karl Georg 1886–1977, math.,
teacher, DMV: 550, 640
Wolfskehl, Paul Friedrich 1856–1906,
physician, math., DMV: 381, 395, 538
Woods, Frederick Shenstone 1864–1950,
American math., PhD with Klein: 334,
613, 617
Wright, Orville 1871–1948, American
aviation pioneer: 450, 452, 640
Wright, Wilbur 1867–1912, American
aviation pioneer: 450, 452, 640
Wüllner, Adolf 1835–1908, physicist: 29,
648
Wulff, George V. 1863–1925, Russian crys-
tallographer: 356
Wundt, Wilhelm 1832–1920, psychol.,
philos.: 219, 229, 310, 492, 528
Wußing, Hans 1927–2011, math.hist.: ix, 5,
78, 126, 653
Yoshiye (Yoshie), Takuji (Takuzi) 1874–
1947, Japanese math.: 394, 487-88,
494, 613, 617
Young, George Paxton 1818–1889, British-
Canadian theol., logician: 25
Young (née Chisholm), Grace, see Chisholm
677
Young, William Henry 1863–1942, British
math., DMV: 302, 429, 522, 538, 631,
640, 653
Zacharias, Max 1873–1962, math., DMV,
Enc: 433
Zarncke, Friedrich 1825–1891, philologist:
30, 220
Zeiss, Carl 1816–1888, scientific instrument
maker: 10, 35, 114, 438, 442, 447, 471,
558, 565-66, 590, 649
Zemplén, Győző 1879–1916, Hungarian
physicist, Enc: 468, 613, 617
Zeppelin, Ferdinand Graf von 1838–1917,
general, inventor: 451, 617
Zermelo, Ernst 1871–1953, math., DMV,
Enc: 307, 394, 456, 490, 514
Zeuthen, Hieronymus Georg 1839–1920,
Danish math., Enc: 47, 50, 54, 68, 120,
242, 309, 395, 476-77, 479, 613, 617
Zhukovsky, Nikolay Y. 1847–1921, Russian
math., mech.: 372, 450, 453, 463, 466
Zindler, Konrad 1866–1934, Austrian math.,
DMV, Enc: 41-42
Ziwet, Alexander 1853–1928, Polish-Ger-
man-American eng., math., DMV: 404,
495, 634
Zoepffel, Richard 1843–1891, church
historian: 116
Żorawski, Kazimierz 1866–1953, Polish
math., DMV: 335, 613, 617
Zorn, Philipp 1850–1928, prof. of canon and
constitutional law: 500
Zühlke, Paul 1877–1957, math., pedagogue,
DMV: 505, 617