Gerhard Kowalewski

Waldemar Hermann Gerhard Kowalewski was born on March 27, 1876, in Alt Järshagen in Pomerania, then part of the German Empire.^[1] He was the son of Julius Leonard Kowalewski, a school teacher. In 1893 he left home to attend the University of Königsberg where his brother Christian Kowalewski was a professor of philosophy and mathematics. There he studied mathematics and philosophy before enrolling at the University of Greifswald, before eventually settling at the University of Leipzig, where he earned his doctorate with the thesis Über eine Kategorie von Transformationsgruppen einer vierdimensionalen Mannigfaltigkeit in 1898.^[1] At Leipzig he was a student of Sophus Lie, where he was considered one of Lie's most elite and gifted students.^[2]

In 1901 he became an associate professor at the University of Greifswald before moving on to the University of Bonn in 1904.^[1] In 1909 he left for Prague to assume an appointment to a German-based school, before taking a position with the German University of Prague in 1912.^[1] From there he took a position at the Technical University of Dresden, culminating in his appointment as Rector in 1935.^[1] During 1937—1941, he was an editor of the journal Deutsche Mathematik. In 1937 he requested leave and was granted such from the Reich Ministry of Education.^[3] He returned to the German University of Prague in 1939 where he held a position until 1945, which following the expulsion of Germans following the war, fled to Munich where he established himself at the Technical University of Munich.^[1]