He had described all this to me rather gravely, but it made him laugh as well. André was like that. Very serious and very funny at the same time.
He was my friend.
André had a great sense of humor. I think he was rather pleased with himself that day. He had quite simply asked a mathematical question. Quite simply, he repeated to me. A real, serious question. But in French. Politely, but in a loud, clear voice. Over at the table of historians, he saw the one facing him smile slightly. Kürz thought for a moment, shook his head, and gave his answer: “Ich weiss nicht,” I don’t know, in German. “I might know,” André said, and he added politely, in French: “I should like to write to you, Professor. I will send you my proof as soon as I’ve worked out the details.” After which, they all got up, I guess Pariset was the one who paid the bill, and they parted ways.
Would you like more coffee?
I’m sure you know the name Daniel Roth. Yes, he was one of your colleagues, a historian. But he was interested in the Renaissance. You may also have heard of Marcel Schmitt. Yes? Of course, you know all the historians. He was a professor at the University of Strasbourg as well. He wrote a little book about his memories, he talks about Roth in it. You’ve read it? Why am I talking about Roth? Because he and Schmitt were among the group of historians at the café. The one who smiled at hearing André speak French, that was Roth. The historian with the smile, André had said to me. He was smiling, too, when he told me about it. Daniel Roth caught up with him, in front of the statue of Goethe, right in front of the university, and congratulated him on his question. They walked together for a little while. André was in awe; as you know, at that time, relationships between professors and students were rather distant. Roth was already quite famous, and André was just a student. Yet Roth knew André’s name. He had heard about our raid on the bookstore, only because Doctor Sonntag was his cousin and had told him about it. André tried to explain the question he had asked Kürz. But the great man knew nothing about class field theory, which really made André laugh. And then they spoke about hell, and the situation in Germany.
In Strasbourg, we were very close to Germany; there were a lot of German refugees, so we knew what was going on. In particular, as students, we had heard people talking about what was happening within the universities. Living one day at a time, the anxiety whenever a political topic came up in conversation, the Horst-Wessel-Lied sung in unison with one arm raised, Party membership, the class boycotts, the dismissal of undesirables. Yes, of course, you know all that, that’s your job. You’ll know this as well: in 1939, there was no doubt about it, we knew there would be war. Like André, like us all, Roth knew that the German had been right and that they were going to return, like he had said, to take back their square kilometers of vital space, and that they would do here what they had already done there.
Roth and André parted and went their separate ways, each to his own abode.
The next morning, Daniel Roth had a copy of Dante’s Inferno brought to André. He had dedicated and signed the book. André was very proud of it. He brought it to the library to show me. Later on, he lent it to one of his friends, right before he was arrested. It’s too bad you couldn’t have met Mireille Duvivier. I’ll tell you her story another time.
Now I’m the one who owns the book. I’m going to show you the dedication.
Look what Daniel Roth wrote: “Absurd or not, make no mistake, the hell they’re preparing for us is very well organized.”
CHAPTER V
Journal of Heinrich Kürz1
The mathematician and German officer Heinrich Kürz (1897-1965) kept this journal during one of his stays in Paris, then carefully typed it up. This is a translation of the journal with annotations and commentary. The document (fifteen typed pages) can be found in the Kürz Collection in the University of N. Archives. Dr. Hermann Raffke, the curator of the archives, and Dr. Bernhardt Hermann, grandson of Heinrich Kürz, gave their permission for this publication. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them.
(PARIS, 1942)
Very well organized, my trip. Left for Paris at midnight on May 28.2 Unfortunately could not stop by Neuenbach to kiss Lotte and her mother. In the train compartment, spoke with a lieutenant who was returning from the Eastern front. Described the losses suffered. Amputations of frozen limbs. Thought of Otto Zach.3 What a loss it would be, for science and for Germany, if he didn’t come back. At least he will have done what he wanted to do, right to the end.
The goal of Kürz’s trip was to look for French mathematicians who would agree to contribute articles to the German mathematical review journal..
At the request of Dr. Hermann and out of consideration for potential beneficiaries, the majority of the names of the people mentioned here have been changed. The name of Otto Zach used here designates a young mathematician (1913-1943) who was both a brilliant academic and a very active member of the National Socialist Party.
May 29, 1942
In Paris, at the Hotel Raphael, between the Arc de Triomphe and the Trocadéro. Beautiful room. Antique woodwork.4 Met Jünger, the famous writer and hero of the Great War, who is staying in the next room over and wanted to know what a mathematician like me was doing in Paris working as a member of the occupation forces. Explained to him how a review journal works and our need for contributions from French mathematicians. Walked together from the Trocadéro to the Étoile and back. Had a beer together on a café terrace. Atmosphere was cheerful and Parisian. “So, you’re a salesman for German science,” he said to me.
The officers of the occupation forces were housed in luxurious hotels in the beautiful neighborhoods in the west of Paris.
Seeing Jünger gave me the idea of keeping a journal to make note of what I’m doing over the next few days in Paris.5
The writer Ernst Jünger (1895-1995), who was a captain with the German military staff, was indeed living at the Hotel Raphael. It should be noted that he was the youngest recipient of the Prussian Pour le Mérite award in 1918. Although there is no material evidence, it seems rather certain that Kürz rewrote his text, at least in part, after Jünger’s Parisian Journals were published in 1949. See notes 13 and 43.
May 30, 1942
Between 2 and 4 in the morning, heard British planes, bombs not very far from here, dropped on the Renault factories. That’s what I call an act of terrorism.
There’s a big mirror in the hotel room. I think I look rather handsome in my uniform. One of the advantages of the war.
Visited Yersin, whom I met ten years ago when he came to study with Xanten. Tense atmosphere. Proposed he contribute to the review journal: his expertise in geometry would be very useful to us. He didn’t give me an outright no, but didn’t show much enthusiasm, either. For that matter, he hardly said anything. I gave him some food tickets, for his elderly father—I hope that will help convince him.6
Catherine Billotte, daughter of Claude Yersin (1904-1997) stated (Interview, December 5, 2008) that her grandfather saved these tickets; he never used them. She added that her father had never criticized Morstauf’s attitude during the occupation, undoubtedly because of Morstauf’s status as a “broken face.” On this subject, she mentioned the trip Yersin had made with his own father near the front, even before the 1918 armistice occurred (Yersin was fourteen years old), in order to identify the body of one of his uncles.
Morstauf came to the Raphael while I was away.7 I think I’ll see him on Monday. He left me some reading material: two French newspapers (La Gerbe and Jesuis partout8) and a letter.
The mathematicians Christian Morstauf (1893-1996) and Heinrich Kürz had maintained a relationship as both scientists and friends ever since Morstauf’s trip to N. in 1932. They wrote each other many letters, which are held in Kürz’s Nachlass (collection) at the University of N. archives. From the start of the war, Kürz went to Paris several times, which means that he and Morstauf must have seen each other quite regularly.
La Gerbe (The Sheaf) and Jesuis partout
(I Am Everywhere) were French collaborationist newspapers.
May 31, 1942
Sunday morning. Thought of Otto Zach again. Where is he exactly, and in what condition? This is a time when many brave men will go through the gates of hell—and many will have seen it even before their own deaths.
Walked across Paris to the Abwehr headquarters at the Hotel Lutetia, where Blank,9 one of my friends from Gymnasium, is assigned, and where they even work on Sundays. Had a drink with him. Then, on Boulevard Saint-Michel, I contemplated the fountain’s archangel while thinking of it as a symbol of our victory and the peace that will follow.
This friend also appears in Kürz’s letters, sometimes under the name of Leutnant Blank, sometimes under that of Doktor Blank.
Had dinner with Wallerant at a rather popular restaurant, Le Mahieu.10 We traded news with each other, in particular of Sir Michael Vendall, who was evacuated from London to Bangor, Wales, with his students, so he gets to keep on phlegmatically playing bridge while our compatriots are killed by the bombs dropped by his.11 Wallerant spoke to me about a conference at Cambridge, just before the war, in which Xanten had taken part, and how he had seemed so happy to finally be back in front of a chalkboard. “It was almost pathetic. A man so lively, so brilliant, how could you have kept him from teaching his classes?” he asked me; but Xanten is dead and that question has become useless. At least he died of an illness, and before the war.
Le Mahieu occupied the southernmost corner of Rue Soufflot and Boulevard Saint-Michel.
Fernand Wallerant (1890-1953) and (Sir) Michael Vendall (1889-1960) were both specialists in number theory like Kürz and Morstauf, one a professor at the Sorbonne and the other at University College London.
Fortunately, Wallerant doesn’t seem to know that Ulrich and his wife committed suicide, or in any case, he didn’t mention it. It’s a cruel but essential battle we’re fighting, and casualties are inevitable.12
The German mathematicians Edmund Xanten (1880-1938) and Friedrich Ulrich (1870-1942) were both victims of the Nazi anti-Semitic laws. Xanten was not dismissed from his post immediately in 1933 (because he had fought in World War I), but Nazi students (among whom was the young Otto Zach) organized a boycott of his courses and he was forced to stop teaching. Ulrich and his wife committed suicide at the beginning of 1942 to avoid being deported.
Told him about my trip to Padua, spring in Italy. It pleased me to say I received the doctoral degree honoris causa. Wallerant is probably going to agree to help us: he needs a laissez-passer document for his wife, and I advised him to go see Blank.
June 1, 1942
Each morning, I have a café crème and three croissants brought up to my room, along with the Pariser Zeitung, in order to immerse myself in the Parisian atmosphere. I listen to Radio Paris in order to improve my French. I also read Jesuis partout, the newspaper Morstauf brought me. The book reviews are quite spirited. There’s also information about the enemies of Germany and the false names they’re using.
Yesterday, I tried to get news about Gorenstein, a Jewish mathematician who has long been shut away in a lunatic asylum, but Wallerant didn’t know anything. I never forget the fact that there are people in this world more unfortunate than I.13
The mention of “more unfortunate” people, which seems a little artificial here, may have been copied from Jünger. On the French mathematician Robert Gorenstein (1893-1949), see note 42.
Spent the day working in my room while waiting for news from Morstauf. Tried once more to understand how Silberberg could really prove that lemma he sent me three years ago, after our discussion in Strasbourg. I can prove it up to dimension 41, but no more. I’m sure he doesn’t know how to do it either. Typical Jewish behavior. But I might have found something else, with the help of a theorem that was just published by another French mathematician.
Received a short note from Yersin’s father, who thanks me for the tickets. Nothing more.14
Kürz saved this short note from Yersin (University of N. archives).
June 2, 1942
Morstauf came by to look for me at the Raphael after lunch. Still doing very well and rather good-looking, in spite of the leather mask, especially with that elegant red lock of hair.
He couldn’t come yesterday, which was Monday, because of the meeting at the Academy of Sciences. We walked while he told me about the Academy. He apologized for not being able to invite me this time; he said the meetings have become more secret. According to him, there’s still a lot to do in order to return the Academy to the true friends of science. He started getting agitated as he told me about a note published by Nadault. This physicist is under house arrest in a place where he cannot perform experiments, so he’s started working in mathematics, specifically in probability theory. What shocks Morstauf is that the Academy has agreed to publish his notes.15 At least, he says, as of last fall nothing Jewish has been published. He added that Nadault isn’t Jewish, but his daughter married a Jewish physicist, who had to be executed by firing squad not too long ago. He also told me that he himself tried to have a Jewish member of the French Academy, who has settled quite peacefully in the United States, expelled from the group, arguing that he doesn’t come to meetings, but no one followed up, under the pretext that it’s not the Academy’s custom. It’s a venerable institution; they need a little time to adapt to new ideas. “And you know,” he said, “at the end of this academic year, at the CNRS,a the Jewish question will be resolved: there won’t be a single Jew left.”
The physicist Émile Nadault (1870-1947) had been a public supporter of the Popular Front. He was arrested by the Germans in October 1940, then released. At the time of Kürz’s visit to Paris, he had been put on house arrest in Chartres.
Centre national de la recherche scientifique (French National Center for Scientific Research) (Trans.)
They do have a bit more difficulty here with the so-called international institutions. For example, Morstauf told me about the International Time Bureau at the Paris Observatory, where they haven’t been able to expel undesirables, and he mentioned the name of a Jewish astronomer who is still peacefully presiding there.16
This is probably Maurice Fried (1895-1943). He was arrested in July 1942 and deported to Auschwitz where he disappeared in December 1943.
I proposed we go to the library of the Henri Poincaré Institute, on Rue Pierre-Curie, but as soon as we got there, someone at the door told us that the librarian had just left and we couldn’t go in. This probably wasn’t true. It seems to me this kind of thing needs to be made more rational.
After leaving Morstauf, I walked down Rue Saint-Jacques, with the length of the Lycée Louis-le-Grand on my right and the Sorbonne on my left. I bought an unpaired volume from the complete works of Lagrange at a used bookstore, then I lost myself in a sort of labyrinth of little streets; one of them happened to be named after Lagrange, and another after Dante, with no street running parallel or perpendicular to any of the others. This, too, could be made more rational. But that is our role here, and I have no doubt that we will succeed.
The lemma I came up with seems to work.
June 3, 1942
Today, Morstauf organized a meeting in a café on Rue Claude-Bernard. He teaches everywhere: at the Sorbonne, the École Polytechnique, the École Normale Supérieure.17 He was supposed to bring students from the École Normale Supérieure so that we could convince them to work for us, but he arrived on his own. “The students are coming,” he told me.
In fact, Morstauf held several teaching positions concurrently. This practice has become rare, but was still rather common at the time. For example, during the 1930s, Paul de Saint-Bonnet had concurrent positions at the Sorbonne, the École Normale Supérieure, the École Centrale, and the École des Mines.
He launched into one of his usual lengthy monologues, mixed with his recollections from the ceremony for my university’s two hundred fiftieth anniversary, which he attended five years ago,18 his childhood memories, and his political opini
ons. He also mentioned, as he did three years ago in the Jardin des Tuileries, the cemetery of N., his love of peace, Germany and its power—because France’s future rests in that power—the memory of all the colleagues he had met there, and even a dog (Tiedemann’s, if I understood correctly) that had reminded him of his childhood in the heart of Africa. He told me about a river, the Saloum, and its delta, and of course from there he arrived at the war, the great war, along with the military cemetery where his brother is buried, in Brittany, I believe, and of course his injury, which he refers to as a second birth. Then he told me about Saint-Bonnet, “his master” who had given him a lot of support ever since the time his injury, but who died last winter, at a very old age.19
The University of N. celebrated this anniversary in 1937 with grand Nazi pomp. Morstauf was among the foreigners invited to the ceremony.
On the mathematician Paul de Saint-Bonnet, see notes 17 and 32.
For all that, the students never came; Morstauf flew into a terrible rage against the school’s assistant director, a physicist and enemy of Germany, who he claims pits the students against us.20 His fits of rage are well known among mathematicians. As for me, I lost my whole day.
Student testimonials from the period mention Morstauf’s collaborationist proselytism during his courses at the École Normale Supérieure.
In the evening, my friend from the Lutetia took me to a brothel near the Palais-Royal. There’s another advantage to the war! The establishment is reserved for officers. The girls are clean and friendly, and they understand German well enough to do what’s asked of them. They had a piano there; one of the girls was plinking out Für Elise on it. At first I thought of taking her place, but I felt a Beethoven sonata would be poorly suited to the locale, so I didn’t do anything.21
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