The Oberwolfach Research Institute for Mathematics, 1944-1963: From „National Institute for Mathematics“ to international "social research infrastructure“

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Volker Remmert
• Subject Area: History of Science
• Term: from 2018 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 410497932

The Oberwolfach Research Institute for Mathematics (Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach/MFO) has been a member of the Leibniz Association since 2005 and is internationally highly renowned. Founded in late 1944 by the Freiburg mathematician Wilhelm Süss (1895-1958) as „Reichsinstitut für Mathematik“, in the 1950s and 1960s the MFO developed into an increasingly international conference centre. While the history of its foundation has been analysed the development after 1945 has scarcely been touched on by historians of mathematics/science.The project aims at filling this gap, namely to analyse the history of the MFO as it institutionally changed from a projected National Institute for Mathematics with a wide, but standard range of responsibilities to an international social infrastructure for research. That was completely new in the framework of German academia. The project focusses on the evolvement of the institutional identity of the MFO between 1944 and the early 1960s, namely the development and importance of the MFO’s scientific programme (workshops, team work, Bourbaki) and the instruments of research employed (library, workshops) as well as the corresponding strategies to safeguard the MFO’s existence (for instance under the wings of the MGP). These topics are closely connected to the topic of the perception of mathematics in the public and political realms in the 1950s and 1960s.The year 1963 marks the end of the project as in 1963 the MFO’s directorship was handed over from Theodor Schneider (1911-1988) to Martin Barner (* 1921, director 1963-1994). At this point the MFO was basically institutionally secured. In the methodological framework of the analysis of the development of a new and permanent institutional identity of the MFO three aspects will be key to the project, namely the analyses of the historical processes of (1) the development and shaping of the MFO’s workshop activities, (2) the (complex) institutional safeguarding of the MFO, and (3) the role the MFO played for the re-internationalisation of mathematics in Germany. Thus the project opens a window on topics of more general relevance in the history of science such as the complexity of science funding and the re-internationalisation of the sciences in the early years of the Federal Republic of Germany.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants