Landau, Edmund Georg

  General Notes:

He was a famous mathematician. He was an instructor of mathematics at the University of Berlin from 1901-1909, and a professor of mathematics at teh University of Gottingen from 1909 to 1934. He published several works on mathematics, his specia lties being number theory and the theory of functions. Like his father he was also a Zionist. He taught himself Hebrew in the 1920's and was involved in the planning of the Hebrew Univeristy in Jerusalem. He dilivered a speech in Hebrew at te h university's ground-breaking ceremony on April 2, 1925. He moved with his family to Jerusalem in 1927 and taught at the Einstein Institute of Mathematics. Howevery, while in Jerusalem he got caught in a power struggle between Judah Magnes, fir st Chancellor of the Hebrew University (who proposed that Landau be appointed rector of the university) and Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann (who both opposed Landau's becoming rector). Since he didn't want to get involved in the dispute Edmun d returned to Germany the next year.

In 1933 he was forced to resign from Gottingen University due to it's anti-Semitic policies. he moved to Berlin in 1934 where he died of natural causes in 1938.

Edmund Landau added the name Ezekiel to his other given names in honor of his ancestor Rabbi Ezedkiel Landau of Prague.

Edmund was married to Marianne Olga Ehrlich (b. 1886, Berlin; d. 1964, Zurich). She was a daughter of Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915) physician and scientist who won the Nobel Prize in 1908 for Physiology or Medicine.

The Leo Baeck Institute Archives contain a file called "The Marianne Landau Collection, 1886-1966," consisting of her post-war correspondence, particularly regarding her attempts to get financial compensation from Germany for lost property.

Edmund married Marianne Olga Ehrlich, daughter of Paul Ehrlich and Unknown. (Marianne Olga Ehrlich was born in 1886 in Berlin, Germany and died in 1954 in Zurich, Switzerland.)