Hausdorff at the Pinnacle of his Career

In 1910, Gerhard Kowalewski left Bonn to accept a full professorship at the German Technical University in Prague. This left the associate professorship in mathematics at the University of Bonn vacant, and in January 1910 the faculty voted on its list of recommended candidates. They decided unanimously to propose first and pari passu Georg Landsberg and Felix Hausdorff, second Hans Hahn and third Georg Faber. This proposal originated with Eduard Study, who had been full professor (Ordinarius) in Bonn since 1904. The Ministry of Culture in Berlin decided in favor of Hausdorff, who was also apparently Study’s preferred candidate. On a postcard sent to his friend Friedrich Engel from Rome, Study wrote: “I have just received the news that Hausdorff is coming to Bonn. You will probably have heard about it elsewhere, and are just as happy about this” [Ullrich 2004, 398].