[Peisander]

Approximately in the early 1920s in Germany Miss Elisabeth Bormann was a very talented mathematician and assistant first to Dr Max Born and later to Prof Walther Gerlach.

I gather she may have come from Koneigsberg, which later became Kalaningrad under Soviet influence. During the War she may have changed her name to Adler. She may also have worked on the Nazi atomic project under Gerlach.

Does anybody here have any further biographical notes on her please under any of these names?

Is anyone aware of her fate after the war?   

[OXFORDness3939]

In the Central Library of the University of Vienna there is a dossier of information about the life and work of Elizabeth Bormann. She was awarded her doctorate in 1918 at the University which had the title in German of, "Zur experimentellen Methodik der Zerfallsscchwankungen" (in English, "On the Experimental method of Decay Fluctuations"). After working with Max Born she joined the Siemens Schuckertwerke company at their laboratory in Charlottenburg near Berlin and remained with the company until her retirement. Dr.Bormann was a specialist in high voltage cable transmissions and in the German Federal Patient and Trademark Office there is much information about her patents. Dr. Bormann was born near Vienna but changed her nationality to German.
For more information about the work of Dr. Bormann please contact the Siemens Historial Institute at, Nonnendammallee 101, 13629 Berlin. The web sites of the German Federal Patent and Trademark Office is, www.dpma.de and that of Siemens, A.G. www.Siemens.com
There are references to Dr. Bormann in the Bundesarchive but a good knowledge of German is required to read them. The web site of the Bundersarchive is, www.bundrarchive.de

[OXFORDness3939]

On the web site of the German Federal Republic´s Patent Office web site (www.dpma.de) in is possible to download in pdf format all the patents registered in the name of Dr. Elizabeth Bormann and others.

There is no record on the web site of the of the University of Koln which has the  academic records of the University of Konigsberg that an Elizabeth Adler was awarded a doctorate by the Albertina University of Koenigsberg. The web site links are as follows:

www.ub.uni-koeln.de/sammlungen/koenigsberg/index-ger.html.

Universitat-undstadtbibliothek Koln

Konisberger Dissertationen    (Alle digitalistsate    Erweiterte Such)

Only two records can be found using the name, "Adler" one from 1929 and the other from 1906 for an, "Adler Johannes."

The present university in the city of Karlingrad has no academic connection with the Albertina University of Koenigsberg much of whose installations were destroyed by the British Royal Air Force in 1944 and the Soviet Army prior to its conquest of the city. 

 

[OXFORDness3939]

On the web site of the Electronic Research Archive for Mathematics (www.emis.de) There is no mention of an Elizabeth Adler. A number of Adlers are listed in the database,"Jahrbuch under die fortschritte der mathematik 1868 - 1942 but no Elizabeth Adler. Again in the database for the, "Zentralblatt.math (www.zbmath,org) a number of, "Adlers" are mentioned but no Elizabeth Alder.

Again, on the web site of the German National Bibliograghy (www.deutsche-biographie.de) there is no record of an Elizabeth Adler. Elizabeth Bormann´s bibliography can be read on the web site of, "Austrian Women" pages (381 and 382) The title of the bibliography in German is, "Lexikon Osterreichischer Frauen" which is published by Bohlau Verlag Ges.m.b.H & Co. Kg., Wiesingerstrase 1, A-1010 Wien (Vienna), Austria.

Again in the, "Bibliography of Uranium Isotope Separation" which is available in pdf format there is no record about an Elizabeth Adler.

[OXFORDness3939]

The German Mathematical Society´s web site www.mathematik.de has an on-line search function and no record of an Adler, E. can be found in it today. The Society was founded in 1891. 

The German Mathematical Society address is, Mohrenstrasse 39, D-10117 Berlin, Germany.

On the Swiss web site for, "Arbeitsstelle Fur Kulturwissenschftliche Forschungen" ( in English, "Workplace for Cultural Studies" ) there are two searchable databases concerned with the Albertina University of Konigsberg. One, to do with students at the University and the other with academic awards.

The web site of the," Arbeitsstelle Fur Kulturwissenschftliche Forschungen is www.forschungen en-engi.ch.

The database for students at the University is titled, " Manfred Komorowski - Datenbank Konisberger Studenten von 1829 bis 1921."     No record of a student with the name, Adler, E. could be found on the database this morning.

Konigsberger Dissertationen    (Konigsberg Dissertations)

No record of a student with the name, Adler E. could be found on the databnase this morning. One entry was produced by the database for an, Adler, Georg Christen who in 1703 was awarded an academic title for his theological dissertation.

[OXFORDness3939]

Following advice from a professor of mathematics at the University of Jena in Germany, I contacted the German National Library in Leipzig about Dr. Elisabeth Adler. Following a search in their archives for copies of an annual publication about academic awards awarded by all German universities from 1887 they were able to inform me that there is no record of a Dr. Elisabeth Adler being awarded a doctorate in mathematics for the period 1900 to 1945 at a German university. The annual publications is the, "Jahresverzeichnis der deutschen Hochschulschriften " which lists per university and alphabetically the names of all persons awarded academic degrees by German universities in a given year. I therefore conclude, that Dr. Elisabeth Adler did not receive her doctorate from a German university.

[OXFORDness3939]

The annual directory which records all academic degrees awarded by German universities has slightly changed its name since 1887. The names are as follows:

1887-1913   Jahresverzeichnis der an dan Deutschen Universitaten erschienen schriften,
1914-1925   Jahresverzeichnis der an den Deutschen Universitaten und Technischen
                 hochschulen erschienenen schriften,
1926-1936   Hahres-verzeichnis der an den Deutschen Universitaten,
1936-1978   Jahresverzeichnis der Deutschen Hochschulschriften.

The web site of the German National Library which has branches in Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main is, www.DND.DE.   

[OXFORDness3939]

A recent search in the archives of the German Technical University of Brno in the Czech Republic by staff of the Moravian Provincial Museum in Brno found that no student with the name of Elisabeth Adler was awarded a doctorate in mathematics by the University between 1919 and 1945. Her name does not appear in the archives of the University which are held under the museum reference, "B34" nor in any list of doctoral students or doctoral theses.

The German Technical University of Brno had a high reputation for its expertise in technological subjects. The nuclear physicist, Dr. R. Richter studied at the German Technical University of Brno. His name is associated with the German atomic project. In 1948, he established a nuclear laboratory in Argentina.

The address of the Moravian Provincial Museum in Brno in the Czech Republic is:

Moravsky zemsky archiv v Brne,
Palachovo nam 1,
P.O. Box 51,
625 00 Brno,
Ceska Repubika.

[OXFORDness3939]

For the information of readers, no records were found by staff at the Charles University in Prague and the Czech Technical University of Prague of an Elisabeth Adler studing at either of the universities and being awarded a doctorate in mathematics.

Mention is made of a Dr. Edward Tholen being involved with the German atomic project. His name is not known to the German National Biography whose web site has an on-line search function. The web site of the Biography is,  www.deutsche-biographie.de. The physicist, Dr. Peter Jensen has a biography on the web site as does Dr. Hermann Oberth, considered a father of rocket science. No Dr. Edward Tholen is recorded on the web site about Austrian physicists, "Biografien Osterreichischer Physiker" (www.zobodat.at). The web site, (www.Biographie-portal.eu) has no record of a Edward Tholen. 

[OXFORDness3939]

During the course of 2020 an investigation was undertaken to discover whether Dr. Elizabeth Adler was awarded her doctorate in mathematics by an Austrian university between 1900 and 1945. Following an extensive correspondence with various organizations in Austria it can now be said that she did not receive her doctorate from an Austrian university between 1900 and 1945. The Austrian National Library in Vienna has no record of a doctorate in mathematics being awarded to an Elizabeth Adler.

The Archivist of the Radium Institute of the Austrian Academy of Science confirmed to the writer that no person with her name was employed by the Radium Institute between 1900 and 1945 and that there is no record of a person with her name attending the conferences and lectures of the Radium Institute. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Radium Institute was one of Europe´s leading research institutes into the nuclear sciences. In April 1945, when Soviet forces entered Vienna they interrogated extensively the scientists at the Radium Institute about their German colleagues.

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In September 2019, the European Physics Society unveiled in the Physics Institute of the University of Frankfurt a plaque which was unveiled by the President of the Goether University of Frankfurt Birgitta Wolff, the President of the European Physics Society Petra Rudolf and the President of the German Physical Society Dieter Messchede. It honours the work of Max Born, Otto Stern, Walther Gerlach, Elisabeth Borman and Alfred Lande. 

The plaque was unveiled during a Symposium at the University concerned with the work of Otton Stern. An on-line book, "Molecular Beams in Physics and Chemistry" edited by Bretislav Friedrich and Horst Schmidt-Bocking concerning his work and others.