Robert Remak (mathematician)

Robert Erich Remak (1888 to 1942) was a German mathematician best remembered for his work in group theory, notably the decomposition of finite groups into indecomposable factors that bears his name. He also worked in algebraic number theory, mathematical economics and the geometry of numbers. Born in Berlin, the son of a neurologist and grandson of an embryologist, he studied in Berlin, Marburg, Göttingen and Freiburg and took his doctorate in Berlin in 1911 under Georg Frobenius. His habilitation was rejected in 1919 and 1923, with Max Planck among the objectors, and was accepted only in 1928, after which he was allowed to teach in 1929. In 1932 he published a lower bound for the regulator of the units of an algebraic number field. He was arrested in Amsterdam by the German occupiers and died at Auschwitz.