Office of the Provost and Dean of the Faculty Breusch, Robert

Robert Hermann Breusch, Walker Professor of Mathematics, Emeritus, and one of the finest teachers in the history of the College, died on March 29, 1995. Born on April 2, 1907, in the German city of Freiburg, he grew up in a time of great intellectual ferment, darkened by the shadows of war and disruption. We reckon his years at nearly eighty-eight; his friends and admirers we cannot number. Those who knew him will have much to add to what we say here, while, if we have done our work right, those who did not will wish that they had. His friends called him Bob, and we, who were his friends, shall continue to do so here.

Freiburg is a fine old city in the Black Forest region of Southern Germany, and here Bob spent his youth and came of age. His father was a teacher of science, and Bob and his elder brother (who was to become a distinguished chemist) proved to be apt and eager scholars. Bob went on to pursue Physics and Mathematics at the University of Freiburg, with considerable time spent studying in Berlin, eventually earning his doctorate in Mathematics in 1932. It is of interest to remark that Bob, whom we knew so well, was himself acquainted with such legendary mathematicians and physicists as Hausdorff, Schrodinger, Schur and von Mises.

The thirties were not easy years in Germany, and Bob's excellent work in Mathematics could not secure him a university position. He became a teacher in a boarding school near Freiburg, and at this time he met Kate Dreyfuss, who was to share his life. It was their delight to roam the woods and hills together, and their design to marry. Bob had been raised a Protestant, Kate was Jewish, and Hitler had come to power. Bob's loathing of National Socialism was intense, and Kate's people were clearly in danger. There was nothing for them but to flee.

At this time, the government had no objection to Kate's departure, but Bob's case was altogether different: he could become a useful if unwilling servant of the Reich. Bob had a valid passport, but he was under suspicion; if the authorities supposed that his intent was to forsake the Fatherland, they would confiscate his passport. Bob felt the need of a fallback passport, in case this all too probable event should occur. He liked to tell the story of how, one day, he went for a walk in the Black Forest with Ernst Zermelo (whose name is familiar to every mathematician). During this walk, Bob feigned the loss of his passport, whereupon Zermelo swore in good faith that the passport had indeed been lost. The ruse succeeded: Bob was issued a new passport, and now he had two. He taught himself the craft of bookbinding and artfully concealed one of the passports in a volume of Mathematics, an item, he rightly guessed, not likely to be examined with close attention. In the event, the second passport was never required.

After much careful planning, involving short forays into Switzerland, where Bob established a small cache of his belongings, the time for departure was at hand. This was in the spring of 1936. Bob and Kate bade farewell to their parents (whom they would never see again) and made their way by separate paths into Switzerland and thence to Paris.  In France, they parted. Kate sailed to America, where she stayed with relatives; Bob took ship for Chile, where there were faint prospects of employment. (Immigration to the United States on a permanent basis was not possible at this time, the quotas having already been filled.) Bob was well-versed in Latin and Greek, but Spanish was a tongue practically unknown to him. But Bob persisted and finally found a university teaching position in Valparaiso. Kate then arrived from America, and they were married in July of 1936. They spent three happy years in Chile, mastering the language and roaming the countryside together.

When the chance to emigrate to America finally came, they took it. Kate knew English, but Bob did not, so one more language had to be added to his repertoire. Their early times in this country were difficult, and Kate undertook various jobs to see them through. In. the passage of time, Bob became an instructor at Shady Hill School in Cambridge, where the schoolboy Robert Romer first encountered the finest Mathematics teacher he was to know.

In 1943 Amherst College was a busy instructional center for Armed Services personnel, and skilled teachers of Mathematics and Physics were in urgent request. To Amherst then he came. The College was not slow to recognize the quality of the man. He was to spend three decades here until his retirement as Walker Professor of Mathematics in 1973.

Bob was a brilliant and highly respected mathematician. His work in Number Theory (especially his insightful new proof of the Prime Number Theorem) is well known, and his name is frequently cited in the literature. Well into his old age he remained an avid problem-solver, and many of his elegant solutions are to be found, year after year, in the volumes of the American Mathematical Monthly.

Bob's many students remember him for his masterful command of his art, but they revere him for something else. He was the finest teacher many of them had known or would ever know. In manner gentle and self-effacing, in matter luminous and thorough, he affected his students in a way not easy to describe. Was it his clarity, his whimsical asides, his deep interest in their progress, his willingness to consider their lapses as his own, his power to lead them through dark places? What was it that left such an imprint on the minds of so many? The enthusiastic project, undertaken by a group of alumni at the time of Bob's retirement, to endow a fund to establish the Breusch prize for the best Senior thesis in Mathematics, is but one of the palpable signs of his influence for good. We cannot know Bob's secret if secret there was. We can but praise, and so we do.

There is an important thing about Bob that everyone wishing to know the man should know. He loved to climb. His eyes were ever lifted up unto the hills, even unto the highest snow-clad peaks. And given the opportunity, his feet were sure to follow. He would climb any mountain that came to hand; he would seek out mountains and climb them too, for the sheer love of it, frequently exciting amazement at his speed and agility. Even an accomplished mountain goat might be excused a twinge of envy upon observing his perilous ascents. Peaks all over the world, from the Alps to the Andes, became feathers in his cap. He set many a mountaineering record. The more forbidding climbs he undertook alone, but on the easier ascents, such as his annual Spring hike to the top of Mount Washington, engulfed in snow and ice and battered by tremendous winds, he delighted in the company of Kate and other companions. Many a decades-younger friend, with giddy brain and heaving chest, wondered how such things could be. But Bob never pushed (or rather pulled) them beyond their endurance, and cheerfully sacrificed speed to good fellowship. Yes, Bob loved to climb and to share his climbs with others. In the same way, he loved to solve hard problems and to lead his students up the slopes.

Bob and Kate spent many happy years at the College. On a typical evening at home, Bob would pursue his Mathematics or read his favorite authors. (He was fond of Homer, Sophocles, Cervantes, Garcia Marquez, and Russell Baker.) Kate would forge ahead with her readings in Russian and Greek, or else she would dream about their garden, wondering what to plant next. Music was always on the phonograph (Beethoven's string quartets moved Bob deeply). In the summer they would travel to Switzerland or the Rockies, where the mountains beckoned them. New Zealand became their home for several years after his so-called retirement. He taught at the University of Waikato, and they climbed the nearby peaks.

Bob and Kate were inseparable till death with slow but relentless steps finally parted them in 1979. Bob lived alone for some sixteen years, as cheerful as his lingering bereavement would allow. For many of these years, he heeded the college's call for help and taught various courses in the Mathematics Department. This was a joy to him and good fortune for a younger generation of students. He still climbed, he still enjoyed the company of friends, he still solved problems with gusto. He even took up the cello, an instrument he loved above all others but had never learned to play.

He was not to be spared the bodily ills old age so often brings in train. His ninth decade witnessed the slow undermining of his robust constitution. He walked the hills, the mountains he climbed no more. Many faculty friends had gone before him; several remained. And other friends he had, among whom closest was Janice Denton, who for years faithfully looked after him and helped him to the very end.

Bob loved the College and gave it his best, nor will he be forgotten by the many whose lives he bettered. As a young man, he lost his home but found another. As an old man, he lost his Kate, and there was no other. But in death, they are not divided.   

David Armacost   
James Denton    
Robert Romer    
Dudley Towne