From Wiesbaden to Tbilisi -- the eventful life of the number theorist Arnold Walfisz (Q2837335)

The authors made a lot of effort collecting information about work and life of Arnold Walfisz. They investigated in universities, libraries and archives, and found a lot of Walfisz's correspondence with other mathematicians.NEWLINENEWLINENumber theorist Arnold Walfisz (1892--1962) had an eventful life because of his family background and the political circumstances during his lifetime. His father was a Jewish-Polish, but not poor, merchant. The family moved from Warsaw to Wiesbaden and later back to Warsaw. Consequently, Walfisz went to schools in Wiesbaden and Warsaw, and studied mathematics in Munich, Berlin, Heidelberg, and Göttingen. After World War I, he continued his postgraduate studies in Göttingen, predominantly with Edmund Landau. He became acquainted with many talented mathematicians in Göttingen at this time. Among them where C. Siegel, D. Hilbert, C. Carathéodory and J. Frank. In 1920, \textit{A. Walfisz} published his first paper with \textit{E. Landau} [Palermo Rend. 44, 82--86 (1920; JFM 47.0287.02)], and received his doctorate in 1921 [JFM 48.1177.01]. Afterwards, Walfisz had trouble to find a well-paid position -- just as many people in Germany at that time. He moved to Wiesbaden, staying there with his parents, wife and children up to 1927. In this period he had no income, but it was a creative time for him: he wrote about 16 papers, published in famous journals. In 1927, he returned to Warsaw, where he found a job as mathematician with the ``Europa Insurance Company''. Besides, he continued his research as a scientist. He habilitated at the University of Warsaw, and in 1936 he founded the journal \textit{Acta Arithmetica}, together with Salomon Lubelski. Finally, in October 1936, Walfisz took up a permanent position at the university in Tbilisi, where he remained up to his death. The students of Tbilisi and the mathematical department of the university not only owe him excellent knowledge in different branches of mathematics, but also profited from his commitment for the university and international contacts.NEWLINENEWLINEThe paper contains also a short summary of Walfisz's work on lattice points (MSC 11P21) .