Moral Integrity During a Difficult Period : Beth and Scholz

In this paper the relation between Evert Willem Beth and the German logician and philosopher Heinrich Scholz is discussed, the similarities in their fields of research and their approaches to the foundations of mathematics are pointed out. The paper focuses, however, on the tensions between science and politics in the 1930s and 1940s, exemplified by an exchange of letters between Beth and Scholz dealing with the Scholz’s role in the Third Reich.