Ernst Witt

In the 1970s, Witt claimed that in 1940 he had discovered what would eventually be named the "Leech lattice" many years before John Leech discovered it in 1965, but Witt did not publish his discovery and the details of exactly what he did are unclear; see his collected works (Witt 1998, pp. 328–329).

From 1937 until 1979, he taught at the University of Hamburg. He died in Hamburg in 1991, shortly after his 80th birthday.

After his schooling, Witt went to the University of Freiburg and the University of Göttingen. He joined the NSDAP (Nazi Party) and was an active party member. Witt was awarded a Ph.D. at the University of Göttingen in 1934 with a thesis titled: "Riemann-Roch theorem and zeta-Function in hypercomplexes" (Riemann-Rochscher Satz und Zeta-Funktion im Hyperkomplexen) that was supervised by Gustav Herglotz with Emmy Noether suggesting the top for the doctorate. He qualified to become a lecturer and gave guest lectures in Göttingen and Hamburg. He became associated with the team led by Helmut Hasse who led his habilitation. In June 1936 gave his habilitation lecture.

During World War II he joined a group of five mathematicians, recruited by Wilhelm Fenner, and which included Georg Aumann, Alexander Aigner, Oswald Teichmüller, Johann Friedrich Schultze and their leader professor Wolfgang Franz, to form the backbone of the new mathematical research department in the late 1930s, which would eventually be called: Section IVc of Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (abbr. OKW/Chi).

Ernst Witt (26 June 1911 – 3 July 1991) was a German mathematician, one of the leading algebraists of his time.