Wolfgang_Franz_(mathematician)

Wolfgang Franz (born 4 October 1905 in Magdeburg, Germany; died 26 April 1996) was a German mathematician who specialised in topology particularly in 3-manifolds, which he generalized to higher dimensions. He is known for the Reidemeister–Franz torsion. He also made important contributions to the theory of lens spaces.
During World War II Franz led a group of five mathematicians, recruited by Wilhelm Fenner, and which included Ernst Witt, Georg Aumann, Alexander Aigner, Oswald Teichmüller and Johann Friedrich Schultze, to form the backbone of the new mathematical research department in the field of cryptology, in the late 1930s. This would eventually be known as: Section IVc of Cipher Department of the High Command of the Wehrmacht (abbr. OKW/Chi). After the war, he returned to teach at the Goethe University Frankfurt and was awarded the Chair of Mathematics in 1949. In 1967 he became the Chairman of the German Mathematical Society. He became Dean of the Faculty of Science for several periods starting in 1950 before being promoted to emeritus professor in 1974.