The legacy of Helmut Hasse, consisting of letters, manuscripts and
other - pers, is kept at theHandschriftenabteilung of the University
Library at Gottin- ]
gen.Hassehadanextensivecorrespondence;helikedtoexchangemathematical
ideas, results and methods freely with his colleagues. There are more
than 8000 documents preserved. Although not all of them are of equal
mathematical - terest, searching through this treasure can help us to
assess the development of Number Theory through the 1920's and 1930's.
Unfortunately, most of the correspondence is preserved on one side only,
i.e., the letterssenttoHasse are
availablewhereasmanyoftheletterswhichhadbeensentfromhim, oftenha-
written, seem to be lost. So we have to interpolate, as far as possible,
from the repliestoHasseandfromothercontexts,
inorderto?ndoutwhathehadwritten 1 in his outgoing letters. The present
article is largely based on the letters and other documents which I have
found concerning the Brauer-Hasse-NoetherTheorem in the theory of
algebras; this covers the years around 1931. Besides the do- ments from
the Hasse and the Brauer legacy in Gottingen, ] I shall also use some
letters from Emmy Noether to Richard Brauer which are preserved at the
Bryn Mawr College Library (Pennsylvania, USA).