Abstract

Krull’s Fundamentalsatz, the generalisation of the main theorem of elementary number theory to integral domains, is the starting point of Lorenzen’s career in mathematics. This article traces a conceptual history of Lorenzen’s successive reformulations of the Fundamentalsatz on the basis of excerpts of his articles. An edition of the extant correspondence of Lorenzen with Hasse, Krull, and Aubert provides a better understanding of the context of these investigations.