90 Years! Da Capo!

Dear Horst,

Your goal was always to have a goal, now you have reached one again: 90 years! Da capo!

We both got to know each other at the Technical University Berlin while studying naval architecture, which we started at the Fritz Horn Saal (FHS) in building EB. When I began my studies in 1954, you were already at the Herrmann Föttinger Saal (HFS) as a founding member. We had close contacts at the many events of the HF LATTE Berlin: Ordensfeste, steamboat trips on Havel and Spree, (Lattenspritze to the “Schiffbauertaufplatz”), the “Saal” parties at HFS, FHS, Jan Schütte Saal (in the carnival season) at the ARCHITRAV of TU Berlin’s architects and the ZINNOBER at the College of Music (Hochschule für Musik). With your “BierAG” you from HFS provided us with drinks.

In 1963 you received your doctorate with the topic “Potentialtheoretische Strömungs- und Sogberechnungen für schiffsähnliche Körper” (Potential flow and suction calculations for ship like bodies) from Prof. Dr. Amtsberg. You became an assistant of Prof. Amtsberg and gave me the task to derive a known formula for the effective pressure jump at the propeller. The derivation of the formula was unknown! That was difficult, but I managed it, certainly also with some inquiries with you.

On the occasion of the very rare award of a “TU Berlin Ehrenmitgliedschaft” (TU Berlin honorary membership) to you (Chapeau) in the TU foyer, I was one of the invited guests. That was very impressive and very solemn. Here I represented our mutual friend and colleague Prof. Dr. Som Deo Sharma, with whom you had spent time at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where you did research and taught. You were there from 1964 to 1974, were awarded the Recipient Distinguished Teaching Award and Prof. “naval architecture” in 1969. I remember your departure from Berlin to the USA with your wife and dog very well.

Also on the occasion of the guest professorship of your teacher Prof. Dr. Fritz Horn at the Faculty of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering at the Technical University in Istanbul (1953 to 1954) we could accompany him on his departure and return to Tempelhof airport.

In 1994, Prof. Dr. Som Deo Sharma became head of the Institute for Ship Technology (IST) at the Gerhard Mercator University (GMU) in Duisburg and I became his deputy. There were many conversations about you, since you had been with him in Michigan until 1970.

I remember very well your invitation to a restaurant in the Hansaviertel with Apostolos Papanikolaou and my wife Gisela on the occasion of an STG meeting in Berlin (German society of naval architects and marine engineers). Apostolos was your doctoral student. He described very impressively his career from a simple high school graduate to a full-blooded academic.

On the occasion of our last visit to you at your home in Schreberstraße we exchanged three memories from school, sports and study times. Despite your leg injury, you went with us to your regular restaurant Mühlengarten, where you invited us to the first chanterelle dinner. Thank you very much.

That you were one of the first university members in the WEGEMT (West European Graduate Education in Marine Technology), I learned through our colleague Prof. “Dino” Gallin. The senate of GMU Duisburg elected me as a representative in this European university organization. For WEGEMT I organized and led among other things the 21st WEGEMT-School in Duisburg in 1994, the first WEGEMT school held in Germany, for which I won you as a lecturer. At the same time you accepted the offer of quarters in my house. I can still see your puzzled face when my wife opened the front door. There stood your Berlin fieldhockey friend Gisela Schulz right in front of you! Gisela will tell you about this and about your relationship herself.

In Duisburg, you were already active in research from 1958 to 1959 at the VBD (Versuchsanstalt für Binnenschiffbau Duisburg). Prof. Sturzel, also from TU Berlin, was in charge. There, from 1954 Brt. Dipl.-Ing. F.-W. Luther, a graduate of the TH Berlin, taught ship engineering next door at the State Engineering School (SISM). Now you were once again in Duisburg and gave the very well respected lecture: Simulation of Discrete Stochastic Systems for Ship Design and Operation (see your photo) in the GMU Duisburg on September 12, 1994 in the context of the 21st WEGEMT school.

We met often at STG events. After the award of the “Silberne Gedenkmünze” (Silver Commemorative Coin) from the STG to you in 1999, I could congratulate you with great pleasure. We had contacts also in 2001 about historical during your work at the Max Planck Institute for History.