International Journalof Electronicsand Communications

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Gottfried Fritzscheon the occasion of his 80th birthday

On February 23, 2002, Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. GottfriedFritzsche completed the 80th year of his life.

Gottfried Fritzsche was born in Göppersdorf (Saxo-nia). Following his school time he finished a completetraining as a precision mechanic. In 1939 he started hiseducation in electrical engineering at the IngenieurschuleChemnitz. But only after a short time he had to go to thearmy. Because of that and some years as a prisoner of warin Russia he was able to continue his education only aftereight years. In 1950 he received his engineering degree atthe venerable old engineering college in Mittweida. In theyears from 1951 to 1953 he completed his education atthe Technische Hochschule Dresden with a Dipl.-Ing. de-gree. At the Institute for Telecommunication of the sameuniversity he was afterwards working at as a scientific as-sistant. With his doctoral thesis about “Synthetic SystemsTheory” in 1957 and his habilitation with a monographon “Design of Linear Circuits” in 1961, he laid the foun-dation for his future work in the fields of systems theory,filter design, and telecommunication. Even in those yearshe held lectures on circuit design and many diploma the-ses were completed under his supervision.

In autumn 1961, however, he had to interrupt his lec-tures off already in the second term week again. He hadto leave the university and began to work as an engineerfor research and development at the Funkwerk Dresden.This sudden change did not happen completely voluntar-ily since he had at that time, after the 13th of August 1961,the date of erection of the Berlin Wall, some problemswith ideological hardliners of the Electrical Engineering

Department because of his well-known reserved rela-tionship to the political system of the GDR to whichamong friends he referred to as an “external exitedsystem”.

Yet he made the years of his industrial job also intoa very fruitfull period. Through his openness as well ashis achievements, he was able to establish good contactto his industrial colleagues, who were somewhat scepticalof him at the beginning. A fortunate circumstance wasthe fact that at this enterprise the first full-functional elec-tronic computer manufactured in the GDR was available.Together with the mathematician G. Buchholz he used thisequipment for extensive numerical computations in circuitand filter design. A series of catalogs for standardized LC-filters were finished and published in parts at that time. Inthat years his reputation grew as a specialist in the area offilter and equalizer design who was able to connect theoryand demands of real applications.

Although there were still official reservations due tohis worldview and political attitude, he received the pro-fessorship at the Verkehrshochschule Dresden in 1964on the basis of his extraordinary technical achievements.Now an extensive teaching and research work began. Heheld lectures on the theory of electromagnetic fields, onbasics of communication theory and on all problems offilter design. His research work, which was always inclose contact with industry, covered all aspects of filterdesign and the development of accompanying software,whereby increasingly active RC- and digital filters movedinto the foreground. In this connection the scientific collo-quium, founded by him, deserves a special mention. Withthis colloquium he created an outstanding forum for thediscussion of all aspects of network and systems theoryand computer-aided circuit design. Generations of youngscientists from all regions of the GDR had the opportunityto present their research results there. Beyond that lecturesregularly took place held by guests from the GDR andfrom abroad as well.

Professor Fritzsche was a charismatic university in-structor and always demanded both from itself and fromhis co-workers highest engagement. In addition to a mul-titude of diploma theses more than 40 doctoral theses andabout 20 habilitations were completed under his scien-tific leadership. A large part of these graduate studentswere so-calledaußerplanmäßige Aspiranten, that were re-search engineers with a full-time job in industry. Morethan 100 scientific publications and about 10 text booksand monographs are a certification of his extensive andclosely related teaching and research activities.

With his honest and principled behaviour and his un-broken humor he always gave an encouraging example for

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people who were around him. The above photo shows himin his best years. The somewhat sceptical smile seems tobe typical for him.

Together with his wife he has four children und eightgrandchildren.

Prof. Fritzsche is still today a weather-tested friend ofextended hikes, cycling and ski tours.

In the name of a many of his doctoral students and hisformer colleagues we wish him and his family all the bestfor the future.

Albrecht Reibiger, Dresden/GermanyKlaus E. Krüger, Dresden/Germany