Obituary

The Faculty of Physics at Bielefeld University mourns the loss of Prof. Dr Dieter Schildknecht 28 July 1934 - 14 January 2025.

Dieter Schildknecht, born in Munich in 1934, was Professor of Theoretical Physics at Bielefeld University. After completing his (German) 'Abitur' in 1953, Schildknecht studied General Mathematics, Philosophy and Physics at Swarthmore College, PA, USA, on a Fulbright Scholarship and then went on to study physics at the University of Munich, where he graduated in 1960 with a thesis on isotope scattering at the Institute of Physics and Chemistry. In August 1964, he also obtained his doctorate at the University of Munich with the doctoral thesis "Polarisation effects in the scattering of polarised electrons on deuterons".

From 1965 to 1976 he was an academic co-worker at DESY Hamburg. He was on leave of absence from there for two months in 1969 to give guest lectures at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. In July 1970, he habilitated at the University of Hamburg with a habilitation thesis on "The vector meson dominance model in photo- and electroproduction" and was awarded the venia legendi for the subject of "Theoretical Physics".

After holding positions at the University of California, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the Tokyo Institute of Technology, DESY and CERN, he was appointed full professor of Theoretical Physics at Bielefeld University on 1 October 1976. Prof Schildknecht was the third Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Bielefeld Faculty. He was instrumental in establishing theoretical high-energy physics in the Faculty and for many years played a major role in ensuring that the Faculty played a leading role in this field of research.

Dieter Schildknecht was an internationally recognised researcher in the field of electromagnetic interaction of elementary particles. He successfully collaborated with the world's leading research centres in this field and reported on his research at many international events. He has also passed on his enthusiasm to young researchers, for whom the collaboration with Prof Schildknecht was the start of a successful career.

Even after his retirement in 1999 and until his death, he was scientifically active and contributed to the activities of the Faculty of Physics. He will not only be remembered as a researcher, but also for his humour.

We are losing a respected colleague.

The colleagues of the Faculty of Physics

MSR, 04.02.25