Remembering Prof. Gerhard Kraetzschmar

-- 

Lieber Gerhard,

das Einzige, in dem wir stets beharrlich verschiedener Meinung waren, war die
Frage, ob die bayrische Breze der schwäbischen vorzuziehen sei oder
umgekehrt.

Doch auch diese fundamentale Meinungsverschiedenheit konnten wir stets wie
alles andere mit viel Spaß und privatem wie auch beruflichem Respekt
voreinander diskutieren.

Sie konnte aber vor allem auch nie nur ansatzweise unsere Freundschaft
gefährden.

Und solche Freunde gibt es nur ganze wenige.

- Martin Müller

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Mit Bestürzung habe ich vom Tod des Kollegen Kraetzschmar erfahren, der seit der Gründung Mitglied der  Fachgruppe Digitalisierung in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft des Graduierteninstituts NRW war. Wir haben ein engagiertes Mitglied verloren. Seinen Angehörigen gehört unser Mitgefühl.

Für das GI NRW,

Martin Sternberg

-- 

My heartfelt condolences to Gerhard Kraetzschmar's family and friends, his
students and colleagues.

Gerhard has great scientific merits as a pioneer in robotics research and
co-founder of academic education in autonomous systems engineering, both at
Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences and at the Bonn-Aachen
International Center for Information Technology. We commemorate his
leadership and his ever present kindness.

-Armin Cremers, Bonn

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Dear Professor Kraetzschmar,

The news of your demise cast a dark shadow over all the people who knew you.
It is really difficult coming to terms with the idea that we might never see
your every smiling face again.

My first interaction with you happened even before I joined MAS. It was a
time when I was a tad bit more naive than I am today. For some reason, I
thought it would be a good idea to ask a busy Professor to check the
eligibility of my profile to take up the MAS course. Looking back now, I
would have understood if you would have shot down such a request. However,
through your reply, I realized the kind, polite and down to earth personality
I was interacting with. You provided me with all the necessary details and it
was one of the reasons which persuaded me to take up this course.

The first time I met you in person was during the orientation program at the
start of our new batch. I remember that you were kind enough to bake us all a
nice cake which we devoured gleefully. It was a great way to start our
journey. It was this incident that also reinforced the already
well-established notion about your love and talent for baking.

Your way of teaching was something which we had only heard of, from our
seniors. We had to wait for almost a year before we could finally get our
wish to take up one of your courses. You had an unorthodox way of teaching
where you used your own experiences to motivate people to learn. Almost every
class in Multi-Agent and Agent Systems took us on a journey. The journeys
which we embarked upon were not just geographical but also temporal. From the
Flower auctions in The Netherlands to Historical Germany.

Your positive outlook towards life is already well established by the
wonderful experiences of the people who knew you. However, I feel that
probably one of your greatest achievement was that, you made the people
around you forget that you were battling such an unforgiving adversary.

Always in our memories! Rest in Peace.

Arun

-- 

Dear Prof. Kraetzschmar,

I was tremendously sad when I get to know it. You always been a energetic, open-minded and intelligently curios person. I have so many amazing  memories connected with you. I remember long talks with bear on MAS parties, very interesting classes and many more.

However, when I am thinking about you first that comes to my mind is your trip to Eindhoven to Robocup. You made it amazing even though we very tired all days long and you were busy since you were Vice President. You show us everything and introduce to many people. Moreover, I still can not forget how you taught me to eat lobster in a See Food restaurant (by the way it my first lobster in life). We all laugh a lot that time.

Of course, your lectures always was last too fast and I wanted to listen more and more. I can not count how many new things I get to know there. You know so many things about science, engineering, communication, life, politics and etc.

By all means you influenced on my thesis and my thoughts. You taught me how to be structural, how to write and tell that other people understand me, not only myself inside of my head.

Last but not least, occasionally happens that my thesis defense was in the same day as my last MAS party. I remember yours huge support on defense and amazing words after my presentation. It was winter and what you are usually drink in winter - gluhwein. Anyway, as scientists we never go simple ways, it will too easy just buy gluhwein. You brought all ingredients for Feuerzangenbowle, even a gas-cooker. It was so crazy and awesome in the same time -  watch beautiful fire and drink the most delicious gluhwein in my life with my second family in university. I left on next day to Russia and took all that incredible memories with me.

I will never find words to thank you. Rest in peace.
Liza Shpieva

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Dear Gerhard,

Whenever people ask me how I decided to become a robotics researcher, I tell them one thing that I credit my research career to a professor in BRSU, Prof. Gerhard Kraetzschmar. Such has been your role in modeling my life and career.

I still remember, during my first semester exams, I was pretty down and demotivated after the first two tests, I entered the third oral exam room which was with you. Seeing me you just knew that I was down and tensed, and first few minutes, you made me feel so comfortable and positive. I became so confident and positive after that, I scored very good grades in all the exams after that.

I remember the day when I decided to take the leap towards entrepreneurship and wanted to take your advice. It was hot summer, and you had that small cute little fan which was really funny. Upon hearing this, you shared some of your journeys and advised me on how I should go about this, and most of all, I am really grateful as you really went out of the way and connected me to other industry professionals in your network.

You have been a constant motivating factor and inspiration in my life, every time I write to you, you always reply back with your feedback and wise pieces of advice. One thing I really learned from you is how to stay positive and cheerful in any circumstance, and I will keep that with me forever.

I cannot ever forget that smile on your face, which brings in a lot of positivity to the surrounding environment. I want to dedicate my next research project “SmilingBots” to you.

You will be dearly missed. I wish the almighty to rest you in a place filled with peace, cheer, and fun. I hope that heaven will be more blissful and cheerful now.  I wish more strength to your family to overcome this loss.

Thank you for everything, Gerhard!

Sasi Gade

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Dear Gerhard,

It is difficult for us to express the loss we feel since we heard about your passing. Lots of memories are rushing in our minds.

We got to know Gerhard as professor and teacher, and later as a mentor, advisor, colleague and friend. We remember him as warm-hearted welcoming person, always willing to share his experience with students to make them better!

We particularly remember, a hot summer Friday where you gave us a lecture - at that time we were students and we didn’t know about what you will actually talk to us in this lecture. You started with an anecdote, that you were listening to the radio while coming to university and that you were annoyed to hear phrases like “It’s Friday, it is finally weekend” or “again it is Monday, we will survive this week”. You said, if you are thinking that way as well, then something is wrong, you have to enjoy what you are doing. It was an extraordinary lecture, where you motivated us and made sure that we look at the big picture in life.

You also told us that the university is to learn, to make mistakes, to fail, to improve and to succeed - that we should use the time to discover and explore our interest.

You could sympathize with the difficulty a student can face. You talked with us as a friend, as a mentor. Such tender approach meant a lot to the international students, especially as many of us were far away from the family and may have felt lost in the studies.

We also remember when we had a MAS dinner in the RoboCup lab when you came with a full crate of fresh vegetables and ingredients. You prepared for us an Italian dinner including starter, main course and dessert. You were explaining to us how to prepare proper Italian Bruschetta and pasta. It was a memorable dinner - all together at the RoboCup dining table having dinner. We were amused by your enthusiasm and excitement to cook and to share your love for food with us, students. Even now, while remembering that day, it is bringing smile on our face. This dinner left mark on us because we realized that he was treating us at eye-level despite his position of authority. It was a remarkable lesson to us.

And there are many, many, many more stories where Gerhard impressed the three of us over and over again with his astonishing and golden attitude, which we will never forget and which will always be a role model for us.

We are going to miss you. No matter how much do we write, it feels less or rather it feels that words are not justifying the kind of person you were. We met with you last year in Madrid during the IROS conference. We knew then that you were ill. But you were as usual, charming, joking around, pulling legs. You brought smile on our faces despite of your illness. We hats off to your defiance and your attitude towards life. Even in your hardest time of life, you ended up teaching us the lessons of life.

You will be missed, Gerhard. You may have left us, however you will always be in our memory. We pray that your wife and your son having all the strength to overcome this loss.

Your Proud Students,
Fred, Chris, Madhura

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I still could not believe this. Team and I just came back to Germany and we were really proud to inform you “we are the champions of RoboCup@Work 2019”. It was just two weeks ago when I mailed you that we are the champions of RoboCup@Work 2019, you congratulated us and invited us for dinner. We know you always come with us in almost every competition we participated. The dinner was supposed to be with you as it was in Montreal and Milan, but you were not able to make it because you had to stay in the hospital. Nevertheless it did not stop you to make us enjoying the local food, as always. It was really touching when you still offered us to write letter of recommendation even though you were in the hospital.

As a b-it-bots team member, I have thousands of memories with you. I remember you and other robocup trustees played football against robots duringRoboCup 2018 in Montreal. I remember you helped us (RoboCup@Work community) to get our technical challenge trophies, because we did not get ones. Your help to the community was uncountable, and we will always remember it. It was an honor to have known such a great person like you, who always helped and motivated me and the team in any situation and condition you have faced. You will deeply be missed. Please accept my condolences for your family's loss.

Mohammad Wasil.

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I am so sad to hear you left. You were not only a great Professor. You were a great human being. I can still remember several times you helped me or offered me advice, far beyond what I could have hoped for. And you did so always very kindly, with a smile in your face, and throwing one or two jokes at the situation.

One occasion I remember particularly well is when I forgot to ask you on time for some documents I needed to extend my visa. I had my appointment at the immigration office early that morning, but my documents were not complete!  I panicked! Then I saw you were still online on Skype… it was already 2 am. I was super ashamed, but I had to take my chances and ask you. I feared you would be upset or just ignore me. But not at all. You just told me to calm
down and send you the documents. You filled them in and sent them directly to the immigration office for me, together with an E-mail asking them not to push your students with the bureaucracy and to treat us well. I know because the lady who processed my visa request told me. When I saw you next time at the cafetería I was happy because everything went fine,  but a bit embarrased. I had the documents lying around for weeks and I just forgot to ask on time. You just came to me and started laughing and making fun of the situation… suddenly all the tension was gone...

You were a cheerful and humble person, and an example to follow. I will always keep a loving memory of you and the things I learned from you. Thank you very much for everything Prof. Kraetzschmar! Rest in peace.

Jose Alvarez Ruiz

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Dear Gerhard,

You have been an inspiration to many people, including myself. You radiated an extraordinary amount of positive energy, optimism, and love for everyone around you.

I remember me and Adam, still MAS-students at the time, talking with you during the social event at the ICRA 2013 conference. You immediately introduced us to people in the field. Taking us in without any doubt in your mind.

I remember a particular coffee break during exams, during which we started talking. As we went up to your room for the exam - it was my turn - we just continued talking robotics and coding. Exam time started, we did not notice. At some point you took a glance at the time and noticed that the exam block was nearly over. You smiled and looked at me: "Do you feel well examined?". It still puts a smile on my face.

I remember the first time I heard you speak German, in the mensa. Since you always taught in English, I somehow did not expect the thickness of your accent, although I will always remember the rolling 'r' every time you mentioned the word robot.

I remember your optimism during these last few years. As soon as you were able to, you seemed to continue embracing and celebrating your life and being there for everyone around you.

It is a tragedy, and a shock, to hear that you have passed away. I wish everyone, foremost your wife and son, strength to endure this period, but also a life time of loving memories. You will be dearly missed, but your spirit will live on through the inspiration you have given to countless people.

Alex

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Beloved Prof. Kraetzschmar,

I write this with a heavy heart. I cannot bring myself to believe this. I am sure you are with us in spirit and that you will always live in our hearts... in the hearts of your beloved family, friends, colleagues, and students from all over the world.

After the deep initial shock, memories of you started flooding my mind. From little things to big things... I am reliving every one of those moments now. I remember that once you were thirsty during the Planning and Scheduling lecture. I was sitting in the front row facing you. I gave you the water I brought with me. Seeing that it was an Ice Tea bottle, you said that you will give me the money for it. As I looked at you puzzled, you took a sip, and then immediately gave your million-dollar-smile and said "Ah, you filled it with water!" And then we all laughed out loud! I remember you cooking sausage for MAS party and calling it the "international food of Bavaria!" I remember you telling me about Bayreuth, Würzburg, Oberfranken, and Unterfranken. I remember you sharing stories about the fall of the Berlin Wall and how you joined the celebration. I remember you coming down the stairs, and then seeing me sitting alone, telling me that there is cake in the RoboCup Lab and asking me to join. I remember you standing at the back, as I accepted the DAAD prize, and I remember seeing pride in your eyes. As I dedicated the prize to my classmates, I saw you beaming with happiness. Afterwards, you asked my husband at that time in your light-hearted style: "How did you find her?" I still remember how that question surprised him and made him laugh! When I was at Fraunhofer, you told me that you used to work at Wetterkreuz and that when you opened the windows of your office, you saw the Fraunhofer institute. Whenever I pass Wetterkreuz, whenever somebody speaks about FAU, I remember you. I tell them all proudly that my Professor, Prof. Gerhard Kraetzschmar, studied and worked in Erlangen and Tennenlohe. I remember the cruise over Rhein that we took in 2015 as part of the 20 year celebrations of our Hochschule. You were there with your beloved wife. Along the way, you told us about Siebengebirge, about how Rhein used to be polluted, and how hard it was to clean it. You were a very good speaker, and it was always a pleasure listening to you and to the stories that you shared. The stories you shared with us, gave us a glimpse of your vast experience and the myriad journeys that you embarked upon.

But, Professor, the most touching of all the things I ever heard you say was this: During an MAS party, when you were asked, "what was the happiest day of your life", you answered without any second thought: "The day my son was born." Those words of yours, Professor, filled my eyes with tears,  and they show me how loving a father you were to your son.

Professor, your legacy will live on in this world through your family, your students, your colleagues, and your exceptional service to science, research, and humanity!

Missing you deeply and with a heavy heart,
your proud student, Teena

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Dear Prof Kraetzschmar,

I will forever remember you as the one who made us feel relaxed in the otherwise scary first semester. You guided us kindly whenever we were going through difficult times, your mentorship in times like this were unparalleled. Your kind and uplifting words will be forever etched in our minds. You will not only be severely missed by us but also by all the future students of MAS. The H-BRS family has lost one its favorite guardian.

There is not enough words to express the pain I feel upon hearing the sad news. May your soul rest in peace. My deepest condolences  to your family members.

- Poulastya

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Dear Prof Kraetzschmar,

You are one teacher that gives everyone the opportunity and never looked down at anyone irrespective where you come from. You are always happy to see your students succeed. You are a good man and a great teacher, it’s sad that you are no longer here with us.

To your Family: I pray God give the strength to bear the loss!  Accept my condolences!
-Segun Ajibola