Binary and Multiple Stars as Tracers of Stellar Evolution Proceedings of the 69th Colloquium of the International Astronomical Union, held in Bamberg, F.R.G., August 31 – September 3, 1981 - Kopal, Zdeněk 1914-1993; Rahe, Jürgen (Springer Netherlands, 1982)
If Zdenek Kopal Department of Astronomy University of Manchester Your Magnificences, my Lord Mayor, ladies and gentlemen! It is a great pleasure for me to respond, on behalf of your foreign guests, to your gracious words of welcome; and to thank you for the wonderful reception which you nave extended to us. The city of Bamberg and its Remeis Sternwarte nas indeed been renowned allover the world for a great many years - as the place where your Observatory's first director, Professor Ernst Hartwig (1851-1923) - in addition to his other titles to fame - collaborated (with Gustav Muller of Potsdam) on the construction of the monumental Geschichte und Literatur des Lirhtwechsels der Veranderlichen Sterne, which since 1918 has (together with its subsequent continuation) been a veritable vade-mecum of all students of variable stars; where the second director, Professor Ernst Zinner (1886-19]~ prepared his valuable Katalog der Verdächtigen Veränderlichen Sterne (192@ which safeguarded many an astronomer (including the present speaker in the days of his innocence) from premature discovery claims; and whose third director, Professor Wolfgang Strohmeier, initiated in 1959 the tradition of the international colloquia of which ours is the latest successor. It is indeed a great pleasure to welcome Professor Strohmeier - now Emeritus - among us; and to congratulate him on the grace with which he is carrying his years