Hanswalter Giesekus 1922–2017

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Hanswalter Giesekus was born on January 4, 1922, at Hückeswagen, a small town about 20 km east of Düsseldorf in the province of Nordrhein-Westfalen. His father was Walter Giesekus and his mother was Emmy Giesekus, née Langenberg. Both father and mother were country folks and had received only an elementary school education. The parents were practising Christians and subsequently Hanswalter followed their example. In his childhood, he experienced the Great Depression and the subsequent rise of Nazism in Germany. During his school education, he displayed wide interests in literature, history, art and music (he learnt to play the violin) as well as in mathematics and physics. After leaving school, he went on a few months of pre-military service—spent partly in France—and then in the autumn of 1940 he enrolled in the University of Göttingen, concentrating on physics. However, after one year, he was called up to serve in an air intelligence unit. From 1943, he worked in a newly established Institute in Freiberg-im-Breisgau. There he experienced a bombing raid on November 24, 1944, and the house where Giesekus was living was destroyed. Fortunately, he was on his way to a bible class at the time of the raid, and so he escaped. …