Celebratio Mathematica

The polit­ic­al changes in Po­land in 1990 (East­ern Europe) caused many ne­ces­sary re­or­gan­iz­a­tion­al ef­forts. One of the in­sti­tu­tions in trouble was the Stefan Banach In­ter­na­tion­al Math­em­at­ic­al Cen­ter (BC) in Warsaw. It needed a new basis and struc­ture for a se­cure and pros­per­ous ex­ist­ence. Friedrich Hirzebruch, be­ing at that time pres­id­ent of the European Math­em­at­ic­al So­ci­ety, offered his help and great in­volve­ment to re­con­struct the BC and to form new con­di­tions for European co­oper­a­tion. Dur­ing the meet­ing of the Ex­ec­ut­ive Com­mit­tee of the EMS in Bud­apest, the let­ter of In­tent on Co­oper­a­tion between the In­sti­tute of Math­em­at­ics of the Pol­ish Academy of Sci­ences and the EMS was dis­cussed and signed in or­der to se­cure the fruit­ful con­tinu­ation of the activ­ity of the Stefan Banach In­ter­na­tion­al Math­em­at­ic­al Cen­ter. It was Pres­id­ent Friedrich Hirzebruch’s per­son­al ef­fort, made with care and con­cern, for the fruit­ful fu­ture activ­ity of the BC. We found him enorm­ously friendly and deeply in­volved in any pos­sible un­der­tak­ings. His prag­mat­ism, care­ful at­ti­tude, and firm sup­port al­lowed all the good work­ing ele­ments of the former activ­ity of the BC to be main­tained.

The agree­ment was signed on 30 March 1993, and the first meet­ing of the new Banach Cen­ter Coun­cil, with three rep­res­ent­at­ives of the Ex­ec­ut­ive Com­mit­tee of the EMS, four rep­res­ent­at­ives from Po­land, and three rep­res­ent­at­ives from the found­ing coun­tries, was or­gan­ized on 25 Oc­to­ber 1993. Friedrich Hirzebruch agreed to serve as its chair­man. The coun­cil and mainly the chair­man star­ted to work very hard to ad­apt the BC to the new but still un­stable real­ity. As a mas­ter and friend of all of us, Hirzebruch vis­ited the Banach Cen­ter every year and taught us how to be sup­port­ive and really help­ful to oth­er col­leagues; how to be hon­est, ob­ject­ive, con­struct­ive and not dis­cour­aging to oth­er ap­plic­ants, how to im­prove the at­mo­sphere for suc­cess­ful re­search, how not to be “di­vis­ive” and trouble­mak­ing, and how to be gentle and re­spons­ible in for­mu­lat­ing opin­ions about oth­ers. He taught us that math­em­at­ics is unity, that there are no bet­ter or worse branches of math­em­at­ics, but that it is en­gage­ment in re­search and striv­ing for per­fec­tion that are of key im­port­ance. He was al­ways sup­port­ive of the dir­ect­or of the in­sti­tute in the lat­ter’s dif­fi­cult fights and ef­forts. He was an ex­cel­lent ad­visor dur­ing my peri­od of dir­ect­or­ship, al­ways pa­tient and un­der­stand­ing, friendly, with im­pec­cable man­ners. He made an enorm­ous ef­fort to help the in­sti­tute in its fight to main­tain the ba­sic prop­er­ties. Un­der his chair­man­ship the first eight years, des­pite the ma­ter­i­al dif­fi­culties which we all suffered in Po­land, the Banach Cen­ter was very suc­cess­ful and pros­per­ous.

In 1997 Friedrich Hirzebruch be­came a mem­ber of the Pol­ish Academy of Sci­ences. The next year an Al­geb­ra­ic Geo­metry Con­fer­ence in Hon­or of F. Hirzebruch’s Sev­en­ti­eth Birth­day was or­gan­ized in the Banach Cen­ter in Warsaw. It was an un­usu­al event with ex­treme im­port­ance also for Pol­ish math­em­aticians. Then in 1999 he got a pres­ti­gi­ous award of the Pol­ish Academy of Sci­ences — the Stefan Banach Medal.

Since my first vis­it to the Max Planck In­sti­tute for Math­em­at­ics in Bonn in 1984, through our daily meet­ings and walks along the paths in the pleas­ant neigh­bor­hood of the in­sti­tute to my last vis­it there in Novem­ber 2011, I ex­per­i­enced Fritz’s gen­er­ous, warm, and ex­tremely eager ideas and ad­vice on math­em­at­ics as well as on every­day life. He was al­ways so pleased with math­em­aticians’ new achieve­ments and at the same time deeply wor­ried about his col­leagues’ ma­ter­i­al status and the fin­an­cial con­di­tions of math­em­at­ics in gen­er­al. He showed us that we have to be ex­tremely care­ful not to lower the value of math­em­at­ics and not to isol­ate it from the glob­al ef­forts of man­kind.

It was an ex­treme pleas­ure and sat­is­fac­tion for me when he agreed to come to Warsaw in May 2012 to cel­eb­rate his birth­day, to meet with all the Pol­ish friends and former schol­ars of MPI. We were very happy to pre­pare this event to thank him for all that he had done for the Banach Cen­ter, the In­sti­tute of Math­em­at­ics, and Pol­ish math­em­aticians. Un­for­tu­nately, a few days be­fore the sym­posi­um star­ted, Fritz had an ac­ci­dent at home and was not able to come. The let­ter, per­haps his last let­ter (which can be found on the web­site of the Banach Cen­ter) was brought to us by his son, Mi­chael, and his daugh­ter-in-law, Anne Hirzebruch. It was the most mean­ing­ful gift which we nev­er ex­pec­ted to get — to be in Friedrich Hirzebruch’s great mind and soul till the last days of his life.