­DEGA honorary membership to Peter Költzsch

DEGA honorary membership to Peter Költzsch
Laudatory speech (Sabine C. Langer on 19 March 2024 in Hanover)

The DEGA awards honorary memberships to individuals who have rendered outstanding services to acoustics or the DEGA. We are delighted to appoint Professor Peter Költzsch as a new honorary member at this opening ceremony, because he has enriched our field with his unique commitment.
Unfortunately, Mr Költzsch cannot be present in person today - so he is all the more looking forward to receiving the certificate in person in Dresden in a few days. Peter Költzsch has already received the DEGA Helmholtz Medal for his outstanding scientific achievements at the 2009 DAGA conference in Rotterdam. In the June 2009 DEGA-Sprachrohr, you can read about his extensive body of work, which I would like to briefly summarise here: He worked for many years in Dresden and the surrounding area as an engineer in aviation, vibration technology and occupational safety. Mr Költzsch was a university lecturer at the Freiberg Mining Academy and, from 1993, Director of the Institute for Technical Acoustics at the Technical University of Dresden. His research work covered a wide range of subjects. He can still be described as one of the most influential researchers in Germany, particularly in the field of flow acoustics. He has not only focussed on theoretical derivations, but has also rendered outstanding services to the systematic practical application of noise reduction at source. In addition to these scientific achievements, we would like to honour him today with an honorary membership especially for his outstanding voluntary services. After his retirement, Mr Költzsch carried out extensive research into the history of acoustics and put it down on paper. Between 2006 and 2019, he published a total of 11 issues of the DEGA publication series on the history of acoustics with more than 2,000 pages, all of which (with one exception) he researched and wrote himself. These contain informative and exciting facts and categorisations of acoustics in a historical scientific context.
It also addresses many topics that are not familiar to a wide audience from the outset. In the 10th and 11th issues in particular, he describes the emergence of university centres of acoustics in Munich, Berlin, Göttingen and Dresden - prime examples of the development of modern acoustics. Reading these issues is not only informative, but also entertaining. These 11 booklets are a real gift to anyone interested in acoustics, and his commitment has always been voluntary. Without the efforts of Peter Költzsch, this historical anthology would not exist, which is probably by far the most comprehensive publication on the history of acoustics.
Peter Költzsch was also instrumental in the establishment and expansion of DEGA after German reunification. With many constructive contributions to discussions in the Board Council and later on the Board, he greatly promoted the growing together of acousticians in the West and East. As a result, he played a key role in ensuring that DEGA continued to be organised as an all-German house of acousticians after 1989.
Finally, I would like to emphasize a quality that I have particularly appreciated in Peter Költzsch since my first encounters with him: he is always generous and willing to share his knowledge, experience and insights with future generations. And at the same time, he has always remained curious and open to being inspired by young people.
Peter Költzsch has rendered outstanding services to acoustics and DEGA over many years. We are very grateful to him for this!
Here you can see the certificate, which we will present to him personally in a few days.
Words of thanks from Peter Költzsch to the DEGA