ABSTRACT

The outstanding personality of Walter Rohmert is illustrated by some straight facts. In 1963, at the age of 33, he was elected as a full professor and director of the Institut für Arbeitswissenschaft in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Technology in Darmstadt, Germany. This was recognized as a quite extraordinary event in engineering faculties in Germany, because a substantial scientific background combined with practical experience in the respective discipline is a presupposition for an appointment to this position: the “youngster” — too young to fit into the image of a “deutscher Professor” — was kept under observation by

his suspicious elder colleagues, but impressed everybody with his dynamic approach, developing research and teaching at his then newly founded institute.