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george HerrMaNN
1921–2007
elected in 1981
“For major contributions to administration, publication,
research, and teaching of applied and structural mechanics;
has particularly stimulated students and younger colleagues.”
BY PETER PINSKY, DAVID BARNETT, AND CHARLES STEELE
george HerrMaNN, professor emeritus of mechanical
engineering, passed away quietly as he sat with a friend in
Zurich’s main train station on his way to lucerne to celebrate
russian christmas, on January 7, 2007. He was 85 years old.
Herrmann played a major role in the mechanics community
in the latter half of the 20th century, and his influence persists
to the present day. Born in Moscow on april 19, 1921, he
moved to Basel, switzerland, with his swiss mother (leaving
behind his russian father) in 1933 and was educated at the
gymnasium of Mathematics and sciences, where he received
his Maturität in 1941. He attended the swiss federal institute
of Technology, where he received a diploma in 1945 and a
doctor of science in 1949, both in civil engineering. after a year
as a postdoctoral exchange fellow and an assistant professor
at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, canada, he joined the
department of civil engineering at columbia University in
1951. He became associate professor in 1955. from 1962 to
1970 he was a professor of civil engineering at Northwestern
University, including two years as Walter P. Murphy
distinguished Professor. in 1970 he moved to stanford
adapted from the Memorial Resolution: George Herrmann written by Peter Pinsky,
david Barnett, and charles steele and published in the Stanford Report, March 11,
2009. The National academy of engineering wishes to thank stanford University for
permission to use the Memorial resolution.
175
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176 MeMorial TriBUTes
University. at stanford he served as chair of the department
of applied Mechanics and, when the department merged with
the department of Mechanical engineering in 1975, as chair of
the division of applied Mechanics. He held this post until his
retirement from stanford in 1984.
His research interests were broad and touched on many of
the major themes in mechanics over the past 60 years: plate
and shell theory, stability theory, vibrations of elastic bodies,
wave propagation, and fracture mechanics. He remained
active in research following his retirement from stanford,
and in later years he developed an interest in the mechanics
of solids as viewed from an eshelbean standpoint. He
pursued this vigorously with longtime collaborator reinhold
Kienzler until his death in 2007. His work brought him wide
recognition and a number of awards from various professional
societies. These included election to the National academy of
engineering, the centennial Medal of the american society
of Mechanical Engineers, the von Karman Medal of the
american society of civil engineers, the eringen Medal of the
society of engineering science, and the american academy of
Mechanics outstanding service award.
george Herrmann’s service to the mechanics community
was equally important. He served on innumerable boards
and committees and was quite influential in the Applied
Mechanics division of the american society of Mechanical
engineers. during an era in which important soviet work in
mechanics was largely unknown in the West, he began the
english translation edition of PMM, the premier russian-
language mechanics journal and served for many years as its
translation editor. Perhaps most significantly, he founded the
International Journal of Solids and Structures in 1965 and served
as its editor until his retirement from stanford, building it into
one of the most reputable journals in the field.
on a personal level, george Herrmann was a man of great
warmth and charm. His former students recall his kindness
and consideration. Particularly impressive was his uncanny
ability to find the best line of attack on a given research
problem, where he was often able to obtain significant results
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george HerrMaNN
with only a minimum of tools. His lectures were clear, focused,
and well organized, and his courses were always popular with
students. He was an accomplished linguist and constantly
amazed those around him by his ability to converse with the
seminar speaker of the day in the speaker’s native language.
While at stanford, he organized frequent outings, excursions,
and dinners for students and faculty that did much to build a
strong sense of camaraderie within the department of applied
Mechanics and later the division of applied Mechanics.
at the time of his death, Herrmann’s primary residence
was in davos, switzerland, although he continued to travel
extensively, including visits to stanford several times a year.
following his retirement, he maintained much the same life he
had lived as a professor. He continued to publish papers, give
talks, attend and organize conferences, and collaborate on
books, including Mechanics in Material Space with Applications
to Defect and Fracture Mechanics (2000), which he co-wrote with
Reinhold Kienzler. Toward the end of his life he was learning
Spanish, even though he was already fluent in English, German,
french, russian, and italian. Herrmann was an extraordinary
individual with an enthusiastic, creative spirit that was never
diminished.
His final journey exemplified several characteristics of his
life: his russian origins, his love of travel, and his curiosity
about religion as both a scientist and a close friend, toward the
end of his life, of Kirill, the current patriarch of the Russian
Orthodox Church. He was married three times. The first
marriage ended with the death of his wife, elizabeth rütschi-
Herrmann, the mother of his two children, in 1978; the second
marriage ended in 1983 with the death of his wife alicia
golebiewska Herrmann. His third marriage, to louise ostroff,
ended in divorce. His second and third marriages also brought
attachments to stepdaughters Joanna Lasota and Debbie Kahn-
Wand. He was a skier until late in life, and in his middle years
he was also a mountaineer, which involved climbing both the
Matterhorn and Piz Palü. He was an avid reader, a devotee of
classical music, and a frequent visitor to art museums. He was
also a gifted excursionist whose destinations often included
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178 MeMorial TriBUTes
a visit to one of many obscure baroque churches near davos
and a meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant. one of his oldest
friends and colleagues, Tom Kane, put it this way: “Art, science,
music—with anything [george] was interested in, he didn’t
waste time on anything less than the best.” He saw himself
as a “citizen of the world,” who was interested in those he
had not yet met, made friends easily with the prominent, and
although certain about where he was going, was not always
clear about what it was he wanted to leave behind.
Herrmann is survived by his daughter, anne Herrmann
of Dexter, Michigan; his son, Peter Herrmann of Küsnacht,
switzerland; and two grandchildren, celine and Henrik.
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