Hellmut Fritzsche

Hellmut Fritzsche (20 February 1927 – 17 June 2018)^[1] was a German-born American physicist.

He came to the US on a one-year Smith-Mundt fellowship in 1950/51. After receiving his Diplom in physics from the University of Göttingen in 1952 he returned to the US. He earned his Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1954 where in the same year he became Instructor and in 1955 Assistant Professor. In 1957 he moved to the University of Chicago, where in 1963 he became a full professor and in 1996 retired. During this time he had children, Peter Fritzsche in 1959, Thomas Fritzsche in 1961, and Susanne Fritzsche in 1963, and later, Katja Fritzsche in 1970. During his career at the University of Chicago he was director of its Materials Research laboratory 1973–77 and chairman of its Physics department 1977–86. During his chairmanship he planned and oversaw the building of the Kersten Physics Teaching Center. For twenty five years Fritzsche served on the University of Chicago Advisory Committee for the Encyclopædia Britannica and during the last 7 years as its chairman. Fritzsche was a vice president and board member of Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. since 1969 and a member of the board of directors of United Solar Systems Corp. from 1993 to 2003. He had 3 grandchildren. Nina Fritzsche (b. 2006), Joshua Fritzsche (b. 2011) and Matteo Fritzsche (b. 2016)