On the 100th birthday of Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Dr.-Ing. E.h. Werner Schatt

On 26th January 2023, we commemorate the 100th birthday of Werner Schatt (1923-2009), one of the most eminent persons of powder metallurgy in the twentieth century and a pioneer in the science of sintering. Werner Schatt was born on 26th January 1923, in Friedrichroda in the forest of Thuringia, also known as ‘the green heart of Germany’. Although he lived in Dresden for more than 40 years of his life, he has always emphasised that he was a Thuringian and not a Saxonian. In his youth, Werner Schatt, who was born into a craftsman’s family, suffered from the consequences of World War I, such as inflation and the world economic crisis. He therefore grew up with a deeply engrained work ethic and sense of duty. He finished his high school education in Gotha in 1940, immediately followed by labour service and military service, which after having been trained as an officer he had to do at the Eastern Front. In 1944 he became a prisoner of war in the Soviet Union, from which he returned only in 1949, the conditions of captivity permanently affecting his health. After returning to Germany, at first he had to work in a foundry, where he deburred the cast components by hand, with hammer and chisel. In 1950, now 27 years old, he started his university studies of mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Dresden. He was one of the oldest students in his class but immediately was recognised by his mates as the most able student. In 1954, the eager ‘young’ man, motivated by a hunger for science, finished his diploma in the area of materials science. Professor Friedrich Eisenkolb, the renowned powder metallurgist, was the director of the Scientific Research Institute of Special Metallic Materials in Dresden at that time. Under his supervision, Werner Schatt did his Ph.D. on Al2O3-Cr composites. After his doctoral studies (1959), Schatt became the head of the metallurgy section in the Deutsches Amt für Materialund Warenprüfung (Materials and Product Testing Establishment, DAMW) in Magdeburg. In 1963, he was awarded a professorship in materials technology at the neighbouring institute founded and directed by Ernst Schiebold. After Schiebold’s death, he was assigned the deputy directorship of the institute; his directorial and management duties were combined with extensive teaching obligations. Werner Schatt finished his habilitation (venia docendi) at THMagdeburg with a thesis on ‘metallographic methods for the determination of the orientation of single crystals and polycrystals’. In 1966, he was appointed as the successor to Professor Friedrich Eisenkolb at the Institute for Materials Science at TH Dresden. In 1968, he received and accepted an official offer as a Full Professor of materials science. He headed the Research Area of the same name and was head of the research area materials technology until he was raised to Emeritus status in 1988 [1]. After commencing his appointment in Dresden, Schatt concentrated his research on powder metallurgy. He started to work on the fundamentals of sintering by modifying the two-particle-model proposed e.g. by Ju. I. Frenkel and studied the sphere-platemodel. With the support of X-ray experiments, in particular the Kossel technique carried out by the physicist Prof. Hans-Jürgen Ullrich, he was able to demonstrate that the real structure of metal powders, in particular dislocations and vacancies, play a substantial role during sintering. The proposed spontaneous dislocation multiplication in the sintering contact and the derived hypothesis of self-activation led to major international resonance. Intensive scientific exchanges have taken place with Ja. E. Geguzin and J. Boyko in Charkov (Ukraine) and the powder metallurgical groups in Vienna (Professors Richard Kieffer, Gerhard Jangg, Benno Lux, Werner Wruss and Peter Ettmayer) and Stuttgart (specifically with Professor Günter Petzow and his (Petzow’s) collaborators Wolfgang Kaysser, Eduard Arzt, Hans Eckart Exner andWinfried J. Huppmann). Additionally, contacts with Fritz Thümmler, Karlsruhe, and Hans Kolaska, Essen, were useful at that time. At the same time, good relationships with other leading scientists worldwide were established. In the world of a divided