The untimely passing away of Wilfried Wurth

The CFEL management board is very sad to have to announce that our friend and colleague

Wilfried Wurth

passed away suddenly during a business trip to Sweden on the night from Wednesday to Thursday at the age of 62.

Wilfried Wurth has not only been at CFEL since its beginning, he was a driving force to get CFEL going: the partnership between the City of Hamburg, DESY, the Max Planck Society, and University of Hamburg; the building; and many impressive research accomplishments. He was the founder and leader of the Advanced Study Group of University of Hamburg at CFEL. In this function he shaped the cooperation of the university with the other partners, including his strong influence on the Excellence strategy in Hamburg. He was one of the first directors of the CFEL Management Board and helped tremendously with developing CFEL into its current shape and spirit.

Wilfried Wurth was a faculty member at the physics department of Universität Hamburg for almost 20 years, and since 2014 he was also a lead scientist at DESY assuming the scientific leadership of the free-electron laser FLASH. Wilfried Wurth was an expert in X-ray spectroscopy specialized in the investigation of ultrafast processes, such as the real-time observation of chemical reactions at surfaces and the dynamics of electrons in solids and at interfaces.

CFEL lost a highly valued and respected colleague and dear friend, who always helped to get discussions to the point with his cordial and calm personality.