On 21 October 2024, Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Welschof passed away at the age of 93. As a founding director, he played a key role in shaping the programmatic realignment of the ATB in the first years after reunification.
Gerhard Welschof was born on 22 December 1930. Having grown up on his parents' farm, he studied mechanical engineering in Braunschweig, specialising in agricultural machinery under Prof. Dr.-Ing. Georg Segler. He became his scientific assistant and moved with him to Hohenheim in 1957. Dr.-Ing. G. Welschof received his doctorate in 1962 from the former Technical University of Stuttgart with his dissertation in the field of pneumatic conveying.
He decided early on to pursue a career in industry. He did not accept the call in 1967 to Weihenstephan to succeed Prof. Dr.-Ing. W. G. Brenner to the Chair of Agricultural Engineering with the management of the state institute.
During his intensive and fruitful work for the large agricultural engineering companies International Harvester Company (IHC) and Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz (KHD), he provided significant impetus for tractor construction. Gerhard Welschof began his professional career in 1961 at IHC in Neuss. Here he took over the management of tractor development in 1971 and was soon appointed to the management board. Thanks to his prudent leadership, his ideas and his commitment, IHC succeeded in replacing KHD as the market leader in tractor sales in Germany. Gerhard Welschof was always looking for a challenge, and so in 1979 he moved to the competitor KHD, where, as head of tractor development, he was able to use new ideas to bring tractor sales in Germany back to the top. In 1984, he became head of development for the entire agricultural technology and was thus also responsible for the development of combine harvesters, loading wagons and haymaking machines. During a difficult time for KHD, he took over responsibility for the strategic planning division from 1988 until he left the company in 1990.
After working in industry, Dr Welschof was chairman of the founding committee and founding director of the newly established Institute for Agricultural Engineering Bornim e.V. (ATB) in Potsdam from 1991 to 1992, following the dissolution of the existing Academy Institute for Agricultural Engineering in Bornim. Thanks to his many years of experience in research and development in industry, his empathy and collegial leadership, he succeeded in defining the research priorities of the institute in seven, and later six, departments. With the research concept developed in this way for the long-standing Potsdam-Bornim site, he successfully implemented the recommendations of the German Council of Science and Humanities for the reorganisation of non-university research in the new federal states. The institute's staff appreciated his warm-hearted and interested manner and his openness in intensive discussion rounds. He contributed significantly to the integration of East German science into the international research community after the fall of the Berlin Wall and remained associated with the institute until the end of his life. At the institute's 30th anniversary celebration in 2022, he sent his personal congratulations via video link and reiterated the challenge he had already formulated at its founding in 1992: ‘You have to run to at least stay in place, otherwise you'll fall behind.’
Dr Welschof also contributed his knowledge and experience to numerous committees, including in a leading role in the Agricultural Engineering Society in the VDI, on the board of trustees of the Federal Research Institute for Agriculture and on the executive committee of the KTBL. In 1994, with foresight and great commitment, he succeeded in merging the Max Eyth Society for Agricultural Engineering and the VDI Society for Agricultural Engineering. In 1996, Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Welschof was the third agricultural engineer to be honoured with the VDI medal for his services, following in the footsteps of Prof. Dr. G. Fischer (1940) and Prof. Dr.-Ing. H. J. Matthies (1989).
Now, at the advanced age of 93, the dedicated agricultural engineer has passed away in his home region of the Rhineland, surrounded by his family. As he himself said, he usually developed his inspiration and impetus for new ideas while gardening, a pastime he loved very much, always supported by his wife Marianne Welschof, to whom he was married for over six decades.
The staff at ATB will always remember him fondly.