Journal of Lie Theory 28 (2018), No. 4, 901--901
Copyright Heldermann Verlag 2018
Thank you, Karl Heinrich Hofmann
Karl-Hermann Neeb
Department of Mathematics, FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Cauerstr. 11, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
neeb@math.fau.de
A few weeks ago Karl Heinrich Hofmann left the editorial board of the Journal of Lie Theory. Since he was the driving force in the creation of this journal, I take this opportunity to thank him for his energetic input, his guidance and, last but not least, for almost 30 years of editorial work.
To appreciate Karl Hofmann's contribution to this journal, we have to start in the 1990s. After the reunification of Germany in 1990, Karl Hofmann initiated with Karl Strambach from Erlangen, Konrad Schmüdgen from Leipzig and Helmut Boseck from Greifswald the biannual seminar series "Seminar Sophus Lie" which met 1991 in Leipzig for the first time. Originally, these seminars were a means to reestablish mathematical ties between Eastern and Western Germany, but the seminar grew quickly into a well-established series of workshops meeting twice a year in various places in Europe. Today it provides a regular forum for new developments in Lie theory in the wide sense.
For three years (1991--1993), Heldermann Verlag published proceedings of this seminar in the format of a journal, called "Seminar Sophus Lie," two issues per year. Starting with volume 4, this journal was converted into the "Journal of Lie Theory" in 1994.
At every stage of this process, Karl Hofmann was the major driving force. He negotiated the publication of the seminar proceedings with Heldermann Verlag, he did much of the technical work on the files, putting the articles together to veritable issues. In particular he enriched the cover of the journal by a hand-drawn portrait of Sophus Lie, which became its recognition mark over the years.
Karl Hofmann served as the managing editor of the "Journal of Lie Theory" until his retirement in 1998. After his retirement, he continued to serve the "Journal of Lie Theory" as its "Deputy Managing Editor" for 20 years. In this role he continued to do most of the technical work on the articles, maintaining the journal's "database" and, last but not least, was always available to help me with his guidance in difficult situations.
It is difficult to find appropriate words of gratitude for what Karl Heinrich Hofmann did for the "Journal of Lie Theory", so I simply say
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