Binary and Multiple Stars as Tracers of Stellar Evolution - Proceedings of the 69th Colloquium of the International Astronomical Union, Held in Bamberg, F.R.G., August 31 - September 3, 1981 (Paperback, Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1982)

If Zdenek Kopal Department of Astronomy University of Manchester Your Magnificences, my Lord Mayor, ladies and gentlemen! It is a great pleasure for me to respond, on behalf of your foreign guests, to your gracious words of welcome; and to thank you for the wonderful reception which you nave extended to us. The city of Bamberg and its Remeis Sternwarte nas indeed been renowned allover the world for a great many years - as the place where your Observatory's first director, Professor Ernst Hartwig (1851-1923) - in addition to his other titles to fame - collaborated (with Gustav Muller of Potsdam) on the construc- tion of the monumental Geschichte und Literatur des Lirhtwechsels der Veranderlichen Sterne, which since 1918 has (together with its sub- sequent continuation) been a veritable vade-mecum of a1l students of variable stars; where the second director, Professor Ernst Zinner (1886-19]~ prepared his valuable Katalog der Verdachtigen Veranderlichen Sterne (192@ which safeguarded many an astronomer (including the present speaker in the days of his innocence) from premature discovery claims; and whose third director, Professor Wolfgang Strohmeier, initiated in 1959 the tradition of the international colloquia of which ours is the latest successor. It is indeed a great pleasure to welcome Professor Strohmeier - now Emeritus - among us; and to congratulate him on the grace with which he is carrying his years.