With deep sorrow we need to announce that Prof. Gerhard Kraetzschmar passed away on July 24, 2019.

Gerhard was a very active member of the robotics community, in Europe and worldwide. He was engaged in the early days of EURON and a founding member of euRobotics and became a strong supporter for professional software engineering in robotics, where he was an active member of the Topic Group on  "Software Engineering, System Integration, System Engineering”. One of his core interests was to combine science and education via robot competitions, both, in the RoboCup, where he was in the Board of Trustees, but also as a driving force in setting up the European Robotics League, where he led a team in the Industry Robotics competitions. We will never forget his commitment and energy and the contributions he made to science and community building.

He was an esteemed colleague and friend to many of us. We’d like to express our deepest condolences to his family.