George Leitmann, Professor in the Graduate School and Associate Dean for International Relations in the College of Engineering, UC Berkeley, celebrated his 80th birthday in a variety of ways during a two week trip to Europe in May/June 2005. The 13th International Dynamics and Control Workshop, held at the Daimler/Chrysler Center near Stuttgart, was dedicated to the 80th birthday of Prof. Leitmann. Contributors from 15 nations presented papers on a variety of topics in the areas of the workshop which extended over 3 1/2 days, including papers on topics related to Leitmann's research over the past 55 years. One such paper on his recent and current work was entitled " On Leitmann's Direct Method: Past, Present and Future". On the third evening of the workshop, the organizers, Prof. E. Hofer from the University Ulm and Prof. E. Reithmeier from the University Hannover, held a banquet and honors night at the Center, which was attended by Leitmanns' professional colleagues as well as by many other friends and colleagues. Among these were Dr. Heinrich Pfeiffer, the first postwar Secretary General of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and Prof. Klaus Beyenbach, the second President of the A. v. Humboldt Association of America, accompanied by his wife Christa.

The "Laudatio" (eulogy) was given by Prof. Dr. Jur. Hanns Seidler, the Chancellor of the Technical University Darmstadt, and devoted to an account of Leitmann's lifetime contributions, both professional and personal. Chancellor Seidler was followed by Dr. Georg Schuette, the current Secretary General of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, who spoke at length about Leitmann's salient contributions to the Foundation in particular and to international relations in general. He then awarded the Foundation's highest honor, the Werner Heisenberg medal, to Leitmann for "his outstanding contributions to international scientific collaboration." He was followed by a number of speakers including Prof. Etsujiro Shimemura, the former President of the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, who recounted Leitmann's influence on his own career, starting with his translation into Japanese of Leitmann's 1965 book "An Introduction to Optimal Control" for which Leitmann had prepared a special edition. The next speaker, Prof. Roland Bulirsch of the TU Munich, Secretary of the Bavarian Academy of Science of which Leitmann is a foreign member, conveyed greetings and good wishes of the President of the Academy. Dr. Tarasyev from the Russian Academy of Science and the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) spoke of Leitmann's contributions to the IIASA since its inception in the early 70's and brought greetings and birthday wishes from the Director of the Institute. Dr. Kryashimskii from the Russian Academy of Science and IIASA conveyed greetings from the Russian Academy of Science and in particular from Academician E. Mischenko, one of the founder of modern optimal control theory. The organizers of the workshop spoke about Leitmann's role in the 25 year history of the workshop and presented the Proceedings of the Workshop, signed by all participants, to Leitmann.

Towards the end of the festivities, Prof. Christophe Deissenberg from the University of Aix rose to express the affection in which Leitmann is held by his colleagues and friends, and of the impact he has had and continues to have on them, and presented their birthday present, a large portrait by the Parisian painter Bernard Martellet, showing Leitmann's inner self in the style of the painters Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. At the conclusion of the workshop, Prof. Stefan Pickl from the University of the Armed Forces in Munich rose to present to Leitmann the diploma establishing a yearly Leitmann Lecture at the University of the Armed Forces.

During the next three days, the Leitmanns were guests of Dr. Evelies Mayer, former State Minister of Science and Art, at Lake Constance. The Leitmanns then travelled to Darmstadt where President Johann-Dietrich Woerner of the Technical University Darmstadt, from which Leitmann holds an honorary doctorate, held a dinner and reception attended by Leitmann's colleagues and friends at TU Darmstadt and from other institutions such as the TU Aaachen and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation which was represented by the former General Secretary, Dr. Osten. After eulogizing Leitmann, President Woerner presented an original bronze of Pallas Athena, the TU's coat of arms, by sculptor Ariel Auslender who was also present.

The Leitmanns then left for Paris at the invitation of the French Ministry of Defense and stayed at the Cercle National des Armees. Fortuitously, 2005 is the year of Leitmann's 80th birthday and of the 60th anniversary of the battle for Colmar in Alsace Lorraine. At the end of 1944, for a three months period, the US 286th Engineer Combat Battalion, in whose reconnaisance unit Leitmann served, was attached to the First French Army. At the beginning of February 1945, Leitmann's unit was active in the capture of Colmar and Leitmann was awarded France's highest military honor, the Croix de Guerre avec Palmes, for his role in this action. The medal of the order was unavailable at the time and Leitmann was decorated with the ribbon of the order. Sixty years later, at a ceremony in the Cercle National des Armees Leitmann was decorated with the medal of the Croix de Guerre avec Palmes by General Louis Alain Roche on behalf of the French Minister of Defense. At this ceremony, followed by a private dinner at the Cercle, the Leitmanns were joined by their son Josef, a Berkeley PhD in City and Regional Planning, who heads the World Bank's Environmental Program for Indonesia and the International Reconstruction Fund for the Tsunami- ravaged areas.

The Leitmanns' trip concluded at a symposium at Aix on the occasion of the 60th birthday of Suresh Sethi from the university of Texas, at which a paper co-authored with Prof. Dean Carlson was presented.