Fritz VOGL was born on 14 April 1940 in Baden near Vienna, but grew up in Carinthia where he graduated in electrical engineering from the Federal Technical School (Bundesgewerbeschule) in Klagenfurt. In 1961, he began his studies at what was then the "Technische Hochschule Wien" (renamed TU Wien in 1975), initially in actuarial mathematics and, starting in the winter semester of 1964/65, in technical mathematics. He completed his studies on 9 June 1969 with a diploma thesis titled “On the Theory of Piecewise Continuous Systems of Differential Equations Arising in Control Problems.”

Beginning on 1 May 1970, he worked as a university assistant at the former First Mathematical Institute of our university and earned his doctoral degree (Dr.techn.) on 6 April 1973 under the supervision of Professor BUKOVICS with the dissertation “Studies on the Qualitative Treatment of Linear Systems of Differential Equations Using Distribution Theory.” Following his habilitation thesis “On a System of Linear Functional Differential Equations”, he was appointed university lecturer on 17 November 1979 and was finally awarded the title of Associate Professor (ao. Universitätsprofessor) on 1 October 1997.

Fritz Vogl was a highly dedicated university teacher. For many years, he lectured on partial differential equations, distributions, and integral transforms as well as advanced mathematics for electrical engineering students and the so-called Mathematics A4. While he graded written exams strictly—often leaving more students on the attendance list than on the posted list of successful candidates, typically accompanied by the succinct remark “the rest failed”—he was nevertheless approachable and well-liked by students. One of his often-quoted remarks was: “If you miss an exercise session, you can make it up—even if you had an urgent need to go to the cinema.”

Shortly after the establishment of the current Institute of Analysis and Scientific Computing, Fritz Vogl retired in 2005. However, he remained intellectually curious, even if he only rarely visited the institute in person.

Fritz Vogl was a sociable colleague and an open-minded person. The annual Easter gathering at his home, where he regularly served Carinthian specialties, will remain fondly remembered by former colleagues. In addition to his mathematical interests—especially in functional differential equations—he was passionate about chess. Somewhere in his office—among piles of books and documents—there was always a chessboard with an ongoing game which was continuously played and changed over time. Despite having suffered from a physical disability since his military service, he was almost always in good spirits at the institute, and his cheerful smile was truly infectious.

We will deeply miss him and his warm, open-hearted nature.

Dirk PRAETORIUS, Frank RATTAY, Roman SCHNABL, Inge TROCH und Harald WORACEK