Professor Dr rer. nat. Hiltmar Schubert is not only one of the most experienced scientists in the international explosives community but also an outstanding research manager for the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. His professional career covers some 60 years of science, a long list of publications and patents, and a remarkable set of duties.

Hiltmar Schubert is one of the patrons of German defence technology development as well as one of the founders of the modem Fraunhofer research organisation. He has influenced the structure of contract and applied research in Germany, a story of success which carried Fraunhofer to number one in the European contract research organisations. Although he is an expert in explosives with worldwide reputation, Hiltmar Schubert always kept in touch with all important challenges of modem society. As director of Fraunhofer ICT for more than 20 years he opened his institute for other working fields on the edge of technical progress. In his later professional years, not over yet, he became an engaged researcher in environmental challenges, disarmament consultations and, most recently in production strategies for the 21st century.

Professor Schubert is still a member of ICT, serving his successor, Professor Dr. Peter Eyerer as a commissioner of the ICT directorate. He now feels completely free to do his own favourite research work, including such topics as the challenges of unemployment, humanisation of economy and ecology, improvement of Germany’s position in global competition, stabilisation and disarmament of former Eastern bloc countries, and enhancement and development of environmental engineering.

Hiltmar Schubert, at a glance, is a chemist educated in Kiel and Karlsruhe, wrote his thesis on pharmaceutical substances, started in the "Labour Dr. Meyer" at the Technical University of Karlsruhe working on the chemistry of solid rocket propellants.

In 1959, the Institute for chemistry of propellants (ICT) was founded and Hiltmar Schubert became one of two division heads. Ten years later he took over the burden of being a member of ICT directorate and from 1972 until 1994 he was the director responsible for ICT.

In the mid 1970’s he came engaged more and more with the Fraunhofer organisation, developing e.g. together with other institutes‘ directors the new Fraunhofer Society. He was elected as chairman of the scientific-technical council and therefore spokesman for all Fraunhofer Institutes’ directors for more than 15 years.

In 1969, he created the International ICT annual conference which has now - after 28 years - become one of the most important meeting places of the international explosive community, affecting in a remarkable way the research progress on high-explosives, gun propellants, solid rocket propellants, gas generators and ignitors. Under his leadership the Fraunhofer ICT has gained international reputation in these fields and is now the only research facility for energetic materials in Germany and partners with the German Ministry of Defence for decades.

In 1976, he became Editor-in-Chief of the new intemational joumal "Propellants, Explosives, Pyrotechnics" which was called into being by the formerly Verlag Chemie GmbH, now VCH Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, a large and well known publishing house. This Journal increased under his leadership, which he is holding up-to-now, to an international reputed instrument for the community in the broad field of explosives.

During the 1980s Schubert opened the research capabilities of ICT for commercial applications. Carefully he developed a civilian technology branch of ICT beginning with safety technology, airbag research and environmental engineering. In 1978 he was elected as president of the German Society of Environmental Engineering (Gesellschaft for Umweltsimulation - GUS) and is still serving today. Together with partner organisations from other European countries he founded the Committee of European Environirmental Engineering Societies (CEEES) in 1985, its president from 1988 until 1990. He aimed to bring this organisation in touch with the EU commission and established a CEES representative in Brussels. For his outstanding commitment to the improvement of relations between the USA and Europe he received the award "Fellow of the US Institute of Environmental Sciences" in 1997.

The decline of the defence industry after the end of the cold war and the fall of the "iron curtain" in 1989 became one of the most challenging tasks of Professor Schubert as an institute manager. He initiated a complete restructuring of ICT, introducing new management principles with regard to the competition in the contract research market. It had become his responsibility to balance the institute between continuous defence research and establishing new research fields such as applied electrochemistry, environmental engineering and polymer technology. In 1994, he handed over the Fraunhofer ICT to his successor Professor Eyerer who completed the reorganisation and in the meantime has led the institute to an outstanding growth, now employing some 300 people.

In the beginning of the 1990s Schubert’s third career started in the area of production strategies of the 21st century. He became the co-ordinator and leading scientist in the area of closed loop materials management. He advised the German Ministry of Research about the need for technology in this field and conducted expert project teams.

Hiltmar Schubert is still the charming boy he once was, preserving his old boy‘s network for the benefits of Fraunhofer ICT. In 1994, he became a young entrepreneur by starting his own company, the "Prof. Dr. Schubert & Co. Engineering GmbH". Professor Schubert, who received the Federal Cross of Honours of Germany, is well known at ICT as their "high-performance retiree". He has represented Germany in NATO’s Disarmament Panel, travelling very often to the former Soviet countries and organising workshops and seminars. He has served as vice president of the German Defence Technology Association (Gesellschaft far Wehrtechnik) and is still a very welcome consultant for the defence branch. Indeed he loves travelling. There are only a few countries on the globe where he has never been invited to. His lectures are well-known internationally and his experiences with lost baggage are an important source of information for all the young people at ICT, GUS and CEEES.

Dr. Karl Freidrich Ziaghan