Alexander Bradshaw and Synchrotron Research in Berlin BESSY

Alexander Bradshaw and Synchrotron Research in Berlin (BESSY) 

As of 1 January 1981, the restructuring of the FHI was formally completed and the new charter - which established, above all, the collaborative leadership of the Institute (Board of Directors) - came into force. Since the sub institutes had been a means to an end, they were dissolved in favor of more traditional departments. 

The first of these were the above mentioned Departments of Physical Chemistry (Gerischer), Surface Reactions (Block), Surface Physics (Bradshaw) and Electron Microscopy (Zeitler). Furthermore, an international Advisory Board [Fachbeirat) was appointed to counsel the Board of Directors on issues of research policy. This is the charter that remains in place today. The tradition-bound Gerischer remained, however, a first among equals with the exception of a single term, he kept being reelected by the Board of Directors to the position of Executive Director until his retirement on 31 December 1987. As Elmar Zeitler put it, He could do it better than anyone else.  

47 For a list of the members of the Advisory Board during the period 1981-2011, please see p. 271 

Much of Gerischer s interest in BESSY came from the power a synchrotron might have to entice new scholars to the Institute, perhaps offsetting somewhat 

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