Bodo von Borries 



as he was directing the Institute in Dusseldorf and 

 fulfilling a number of other functions in educational 

 and scientific bodies. 



In the international sphere von Borries was also 

 most active, and deeply concerned to establish good 

 scientific relations with electron microscopists in 

 other countries, despite the deep wounds caused by 

 the War. He visited us in Britain in 1948 and ever 

 since that time has worked hard to set up an effective 

 international organisation for electron microscopy, 

 and to ensure that his own country played a full 

 part in it. I need not remind you that he was elected 

 first President of the Joint Commission for Electron 

 Microscopy that was set up at the London Confer- 

 ence in 1954. When that body was in effect vetoed 

 by the International Council of Scientific Unions 

 he was most concerned that all the ground work 

 put into it should not go wasted and that some 

 viable organisation should be established as quickly 

 as possible. He played a major part in the transfor- 

 mation of the Joint Commission into the Interna- 

 tional Federation of Electron Microscope Societies, 

 and was its first President, in this capacity he 

 worked unceasingly for the extension of the Federa- 

 tion's activities, for the success of the Regional 



Conferences being held for the first time this year, 

 and in preparing for the next World Congress in 

 1958, which was to be held in his country. At the 

 time of his death he was planning to visit Japan 

 during October, to attend the Regional Congress 

 for Asia and Oceania, at which he was to have given 

 the opening address. 



By his untimely end. in the midst of full creative 

 activity, the young science of electron microscopy 

 has lost one of its greatest exponents and indeed 

 one of its two original pioneers. Germany has lost 

 the founder and mainspring of its electron micro- 

 scope society and the International Federation its 

 first president and chief advocate. I commend his 

 career to you as an outstanding example of service 

 to science in its fundamental, applied, educational and 

 organisational aspects equally. Let us honour his 

 memory by continuing to advance the aims and ideals 

 he followed, particularly in developing the poten- 

 tialities of electron microscopy in Science and tech- 

 nology, nationally and internationally. We mourn 

 the death, but we salute the memory of Bodo von 

 Borries, pioneer of electron microscopy and first 

 President of our International Federation. 



