Obituary Prof. George M. Sheldrick

On February 20, 2025, Prof. George M. Sheldrick passed away. With him, the German Society for Crystallography not only lost a founding member, but crystallography lost a scientist whose influence can hardly be overestimated. In addition to many other awards, the Carl Hermann Medal was awarded for his life’s work in 1999. The best proof of the importance of his work, however, is probably his article “A short history of SHELX” [Acta Cryst. (2008), A64, 112–122], which single-handedly led to the journal Acta Crystallographica A achieving a higher impact factor than Nature and Science.