The Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development mourns the loss of Prof. Dr Harald Schill.

With his passing, our university loses a figure who has shaped it over many years. He was active in teaching and research at the HNEE for more than three decades. As a professor of forest botany and phytopathology, he mentored generations of students, shaped their academic development and raised their awareness of the diversity, beauty and vulnerability of plant life.

Born in Ingolstadt, he studied forestry with a specialisation in botany at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. He also obtained his doctorate there at the Faculty of Forestry. Early on, he focused on issues relating to tree vitality, forest damage resulting from global warming, mycological and phytopathological interrelationships, and the potential consequences of climate change for forest tree species.

“Prof. Dr Harald Schill has shaped the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development over many years with great professional dedication and a great deal of humanity. With his vast botanical expertise, his passion for teaching and his commitment to the Forest Botanical Garden and the WaldWelten Foundation, he has opened up a special connection to forests, biodiversity and ecological responsibility for students, colleagues and many people in the region. We owe him a great debt of gratitude and will always honour his memory at the HNEE,” says Prof. Dr Matthias Barth, President of the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development.

At the HNEE, Prof. Dr Schill combined scientific rigour with great clarity in his teaching. Botany, dendrology, fungal systematics, phytopathology, practical sessions and vegetation field trips were, for him, ways of helping students understand the dynamic interrelationship between plants, fungi, habitat, climate and forest development.

His colleagues describe him as a visionary innovator: someone who not only formulated ideas but also brought them to fruition with perseverance, professional conviction and unconventional thinking. As early as the last millennium, he initiated one of the first English-language Bachelor’s degree programmes (International Forest Ecosystem Management) at the university. 

His work remains particularly closely linked to the Eberswalde Forest Botanical Garden, whose development he shaped significantly as its long-standing director. It is thanks to his perseverance and expertise that the spectacular greenhouse and the administration building – in which there are no right angles – could be realised using timber construction. 

By founding the WaldWelten Foundation, Prof. Dr Schill, together with his colleagues, created an institution that opens up the forest as a space for research, education and experience to the city and the region. He led the foundation as its president for more than 14 years. Under his leadership, projects aimed at protecting forests and ensuring their climate stability were advanced, and dialogue between the scientific community and the public was strengthened, for example through the annual concerts, film screenings in the Forest Botanical Garden and the traditional ‘WaldWeihnacht’ (Forest Christmas). 

Prof. Dr Schill never viewed the forest merely as a subject of scientific investigation. For him, it was a habitat, a place of learning and a task for the future all at once. Many colleagues, companions and former students will remember him as a knowledgeable scientist, a dedicated university lecturer, a tenacious innovator and a caring person.

We are grateful for what Prof. Dr Harald Schill has given to our university. Our deepest sympathies go out to his family, his relatives, his friends and all those who were close to him.