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Prof. Werner Schatt was one of the leading powder metallurgists of the 20th century and a pioneer of sintering science. He graduated from Technische Hochschule Dresden, where he was studying mechanical engineering. After finishing his engineering studies, he earned his PhD under the supervision of Professor Friedrich Eisenkolb, the renowned powder metallurgist and started teaching materials at Magdeburg University. In Magdeburg, he earned his habilitation (venia docendi), on metallographic techniques for determining the lattice orientation in metals. In 1966, Schatt became professor of materials science at TU Dresden, where he focused on powder metallurgy. He intensely worked on the mechanisms of sintering, proving the unique process of self-activation by spontaneous formation of dislocation-enriched regions at the sintering contacts, and also stressed that the sintering process could not be regarded only in the isothermal section - but that extremely crucial processes occur already during heating, such as e.g. particle rearrangement by sliding of entire particles on highly disordered contact zones.
Prof. Schatt’s performance is also mirrored by numerous awards. From the GDR he received the “Karl-Marx order”, an unusual thing for a scientist, and the DGM, the German Materials Society, awarded him its highest honour, the Heyn Medal. In 1986, he was honoured by the prestigious “Skaupy lecture” of the “Gemeinschaftsausschuss Pulvermetallurgie”, and in 1997 he received the “Plansee Medal” in the course of the 14th Plansee Seminar. Werner Schatt was also famous as the organizer and mastermind of the congresses held every four years in Dresden, maintaining high standard in the fundamentals of powder metallurgy. He was not only a respected scientist but also an excellent academic teacher who had the ability to transmit his own enthusiasm for materials science, and in particular powder metallurgy, to his students. He edited and co-authored several textbooks on materials science, structural materials and, of course, powder metallurgy, which have remained standard even today. Werner Schatt managed to establish and maintain close contacts to powder metallurgists in Eastern and in Western countries, e.g. to Prof. Günter Petzow at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart and to TU Wien, where Profs. Kieffer, Jangg, Ettmayer and Wruss were his partners and hosts. Professor Werner Schatt passed away in Dresden on June 24th, 2009.