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Abstract

Peter Fulde is not only one of Germany’s leading solid-state physicists but is prominent also due to his outstanding career, his general involvement in science, and the exceptional activities he undertook in organizing science in various circumstances. Fulde grew up in the eastern part of the country and went to the West as a student. He obtained his PhD in the United States and then returned to Germany to become full professor at the University of Frankfurt at the age of 32 and later director in various research institutes. He was a member of the German Science Council (Wissenschaftsrat), the board of the German Physical Society (DPG) and numerous other bodies. After the re-unification of Germany he returned to the East and built up the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden. Finally, after his retirement in 2007, he followed a call to South Korea to head a similar institute there and eventually helped to establish a Korean analogue of the German Max Planck Society. The interview presented here follows the steps of his life. It was conducted on the occasion of his 80th birthday in April of 2016 and is supplemented by a curriculum vitae and by two brief accounts of his physics research and of his role in Dresden and Korea in the context of the Max Planck Society.