Christoph Witzgall

Christoph Witzgall, a German American mathematician, died on November 11, 2025, at the age of 96, just six weeks after the passing of Elizabeth, his wife of over 60 years.

Born February 25, 1929, in southern Bavaria, Christoph came of age during the rise of the Nazi party. His childhood was marked by family instability and abrupt relocations, culminating in a clandestine journey to Switzerland to avoid teenage conscription into the German "People's Army". Despite the turmoil of his early life, and the inevitable disruptions to his education that entailed, he had been kindling a passion for mathematics which he was able to pursue after the war at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, receiving his PhD in 1958.

After work on the simplex method at the Technical University of Munich, his career took him to America where he held positions at such renowned research centers as the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, the Rand Corporation, Argonne National Laboratory, and Boeing Scientific Research Labs, among others, finally settling down in the mid-1970s at the National Institute of Standards and Technology Operations Research Division, where he eventually served as division chief for three years. In the last decades of his tenure at NIST, he focused primarily on developing Triangulated Irregular Networks for the Army Corps of Engineers, but he was involved with dozens of other projects and collaborations, some of which he continued long after his official 2006 retirement from NIST, submitting his final paper for publication less than a month before his final illness claimed him.

He was the author (along with Josef Stoer) of one of the first books on numerical optimization, and of dozens of subsequent papers including entries on computational geometry for the Encyclopedia of Operations Research. He helped design solutions for airline scheduling, and he helped design the Morgantown "People Mover". He was one of the main creators of an economic model of the US natural gas market, and he worked on calculating the potential drag on external fuel tanks of space shuttles. He taught specialized courses at the University of Wurzburg, the University of Texas at Austin, and at Johns Hopkins University.

His family knew him as a caring husband, father, and grandfather. He was closely involved with his sons' Boy Scouts troop, often seen selling Christmas trees at Grace Methodist Church. He also ran a math club at Gaithersburg Elementary school for several years.

His personal interests ran the gamut from military history to nature guides featuring birds, turtles and fungi. He loved to listen to Baltimore Orioles games on the radio, and to collect coins and stamps. After his retirement, he and Elizabeth traveled the world, visiting China, Russia, Egypt, and Latin America. And he always made a point to visit his family and friends in Germany at least once a year.

He had a lifelong love of learning and his mind remained active and curious to the very end. He leaves behind three children, five grandchildren, and a network of extended family, friends and colleagues that spans the globe.

Memorial Service Information

We will hold his memorial service on Saturday, February 21st at 11am at

The Episcopal Church of the Ascension, 205 S. Summit Ave. Gaithersburg, MD 20877

A reception will follow at 20 Walker Ave, Gaithersburg MD 20877

Check this website closer to the memorial date to get any updates.

You can tune into the service via zoom at

Zoom:

https://zoom.us/j/94133600093?pwd=ejd0ZlNSVlFTRnVES1lLcUQ0dnRSUT09

Meeting ID: 941 3360 0093

Passcode: 1234