Hermann Alexander Brück CBE FRSE (15 August 1905 – 4 March 2000) was a German-born astronomer, who spent the great portion of his career in various positions in Britain and Ireland. Education Hermann Brück was born in Berlin. His father was Hermann Heinrich Brück and his mother, Margaret. Young Hermann was educated at the Kaiserin Augusta Gymnasium in Berlin-Charlottenburg, a school specialising in the Classics (Latin and Greek), where he also had excellent teachers in mathematics and physics. From 1924-28, Brück, was educated at the University of Kiel, the University of Bonn, and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. His doctoral work on the wave mechanics of crystals was under the supervision of Arnold Sommerfeld. His interest in astronomy came early in life, and he turned his attention to astronomical spectroscopy. He was granted his PhD at Munich in 1928. Career Upon graduation from Munich, Brück followed his friend Albrecht Unsöld to the Potsdam Astrophysical Observatory; Unsöld had earned his doctorate the year before, also under Sommerfeld. While there, Brück participated in the physics colloquium at the Humboldt University of Berlin with the physicists Max von Laue and Albert Einstein and the astronomer Walter Grotrian. With growing difficulties under National Socialism, Brück left Germany in 1936 to take a temporary research assistantship at the Vatican Observatory. In 1937, he moved to the University of Cambridge to join the circle of modern astrophysicists around Arthur Eddington. In time, Brück became Assistant Director of the Observatories and John Couch Adams Astronomer, specialising in solar spectroscopy. Under his tenure, he taught a course in classical astronomy and started the student astronomical society, which fostered the careers of many astronomers. In 1947, at the invitation of Éamon de Valera, Brück moved to Dublin to direct the Dunsink Observatory, which was part of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, where he associated with Erwin Schrödinger. In 1950, the Observatory, along with the Royal Irish Academy, hosted the first meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1955, the International Astronomical Union held their triennial Assembly in Dublin. At this gathering, the Observatory demonstrated photoelectric equipment for photometry, which had been developed by M.J. Smyth, who had been Brück's student in Cambridge. Also displayed was the UV solar spectroscopy which extended the Utrecht Atlas and formed part of the revised Rowland tables of the Solar spectrum; Brück's second wife, Dr. Mary Brück (née Conway), was a leading