was strongly based on Nevanlinna's work. Nevanlinna's work was recognised in the form of honorary degrees which he held from the universities of Heidelberg, the University of Bucharest, the University of Giessen, the Free University of Berlin, the University of Glasgow, the University of Uppsala, the University of Istanbul and the University of Jyväskylä. He was an honorary member of several learned societies, among them the London Mathematical Society and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. — The 1679 Nevanlinna main belt asteroid is named after him. Administrative activities From 1954, Rolf Nevanlinna chaired the committee which set about the first computer project in Finland. Rolf Nevanlinna served as President of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) from 1959 to 1963 and as President of the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in 1962. In 1964, Nevanlinna's connections with President Urho Kekkonen were instrumental in bringing about a total reorganization of the Academy of Finland. From 1965 to 1970 Nevanlinna was Chancellor of the University of Turku. Political activities Although Nevanlinna did not participate actively in politics, he was known to sympathise with the right-wing Patriotic People's Movement and, partly because of his half-German parentage, was also sympathetic towards Nazi Germany; with many mathematics professors fired in the 1930s due to the Nuremberg Laws, mathematicians sympathetic to the Nazi policies were sought as replacements, and Nevanlinna accepted a position as professor at the University of Göttingen in 1936 and 1937. His sympathy towards the Nazis led to his removal from his position as Rector of the University of Helsinki after Finland made peace with the Soviet Union in 1944. In the spring of 1941, Finland contributed a Volunteer Battalion to the Waffen-SS. In 1942, a committee was established for the Volunteer Battalion to take care of the battalion's somewhat strained relations with its German commanders, and Nevanlinna was chosen to be the chairman of the committee, as he was a person respected in Germany but loyal to Finland. He stated in his autobiography that he accepted this role due to a "sense of duty". Nevanlinna's collaboration with Nazi Germany did not prevent mathematical contacts with Allied countries; after World War II, the Soviet mathematical community was isolated from the Western mathematical community and the International Colloquium on Function Theory in Helsinki in 1957, directed by Nevanlinna, was one of the first post-war occasions when Soviet mathematicians could contact their Western colleagues in person.