It is very sadness news. My deepest sympathy to the family, friends and colleagues. In my last visit to Germany, I had the pleasure to have a dinner with Wolfgang, Helmut, Andreas, Vivian, Marc, Hartwig, Petra among another old friends and positive surprisedly, on one of the main topics of our dinner conversation was about Burkhard, specially on how essential Burkhard directness along with his professionalism was a big part our success. 

On a personal note, I had the pleasure to meet Burkhard in 1998/1999 in TCC Miami ( I was part of the TCC Miami together with Andreas, Francisco, Gerardo, Donna among another great colleagues and friends). Burkhard was one of our coaches and mentors and I had the privilege  to be coached by Burkhard, a lot of my personal accomplishments today, I really e coached received by Burkhard. 

A little bit of a story, I was a Basis consultant with a very deep technical background and knowledge, but as a consultant, I had a a very  "heavy execution profile" and not much with an "advisor on how to profile". Burkhard helped me tremendously on structure my thoughts on a customers consumable content.  For this is my very grateful. 

Right before Burkhard retirement, I had the pleasure to meet with him in Rot and it was a great conversation on how tough he was on me to make things right :-). He simply told me that he was proud of us. We have laughed a lot with stories from the past ( E.g. The day that he completed ripped off Earlywatch reports that did not have his standards -- By the way, he did not ripped off mine ).

I am very thankful and own my eternal gratitude to Burkhard and his contribution to me.