Nicolas Kitsikis

Nicolas Kitsikis (Νίκος Κιτσίκης; Nafplio, August 14, 1887 – July 26, 1978, Athens), was a top civil engineer of 20th century Greece, and father of Beata Maria Kitsikis Panagopoulos, Elsa Schmid-Kitsikis and Dimitri Kitsikis. He served as professor and rector of the Athens Polytechnic School, was named doctor honoris causa of the Technical University of Berlin, became a member of the Greek Parliament and Senator during the Interbellum, and joined the EAM-ELAS resistance movement against the German occupation of Greece in 1941-1944. At the liberation of Greece in 1944, he joined the Greek Communist Party and became President of the Greek-Soviet Association in 1945, as well as initiating in 1955, with his wife, Beata Kitsikis, a Communist feminist fighter, the Greece-People's China Association. His father, Dimitri Kitsikis senior, was born on the island of Lesbos in 1850 and came to Athens at the age of 15 for studies. He married Kassandra, the last of 8 children, sister of Dimitri Hatsopoulos, a Member of Parliament from Karpenisi and in 1887 built a three-floor mansion in Athens. He was sent that year as chief justice to the city of Nafplio, where Nicolas was born. The son of Dimitri Hatsopoulos, Ioannis Hatsopoulos was elected full professor at the Athens Polytechnic School, while his daughter Kakia married Konstantinos Georgikopoulos, rector of the Athens Polytechnic School. Nicolas graduated, ranking first from the Athens Polytechnic School, in 1907 and was sent to the Charlottenburg Technical University of Berlin with a scholarship. In Paris, at the Sorbonne, he took courses in Mathematics under Henri Poincare and courses in Philosophy at the College de France under Henri Bergson. In 1911-1913 he worked in Berlin as civil engineer and in 1913 he came back to Greece as a volunteer to fight in the Second Balkan War. In 1916, at the age of 29, he was elected full professor of Statics and later of Metallic Bridges at the Athens Polytechnic School. He is considered the founder in Greece of the branch of Statics and Photodiagnosis.