[Rudolf Frey - a biographical sketch on the occasion of his 100th birthday]

The life of an outstanding human being, a creative personality, will find the interest of posterity if he is acknowledged not only as a representative of his time but also decades later can be described as a formative character. This applies to Rudolf Frey who, like no other, has deeply influenced the development of German language anesthesiology after the Second World War. In the 1950s and 1960s as a visionary he already portrayed the four pillars of our discipline as the future field of work of anesthetists: anesthesiology, intensive care, emergency medicine and pain therapy. The authors take the anniversary of his 100th birthday as an occasion to recall Rudolf Frey's extraordinary biography.