Walter Greiner memorial volume Walter Greiner (1935 2016) was a German physicist of the Goethe University Frankfurt well known for his many contributions in scientific research and developments in particular the field of nuclear physics. He was a well respected science leader and a teacher who had supervised batches of young collaborators and students many of whom are now leaders in both academics and industry worldwide. Greiner had a wide interest of science which covered atomic physics heavy ion physics and nuclear astrophysics. Greiner co founded GSI the Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research and the multi disciplinary research center FIAS (Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies). Besides numerous professorship with universities worldwide including the University of Maryland Greiner received many prestigious prizes in honor of his outstanding contributions among others are the Otto Hahn Prize and the Max Born Prize. This memorial volume is a special tribute by Greiners former colleagues students and friends honoring his contributions and passion in science. The volume begins with a writing by Greiner about his early days in science. The subsequent articles comprising personal and scientific reminiscences of Walter Greiner serve as timely reviews on various topics of current interest Reflections on my youth and early years in science Walter Greiner The early work of Walter Greiner (1960 1968) Serban Misicu Photon scattering off nuclei Hartmuth Arenhövel The QCD phase diagram from statistical model analysis Marcus Bleicher Jan Steinheimer and Reinhard Stock Why may hydrodynamics work for classical radiation field Tamas S. Biro Pseudo complex general relativity: theory Thomas Boller & Peter O. Hess Observational tests of the pseudo complex theory with black hole imaging Thomas Boller & Peter O. Hess Chiral symmetry restoration and deconfinement in heavy ion collisions E.L. Bratkovskaya W. Cassing P. Moreau & A. Palmese The physics case for the 10 GeV energy region J. Cleymans Can one determine the neutrino mass by electron capture Amand Faessler Open and hidden charm in my collaboration with Walter Greiner Mark I. Gorenstein Dark mater compact stars in pseudo complex general relativity D. Hadjimichef G.L. Volkmer R.O. Gomes and C.A. Zen Vasconcellos Some aspects of nuclear structure J.H. Hamilton A.V. Ramayya and E.H. Wang The power of the geometrical model of the nucleus P.O. Hess From strangeness enhancement to quark gluon plasma discovery Peter Koch Berndt Mueller and Johann Rafelski Time dependent perturbation theory as a basis for combined many body perturbation and QED Ingvar Lindgren The fullerene like structure of superheavy element z = 120 (greinerium) a tribute to Walter Greiner S. Misicu & I.N. Mishustin Cluster radioactivity : past and future D.N. Poenaru & R.A. Gherghescu Nuclear mean field models and super heavy elements P. G. Reinhard The octupole collective hamiltonian. Does it follow the example of the quadrupole case Stanislaw G. Rohozinski & Leszek Prochniak Modeling hybrid stars S. Schramm Elliptic flow and the nuclear equation of state W. Trautmann and H.H. Wolter Black holes and high energy physics: from astrophysics to large extra dimensions Michael Florian Wondrak Marcus Bleicher and Piero Nicolini