Trefftz was born in
Aachen,
North Rhine-Westphalia, on 15 August 1920. She was raised in
Loschwitz,
Dresden from 1923, after her father
Erich Trefftz was appointed as a professor of
applied mechanics at
TU Dresden in 1922. Between 1941 and 1945, Trefftz studied at TU Dresden and remained here until 1948, where she engaged in research and made assignments on theoretical physics, assisted by
Friedrich Hund. In 1948, Trefftz became a research assistant at the
Max Planck Institute in
Göttingen, where she researched the transition probabilities of
spectral lines. Minor planet
7266 Trefftz, discovered in 1973, was named in her honour. == References ==