The decision of the General Assembly of the International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics to organize a Symposium on Dynamics of Slender Vortices was greeted with great enthusiasm. The acceptance of the proposal, forwarded by the Deutsches Komitee fiir Mechanik (DEKOMECH) signalized, that there was a need for discussing the topic chosen in the frame the IUTAM Symposia offer. Also the location of the symposium was suitably chosen: It was decided to hold the symposium at the RWTH Aachen, where, years ago, Theodore von Karman had worked on problems related to those to be discussed now...