The idea of the symposium came during the XVllth General Assembly of the IAU at Montreal. The Working Group on Be stars adopted both the proposal of holding a meeting, and of having it at the Universitats- sternwarte Munich. The meeting was organized under the auspices of IAU Comm. 29 (Stel- lar Spectra) and the sponsorship of Comm. 45 (Stellar Classification). The Scientific Organizing Committee was composed of Mercedes Jaschek (chairman), W. Bonsack, C. de Loore, A. Feinstein, H. G. Groth, P. Harmanec, L. Houziaux, A. M. Hubert-De1p1ace, L. S. Luud, A. Slettebak and A. Underhill. The members of this committee are to be thanked for their devotion to the organization of what turned out to be a very successful meeting. The program was organized on an observational approach, comprising sessions on photometry, polarization, spectroscopy, infrared observations, rotation and binarity, X-ray observations, UV observations and mass loss, and atmospheric models. Each session started with an inv