Josef Meixner: his life and his orthogonal polynomials

This paper starts with a biographical sketch of the life of Josef Meixner. Then his motivations to work on orthogonal polynomials and special functions are reviewed. Meixner’s 1934 paper introducing the Meixner and Meixner-Pollaczek polynomials is discussed in detail. Truksa’s forgotten 1931 paper, which already contains the Meixner polynomials, is mentioned. The paper ends with a survey of the reception of Meixner’s 1934 paper.