Herbert Richter (chemist)

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Dr. rer. nat. Herbert Richter 1990

Herbert Richter (born April 20, 1933 in Klettwitz ; † March 30, 2018 ) was a German chemist. For many years he was General Director of the Schwarze Pump gas combine and from 1988 to 1991 President of the International Gas Union .

Life

Richter was born on April 20, 1933 as the son of a miner in Klettwitz in the Lusatian lignite mining area. At the age of 14, he initially trained as a chemical laboratory assistant at the Schwarzheide synthesis plant . He then got a place at the workers and farmers faculty of the Potsdam University of Education , where he passed his Abitur in 1953. During this time, Richter asked for admission to the SED , which was initially rejected but later confirmed. After a two-year candidate period, Richter was a member of the SED from 1955.

After passing the Abitur, he was initially intended to study in Leningrad, but these plans failed, so that he started the current semester at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena to study chemistry. After the practice-oriented Technical University of Chemistry was opened in Merseburg in 1954 , Richter moved there in 1955 and graduated in 1959 with a degree in chemistry . On May 1, 1959, he was given an employment contract as head of the chemistry research group in the Lauchhammer coking plant , the first and then only coking plant in the GDR that produced BHT coke from local lignite . As a result, Richter mainly dealt with the purification of industrial water containing phenol, the large-scale biological purification of which was to be carried out for the first time in Lauchhammer. An institute at the Saxon Academy of Sciences offered him a doctorate on this subject in order to be able to thoroughly research the technological questions that arise . In 1963 he was awarded the contribution to the technology of tower trickling Dr. rer. nat. PhD.

Richter then switched full-time to the SED district management of the Cottbus energy district, where he was head of the unique chemistry / geology sector until 1965. In retrospect, Richter viewed this time as an apprenticeship in socialist management. He then moved to the Economic Policy Department, whose head he was until 1966.

At the age of 33 he was appointed director of VEB Kombinat Schwarze Pumpe in Hoyerswerda on July 1, 1966 . Under Richter, a loss-making plant became a model GDR company that soon made hundreds of millions of GDR marks a year. In 1970 Richter became general director of the newly created VEB Gaskombinat Schwarze Pump, to which several previously independent companies were assigned. In April 1972, Hans Waldmann replaced him for a year of study; the SED sent judges to a one-year course until August 1973 at the CPSU party college in Moscow. He then headed the combine until it was taken over by the Treuhand on July 1, 1990. In 1980 Richter's area of ​​responsibility increased again when the gas combine was assigned three coking plants and a power station.

Due to the unique position of Schwarze Pump for the gas supply of the GDR, Richter was the leading man in the gas industry in the GDR for almost 25 years. This influence was also reflected in his political functions. As general director of Schwarze Pump, he was part of the secretariat of the SED district leadership in Hoyerswerda. From 1967 to 1984 he was a member of the SED district leadership in Cottbus, at the 10th party congress of the SED he was elected as a member of the SED Central Committee and remained so until its dissolution in December 1989. Since the city of Hoyerswerda is inextricably linked with Schwarze Pump Richter always had a special responsibility, which led to the establishment of his own construction department in 1978. In 1985 the combine handed over the house of miners and energy workers to the city, for which the foundation stone had been laid as a black investment in 1976 . During Richter's time as General Director, Hoyerswerda also grew by around 20,000 residents. Richter's work was also noticed internationally, so that in 1985 he was elected Vice-President of the International Gas Union. In June 1988 the IGU even elected him its president for three years. For this reason, he and his wife were asked to take a photo with the then US President Ronald Reagan , an absolute political issue for the GDR conditions at the time. The photo was not published in the GDR press, but the meeting itself was even reported in the SED party organ Neues Deutschland . There it was said that Richter sent Erich Honecker's greetings to the US President.

During the period of political change in the GDR , Richter initially remained loyal to his party and was elected to the SED-PDS executive committee in December 1989. At the Volkskammer elections on March 18, 1990 , he ran for the successor party PDS as the top candidate in the constituency 02 Cottbus. After the PDS had become the third strongest party in this electoral district with 17.9%, it sent four members to the People's Chamber , including judges. After the Volkskammer was dissolved, Richter was only politically active on a regional basis. The renowned specialist was still in demand professionally. He advised and led research studies at the TH Cottbus and led projects for the company ARCUS Planning + Consulting Bauplanungsgesellschaft Cottbus, a company that emerged from the Cottbus research and project planning company. This company designed, among other things, power plants and coking plants. In addition to plant construction projects (also for Lusatia), he worked on a study for Japanese clients.

Herbert Richter was a scientist, manager and politician. He made himself the duty to work hard for his ideas about human society, “always with the aim of being better and fairer”, and lived this beyond the political change in the GDR.

Honors

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mirko Kolodziej: Schwarze Pumpes “General” died. In: Saxon newspaper . April 14, 2018, archived from the original on April 15, 2018 ; accessed on April 15, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Obituary: Responsible for everything from cradle to grave. In: Lausitzer Rundschau . April 27, 2018, accessed March 7, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b Katrin Rohnstock: The Gas General von Schwarze Pump. In: Lausitzer Rundschau , June 7, 2018, accessed on June 8, 2018
  4. ↑ New Germany. July 3, 1978, p. 2.
  5. ↑ New Germany. October 5, 1985, p. 4.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Judge, Herbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemist, General Director of the Black Pump Gas Combine
DATE OF BIRTH April 20, 1933
PLACE OF BIRTH Klettwitz
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 2018