Otto König (chemist)

Otto König (born March 5, 1929 in Langewiesen ; † January 22, 1990 in Piesteritz ) was a German chemist. For many years he was General Director of the VEB Kombinat Agrochemie Piesteritz and a candidate for the Central Committee of the SED.

Life

Otto König was born on March 5, 1929 as the son of a glass blower in Langewiesen, Thuringia. After graduating from high school in 1947, he was able to study chemistry at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena , which he completed in 1951 as a chemist. Subsequently, he found a job at the nitrogen works in Piesteritz , where he worked as a researcher until 1960. During this time wrote and researched King also his dissertation research on the separation of lanthanum from Ceriterdengemischen after Magnesiumoxydverfahren with which he in 1960 at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig Dr. rer. nat was awarded a doctorate. After this research activity, König was initially employed as assistant to the production director of the nitrogen works until 1961, and from 1961 to 1963, König headed his own department in Piesteritz. This career leap went hand in hand with joining the SED in 1961. In 1964, König moved to the higher-level management of the nitrogen works in the VVB Elektrochemie und Plaste Halle. In addition to the Piesteritz nitrogen works, other large chemical companies also belonged to this association of state-owned companies. Within this sales network, König initially headed a department until 1966, then worked as a production director and most recently until 1968 as research director for the entire VVB. He then moved to Leuna-Werke in 1968, where he was director of the company's own large-scale research center until 1971 and from 1969 was also a corresponding member of the GDR Academy of Sciences . In this role, König became known throughout the whole of the country and was also the focus of the SED. In 1971, this delegated him to study for a year at the party college of the CPSU in Moscow. At the same time, in June of the same year, King was elected as a candidate for the SED Central Committee of the Eighth Party of the SED. After his return from Moscow, König initially stayed in Leuna until he succeeded Karl-Heinz Schäfer as director of the Piesteritz fertilizer combine in 1973 . The 44-year-old was entrusted with implementing the plans of the 8th party congress of the SED. In 1971 the SED decided to build production lines for the production of ammonia and urea on the basis of Soviet natural gas at the Piesteritz site. This project was the king's master craftsman's examination and Piesteritz became the eponymous lead company in 1979 after the establishment of the VEB Kombinat Agrochemie Piesteritz . König rose to the position of general director of the combine and managed this important large chemical company until 1990. In his function, König was a member of the GDR Research Council and received high state honors. When, as a result of the political change, the life's work of King was questioned, he put an end to his life on January 22, 1990.

Honors

• 1977 Honorary title of Honored Technician of the People
• 1982 National Prize of the GDR for Science and Technology, 2nd class (as a collective)
• 1984 Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold
• 1989 Gold Medal for the Patriotic Order of Merit

literature

• Hagen Schwärzel, Andreas Herbst :  Otto König . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Neues Deutschland, October 8, 1982 p. 4.
2. ↑ Neues Deutschland, September 28, 1984 p. 7.
3. ↑ Neues Deutschland, April 27, 1989 p. 3.