Werner Hager (chemist)

Werner Hager (born May 14, 1925 in Wiederau (Pegau) ) is a German chemist. From 1963 to 1968 he was works director of the VEB Erdölververarbeitungwerk Schwedt .

Life

Hager was born in 1925 into a Saxon working-class family. After elementary and high school, Hager's educational path came to a standstill due to World War II. It can be assumed that he was still in military use at the end of the war, whether he was born in his year, there are no sources to date.

After the war, Hager first became a member of the SPD . In order to be able to study, he made up his Abitur at one of the pre-study institutions founded in 1946 . In the same year, after the unification of the KPD and SPD in the Soviet zone of occupation, he was taken over into the SED . In 1947, Hager began studying chemistry at the University of Leipzig , which he completed in 1951 as a graduate chemist. Then at the beginning of 1952 he was delegated to VVB Plasta in Magdeburg , where he worked for some time in the central laboratory there, which was headed by the well-known chemist Kurt Thinius at the time . When several institutes were founded in 1954 from the central laboratory, Hager switched to the newly founded Institute for Process Engineering of Organic Chemistry, which moved to Leipzig a short time later . In 1955, Hager at Leipzig University with a thesis to characterize technical hard paraffins: A contribution to the determination of the chain length chart with simple rapid methods to Dr. rer. nat. PhD. With this qualification he worked as a group leader in the institute until 1959, which from 1958 was an institution of the German Academy of Sciences .

In the following year 1960, Hager moved to VVB Mineralöle as group leader for research and development. At that time, this VVB united companies in the up-and-coming petrochemical industry, including the Leunawerke and the crude oil processing plant in Schwedt, which was under construction . On the VI. At the SED party congress in January 1963, Hager was elected as a candidate for the SED Central Committee. He belonged to a whole series of unknown, new faces of a relatively young technical elite from the economic sector such as the plant managers and main directors Renate Credo , Lorenz Lochthofen , Martin Markgraf , Elisabeth Walther , Werner Heynisch , Siegbert Löschau , Günter Prey and Friedrich Wesselburg . With the approval of Walter Ulbricht, these personal details were already harbingers for the introduction of the NÖSPL , which was officially decided only in June 1963. With more experts from the economy and fewer party workers, the expertise should also be increased within the leadership bodies of the party.

In the autumn of 1963, the then 38-year-old Hager was appointed plant manager at the Schwedt oil processing plant, which was about to go into operation. He was the first chemist to work alongside Prof. Dr. Ernst Ludwig active. After enormous delays and backlogs in planning, the professor for construction management took over the overall construction management of the prestige object of the seven-year plan in October 1962 . On April 1, 1964, Ludwig works manager Hager handed over the 40 objects of the first start-up stage for trial operation. In the summer of 1964, continuous operation of the plant began. Various stages of expansion were achieved according to plan under Hager. In 1967 he was again confirmed as a candidate for the Central Committee at the Seventh Party Congress of the SED and was also elected as a member of the People's Chamber . He was a member of the SED parliamentary group and a member of the culture committee.

A short time later, however, Hager increasingly distanced himself from the SED party leadership. After he had expressed himself critical of Comecon’s economic policy at a Central Committee meeting in 1968 , the SED delegated him to a one-year course at the “Karl Marx” party college . In his absence, his first deputy Werner Frohn managed the plant. Following the party college, Hager did not return to Schwedt and Frohn officially took over the post of general director. Hager was delegated to the Leunawerke, where he worked as a division manager until 1990. After the NÖSPL was officially buried at the beginning of the 1970s, technical expertise in the ZK was again on the decline. Hager was therefore no longer confirmed as a candidate for the Central Committee at the 7th Party Congress in 1971 and was no longer nominated as a candidate for the People's Chamber by the SED.

Hager is married and has three children.

Awards

• 1966 Order of the " Labor Banner " (collectively)
• Medal of Merit of the GDR
• activist
• Medal for excellent performance

literature

• The People's Chamber of the German Democratic Republic, 5th electoral period. Staatsverlag der DDR, Berlin 1967, p. 289.
• Andreas Herbst , Gerd-Rüdiger Stephan, Jürgen Winkler (eds.): The SED. History, organization, politics. A manual. Dietz, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-320-01951-1 , p. 964.

Individual evidence

1. ^ New Germany of October 4, 1962, p. 1.
2. ^ New Germany of April 2, 1964, p. 1.