Werner Herzig

Werner Herzig

Werner Herzig (born December 16, 1928 in Gutenswegen ) is a former German local politician ( SED ). From 1965 to 1989 he was Lord Mayor of Magdeburg .

Life

Herzig was born the son of an industrial blacksmith. He comes from a social democratic family. After completing school at elementary school, he learned the profession of industrial clerk in the Mackensen machine factory in Magdeburg and worked as an assistant. From 1950 to 1953 he was the cultural director of VEB "October 7th" in Magdeburg. In 1953/1954 he acted as a manager in the Karl Marx factory in Magdeburg and in 1954 became secretary of the SED party leadership in the chemical company VEB Fahlberg-List . He held this position until 1958. Between 1952 and 1957 he studied economics as a distance student at the Humboldt University in Berlin , according to other sources at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig , and graduated with a degree in economics. In 1958 he became the deputy secretary of the SED district management in Magdeburg-Südost, and from 1960 he was the first secretary there. In 1960/1961 he studied in Moscow at the party college of the Central Committee of the CPSU . From 1963 he took over the function of 1st secretary of the SED district leadership Magdeburg-Südost. In the same year he also took on the role of secretary and head of the office for industry and construction of the SED city administration in Magdeburg. In 1965 he received his degree in engineering economist at the Engineering School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering.

On 26 October 1965 he was the successor of Friedrich Sun man as Lord Mayor of Magdeburg and held this position until his resignation on November 8, 1989. Herzig of was from 1967 deputy district Tags of the district Magdeburg and member of the Magdeburg SED district leadership. He is the father of five children.

Act

During his time as Lord Mayor, the construction and development of the infrastructure of the city, which was then still badly damaged by the war, continued. In 1967 the city council passed the first draft of the general development plan and the general traffic plan, the main features of which are still recognizable in the city today. In 1969 the draft of the overall conception of a development of the city center was presented, including the Elbe in the urban ensemble. His merit it was that well-known architects and professionals of the German Academy of Architecture and the School of Architecture and Civil Engineering Weimar were actively involved and art schools in this discussion.

In a controversial working atmosphere with architects and project planners from the construction industry to solve architectural problems, Werner Herzig pursued his vision of developing Magdeburg into a modern city according to the possibilities at that time. The city center was supplemented by buildings from the Centrum department store , the teachers' house and the high-rise building on Jakobstrasse. The town hall was rebuilt and the exhibition grounds in the Rotehorn cultural park were designed with the Hypar bowl . The Magdeburger Ring and the Magdeburg S-Bahn were built and solved difficult traffic problems.

Ferryman sculpture, 1978

Under his personal commitment, Magdeburg's cultural face became more pronounced from year to year and increasingly influenced the urban atmosphere. The settlement of artists of all genres (sculptors, ceramists, painters, graphic artists, writers) had a very positive effect. Werner Herzig was vehemently committed to the artistic design of open spaces in collaboration with the Association of Visual Artists through to real implementation with sculptures on the Elbe promenade, in the city center and in the new building areas. This is how the National Collection of Small Sculptures, the many sculptures and gate portals by Heinrich Apel or “Fährmann setz über” by Eberhard Rossdeutscher came into being . Further examples of his commitment to the development of the cultural landscape are the glockenspiel in the town hall , the Telemann concert hall in the monastery Our Dear Women with the Jehmlich organ from Dresden, the Buttergasse and the only new cultural building in the country - the cabaret - which will later give way to a bank building had to. Werner Herzig was not only active in local politics within the city, but was also active internationally.

Magdeburg became a member of the World Association of Sister Cities (FMVJ) and Herzig was elected to the Executive Council there. He was also a founding member of the 1st World Mayors' Conference for "Peace, Solidarity and Against Nuclear Armament" between the cities, which took place in August 1985 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki . He campaigned for town twinning with Liège (Belgium), Sarajevo (Yugoslavia), Setúbal (Portugal), Hradec Králové (CSSR), Ploieşti (Romania), Gorki (USSR), Kayes (Mali) and Braunschweig .

Awards

For his personal commitment to urban development and architecture, he received the Karl Friedrich Schinkel Medal from the Association of Architects of the GDR .

Further awards were the Patriotic Order of Merit of the GDR in bronze, silver and gold, with the golden badge of honor of the League for Friendship of Nations for services to the friendship of the peoples and with the state order "Chevalier" of the Republic of Mali by the President Modibo Keïta for his services to the Kayes partnership, where he is an honorary citizen .

literature

• Heinz Glade : Magdeburg - portrait of a city on the Elbe . VEB FA Brockhaus Verlag, Leipzig 1973.
• Günther Buch: Names and dates of important people in the GDR. 4th, revised and expanded edition. Dietz, Berlin (West) / Bonn 1987, ISBN 3-8012-0121-X , p. 123.
• Heinz Glade: Magdeburg Memoirs . VEB FA Brockhaus Verlag, Leipzig 1990.
• Andreas Herbst :  Warm, Werner . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Siegfried Klaeger: Unpublished manuscripts from 25 years of membership in the Magdeburg city council from 1965 to 1989 .
• Adelheid von Saldern , Alice von Plato, Elfie Rembold and Lu Seegers: Staged Unity. Representations of power in GDR cities . Franz Steiner Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3515083014 , page 134.
• Gabriele Baumgartner, Dieter Hebig (Hrsg.): Biographisches Handbuch der SBZ / DDR. 1945–1990. Volume 1: Abendroth - Lyr. KG Saur, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-598-11176-2 .

Web links

• Contemporary witness archive Magdeburg

Individual evidence

1. ^ Andreas Herbst, Who was who in the GDR
2. ^ Adelheid von Saldern, Alice von Plato, Elfie Rembold and Lu Seegers: Staged unity. Representations of power in GDR cities . Franz Steiner Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3515083014 , page 134
3. ↑ magdeburger-chronist.de - the period from 1900 to 1999 ( Memento from March 24, 2010 in the Internet Archive )