Werner Heubeck

Werner Wolfgang Heubeck (born October 24, 1923 in Nuremberg ; † October 19, 2009 in Lerwick , Shetland Islands ) was a German-British transport specialist who was, among other things, managing director of the Northern Irish transport companies Ulsterbus and Citybus .

Life

Youth and military service

Heubeck was born as the son of an engineer at the Nuremberg gas works. In 1942, at the age of 19, he was drafted into the Air Force of the Wehrmacht as a member of the Hitler Youth , where he served as a soldier and engineer in the Parachute-Panzer Division 1 Hermann Göring . At first he was used to repel the invasion in western France. He was then brought to Italy and assigned to the German Africa Corps in the final stages of the North Africa campaign. The troop transport ship that was supposed to bring Heubeck to Africa was caught in an air raid and sank 4.5 miles off the African coast. Heubeck reached Cap Bon (Tunisia) by swimming and also saved the lives of several comrades, with only 60 of 550 surviving.

Post war

Heubeck came shortly after arriving in Tunisia in captivity . He was brought to the US prisoner of war camp Fort Polk in Louisiana in the last convoy of prisoners of war . He was released in 1946 and helped rebuild his parents' house in Nuremberg. Working briefly for the United States Army , Heubeck was employed as a translator and proofreader at the Nuremberg Trials . During this time in court, Heubeck met his future wife, Monica, a Welsh translator who had worked in Bletchley Park during the war . Despite Heubeck's German origins and his military service, they were given permission to marry and settle in Britain, which happened in 1949. Heubeck received British citizenship in 1954 while living as a development assistant in Govilon near Abergavenny ( Monmouthshire , Wales).

Ulsterbus and Citybus

In 1957 Heubeck worked for Alex Pirie & Sons , a paper mill in Aberdeen (Scotland). In 1965 he successfully applied for a job advertisement for a bus company in Northern Ireland.

The then Ulster Transport Authority (UTA) was so deficient that Heubeck decided in 1967 to reorganize the organization from which Ulsterbus emerged . He reduced the staff, saved the conductors and optimized the timetable.

In addition, Heubeck's tenure at Ulsterbus in the 1970s and 1980s coincided with the height of the Northern Ireland conflict , when public transport was a primary target of the Provisional IRA bombing . At that time Heubeck became famous for defusing bombs that were even placed on buses in order to maintain the timetable.

retirement

Heubeck retired in 1988 after having worked at Ulsterbus for 23 years. He and his wife moved near Gleno, a village in County Antrim . There Heubeck produced works of art and interior furnishings for churches in the region. The couple later moved to the Shetland Islands, where one of their three sons (Martin Heubeck) worked as an ornithologist . Heubeck died in October 2009 a few days before his 86th birthday, one month after the death of his wife. He has had cancer for 30 years.

Honors

Heubeck was named Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) at the Queen's Birthday Honors in 1977 . In the 1988 Birthday Honors, the year he retired, he was promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Ulsterbus' Werner Heubeck dies ( Memento from September 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), UTV , October 19, 2009.
2. ^ McKittrick, David: Nazi background of prominent Irish publisher exposed , The Independent , January 4, 2007.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Werner Heubeck, Ulsterbus chief who carried live bombs off buses, dies at age of 85 , The Belfast Telegraph , October 20, 2009.
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Face of Belfast buses passes away , BBC News , October 20, 2009.

Web links

• Werner Heubeck - Daily Telegraph obituary