Werner Kochmann

Werner Kochmann (born June 9, 1930 in Halle (Saale) ; † January 30, 2020 in Bitterfeld-Wolfen ) was a German industrial chemist and professor of chemistry at the Martin Luther University in Halle (Saale). His main areas of work were technical organic chemistry and chlorination chemistry. As research director of the Bitterfeld Chemical Combine (CKB) for many years, he made a significant contribution to the development of the chemical industry in the Bitterfeld-Wolfen region as Chairman of the Board of Chemie AG Bitterfeld-Wolfen after German reunification. He was considered a very creative professional who was involved in a large number of patents.

Life

Werner Kochmann was born in the Central German region in simple social circumstances. After the end of the war in 1945 he contributed to the survival of the family as a schoolboy by organizing food and fuel, but in the process came into conflict with the American occupation forces in Halle, which spent him in prison for a few days. His mother then decided that her son should stop going to school and learn a trade. He finished his apprenticeship as a building fitter after 3 years with very good certificates.

Then he made up his Abitur at the preparatory studies department of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). Here he studied chemistry and then did his doctorate with Wolfgang Langenbeck , head of the chair for organic chemistry at the MLU in Halle (Saale) and at the same time director of the Institute for Catalysis Research of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin (DAW) in Rostock .

After starting his career at the Bitterfeld Chemical Combine (CKB), he soon took on the position of Head of Research and has shown remarkable creativity here. For the rationalization of the production of pesticides (especially product Bi58), he and his collective received the National Prize, Second Class, for Science and Technology in 1973 . Only 3 years later he received the national prize again as a group manager for organic chemistry and crop protection for the development of growth regulators for cereal plants (Camposan production) at the CKB.

Since 1979 he has taught as a professor in the field of technical organic chemistry at the Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg.

The process of German reunification in 1990 particularly affected the chemical industry in Central Germany. Werner Kochmann was one of those who worked hard to redesign this traditional industry in an economically and ecologically justifiable manner.

In 1990 Werner Kochmann became CEO of the newly founded Chemie AG Bitterfeld-Wolfen . In this two-year function he was able to successfully promote the development and settlement of new companies in this chemical region. The viable part of the existing operations could eventually be privatized. In 2010 he received the badge of honor from the city of Bitterfeld-Wolfen for his services in this regard at the 3rd annual meeting of the chemical seniors of the German Chemical Society (GDCh) in Wolfen . The theme of this event was "The Central German Chemical Region - like a phoenix from the ashes" and was prepared by him.

As a visual artist

Even during his professional training as a locksmith, he was fascinated by the blacksmithing , which has been with him throughout his life. A multitude of metallic waste products were transformed into dignified works of art in his domestic blacksmith's workshop. Here, too, he achieved professionalism, as his membership in the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR shows .

In retirement, Werner Kochman found more time and opportunity for his hobbies , Indian philosophy and ancient Indian literature, as well as for his blacksmithing. With a view to historical steel production, he was able to gain new aspects from it. His strong cultural and historical interest found a new field of activity in the ancient steel of the Indians and in the legendary “Wieland's sword”. It ranged from feeding the geese with a mixture of steel shavings, the processing of their manure into forgeable steel, the historically based production of Damascus steels using special historical admixtures, e.g. B. of rare earths, and the detection of fullerenes and nanotubes with modern analytical methods, as well as their importance for the unique properties of damacene steels. He found a suitable partner in the physics professor and crystallographer Peter Paufler at the TU Dresden .

Memberships and honors (selection)

• National Prize, 2nd class for science and technology in a collective, 1973 and 1976.
• Werner Kochmann was elected as a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR in 1987 .
• The learned society Leibniz Society of Sciences in Berlin accepted him as a member in its founding year 1993.

Publications (selection)

• More than 500 patents, in which Werner Kochmann was involved, testify to his creative work.

His special knowledge in the field of technical organic chemistry was reflected in the standard work “Technical Organic Chemistry”:

• Manfred Fedtke, Wilhelm Pritzkow, Gerhard Zimmermann, Werner Kochmann, Gottfried. Kötz: Technical Organic Chemistry. Basic materials, intermediate products, final products, polymers. German publishing house for basic industry, Leipzig 1992 and 1998, ISBN 3-342-00420-7 .

literature

• Egon Fanghänel and Horst Hennig : Nekrolog on our member Werner Kochmann. Leibniz Society of Sciences in Berlin, February 28, 2020. [1]
• Obituaries for Prof. Dr. rer. nat. Werner Kochmann. Mitteldeutsche Zeitung Bitterfeld and Dessau-Roßlau and Super Sonntag Dessau-Roßlau from February 8, 2020; Mitteldeutsche Zeitung Bitterfeld from February 29, 2020. [2]

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Werner Kochmann: Investigations on the formaldehyde condensation. Dissertation, Martin Luther University, Math.-Naturwiss. Faculty, Halle (Saale) 1956.