Wolfgang Hilger

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Wolfgang Hilger (born November 16, 1929 in Leverkusen ; † April 20, 2020 in Glashütten (Taunus) ) was a German manager and chemist .

Life

Hilger was born in Leverkusen as the son of a manager at Bayer AG . After studying chemistry in Bonn and obtaining his doctorate in 1957, he joined the Hoechst paintworks in Frankfurt am Main in 1958 , where he spent his entire professional life. In 1974 he was appointed to the board of directors, in 1983 deputy chairman and 1985 chairman of the board of Hoechst. After Karl Winnacker and Rolf Sammet , he was only the third CEO after the company was re-established in 1951.

His first years as CEO were marked by growth and successful investments. In 1986, Hoechst acquired the Celanese Corporation , then the fourth largest American chemical company, for DM 5.9 billion . It was the largest foreign investment by a German company to date. Hilger led the departure of Hoechst from become unprofitable business areas such as the production of fertilizers or polystyrene and brought its production as ozone killers disreputable chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) set. In public he campaigned vehemently for the implementation of genetic engineering and the shortening of approval procedures. He paid particular attention to high-tech products such as industrial ceramics and engineering plastics. The 125th anniversary of Hoechst (1988) and the two most successful financial years of 1988 and 1989 fell during his tenure.

In the important pharmaceutical business, however, Hoechst fell from the world's largest pharmaceutical company in terms of sales to fourth place during the 1980s. A reform of pharmaceutical research begun in 1988 and the global corporate structure were unsuccessful. From 1990 to 1993 the company's results fell sharply, so that ultimately most of the company's divisions were no longer profitable. Hilger's last year in office was also overshadowed by a series of industrial accidents that began on February 22, 1993 at the Griesheim plant and led to a serious crisis of public confidence. Hilger was personally accused of only going public ten days after the incident.

At the end of the 1994 annual general meeting, Hilger handed over the chairmanship of the board to his successor Jürgen Dormann . Unlike his predecessors, he decided not to sit on the Hoechst AG supervisory board.

In retirement, Hilger filled a number of supervisory board positions, advisory board mandates and honorary offices, including as chairman of the board of the Robert Koch Foundation and president of the council of elders of the German Chemical Industry Association . He died on April 20, 2020 at the age of 90 at home in Glashütten.

Public criticism

In 1990, Hilger became the target of a protest by Greenpeace . Under the heading Everyone's talking about the climate - We're ruining it, the organization had pictures of Hilger and the CEO of Kali Chemie to demonstrate against the production of CFCs. On the other hand, Hilger appealed to the Federal Constitutional Court . The court dismissed the lawsuit in June 1999. Although Hilger could invoke the right to one's own image and the right to personality enshrined in the Basic Law, the right to freedom of expression prevailed.

At the beginning of the 1990s there was a public dispute over the active ingredient mifepristone (RU 486), which is known as an abortion agent . Anti-abortion opponents criticized the fact that with RU 486 Hoechst was promoting the arbitrary killing of unborn life and called for a boycott of Hoechst.

Hilger, known as a devout Catholic, was himself an opponent of abortion and announced at the general meeting in June 1991 that Hoechst would not apply for admission in any country, but only at the express request of the respective government. In addition, Hoechst tied the application for approval to the condition that there was a legal regulation and medical infrastructure for abortion in the respective state. Because the company therefore did not apply for approval of RU 486 in Germany, critics accused Hilger of using this restrictive stance to be responsible for the death of women who would die in the event of failed abortions.

swell

• FAZ from November 15, 1994 and November 15, 1999, Manager Magazin 6/1993, Die Zeit 6/1993

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wolfgang Hilger - Obituary notice. In: Lebenswege.faz.de . April 25, 2020, accessed April 25, 2020 .