Passed away: Heinz Duerr (1933 - 2023) †

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At the age of 90: The “undaunted” ex-Bahn boss Heinz Dürr has died

Heinz Dürr was considered an eternal optimist. He could even resolve difficult situations with his laughter. Now the former entrepreneur and top manager has died at the age of 90.

When Heinz Dürr, a Berliner by choice, visited Stuttgart, he inevitably passed the main train station. There, the former railway boss saw the huge construction site of Stuttgart 21. During his time as railway manager, he helped set the course for the billion-dollar project, the completion of which has been delayed for years.

“The trains will run, just a little later. That’s not a big deal,” the former manager, who always spread optimism, once told the German Press Agency. Dürr died on Monday [Nov. 27, 2023] in Berlin at the age of 90, as the paint shop specialist of the same name announced on Tuesday in Bietigheim-Bissingen near Stuttgart.

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Since 1991, head of the German Federal Railways



Dürr’s contract as AEG boss had previously been extended when he unexpectedly became head of Deutsche Bundesbahn in 1991. Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU) made him the offer. He was entrusted with the task of uniting East and West by rail. But it was only when the manager threatened to resign that the federal government initiated a comprehensive reform and the transformation of the railway into a stock corporation. Critics also had to acknowledge the transformation of the railway into a company managed according to economic criteria. Under Dürr as railway boss, not only was the first ICE put into operation, but the BahnCard was also introduced. He was not able to implement all of his visions: the Transrapid he favored never became a reality.


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In February 1999 he resigned as chairman of the supervisory board “due to differences of opinion” between himself and the railway owners’ association. Just a few months later, Hartmut Mehdorn, his favorite, became head of Deutsche Bahn.

“The train that followed was the most exciting thing of all: leadership, technology and politics, everything came together,” said Dürr, who liked to smoke his Davidoff cigarillos, later in an interview with the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. “My opinion is that you don’t have to own a company to be an entrepreneur.”

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Companions describe him as an eternal optimist. Even his counterpart in the metal collective bargaining negotiations, Franz Steinkuhler, said of him: “He was likeable and always laughed.” Even when negotiations got tight, Steinkuhler remembers in a book about Dürr by Günther Sassmannshausen: “Then he got such a big laugh and said: Yes, men, what are we going to do now?”

But despite his numerous contacts, Dürr apparently had difficulty establishing relationships with people. “I actually don’t know what friendship is,” writes Dürr in his 2008 book “From the First Row. Notes of an Intrepid One.” “I can’t help when someone is in distress and wants to lay his head on my chest. I don’t like that. Somehow I’m afraid of people.”

Source: quoted form https://24hoursworlds.com/economy/590145/ Accessed 2023-11-30