BIETIGHEIM-BISSINGEN (dpa-AFX) - The entrepreneur and former railroad boss Heinz Dürr is dead. He died on Monday evening in Berlin at the age of 90, as the mechanical and plant engineering company Dürr announced on Wednesday in Bietigheim-Bissingen. Heinz Dürr was Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Dürr AG from 1990 to 2013.

The entrepreneur became head of Deutsche Bundesbahn in 1991. He took up the post at the request of then Chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU). With the railroad reform, he drove forward the merging of the Bundesbahn and Reichsbahn as well as the conversion of the official railroad into a private company. In 1997, the then 64-year-old moved to the Supervisory Board, which he headed until 1999.

Dürr, who was born in 1933, initially completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith and then studied mechanical engineering in Stuttgart. He joined the family business in 1957 and drove its internationalization forward. In the 1970s, he made a name for himself as the lead negotiator for the metalworking employers in wage talks.

In 1980, he gave up his position as head of the family company Dürr and moved to the top of the electrical group AEG, which was in financial difficulties. This then found a new home under the umbrella of the then Daimler-Benz AG./ols/DP/jha