Obituary Werner Deschauer

On March 18, 2023, Werner Deschauer, honorary citizen of the town of Geisa, passed away at his home in Bochum at the age of 87.

The death of our honorary citizen is a great loss for us and the town of Geisa as well as the people of the Geisaer Land are dismayed and in great mourning.
Werner Deschauer was highly respected and popular among the population as a person of strong character, cheerful, optimistic and generous.
Since the fall of the inner-German border, the native of Geisa, together with his wife Anneliese Deschauer, had shown extraordinary commitment by establishing the Werner Deschauer Foundation for social, charitable and cultural projects for the people in the region of Geisa.
Werner Deschauer and his wife Anneliese were particularly committed to the establishment of the ANNELIESE DESCHAUER Gallery, which has since become a center for art, culture and science thanks to the support association that was founded.

Werner Deschauer was born in Geisa on December 6, 1935. When his father Anton was killed in the war in 1944, he quickly had to assume the role of head of the family.
Since he originally had the desire to become a priest, he attended the cathedral high school in Fulda.
In 1950, a year after the founding of the GDR, Werner Deschauer was denied the opportunity to attend high school in Vacha because, as the son of a businesswoman, he was not a worker’s or farmer’s son.
Since he wanted to take over his parents’ business, he learned to be a grocery salesman. From 1953 to 1954 he worked as a driver, an unusual hard job for a 17-year-old youth.
He then worked for the town of Geisa as an employee in the budget department. But even here he saw no further professional prospects for himself in his beloved homeland. So he fled to the “West” with his brother Hubert in 1957.
In Bochum, they first found work as unskilled laborers, and later in the wholesale food trade. After just six months, Werner was promoted to assistant to the management there and took on his first managerial tasks in the areas of human resources, purchasing and corporate management.

In 1958, mother Elisabeth Deschauer came to Bochum. In the same year, the two brothers took over a small grocery store in Bochum, which they expanded into a hypermarket chain with overwhelming success.
The road to the top was not always easy, but it was taken together with much joy, optimism and enthusiasm. In 1959 Anneliese Pabst started in the store. She and Werner Deschauer later married, the marriage remained childless.
Nearly 30 grocery stores were opened in the following years. In total, the Deschauer company employed 1,250 people at peak times. Werner Deschauer always saw his profession as a hobby.
His joie de vivre and optimism are characteristic of him. In 1978 the sausage store “Wurstkönig” was added with further branches. In the fall of 1985, the company joined the REWE purchasing association in Dortmund, and all employees could continue to be employed.
Werner Deschauer never forgot his home in Geisa. In 1998, together with his wife Anneliese, he founded the Werner Deschauer Foundation, which supports and promotes numerous charitable and cultural projects, the preservation of cultural values and the conservation of historical monuments in the town of Geisa and its districts.
From numerous association projects to support for the Point Alpha memorial, the renovation of historic organs and the restoration of churches and wayside shrines and the Brandplatz in Geisa, numerous measures have been implemented in recent years through the foundation.

Werner and Anneliese Deschauer showed particularly great commitment in the renovation of the historic castle ensemble in downtown Geisa and in the establishment of the ANNELIESE DESCHAUER G a l e r i e , which has since become a center for art, culture and science thanks to the sponsoring association they founded.
On October 17, 2003, Werner Deschauer was awarded honorary citizenship of the town of Geisa for his services. Likewise, a street in the city center is named after him.
In 2006, Deschauer received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was Familiar of the Cistercian Order, Honorary Senator of the Phil.-Theol. University Benedict XVI Heiligenkreuz near Vienna, Knight of the Order of the Holy Pope Silvester.

Werner Deschauer left deep traces in his life in our town Geisa, in the whole Geisaer Land and in the Thuringian Rhön. These traces will still be felt by future generations who, like us, will remember with gratitude a man who cared so much about the homeland and the people.
Werner Deschauer will live on in this memory.

Geisa, March 20, 2023

Manuela Henkel
Mayor of the town of Geisa