Draft:Werner Stiehler

Werner Stiehler (born 21 June 1923 in Dölzig (Schkeuditz) in Germany. He is a German journalist. He was editor-in-chief of the Leipziger Volkszeitung from 1969 to 1978.

Early Life
Stiehler is the son of a construction worker and a housewife. After attending Elementary school, he began an apprenticeship as a typesetter in a printing school. From 1940 to 1945, Stiehler served in the Luftwaffe and joined the NSDAP in 1944. After the end of the war, he was a British prisoner of war from May to September 1945.

Between 1945 and 1946 he worked as a roofer's assistant in Leipzig. In 1945 he joined the KPD and in 1946 the SED. Until 1951 he worked as a primary school teacher in Dölzig. In 1951 Stiehler began his journalistic career as an editor at the Leipziger Volkszeitung. He interrupted his work at the LVZ twice to study.

He began his first studies in 1953 in the journalism department at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig and graduated in 1958 with a diploma in journalism. During his studies he became a teacher and head of special courses run by the Central Committee of the SED to train journalists at the university. Stiehler then worked again at the LVZ, first as an editor and later as a department head. From 1963 to 1966 he left the LVZ to study at the Karl Marx Party School in Berlin. After completing his studies with a degree in humanities, he was appointed deputy editor-in-chief at the LVZ. In 1969 he succeeded Jochen Pommert as editor-in-chief and a member of the SED district leadership of the Leipzig district, as well as chairman of the BV Leipzig of the Association of Journalists of the GDR. On 31 August 1978 [2] he was removed from all these offices by the SED district leadership in Leipzig because of "dishonesty towards the party and damage to its reputation in public". His successor was Rudolf Röhrer.

Awards

 * 1973: Patriotic Order of Merit in Bronze