Hani Azer (, ar, هاني عازر; born 1948) is an Egyptian

civil engineer A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering – the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructure while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing ...

and a naturalized German citizen. He was born in

Tanta Tanta ( ar, طنطا ' , ) is a city in Egypt with the country's fifth largest populated area and 658,798 inhabitants as of 2018. Tanta is located between Cairo and Alexandria: north of Cairo and southeast of Alexandria. The capital of Gharbia ...

, Egypt to a

Coptic Coptic may refer to: Afro-Asia * Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya * Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century * Coptic alphabet ...

family and moved to

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

for high school and university. In 1973, after earning a BSc(Engg) degree from the Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University, he moved to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

to study for his post-graduate diploma in civil engineering in

Bochum Bochum ( , also , ; wep, Baukem) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 364,920 (2016), is the sixth largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) of the most populous Germany, German federal state o ...

. Azer headed the construction of the tunnel beneath

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

's Tiergarten in 1994. Subsequently, he became the chief engineer of the

Berlin Hauptbahnhof Berlin Hauptbahnhof () (English: Berlin Central Station) is the main railway station in Berlin, Germany. It came into full operation two days after a ceremonial opening on 26 May 2006. It is located on the site of the historic Lehrter Bahnhof, ...

, Germany's fourth-largest train station. The station is a modernistic structure with a roof built almost entirely of glass blocks. The project cost $700 million. Berliners voted Azer 13th in the top 50 Berliners of the year in 2006. Azer was honored by the

German Chancellor The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the Ger ...

Angela Merkel on 26 May 2006 at the inauguration of the Berlin Hauptbahnhof. He was also later honored by Egyptian president

Hosni Mubarak Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak, (; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011. Before he entered politics, Mubarak was a career officer in t ...

. On 1 October 2006, Azer received one of Berlin's most respected distinctions, ''the Verdienstorden des Landes Berlin'' (Merit of the State of Berlin), for outstanding service to the state. Azer is also considered one of the top tunneling and bridge engineers at the global level today.

References

1948 births Living people Egyptian civil engineers Ain Shams University alumni People from Tanta Egyptian Copts Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Recipients of the Order of Merit of Berlin {{Egypt-engineer-stub