The son of a working-class family, Kuhrig completed an apprenticeship as an industrial electrician from 1943 to 1945 after attending elementary school and worked as an agricultural machinery mechanic from 1945 to 1946.[1]
In 1961, he was made director of the Institute for Agricultural Engineering of the German Academy of Agricultural Sciences (now Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering) in Potsdam-Bornim. Two years later, in June 1963, he joined the Agriculture Council, successor of the GDR's Ministry of Agriculture,[3] as first deputy chairman.[1][3][4] From 1964 to 1968, he was also a member of the Council of Ministers of the GDR.[1][4]
In November 1982, Kuhrig was dismissed as Agriculture Minister.[1][2] He was replaced by Bruno Lietz, who had only been made head of the Agriculture Department of the Central Committee of the SED in November 1981.
While he had been officially relieved of their duties "at his own request", he was likely forced into retirement. Internally, he had been accused of having to import grain for animal feed purposes.[2]
Kuhrig was allowed to remain in the Central Committee and Volkskammer, but was transferred to a politically irrelevant position at the Society for German–Soviet Friendship, a SED-controlled mass organization aiming to cultivate a positive image of the Soviet Union among the East German public. Kuhrig initially joined the DSF as General Secretary in December 1982, additionally becoming Vice President in May 1983.[1][2]
Kuhrig suffered from health problems in his later years. He shot himself with his hunting rifle on 13 September 2001.[1][2][8] He was the second former GDR minister to die from an apparent suicide after Construction Minister Wolfgang Junker.
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