Put briefly, Adolf Hennecke was the poster boy for a productivity campaign like what management tried to effectuate in the story, and that the author thinks has anything to do with neoliberalism. The thing is that Adolf Hennecke didn't live in a neoliberalist country or work for a neoliberalist company, he lived in East Germany and worked for a VEB, which you may translate as "public corporation". He worked for a state-owned company with a duty to general society rather than any shareholders.