Learn German: Wir warten auf Anna und öffnen ihretwegen die Luftschleuse. - We are waiting for Anna and opening the airlock for her sake.

ihretwegen translates to 'because of her' or 'for her sake'. To use wegen with a personal pronoun, you combine the possessive stem (here, ihr- for 'her') with the suffix -etwegen. While you might hear wegen ihr in casual spoken German, ihretwegen is the grammatically correct standard form.

Could ihretwegen also mean 'because of them' in a different sentence?

Yes! The possessive stem ihr- is used for both 'her' and 'their'. If capitalized as Ihretwegen, it would even mean 'for Your sake' (formal). We only know it means 'for her sake' here because the first clause specifically mentions Anna.

Why is ihretwegen placed before the direct object die Luftschleuse?

In German, expressions of reason or cause like ihretwegen typically come before the direct accusative object (die Luftschleuse). This fits the general rule where adverbial phrases tend to precede noun objects.

Just as a quick refresher, why do we use auf in warten auf Anna?