I'm not familiar with your "position 1" terminology (which I only know as a concept used to describe the position of verbs). At any rate, and as you may suspect based on the DWDS examples, the adverbial connector hingegen is not subject to any of the positional limitations frequently imposed on connectors (Pasch et al., Handbuch der deutschen Konnektoren, vol. 1, 2003, p. 712), meaning that it can, potentially, fill the prefield (e.g.: Hingegen vertrat Herr Müller die Position, dass ...), the position right after the first sentence constituent (Nacherstposition, literally: post-first position) (e.g.: Er ist sparsam, sie hingegen verschwendet ihr Geld.) as well as the midfield (e.g.: Diebstähle kommen noch vor, Mordfälle sind hingegen selten geworden.). In addition, hingegen, sporadically, fills the pre-prefield (Nullposition) (e.g.: Ich bin durchaus kritisch beim Einkaufen, wenn es um kleine Kinder geht. Hingegen: Was soll an Nutella schlecht sein?).
As a general matter, it appears that contrastive-comparative adverbial connectors have a certain affinity for the post-first position. See, Breindl et al., Handbuch der deutschen Konnektoren, vol. 2,1, 2014, p. 542. In the case of hingegen, it seems to be a close call, however. Breindl et al. observe that in their (admittedly small) sample of 100 randomly selected occurrences of the connector, in 54 cases it filled the post-first position, in 45 cases the midfield, and in only one case the prefield. Id., at 543.
If you have similar questions in the future and are looking for a reliable resource, I commend you to consult the dictionary of connectors by the Institut für deutsche Sprache (IDS). You can find it at https://grammis.ids-mannheim.de/konnektoren; as an example, the entry for hingegen can be found at https://grammis.ids-mannheim.de/konnektoren/407057.