Bavarian deputy premier Aiwanger found dead in Berlin hotel

Bavaria’s deputy premier and longtime leader of the Free Voters party, Hubert Aiwanger, has been found dead in a Berlin hotel. He was 55 years old. The cause of death has not been disclosed, Bild reports.

On Wednesday, the Free Voters (Freie Wähler) opened their new headquarters in Berlin, but Aiwanger was absent from the ceremony. According to the newspaper’s sources, he was feeling unwell and was reportedly staying at the Neuer Fritz hotel in the centre of the capital. That is where he was found without signs of life. There is no information yet on the cause of death.

The politician was unmarried but lived with local politician Tanja Schweiger, with whom he was raising two sons.

From a farm to the Bavarian government

Hubert Aiwanger was born on 26 January 1971 in Ergoldsbach, Lower Bavaria. He grew up on a farm and trained as an agronomist at the University of Applied Sciences in Freising. He entered politics early: in 2006 he became head of the Free Voters in Bavaria, and in 2010 he took over the party at the federal level as well.

Aiwanger was first elected to the Bavarian state parliament in 2008. After the 2018 election he became Bavaria’s minister of economic affairs, regional development and energy and, at the same time, deputy premier of the state government.

He presented himself as a defender of traditional conservative values, rural communities, farmers and the middle class. Among his achievements in Bavaria are the abolition of university tuition fees and the return to the nine-year Gymnasium.

Scandal ahead of the 2023 election

Ahead of the state election in October 2023, Aiwanger found himself at the centre of a scandal. The Süddeutsche Zeitung accused him of writing and distributing an antisemitic leaflet as a schoolboy in the late 1980s. The politician denied authorship, and his brother came forward to claim it. Bavarian Premier Markus Söder, after hearing his explanations, declined to dismiss Aiwanger.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz