The leader of the right-wing populist party Free Voters and Bavarian Deputy Prime Minister, Hubert Aiwanger, was found dead Wednesday evening in a hotel in central Berlin. He was 55 years old. The circumstances of the death are under investigation.
The Berlin prosecutor’s office confirmed the news Wednesday evening: Hubert Aiwanger, a central figure in Bavarian politics for over fifteen years, died in his hotel room on Friedrichstrasse, in the Berlin-Mitte district. The politician had traveled to the federal capital to inaugurate his party’s Berlin office, the Free Voters, but canceled his speech due to feeling unwell.
Investigators have opened proceedings to « determine the precise cause of death and the circumstances surrounding it, as well as to rule out any hypothesis of a criminal act, » they specified Wednesday evening. No definitive conclusion has been made public at this stage.
Born in Lower Bavaria, Aiwanger was elected to the Bavarian regional parliament in 2008 under the Free Voters banner, becoming the parliamentary group leader. In 2018, his party formed a coalition with the Christian Social Union (CSU) of Prime Minister Markus Söder, which earned him the position of Minister of Economic Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of the Free State of Bavaria.
A divisive figure, known for his offensive rhetoric and populist style, Aiwanger embodied the face of the Free Voters nationally. However, the movement never succeeded in crossing the threshold to enter the Bundestag, the German federal parliament, limiting its influence to the regional level.
In 2023, weeks before the Bavarian regional elections, he was caught up in a high-profile affair: the revelation that in his youth at high school in the 1980s, he had written an antisemitic leaflet containing references to Nazi atrocities, including Auschwitz. The affair sparked a heated national debate but did not end his political career.
Markus Söder reacted to the announcement of his deputy prime minister’s death by expressing his « deep shock. » « The sudden death of Hubert Aiwanger is an absolute tragedy, » he wrote on the social network X. « Our thoughts are first and foremost with his family and children. We share their grief and pray for them. » Aiwanger leaves behind two children. He lived with Tanja Schweiger, district administrator for the Free Voters, without being married.
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