Hubert Aiwanger, prominent German politician, found dead in Berlin hotel

A prominent German politician was found dead in a Berlin hotel on Wednesday, police said, adding they had launched an investigation.

The cause of death of Hubert Aiwanger, 55, who was deputy leader of southern Bavaria state, was not immediately clear.

Police said in a statement he was “found dead in his hotel room” in the Berlin-Mitte district.

Police and prosecutors had opened a probe to “determine the specific cause and circumstances of death”, the statement said.

“The aim ⁠of the inquest is to establish the ​specific cause of death ‌and the ‌circumstances surrounding it, and to rule out any ‌possible third-party culpability,” police and prosecutors said in a statement. They gave no further details.

Aiwanger, head of the populist Free Voters party and also Bavarian economy minister, was in Berlin to attend the opening of an office for his party but missed the event as he was feeling unwell, the Bild daily reported.

His body was later discovered by police in the hotel, it said.

The Bavarian state premier, Markus Soeder, described Aiwanger’s death as an “absolute tragedy”.

“We are all deeply shocked. Our thoughts are now first and foremost with his family and his children,” he said.

Aiwanger’s party were junior partners in the regional Bavarian government led by Soeder’s Christian Social Union (CSU).

He had headed the Bavarian branch of the Free Voters since 2006. Under his leadership, the party made it into the state government for the first time in 2018, but never won enough seats to qualify for Germany’s federal parliament.

Aiwanger had faced national controversy in 2023 after reports emerged that he wrote an antisemitic pamphlet as a 17-year-old schoolboy, in which Auschwitz was described as an “entertainment quarter”.

He denied having written the pamphlet, though he has admitted to having had “one or a few copies” of it in his school bag. He apologised over the affair but refused to step down.

Aiwanger had two children and lived with his partner, German media reported.