A prominent German politician was found dead in a Berlin hotel on Wednesday, police said, adding that they had launched an investigation, the Guardian reported. The cause of death of Hubert Aiwanger, 55, who was deputy leader of the southern state of Bavaria, was not immediately clear.
Police said in a statement that he was found dead in his hotel room in the Berlin-Mitte district. Police and prosecutors opened a probe to determine the specific cause and circumstances of death, saying the aim was to rule out any possible third-party culpability. 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 because 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, saying everyone was deeply shocked and that thoughts were first and foremost with his family and children. Aiwanger's party were junior partners in the regional Bavarian government led by Soeder's Christian Social Union. He had headed the Bavarian branch of the Free Voters since 2006, and 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.