After the death of Hubert Aiwanger, political leaders across party lines expressed their dismay. Markus Söder praised the Bavarian Economics Minister and chairman of the Free Voters as a “real man” and warm-hearted person.
His death “shows us our own humanity very clearly,” said the CSU chairman. It is tearing a deep gap “in the hearts of many people, which can be seen in the countless posts and news in politics and outside of politics.”
Aside from expressions of condolence, the 55-year-old's unexpected death also led to hateful comments. The satirical small party “The Party” around its chairman and EU MP Martin Sonneborn published a tile on its Instagram account under the heading “Aiwanger is not dead after all!”.
In reference to the affair surrounding an anti-Semitic leaflet from the politician's school days, which his brother claimed to be the author of in 2023, the post also assigned a fictitious quote to the deceased. "The reports were wrong. I'm not alive. That was just my brother again."
One of the critics of the post was the moderator and party pop singer Jürgen Milski, who called on the party to “immediately delete” the “tasteless and irreverent” post because of the use of one of his songs. If this “does not happen immediately,” “you will be confronted with a legal warning and an application for an injunction without further warning,” Milski continued. “The legal steps are already the next step.”
Milski followed up on his own account. "The satirical party 'The Party' apparently thinks it can afford to do anything. My song 'Big Brother' is being exploited without being asked for a tasteless post about the death of Hubert Aiwanger," complained the reality TV participant. He again called on the small party to delete the Instagram post. “Satire is not a license to cross borders!”
On Thursday, the post in an Instagram story from “The Party” was accompanied by the hit song “I miss you… (like hell)” by Zlatko, who took part in the first season of the reality TV format “Big Brother” together with Milski in 2000. In another Instagram story from the party and its member Käthe Kerbstat, the announcement of Aiwanger's death was supplemented with a score of "Berlin 1-0 Bayern". To do this, she asked the federal state behind: “You can now send us Söder!”
Satirist El Hotzo also made a post on Platform X about the Bavarian Prime Minister. “The horror news continues,” he commented. “Markus Söder was found alive in Munich.”
Journalist Julia Ruhs clearly took exception to this. "God, how tasteless can you be. Please stop making stupid jokes when people's lives are at stake," she emphasized.
In the form of a letter of apology, Sebastian Hotz, El Hotzo's real name, later distanced himself from the "tasteless joke about the death of a controversial but valued politician." He added ironically: “Your radio license fee should finance information and entertainment, not blind and hurtful hate speech.”
Meanwhile, the district association of the Greens in Hilden, North Rhine-Westphalia, distanced itself from a council member who had added the now-deleted comment to the death report: “The day is getting better and better.” The local association responded on Instagram: "This statement is disrespectful, unacceptable and disregards the dignity of the deceased and the feelings of the bereaved. This statement is unacceptable. We condemn it in the strongest possible terms. It is in clear contradiction to our values."
"The death of a person demands respect and compassion. Rejoicing over it is unacceptable to us. Our sincere condolences go out to his family and everyone who mourns him," the party continued on Instagram. "We take the justified criticism seriously. The incident will be dealt with with the member concerned and in the responsible committees."
People who were politically at odds with the leader of the Free Voters also took a stand against the sometimes malicious comments on the networks. "Unfortunately, how people react to the death of Hubert Aiwanger says a lot about the state of our society. Despite all the previous dissent and the severity of previous disputes, some of the contributions here are simply underground," commented journalist Stephan Anpalagan on X.
He condemned "the fact that there are people who are happy about the deaths of other people, that there are people who have to pull their lateral thinker nonsense out of the mothballs in order to connect Aiwanger's death with the corona vaccination."
Michael Roth, former chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, addressed the comments about the death in an Instagram post. "Nothing is surprising anymore. For many people, nothing is sacred anymore, and respect has become a scarce commodity," said the SPD politician. "And yet today I got the impression that the death of a person who most people only knew from the news gives us pause. Me too."
Death is “no cause for joy,” insisted Roth. Although he rarely agreed with Aiwanger, he is remembered as someone “who spoke plainly and could fill a beer tent,” “who came across as humane and hands-on and who had a heart.”
