Munich. He was the face, the voice and the strong man of the Free Voters. He was argumentative, but also argumentative and controversial. He was a full-blooded politician and achieved nationwide fame - also with his special Lower Bavarian dialect. Now Hubert Aiwanger, federal and state chairman of his party, has died completely unexpectedly at the age of 55. The father of two was discovered dead in a Berlin hotel room on Wednesday - this was confirmed by the Berlin public prosecutor's office.
"The sudden death of Hubert Aiwanger is an absolute tragedy," wrote Bavaria's Prime Minister and CSU leader Markus Söder on Platform X. "We are all deeply shocked. Our thoughts are now first with his family and his children. We mourn with them and pray for them."
In the afternoon, according to dpa information, Aiwanger was supposed to give a speech at the opening of an office in the capital of the Free Voters. However, he deregistered and was represented for health reasons. He was later no longer available and was then found lifeless. The Lower Bavarian from Rottenburg an der Laaber had two children and lived with the Regensburg Free Voters district administrator Tanja Schweiger.
The late summer of 2023 was a turning point. A few weeks before the state elections in Bavaria, he was caught up in an anti-Semitic leaflet from days long past that had been found on him when he was at school. The government coalition with the CSU was on the verge of failure, Aiwanger was threatened with expulsion - and yet in the election a few weeks later he celebrated a new record result of 15.8 percent for the Free Voters.
With Aiwanger, Bavaria is losing a personality who always particularly stood out in the Bavarian state politics, which was anything but poor in terms of special characters. Not just because of his very special dialect, which turned a normal glass of apple juice into an “Opflsoft”. His ability to give political speeches at party conferences, in beer tents or in the state parliament without any manuscript - but with the odd redundancy - also made him special. But what his political opponents particularly appreciated was something different: Aiwanger's special feeling for the issues of the "little people".
Throughout his life, it was important to Aiwanger to distance himself from the professional politics that he himself ultimately lived seven days a week. The 55-year-old said it like this: "We see government participation as a necessary evil in order to continue shaping the future of the country." The political mistakes made by “those up there” in recent years and decades made it necessary for him to take responsibility himself. "Otherwise I might plant trees and feed pigs."
Speaking of pigs: Before Aiwanger joined the Free Voters before the local elections in 2002, he successfully bred pigs. Aiwanger never made a secret of his farming origins, on the contrary. Particularly in political disputes with the Greens, he never tired of portraying himself as a country dweller who was misunderstood by the "elitist city dwellers". In general, he always tried to divide the world into good and evil in his speeches. Aiwanger also chose strange formulations: "If it weren't for us, they would fall asleep and suffocate in their own juice," he once said about his political competition.
One of Aiwanger's strengths was his persistence. Just as he did not let his narrow defeat deter him in the election for the Rottenburg an der Laaber city council in 2002, he also stayed on the ball when it came to political issues - even if, when he was still in the opposition, the entire state parliament laughed or groaned.
Despite all the criticism, Aiwanger continued on his path undeterred. He ultimately led his party to many electoral successes in Bavaria, such as after the leaflet affair in 2023 and most recently in the local elections in the Free State in the spring. The Free Voters were able to steal prestigious district administrator positions from the CSU - once again Aiwanger left the field as at least the perceived winner against his political partner and rival.
In fact, you can't accuse Aiwanger of not always remaining down-to-earth. The agricultural engineer and father of two's hometown was a farm near Rottenburg an der Laaber in Lower Bavaria. But that doesn't mean that Aiwanger himself didn't have visions. But at least during his lifetime, the entry of the Free Voters into the Bundestag remained a distant dream.
