More than 1,000 mourners bid farewell to Hubert Aiwanger in Munich

Bavaria said farewell to Hubert Aiwanger on Saturday, 14 November, ten days after he was found dead in a Berlin hotel room at the age of 55. The funeral began with a requiem at Munich's Frauenkirche, also called the Liebfrauendom, which was full with more than 1,000 mourners. A state memorial ceremony was due to follow, and the burial will take place later in his home region. The sequence of events is set out below.

A requiem and a state ceremony in Munich

Cardinal Reinhard Marx led the requiem and told the congregation that the death had "struck like a shock" and called Aiwanger an exceptional personality. Many guests wore traditional dress, and the coffin, wrapped in the white and blue of Bavaria, stood beside a large portrait and was surrounded by six standby police officers. The music came from the cathedral's vocal ensemble and orchestra, the soprano Katja Stuber and excerpts from Mozart's Requiem in D minor, with Benedikt Celler at the organ. Aiwanger's partner Tanja Schweiger and his family sat in the front row. Sources differ on the location of the state ceremony: Stern places it in the cathedral with the coffin farewell on the Domplatz, while Spiegel Online puts it in the nearby Residenz. Ilse Aigner and Markus Söder are due to speak, along with Florian Streibl, and in the Landtag on Thursday, 12 November, Aigner said of Aiwanger:

“He was the face of his party, and he personally embodied its success story.”

Death in Berlin and the question of succession

Aiwanger was found dead in his Berlin hotel room on Wednesday, 4 November, after cancelling an appointment at short notice due to illness. An autopsy found that he died of natural causes. He had held several posts at once: economics minister and deputy Bavarian minister-president, federal and state chairman of the Free Voters, a Landtag member with a direct mandate and a district council member. Who will take over his roles in the party and the government remains open. Florian Streibl, the Free Voters parliamentary group leader in Bavaria, said:

“Each of us will have to take on a stronger role.”

Streibl added that no single person could step into Aiwanger's shoes and that his legacy could only be carried on as a team.

Burial and rare state honours

The burial will take place later in Aiwanger's home region of Lower Bavaria, according to his long-term partner, the district administrator Tanja Schweiger of the Free Voters. His body had returned to Bavaria a few days before the requiem. State memorial ceremonies are rare in Bavaria and reserved for exceptional figures, the most recent cited being those for former Landtag presidents Barbara Stamm and Alois Glück, both from the CSU. Aiwanger was the first cabinet member to die in office since Minister-President Franz Josef Strauß, whose state funeral in October 1988 lasted five days and drew tens of thousands of mourners along Munich's Ludwigstraße. Responsibility for the farewell lies with the Bavarian state chancellery under Markus Söder, and no fixed rule governs which politicians receive such a ceremony.