A prominent German politician, accused of Nazi sympathies in the past, was found dead in a Berlin hotel.

The cause of death of Hubert Aiwanger, 55, who was the number two in the regional government of Bavaria, in the south of the country, was not immediately clear.

A prominent German politician was found dead in a Berlin hotel on Wednesday, police said, adding that they had opened an investigation. The cause of death of Hubert Aiwanger, 55, who was the deputy prime minister of Bavaria, a southern state, was not immediately clear.

Police said in a statement that he was "found dead in his hotel room" in central Berlin. The statement added that police and prosecutors have opened an investigation to "determine the precise cause and circumstances of death and to rule out any possible involvement of third parties."

Hubert Aiwanger, leader of the populist Free Voters party and also Bavarian Minister of Economic Affairs, was in Berlin to attend the opening of a new party office but missed the event because he was feeling unwell, the tabloid Bild reported. His body was later discovered by police in the hotel, according to the same source.

He headed the Bavarian section of the Freie Wähler

The Bavarian Prime Minister, Markus Söder, called his death an "absolute tragedy." Hubert Aiwanger had led the Bavarian branch of the Free Voters (Freie Wähler) since 2006. His party was the junior partner in the Bavarian regional government led by Markus Söder's Christian Social Union (CSU, the local branch of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democratic Union).

He was at the center of a national controversy in 2023, after it was revealed that Nazi leaflets had been found in his schoolbag when he was a teenager in the late 1980s. He apologized for the affair, but refused to resign.