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German state finance minister kills self over coronavirus despair

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Thomas Schaefer suicide
Thomas Schaefer suicide: German state finance minister found dead. Screen-grab.
Thomas Schaefer suicide
Thomas Schaefer suicide: German state finance minister found dead. Screen-grab.

Thomas Schaefer suicide: German state finance minister found dead- kills self over coronavirus despair as financial markets went into free-fall.

A German state finance minister has committed suicide after expressing despair over the economic fallout from novel coronavirus, an official said.

Thomas Schaefer, who was the finance minister of Germany’s Hesse region, was found dead Saturday along railway tracks at Hochheim, near Frankfurt.

Responding paramedics at the scene were initially unable to identify the remains due to the extent of the injuries- DW reported

The politician apparently left a suicide note before taking his own life, German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported, citing sources close to the investigation. The note, according to the report, referenced Schäfer’s reasons for taking his own life.

Consumed with despair and anxiety:

State governor Volker Bouffier said Sunday that the 54-year-old had become consumed with how to handle the coronavirus crisis which in recent weeks had sent global markets into free-fall.

He said Schaefer was particularly concerned about ‘whether it would be possible to succeed in fulfilling the population’s huge expectations, particularly of financial help.’

‘I have to assume that these worries overwhelmed him,’ a shaken and shocked Bouffier said. ‘He apparently couldn’t find a way out. He was in despair and left us.’

Bouffier saying that Schaefer had been working ‘day and night’ to help companies and workers deal with the economic impact of the pandemic.

‘Today we have to assume that he was deeply worried,’ Bouffier reiterated.

Popular and well-respected, Schaefer had long been touted as a possible successor to Bouffier had he decided not to stand for re-election in 2023, aljazeera reports.

Authorities investigating Schaefer’s death said questioning witnesses led them to conclude that he died by suicide.

Germany’s federal and state governments have drawn up huge aid packages to cushion the blow of largely shutting down public life to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Schaefer was a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and had held his position for a decade. It is not thought there had been unscrupulous doings leading up to the authority figure’s suicide ….

Schaefer leaves behind a wife and two children.

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