Bavaria prepares state memorial service for Aiwanger

Bavaria will honour Hubert Aiwanger at a requiem and state memorial service in Munich on Saturday, with a large turnout expected, BR reports. The ceremony comes ten days after the sudden death of the Free Voters leader, who was Bavaria’s deputy minister-president and economy minister.

The events begin at 10.30 a.m. with a solemn Catholic requiem at Munich’s Frauenkirche, a church. Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the archbishop of Munich and Freising, will lead the service. BR will broadcast the requiem and memorial service live from 10.30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Politicians, business leaders, representatives of associations and clubs, and other guests are expected. About one-third of the church’s roughly 1,100 seats will be available without reservations, but many people may have to remain outside. The Free Voters are arranging several buses to Munich, and some mourners are expected to travel by train.

The service will include excerpts from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem in D minor. Performers will include the Munich Cathedral Music vocal ensemble and orchestra, and soprano Katja Stuber, under the direction of cathedral music director Lucia Hilz. A Bavarian diamond-patterned flag will cover Aiwanger’s coffin.

A state memorial service will follow the requiem. Bavaria’s Minister-President Markus Söder and state parliament president Ilse Aigner, both from the Christian Social Union, will speak about Aiwanger’s contributions to the state. Eulogies will also be delivered by Free Voters parliamentary group leader Florian Streibl, Bavarian Hunting Association president Hubert Stärker and economist Veronika Grimm.

At midday, Bavarian riot police officers will carry the coffin from the church to Cathedral Square. Mountain riflemen, hunting-horn players and a band will gather there. Munich police have warned residents and passers-by that ceremonial gun salutes will be fired. The coffin will then leave the square accompanied by a motorcycle convoy and be taken by hearse to Rottenburg an der Laaber in Lower Bavaria, where Aiwanger lived in the district of Rahstorf. The date of his burial has not been announced.

Aiwanger, 55, was found dead in a Berlin hotel room last Wednesday. He had travelled to Berlin for the opening of the Free Voters’ headquarters there but cancelled his attendance at short notice for health reasons. He is the first serving member of the Bavarian state government to die in office since Franz Josef Strauss in 1988.

Bavaria has held state memorial services for only a small number of prominent figures. Previous ceremonies included those for former state parliament presidents Alois Glück in 2024 and Barbara Stamm in 2022. The ceremonies for Strauss in 1988 were modelled on the final honours given to Bavarian kings.