German state finance minister Thomas Schaefer commits suicide over coronavirus despair

Thomas Schaefer, the finance minister of Germany's Hesse state, has committed suicide apparently after becoming "deeply worried" over how to cope with the economic fallout from the coronavirus, state premier Volker Bouffier said on Sunday.

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

"We are in shock, we are in disbelief and above all we are immensely sad," Bouffier said in a recorded statement.

Police and prosecutors said factors, including the questioning of witnesses and their own observations at the scene, led them to conclude that Schaefer killed himself.

Visibly shaken Bouffier recalled that Schaefer, who was Hesse's finance chief for 10 years, 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," said Bouffier, a close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"It's precisely during this difficult time that we would have needed someone like him," he added.

He leaves behind a wife and two children.