Trossingen (dpa / lsw) - The longtime FDP state politician, former parliamentary group leader of the state parliament liberals and former Baden-Württemberg Economics Minister Ernst Pfister is dead. He died on Sunday morning at the age of 75, his son said on Monday in Trossingen. Pfister was a member of the FDP parliamentary group from 1980 to 2011, longer than any other FDP deputy in the history of the state. "In particular, we will sorely miss his human qualities, with whom he was in close contact until the end," said FDP parliamentary group leader Hans-Ulrich Rülke.
FDP country chief Michael Theurer was also deeply affected. "With Ernst Pfister, we Free Democrats are losing an outstanding representative of southwestern liberalism," he said. The FDP politician set liberal impulses.
Pfister led the FDP parliamentary group from 1996 to 2004. He then took over the economic department of the state government until 2011 as the successor to his party friend Walter Döring, who had to resign in the course of the so-called survey affair. He was also Deputy Prime Minister from 2004 to 2006.
The free democrat from Trossingen (Tuttlingen district), who actually studied German and political science and was a passionate local politician, was also a passionate musician. For a long time he was the president of the German Harmonica Association, where the family man was the honorary president.
