Dresden (dpa / sn) - The Saxon left mourn the loss of their former member of the Bundestag Axel Troost. As the party announced on Monday in Dresden, the economist died last Friday after a serious illness at the age of 68. Troost was a source of many clever ideas, a "motivating partner" and a "great organizer," wrote party leaders Susanne Schaper and Stefan Hartmann and parliamentary group leader Rico Gebhardt in their obituary. "For us, the memory of Axel is primarily characterized by the fact that he always faced even the most difficult problems with a smile."

Troost used to be state spokesman for the Left Party in Bremen and later moved to Saxony. In 2005 he entered the Bundestag via the state list for the Saxon left and was a member of parliament until 2017 and then again briefly in 2021 as a successor. Most recently, he had devoted himself primarily to structural change in the lignite areas.