Armin Grein, one of the founding fathers of the Free Voters and long-time district administrator of the Main-Spessart district, is dead. The party announced this on Monday. The former politician died on Sunday at the age of 84. He was federal chairman of the Free Voters from 1994 to 2010 and regional leader of the party in Bavaria from 1978 to 2006.
In the 1970s, Grein managed to shape individual groups of voters from all over Bavaria into a political force. The democratic potential was already present in many municipalities, wrote Grein in his recently published book about the rise of the Free Voters, “but it was not concentrated and therefore wasted away, at least in part.”
In 1978, the Bavarian State Association of Free Voters was initially founded as an association. Grein, then mayor of Marktheidenfeld, became chairman. “He laid the roots of the Free Voters,” said FW boss Hubert Aiwanger on Monday. “It is only because of his preparatory work that the Free Voters are where they are today.” Aiwanger replaced Grein as party leader in 2006, led her into the state parliament and later into the state government.
FW parliamentary group leader Florian Streibl praised the politician as a pleasant and open-minded person. “I was impressed by how much he cared about the well-being of communities as the nucleus of our democracy,” said Streibl. Grein is leaving “a gap that cannot be closed” among the free voters.
Michael Piazolo, Bavaria’s former culture minister and deputy state chairman, called the party father a “grand seigneur” on Sunday evening. The Free Voters “have a lot to thank him for.”