Bavarian Leader Strauss Suffers Heart Attack
Bavaria state Premier Franz Josef Strauss, a major figure in post-World War II German politics, suffered a heart attack Saturday while on a hunting trip, a government spokesman said.
Strauss, 73, was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Regensburg shortly after he collapsed in a forest, said the state chancellery spokesman.
The spokesman declined to describe Strauss’ condition or comment further.
Strauss, premier of Bavaria since 1978, also heads one of the parties in West Germany’s federal governing coalition and is one of the nation’s most senior and prominent public figures. His outspoken right-wing views have also made him one of the most controversial.
Strauss went hunting on an estate in the Regensburg area after morning talks and lunch at Munich’s Oktoberfest festival with Defense Minister Rupert Scholz, officials said.
His wife, Marianne, died in 1984 from injuries suffered in a car accident. He has two sons and a daughter.
Strauss has led the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democrats, since 1961.
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