Frankfurt am Main: The Finance Minister of Germany’s Hesse State, Thomas Schaefer committed suicide said Volker Bouffier, state premier on Sunday. He was deeply worried over how to cope with the economic fallout from the corona virus. He leaves behind a wife and two children.

According to the Wiesbaden prosecution’s office sources, Thomas Schaefer (54) was found dead near railway track on Saturday. The prosecution office believe he died by suicide. The premier of the state Volker Bouffier in a recorded statement said that “We are in shock, we are in disbelief and above all we are immensely sad.”

A visibly shaken Volker Bouffier recalled that Thomas 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. Hesse is home to Germany’s financial capital Frankfurt, where major lenders like Deutsche Bank and Commerz bank have their headquarters. The European Central Bank is also located in Frankfurt.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel’s a close ally Volker Bouffier said that, today we have to assume that he has deeply worried. “It’s precisely during this difficult time that we would have needed someone like him,” he added. Popular and well-respected, Thomas Schaefer had long been touted as a possible successor to Volker Bouffier. Like Volker Bouffier, Thomas Schaefer belonged to Angela Merkel’s centre-right CDU party.