WALSTADT STAATSBLATT
Walstadt State Journal
Est. 1952
Walstadt State Journal
Est. 1952
Maximilian Schreck Dies at 97
Walstadt. The former president of Walstadt, Maximilian Schreck, has died today at the age of 97. Mr Schreck passed away peacefully in hospital at 10.42 this evening after suffering a massive stroke.
In a brief public statement, President Karl Drosselmeyer described his predecessor as ‘irreplacable’. “For nearly half a century, Maximilian Schreck stood at the heart of our democracy, guiding Walstadt’s transition into the modern age,” said President Drosselmeyer, who is the son of Mr Schreck’s sister. “His loss today will be sorely felt by us all, but his enormous contributions will be forever inscribed upon the immortal page of history.”
The only son of Walstadt’s first democratic leader, industrialist Gustav Schreck, Mr Schreck was elected president in 1964 after illness compelled his father to retire from politics. Further electoral victories in 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1984 were to keep him in office for an unprecedented six consecutive terms. In 1988 he announced his retirement from public life, stressing the need for ‘younger, fresher leaders’, but only four years later popular demand saw him recalled to the presidency for a further two terms.
In 1999, Herr Schreck once again announced his intention to step down from front-line politics, arguing that at 85 he was ‘too old for the constant pressures of day-to-day government’. Declining to stand for re-election the following year, he instead lent his considerable weight to the presidential campaign of his nephew, who was duly elected in his place.
Despite failing health, he continued to play an active role in public life over the course of the next decade, devoting a considerably proportion of his time and wealth to various philanthropic endeavours. A series of minor strokes in January 2010 left him partially paralysed, but he characteristically refused to let his disability prevent him from making regular appearances at charity events.
Sadly, his success in the public sphere was not repeated in his personal life, which was marred by tragedy. He lost his beloved wife of 28 years, Margarethe, to cancer in 1972 and sixteen years later their only child, Anna, died of complications resulting from childbirth. However the presence of his granddaughter, who returned to Walstadt in 2007, brought him some solace in his final years and both she and his nephew were with him at the end.
President Drosselmeyer has declared tomorrow a day of national mourning and has announced that Herr Schreck will receive a full state funeral.
