Josef Duchac, former Minister-President of Thuringia, dies at 88

Josef Duchac, the first Minister-President of Thuringia following German reunification, has died at the age of 88 after a long illness. He passed away on October 23.

A member of the CDU, Duchac served as the head of the Thuringian government from December 1990 to February 1992. He played a central role in establishing the political and state structures of the Free State during the post-reunification period. Thuringian Minister-President Mario Voigt honored Duchac as a formative figure in the state's history, noting his dedication to consolidating Thuringia as an independent federal state.

Born in 1938 in what was then Czechoslovakia, Duchac was a trained chemical engineer who worked as a plant manager at the Waltershausen rubber works. Following his political tenure, he led various international offices for the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in cities including Lisbon, St. Petersburg, and Budapest. In his later years, he lived in Birkenwerder, Brandenburg, and had been blind since suffering a stroke in 2015.