Tributes flowed in on Sunday to the leader of the Jewish community in Germany, Paul Spiegel, who has died at the age of 68 after a long illness.

Spiegel, who fled the Nazis as a child, had led the Central Council of Jews in Germany from 2000.

He died in the early hours of Sunday in a hospital in the western city of Duesseldorf where he had been treated for a succession of heart problems. He had also been diagnosed with a form of leukaemia.

Spiegel won widespread praise for his leadership of the third largest
Jewish community in western Europe, a community which is still growing more than 60 years after the Nazis tried to destroy it.

"This is an almost indescribable loss," Stephan Kramer, the general
secretary of the Central Council, told Agence France Presse.

"Paul Spiegel was a builder of bridges who was well-respected beyond
religious circles. He will be very difficult to replace."

Warm tribute

German Chancellor Angela Merkel paid warm tribute to Spiegel.

"He spoke out when others stayed quiet. His commitment to moral courage, tolerance and mutual respect and his rejection of xenophobia and anti-Semitism set new standards," Merkel said in a statement.

Spiegel signed an agreement in January 2003 with the then chancellor Gerhard Schroeder which gave the Central Council equal legal status with Germany’s main churches and annual support of three million euros.

The Central Council of Jews in Germany

The Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland ("Central Council of Jews in Germany") is a federation of German Jews organizing many Jewish organisations in Germany. It was founded on July 19, 1950 as a response to the increasing isolation of German Jews by the international Jewish community and increasing interest in Jewish affairs by the (West) German government. Originally based in the Rheinland (Duesseldorf and Bonn), it currently has its seat in Berlin. The Jewish community in Germany has around 110,000 registered members (although far more Jews live in the country without belonging to a synagogue). From its early years, the organisation has received  financial and moral support from the government. Paul Spiegel became president of the Zentralrat in 2000 following the death of Ignatz Bubis.

Schroeder said on Sunday that Spiegel was "a man of dialogue between the religions who forged links to the Jewish world and the state of Israel".

Family fled to Belgium

Born in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia in 1937, Spiegel and his family fled to Belgium to escape Nazi persecution, going into hiding with a farmer’s family.

His father survived being held in the camps of Buchenwald, Auschwitz and Dachau, but his older sister Rosa was captured by the Nazis and is thought to have perished in the Bergen-Belsen death camp.

Spiegel began his career as the editor of the Allgemeinen Juedischen
Wochenzeitung newspaper, going on to work as a political correspondent for other newspapers, a public relations executive and an entrepreneur.

From the 15,000 Jews remaining in Germany after WWII, the community now numbers 110,000, swelling its ranks with immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

The Central Council said it expected discussions about electing Spiegel’s successor to begin after a month’s mourning.

Elections to choose a new leader were almost certain to take place before the scheduled date of November, Kramer said.