Ludwig Minelli, who became a leader of the death-with-dignity movement as the founder of Dignitas, a Swiss organization with more than 10,000 members that provides and advocates for access to assisted suicide, died Saturday, ending his life through the process he helped promote. He was 92 and would have celebrated his 93rd birthday on Friday.
His death was announced by Dignitas, which did not say where he died.
Mr. Minelli, a lawyer specializing in human rights, was the general secretary of Dignitas, which since 1998 has helped thousands of people from around the world, including from countries where assisted suicide is illegal, to die.
“Right up to the end of his life, he continued to search for further ways to help people to exercise their right to freedom of choice and self-determination in their ‘final matters’ — and he often found them,” read a statement from the group.
Dignitas, which uses the slogan “To live with dignity — To die with dignity,” said it would continue to work toward freedom in life and at the end of life, staying true to Mr. Minelli’s vision.
Dignitas combines palliative care, suicide attempt prevention and access to assisted dying as a basis for decision-making about how to shape life until the end, the group said.
Ludwig Amadeus Minelli, born in December 1932, grew up in Küsnacht, Switzerland. He was the son of a house painter and the eldest of four children, the Atlantic reported. As a child, he dreamed of becoming a priest, and as a college student, he dabbled with the idea of becoming an actor.
He began his career as a journalist in 1956, writing for the Swiss newspaper Tat before becoming the first Swiss correspondent for Germany’s Der Spiegel. By the late 1970s, he had developed an interest in human rights law and decided to change careers. He graduated from law school in 1981.
Mr. Minelli founded Dignitas after a disagreement with the general assembly at Exit, a separate Swiss assisted dying organization, for whom he was a legal adviser.
“We should break the taboo of discussing suicide,” Mr. Minelli said in a telephone interview with The Washington Post in 2005. “For the sake of efficiency, you should be able to offer assisted suicide when this is the best possible solution. We’ve got to take this problem out from under the carpet and put it right on the table.”
Since Mr. Minelli founded Dignitas, there has a been a global shift on assisted dying.
Mr. Minelli and his group claimed responsibility for major milestones in the field of assisted death. In 2011 the European Court of Human Rights confirmed the right and freedom of a competent individual to decide on the manner and the time of their own end of life. In 2022, the German Federal Constitutional Court declared a law that made providing professional assistance in suicide impossible in Germany was unconstitutional. The same year, Austria also revoked a blanket prohibition on assisted suicide.
In recent years, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have shifted their stance on assisted dying.
Dignitas has participated in nearly 4,200 accompanied suicides since Mr. Minelli founded the group in 1998, the group reported in 2024. More than a third of those people lived in Germany, and there were over 600 people each from France and Britain. The group says it has more than 10,000 members.
If you or someone you know needs help, visit 988lifeline.org or call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988.
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