December 1, 2025
Ludwig Minelli Dies at Dignitas
Dignitas founder, Ludwig Minelli, has died at the organisation he founded, Dignitas.
He was 92.
Exit pays our respects to this remarkable man.
Swiss media outlet 20 Minuten reports:
The founder of the Dignitas association and one of the pioneers of assisted suicide in Switzerland has died. Ludwig A. Minelli died on 29 November, shortly before his 93rd birthday.
‘He opted for self-determined assisted suicide,’ the association announced on Sunday. Dignitas assists people who wish to end their lives for medical or other serious reasons.
Dignitas announced that Minelli had already arranged for his succession in the association’s leadership years ago.
The team will continue to run the organisation in the spirit of its founder.
Minelli founded the organisation in 1998 and shaped it for decades.
His career began in journalism
Minelli was born in 1932. He began his career in journalism in 1956 at the newspaper ‘Tat’.
From 1964 to 1974, he worked as the first correspondent for Der Spiegel magazine in Switzerland.
His interest in the possibilities offered by the European Convention on Human Rights led him to study law in 1977.
He graduated in 1981 and founded the Swiss Society for the European Convention on Human Rights in the same year. He was admitted to the bar in 1986.
Dignitas became an internationally active organisation
The path to the founding of Dignitas began in 1998 after a failed vote at Exit.
At the time, Minelli was legal advisor to the managing director, Peter Holenstein.
A proposal to expand Exit’s remit to include the prevention of suicide attempts was rejected.
Holenstein was voted out of office.
That same night, Minelli and his supporters founded the association Dignitas – Live with dignity, die with dignity.
The small group later grew into an internationally active organisation with more than 10,000 members and several dozen employees.
Ludwig Minelli, Fiona Stewart & Philip Nitschke, Zurich 2015