Wolfgang Grupp deserves our respect. The situation in the morning

Good morning, dear readers!

Today I don’t start the morning star with politics. Instead, I want to write here on an important topic that concerns in Germany: depression. A silent epidemic that is often hidden.

Those affected are also Wolfgang Grupp, the nationwide textile entrepreneur and former Trigema boss. As an ambitious, shimmering, hard, even provocative company patriarch, he made a name for himself. Now he made headlines again – with a suicide attempt.

“I am 84 years old and suffered from so -called age depression. You also think about whether you are still needed. I therefore tried to end my life,” wrote the former family entrepreneur in a letter. According to the circumstances, he is doing well, but it could take longer for him to be completely healthy again. “I very much regret what happened and would like to undo it.”

Shake these words. They show that even people perceived as successfully perceived in depth. Above all, however, they make one thing clear: depression can affect anyone. Seniors, teenagers, also children, arms and rich. You can meet me, you can meet them. Sometimes they sneak quietly and quietly into our lives. Sometimes they hit like a flash out of the blue.

Depression is a common disease. are affected directly or as relatives. In recent years, public confessions from celebrities have also contributed to tabooing the topic less. But despite all progress, people with depression still encounter prejudices. It is often believed that you imagine your illness, that you have no reason to be sad or that it is a weakness of character. It is a serious illness – one that doesn’t just with a vacation or a “laugh!” lets heal.

People with depression are by no means weak. They hide their suffering and inner battles behind their facade. They go to work, bring the children to school, celebrate birthdays while they lack the drive and energy. While the disease agrees that they are worthless, alone and without hope. That it may be better not to exist anymore. Anyone who goes through this is not weak. He is strong.

That’s why Wolfgang Grupp deserves our respect. Not only for his life’s work, that too. But now much more for his courage to make his illness public at a moment and to be helped. “My request to everyone who suffers from depression: Find professional help and go to treatment.”

It is of course easy to ask yourself why Grupp then attempted suicide instead of looking for help first. Maybe he was already in therapy, we don’t know. But for those affected who see themselves in a hopeless and hopeless situation, it is often difficult to seek support. Believe me, I also speak from experience.

It is therefore all the more important that we all open our eyes and ears. Let’s ask our fellow human beings, our friends and family members like them really Is it – not only if we feel that something is wrong. Sometimes a simple “How are you really?” save a life.

If you or a relative advice and help are looking for help, the helpful information as well as contact points and telephone numbers. You are not alone!

It is now difficult to go from one sad topic to the next. But the news of the fatal accident by the former extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner has shaken many. The Austrian rushed to the site of a hotel with his umbrella for an unknown cause in Italy when paragliding.

Baumgartner became world famous when he was the first person to jump down from the stratosphere from the stratosphere in 2012 and broke several world records. Millions of people glued to the screens and watched the pushing to the earth with more than 1300 kilometers per hour.

Flying has been a great passion since childhood. “I feel at home in the air – just like seafarers at sea or mountaineers in the mountains,” he liked to say. Or: “Sometimes it has to be very up to understand how small we really are.”

After his record jump in 2012, it became calmer about Baumgartner when it comes to extreme sports. Instead, he caused a sensation with political statements. He praised the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, spoke out for a “moderate dictatorship” and expressed himself derogatory about women.

Despite the controversy with which he was pushing away: Felix Baumgartner lived his dreams. He dared what many don’t even imagine. Now he died at the age of 56. You can read an obituary here:

We also celebrate an anniversary today. The star-Politik- “5-minute talk” from our capital office is now 100 episodes old. And as chance, Chancellor Friedrich Merz gives the traditional summer press conference this Friday, in which he will answer all kinds of questions from the capital press on all sorts of topics.

And for our 100 episode we have a very special guest: Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder. Our star-Politik bosses Veit Medick and Jan Rosenkranz discuss the first months of the new government with the CSU boss:

I admit that after these rather sad topics this morning | Star it is a bit difficult for me to find good news. But as I wrote to you in my first morning | Stern a good two weeks ago: we need positive news. There are so much bad news in the world when a bright spot is good for us.

Today it’s not about intestinal bacteria, but about the heart. More precisely about heart attacks. These are increasingly losing their horrors, as new data from the USA show. The death rate for acute coronary diseases has dropped by 90 percent in the past 50 years. Instead, the focus is on other heart diseases, said the American cardiologist company American Heart Association (AHA). “While heart diseases in the United States have been the most common cause of death in the United States, the age -adjusted death rate for heart diseases has dropped significantly in the past 50 years (minus 66 percent), including the death rate by heart attacks by almost 90 percent,” the AHA wrote on the occasion of the publication of their. The newspaper reported the results.

The researchers examined the cardiovascular mortality of adults in the United States from the age of 25 between 1970 and 2022. “During this period, heart disease were responsible for almost a third of all deaths (31 percent). During this time, the death diseases decreased significantly due to heart diseases, from 41 percent of all deaths in 1970 to 24 percent of all deaths in 2022,” said AHA.

Faster diagnoses, rapid transport to the hospital, better medication and interventions as well as more effective prevention and aftercare have made this change possible. At the same time, however, the age -adjusted death rate in other heart disease, such as cardiac arrhythmias, rose by 81 percent in the same period.

How did he like this morning | star? Please write it to me: rune.weichert@stern.de

I wish you a good start to the weekend! Warm, you
Rune Weichert