Last week, it was announced that Claus Fritzsche had killed himself on 14 January 2014 at the age of 49. He was an industrious blogger and evangelic promoter of alternative medicine who seemed to spend much of his time and energy to defame those who disagreed with him. In this capacity, he certainly did tirelessly direct ‘ad hominem’ attacks in my direction. When it was revealed, about two years ago, that several German homeopathic firms paid him generously for this activity, his sponsors withdrew with plenty of egg on their faces, and subsequently Fritzsche’s insults became less frequent.

I never met Fritzsche in person but, over the years, I had many email exchanges with him. Invariably, these were unpleasant, to put it mildly. One might admire his tenacity but, from my perspective, it was hard to like Fritzsche. During the last months of his life, I refused to have contact with him, even via email – not because I failed to find our correspondence interesting or amusing, but because our exchanges always ended with some sort of escalation of aggression from his side.

Why then does his death sadden me so deeply?

Any death is a sad event but, if a death is so unnecessary and wasteful, it is particularly depressing. Fritzsche clearly had many skills and a lot of talents. He was young, intelligent and probably was a pleasant person to know personally, at least that is what some people who knew him have said. Alright, we did not agree on many things, but that does not mean that he was a bad person. He just seemed extremely irrational and tragically delivered the ultimate proof for his irrationality through his suicide.

Nobody knows what motivated Fritzsche to kill himself [when Walach speculated that his financial situation following the disclosure of the nature of his sponsorship had anything to do with it, he finds himself yet again way beyond the established facts]. Presumably, he suffered from depression, and presumably he was deeply insecure, and perhaps he was also desperately lonely.

Suspecting that this was the case, I now wish I had continued writing emails to him. Having argument after argument, even at the risk of getting yet again insulted and attacked, might have just been what was required to prevent him sliding into the abyss. I feel sorry for breaking off email contact when, in a strange sense, he might have needed me and the type of irritation people like me seemed to cause him.