The Kessler Twins, German sisters well-known throughout Europe for his or her singing and dancing, have died collectively via assisted means, native police have mentioned.
Content material warning: this text incorporates references to suicide
Munich officers mentioned in an announcement on Tuesday that Alice and Ellen Kessler had died by “joint suicide” at their shared residence in Grunwald. They have been 89.
It added they’d been members for greater than a yr and that “a lawyer and a doctor conducted preliminary discussions with them”, and mentioned: “Individuals who select this selection in Germany should be completely clear-headed, that means free and accountable.
“The decision must be thoughtful and consistent, meaning made over a long period of time and not impulsive.”
Picture:
Alice and Ellen Kessler on stage in Stuttgart on 21 November 2006. File pic: AP
A ban on assisted dying in Germany was overturned by the nation’s federal courtroom in 2020.
Whereas the follow will not be explicitly permitted, judges mentioned on the time the earlier regulation outlawing it infringed on constitutional rights.
Alice and Ellen have been born in 1936 and educated as ballet dancers of their youth. They started their leisure careers within the Nineteen Fifties after their household fled from East Germany to West Germany.
Professionally referred to as The Kessler Twins, they have been then found by the director of the Lido cabaret theatre in Paris in 1955, launching their worldwide profession.
In 1959, the sisters additionally represented a now-unified Germany on the Eurovision Tune Contest, held in Cannes, France.
All through the Sixties, Alice and Ellen toured the world, moved to Rome, and carried out with singers Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra and Harry Belafonte.
Each sisters continued to carry out collectively into later life, showing on stage in a musical at 80 years previous.
Within the US, name the Samaritans department in your space or 1 (800) 273-TALK
