A bank intern who was found dead last week after allegedly working a 72-hour shift without sleep had been warned by a schoolteacher not to focus solely on work and making money.
Winfried Sturm, a physics teacher at the secondary school attended by Moritz Erhardt, recalled a very active and conscientious young man who was determined to excel at everything he did. He collapsed and died in the shower of his East London flat last Thursday, six weeks into a seven-week placement at the London offices of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Mr Erhardt, 21, grew up in the small medieval town of Staufen, southwestern Germany, where he became a regional tennis champion and youth political leader in Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic party.
The 6,000-strong community in the town, surrounded by alpine foothills, cornfields and vineyards, was in shock yesterday as Mr Erhardt’s parents departed for London, where they are receiving support from the German Embassy.
They described their son to German reporters as “our sunshine”.
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“Moritz Erhardt was always alert and very active and fully engaged in his interests, which were in politics, sports and business,” said Mr Sturm, 68, who works part-time at the Faust Gymnasium (secondary school) and was named Germany’s Teacher of the Year in 2004 for his inspirational lessons and after-school clubs.
“It was my impression that everything he wanted to do, he did it 100 per cent — that was very important to him. I cannot imagine him starting something that he would not finish and make a very good job of. He was incredibly single-minded.”
Mr Sturm, who survived cancer in his 40s — the cause of which, he believes, was the pressure he put on himself to succeed — said that he always told very driven students to make time to relax and enjoy their success. “I gave him some guidance for a happy and healthy life: if you are always working to make money, and you have no other time, it is not good.”
At WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management in Vallendara, the private college attended by Mr Erhardt, a steady stream of students arrived with flowers to place alongside a photograph of him set up as a memorial. “He was due back for his final year in about two weeks,” Peter Augustin, a spokesman,said.
Mr Erhardt’s three-year Bachelor of Science course costs €5,300 (£4,500) per semester, for six semesters. He was paid £6,000 for his internship.
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“All of our students have paid internships at the end of the second academic year which they organise themselves. It is a completely free choice what they do and in which region,” Mr Augustin said.
The cause of death has not yet been established, but yesterday campaigners called on employers to ensure that vulnerable young people were not overworked.
Tanya de Grunwald, the founder of a careers blog, Graduate Fog, said: “It is a wake-up call for all sectors. It reminds employers of their core responsibilities towards their workers. Ensuring your young staff are physically fit to work is a basic responsibility.”