Juergen Moellemann, a prominent German opposition politician accused of campaigning on anti-Semitic themes in last year’s national election, died in a parachute jump, just as prosecutors stepped up a finance investigation against him.

Germany’s tightly-fought election campaign drew to a rancorous close today under the shadow of mounting tensions with Washington over an oblique comparison between the US president and Adolf Hitler reportedly made by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s justice minister.