Germany's oldest man dies
October 25, 2019
Gustav Gerneth died peacefully on Monday night at his home in Havelberg, Saxony-Anhalt, the Magdeburger Volksstimme newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Just a week before, the centenarian had celebrated his birthday together with a small group of people, one of whom was Bernd Poloski, the mayor of Havelberg.
Gerneth marked the day with his favorite cake, a Frankfurter Kranz, a sponge cake with cherries on top.
He was born on October 15, 1905, in Prussian-ruled Stettin, which is now the Polish city of Szczecin. In his long life Gerneth survived two world wars and Russian imprisonment as a prisoner of war.
He was also present at the 1936 Olympic games. He went on to have three sons with his wife and worked as a machinist at a gas plant in Havelberg until 1972 when the firm closed and he retired.
Asked what the secret to a long life was on his 100th birthday he advised, "You shouldn't sit down, or else you'll become stiff."
He was thought to be the world's oldest man after Masazo Nonaka, a Japanese man, who was three months older than Gerneth, died in January at 113 years-old.
The oldest living woman in the world is 116-year-old Kane Tanaka, from Japan.
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