CSU General Secretary Stephan Mayer has resigned after only a short term in office.

"For health reasons, I asked the party leader of the CSU today to release me from my job as general secretary," Mayer said in a statement distributed by the CSU on Tuesday.

The "Bild" newspaper had previously reported on it.

As the newspaper writes, Mayer also referred in the statement to a newspaper report on an alleged threat by the CSU politician against a journalist: "In a conversation with a journalist from the Bunten, which was based on blatantly illegal reporting, I may have a choice of words used which, in retrospect, I would not consider appropriate.

I very much regret this.”

Party leader Markus Söder only announced at the end of February that Mayer should succeed Markus Blume as Secretary General and thus caused a surprise in his own ranks.

The 48-year-old lawyer was elected to the Bundestag in 2002 and distinguished himself as an expert with liberal-conservative positions.