Case #0025
Since March 2020 I have been subject to seven different proceedings – four convictions are now legally final, the seventh proceeding is still pending (as of early 2026). The accusations range from a notice on my practice wall, through waiting room chairs without 1.5 m distance, to “issuing inaccurate health certificates” over an overlooked parking disc in Paderborn. In what follows I explain, from my perspective, what actually happened.
Practice notice. A notice on my practice wall was meant to express that I would not personally take part in the mask requirement – without thereby overriding the official rules. I did not claim that the law did not apply in my practice; I merely made clear that, personally, I did not wish to participate in these requirements, because I considered them legally unsound. What happens when someone faints due to a mask and falls – as actually occurred in my practice? I always personally conducted history-taking and examination. We had additionally made our diabetes training room available as a waiting room, so that every patient could keep sufficient distance.
Because of this notice there were four practice inspections by four people each from the public health and public order offices – even after my employee had already removed the notice the first time. At each of these inspections the head of the public health office was present in person, although at the same time she could not find the time to answer either patients’ or doctors’ questions on the more than 5,000 pages of Corona regulations we received during the pandemic – without any markings indicating what had changed. In parallel, the public health office sent my practice partner an email asking whether he could assess whether I was of sound mind. This took place in the period during which individual politicians were publicly discussing preventive detention for so-called “Corona deniers”.
The same matter was punished twice – once before a court in Bad Dürkheim, and a second time before the disciplinary court of the Medical Chamber in Mainz.
Waiting room chairs. It was held against me that the chairs in my then-shared practice did not maintain a distance of 1.5 m. My practice partner – actually responsible for furnishing – was not convicted. The reason given: I had “a different conviction”. Fine: €15,000.
Vaccination counselling. I was accused of having provided “too much” counselling with 30 minutes of fact-based information – and that this would “have a negative effect”. On a day when we had no vaccine (another practice had used ours up the day before), I was charged with “counselling without vaccination” because we could not cancel all the summoned patients in time. An additional liability waiver, which I distributed alongside the official information sheet and in which I described the vaccination as participation in an experiment with an uncertain outcome, was deemed “not correct” and thus impermissible.
Post-mortem inspection. Because of pyjama trousers that had not been fully removed but only pulled down, charges were brought – €5,000 fine, without a hearing, without the possibility of appeal. It is the only such case in Germany – even though, according to an article in the Ärzteblatt itself, fewer than 25 percent of bodies are fully undressed, and according to several undertakers fewer than three percent. Specifications for post-mortem inspections are, moreover, guidelines that by definition need not be followed in every detail.
Paderborn parking disc – and what came of it. In Paderborn, electric cars park free of charge. I had parked my electric car there properly – with an activated electronic parking disc on the side window (it activates automatically as soon as the vehicle is stationary). A lawyer was present as a witness who could observe the proper parking and later submitted a sworn statement. Even so, the parking warden issued me a €15 ticket because she had overlooked the parking disc fitted to the side window. The public order office did not address either my objections or the sworn statement and brought the matter to court.
On the night before the hearing I had a severe gastrointestinal infection. In the morning I called the court and asked whether the hearing could be postponed if I submitted a medical certificate – which was confirmed. Despite my illness I drove to my own family doctor in the neighbouring town, who, after history-taking and personal examination, signed me off sick, and I filed his sick note with the court. I therefore neither issued a medical certificate nor a health attestation – I was the patient; my own doctor had certified that I was not fit to travel.
Out of this came criminal charges – and suddenly it was no longer about the €15, but about a daily-rate fine on the basis of my entire income, and about acquiring a criminal record. The charge bore – wrongly – the heading “issuing inaccurate health certificates”. My family doctor, who had certified my illness after history-taking and personal examination, was charged as well.
The Paderborn judge later called my practice in Hassloch – ostensibly to make a doctor’s appointment – and claimed in court that he had recognised my voice in the background. He had never spoken to me or seen me. In court in Neustadt an der Weinstraße he eventually conceded that he did not, in fact, know my voice.
Pikant: precisely what was held against me – using a medical certificate in order not to have to appear at a hearing – had been done over more than two years by an employee of the very same Paderborn court. She had been summoned as a witness from Paderborn to Speyer and during that period repeatedly submitted medical certificates citing a mysterious illness which prevented a four-hour train journey – yet apparently did not arise during eight hours of full-time work.
At the actual trial – just over two years later – a detective from Ludwigshafen was also summoned as a witness, although he had nothing whatsoever to do with the parking-ticket case. The same pattern again: several cases collected in a single file, without being properly separated.
The result: acquittal.
Practice searches and inspections. Between 2020 and 2022 there were two practice searches by the criminal investigation department. The second came six months after a Berlin proceeding had been discontinued: a long-term patient with chronic asthma had been exempted from mask-wearing by me. The Berlin police had taken her certificate from her on a bus because her mask did not sit one hundred percent correctly; the Berlin proceedings were discontinued months later. Six months after this discontinuation, the criminal investigation department nonetheless conducted a search of my practice in Hassloch and demanded the complete patient file – which, on data protection grounds, I consider unlawful. A subsequent summons in Ludwigshafen was not pursued after I queried the responsible officer; the officer later stated in writing that I had “conspiracy theorist views”.
In addition, there was a practice inspection over a patient with chronic asthma who had taken part in organising demonstrations. All matters concerning him in the practice were properly documented with history and examination findings.
Theodor-Friedrich-Haus. After the German Federal Minister of Health, Jens Spahn, had said on television that, in a future pandemic, this would not be done again to elderly people, I wrote to the management of the Theodor-Friedrich-Haus suggesting that the mask requirement for residents might be relaxed. The management thereupon, from one day to the next, persuaded 32 of 34 patients to switch doctors and issued me with a ban from the premises.
Medical Chamber proceeding. In court in Neustadt I lost against the Medical Chamber of Rhineland-Palatinate: I was constantly – “by the minute” – responsible for ensuring that patients in the waiting room wore masks. My shared-practice partner was not convicted – although his patients also sat in the same waiting room.
Constitutional complaint – and how it was rendered ineffective. I lodged a constitutional complaint against the first €15,000 conviction relating to the practice notice – and won. The Medical Chamber should have refunded the money. Instead, five weeks later I was convicted again on identical facts and ordered to pay another €15,000. The second constitutional complaint was rejected by the Federal Constitutional Court after eight months. In the end, I paid €15,000 once – the success before the highest German court was thus effectively without consequence.
Hacker attacks. During this entire period there were three hacker attacks on me.
I would not act in the same way again to the same extent. My patients had a right to individual medical assessment, and I had the duty to provide it – but only few were able to appreciate this.
I hope this documentation contributes to the public learning what has happened to physicians in this country – and that this does not happen again.
Above all, I hope citizens come to realise that they themselves stand at the end of the food chain: if they no longer stand up for persecuted physicians, they will be left only with those who have made enormous financial profits from the pandemic – and will do so again.
The information in this case report comes from the affected person themselves. The editorial team verifies whether a criminal or professional prosecution has taken place; it cannot verify the factual accuracy of every single statement. Responsibility for the correctness of the account lies with the respective author.
Case #0018
Accusation: Issuing false health certificates pursuant to § 278 of the German Criminal Code (old version).
Case #0026
Accusation: Issuing inaccurate health certificates (7 mask-exemption certificates issued without personal examination)
Case #0024
Accusation: Accusation of tax evasion – penal order without an oral main hearing; no court proceedings for over four years