Case #0019
I was asked to share my experiences as a family physician – from the first day of the Corona pandemic to the last day of my practice. I made these experiences public both before the Enquete Commission in the Brandenburg State Parliament and at the 4th Corona Symposium in the Bundestag (“In the Clutches of the Corona Judiciary”). Four problem areas shaped this period:
- Arbitrary quarantine orders.
From the beginning of the pandemic, massive tensions arose between physicians in private practice and the public health offices. The offices acted like inaccessible fortresses with no reachable contact persons. At the same time, they issued arbitrary orders: on 2 November 2020, I myself was placed under three days of home quarantine because I had had contact with a patient ten days earlier – at the time of contact she was demonstrably healthy and had a negative PCR test. My two staff members, who also had contact, did not have to quarantine. We closed the practice entirely in view of the absurdity of this rule.- Bureaucratic coercion and disproportionate sanctions.
In 35 years of practice, there was not a single infectious incident. Nevertheless, on 5 January 2022 – right after the Christmas holidays, when many patients needed medical help – four people from the public health office appeared unannounced in my practice and demanded the immediate interruption of my consultation hours because of an anonymous patient complaint. What followed was a sprawling bureaucratic correspondence: ventilation plans, proof of daily Corona tests, fines. Our practice, supposedly, was a hygienic danger to the population.- Restriction of the freedom to inform and treat.
The only “permitted” sources were the RKI and PEI; critical voices and scientific debate were suppressed. I drew on a wide range of additional literature for vaccination counselling. One patient filed an anonymous complaint with the State Medical Association. The latter issued a reprimand and imposed a 500 EUR fine. My lawsuit against it was dismissed on 17 April 2024 at the Potsdam Administrative Court – with the reasoning that I had “imposed a minority opinion” on the patient that did not conform to RKI and PEI, thereby “frightening and unsettling her”. I received the court ruling without a name and without a signature. After twelve years of training, specialist recognition, a doctorate and over 40 years of professional experience, every medical competence was thereby denied me.- Economic destruction of livelihood by the KV. From the 4th quarter of 2021 onwards, I was continuously pressured to disclose the contents of conversations from psychosomatic primary care. This contradicts medical confidentiality, and I refused. This was followed by fee cuts of up to 15,000 EUR per quarter, plus a retroactive repayment claim for 2021 of over 68,000 EUR confirmed by the Social Court. Additionally 40,000 EUR deduction for my refusal of the Telematics Infrastructure. On 8 November 2023 disciplinary proceedings ended with a “warning”. The lawyer of the KV Brandenburg made the remarkable statement:
“Dr. Herrmann, this is not about content, only about disciplining.”What saved me was that I became a retiree drawing pension at the end of 2022. That way I was able to keep my practice running until December 2024 – even though I paid for a large part of my patients’ medical care out of my own pocket. Fixed costs alone amounted to around 11,000 EUR per month.
Consequences for patients. Since 2020, the number of patients with psychosomatic problems has risen sharply. Anxiety and panic attacks accumulated. More and more people came to me – partly on recommendation and from far away – because in my practice I did not vaccinate anyone, did not coerce anyone into wearing a mask, and did not test patients without cause or symptoms. The real problem of my patients was not Corona, but the constant manufacturing of fear.
What happened to me after the end of my practice. In November 2024 I found a successor for the fully renovated (2016) 130 m² practice in the middle of Potsdam, to whom I would have transferred the practice as a gift. This colleague was rejected by my landlord – the housing cooperative WG Karl Marx Potsdam – because he did not want to enter the “KV prison”. Instead I received the demand to vacate and renovate the practice within 14 days, although my statutory health insurance activity still ran until 31 December 2024. No help whatsoever came from the KV, even though it bears the mandate to ensure care.
As of 1 December 2024 a new tenancy arose with the state bank in connection with former trust transactions (Treuhand). This, however, was stringently ignored by WG Karl Marx – which, as of December, was demonstrably in insolvency proceedings. The unlawful conduct ended on 28 July 2025 with the complete forced eviction of my practice, during which patient files and computer data were withheld. Since then, I am also facing at the Local Court the payment of all costs and a charge of alleged misappropriation in connection with the key handover.
My conclusion. We need an unrestricted guarantee of the freelance medical profession with proper remuneration. Medical confidentiality must be restored – also in digital records. For a fresh start, all sanctions against physicians should, as a matter of principle, be reset to zero. Personally, I expect rehabilitation from the KV and the Medical Association. The basis of my medical conduct is the laws of human coexistence – human dignity, bodily integrity, the right to self-determination, the Declaration of Geneva and the Nuremberg Code. The role of § 95 SGB V and the compulsory membership in the KV must be fundamentally rethought. The KV system is a prison for us.
I was and am one of the few physicians who, despite all adversities, tried to help and be available to patients until the very end of my practice in December 2024, as a physician in what I consider a criminal system of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, under strict observance of the medical oath, with great personal sacrifices, indignities and humiliations.
Very early on, my motto was: We need a total fresh start without any restriction of the freedom of medical therapy and with decent remuneration for all our services.
That is why I wished to make my practice available to a successor who would continue to treat patients in my spirit. This was deliberately denied to me.
I consistently said “NO” at an early stage. It must again be exclusively about content, without any disciplining. We need the full trust of patients as the only foundation for future practice as a physician.
This is about us as human beings and the preservation of our dignity.
We are neither service providers nor contract physicians, nor merely medics, but I see myself as a physician, which however, under the conditions that now exist, I can no longer be without committing criminal acts.
We need a new holistic medicine, which is not only about healing and repairing the body, but about body, mind and soul (Professor Schubert).
A quote on the wall newspaper in my practice:
A human being can neither be inherited nor sold nor given away; they can be no one’s property, because they are their own property and must remain so.
NO IS THE WORD OF ALL POWER.
On 13 June 2025, in a speech before the Enquete Commission in the Brandenburg State Parliament, I spoke about four points:
Remarkable statement of the lawyer of the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians:
“THIS IS NOT ABOUT CONTENT, ONLY ABOUT DISCIPLINING.”
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 #0009
Accusation: Forgery of documents through the issuance of false health certificates: 400 recovery certificates and 50 vaccination …
Case #0008
Accusation: Issuing false health certificates
Case #0005
Accusation: Participation in demonstrations and violations of COVID measures as a private individual