In June 2024, Hamburg physician Dr. Walter Weber launched a call to colleagues who had experienced house searches for issuing mask exemptions. Within one week, around 200 doctors responded. What they reported paints the picture of a systematic persecution.

~200
Reports in 1 week
95%
with house searches
8
Searches (record)
0.26%
of doctors affected

House searches as intimidation

A so-called blacklist existed with around 200 doctors who had issued mask exemptions — apparently compiled by the state security. Around 95 percent of the doctors who responded had experienced at least one house search; one colleague reported eight searches.

The searches always came unannounced from six in the morning, sometimes during office hours, and lasted up to three hours. Doors were rammed open — in one case including the door frame. Doctors had to endure hours at open doors in winter.

Rolf Kron, for example, had to sit in his nightgown by an open door in winter for several hours. Very cold. Not an isolated case.

— Dr. Walter Weber

Physical violence and severe consequences

In many cases, it did not stop at the search. Reports included physical violence by police officers, sometimes with dramatic consequences:

  • An ophthalmologist from Münster suffered sudden hearing loss after violence was used.
  • Two female colleagues developed cancer in immediate temporal connection.
  • Dr. Ströer was sentenced to two years in prison without probation and died six months after the conviction.
  • Dr. Bianca Witzschel has been in pre-trial detention for a year and a half based on a negative report from the forensic medicine department of Dresden University. A counter-report was rejected by the judge.

Financial destruction

In addition to criminal prosecution, many doctors experienced targeted financial pressure. Penalty orders and indictments resulted in considerable costs. Many were able to buy their way out through fines ranging from 1,000 to 6,000 euros.

One colleague reported that the whole affair cost him approximately 30,000 euros. Another colleague had to pay 15,000 euros because the chairs in the waiting room did not have the required distance — one chair too many.

— Dr. Walter Weber

Media persecution, defamation and mobbing

Almost without exception, the affected doctors reported smear articles in the local press, targeted defamation, and public vilification. The persecution affected not only the doctors themselves but also their families. Children were bullied at school. Many colleagues eventually gave up and went abroad. One colleague went into hiding.

The medical chambers sided with the mainstream and in turn threatened the dissenting doctors with proceedings and withdrawal of their medical licence.

Central coordination

The approximately 400 doctors who were willing to issue mask exemptions from summer 2020 onwards immediately came into the crosshairs of state security. Police nationwide were informed and could immediately identify whether an exemption came from a doctor on the list. The report to the responsible public prosecutor was automatic. There must, Weber says, have been a central coordinating body.

Of 150,000 registered doctors in Germany, an estimated 400 were willing to issue mask exemptions to their patients — 0.26 percent. The rest refused to help, often out of fear of the consequences.

The medical profession has been silenced through a systematic, planned, targeted, merciless, and enforced persecution. The medical profession will not stand in the way of further totalitarian measures.

— Dr. Walter Weber

Patients and relatives also affected

In addition to the doctors, around 80 other people responded — medical staff and patients — who had also experienced house searches or convictions. Among them were patients who, despite serious illnesses, were turned away at the practices of their long-standing doctors because they did not dare to issue an exemption.

What remains

At the Medical Assembly 2024, the Geneva Declaration was ceremoniously commemorated. But for the doctors who upheld precisely this declaration, nothing remains but mockery. They were persecuted, convicted, financially ruined, socially ostracised. Their cases show: what happened here was not the prosecution of individual misconduct — it was a system.

This website exists to document exactly that. Every single case. So that nothing is forgotten.

Dr. med. Walter Weber
Physician, Hamburg

Call of 8 June 2024 to colleagues regarding mask exemptions and house searches. The information presented here is based on his evaluation of the responses received.

At a glance
Recording period
June 2024 (1 week)
Reports (doctors)
approx. 200
With house searches
approx. 95%
Highest no. of searches
8 (one doctor)
Other persons affected
approx. 80 (medical staff, patients)
Consent to publication
majority, 30–40% anonymised
Methods of persecution
  • House searches from 6 a.m.
  • Penalty orders and indictments
  • Fines up to 30,000 €
  • Media smear campaigns
  • Mobbing of families and children
  • Threat of licence withdrawal

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