Austrians too

Cure practitioner (75) castrated users of online forums

The man, who had no medical training, offered castrations online, which he carried out in his living room. An Austrian was also harmed. (symbolic image).

(Bild: ©Monet - stock.adobe.com)

A 75-year-old man has been on trial since Thursday for castrating men in Germany without any medical training. The accused remained silent at the start of the trial at the regional court in Erfurt, the capital of the federal state of Thuringia. 

The pensioner is accused of performing eight surgical procedures in his living room in Sömmerda between 2015 and 2019 - in return for payment and without any medical training. He is said to have offered his services in online forums. The victims are said to have paid between 500 and 2,200 euros for the procedures. To protect the privacy of the injured parties, the public was excluded during the reading of the indictment. The investigators were put on his trail following a tip-off from colleagues in Erdingen, who were also investigating a man from Bavaria for castrations in another case.

Data carriers and dirty surgical instruments seized
An officer from the Erfurt criminal investigation department testified on the witness stand that numerous data carriers had been seized during a search of the 75-year-old's home. The officer also spoke of vast amounts of chat histories.

In addition, surgical utensils such as a kidney dish with scissors and tweezers were confiscated, to which blood from several people had adhered, as well as chloroform and a tube for ligation. The procedures had been carried out on the couch in the living room. The officer described the apartment as dirty and unhygienic.

Investigators pushed open a "door to another world"
The officer reported that an injured party from Austria had undergone massive procedures and had reported considerable complications afterwards in chats. The public prosecutor's office assumes that the men concerned voluntarily agreed to this.

The officer saw a conglomerate of motives for the castrations in both the accused and the victims. In his opinion, these included sexual and financial interests as well as the exercise of power and fantasies. A chief inspector from Erdingen, who was questioned as a witness, said that they had come across a "cutter from Erfurt" and a "Thuringian 47" with a full-body photo during their investigations on the Internet. During the investigation, "a door to another world" was opened for them.

In December 2021, a then 67-year-old electrician was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for grievous, dangerous and simple bodily harm at Munich II Regional Court. He had admitted to offering "castrations" on sadist forums on the internet. Several men paid him money to torture them and remove their testicles, for example. One of the men died after the procedure - the court was unable to find out why.

The defendant in Erfurt is accused of, among other things, grievous bodily harm. If convicted, he faces three to 15 years in prison.