Castrations offered on the Internet – pensioner in Erfurt in court

The defendant remained silent at the start of the proceedings at the regional court in Erfurt, the capital of the federal state of Thuringia. The pensioner is accused of having carried out eight surgical procedures in his living room in Sömmerda between 2015 and 2019 – for payment and without medical training.

• Read more from Weltspiegel: More than 1000 heat-related deaths after pilgrimage

He is said to have offered his services in forums on the Internet. The victims are said to have paid between 500 and 2,200 euros for the procedures. To protect the privacy of the injured, the public was excluded from the reading of the charges. The investigators tracked down the accused after a tip-off from colleagues from Erdingen, who were also investigating a man from Bavaria for castrations in another case.

Surgical equipment found during house search

An officer from the Erfurt Criminal Investigation Department testified in the witness stand that numerous data storage devices were confiscated during a search of the 75-year-old’s apartment. The officer also spoke of huge amounts of chat histories. In addition, surgical equipment such as a kidney bowl with scissors and tweezers, which had blood from several people on it, as well as chloroform and a tube for tying things off, were confiscated. The operations were carried out on the couch in the living room. The officer described the apartment as dirty and unhygienic.

Known as the “Cutter from Erfurt”

The officer reported on a victim from Austria who had undergone extensive surgery and reported in chats of significant complications afterwards. The public prosecutor assumes that the men involved agreed to this voluntarily. The officer saw a conglomerate of motives for the castrations in both the accused and the victims. In his opinion, this included not only sexual and financial interests but also the exercise of power and fantasies. A chief detective from Erdingen, who was also questioned as a witness, said that during the investigation into their case, they came across a “cutter from Erfurt” and a “47-year-old from Thuringia” with a full-body photo on the Internet. During the investigation, “a door to another world” was opened for them.

• More news from around the world: Abuse – devastating testimony for King Charles’ boarding school

In December 2021, a then 67-year-old electrician was sentenced to more than eight years in prison at the Munich II Regional Court for serious, dangerous and simple bodily harm. He had admitted to offering “castrations” in 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 determine how.

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