A magazine report that Dr. Gunther von Hagens, the organizer of the Body Worlds traveling exhibition now drawing crowds in Frankfurt, bought the bodies of executed Chinese prisoners for his exhibits has brought him new notoriety. Posted on 02/02/2004 10:40:27 PM PST by Destro
FRANKFURT JOURNAL
A New Spine-Tingler From the Impresario of Cadavers
By MARK LANDLER
Published: February 3, 2004
A magazine report that Dr. Gunther von Hagens, the organizer of the Body Worlds traveling exhibition now drawing crowds in Frankfurt, bought the bodies of executed Chinese prisoners for his exhibits has brought him new notoriety.
"Muscleman with his skeleton" is part of the Body Worlds traveling exhibition.
FRANKFURT, Feb. 2 — As Gunther von Hagens hurried out of his exhibit here the other day and hopped into a waiting van, fans thrust programs through the open door, beseeching him for an autograph.
Though late for a flight to Beijing, Dr. von Hagens obligingly scrawled his name. Public support has been the doctor's lifeline, especially since last month, when his photo appeared on the cover of Germany's most influential magazine, Der Spiegel, under the headline "Dr. Death."
Six years after Dr. von Hagens scandalized some Germans, and fascinated many others, with an exhibit devoted to preserved cross sections of human cadavers, he is back in the glare of a controversy.
Notoriety returned with a report in Der Spiegel that Dr. von Hagens had bought the bodies of executed Chinese prisoners for his exhibits. Citing e-mail messages from a former Chinese employee of Dr. von Hagens, the magazine declared that the doctor's company in the Chinese city of Dalian had bought corpses with bullet holes in their heads.
Preserving bodies without the prior consent of the deceased may be a violation of German law, according to legal experts.
"There's not one witness, not one signed document, no proof that I knew anything about this," Dr. von Hagens said in an interview. "Until there is evidence to the contrary, I believe that my colleagues and employees stuck to my strict rule that they do not accept victims of execution."
Still, he concedes, in the twilight world where human remains are bought and sold, his employees might have acquired the bodies of people who spent their last moments kneeling, with a gun barrel at their backs.
"The likelihood is very slim, but I cannot rule it out," he said, fiddling with his ever-present black fedora. "After all, it is possible that you have a corpse in your cellar, and you don't know it."
From Dr. von Hagens's tone, it is hard to tell whether he views this latest outcry as an affront to his professional reputation or a novel way to publicize his latest installation of Body Worlds, a traveling exhibit of cadavers that has attracted nearly 14 million visitors since its debut in Mannheim in 1998.
More than 50,000 people have flocked to a converted factory in the industrial quarter of Frankfurt since the exhibit opened on Jan. 16. They pay about $15 to see a gallery of corpses in athletic poses — muscles, organs, bones and skin flayed to reveal the inner workings of the human anatomy.
It is like Madam Tussaud's turned inside out, except these figures are real — their body parts leached of water and injected with a molten plastic that hardens, preserving them in lifelike color. Dr. von Hagens, 59, pioneered the technique two decades ago at the University of Heidelberg.
Part science project, part freak show, the Body Worlds exhibit has provoked a steady din of protest from church leaders and human rights groups. They say Dr. von Hagens violates the dignity of the human body and disguises prurient commerce as a Leonardo-like exploration of anatomy.
"One must distinguish between artistic freedom and human rights," said Karl Hafen, the managing director of the International Society for Human Rights in Frankfurt. "He buys dead bodies like raw material."
Until now, Dr. von Hagens has been an elusive quarry for those who would find grounds for prosecution because the bodies in his exhibits were all donated by volunteers who knew what they would be used for. Body Worlds has toured from London to Singapore, drawing sell-out crowds and becoming a multimillion-dollar franchise with a ravenous appetite for fresh cadavers.
The allegations in Der Spiegel, however, opened a new front against the doctor. Mr. Hafen's group has demanded that the exhibition be closed until authorities confirm the origin of the Chinese corpses. The public prosecutor in Heidelberg said it would consider an investigation.
"When he says he doesn't know about this, it sounds naïve," Mr. Hafens said. "He goes to these countries, which are so careless in dealing with this issue. He simply cannot pretend he is not aware of it."
Dr. von Hagens said Chinese authorities offered him bodies that he suspected had been executed, which he said he turned town. He also said he broke off relations with the former general manager of his Chinese operation, whose incriminating e-mail messages were cited in Der Spiegel. The manager, he asserted, had started a side business in trading corpses without telling him.
At first, Dr. von Hagens said, he worried that the dispute might dent attendance. "Some people might say, 'That's a scandal — I don't want to support a scandal,' " he said. "But in the long run, it won't matter."
On a recent afternoon, visitors seemed so distracted by the cadavers — sliced, diced, some clutching their internal organs in their hands — that no one bothered to ask where the bodies came from.
Guiseppe Modica, 20, could not take his eyes off an aged body with a prosthetic knee. "My father-in-law is about to get one of those," he said. "He needs to come down and have a look."
For Dr. von Hagens, whose goal is to "democratize" the study of anatomy, these are the endorsements that matter. "When you cannot go after the exhibit," he said, "you go after the one who organized it."
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