BERLIN (dpa) – The dead don’t speak. Wrong, say medical law experts in Berlin. The dead do speak, and they can continue to do so for a very long time.
They speak from the archives of Berlin’s forensic medical experts, documents which reflect the history of Germany of the 20th century.Factual, sober and meticulous, here is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about some of the country’s most spectacular murder cases.The treacherous murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg and the gunning down of East Germans trying to escape over the Berlin Wall – it is all documented by the forensic experts of the Berlin Charite, the medical faculty of the city’s Humboldt University.Forensic scientists Gunther Geserick, Klaus Vendura and Igo Wirth have been clearly fascinated by the wealth of information they have found in the archives.In their book “Zeitzeuge Tod, Spektakuläre Fälle der Berliner Gerichtsmedizin” (Contemporary Witness Death, Spectacular Cases of Berlin Forensic Medicine) they have been able to describe some of the city’s most famous forensic cases, without ever having to stray from the factual tone of the medical notes uncovered in the files.From the medical reports of the causes of past and prominent deaths they have come up with a contemporary, social and criminal history of Germany of the last century.It’s not exactly for those of a nervous disposition, say the authors. Yet neither is this a thrilling read for voyeurs.Geserick, the head of medical jurisprudence at the Charite, is a man who abhors sensation-seeking. He has worked and carried out research for more than 40 years at Germany’s oldest and most renowned institute for forensic medicine.Of slight build and with a moustache and metal-rimmed spectacles, 63-year-old Geserick looks very much the incorruptible scientist.His daily confrontation with violent death has turned him into a chronicler. The book is certainly no quest to satisfy the cravings of bloodthirsty thriller or detective novel readers.He and his co-authors come over rather as meticulous translators of a profession which is shrouded in secrecy.They describe how forensic science demonstrates that Karl Liebknecht was not shot while on the run as was claimed in 1919. The brain damage caused by the serious head injuries suffered at the hands of his torturers would have made it impossible for him to run quickly, according to the medical notes.In another case, Hans Otto, a prominent Berlin actor, was said by the Nazis to have committed suicide by jumping off a roof. But forensic science reveals that Otto had suffered fractures in a beating, making it almost impossible for him to have climbed up onto a roof with the intention of killing himself.Other cases in the often violent annals of German history are highlighted in the forensic medical archives.The victims of street clashes which erupted after the 1920 so-called Kapp military putsch, victims of assassinations such as foreign minister Walther Rathenau, or those killed in the Koepenick Bloody Week in the early 1930s when the SA – the paramilitary wing of the Nazi party – murdered 91 people from the “red” Berlin district of Koepenick – all were examined and recorded by the Charite’s forensic medicine experts.What follows reads like a black book of recent German history: concentration camp victims, victims of the uprising of June 17, 1953, victims of the Berlin Wall guards.After the collapse of East Germany, Erich Mielke, that country’s former secret police, or Stasi, chief, received a first-hand taste of Berlin’s forensic medical incorruptibility.Thanks to the post-mortem case notes the deaths of two policemen, shot dead during a demonstration at Berlin’s Buelowplatz in 1931 had legal repercussions for Mielke when he was jailed for six years in 1993 for their murder.Neither did Geserick and his colleagues spare the truth on the deaths of four people shot dead at the Berlin Wall while trying to flee East Germany. Their reports were used in the court trials which followed Germany’s reunification.If you ask Geserick for his views on today’s post-division German society from the perspective of the Berlin morgue his reply will be anything but reassuring.He is frankly shocked by today’s “contempt for human life and brutality”, by the violence against people who are unable to defend themselves.“That people can be kicked to death for a trivial thing is something that never used to happen,” he said.Sometimes during his work he has to clench his fist in anger, bewilderment or just plain sorrow. Yet he does not pass judgement.“The last thing I can do for a person is to compile the post- mortem report,” he said.Then, at least, the dead do sometimes have the last word.
