Gunther von Hagens
Encyclopedia
Gunther von Hagens is a controversial German
anatomist
who invented the technique for preserving biological tissue specimens called plastination
.
, Reichsgau Wartheland
in western Poland
. At the age of five days his parents took him on a six-month trek west to escape the imminent Soviet occupation. His father Gerhard Liebchen had served in the German SS
as a cook. Gunther grew up in East Germany. The family lived briefly in Berlin
and its vicinity, before finally settling in Greiz
, a small town where von Hagens remained until age nineteen.
A haemophiliac, as a child he spent six months in hospital after being injured. This stimulated an interest in medical science and in 1965 he commenced studies in medicine at the University of Jena. While at the university, von Hagens began to question Communism and Socialism, and widened his knowledge of politics by gathering information from Western news sources. He participated in student protests against the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops. In January 1969, disguised as a vacationing student, von Hagens made his way across Bulgaria and Hungary, and on 8 January attempted to cross the Czechoslovakian border into Austria. He failed, but made a second attempt the next day, at another location along the border. He was arrested and punished with two years in jail.
West Germany bought his freedom in 1970 and he continued his medical studies in Lübeck
, and received a doctorate in 1975 from the University of Heidelberg.
Dr von Hagens is best known for his plastination
technique, which he invented in 1977 and patent
ed in the following year. Subsequently, he developed the technique further, and founded the Institute of Plastination in Heidelberg in 1993. He has been visiting professor in Dalian
, China since 1996, where he runs a plastination center, and also directs a plastination center at the State Medical Academy in Bishkek
, Kyrgyzstan
. Since 2004 he is also guest professor at New York University College of Dentistry
.
For the first 20 years plastination was used to preserve small specimens for medical study. It was not until the early 90s that the equipment was developed to make it possible to plastinate whole body specimens, each specimen taking up to 1,500 man hours to prepare. The first exhibition of whole bodies was displayed in Japan
in 1995. Over the next two years, Von Hagens developed the Body Worlds
exhibition, showing whole bodies plastinated in lifelike poses and dissected to show various structures and systems of human anatomy, which has since met with public interest and controversy in more than 50 cities around the world.
Religious groups, including representatives of the Catholic Church and some Rabbis have objected to the display of human remains, stating that it is inconsistent with reverence towards the human body.
The exhibition, and von Hagens' subsequent exhibitions Body Worlds 2, 3 and 4, have received more than 26 million visitors.
To produce specimens for the Body Worlds exhibition, von Hagens employs 340 people at five laboratories in four different countries. Each laboratory is categorized by specialty, with the China laboratory focusing on animal specimens. The giraffe which appeared in "Body Worlds 3 & The Story of the Heart" was one of the most difficult specimens to create. The giraffe took three years to complete 10 times longer than the amount of time it takes to prepare a human body. Ten people were required to move the giraffe because its final weight, like all specimens after plastination, was equal to its original.
The Body Worlds
exhibits were featured in a supposed Miami exhibition in the 2006 film Casino Royale
, although the actual location for the exterior shots was the Ministry of Transport in Prague
. Von Hagens himself makes a cameo appearance, and can be seen leading a tour past where James Bond
kills a villain.
Von Hagens has developed new body sectioning methods that yield very thin slices, which can then be plastinated. The slices can be used for anatomy studies. He is also developing similar techniques for larger specimens such as an elephant
. He works in a concealed laboratory, with an entrance behind a movable staircase, where he developed his wafer plastination techniques.
(a reference to the hat worn in The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt).
Von Hagens has said that his grand goal is the founding of a "Museum of Man" where exhibits of human anatomy can be permanently shown. He is on record as commenting that after death he plans to donate plastinated wafers of his body to several universities, so that in death he can (physically) teach at several locations, something that he cannot do while alive. In January 2011, he announced that he was dying from Parkinson’s disease and that after his death his wife would plastinate his body and put his preserved corpse on display as part of the Body Worlds exhibitions.
in the UK in 170 years, to a sell-out audience of 500 people in a London theatre. Prior to performing the autopsy, von Hagens had received a letter from Her Majesty's Inspector of Anatomy, the British government official responsible for regulating the educational use of cadavers. The letter warned von Hagens that performing a public autopsy would be a criminal act under section 11 of the Anatomy Act 1984
. The show was attended by officers from the Metropolitan Police
, but they did not intervene and the dissection was performed in full. The autopsy was shown in November 2002 on the UK's Channel 4
television channel; it resulted in over 130 complaints, an OFCOM
record, but the Independent Television Commission
ruled that the program had not been sensationalist and had not broken broadcasting rules. A planned public dissection in Munich was cancelled.
In 2003 TV Production Company Mentorn proposed a documentary called Futurehuman in which von Hagens would perform a series of modifications on a corpse to demonstrate 'improvements' to human anatomy. The controversy was sparked when the company, with von Hagens, appealed publicly for, and recruited, a terminally-ill person to donate his body for the project. The documentary was cancelled after the body donor pulled out.
In February 2004, the German Süddeutsche Zeitung
confirmed earlier reports by the German TV station ARD
that von Hagens had offered a one-time payment and a life-long pension to Alexander Sizonenko
if he would agree to have his body transferred to the Institute of Plastination after his death. Sizonenko, reported to be one of the world's tallest men at 2.48 m (8 ft), formerly played basketball
for the Soviet Union
and is now plagued by numerous health problems. He declined the offer.
After several legal challenges to the Body Worlds
exhibit in Germany, in the Summer of 2004 von Hagens announced it would be leaving the country. From 2004 onwards the exhibitions toured North America, returning to Europe in 2007 with an exhibition in Manchester, UK. The most current display of this exhibition is in Copenhagen, Denmark, beginning on January 11th 2011 until August 8th 2011, in the science center Experimentarium (BODY WORLDS & The Story of the Heart).
, featuring von Hagens and pathology professor John Lee
dissecting a number of cadavers and discussing the structure and function of many of the body's parts.
A four part follow-up series entitled Autopsy: Life and Death aired on Channel 4 in 2006, in which von Hagens and Lee discussed common fatal diseases (circulatory issues, cancer, poisoning from organ failure, and ageing) with the aid of dissections.
In November 2007, another series of 3 programmes was shown entitled Autopsy: Emergency Room, showing what happens when the body is injured, and featuring presentations by the British Red Cross.
regarding a shipment of 56 corpses to Heidelberg. The police maintained that the Novosibirsk coroner, Vladimir Novosylov, had sold the bodies illegally to buyers outside of Russia. Von Hagens was not charged in the case, but was called as a witness against Novosylov. The authorities stopped the shipment of bodies and the agreement between Novosibirsk and Dr Von Hagens was terminated.
In October 2003, a parliamentary committee in Kyrgyzstan
investigated accusations that von Hagens had illegally received and plastinated several hundred corpses from prisons, psychiatric institutions and hospitals in Kyrgyzstan, some without prior notification of the families. Von Hagens himself testified at the meeting; he said he had received nine corpses from Kyrgyzstan hospitals, none had been used for the Body Worlds exhibition, and that he was not involved with nor responsible for the notification of families.
In 2003, an animal rights organization filed a complaint alleging that von Hagens did not have proper papers for a gorilla
he had plastinated. He had received the cadaver from the Hanover Zoo
, where the animal had died. German authorities demanded the removal of the gorilla during the 2004 exhibition in Frankfurt, but von Hagens prevailed in court and the animal was restored.
In 2003, the University of Heidelberg filed a criminal complaint against von Hagens, claiming that he had misrepresented himself as a professor from a German university in a Chinese document, and that he had failed to state the foreign origin of his title in Germany. After a trial, he received a fine in March 2004. On 25 April 2005, a Heidelberg court imposed a fine of 108,000 euro
s (equivalent to a prison term of 90 days at the daily income assessed by the court) for one count of using an academic title that he was not entitled to, but acquitted him on four other counts. On appeal a higher court in September 2006 reduced the penalty to a warning with a suspended fine of 50,000 euros, which under German law is not deemed a prior criminal conviction. In 2007 the charge of title misuse was finally dismissed by the Federal Court of Justice of Germany
in Karlsruhe
.
Von Hagens has a guest professorship from Dalian Medical University
and an honorary professorship from Kyrgyz State Medical Academy. He is also a Guest Professor at the New York University College of Dentistry
.
In January 2004, the German news magazine Der Spiegel
reported that von Hagens had acquired some corpses from executed prisoners in China; he countered that he did not know the origin of the bodies and went on to cremate several of the disputed cadavers.
German prosecutors declined to press charges, and Von Hagens was granted an interim injunction against Der Spiegel in March 2005, preventing the magazine from claiming that Body Worlds contain the bodies of executed prisoners.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
anatomist
Anatomy
Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...
who invented the technique for preserving biological tissue specimens called plastination
Plastination
Plastination is a technique or process used in anatomy to preserve bodies or body parts. The water and fat are replaced by certain plastics, yielding specimens that can be touched, do not smell or decay, and even retain most properties of the original sample....
.
Early life
He was born Gunther Gerhard Liebchen in Skalmierzyce (then called Alt-Skalden) near KaliszKalisz
Kalisz is a city in central Poland with 106,857 inhabitants , the capital city of the Kalisz Region. Situated on the Prosna river in the southeastern part of the Greater Poland Voivodeship, the city forms a conurbation with the nearby towns of Ostrów Wielkopolski and Nowe Skalmierzyce...
, Reichsgau Wartheland
Reichsgau Wartheland
Reichsgau Wartheland was a Nazi German Reichsgau formed from Polish territory annexed in 1939. It comprised the Greater Poland and adjacent areas, and only in part matched the area of the similarly named pre-Versailles Prussian province of Posen...
in western Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. At the age of five days his parents took him on a six-month trek west to escape the imminent Soviet occupation. His father Gerhard Liebchen had served in the German SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...
as a cook. Gunther grew up in East Germany. The family lived briefly in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and its vicinity, before finally settling in Greiz
Greiz
Greiz is a town in Thuringia, and it is the capital of the district of Greiz. Greiz is situated in eastern Thuringia on the river Weiße Elster....
, a small town where von Hagens remained until age nineteen.
A haemophiliac, as a child he spent six months in hospital after being injured. This stimulated an interest in medical science and in 1965 he commenced studies in medicine at the University of Jena. While at the university, von Hagens began to question Communism and Socialism, and widened his knowledge of politics by gathering information from Western news sources. He participated in student protests against the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops. In January 1969, disguised as a vacationing student, von Hagens made his way across Bulgaria and Hungary, and on 8 January attempted to cross the Czechoslovakian border into Austria. He failed, but made a second attempt the next day, at another location along the border. He was arrested and punished with two years in jail.
West Germany bought his freedom in 1970 and he continued his medical studies in Lübeck
Lübeck
The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
, and received a doctorate in 1975 from the University of Heidelberg.
Career
He worked at the University in the Institutes of Anatomy and Pathology as a lecturer for 22 years.Dr von Hagens is best known for his plastination
Plastination
Plastination is a technique or process used in anatomy to preserve bodies or body parts. The water and fat are replaced by certain plastics, yielding specimens that can be touched, do not smell or decay, and even retain most properties of the original sample....
technique, which he invented in 1977 and patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
ed in the following year. Subsequently, he developed the technique further, and founded the Institute of Plastination in Heidelberg in 1993. He has been visiting professor in Dalian
Dalian
Dalian is a major city and seaport in the south of Liaoning province, Northeast China. It faces Shandong to the south, the Yellow Sea to the east and the Bohai Sea to the west and south. Holding sub-provincial administrative status, Dalian is the southernmost city of Northeast China and China's...
, China since 1996, where he runs a plastination center, and also directs a plastination center at the State Medical Academy in Bishkek
Bishkek
Bishkek , formerly Pishpek and Frunze, is the capital and the largest city of Kyrgyzstan.Bishkek is also the administrative centre of Chuy Province which surrounds the city, even though the city itself is not part of the province but rather a province-level unit of Kyrgyzstan.The name is thought to...
, Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
. Since 2004 he is also guest professor at New York University College of Dentistry
New York University College of Dentistry
The New York University College of Dentistry is one of 14 schools and divisions at New York University. It is located near Manhattan's Midtown area...
.
For the first 20 years plastination was used to preserve small specimens for medical study. It was not until the early 90s that the equipment was developed to make it possible to plastinate whole body specimens, each specimen taking up to 1,500 man hours to prepare. The first exhibition of whole bodies was displayed in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
in 1995. Over the next two years, Von Hagens developed the Body Worlds
Body Worlds
Body Worlds is a traveling exhibition of preserved human bodies and body parts that are prepared using a technique called plastination to reveal inner anatomical structures...
exhibition, showing whole bodies plastinated in lifelike poses and dissected to show various structures and systems of human anatomy, which has since met with public interest and controversy in more than 50 cities around the world.
Religious groups, including representatives of the Catholic Church and some Rabbis have objected to the display of human remains, stating that it is inconsistent with reverence towards the human body.
The exhibition, and von Hagens' subsequent exhibitions Body Worlds 2, 3 and 4, have received more than 26 million visitors.
To produce specimens for the Body Worlds exhibition, von Hagens employs 340 people at five laboratories in four different countries. Each laboratory is categorized by specialty, with the China laboratory focusing on animal specimens. The giraffe which appeared in "Body Worlds 3 & The Story of the Heart" was one of the most difficult specimens to create. The giraffe took three years to complete 10 times longer than the amount of time it takes to prepare a human body. Ten people were required to move the giraffe because its final weight, like all specimens after plastination, was equal to its original.
The Body Worlds
Body Worlds
Body Worlds is a traveling exhibition of preserved human bodies and body parts that are prepared using a technique called plastination to reveal inner anatomical structures...
exhibits were featured in a supposed Miami exhibition in the 2006 film Casino Royale
Casino Royale (2006 film)
Casino Royale is the twenty-first film in the James Bond film series and the first to star Daniel Craig as fictional MI6 agent James Bond...
, although the actual location for the exterior shots was the Ministry of Transport in Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
. Von Hagens himself makes a cameo appearance, and can be seen leading a tour past where James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
kills a villain.
Von Hagens has developed new body sectioning methods that yield very thin slices, which can then be plastinated. The slices can be used for anatomy studies. He is also developing similar techniques for larger specimens such as an elephant
Elephant
Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...
. He works in a concealed laboratory, with an entrance behind a movable staircase, where he developed his wafer plastination techniques.
Personal life
Von Hagens is married to Angelina Whalley, who is the Creative Director of the Body Worlds exhibitions. He has three children from his first marriage and also retains the surname von Hagens which is that of his first wife. When appearing in public, even when performing anatomical dissections, von Hagens always wears a black fedoraFedora (hat)
A fedora is a men's felt hat. In reality, "fedora" describes most any men's hat that does not already have another name; quite a few fedoras have famous names of their own including the famous Trilby....
(a reference to the hat worn in The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt).
Von Hagens has said that his grand goal is the founding of a "Museum of Man" where exhibits of human anatomy can be permanently shown. He is on record as commenting that after death he plans to donate plastinated wafers of his body to several universities, so that in death he can (physically) teach at several locations, something that he cannot do while alive. In January 2011, he announced that he was dying from Parkinson’s disease and that after his death his wife would plastinate his body and put his preserved corpse on display as part of the Body Worlds exhibitions.
Controversy
In 2002 von Hagens performed the first public autopsyAutopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...
in the UK in 170 years, to a sell-out audience of 500 people in a London theatre. Prior to performing the autopsy, von Hagens had received a letter from Her Majesty's Inspector of Anatomy, the British government official responsible for regulating the educational use of cadavers. The letter warned von Hagens that performing a public autopsy would be a criminal act under section 11 of the Anatomy Act 1984
Anatomy Act 1832
The Anatomy Act 1832 was a United Kingdom Act of Parliament that gave freer license to doctors, teachers of anatomy, and bona fide medical students to dissect donated bodies...
. The show was attended by officers from the Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan police
Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...
, but they did not intervene and the dissection was performed in full. The autopsy was shown in November 2002 on the UK's Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
television channel; it resulted in over 130 complaints, an OFCOM
Ofcom
Ofcom is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003...
record, but the Independent Television Commission
Independent Television Commission
The Independent Television Commission licensed and regulated commercial television services in the United Kingdom between 1 January 1991 and 28 December 2003....
ruled that the program had not been sensationalist and had not broken broadcasting rules. A planned public dissection in Munich was cancelled.
In 2003 TV Production Company Mentorn proposed a documentary called Futurehuman in which von Hagens would perform a series of modifications on a corpse to demonstrate 'improvements' to human anatomy. The controversy was sparked when the company, with von Hagens, appealed publicly for, and recruited, a terminally-ill person to donate his body for the project. The documentary was cancelled after the body donor pulled out.
In February 2004, the German Süddeutsche Zeitung
Süddeutsche Zeitung
The Süddeutsche Zeitung , published in Munich, is the largest German national subscription daily newspaper.-Profile:The title literally translates as "South German Newspaper". It is read throughout Germany by 1.1 million readers daily and boasts a relatively high circulation abroad...
confirmed earlier reports by the German TV station ARD
Das Erste
Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen , marketed as Das Erste , is the principal publicly owned television channel in Germany...
that von Hagens had offered a one-time payment and a life-long pension to Alexander Sizonenko
Alexander Sizonenko
Alexander Alekseyevich Sizonenko is a former Soviet basketball player. Possibly the tallest person to ever play professional basketball, he was measured by Guinness World Records at and named the world's tallest man in 1991. Sizonenko is said to have grown since this measurement was taken,...
if he would agree to have his body transferred to the Institute of Plastination after his death. Sizonenko, reported to be one of the world's tallest men at 2.48 m (8 ft), formerly played basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
for the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and is now plagued by numerous health problems. He declined the offer.
After several legal challenges to the Body Worlds
Body Worlds
Body Worlds is a traveling exhibition of preserved human bodies and body parts that are prepared using a technique called plastination to reveal inner anatomical structures...
exhibit in Germany, in the Summer of 2004 von Hagens announced it would be leaving the country. From 2004 onwards the exhibitions toured North America, returning to Europe in 2007 with an exhibition in Manchester, UK. The most current display of this exhibition is in Copenhagen, Denmark, beginning on January 11th 2011 until August 8th 2011, in the science center Experimentarium (BODY WORLDS & The Story of the Heart).
Television appearances
In 2005 Channel 4 screened four programs entitled Anatomy for BeginnersAnatomy for Beginners
Anatomy for Beginners is a television show created by Gunther von Hagens.In this 4-part series, Dr Gunther von Hagens and Professor John Lee demonstrated the anatomical structure and workings of the body...
, featuring von Hagens and pathology professor John Lee
John Lee (pathologist)
John Andre Lee is an English consultant histopathologist at Rotherham General Hospital and clinical professor of pathology at Hull York Medical School. Lee gained his medical degree, a BSc. and a Ph.D. in physiology at University College London...
dissecting a number of cadavers and discussing the structure and function of many of the body's parts.
A four part follow-up series entitled Autopsy: Life and Death aired on Channel 4 in 2006, in which von Hagens and Lee discussed common fatal diseases (circulatory issues, cancer, poisoning from organ failure, and ageing) with the aid of dissections.
In November 2007, another series of 3 programmes was shown entitled Autopsy: Emergency Room, showing what happens when the body is injured, and featuring presentations by the British Red Cross.
Legal accusations
In 2002 there were legal proceedings against a senior pathologist and coroner in SiberiaSiberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
regarding a shipment of 56 corpses to Heidelberg. The police maintained that the Novosibirsk coroner, Vladimir Novosylov, had sold the bodies illegally to buyers outside of Russia. Von Hagens was not charged in the case, but was called as a witness against Novosylov. The authorities stopped the shipment of bodies and the agreement between Novosibirsk and Dr Von Hagens was terminated.
In October 2003, a parliamentary committee in Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan
Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...
investigated accusations that von Hagens had illegally received and plastinated several hundred corpses from prisons, psychiatric institutions and hospitals in Kyrgyzstan, some without prior notification of the families. Von Hagens himself testified at the meeting; he said he had received nine corpses from Kyrgyzstan hospitals, none had been used for the Body Worlds exhibition, and that he was not involved with nor responsible for the notification of families.
In 2003, an animal rights organization filed a complaint alleging that von Hagens did not have proper papers for a gorilla
Gorilla
Gorillas are the largest extant species of primates. They are ground-dwelling, predominantly herbivorous apes that inhabit the forests of central Africa. Gorillas are divided into two species and either four or five subspecies...
he had plastinated. He had received the cadaver from the Hanover Zoo
Hanover Zoo
Hanover Zoo is located in the Zoo district right in the city centre of Hanover, Germany. The zoo was established on May 4, 1865, and comprises an area of 22 hectares. Currently, it is home to about 3,414 animals in 237 species, which are being cared for by more than 400 employees in the summer...
, where the animal had died. German authorities demanded the removal of the gorilla during the 2004 exhibition in Frankfurt, but von Hagens prevailed in court and the animal was restored.
In 2003, the University of Heidelberg filed a criminal complaint against von Hagens, claiming that he had misrepresented himself as a professor from a German university in a Chinese document, and that he had failed to state the foreign origin of his title in Germany. After a trial, he received a fine in March 2004. On 25 April 2005, a Heidelberg court imposed a fine of 108,000 euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
s (equivalent to a prison term of 90 days at the daily income assessed by the court) for one count of using an academic title that he was not entitled to, but acquitted him on four other counts. On appeal a higher court in September 2006 reduced the penalty to a warning with a suspended fine of 50,000 euros, which under German law is not deemed a prior criminal conviction. In 2007 the charge of title misuse was finally dismissed by the Federal Court of Justice of Germany
Federal Court of Justice of Germany
The Federal Court of Justice of Germany in Karlsruhe is the highest court in the system of ordinary jurisdiction in Germany. It is the supreme court in all matters of criminal and private law...
in Karlsruhe
Karlsruhe
The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...
.
Von Hagens has a guest professorship from Dalian Medical University
Dalian Medical University
Dalian Medical University is a university in Dalian, Liaoning, China under the provincial government. It was founded in 1947 in the southern part of Dalian city, China by Mao Ze Dong.....
and an honorary professorship from Kyrgyz State Medical Academy. He is also a Guest Professor at the New York University College of Dentistry
New York University College of Dentistry
The New York University College of Dentistry is one of 14 schools and divisions at New York University. It is located near Manhattan's Midtown area...
.
In January 2004, the German news magazine Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...
reported that von Hagens had acquired some corpses from executed prisoners in China; he countered that he did not know the origin of the bodies and went on to cremate several of the disputed cadavers.
German prosecutors declined to press charges, and Von Hagens was granted an interim injunction against Der Spiegel in March 2005, preventing the magazine from claiming that Body Worlds contain the bodies of executed prisoners.