A lot of work goes into these slices, so theY're quite expensive. I guess this one would cost you between 3,000 and 4,000 euros. A slice across the heart costs about 300 euro.
And across the stomach, which is less interesting, would be about 150 euros.

Ever heard of doctor Mengele?
We have another one.

Guben, East-Germany.
A dilapidated place.

After the reunification OF Germany a third of the inhabitants left town. There wasn't any work. But last week a new factory
opened its doors. A corpse factory.


I enjoy the work: You need a lot of patience though.

At last Olaf Rick has a job again. For 13 hours a day he removes fats and connective tissue from corpses.

Do you enjoy your dinner after work?
Certainly. No problem.
It's just a regular job. I preserve corpses.
It doesn't matter to me whether they were human beings once.

The corpse factory.
A kind of amusement park employing 300 inhabitants of Guben who plastinate dead bodies. Which means replacing the natural body fluids with a solid plastic preserving them for eternity. It enables corpses to be displayed in spectacular positions in museums.

If you want to be a good teacher you have to be spectacular. I was a university anatomist for 20 years. I've always been a showman. If I wanted to demonstrate something I turned it into a bit of an event.

Doctor Gunther von Hagens wants to teach people about anatomy:
This is what we look like on the inside.
The plastination technique isn't new. Scientists have been doing it for years.

More and more museums are exhibiting preserved bodies these days.

But in Guben people can actually see corpses being dissected and plastinated.

Quite a novelty for the general public, Von Hagens says.
Why not make a living of it?

Nothing in life is free. Especially not death.

The collection bags are even passed around church when there's a funeral.

Undertakers get paid and so do anatomists.

So why shouldn't I be allowed to. accept money from people who visit here?

The skin has been taken off this head. The eyes, nose and mouth are still there.

The pins are there to hold it together.

They are taken out when it's all hard.
But it IS his own skin? - Yes, from his skull.
And the head will be put on top of that specimen.
Von Hagens even takes it a step further.
Not only does he offer the public a chance to watch the actual plastination.
The corpses can even be purchased in 2 millimetre thin slices.

How many slices are you planning to sell?

In about five years' time ... I hope to be selling about half a million a year.

I've been doing some calculating.
If he sells, as he says, 500,000 slices a year I've calculated that it amounts to 100 corpses a day.
It's madness. 100 corpses a day going through a circular saw.
Dieter Stoll and his Dutch wife moved to Guben not long ago.
They bought this immense villa for next to nothing.
But ever since their new neighbours moved in, they want to leave town.

He knows no bounds. And it's scaring us.
I draw the line when a deceased person's body is used to generate commercial value.

Walking through town or going for a pint, or whatever I do I'm constantly reminded of this Van Hagens.

The other day I was in the butcher’s on a Saturday morning to buy a couple of hamburgers. When I turned round, this corpse
was grinning down at me. It was awful.

Dieter isn't the only one objecting to Von Hagens' activities.
The local church has its objections too.
For each new body in the plastinarium the vicar lights a candle.

He fails to treat the deceased with the proper honour and respect as we have been doing for thousands of years .
And he's doing it deliberately. To him it's a means to earn a lot of money.

I am very respectful.
I know most of my donors personally.
We meet on a regular basis.
We have long discussions by letter.

And most ladies'and gentlemen on exhibition here whether as a whole or in parts, agreed to be exhibited when they were still alive.

According to Vcn Hagens, corpses are never exhibited without their consent.

They made their body available to him by means of a codicil.
Are you paid beforehand if you agree to have your body preserved?

No? It's all voluntary, is it?

Von Hagens claims there are 6,000 volunteers on his waiting list.
He hopes the exhibition will produce even more. And it seems to be working.

Do you want to be on the list too?
Yes, I've made up my mind.

But I haven't discussed it with my family yet.
Von Hagens can do with him whatever he likes.
But this gentleman has his own idea'.

I love working with model trains. There was this picture in the paper of me at a model railway station.

I would like to be displayed like that, for instance. Very simple.
But what happens if a volunteer takes 30 years to die?
He'll have to wait a very longtime for him to die before he can start slicing him up.

But he needs him right now.
Where does he get his corpses from now?
There's something wrong.
Where does he get them from then?
We believe they all corne from China.

Let me assure you once and for all. All the preserved bodies on display here have been donated in Germany.

Were they all Germans Or were some of them foreign?
Of the 6,500 donors of the programme in Germany, the majority are German.

But I don't want to be a post-mortem racist.
His Body Mobil is always on standby to collect a body.
Whether you are Dutch or Chinese.

Chinese prisoners? Not one court case I has been able to prove it.
This is just the beginning.
- Yes, yes.
He's taking it much too far.

At the moment he has Plans to do a Jesus on the cross.
And also, and let me say this nicely, a pornographic display.
Just say it.
- People making love.
Just say it. People having sex.

If ever I would exhibit or plastinate a sexual act I would only do it to educate people and if there is an evident link between sensation andlinformation.
Information about AIDS , for instance.
If ever I would, it would have
to be so inf0rmative and aesthetic mothers would want it
to serve as a lesson to their kids.
There is a lot of space here .
We want to have a youth hostel so school classes
can come and spend the night.

He has a lot of plans. Jut how can the law approve of all of this?
German laws for undertaking
are very strict.

Even when donors have agreed to everything.
But Van Hagens found a loophole in legislation.
The stupid thing is, if you take a corpse and plunge it into formalin, it's no longer called a corpse.

The moment it’s immersed in formalin it has become a specimen. There’s a big difference. For the law. You’ll never hear Von Hagen’s use the word corpse. He always talks about specimens. The big problem is there is absolutely no law that tells us what you can or cannot do with a specimen. This is filled with liquid. The slice is completely filled with synthetic material. As you can see here. They aren’t corpses, they’re plastinates. They have a new quality. A skeleton isn’t a corpse either, it has a new quality. The same applies to plastinates because they can be preserved like mummies.

They used to be people. (Narrator)
True, but now they have a new quality.
Just like a steak on your plate has become a piece of meat and is no longer a cadaver.
But you know it used to be a person. - Used to be, yes.
Now it's a specimen.
All the employees have gone through the drill.
Specimens have no rights.
But they look nice hanging in front of the window.
would you like to buy a slice like that? - It depends on the price.

I would like to, but I 1m sure they are very expensive.
If they were cheap I would like to buy one.

But it was too pleased
it was creating new jobs.
On the other side of the river
in the Polish, Catholic part of Guben Von Hagens made an attempt too.

But he was all but run out of town there because of moral objections.

The vicar regrets he was Successful in his Germany.
The German constitution states that human dignity is untouchable.

This was drawn up after the experiences in the times of the nazis.

The nazis stated that certain groups of people were unworthy in order to be able to treat them and murder them
as if they weren't human beings.

Some people say: Look, if someone is wearing his skin over his arm it reminds us of what happened in the concentration camps when they used to make lamp shades out of human skin.

They call you Doctor Death. Are you proud of that? People are scared of you.


I’m ashamed that people call me that. Because it’s what they called the Nazi doctors.

And this exhibition is completely and fundamentally different from the horrors of the Nazi regime. Millions of people were gassed and here, people have made a conscious choice while they were still alive to become an educational example for the future generation and to the benefit of the public.


This is unacceptable to the Stoll family. They will continue their protest.

Wake Up."
send us a letter of protest.

Tell Germany to put an end to it, once and for all.
That's our goal.
However, for now they can't stop Von Ragens playing with his corpses.
And who are the winners?
The dead always win. Because life is too short.