Gert Postel

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Gert Uwe Postel (born June 18, 1958 in Bremen ) is a German impostor . He gained notoriety in particular through his multiple jobs with forged certificates as a doctor between 1980 and 1995. In some cases, Postel held the position of Dr. med. Dr. phil. Clemens Bartholdy leading positions.

biography

Childhood and youth

Postel grew up as the only child of a mechanic and a seamstress in Stuhr near Bremen. According to his own account, he had “a sad childhood” and not infrequently had suicidal thoughts . As a teenager, he made fun of leading the regional Weser courier onto black ice with small false reports.

Upon completion of secondary school Postel brought by attending a night school , the average maturity after. In 1976 he completed his training as a delivery agent and then worked as a postman for the Deutsche Bundespost until August 1977 .

After his mother's death in 1979, according to Postel's statements, she had killed herself as a result of improper psychiatric treatment, and he “got on the wrong track”. In the same year Postel applied with a false Abitur certificate to the higher regional court of Bremen for an apprenticeship as a clerk ; after four months the dizziness was exposed. However, a youth sentence was not imposed and Postel was ordered to donate DM 700 to a charitable organization.

Confusion as an academic and a doctor

After moving out of his parents' house, Postel rented an apartment in Bremen at the end of 1979 under a false name and with a false academic degree. In March 1980, he repeated this procedure and, among other things, presented a forged ID card to the dental association . It was not about fraud , but only about speeding up the search in the tense housing market. After discovering his true identity, at the end of the same year he was sentenced by the Bremen District Court to a fine of 30 daily rates of 20 DM each for unauthorized use of an academic degree and use of the professional title “doctor”.

When applying for a position in a specialist hospital for psychotherapy near Oldenburg , Postel identified himself for the first time with a forged license to practice medicine , stated that he had come directly from the university and was then given the advertised position. Postel had prepared himself extensively for his new role by attending psychology and sociology lectures at the University of Bremen , reading specialist books and learning to assimilate the medical language as well as possible. Postel worked in Oldenburg for a quarter of a year and practiced his appearance as a doctor before he returned to Bremen in April 1981. Here he held a leading position in the rehabilitation center at the vocational training center of the Bremen Reichsbund for four weeks , until a judge recognized him as the former trainee judge from the Bremen Higher Regional Court. In the meantime, Postel had worked as an emergency doctor , prescribing medication and admitting patients to hospitals. Since Postel showed repentance, the proceedings against him were discontinued in return for payment of a sum of 600 DM.

At the beginning of March 1982 Postel applied under the name Dr. Klaus Höfer for the position of a military doctor in the armed forces and stated that he had a doctorate in medicine and psychology . The 11th Panzer Grenadier Division requested the original documents to verify this information. Postel then filed a self-disclosure as a precaution . The proceedings against Postel were then finally discontinued under Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure .

The health center in Flensburg's Norderstraße (2014)

Shortly afterwards, in September 1982, the then 24-year-old Postel applied as Dr. med. Dr. phil. Clemens Bartholdy for the position of deputy medical officer advertised in Flensburg . There he presented himself with complete information about his career and doctorate as the son of a medical councilor and a medical director . He backed up his information on exam results and career path with forged documents . Although the application documents were not yet complete, Postel was hired because he had previously established contact with office manager Wolfgang Wodarg and he had earned his trust. Under Postel, psychiatric accommodations decreased from over 95% of applications to just 10%. As a result, and because of his mistakes, Postel's area of ​​responsibility was reduced more and more.

Postel contradicted a proposed transfer to a municipal advice center and then resigned from his service. Shortly before he was able to take up a new job at the University Psychiatric Clinic in Kiel in April 1983 , Postel lost documents in Flensburg, among which were two ID cards with his photo , which, however, were made out in different names. Postel then tried to go into hiding and was finally picked up by police officers in Bremen. In December 1984 Postel received a one-year prison sentence, suspended on probation, for multiple forgery , abusive use of academic titles and fraud .

This didn't stop him from applying for new doctoral positions immediately. This was followed by a job in Julius Hackethal's private clinic in Riedering in the Rosenheim district .

In 1986, Postel was in Bremen one more time in court because he, a prosecutor who refused his advances to mental to its collapse readjusted had. The court reporter Gerhard Mauz wrote that Postel was not only bitterly angry with women in this case. How many he damaged and destroyed is an endless, unspeakable story.

"Career" after German reunification

After his enrollment to study Catholic theology in Münster, Postel is said to have been received by Pope John Paul II in Rome for a private audience on May 1, 1991 .

In 1994, Postel worked in Berlin for a few months as a psychiatric expert in the vocational support organization, after which he was briefly employed by the Stuttgart State Insurance Institute. He gave up both positions by himself.

As a witness, Postel was questioned at the beginning of 1995 in the “ Drawer Committee ” of the Schleswig-Holstein state parliament . The background to this was his long-standing friendship with the journalist Reiner Pfeiffer, which became public . Postel claimed to have played a major role in the earlier Barschel affair . Whether and to what extent Postel was involved could not be determined with certainty.

House 15a of the Zschadraßer Psychiatry with a poster with the inscription "Something history was written there"

On the "turmoil of German unity and the fact [...] that the Iron Curtain was once an ingenious isolation", it can be traced back to the fact that, despite his previous history, Postel managed to successfully apply for a position under his real name in the Saxon town of Zschadraß To apply for a senior physician in the penal system in the local specialist hospital for psychiatry , which he took up in November 1995. It was Postel's at least sixth job as a psychiatrist. After the turn of the year, the Saxon cabinet, thanks to the personal support of Minister of Social Affairs Hans Geisler, was ready to offer Postel a C4 professorship as head physician in the forensic department at the Saxon Hospital in Arnsdorf , a state-owned specialist hospital for psychiatry and neurology in Arnsdorf in the Bautzen district . However, Postel declined, presumably after a difficult conversation with the medical director Hubert Heilemann. In July 1997 he was exposed in Zschadraß after a doctor had received a visit from her parents from Schleswig-Holstein , one happened to talk about Postel in conversation and the parents knew this name.

A public prosecutor from Leipzig , with whom Postel said he had a short-term relationship, warned him of his upcoming arrest. Postel was able to go underground again until his capture in Stuttgart on May 12, 1998, in the meantime supported by a judge from Stuttgart with whom he is also said to have had an affair. In 1999, Postel was finally sentenced to four years imprisonment by the Leipzig Regional Court for multiple fraud, forgery, deception and misuse of academic titles .

After release from prison

After his early release in January 2001, Postel published the book Doktorspiele - Confessions of an Impostor , which was written during his imprisonment and which deals with the story of his life and became a bestseller . The ghostwriter for the book is said to have been the journalist Reiner Pfeiffer , known from the Barschel affair . The title of the book is a direct reference to Thomas Mann's novel Confessions of the impostor Felix Krull . The foreword by a Dr. Gert von Berg comes from Postel himself.

Postel now lives in Tübingen and is married to a lawyer from Stuttgart.

Assessments and reception

Journalistic and legal

Postel's career and the criminal trials that affected him drew wide public attention. The impostor was a guest in a large number of television formats, attempts were made to shed light on his story in countless interviews and Postel gave sold-out readings. Postel's representations, which were seen as exposing the psychiatry business, met with approval not least from the anti- psychiatry movement . According to Burkhard Müller, Postel would not have been able to work unmolested for a long time in other professions : “[All] these people have to be able to do something specifically in order to do their job. [...] Psychiatry [...] is sufficiently authenticated in a certain demeanor and a certain jargon . "Some consider Postel a cult , others would rather see" the forger and fraudster in safe custody today than tomorrow. "

During the trial in 1984, the Flensburg social administration tried to belittle its own failures. The court concluded that it had been made easy for Postel through good faith, lack of mistrust and negligent overlook of obvious signs. In the case of complaints against expert opinions drawn up by Postel and decisions taken after his conviction, the underlying findings from his pen were regularly confirmed by the regional court . Postel was allowed to keep additional fees in the mid five-digit DM range that he had received for psychiatric reports during his time in Zschadraß, Saxony. A reclaim by legal action would only have had a chance of success if expert opinions had been rejected during the examination by a court. The fact that “professional colleagues and the judiciary apparently found it more advisable to wave through a fait accompli than to plunge into inconvenience […] may have damaged the image of psychiatry more than anything else, because it contains the admission that he has In the end we did it as well as we did. "

In a report that the assessment of criminal responsibility had Postel's goal, says about this: "He's strong self-centered , it lacks the capacity for self-criticism." Postel agiere towards others clearly condescending criticism he meet unsettled, irritable and aggressive . Even as a child he had fled into fantasy worlds, his impostor was similar to an addiction and the "desolation of his real life drove him into his roles again and again." During Postel's work in the doctor's business, however, specialists did not notice a personality disorder .

The “Postel method” consisted of contacting people by telephone using false identities in order to “secure fraudulent qualifications and positions”. As a supposed public prosecutor, he obtained information about the state of the investigation into his own case; as a "psychiatry professor" he praised the alleged qualifications of a certain applicant named Postel to ministerial staff; in smaller proceedings against himself he obtained a suspension of the proceedings by pointing out, as the alleged judge, that a major proceeding would soon be pending: "You don't need to [...] take action with such a small fish." System of mutually stabilizing impostures, the trained postman has come remarkably far in the pre-Internet age, ”says journalist Henning Bleyl.

According to Helmut Höge , Postel oriented everything he did to people who “made it” and held a position of power. In particular, he is said to have despised women who were dependent on them: “With the wrong doctor Postel, they were first prostitutes and finally patients with severe psychological problems. He treated her anything but friendly. "

It is often pointed out that Postel, as an impostor, did no real damage. Court reporter Michael Mielke comments critically: “Although during his almost two years as head of the penal system he appeared dozens of times in court as an expert witness and because of this, trials had to be reopened. Although Postel treated the mentally ill and also prescribed medication for them. ”Furthermore, he had taken specialist exams and failed aspirants.

Armin Nack , then presiding judge at the Federal Court of Justice , praised Postel's work as a psychiatric expert in a case for which Nack was responsible in a lecture in 2012 at the University of Passau . Postel's work was the best despite two other trained psychiatrists involved in the case. His achievements during the probationary period in the Zschadraßer Psychiatry were judged by the then hospital director Horst Krömker as "above average". Postel said: "Anyone who has mastered dialectics and psychiatric language can formulate any nonsense without limits and then put it in the guise of the academic ".

Artistic

In 1989, the feature film An uncanny career was broadcast, which took up the motifs of the events in Flensburg very freely in the form of a comedy . Helmut Zierl played the main role the impostor “Dr. Dr. Sylvester ”, who takes on a position in the health department.

In June 2002 a docu-drama followed on ARD under the title Der Irreserstehliche - Die 1000 Lügen des Gert Postel , directed by Kai Christiansen , which uses not only feature film scenes but also original excerpts from an interview with Postel. While there is a tendency towards grinning recognition of Postel's Köpenickiaden in numerous publications , the NDR production also strikes a critical note. Postel's narcissism and his desire to exercise control over others are discussed. Among other things, the intimidation of a patient who questioned his treatment methods and who had threatened Postel that she would be referred to the closed department in case of further obstinacy comes up .

The Postel case is also highlighted in the Spiegel TV production Hochstapler - Von professional liars and fraudsters , directed by Ulrike Peichert, in 2011.

The German rapper Pilz addressed Postel's life story in the song of the same name on her 2015 album Beef .

Publications

  • Gert Postel u. Reiner Pfeiffer: The Adventures of Dr. Dr. Bartholdy - A fake medical officer unpacks. Brockkamp, ​​Bremen 1985, ISBN 978-3-922496-16-8 .
  • Gert Postel: Doctor games - confessions of an impostor. Eichborn, Cologne 2001; Goldmann, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-442-15247-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Dietmar G. Luchmann: Hochstapler Dr.med. Dr. phil. Gert Uwe Postel tears off the mask of knowledgeable healers for psychotherapists and psychiatrists ( memento from March 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: Psychotherapie, September 10, 2001.
  2. ↑ Burkhard Müller : Postel - The loneliness of the impostor. In: Merkur - German journal for European thinking , issue 801 (70), February 2016, p. 19.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Judgments of the LG Flensburg from January 9, 1985 and the LG Leipzig from January 22, 1999. Retrieved on January 17, 2016.
  4. ↑ a b c Henning Bleyl: Felix Krull sends his regards. taz , June 22, 2012, accessed January 17, 2016.
  5. ^ A b c ZDF press release: Theologian, doctor, psychiatrist: Gert Postel - a Felix Krull of the modern age. October 15, 2001, accessed January 14, 2016.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Gerhard Mauz : A juggler, an artist. Der Spiegel 29/1997 of July 14, 1997, p. 34f, accessed on January 14, 2016.
  7. ↑ Sophie Albers Ben Chamo: The talk show we need? , Der Stern , January 10, 2016, accessed August 25, 2019; see. also Schulz & Böhmermann , first episode of the first season from January 10, 2016.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Dr. Clemens Bartholdy - when the wrong doctor was discovered. Flensburger Tageblatt , October 27, 2015, accessed on January 16, 2016.
  9. ↑ a b c d e f The antics of Gert Postel. Rhein-Zeitung , January 20, 1999, accessed on January 16, 2016.
  10. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Michael Mielke: The doctor games of the impostor Postel. Die Welt , January 20, 1999, accessed January 17, 2016.
  11. ↑ a b c d e f g Eckhard Rohrmann : Myths and Realities of Being Different - Social Constructions since the Early Modern Age . 2nd Edition. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-16825-8 , p. 192 .
  12. ↑ cf. also Thomas Darnstädt : file number 33247/87 unsolved. Der Spiegel , issues 41–43, 1997, available online: Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , accessed on January 17, 2016.
  13. ↑ a b "place beyond the street" - a fascinating art project on the grounds of the psychiatry in Zschadraß. ort-jenseits-der-strasse.de, accessed on January 16, 2015
  14. ↑ Burkhard Müller : Postel - The loneliness of the impostor. In: Merkur - German journal for European thinking , issue 801 (70), February 2016, p. 28.
  15. ↑ Eckart Roloff and Karin Henke-Wendt: Gert Postel: The wrong Dr. Dr. shows what nerves are. In: dies .: Damaged instead of healed. Major German medical and pharmaceutical scandals. Hirzel, Stuttgart 2018, pp. 109–122, ISBN 978-3-7776-2763-2
  16. ↑ a b c Marianne Kestler: Rolled up: The Postel'schen Köpenickiaden in the public eye . In: Psychosoziale Umschau 2/2004, p. 18. Printed on the homepage of M. Kestler. Accessed May 3, 2020.
  17. ↑ Burkhard Müller : Postel - The loneliness of the impostor. In: Merkur - German Journal for European Thinking , Issue 801 (70), February 2016, p. 29.
  18. ↑ Burkhard Müller : Postel - The loneliness of the impostor. In: Merkur - German journal for European thinking , issue 801 (70), February 2016, p. 17.
  19. ↑ Burkhard Müller : Postel - The loneliness of the impostor. In: Merkur - German Journal for European Thinking , Issue 801 (70), February 2016, p. 32.
  20. ↑ Burkhard Müller : Postel - The loneliness of the impostor. In: Merkur - German journal for European thinking , issue 801 (70), February 2016, pp. 21-23.
  21. ↑ a b Burkhard Müller : Postel - The loneliness of the impostor. In: Merkur - German journal for European thinking , issue 801 (70), February 2016, p. 23f.
  22. ↑ Eckhard Rohrmann: Myths and Realities of Being Different - Social Constructions since the Early Modern Era . 2nd Edition. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-531-16825-8 , p. 193 .
  23. ↑ Burkhard Müller : Postel - The loneliness of the impostor. In: Merkur - German Journal for European Thinking , Issue 801 (70), February 2016, p. 20.
  24. ↑ Helmut Höge : Social joke. June 13, 2009, accessed January 17, 2016.
  25. ↑ Armin Nack. Der Spiegel 24/2013 from June 10, 2013, accessed on January 15, 2016.
  26. ↑ A scary career. In: tvspielfilm.de. Retrieved January 12, 2016 .
  27. ↑ Spiegel TV: Hochstapler - Of professional liars and fraudsters. 2011, accessed January 14, 2016.
  28. ↑ rappers.in: Interview: Pilz (beef, counterculture, female rap, front pages). June 5, 2015, accessed January 14, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Postel, Gert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Postel, Gert Uwe (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German impostor
DATE OF BIRTH June 18, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen