Calf fattening scandal

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The so-called calf fattening scandal was a food scandal that became well known in 1989. It ended with a three-year prison sentence for the breeder in charge .

In August 1988 it became known that in some calf fattening farms in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia prohibited substances had been fed as fattening accelerators. Salbutamol , a cough suppressant, which is banned in fattening and is considered to be carcinogenic, was mentioned in particular .

A special commission was formed in the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office. The authorities said they had found more than 1,000 calves in Lower Saxony and 2,350 in Münsterland , in which traces of salbutamol were found, some of them high.

In addition, the suspicion was expressed that the fattening farms had used hormones such as estradiol benzoate or testosterone propionate to promote fattening in order to increase the slaughter weight . These were also not allowed, but proof was difficult because the hormones that were possibly supplied in the body could no longer be differentiated from the body's own hormones. At the peak, 20,000 calves were confiscated.

The main accused, the veal farmers Felix Hying from Südlohn-Oeding was arrested and because of escape and danger of collusion six months detention held. In February 1989 he was released on bail of half a million DM. In December 1990 the criminal case against him was opened. The public prosecutor's office asked for a prison sentence of 5½ years. The commercial criminal chamber at the Münster Regional Court sentenced him on July 5, 1991 to a prison term of 3 ½ years and a four-year ban from working as a cattle fitter and farmer. His forage master was also convicted of aiding and abetting. The judgment was in parts later overturned by the Federal Court of Justice, which reduced the sentence to 3 years.

The word calf fattening scandal was proposed in 1988 by the Society for German Language as one of the possible words of the year . However, it was only voted third after health reform and seal deaths.

literature

  • Uwe Spiekermann : hormone scandals. In: Scandals in Germany after 1945. Ed. House of the History of the Federal Republic of Germany, Kerber, Bonn 2007, 104–113. ISSN  0174-0008

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Calf fattening scandal in Lower Saxony; in: FAZ of September 2, 1989, p. 10
  2. ↑ We have to bring the dead first . In: Der Spiegel . No. 33 , 1988 ( online ).
  3. ↑ Hans Leyendecker: As if King Kong came in person . In: Der Spiegel . No. 32 , 1989 ( online ).
  4. ↑ Hying's trial begins in December; in: FAZ of November 10, 1990, p. 10
  5. ↑ Hying's prison sentence of 5½ years demanded; in: FAZ from June 19, 1991, p. 12
  6. ↑ 3 ½ years required for Hying; in: FAZ of July 6, 1991, p. 9
  7. ↑ Hormone calf scandal again in court; in: FAZ of January 16, 1993, p. 8
  8. ↑ Word of the Year - GfdS. In: gfds.de. Retrieved December 25, 2014 .