Testimonies of former employees of Hamer
Transcript of an aired interview with three former female Hamer employees in one of the private and illegal hospitals of former German physician Ryke Geerd Hamer (clinic Amici di Dirk in Katzenelnbogen). Hamer is the inventor of Germanic New Medicine. The interview was done by German journalist Silke Bauer in April 2007.
- Author: Silke Bauer, RADIO Wüste Welle, Tübingen 96,6 MHz c/o Sudhaus, Hechinger Straße 203 72072 Tübingen fone: 07071/7603-37, fax: -47 info(at)wueste-welle.de
- Date: April 10, 2007
- License: Creative-Commons not-commercial, distribution allowed and wished.
Description
This transmission deals with Germanic New Medicine. It neither takes the position of opponents nor of adherents of the concept, since both sides have stated their positions on the internet. Rather, I am interviewing former employees of Dr Hamer. For the first time, they will publically speak about their work in the service of Dr Hamer. It was not easy to locate these women, as they had subsequently married and changed their names. These women finally agreed to participate in these interviews because it is an ongoing matter.
The former employees reported that, in the time they worked for Dr Hamer, they saw no-one cured by him. According to them, Dr Hamer had dying patients rapidly transferred to other hospitals, or transported to France, in order to be able to claim they did not die in his care. When patients died in Dr Hamer's Clinic, the former employees report that Dr Hamer ordered nursing care was to continue on the dead, even after life had departed.
Three ex-employees of Ryke Geerd Hamer are interviewed in this radio transmission of a private broadcaster in Tübingen. They worked for him in one of his private cancer clinics in 1985. One of these women was found by coincidence in 2006 and that she was able to provide contact to the two others. The women had changed their names in the meantime due to their marriage. For the first time, these three women report about their time in the clinic Amici di Dirk in Katzenelnbogen near Koblenz (Germany).
Interview 1 by S. Bauer (B) with Mrs Gemmer (G)
B: I start now with Mrs G. who used to work in the office of Dr. Hamer's hospital in Katzenelnbogen.
B: Mrs. G, first of all I am interested to learn how these patients were being treated by Dr. Hamer. Who were these people?
G: They were people virtually abandoned by scientific medicine, they were abandoned by scientific medicine seeking a last resort with Dr. Hamer. They came from France, Italy, and from all parts of Germany.
B: Do you have an explanation why there were so many French patients?
G: There was a sponsor, I remember, a French Earl, who was in that business with his money. And that's why Dr. Hamer was known in France.
B: It was Mr D'Oncieu I suppose [Earl Antoine D'Oncieu de la Batie, president of French ASAC association in Chambery]. He used to support Dr. Hamer at that time. In your opinion: these were patients completely abandoned by scientific medicine?
G: They were fatally ill patients. He transferred some of them to other hospitals, to avoid having to present cases of patients deceased in his clinic, [but] knowing that they were terminally ill. And so a new problem came up: suddenly the hospitals in Koblenz and Limburg refused to accept further terminally ill patients [from his clinic].
B: I also heard, concerning the transport of the bodies, that this was handled in a particularly discreet way.
G: Yes, yes, it always happened in the evening or at night that the transportation car came for the bodies - in order to avoid that car being seen too often by people.
B: How long did you work for Dr. Hamer?
G: It was not a long time, I started August 1st [1985] and at the beginning of December, after the criminal investigation department did a house search and confiscated everything, the hospital was closed.
B. You were impressed by Dr. Hamer for a short time in the beginning, when he came into your town. Is that correct?
G: That is correct, I saw this man and I thought: "Oh yes, this is a very different doctor. Physicians usually are gods in white. My impression was: "He is human", but after about three days I thought "No, this Dr. Hamer is quite crazy in his head". I could not support that anymore, his affair.
B: What do you mean by this?
G: I was just the secretary, he dictated me some letters, to district authorities, to the regional government, he was in battle with everybody, he had this persecution mania, always thought someone wanted to harm him. These letters were completely confused - I could not support that any more, and so I thought "There is something wrong with that man".
B: But you remained there for almost half a year.
G: Yes, in the meantime he had patients and they had to be taken care of somehow. They were poor people, often very ill, and I co-organized engaging a nurse who worked part-time. There was no money. The lack of money was the root of all evil. Then there was a woman to clean the rooms, I hired her from the old hospital, and we also needed some people in the kitchen to prepare food for the patients. We could not simply abandon these people, these poor ill people.
B: You worked in the same hospital earlier, before Dr. Hamer arrived and you were rehired as a secretary. So you never belonged to any inner circle of Dr. Hamer, according to what you told me.
G: No, no, I had nothing to do with Dr. Hamer before. I was in that hospital which was closed for being too small and at that time we all were happy: "The work continues somehow ... a new doctor arrives and will direct this clinic, and we may keep our jobs." But in the end everything developed in a very different way.
B: Now I have a last question, Mrs. G: Do you remember something exceptional during the time with Dr Hamer?
G: Yes, I recall an incident I will never forget in my life. We had a young and seriously ill female cancer patient and she was there with her brother. And one morning Dr. Hamer went off in his car without telling us where he meant to go, when he was going to return and gave us no phone number to contact him - nothing. And the brother came to me and said his sister was in pain badly and he was looking for the doctor. I told him "I can't reach him, he did not tell us where he went". And the brother returned two or three times: "My sister is screaming with pain." And I thought: "I will call another doctor now, it can not continue this way." And then I called our former surgeon who worked in a private medical practice then. And he told me: "I will come, but I will bring another colleague. I will not enter that clinic alone." He came with a second physician and they gave some analgetic drug to the young lady. And later they sued Hamer [made a complaint]. So the whole affair {of closing the clinic] started. Later, the criminal investigation department arrived and confiscated everything. This issue actually triggered the closing of the hospital.
B: Why didn't this doctor want to come alone? Do you remember that?
G: Yes, it was already a controversial issue at that time. He [Hamer] always said: "the scientific medicine"... The physicians did not agree with the methods of Dr. Hamer. Dr. D. did not want to come alone, he wanted the presence of a witness, a second doctor.
B: But how is it possible that he is practising such a medicine? How do you explain that?
G: My explanation is the following: he was totally convinced of his method, I mean of his newly invented opportunities for cancer patients - he was obsessed with that.
B: Thank you very much for this conversation.
Interview 2 by S. Bauer (B) with Mrs Müller (M)
B: ...Mrs. M., how did you start [to work with Dr. Hamer]?
M: The hospital was closed December 31, 1984, because it was taken from a list of planned clinics [Krankenhauszielplan]. I continued to work there until June 30, 1985 to conclude some work. And that Dr. Hamer presented himself in an assembly of the community and asked who wanted to work for him. I had family and so of course I said yes, I want to work for you.
B: You worked as a secretary and you were in the administration?
M: I come from the administration, right.
B: Looking back, how would you describe your time with Dr. Hamer?
M: I can describe it as a very chaotic period and exhausting time. Chaotic because he [Hamer] had no money, we sometimes did not have enough money to feed our patients and so it was very, very difficult to work there. He could not practice a therapy because sometimes there were no drugs available to relieve pain. I don't even know how he practiced his therapy, what he used for his therapies.
B: Have you ever seen someone healed by his methods, as he claims?
M: No, no. I have never seen anyone healed during this period. Now I know the fact that natural medicine or chemotherapy have healed cases of cancer and some say: "I defeated cancer". But I have never seen someone even as much as recovering a little bit there during this period, looking back. Sometimes people had more fun in life, because he transmitted them this fun in life, and he promised them, ..in the case of positive thinking and believing in his method, they will be healed. But there was no person I can remember who left the clinic as a healed person, or improving after some time.
B: And then some people died there. You worked there about half a year?
M: It was from August to December [1985], not even half a year. Four, five months, this thing did not last any longer.
B: What happened to the patients who died or with the terminally ill patients before they died?
M: I remember a terrible event happening to me. He was always looking for money. And friends in France supported him very much. And when there was absolutely no money left, he took his car and went to France. And then he left the patients and us alone for days. Sometimes it took two or three days before he came back. And I had a terrible experience - he was out, or he was about to go, early in the morning - and he asked me to take care of a particular French female patient. And after he left us and two or one hour later I thought: "Okay, now you should go up to the ward." I was in the office usually. And I entered the room, stood at the bed and thought: "Strange - this woman is not breathing anymore." And in fact she did not breathe, and I touched her and she was completely cold already. The rigor mortis had set in long before. Recalling this, I feel something cold and hot running down my back, and still have problems remembering it. Seeing it from his point of view, then he acted this way because he wanted money for one more day from her family. But this woman, in my opinion, died earlier, during the night before, and he knew that, and he simply fled.
B: Is it possible, from your point of view, that he did not want to accept reality?
M: I agree. He did not accept many facts. He was so absolute in his activities, he saw himself so absolutely, he was so autocratic, he could not admit that his method did not work. He could not admit this to himself or to the outside world.
B: He likes to allege that only very few people die in his care.. so much less then those using "scientific medicine". My question is now: these deaths, he does not acknowledge...?
M: [interrupting] ..Yes, yes, Frau Bauer, he sometimes handled it in a particular way. When he noticed someone was going to die, he rapidly dismissed them to another hospital in the neighbourhood. I know that one patient even died during the transport, and the dismissed patients died in the other hospitals within a short time. And he never accepted any fault! He never said: "The people were so ill the other hospitals could not save them." He always said that the other hospitals, or the other physicians ... or that patients came to him too late. He never acknowledged any mistake.
B: Did the other hospitals accept this procedure without protest?
M: It was already known in the region that Dr. Hamer practiced as a self-declared oncologist in this clinic in Katzenelnbogen, even if it is not appropriate to call that "practicing". You cannot call that practicing. He did not use any particular method, used no drugs, not in the way of natural medicine and not in way of scientific medicine, being able to really treat and help. The surrounding clinics and physicians knew that he...
B: ...there were many female and male French patients among his patients during [your] period there. Where are they now? In the surrounding hospitals?
M: Yes, some of them, too... or he dismissed them to their homes. He asked them to return home. I don't know what he told relatives, he spoke a good French and we did not speak French.
B: So he wanted these dying French patients to return home to France in an ambulance...
M: Yes. One particular female patient I had to take care of died, too. This was a problem of lack of money. He also did that because he needed money. Not to become rich, to simply enable ... all to survive.
B: So not because of mammonism, but because he believed in his methods?
M: Yes, yes. He believed in his own ideas and everything should be bought for the survival. He even bought chicken when there was no money to feed the patients.
B: What did he do with the chicken?
M: These were to be chicken of pure race, and eggs of pure-race chicken were important for the healing process in advanced cancer cases. ...Once he bought a duck to walk around in the ward. Of course, the people, the patients were laughing. Of course they gained some fun in life. And then he said: "Look, our patients are on a good path, and they will recover. Listen, Mrs M., how they laugh." Of course they had some fun, but I had no fun at all seeing this.
B: I don't know whether you are able to tell: the patients there, were they all abandoned by scientific medicine, or were there also patients who had a chance to survive?
M: There were also people who had a chance. I remember a young lady from France, not knowing exactly how advanced her disease was.. But when she came to us she was in a relatively good condition, however, I say this as a not competent person. But he said, - it was a young lady, a girl - "She has cancer". And she gained some fun in life during her first 14 days there. And she was open-minded. Hamer sent her home. And this woman came back three or four weeks later, being a bit more ill and having lost weight. And so he repeated this procedure twice. And at a certain point I knew that she died, also. I don't know the medical point of view, was not a patient, had no relatives who died there after his cure. I can only describe it from the point of view of a person working in the administration. It was chaotic. I don't wish myself or anybody from my family to be treated by him.
B: Watching his internet homepage ([1]) and his presentations: Did you have the impression that he liked fighting [quarrel] or that he had the feeling to be persecuted in a particular way?
M: Of course... I believe that this is problem, that he felt persecuted. And the death of his son [Dirk Hamer died in December 1978]... and what he used to repeat several times: that his wife [Sigrid Oldenburg] got cancer [she died of breast cancer in 1985] because of the death of his son, and she did not believe in his method and that she died because of this fact. And he was in battle with everyone. He accepted only himself, and he did not accept his clinic having been closed and continued to practice. From one day to the next we were a boarding house, we had no license as a clinic. So he said: "Okay, then I am a boarding house." He was in dispute with everybody. There was no possibility to discuss matters with him, even problems in the administration.
B: Concluding, I would like to know when you first noticed that there was something wrong with him? You worked there because you were there in the administration in the past. When did you start to wonder?
M: It just took a short time. But recalling this period it seems that it was a long time. Thinking about that time I can't believe that it was only a period of five months, because this time was so chaotic and agitating... and remembering it, I wish I never experienced this time. It was clear for us within a short time, after four to six weeks: "This is chaotic and there is no future with Dr. Hamer." Even if we could not say this from a medical point of view, and we could not say this to him, because we had no medical knowledge. I am an administration employee and have no professional medical education. Everybody who worked with him - and the local government - refused cooperation with him somehow.
B: Mrs. M,. thank you very much for this interview.
M: You're welcome.
Interview 3 by S. Bauer (B) with Mrs F.
B: ..In one of your conversations with me, you told me that you had a positive impression of Mr. Hamer in the beginning.
F: Yes.
B: How did he manage to cause this impression in the beginning?
F: He radiated benevolence, he radiated a love for people, giving the impression he loved all his patients. He could get across this impression very well. He is very able to impress people, so .. we immediately felt a sympathy for him, we trusted him.
B: Later, you were stunned. How did this happen?
F: Yes, after I worked there for a few nights, I was somehow shocked, because he did not put into practice what he promised [himself] in the beginning.
B: What did he promise in the beginning?
F: Well, that he would heal every patient coming to him. Most of them were in a terminal stadium [of their disease] and everybody was happy that he took care from a different angle than scientific medicine. So we thought: finally somebody seeing this in a different way, and everybody was convinced that he would be able to perform that, I would say.
B: Have patients be healed during this period?
F: Well - during the period I worked there, no. I never noticed anything like a patient being dismissed or returning home to France due to being cured.
B: You also noticed that he left patients alone without any treatment?
F: Yes, in a way, because in the evening, when I was looking into one or the other of the patient's rooms, they told me: "Oh, is it possible someone looks after us? I saw nobody during the whole of last week." Apart from personnel on day-service, of course, who delivered food and so on. But no medical treatment there. And they were a bit shocked to see that no doctor visited them regularly like it is common in other hospitals, where a doctor is looking after patients once or twice a day.
B: In a previous talk you told me about a particular female patient who had a hole in her thigh and an open leg without treatment. How was that?
F: Yes, I happened to look into her room because I heard someone whimpering, and I thought: What's going on behind that door, and I looked in and sat down next to her, asking what she had and so on. And then she said: "Yes, it's my cancer ulceration, and Dr. Hamer will..." ... At the end he wanted to heal that cancer. And I said: "Why are you crying, what sort of pain do you have ?" Then she lifted her blanket and I could see a hole in her thigh as large as a fist, and you could see the bone. And there was no treatment. So I answered: "Yes, why is nobody doing anything?" "Ah yes, he gave me some powder, and in case of pain I had to disperse some of that powder into the wound." I thought: "Never seen anything like that before!"
B: Have you seen other similar cases? Extreme cases, in which you would say: "That's a bit extreme"?
F: Yes, I noticed a young girl. I suppose she had a bone tumour, and she was in terrible pain... One night she was beating her head against the wall of the room in a rhythmic way. And when I said to him [Hamer] "Doctor, we must absolutely give something to that girl, this [situation] is not normal", then he said "For God's sake, we must not give her any analgetic drug, that would influence the blood so that no healing process occurs." Yes, at that moment I believed that, being ignorant, at that moment I thought: "He ought to know".
B: You had no professional medical education at that time, you were only asked to help some people there for some nights.
F: Yes, I was especially hired for a French lady: she had breast cancer and her bandage had to be changed several times per night, but apart from her I was not supposed to take care of other people, because it was simply not my duty, since I was engaged by this Frenchman, her husband. But still, if you are alone in a ward at night, you look here and there, and if someone is crying or moaning - then you think: "You simply must have a look..."
B: You stayed there a longer time, because, if I understood correctly, you were meant to stay there until the arrival of a nurse.
F: Exactly. They said: "temporarily, until a nurse will be engaged", substituting me and staying there at night. But during those six weeks I worked there, no nurse arrived, and so I had to continue every night.
B: Do you know who paid [financed] Mr. Hamer?
F: No, I don't know exactly. There were rumours: he had no money, and the earl from France, as he was called, would finance the business, he would support the whole thing financially, that he had money, and so on and so on... But I can't say anything definite. I don't know how this was financed.
B: So, this Mr. Hamer took care of a girl with a bone tumour ? We talked about that case earlier, can you explain that again?
F: Yes, I noticed when her suffering increased and we thought: "Oh God, the poor girl, we must help her" ...then I said to him: "Doctor, what can I do ?" Then he said: "Oh, it's not your duty, I will sleep next to her this night, this will appease her, and she will feel comforted and safe." And so on and on, and I thought: "This is a strange method, a doctor sleeping next to a patient, to appease her and make her feel safe. Never heard about this..". And that was a bit mysterious. And this only happened in the case of that young girl..
B: And during the period you stayed there, he never gave any drugs?
F: No.
B: In the case of bone tumour, in that specific case, or analgetic drugs, he did not give anything?
F: No. This was not allowed. It ought not to happen. What happened earlier.. I started only in October [1985]... there must have been some drugs earlier, because once I heard: "The pharmacy does not give us drugs any more..", so he was able to get drugs from that pharmacy before.
B: You told me you noticed, during your nights there, he was working on his CT brain-scans very often.
F: Yes, he once called me to come down [to the first floor], because I also started to question his theories eventually, and then he said: "I show you that, I can explain that to you, so that you will see from what this arises." So I went down to his room and he had hung up many CT brain-scans, and he explained to me: "This is Mrs X und that is Mr Y. Look at this skull here: there is that spot, this focus, and there is that focus being the cause, and caused by psychological problems". Shocks they had apparently had in the past, causing the cancer later. That was new to me, I never heard about that before and so I thought at that time: "This may perhaps be true." If you have never heard or seen anything about that before, then you think... Especially as a layperson - I was a layperson at that time. If I had had my professional training as a nurse at that time, then I would have been able to ask some questions. But being a layperson you are... a bit innocent confronting such a thing...
[music - interruption]
F: ..he forgot that apparently, because he used to work as a scientific physician before. But that was in the past and what he had assumed now, was the truth now in his mind.
B: So he was absolutely convinced of his ideas?
F: Absolutely. Without doubt - he never showed any doubt about his method for even a second. He also never allowed any external objections. If someone dared to say: "Doctor Hamer, don't you think this or that would be the right way..?" "No, for God's sake, no!" Just at the hint: "We must give that girl something, to cease her suffering..." "For God's sake!"
B: Later, you worked with other physicians, were they also so absolutely convinced?
F: No.
B: So this was extraordinary?
F: This was extraordinary.
Versions of this article in other languages
- Français: Documentation Nouvelle Médecine Germanique
- Deutsch: GNM Dokumentation
- Italiano: Testimonianze Nuova Medicina
- Nederlands: GNM Documentatie