Crime Update: More on German man who sat dead in chair for 5 years unnoticed
chest...@my-dejanews.com
Germans Fret Over Deaths No One Notices
By Erik Kirschbaum
BONN (Reuters) - They found Wolfgang Dircks on his sofa in his small Hamburg
apartment last month.
He had died while watching television sometime before Christmas -- five years
ago.
His television flickered on for a few months before it broke down and the
electric lights on a small Christmas tree in his window burned on brightly
all year round for nearly five years. A newspaper dated December 5, 1993 and
an empty beer can were among the few clues police had about the time of his
death.
No one noticed when the 43-year-old divorced, disabled loner had passed away.
No one had apparently even noticed when he was alive. He never talked to
neighbors. His food was delivered from a local market. And he kept to
himself. He had broken off contact with his mother and his ex-wife.
The lonely death of the retired welder made headlines when his mummified
remains were found, but hardly a month passes in Germany without a similar
report of an isolated soul having died weeks, months or even years before
being discovered.
The ghoulish find in the one-room Hamburg flat has led to a bout of national
soul-searching as Germans ask themselves: Has the German society really
become that cold?
``It's tragic, but unfortunately it happens all the time in an industrial
society like ours,'' said Luebbo Roewer, a spokesman for the German Red Cross
in Bonn. ``It's a society problem. People don't look after one another the
way they once did. Families are disintegrating. People don't care anymore.''
Sociologists and social workers say that Germans are increasingly living
``next to each other'' rather than ``with each other'' and that it is
possible for people like Dircks to disappear without being missed. The
corpses of others are discovered only when the odor penetrates into the
hallways.
Police speculated that Dircks' corpse did not smell because the ground floor
apartment remained cool during the winter months when it was decomposing.
Social workers believe a growing gap between the haves and have-notes in
Germany is partly to blame for the phenomenon, but they also point to an
increasingly frosty social climate.
Exacerbating the problem is an efficient German banking system, where
automatic monthly transfers for pensions, rents and other financial
transactions make it possible for bank accounts to continue functioning for
years after a person dies.
Dircks' bank account processed his disability pension as well as financial
support payments from his estranged mother for five years after he died. His
rent was paid on time automatically.
``I'm sure that there are undiscovered corpses lying in apartments all over
Germany right now,'' said Ralph Kirscht, a former vicar who is now director
of a Bonn counseling center. ''The disintegration of society is a huge
problem in Germany and the social climate is getting worse all the time.''
Kirscht said that many of such isolated deaths are discovered within a few
weeks rather than years. He once attended the funeral of a travelling
salesman who had been dead for three months before anyone noticed.
``More and more people are leading isolated lives,'' Kirscht said. ``They
have no friends, no family. It's perverse that people can die and no one
notices. But it happens all the time.''
The corpse of another 50-year-old man from the eastern town of Brandenburg
was found in June. His remains were found in the chair in front of his
television. Police estimated that he had been dead for at least four years
before being discovered.
The man had been the last tenant in the building and when the rent payments
stopped, his flat was declared officially empty in 1994. The electricity was
turned off. But no one checked inside until an estate agent trying to sell
the building made the macabre discovery.
In Munich, the body of a 61-year-old pensioner lay in his 12th story flat for
at least two months before it was found.
In Hamburg, the remains of a 50-year-old Turkish immigrant were found in his
flat an estimated 18 months after he had died.
And in Leipzig, the rotting corpse of a 37-year-old man was found in
September, several months after he had died. Neighbors had complained about
the smell.
Prominent Germans are not immune.
Petra Kelly, a charismatic founder of the Greens party, was found dead in her
Bonn apartment in 1992 at the age of 44 -- about three weeks after she and
her companion Gert Bastian had died in what police later reconstructed as a
murder-suicide.
German media and social workers alike have held up Dircks' isolated death as
an extreme example of society's coldness. Roewer of the Red Cross said people
may pay attention to isolated friends and family members for a short period
of time now, but the old habits will return soon enough.
``Dead in his apartment for five years -- why didn't anyone notice?'' asked
the Bild am Sonntag newspaper in a two-page study of the death. Der Spiegel,
Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Bild also devoted lengthy articles to Dircks.
His 75-year-old mother was quoted saying she thought he had run away with a
girlfriend. His ex-wife hadn't heard from him since they were divorced in
1977. His neighbors never talked to him because he had never had anything to
say to them.
A retired police officer who noticed that the Christmas tree lights were on
all summer passed his concerns to the apartment building's manager, but no
action was taken.
The caretaker said he didn't try to break into the apartment because the rent
was being paid and he saw no reason to invade Dircks' privacy.
``It's a cold world,'' said Wolfgang Kitils, spokesman for the Hamburg
police. ``Mr Dircks had apparently treated the neighbors poorly and no one
took an interest in him. He apparently wanted to live an extremely isolated
life. That's what we have to assume because we can't ask him any questions
anymore.''
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YaKnow
chest...@my-dejanews.com wrote in message
<76btce$l29$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>...
>Tuesday December 29 1:17 PM ET
>
>Germans Fret Over Deaths No One Notices
>
>By Erik Kirschbaum
>
>BONN (Reuters) - They found Wolfgang Dircks on his sofa in his small
Hamburg
>apartment last month.
>
>He had died while watching television sometime before Christmas -- five
years
>ago.
Well, that would certainly be a good type for a serial killer to go after!
I wonder if any of these were eventually found to have been murdered. And
just how full of junk mail were there mailboxes??!!
And you'd have to wonder how, in the USA, would Social Security handle it.
With all of the automatic payments, there'd be a ton of money going thru the
checking account. Would they try to demand repayment from someone? We do
hear of them sometimes catching people who have been cashing deceased
persons checks for years and years.
CAP...@webtv.net
It has happen in the US (although not a 5 year span): Didn't more than
20 elderly people die in Chicago - during that major heat wave of el
nino???
When MOTHER THERESA was asked what the greatest world problem was,
without hesitation she stated, LONLINESS
Thank you for your time and consideration:
With GODS' LOVE Capt JOHN "V"