GERMANY IS grappling with its own “Joseph Fritzl” case after a 48-year-old man admitted yesterday to fathering seven children by his daughter and stepdaughter and forcing them into prostitution.
An eighth child borne by his stepdaughter, now 28, reportedly died shortly after birth.
The man, an unemployed truck driver identified only as Detlef S, went on trial in the western city of Koblenz yesterday, facing charges of incest and forced prostitution.
Dressed in a red blazer and tie, the man listened as prosecutors listed 350 incidents of abuse against the man’s daughter, now aged 18, his stepdaughter and his stepson going back over 20 years.
The defendant, from the Rhineland village of Fluterschen, declined to comment on the charges yesterday. He agrees that he is the father of his stepdaughter’s seven children but his lawyer said he contested the charges of sexual abuse.
Local tabloids have dubbed the man “the German Fritzl” in a nod to the Austrian man who locked his daughter in a cellar and fathered eight children.
Unlike the Fritzl case, the man’s wife appears to have been aware of the abuse. German police said the man kept his family silent about the abuse through a mixture of fear and shame: when the children resisted his advances, they said they were beaten with a home-made whip and an army club.
Yesterday morning the court heard in-camera testimony from the man’s stepdaughter, who detailed abuse going back to 1987. She says the defendant began abusing her on her 12th birthday in 1995, with the words: “As your father I’m allowed to do this.”
Two weeks later, he reportedly brought her to two friends who gave the girl schnapps and had sex with her, beginning a regular cycle of sexual abuse.
She told the court that her stepfather tried blackmail by sending her six polaroid photographs of her, aged 15, having sex with one of his friends. Visible in two of the pictures, also naked, is the defendant’s wife.
The young woman told the court she was sure her father wanted to impregnate her. When she began taking contraceptive pills, he threw them away and destroyed the prescriptions.
The abuse came to light in August last year when the man’s stepdaughter discovered a letter from her stepsister to the family, detailing her own weekly sexual abuse ordeals that began in 2001 when she was aged nine.
“You are a sick, paedophile piece of shit,” the man’s biological daughter wrote. “He forced me to do things with men . . . all the years he destroyed me and never loved me.” In the letter the girl attacks her mother, asking: “Mama what did you do to your children? He took money for me to screw those bastards. I hate him so much! I just want to make something of my life.” He is expected to face charges later of abusing a third girl, now aged seven, who is one of the stepdaughter’s children.
“He began to take regular trips away with the girl,” said a court spokesman, “after which she appeared disturbed to her mother. The girl was examined in hospital in August during which injuries were discovered in her genital area.” The defendant and his family are reportedly known to local welfare authorities who deny failing to act on earlier reports of abuse.
The man’s stepson, identified only as Björn, was in court yesterday for the hearing.
“I am here to support my sisters because it’s not easy for all of us,” said the dark-haired young man, wearing a beige blazer and blue-and-white striped tie.
“He’s where he belongs now and can’t do anything more to me now, although I’m still very afraid.”