Christoph Turowski doesn’t want to hide. Of course you can take photos of him, of course you can mention his full name. Unusual for a defendant whom the public prosecutor accuses of having killed a person.
But Turowski has nothing to blame himself for. That’s how he sees it.
The public prosecutor has charged the doctor with manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and grievous bodily harm. In the summer of 2021, he is said to have given a 37-year-old woman who was severely depressed medication for suicide in two cases and accompanied her during her suicide. The public prosecutor says he was aware that the woman was not able to form her own free will due to her illness. What’s more, he even encouraged the woman in her view that there were no longer any promising treatment options for her.
This much can already be said that the case could lead to a precedent-setting ruling at the highest level. Because questions are discussed with him that touch on moral and ethical foundations. And because it will have to be decided how much free will a person with a serious mental illness can be granted.
Christoph Turowski is 74 years old and has been a doctor since 1977. He initially worked as an internist in a hospital, then in 1986 he took over a practice in Berlin-Steglitz and ran it as a family doctor for almost 30 years. Not a “five-minute practice,” he emphasizes, he always took time for his patients.
Since he gave up the practice, Turowski has been working as a euthanasia assistant. He estimates that he has accompanied around 100 people to their deaths since then. Most of them were provided to him by the German Society for Humane Dying. These included tumor patients in advanced stages, as well as patients with multiple sclerosis and old people who were afraid of needing care.
Turowski is convinced of what he does; he sees it as his medical and moral duty. “The health of the sick is the highest priority,” he said in court. “If a person only suffers from life and sees it as torture, salvation lies in redemption through a peaceful death.”
It is not the first time that Christoph Turowski has been in court. In 2018 he had to appear before the Berlin regional court. He had provided a deadly drug to a woman who had been suffering from severe pain for 28 years due to irritable bowel syndrome. She had previously threatened to take her own life.
The Berlin regional court acquitted Turowski. The reasoning behind the verdict at the time stated that the will to die should be respected. The verdict was later confirmed by the Federal Court of Justice.
The reason why the public prosecutor has now charged him again is primarily because the 37-year-old did not suffer from physical problems, but rather psychological ones – and perhaps saw no other way out in a severe depressive episode.
Turowski is convinced that he is wrongly in the dock this time too.
The initiation of suicide is well documented. There are chat messages between Turowski and the woman, and video recordings of the suicide will probably also be shown in court. There should be widespread agreement about what exactly happened. In the end it will be a question of how these events are to be legally classified.
Suicides and homicides followed by suicide are sensitive topics. The star reports on this with great reserve. We carefully weigh the public’s interest in information against the interests of the victims and those affected. In accordance with the Press Code, we do not reveal the identity of the victims – unless relatives have explicitly consented or if the victim is a public figure. We show particular restraint when publishing photos and describing more detailed circumstances.
The doctor commented comprehensively on the allegations before the Berlin Regional Court. He says the woman contacted him on June 12, 2021, and three days later he visited her in her apartment. The woman told him that she had been suffering from depression for 16 years. She constantly takes medication and undergoes therapy. She was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital three times, but nothing really helped. The illness broke out at the age of 21 and she attempted suicide for the first time a year later. A second one followed later.
“The great emotional distress was very clear,” says Turowski. The woman reported to him “very convincingly and believably” that for at least four months all she had been thinking about was how she could kill herself.
“There was a clear will to end life, if necessary through a cruel, violent suicide,” says Turowski. He had no doubts about her ability to judge and make decisions. “I could not deny this woman the basic right to a self-determined death.”
On June 24th, twelve days after the first contact, Christoph Turowski drove to the woman and handed her the deadly medication. She took it and then went to sleep. Turowski stayed with her. But the woman vomited and survived. She was admitted to a closed psychiatric ward for four weeks.
On July 12, the day she was released, the woman booked a hotel room. Turowski drove to her, this time he had an infusion with an anesthetic with him. First the woman signed a “declaration of suicide,” then Turowski gave access. The woman then opened the infusion wheel herself.
After a minute, Turowski says, she fell asleep. Eight minutes later she died “very calmly, peacefully and humanely.”
Turowski called the criminal police, explained the situation to the officers and handed over the documents. Then he drove home.
The presiding judge asks Turowski about his experience in the psychiatric field; he wants to know how he diagnoses depression and in which cases he prescribes psychotropic drugs. The undertone: As an internist, you are not an expert in this field.
“The psychiatrists are not the gods in white either,” replies Turowski. “They can’t look into people’s brains either.”
The big question hanging over this process is whether euthanasia makes it too easy for patients who want to commit suicide. Whether it offers them a supposedly tempting way out of a crisis. The wife of a friend is said to have once written: “If Turowski didn’t exist, I would have to stay alive, otherwise I would have to throw myself in front of a train, I don’t dare do that.”
Already on the first day of the trial it became clear that the woman sometimes had ambivalent feelings about her suicide. Two days before her death, she wrote that she wanted to stay alive and therefore wanted to cancel the planned suicide date. But then she wanted to die again. So it went back and forth. On the morning of her death, the woman wrote messages to Turowski in which she expressed doubts about the planned suicide, only to confirm it again minutes later.
“The lady struggled with herself,” states the presiding judge. “Didn’t that concern you?”
“It is in our nature that we weigh every decision,” says Turowski. He calculated that the woman was in favor of suicide in 95 percent of the many messages to him and only against it in five percent. She also wrote to him that day that it had to work out this time. If necessary, he should help. And he must definitely wait until resuscitation is impossible.
For Christoph Turowski, the prosecution’s charges indicate discrimination against mentally ill people. He says: “She had just as much right to end her life as anyone with a physical illness.”
In the end, the presiding judge wants to know whether Turowski would act like that again today, given some distance. Whether he would decide differently now that he knew the entire file. Would he perhaps tell the woman that we’d better wait another month or two?
Turowski says you learn from your mistakes. He would have better legal protection today.
The process continues.
Do you have suicidal thoughts? Telephone counseling offers help. It is anonymous, free and available 24 hours a day on (0800) 1110111 and (0800) 1110222. Advice via email is also possible. A list of nationwide help centers can be found on the website of the German Society for Suicide Prevention.
