Mr Balkau, you announced at the end of last week that you did not want to treat vaccination refusers who were resistant to advice.

Since then, you and your practice staff have received death threats and hate messages.

What are these threats like?

Johanna Christner

Editor in the section “Germany and the World”.

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There are people who write “asshole, crazy”, others compare me to the Nazi war criminal and doctor Josef Mengele or call me “Auschwitz selector”.

But there are also threats of violence and murder.

In a one-page letter someone wrote that he would come to my practice, fix my practice staff and me and torture me for as long as possible before we die in pain.

It sounds like a script for a horror film.

How do you get hold of these threats?

By email and phone.

I have not yet checked whether such messages have also reached me by post.

How did you react to that?

I am shocked at what people, at least in their formulations, are capable of.

I had expected that a couple of Corona oathers would contact me.

But I didn't expect the threats to range from arson to brutal death threats.

Crimes are committed with this and I see it as part of my civic duty to report them, so I have contacted the police and the public prosecutor's office.

I see what these threats do to those around me - that is why they must not go unpunished.

And you are now under police protection?

There were specific arson threats against us, so my private residence as well as the practice and branch practice were under the protection of the police.

Do you feel safe with it?

Right from the start I felt that I was in good hands and protected.

What I am currently experiencing in dialogue with the police is, in my opinion, exemplary: polite, nice and caring.

But also honest about the threats, what I now have to take seriously and what not.

One reads that you do not want to treat any anti-corona vaccine opponents.

Why not?

In my opinion, something has been misunderstood in the reporting so far.

I divide those who have not been vaccinated so far into two groups: On the one hand, there is the group of deniers and refusers, who can no longer be reached with arguments and who live in a different world.

But there are also those who are undecided who are afraid of the unknown vaccination - or who have been unsettled by misinformation from dangerous corona oaths.

I would like to explicitly invite the second group: I want them to come to my practice.

And then?

Recently I was able to convince two women of almost legal age to get vaccinated.

They had quarreled for a long time, came three or four times, asked questions every time they visited.

Her parents weren't sure either.

In the end, they weren't reluctant to get vaccinated, but were happy to be able to protect themselves and others.

Do you regret going public?

I didn't go public, I was dragged there.

A little family doctor like me doesn't have to be in the media.

But I'm not ready to give in and yes, I would stand up for the right cause again - even if I have to pay a high price for it.