Body preparator Gunther von Hagens has died at the age of 81. He had suffered from Parkinson's for many years and developed the plastination technique.
Gunther von Hagens died at the age of 81. The German Press Agency learned this from his circle.
Von Hagens was born in 1945 near Posen in what is now Poland. He began studying medicine in Jena in 1965 and earned his doctorate at Heidelberg University. In the 1970s he developed plastination and later founded the Institute for Plastination.
Critics accused him of violating human dignity. In 2006 he founded Gubener Plastinate GmbH in Brandenburg. His second wife Angelina Whalley oversees the worldwide conception of the exhibitions. In 2017 around 16,680 people were registered in the body donor program.