Successful Fraud

It was easy to understand why Walter Guenther was nearly everyone's No. 1 choice to become West Berlin's next minister of health. A war veteran who had lost parts of both legs, he had risen through the ranks to a key position in the Social Democratic Party. More to the point, he was regarded as a first-rate doctor who ran a model geriatrics clinic; under him, in 13 years, the clinic's "cured and released" ratio rose from a dismal 3% to 33%. Patients were devoted to the charming German Czech, and so was his staff. Small wonder that there seemed to be nothing between him and the top.

Nothing, that is, except the fact that he was a fraud--one of the remarkably successful members of that remarkable band of men who are drawn, for various reasons, into becoming "doctors" without benefit of medical school.

Understanding Salve. Guenther, in fact, entered his career without benefit of even a high school degree. He was informally granted the title of "Doktor" in a Russian-run Czech prison camp, where, despite his own frostbite-caused amputations, he gradually took over treatment of the other German prisoners. It was a humanitarian impulse, prompted by the fact that the guards paid little attention to the prisoners' health. When he was released in 1946, Guenther decided to retain the title. He added seven years to his age for credibility, said he had graduated from Prague University's medical school in 1943, and collected testimonials from fellow prisoners. In East Germany after the war, doctors were desperately needed, and records were hard to find. "Dr. Guenther" was soon in practice.

He fled to West Berlin in 1950, within two years was directing a geriatrics clinic. Though he had been reading up on medicine, he was careful never to perform an operation; as hospital director, he was able to confine his medical practice to diagnosis. But his true talent lay in administering the clinic and giving instinctively deft psychological help. In his carefully chosen specialty, the attitude of aged patients is often far more important than actual medical treatment. The kindhearted amputee, who had himself obviously suffered so much, was just the man to understand and salve a patient's problems.

"I Am Stunned." He might have gone on to graceful retirement. By an apparent stroke of luck, a man of the same name had in fact graduated from Prague University in 1943 and then had obligingly disappeared. But in a country where papers, records, stamps and signatures are of surpassing importance, Guenther's eventual exposure was perhaps not so surprising. It was the initial lie about his age that tripped him up. Shuffling old and new papers, a minor West Berlin bureaucrat noticed the seven year discrepancy in ages; after that, the tissue of Guenther's life shredded away quickly.

His friends, however, remained loyal. At his trial, one former patient testified, "I would have gone to him even if I had known he was no doctor." Other ex-patients in the courtroom applauded. A former nurse fought back tears last week as she heard he had been sentenced to 18 months on five counts of fraud and three of forged documents. The admired non-doctor himself could only say with obvious sincerity: "I am stunned that I can no longer help my fellow human beings." But the court had already had the final word. Although impressed by the "Doktor," the judge also felt that the "winsome personality and success of the accused do not extinguish the actual crime."

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