The practice is only a stone’s throw away from Kapellplatz, but the office hours are not here this afternoon, but 300 meters away. The Altötting internist Hans-Ulrich Mayr is standing before the local district court because he and an assistant did not wear a mask in his practice during three different treatments from summer 2020 to February 2021 and Mayr also during a patient visit in December 2020 in a local old people’s home examined a then 92-year-old resident without mouth and nose protection. In addition, he temporarily banned people with masks from entering his practice on a notice and declared the corona pandemic to be over in a video message at the end of 2020.
Mayr, who also belongs to the AfD parliamentary group in Altötting’s city council, has achieved national fame with all of this and – as a negative example – even made it into a government statement by Prime Minister Markus Söder. Because of the maskless treatment in the nursing home, the Altötting district office has imposed a fine of 250 euros, for the three incidents in practice it has set three times 5000 euros. Because Mayr has raised an objection, the magistrate must now deal with the case.
The facts themselves are undisputed, because Mayr admits all maskless treatments from the start. His patients don’t even have to testify, two of them are missing anyway because of suspected corona infections. Regarding the incident in the retirement home, in which Mayr was finally expelled from the home by the home manager, the accounts hardly differ.
He is usually treated without a mask, says Mayr, because he himself suffers from hearing loss, wears hearing aids and, when dealing with helpers and patients, relies on communication that is not impaired by masks. The mask also prevents him from breathing, which he finds difficult anyway because of chronic bronchitis.
With a mask, he “simply gets sick after a short time and I can’t think clearly anymore,” says Mayr, who the judge spared from wearing a mask in the courtroom. Otherwise, he leaves most of the talking to his lawyer. She has a certificate that she is not allowed to wear a mask because she suffers from asthma, and then, as expected, goes much further than her client.
In-house lawyer for the Corona doubters
Because Mayr is assisted by the Heidelberg medical lawyer Beate Bahner, who has become a kind of in-house lawyer for the corona doubters, pandemic deniers and lateral thinkers over the past two years and has gained relevant notoriety herself as a result. In their applications for evidence, Bahner not only wants to invite RKI President Lothar Wieler as a witness, but also District Administrator Erwin Schneider (CSU) and the head of the Altötting health department, as well as “also very happy to have Professor Drosten” and all sorts of real or supposed experts who talk about the alleged inadequacy of PCR tests, about the alleged ineffectiveness and even harmfulness of FFP2 masks and generally about the harmlessness of the corona virus.
These applications for evidence, which the judge rejected without much ado as being unnecessary, and Bahner’s extended plea deal with a “staged pandemic”, with the “madness of the media”, with an “alleged killer epidemic”, with the “unconstitutionality of the all the Corona measures” and that there can be no fine against Mayr under the Infection Protection Ordinance, even though this ordinance is not lawful. Because the prerequisite for an epidemic situation does not exist at all.
The judge listens to all this patiently, although he could probably have read about it in Bahner’s new book on corona vaccinations, which, unlike her previous publications on medical law, was published by a rather obscure publisher. Then he confirms in his judgment the three fines of 5000 euros each and increases the fourth from 250 to 1000 euros. However, he assumes that the process will not end in this instance, which Bahner confirms.
According to Mayr, professional legal proceedings by the district medical association in Upper Bavaria have already led to a complaint against which action is currently being taken before the state medical association. The government of Upper Bavaria, which has to deal with the question of Mayr’s license to practice medicine, is still waiting for the outcome.