A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY
-[phone ringing] -[operator] Emergency services…
[policeman] Yeah, can you send an ambulance
to Rue du Tilleul?
We found an individual with his hands and feet tied.
He was gagged with duct tape and his head was smashed in.
[operator] Is the person conscious?
[policeman 1] Yeah, so far he is, but he's in really bad shape.
He says he was kidnapped in Germany.
[commissioner] He’s wanted for voluntary manslaughter.
[policeman] Voluntary manslaughter?
[commissioner] For a while now.
[reporter in French] The case dates back almost thirty years ago,
when a 14-year-old French girl, Kalinka, was killed in the 1980s.
There's been an unexpected development…
[Krasniqi] A father who fought a battle.
This is a father who never gave up.
He knew where his daughter's killer was living
and I had a plan to help him.
Hands on.
What are you gonna do?
What do you do as a father?
What are you capable of doing for your child?
MY DAUGHTER'S KILLER
[music fades out]
LINDAU GERMANY
[ominous music]
JULY 10, 1982
[dialling]
-[line crackles] -[phone ringing]
[woman] It was early morning.
[phone ringing]
The red telephone rang.
I answered.
[ambulance sirens wailing]
They said "unconscious person" and gave the address.
[ambulance sirens wailing]
My first thought was, oh, that can't have been at Krombach’s.
He's a doctor, so why would we be called there?
[ambulance sirens wailing]
He came out
and as he ran, he immediately said, "I think it's too late."
Then he led us into the bedroom and the girl was lying there, dead.
Kalinka, his stepdaughter.
He was agitated but composed.
Whereas the mother, she was crying, of course.
She was completely beside herself.
My first thought was the girl was already in rigor mortis.
And as I left, I noticed that the girl still had a canula in her arms.
So, I said to Krombach, "What did you inject her with?"
Then he said, "Calcium." That he thought calcium might help.
That she'd been in the sun all day.
And he could only assume that she'd died from the heat.
That's what he said.
[eerie music]
[Mayer] A tragic case.
I just couldn't get it out of my mind.
I wanted to know how the girl had died.
She didn't die of natural causes.
I thought that something wasn't right.
[phone ringing in background]
[phone ringing]
[man] On July 10, 1982,
in the morning,
her mother telephoned me to tell me outright
of the death of Kalinka.
KALINKA'S FATHER
She told me that Kalinka had gone into shock
due to sunstroke.
I was completely devasted. I was stunned.
PECHBUSQUE FRANCE
LINDAU
[Bamberski] I arrived in Germany that night.
The next day, I drove in my car to the hospital.
[melancholic music]
[Bamberski] I can still picture Kalinka's face.
Kalinka was lovely.
She was her parents' little darling.
Really very lovely.
From when she was tiny, she was always smiling.
Kalinka is a flower from the Masurian forest.
And in Polish, it's a word that has a ring to it.
What I mean is it's musical.
[foreboding music]
I prayed that her soul would find peace.
And I left.
The next day, at her mother's house,
I went to see Nicolas.
He was only around 11 or 12 at the time.
He was the one who told me that that day had been like any other.
Kalinka hadn't been unusually tired
and it was only later that I started to feel, if you will,
that things weren't right.
The death of a healthy girl who was physically fit,
I didn't understand.
I tried to make sense of this sunstroke.
Lindau was sunny. It was hot. Around 29, 30 degrees.
But let's just say,
compared to Toulouse, it wasn't all that hot.
It was actually hard to believe certain things.
PECHBUSQUE FRANCE
BAMBERSKI FAMILY
[Bamberski] Her mother suggested that we bury her in Pechbusque.
I think it was the day of the funeral that there were rumours
that maybe a drug had killed Kalinka.
[melancholic music]
I am Elisabeth Aragon, André Bamberski's neighbour.
We paid our respects at the cemetery.
That's all we could do.
I spoke to my neighbours who told me,
"They say that she actually died from an injection
her stepfather had given her to help her tan."
That's the explanation I was given at the time.
[Bamberski] An intravenous injection to help her tan?
[director] And you found those rumours hurtful?
Yes, they hurt.
But since there had been an autopsy,
I think that I asked her mother, just as I was leaving,
to send me a copy of the autopsy report.
Around a week or two later,
I sort of exploded.
I got angry because I hadn't yet received the famous autopsy report.
[director] At what point did you start to suspect Mr Krombach?
From the beginning of October 1982.
When I read the autopsy report,
when it arrived, it was in German, so I had to translate it.
AUTOPSY REPORT
It mentioned that 400 cl of Kalinka's evening meal
had come up from her stomach into her trachea.
It went down into her lungs and she choked to death.
But even for me, who knew nothing on the subject of medicine or autopsies,
just by reading it...
to me, it was clear that Kalinka had died from regurgitation,
and not from sunstroke.
But the two medical examiners
refused to specify the cause of death in writing.
WE CANNOT DETERMINE A CLEAR CAUSE OF DEATH
I wanted to clarify things with her mother.
She told me she hadn't read the autopsy report!
Why not?
There were also all those irregularities.
There are sexual irregularities.
Irregularities that are apparent even to a layman.
Injury to the right lip of the vulva.
Unable to say whether or not sexual intercourse had taken place
before death.
For me, it was really obvious,
so I was sure something was really not right.
TOULOUSE FRANCE
Alexandre Parra-Bruguière, I was a lawyer on the case in 2010,
when Kalinka Bamberski's mother had appointed me to file a civil claim.
At the funeral, she already felt
that Mr. Bamberski basically wanted to implicate her
as an accomplice in the death of her daughter.
Because he wanted to know what happened, by any means,
she was satisfied with Krombach's story.
She knows nothing about medicine, she just married a doctor.
She took Dieter Krombach's explanations at face value.
And she doubted there'd been a crime committed.
[Bamberski] The police inspector asked five questions over the phone
which Mr Krombach wrote down and later answered in writing from home.
BECAUSE I WAS OVERWORKED, THEY ALLOWED ME TO ANSWER IN WRITING.
There was no investigation.
Mr Krombach wasn't even called in for a face-to-face interview.
He wrote, "First, I prepared 250mg of Solu Decortin
to treat the state of shock."
"I also tried injections into the heart."
I wanted more details about what had actually happened.
So, we made an appeal
to the General Prosecutor’s Office in Munich.
MEDICAL EXAMINER
My name is Wolfgang Eisenmenger.
At the institute in Munich, we received some skin.
The piece of skin that was later to be identified
as the injection site in the arm.
And toxicologically,
we found no poisoning that might've helped to explain the death.
[director] What is your view on the injections
that Krombach gave Kalinka in order to resuscitate her?
250mg INJECTION
Yes, it has to be said,
that it is even more unusual for a doctor to even suggest such a thing.
Dr Krombach, when questioned,
stated that when he found the girl in bed that morning,
she was already rigid.
Once rigor mortis has set in,
there is absolutely no point in attempting resuscitation.
Something's not right. The man is not telling the truth.
But it didn't help us
when it came to determining what caused the girl's death.
There wasn't enough to prove that she'd been killed
or intentionally killed.
It was also an issue of credibility and judicial assessment.
[anticipatory music]
PATRICIA JOLLY JOURNALIST
My name is Patricia Jolly, I'm a journalist.
Before Kalinka died,
the Krombach family is a blended family
in which everything seemed to be going well.
Kalinka Bamberski and her brother Nicolas,
his son, Boris, and his daughter, Diana.
Krombach's first wife, she died at the age of 24.
Kalinka’s mother didn't speak German,
she clearly very much trusted Dieter Krombach.
She was sure he had done nothing wrong.
She said he is a good father.
She never witnessed inappropriate behaviour
or anything else towards her daughter.
Dieter Krombach is charming. He laughs, he exudes the joy for life,
and then, the German authorities don't realise...
the handsome doctor in his white coat.
Not many people are prepared to argue with doctors.
And Mr Bamberski is a chartered accountant,
a very serious man, quite stern.
He felt betrayed when his wife left him and she divorced Mr Bamberski.
DIVORCE
André Bamberski follows things through to the end.
Everything becomes an obsession.
Things must be done properly and tidy, be well ordered.
This doggedness, this tenacity, reaches the point of obsession.
[typewriter clicking]
[Bamberski] In June of '83, I wrote a letter to the prosecutor
to ask him about the outcome of his investigation.
And he replied that Kalinka died of natural causes
and that no further investigation was necessary.
Meaning: move along, nothing to see here.
And so, I really struggled with that.
I made a leaflet. I printed 5,000 copies...
[whirring]
...and I went to Lindau.
My goal was to publicise what had happened.
It was the day of the beer festival.
The streets were very crowded.
Thirty or 50,000 people.
And so, I handed out the leaflets.
I'll read you a few passages.
"You should know that there's a criminal living in Lindau."
"It's the doctor of medicine, Krombach."
"He killed my wonderful daughter, Kalinka."
"Also, despite numerous references in the medical report,
to sexual acts."
"This issue has never been addressed. Why?"
"I publicly request that justice finally be brought to bear."
I also went into the cafés, shops,
and handed them out to everyone who was there.
And Diana, Krombach's daughter,
she arrived with the police to arrest me.
So, I was arrested, and taken into custody,
POLICE
I was questioned. In the end, they let me go.
There was no doubt that Krombach killed Kalinka.
There was no doubt that I would keep going.
[tense music]
For me, from the start, there was another irregularity.
Which is that he was present at the autopsy.
[wistful music]
DIETER KROMBACH'S LAWYER
My name is Yves Levano, I'm a lawyer in Paris.
Dieter Krombach needed a French lawyer who speaks fluent German.
For Mr Krombach, Bamberski is crazy.
There's no other word. He's crazy.
Mr Krombach did not attend the autopsy.
He went there to identify Kalinka's body.
And then he left the room.
The pathologist said...
"As you can imagine,
we checked for signs of sexual violence, but we didn't find any."
[director] Yes, because there is a reference to a lesion
to the outer labia.
[Levano] Exactly.
And so, the undertakers dress the body, clean the body,
and in doing so, they also damage the body.
It was July, it was very hot.
The body was very fragile, badly decomposed.
That's it.
[Bamberski] The two forensic pathologists
took samples from all areas of Kalinka's genitalia.
So, the irregularity is that, subsequently, we don't know.
Nothing in the autopsy report says what they did with it.
I can't answer that point,
but once again, if what we're saying
is that Mr Krombach had those samples disappear,
then you're saying that Mr Krombach had one,
two, three, four, five accomplices.
[haunting music]
[Mayer] Lindau is a health resort.
A beautiful town...
with many tourists. Very many of them.
Krombach had a good medical practice.
It was always full.
I stayed on as his patient.
Because I had no reason to leave.
I didn’t know why the girl had died.
I didn’t know.
And he was a good doctor.
A really a good diagnostician.
Good natured.
I have nothing bad to say.
And the mother was a quiet, really considerate person.
Love personified, I would say.
[Parra Bruguière] She loses her daughter's physical presence.
And she discovers that Mr Bamberski suspects,
more than suspects, that her husband,
the man she does not suspect of being her daughter's killer, is,
and that she herself is an accomplice.
I thought, and I wrote,
that either she was involved in the act that led to Kalinka's death,
or she never sought to ask the question...
how did Kalinka die?
What was the cause?
[director] Was there conflict with her and Mr Bamberski's divorce?
Yes.
It was an acrimonious divorce.
And so, anything that came from him, from Mr Bamberski, was simply dismissed.
[mysterious music]
[Bamberski] I met Danielle in a creperie in Casablanca.
It was in 1965, she'd only just turned 20.
Dany was a pretty young woman, tall, blonde, pleasant.
We got married
and a year and a half later, Kalinka was born.
And when Nicolas was born, she was already the big sister.
The rift began early 1974.
There were German records, there were German textbooks.
I started to have my suspicions.
I made the connection between that and Dr Krombach,
who was our neighbour three houses along.
She outright told me that he was her lover, and so,
well, that was when we decided to go back to France.
I thought that we'd start over.
For me, life went back to normal,
until a year later she, allegedly, found a job in Nice.
In fact, Krombach had moved to Toulouse.
I followed her and then I realised
that instead of going to Nice during the week,
she was living with him in this apartment.
It was me who filed for divorce.
In some way, there's a sort of desire for revenge.
in terms of everything that might've happened before.
Revenge on Krombach, and revenge on her.
Which meant she was almost paranoid
about anything that came from Mr Bamberski.
[typewriter clicking]
My name is Philippe Motta.
I’ve been a journalist in Toulouse for about 30 years.
I met André Bamberski in 1985.
I went there unsure of things.
We have a saying in France: is it bacon or is it pork?
you know, is it good, is it bad?
[door buzzes]
And the first thing that amazed me was the stack of files.
Notes on everything.
His thoughts...
[gripping music]
[Bamberski] After everything I've been through,
I don’t trust anyone.
Don't expect me to trust you.
DANY PUT HER CONSCIENCE AT EASE
MURDER, HOMICIDE
I wrote everything down.
[Motta] It has to be said,
he has a real talent for making things difficult for himself.
It was three years after the fact,
and he asked me to look into the case.
And we ran a story, yeah.
I think we were the first paper to write about what happened.
It's not very well written, but there were two whole pages.
There were two whole pages and we were careful,
we put, "A Strange Story".
A STRANGE STORY
[Motte] I also interviewed the mother.
She said she'd had enough of it all.
Had enough, because from what I understood,
she was living in Toulouse and had, by then, left Dr Krombach.
[Jolly] She leaves him because he was unfaithful
and so, it ended in divorce.
She said, "I needed support after my daughter died,
I'm leaving."
But for another five years she stayed very close to him.
She was convinced, that he'd done nothing wrong.
IS DR DIETER KROMBACH A VICTIM?
[Motta] And then, I interviewed Dr Krombach.
"Andre Bamberski has been pointing the finger at me
since day one. But that's all. He's crazy."
And he sweeps it all aside.
"Write what you want. I don't care."
So, yeah, that was pretty much his response.
One person says, "Krombach is a killer."
Then there's Dr Krombach who says. André Bamberski is crazy.
Then there's a third person saying,
"Oh, I have nothing to say. I don't want to get involved."
So... we don't have enough information to know who's telling the truth.
A STRANGE STORY
[mysterious music]
[Bamberski] At the time, it was still '85.
I found out that the commission had asked the prosecutor's office
to consider further investigations.
In particular, the exhumation of Kalinka’s body.
The forensic pathologist, who carried out the autopsy,
had said that they'd placed all the organs back in with Kalinka's body.
THE GENITALS WERE REMOVED
[Bamberski] But the organs were not put back with the body.
NO REMAINING PARTS
For me, already, this exhumation gave me confirmation
that evidence was removed.
By whom?
I think, at this point,
we will never be able to answer that question.
And once again, the German authorities closed the file.
Kalinka was cut up...
like a pig in a slaughterhouse.
No one wanted to know why and how she died.
Someone had said that Kalinka was French, so French law might have jurisdiction.
That gave me fresh hope.
I told myself, "There is such a thing as French justice."
I appointed with my lawyer in Paris in January 1986;
Maître François Gibault.
ANDRÉ BAMBERSKI’S LAWYER
[Gibault] I am a lawyer.
I took the oath in 1956.
Naturally, Mr Bamberski gave me the autopsy report,
Kalinka's exhumation.
The organs had, in fact, been removed and weren't in the coffin.
This is one of the mysteries.
But it is important
because Dr Krombach couldn't be prosecuted for rape or for attempted rape,
as the genitalia had gone.
A lack of evidence, if you will.
[Bamberski] For me, these are miscarriages of justice.
And that's something I cannot accept.
Mr Krombach appointed a lawyer in France.
And, effectively,
Mr Krombach flat-out refused to come to France.
We summoned him, questioned him,
and he continued to refuse to...
His approach was to always say no.
We don't know why Kalinka Bamberski died.
At that point,
the arguments for innocence are at least as probable
as the arguments for guilt.
[birdsong]
FORMER LINDAU RESIDENT
[Mauer-Günther] Mr Bamberski?
Only he sensed all along that something was wrong,
and he was right.
Completely right.
[doorbell]
[director 1] When did you first meet Dieter Krombach?
In the early '80s.
My mother regularly went there.
As children we would visit the practice with her.
First, it was calcium injections, always lying down
because they made you woozy.
But I didn’t ask any questions, how old was I? 14, 15.
Then we got these famous iron injections.
My parents separated in early 1985.
Before that, there was a lot of domestic violence.
Mr Krombach was often there as a doctor
to kind of placate my father.
Then my father moved out
and he started to invite us to go horse riding.
[camera clicks]
And then he had the idea of extending the riding trips
and invited us to the Camargue.
The plan was to go for a long weekend, from Friday to Monday.
[camera clicks]
Then we drove to Nice, which is where the photos were taken.
I remember that he turned fifty then.
It suddenly became, "Come here." Kisses and kisses.
But we saw that as fatherly affection.
[director 1] So, that was the first time a line was crossed, so to speak?
Yes. Absolutely.
We arrived late in the evening and we shared a room...
with a large double and a single bed.
And the single bed was a camp bed.
And that's when he said that he'd sleep in the big bed
and we could choose which of us would sleep next to him.
And my sister begged me to let her sleep in the small bed,
and for me to sleep with him in the big bed.
He had his doctor's bag with him.
We were iron deficient and this needed regular treatment.
[dark music]
[Mauer-Günther] And at some point, I fell asleep.
And that's when the delightful assaults took place.
I was in shock as if paralysed.
Complete shock.
I basically just let it happen to me.
I didn't dare move or speak.
At some point, I played dead and I remember him shaking me
because he thought I was dead.
But from sheer fear or something, at some point I played dead.
I just thought this isn't happening.
That's why I didn't talk about it
because I should've gone to the police or something, but no.
Krombach was an important figure in Lindau.
A doctor!
In Germany, doctor worshipping is still extreme.
"A doctor? That's just not-- He wouldn't do such a thing!"
"It can't be true."
[dark music]
[Bamberski] No one knew he was a narcissistic sexual pervert,
especially for young girls.
How could anyone imagine, that as a doctor,
that as a person in his position could commit such a crime?
To me, it was something obvious.
So, my theory is:
taking advantage of the fact that Kalinka was sleeping alone
on the ground floor,
Krombach went downstairs and raped Kalinka.
He raped her,
but Danielle and the German authorities believed he was completely innocent.
That he was wrongly accused.
And that I'd made it all up.
In France, the proceedings dragged on for quite some time.
For several years.
But in 1988,
three French professors of medicine confirmed
that her death occurred following a shock,
but in their view, was brought on by Mr Krombach's medical intervention...
which then led to the regurgitation.
And therefore, Kalinka's death by asphyxiation.
The criminal division of the Court of Appeal
referred Mr Krombach to the Assize Court for murder.
[disjointed music]
[Bamberski] On 9 March 1995,
the Assize Court announced their final decisions.
Mr Krombach, of course, was not present.
He was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.
But only for intentional violence leading to death
that was not premeditated.
The sentence came with an arrest warrant.
Naturally, I mean, when a person is innocent,
and has nothing to hide, they will try to defend themselves.
It suggested that he was guilty.
So, I said to myself, "Right, it's over. It's all over."
I waited for the Attorney General to have Mr Krombach arrested
and brought to France.
But at the end of December 1995,
I heard that the Ministry of Justice had written,
"Please do not carry out Mr Krombach's sentence."
Yeah, there was a political block in Krombach's favour.
and against a French citizen, the victim of a German.
And Germany said, "He was tried in Munich, so we’re not extraditing him."
After going through these terrible experiences
during the court proceedings,
I came to the conclusion that I couldn't trust anyone anymore.
The arrest warrant wasn't applied
because Mr Krombach was found innocent in his own country.
That's it.
[birdsong]
[Bamberski] In early March 1997,
a journalist from a local Lindau newspaper called
to let me know about a rape carried out Dr Krombach in his office
of a patient under 16 years old.
I wasn’t wrong. Mr Krombach is in fact a sexual pervert.
[regretful music]
[woman] I'm Barbara Völkel, I work for the German TV broadcaster ZDF.
Almost 30 years ago, women weren't taken seriously.
[in German] Are you in favour of making marital rape illegal?
No!
-[laughter] -[clapping]
If you went to the police and claimed that there had been a sexual offence
or you'd been sexually abused, it was pretty much laughed off.
In 1997, a big debate was taking place in Germany in Parliament
over whether to reform the Sexual Offences Act.
On a train, I read a small article in the Allgäuer Zeitung.
A doctor, Dr Dieter Krombach,
had assaulted a 16-year-old girl in his practice
and was sentenced to two years' probation for it.
[news anchor in German] The sex offender remains a free man.
When I took on the case,
there was a big outcry in Lindau on Lake Constance.
[news anchor in German] Dr Krombach could have gotten ten years.
Nobody here understands the mild sentence.
More than 2,200 signatures have been collected in a petition
to keep the doctor away from patients for good.
There was also a very long process,
before I was even allowed to get an interview with Dieter Krombach.
[news anchor in German] Frontal interviews the sex offender on camera.
It remains the very first and last interview
that Dr Krombach ever gave about his crimes.
His lawyers advised him against giving any further interviews.
[news anchor in German] Only vetted questions could be asked
in the presence of his lawyer.
We expected to see a remorseful offender,
but that wasn't the case with Dieter Krombach.
[speaks german]
[Völkel] And he flirted with the camera. and made a couple of advances towards me.
He said to me,
"Yes, lovely to see you."
"If you weren't blonde, I wouldn't have given you this interview."
[chuckles]
We didn't see an offender who showed any remorse
or had any sense of wrongdoing.
[in German] You thought she was doing this voluntarily?
[in German] She did not say yes, but she didn’t say no either.
When I kissed her, she kissed back.
At the start, I was just kissing her, and I said, "Do you want to go further?"
[sighs]
We were talking about an assault on a 16-year-old girl
and he mocked the victim and saw nothing wrong with that.
[in German] It was very interesting for me,
and I also speak a little Russian and…
I told her "I love you" in Russian during the act.
And, I mean, [laughs] I’m not saying she was ecstatic,
but I had the impression that she was agreeing to it.
[chuckles]
I told him, "But you drugged her!"
"So she couldn't defend herself."
[sighs]
[in German] Like they said in ancient Rome,
"Those who remain silent seem to agree."
It always makes me ill the way he mocked the victim
in front of the camera.
He drugged her in order to abuse her and he's still justifying his crime.
[reporter speaking in German]
[Völkel] Towards the end of the interview I asked him about Kalinka
and he said that it had been an accident.
and he just wouldn't travel to France
so that way he wouldn't have to go to prison.
And that was where the interview ended.
After being broadcast by Frontal,
the case became known inside Germany, more well-known worldwide, across borders.
[journalist in German] Can I briefly speak with you?
No.
-Can we do a short interview? -No, we cannot, we will not. Thank you.
[Völkel] In my view,
Kalinka's case was closed far too early here in Germany.
There were many things that actually pointed towards a sexual offence.
[Bamberski] He was only given a two-year suspended sentence
and banned from practising medicine.
Her wasn't permitted to work in a clinic,
a hospital, a dispensary, or anywhere else ever again.
[director] When did you start to tail Krombach?
Almost immediately after the trial in 1997.
[director] What was your goal when you first started doing this?
[Bamberski] What I wanted was to get justice for Kalinka
against Krombach.
[disjointed music]
During those years, I was still going there,
two, three, maybe four times a year.
I hired a detective, who basically told me, that in his view,
he was doing locum work.
And so, his absences were of a few days, or a week, or two weeks at most.
So, I wondered what he was up to.
[woman] My name is Petra Stephan and I studied librarianship in the GDR.
LIBRARIAN
I ask a lot of questions, I look into things.
That is my nature.
I believe it was early 2006.
[phone ringing]
The surgery team called me
and said, "We have a new doctor working in Rödental."
[indistinct conversation in German]
Out of curiosity, as always, I asked his name.
[indistinct conversation in German]
They said his name was Dieter Krombach.
Then I asked, "Where is he from?"
And the woman on the phone said,
"He's from Lindau from Lake Constance."
Hmm...
I just thought, from beautiful Lindau…?
Why would a doctor from Lindau move to Rödental?
Mmm...
I'll just read up on what kind of doctor he is...
JUSTICE FOR KALINKA
...and I just couldn't get over
all the terrible things this doctor had done.
I read that his first wife had died under mysterious circumstances,
probably from an injection.
I read that he had raped a female patient.
But first of all, I read about Kalinka.
THE MYSTERIOUS LIFE OF DR KROMBACH FROM LINDAU BY LAKE CONSTANCE
And so, with this knowledge, I went to my appointment at the surgery.
[tense percussion]
[Stephan] I was sure this whole thing was rotten to the core.
I had a plan.
First, I'll take a look at the man,
and I'll see if he really is who he says he is.
I was afraid. I was shaking and trembling.
I was worried that he might notice and ask me, "What are you so afraid of?"
"Are you afraid of me?"
[tense music]
And I said, "No, no, I’m not afraid of you,
I’m just nervous about the exam."
And at that point, I already thought it's him.
-[keys rattling] -[door creaks]
[Stephan] So, I notified three different authorities.
I wrote a letter to the editor,
I sent an email to the mayor,
and I wrote to the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians.
Then I also sent Mr Bamberski an email.
And he got in touch with me.
GERMANY
[Bamberski] Thanks to this woman
a German authority has found out that from 1997 onwards
he had worked as a locum all across Germany.
He was giving false documents to the various clinics,
hospitals, and doctors' practices in which he had worked.
LICENSE TO PRACTICE
[Stephen] He'd never got his medical licence back,
but it seems he made himself a good copy before it was too late.
And he used this copy to travel around all over Germany
and spent all those years working as a locum.
The criminal police from Coburg
caught him shortly before he was about to flee,
run off oversees, with a suitcase, with money...
and with a penis syringe.
It's for men who don't want to take Viagra...
then you can peck up your penis.
[percussion fades]
[Bamberski] It was a trial that was very much followed by the media.
[news reporter in German] Kalinka, Bamberski’s daughter,
died at the young age of 15
after an injection given by Dr Krombach.
JUDICIAL AUTHORITIES
[Stephan] Mr Bamberski was very calm, he was objective,
and he was thrilled that, finally, Krombach was facing trial in Germany.
Unfortunately, the whole thing only related to the fact
that Krombach didn't have a licence to practice medicine.
You can't practice medicine without a medical licence.
[in German] I thought it’s too dangerous.
If anything happens and I know what kind of guy he is.
I have to make it public now.
[Bamberski] At the hearing I attended in July 2007,
it came out that Mr Krombach had continued his sexual assaults.
Two women came to testify at the trial
and there were several others whose names were listed in the judgement.
Finally, Mr Krombach was sentenced to 28 months in prison.
[Stephan] At least he got two years.
At least.
Something like that should never happen.
And then, he was released early.
I felt frustrated, 'cause I may have had some results
but I had in no way reached my ultimate goal
to achieve justice for Kalinka’s death.
[in French] It’s ridiculous to think like Mr Bamberski...
[he chuckles]
...that I made love with her?
[reporter] That you raped her!
I didn’t need to, I was married,
I was happy with Kalinka’s mother.
Besides, she did stay until... five years later,
I think, we got divorced.
But not because of this,
because I cheated on her with another woman, a friend of hers.
Well, it happens.
SCHEIDEGG GERMANY
[disjointed music]
[Bamberski] Mr Krombach stayed in prison until June 2008.
He returned to Scheidegg, which is very close to Lindau.
I followed Krombach.
-[camera clicks] -[disjointed music continues]
I went to Scheidegg three times; in September and early October.
I found a small sign outside the house that Krombach was living in:
House for sale.
So, he had a way to evade the authorities.
You could say I panicked a little.
I told myself, "So, where will he go next?"
I’d reached a dead end,
there was nothing else I could do.
I couldn't do anything with this conviction in absentia.
In September 2009, I made a decision.
I had to do something, there was only one solution.
[disjointed music]
And that was what brought about the abduction of Mr Krombach.
To bring Mr Krombach to France, either voluntarily or against his will.
In my mind, justice had to be fulfilled.
It may have been something of a gamble, but at least it was something concrete.
[director] And did you think about having him killed?
No, I never thought about having him killed.
Justice would never have been served.
So, for everyone, including me, there would always have been a doubt.
Bregenz in Austria is also very close to Scheidegg and Lindau.
And so, I spread the word in all the cafés,
in all the restaurants, in all hotels and chalets in Bregenz,
that I was trying to find someone to help me move Mr Krombach
from Germany to France.
I gave them the documents written in German with his picture,
and I added "Interpol".
On Friday,
the hotel reception called my room to say there's a man here asking for you.
And that's when I got to meet Anton.
[Krasniqi] My name is Anton Krasniqi. I was born in Kosovo, grew up in Austria.
As a father, I was fascinated by the strength of this man.
He's a really great dad.
It’s interesting, it moves you.
It moves you, and you think if that happened to you...
what would you do as a father?
What are you capable of doing for your child?
[director] What would you have done as a father?
A short trial.
Succinct, short, quick.
I took him in my car.
We headed to Lake Constance...
and I offered to help him.
He said, "I'm offering to do this out of compassion."
"I don’t want any money."
"Yes," he said, "how much do you want?"
I looked at him and laughed. I said, "No. No money."
[Bamberski] So I said, "There are costs involved, though."
He said, "Well, yes, but after it's done."
So, for me, there was no risk involved.
[director] Have you ever been in prison?
Oh, yes.
If you think about consequences, about what could happen,
I don't care about that.
If he had been a mafia type,
he would've asked for money up front.
I know a Russian gang, Georgian...
and I brought two of them along.
-[director] How much was it? -It was €2,000 each.
[director] Did you talk about how it would happen?
No, not at all.
He said, "The less you know, the better."
So, let's say I gave him my approval.
It was an act of faith.
If you don’t believe in anything, you don’t get anywhere.
I went back to Toulouse.
I waited. Nothing. No news.
[tense music]
[Krasniqi] I took my sister’s car.
There's plenty of space in the back, the rear windows are tinted.
Ideal.
[tense music]
The plan, when you see him,
you grab him, you put him in the car, and you transport him.
Basic. Simple.
[anticipatory music]
Krombach wasn't at home.
Around 9 p.m. I see a car enter the garage.
I say, "Okay, he's here."
[tense music]
[Krasniqi] A light inside the house.
I knock,
but I move away from the door.
Three, four metres from the door.
He comes out.
"Good evening, are you Mr Krombach?" I said in German.
He said, "Yes. What do you want?"
The two Russians jumped in from the left and right.
[muffled struggles]
He started to shout, "Help. Help me!"
[tense music]
We had to get him in the car, tape his mouth.
And that’s what we did.
[engine roaring]
He knew what was happening.
He shouted, he asked, "Are you taking me to France?"
"Are you going to kill me?"
I said, "No one's going to kill you."
He said, "Take me back home. I'll give you €500,000."
"No. No way we're taking you back. We don't want money.
I was driving,
the two Russians and Dr Krombach were in the back.
I heard in Russian, "No, no, don’t do that. Don’t do that."
I turned to look and saw one of the Russians had got a knife.
Apparently, he wanted to cut off his genitals.
I stopped the car and I told the guy, "Go!"
It’s too risky for me, to drive 300, 400 km, with a guy with a knife.
The guy said, "Okay, I want my money."
"Okay, you'll get your money. Bye!"
To me, it was important to just get Krombach to somewhere in France.
Suddenly, I see: "Exit: Mulhouse".
Yeah, great.
It was the first town with law enforcement, a police station.
The courthouse is right next door.
In front of the courthouse, there were four police cars.
I couldn't unload there.
[tense music]
I went down the first little street I saw.
Krombach was calling quietly.
"Help, help!"
We fully opened the gate, I left him there.
[phone ringing]
[Bamberski] At 3:20 in the morning,
I received an anonymous phone call.
"Call the police in Mulhouse
to let them know that Krombach is on the pavement
outside the customs house."
I called, I told them my story.
The guy took me for crazy.
[commissioner in French] He’s wanted for voluntary manslaughter.
[policeman] Voluntary manslaughter?
[commissioner] For a while now.
[policeman] Rue du Tilleul?
[commissioner] Yeah, Rue du Tilleul, near the customs building.
-Is there an arrest warrant? -Yes, it says "dangerous individual."
I said, "What I'm telling you is completely true."
"There's a Europe-wide arrest warrant, so go and look for him and you'll see."
[operator in French] This guy is wanted…
[policeman] Wait, there's a guy who is gagged,
with his hands and feet tied.
We are on Rue du Tilleul.
His hands are bound. Wait.
[operator] He's with a guy who's been gagged.
[policeman] We are on Rue du Tilleul, he's been gagged.
His hands and feet are tied.
Ten minutes later, he said,
"We found him, but you beat him up pretty badly."
I said, "No, I didn’t beat him up because I’m in Toulouse."
-[policeman in French] Sir? Sir? -[Krombach] Yes.
[policeman] Is your first name Dieter?
[Krombach] Yes.
[policeman 1] His first name is Dieter.
[policeman] He says he was abducted in Germany.
[operator] Is he conscious?
[policeman 1] Yes, so far, he is, but he's in really bad shape.
[Krombach] They promised me they would bring me back home.
[policeman] They promised him they would bring him back home.
What nationality did you say they were, Russian?
[Krombach] They spoke Russian.
-[policeman] They spoke Russian. -[operator] Okay.
[director] Did you think you would be arrested?
No, not at all. That’s why I said I was surprised.
I booked a hotel room in Mulhouse and booked a flight.
When I got to the hotel, it was five, six o'clock in the evening.
The police came and knocked at my door.
They asked me if I was Mr Bamberski.
"Right, we're taking you into custody."
And they took me to the police station where the interrogation began.
When I was taken by two police officers
to be brought in front of the court prosecutor,
they all gave me a guard of honour in the police station lobby.
[director] They all stood up and...
They were all standing.
And clapping.
And that was really a great comfort.
Mr Krombach, they let me know that he was there,
that he hadn't been released.
Strictly speaking, I would say he'd run out of legal options.
[reporter 1 in French] André Bamberski, indicted for kidnapping,
faces up to ten years imprisonment.
ANDRÉ BAMBERSKI'S LAWYER
My name is Laurent De Caunes, I'm a lawyer in Toulouse.
I heard about Mr Krombach's abduction
when I was told Mr Bamberski was in custody in Mulhouse.
[Bamberski] That was the moment I really freaked out.
I should've looked into the consequences earlier
of initiating an abduction.
[de Caunes] The media enjoy language that is a little hyperbolic,
a little theatrical, a scandal revealed.
So then, we entered a very strange phase
during which Mr Bamberski was the plaintiff
in the proceedings against Mr Krombach
as well as being the prospective defendant,
in proceedings against him.
[hubbub]
[reporter 2 in French] At 11 p.m.,
André Bamberski gets out, free.
but he's been indicted on charges of kidnapping
and criminal association.
[in French] I gave my consent on October 9, 2009,
for Krombach to be brought to France.
DIETER KROMBACH'S LAWYER
I am Philippe Ohayon, I'm a lawyer,
and I defended Dieter Krombach, in these two criminal proceedings.
He'd been incarcerated.
His face was swollen, he looked like a steak.
You can imagine the terrible state he was in.
He was traumatized. He claimed to be innocent.
He screamed his innocence, he was angry.
[Levano] The abduction was extremely violent.
And Mr Bamberski said, "No, it’s not my fault
because I never told them to hit him or hurt him."
Mr Bamberski, in my view,
is someone for whom the end always justifies the means.
[de Caunes] I maintained, we maintained,
that André Bamberski acted under moral duress.
Because he knew that if Krombach was detained,
the court case would finally be over.
A real adversarial trial.
A real trial for justice.
The purpose of justice is never to take revenge.
It’s how it's been since the dawn of time.
Justice is not revenge, quite the opposite.
[Völkel] After Dieter Krombach was abducted,
that's when I got in touch with Diana Krombach.
The 2009 interview took place outside her father's house
where he was abducted from.
And she was still convinced of her father’s innocence.
[in German] I am 100% convinced of my father’s innocence.
Over the years,
these things are an incredible emotional burden
for the family.
[Völkel in German] Can you show us where this happened?
I just know from my dad’s account.
I know this is his parking space,
and he said it happened just before he got to the car.
The police saw a huge pool of blood here.
Initially, the police assumed that he’d been murdered.
[camera clicks]
[director] Did Germany ask that he be returned?
Of course.
In fact, they were very surprised, that they even had to ask.
As I say, it was a big surprise.
That’s what we fought over during a period of months and months.
But it didn’t work out that way.
[tense ticking music]
PARIS FRANCE
EQUALITY
[Bamberski] In the Criminal Court of Paris,
Mr Krombach continued to be accused on the same charge
as during his trial in absentia of 1995,
for the murder, aggravated murder, of Kalinka.
ASSIZE COURT
[reporter 3 in French] Emotions were running high
at the start of Dieter Krombach's trial this morning
at the Court of Assizes, Paris.
A day marked by the first face-to-face
between the man who is accused of killing young Kalinka
and her father, André Bamberski.
[in French] My first thought and my first words
are for Kalinka.
[Levano] The atmosphere at the trial is a kind of trial by media,
whereby the German was the one who, for all these years,
evaded justice and is finally going to pay.
That was the feeling.
[in French] Mr Krombach is not in good shape.
Thanks to Bamberski’s friends.
It’s a surrealistic situation.
Someone there in the box,
because the accusing party brought him to France,
using horrific violence.
There's this anti-German sentiment in a climate of real conspiracy,
where the German legal system
is accused of protecting an everyday general practitioner in Lindau
which makes no sense.
[hubbub]
[camera clicks]
[journalist in German] What is the truth?
[in German] The truth is my father didn’t do anything.
He’s not guilty. It’s the act of a crazy man, a maniac.
[Gibault] Dr Krombach,
a good father supported by his children.
But he has a split personality.
He was a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
[de Caunes] Mr Bamberski is a moral force.
He isn't a vigilante, he isn't the masked avenger,
but a warrior.
A warrior monk.
[in French] Mr Bamberski, he’s determined, as always.
Is it a relief for him that justice is finally happening?
It’s a relief because it's what he always aimed for,
Krombach to be judged.
Ms Gonnin is a very calm, sweet woman. who lives with the pain of what happened
because, in fact, the abduction, Krombach's arrest, the media attention...
again, she's hurt by these circumstances
and she doesn't believe that Dieter Krombach is guilty.
I think, at first, she saw herself as a victim
of what she considered a type of judicial violence and assault
perpetrated by Mr Bamberski.
The trial is Bamberski against Krombach, it is vengeance on Krombach.
[Motta] They asked me to follow the hearings
to keep a chronicle of the trial.
Can you imagine, the courtroom was holding its breath,
that really was the case, and when Krombach arrived.
So, very quickly, the trial slipped away from him.
Because when the questions suit him,
he has no problem hearing.
And he answers pretty well.
But when the questions are a little awkward, a little...
he does this with his hand.
DIETER KROMBACH
But then, there's a really shocking incident.
We arrive at the end of the fifth or sixth day,
we hear he's had a heart attack.
His life is endangered, he has cardiac issues.
An expert confirmed it.
[reporter 4 in French] Dieter Krombach is no longer able to appear in court.
Facing justice,
the German cardiologist has invoked a medical issue…
It was fabricated. Pure and simple.
[in French] Some of you journalists reporting the case
contacted Mr Levano, Mr Ohayon, before the trial
and they always said the trial wouldn’t happen.
It actually isn’t happening.
[in French] Curiously, it's a medical problem in his speciality,
cardiology.
SIX MONTHS LATER
[haunting music]
[reporter 5 in French] ...Kalinka,
whom he believes was killed by her stepfather,
Dieter Krombach…
[reporter 6 in French] Why didn't he think to call the police
so they could protect the scene?
[reporter 7 in French] ...Danielle Gonnin, Kalinka's mother.
The former spouses do not even make eye contact.
[journalist in French] What is your state of mind?
[in French] I am…
much more, much more confident and calmer than last time.
[journalist 1 in French] Meaning?
Meaning…
everything has been done
so that Mr Krombach doesn’t provoke another cardiac issue.
[Diana Krombach in French] Of course, it needs to end.
Of course, he wants to, to prove his innocence.
Because he is innocent.
[woman] Testifying against him was a very difficult step for me.
To describe it all again in front of so many people.
Mr Krombach, I met him in the summer of 1993 for the first time.
I was 29 years old.
And he was older, around late fifties, would be my guess.
[elevator beeps]
Someone recommended him to me.
"He’s really nice, he's a really good doctor."
He diagnosed an iron deficiency.
He would have to give me an iron injection.
I had the injection a few times and everything was okay, at that point.
At the time, my husband and I had a few financial difficulties
then he offered me a job working at his practice.
I was supposed to clean the floors, sweep, dust a little.
I always came at lunchtime because they had their lunchbreak.
No one was there, no patients either.
At the time, I thought nothing of it.
And so, one day I came into the hall
and I could hear noises.
So, I called out, "Hello? Who's there?"
And he was at the back, in the lab.
And he asked, that since he was there, should he just give me the injection.
That way,
I wouldn't have to come back again later that afternoon during clinic hours.
And so, I didn’t think anything of it, and I said yes.
Yes... [sighs] ...and then, it was a completely different injection.
I know that then I was sort of paralysed.
And I know that I wanted to get up and that he just gently, with two fingers,
pushed me back.
And then... yes, it happened.
It was an actual rape, yes.
-Can we stop for a break? Okay. -[director 1] Yes, of course.
POLICE
I couldn’t think clearly enough to say to myself, "I'll go to the police."
All I can say is I was full of fear. Full of fear and shame.
Mr Krombach was very rich and he was very influential
and I thought I'm just...
[in French] I was never able to defend Dieter Krombach
against these charges.
That is, those without proof, the other charges.
Krombach said that he didn't know me,
he’d never seen me before,
that I was only there to make myself seem important.
Justice has rules
and the first rule is to prove any accusations.
ASSIZE COURTROOM No. 3
I heard he was actually really worried about my testimony,
and the chamber was full.
And he had two lawyers, quite ferocious types.
The Mauer sisters were never part of trial.
I was never able to defend Mr Krombach against their accusations.
[camera flashes]
[director] How did Danielle Gonnin react to the testimony of the other victims?
With disgust.
The feeling of having been wrong for 28 years.
I remember her turning towards me and saying, "So, he's really a pervert."
"I lived with a pervert for years without realising it."
Everything shocked her. The victims' age, the MO,
the young girls who were minors at the time,
the way he sedated them and sexually abused them.
Danielle Gonnin didn't analyse, didn't look at the vials of medicine
that he injected into Kalinka's body.
She didn’t look at what it was, she trusted him.
Dr Krombach, who's a cardiologist,
and so, everyone agrees that his attempts to resuscitate Kalinka,
both the way he acted and the product he administered,
are completely against all medical protocols.
She also discovered the infidelity that occurred under her roof.
[Jolly] Her husband drugged her numerous times
in order to cheat on her with her 16-years-old neighbour.
The girl explained
that when she started having sexual relations with Krombach,
it was in his house.
So, the house where he lived with Ms Gonnin.
On the sofa in the living room, so as not to be disturbed,
he would drug his wife.
He'd pour a few drops of a sedative into Danielle Gonnin's glass,
so she would sleep really deeply
and wouldn't, of course, hear him engaging in sexual acts
in the next room.
Danielle Gonnin told the court
that she'd slept abnormally on the night of the crime.
[in French] She has doubts now, that she could have been sedated.
[Gonnin on phone in French] I had my doubts,
now it's more than doubt.
I’m almost certain that he is lying.
That hurts.
And now, I have to live with that.
I would have appreciated if Dieter Krombach had told me,
"It was an accident, I panicked, and I lied."
I would have understood,
I may have forgiven him.
But now, I can't forgive him.
[Parra-Bruguière] Above all, what was very hard for Ms Gonnin
was the sense that many people saw her as someone who knew what was happening,
but didn't want to say anything, or believe it, or hear it. There you go.
And this is this image that she just couldn't bear.
[Bamberski] Of course, we were pleased because I was able to say to her mother,
to everyone, to all the media, "Look, I wasn't wrong."
[poignant music]
Dr Krombach was only sentenced to 15 years in prison...
for violence.
[in French] Of course, my first thought is for Kalinka.
Justice has been done in her memory.
And I’ll now be able to grieve for her.
[emotive music]
DIETER KROMBACH WAS SENTENCED TO 15 YEARS IN PRISON
FOR "BODILY HARM LEADING TO UNINTENTIONAL DEATH."
HE'S ALWAYS CLAIMED HIS INNOCENCE
DESPITE ANDRÉ BAMBERSKI'S PROTESTS,
HE WAS RELEASED ON FEBRUARY 22, 2020 FOR MEDICAL REASONS.
HE DIED ON SEPTEMBER 12, 2020, IN GERMANY.
TO DATE, 16 WOMEN HAVE COME FORWARD
WITH SEXUAL ABUSE CLAIMS...
[bittersweet music]
[director] What was your sentence?
One year in prison.
When I was in prison in Austria, my father visited.
He said, "Son... you know what you did?"
I said, "Yes."
They're proud of me. Everyone is proud of me.
[Bamberski] As for me,
in the trial for the abduction in Mulhouse,
I found out that I was condemned to a one-year suspended sentence
for instigating the abduction.
[emotive music]
[Bamberski] I hope that Kalinka is in heaven,
and that she knows about everything I did for her.
I think that she deserved it.
[director] What would you say to a father who has lost his daughter?
[Bamberski] I would tell him, as it's been 39 years,
"Don’t waste your life."
I fought like Don Quixote de la Mancha.
Against windmills.
I got justice for her.
But honestly,
these battles are extreme.
[emotive music]