His Daughter Was Murdered. So He Abducted the Murderer.

On the morning of July 10th, 1982, a nurse responded to an emergency call in the picturesque town of Lindau, Germany. The family’s teenage daughter, who’d spent the previous day windsurfing on nearby Lake Constance, was found to be curled in the fetal position and nonresponsive. Her stepfather, a respected local doctor, claimed to have given her several medications when he’d found her unconscious.

But the nurse took one look at the teenage girl and knew any rescue attempts would be pointless. Rigor mortis had already set in, meaning she’d already been dead for hours. Noticing a needle mark on the girl’s arm, the nurse asked the doctor what he’d given her. He responded that it was a cobalt-iron injection. Apparently, his teenage stepdaughter had been lamenting her lack of a summer tan and he’d promised that the mixture would help.

Unknown to him, the events of that night would become the subject of multiple investigations, two trials, and a slowly-unfolding sensation in the European media. In its thrilling climax, the doctor would be delivered, bound and gagged, to a French police station, a present from a grieving father who was unwilling to see his daughter’s death go unpunished after almost thirty years of waiting.

A Somewhat Normal Family

Meanwhile, that morning, in the French city of Toulouse, André Bamberski received an unexpected phone call from his ex-wife. It had not been an amiable divorce, so he knew this must be important. He answered the phone and heard the news that would change his life. Their fourteen-year-old daughter Kalinka was dead.

André’s life had not been easy up to that point, and it wasn’t about to get any better. He’d been born in northern France in 1938 to a Polish father, and had been living in Poland with his grandparents during the Nazi invasion. He’d returned to France at the end of the Second World War, but the scars of that time period still lingered over his country and himself.

Since he had a gift for mathematics, André decided to go into accounting and specialized in international taxation. He was working in the city of Casablanca in Morocco when he met a French woman as they both stood in line for a crepe stand. Soon after, they were married. The couple went on to have two children. André named the oldest child, a girl, to honor his Polish roots. He called her Kalinka.

The family was happy in Casablanca, but André soon grew suspicious that something strange was going on. They were friendly with a neighbor, a widower who worked for the German consulate as a cardiologist. His first wife had died from a sudden and unexpected cerebral brain hemorrhage, leaving her husband to raise two children with wife number two. The boy and girl attended the same international school as the Bamberski children, so it made sense for them to get along.

But André noticed that the doctor had a habit of regularly popping up. He also noticed that his wife seemed to have a lot of German books and documents for someone who didn’t speak German.

André asked his wife if she was having an affair and she did not deny it. Crushed, he decided it was time for the family to move back to France. They settled in the city of Toulouse, near the country’s southern border. And for a time, they seemed happy. André’s wife Danièle announced that she’d found a job in real estate that required her to travel, and he was happy for her. However, he soon became suspicious that, once again, his wife was lying to him.

So, one day, as Danièle left for “work,” André followed her. But instead of leaving for Nice, his wife travelled only a few minutes to a nearby apartment complex. The German doctor Dieter Krombach had followed the family to Toulouse just so he could keep secretly seeing André’s wife.

Understandably, he was furious. André Bamberski filed for divorce and was given full custody of the children. And for five years, André was a single working father. Although he loved his children, the situation was challenging.

He wanted to move back to Casablanca, which held both fond memories and a lower cost of living. But when Danièle heard that he was planning to leave the country with their children, she panicked. She took him to court, which granted her custody of both Kalinka and her younger brother Nicholas.

This blended family, which consisted of Danièle, the Bamberski children, Dieter Krombach and his two children, settled into a home in Lindau, Germany. Kalinka and Nicholas attended a French-language boarding school in Germany, but the divorce and custody battles had taken a toll. It was clear that the kids wanted to be back in France with their father. In an effort to do the right thing for their children, the parents agreed that André could regain custody at the start of the next school year.

Little did they know, Kalinka would not survive that long. On July 10, 1982, at only fourteen years old, she would be found dead in her bedroom with an injection mark in her arm.

None of this made sense to her father. Kalinka had been a healthy fourteen-year-old girl who enjoyed skiing, ice skating and windsurfing. Her mother believed she’d died of sunstroke because she’d spent the previous day on the lake and had gotten sunburned, which in hindsight must have been a heat rash. This seemed odd to André. Sure, Lindau was warm for Germany, but Kalinka had spent her childhood in Northern Africa and the South of France. Heat was not something that was unfamiliar to her.

Regardless of his misgivings, André went straight to Lindau to be with his family. A funeral home had been contacted shortly after Kalinka’s death and it retained custody of her body until an autopsy could be performed. The family’s multi-national travels meant that they now had to decide where their daughter would be laid to rest.

But while in Lindau, André couldn’t help but notice that things weren’t adding up. Once again, the weather just didn’t seem warm enough to kill a healthy teenage girl. So, he asked Nicholas if his sister had shown any signs of sunstroke the night before she died, such as a headache or exhaustion. He said his sister had been completely normal. In fact, he mostly remembered a sibling spat after dinner while the adults walked the family dog.

And then there were the rumors that were circulating around town. The word on the street was that Kalinka hadn’t died of sunstroke, but from an injection that her stepfather had given her to help her tan. André had never heard of such a thing. So, before he returned to France, he asked his ex-wife to pass along a copy of the autopsy report.

The days slowly turned into weeks. Kalinka was laid to rest near Toulouse, the city where she’d spent the majority of her life. No autopsy report appeared.

André called his ex-wife to follow up, and she responded that their daughter was dead, and knowing why wouldn’t bring her back. André, to the contrary, decided to request a copy from the relevant German authorities.

Finally, three months after Kalinka’s death, her father had a copy of the 60-page autopsy report. It was written in German, so he needed to hire someone to translate it into French. But his efforts would be well rewarded. Once he was finally able to read the details of Kalinka’s death, André’s world was turned upside down.

Despite not listing an official cause of death, it was clear from the report why fourteen-year-old Kalinka never woke up that morning. She was found with aspirated stomach contents in her lungs and airways, or in other words, she’d choked on her own vomit. This usually happens when the patient is unconscious, whether from shock or from drugs or alcohol. The autopsy hadn’t determined why Kalinka had been unconscious, but it seemed to take her stepfather’s word that there was no way it would have been due to his cobalt-iron injection.

But things only got stranger from there. The autopsy had found a tear in Kalinka’s vulva, as well as fresh blood around her genitals. There was also a whitish substance inside her vagina. But curiously, none of this was found to be out of the ordinary. The Lindau regional prosecutor ruled that there was no evidence of foul play and declared that Kalinka had died of natural causes. The death inquest was closed.

André couldn’t believe what he was reading. To him, it sounded like his daughter had been drugged, raped, and left to die in her own vomit. And then, even more incredulously, the perpetrator had gotten away with it. It was more than a father could bear.

André swore that he would find the man who killed his daughter and force him to face justice. It was a quest that would take thirty years, involve three countries, and most of his life savings. But André never questioned if it would be worth it. He was doing this for Kalinka.

The Investigation

The first thing that André Bamberski did to find his daughter’s killer was contact the Lindau prosecutor. Despite the fact that Dieter Krombach had admitted to injecting Kalinka with multiple substances, no toxicology tests had been done. This was especially odd considering that he had injected her with dopamine, cortisone, and a narcotic, an unconventional combination that he had no explanation for. André knew that the medical professionals had saved samples of his daughter’s tissues and wanted them to run as many tests as possible.

The German prosecutor declined. If the doctors who’d done the autopsy thought that toxicology was unnecessary, then it was unnecessary. He refused to reopen the case.

At this point, André called his ex-wife. He hoped that if they presented a united front, the authorities might reconsider. But Danièle flatly refused to get involved. She had not read the autopsy report because, despite living in Germany for several years, she still did not speak the language. She instead relied on her husband to translate everything for her. And if he said that she didn’t need to read the autopsy report, she believed him.

When André suggested that Dr. Krombach might be responsible for their daughter’s death, Danièle flew off the handle. She stated that André was out for revenge because of the affair, the custody issues, and what happened in World War II had made him eternally prejudiced towards Germans. In her opinion, her ex-husband was a bitter, crazy man who was using their daughter’s death as a pawn in some sick game. And she was not going to entertain it for a second.

André Bamberski realized that his ex-wife was not going to be helpful in his quest for justice. From then on, he was going to have to move forward on his own.

The next step was to hire a German lawyer to persuade authorities to take a second look at the case. In November 1982, Lindau agreed to a forensic review of the autopsy. Three scientists from the Munich Forensic Institute analyzed skin from the injection site on Kalinka’s arm, which tested negative for poison. However, they did note some inconsistencies in Dr. Krombach’s story.

To start, the doctors had never heard of a cobalt-iron injection being used to help someone develop a tan. The only time the medication is used is for severe iron-deficiency anemia, a condition that Kalinka did not appear to have. According to her mother, however, Dr. Krombach had unofficially diagnosed both of them with the disease and regularly administered cobalt-iron injections to treat it.

This did not initially raise alarm bells. Iron-deficiency anemia is pretty common, especially among women and teenage girls. Without iron, the blood is unable to properly distribute oxygen, resulting in fatigue, headaches, and chest pain. The vast majority of cases, however, can be treated by eating iron-rich foods or taking a daily iron pill.

In fact, cobalt-iron injections can have nasty side effects like nausea, fever, loss of consciousness, and cardiac arrest. As a result, doctors only used it if other medications had already failed, and only under supervision. Injecting the drug in a teenage girl and then sending her to bed for the night was, at the very least, irresponsible.

The Munich Forensic Institute also found it odd that Dr. Krombach had tried reviving Kalinka at all. The nurse had testified that she was already in rigor mortis, so a medical doctor should have been well aware that nothing could be done to save her. And even if he was delusional enough to try restarting her heart, the combination of dopamine, cortisone, and a narcotic was unlikely to do the job.

The published report was inconclusive, but the team agreed that the circumstances were suspicious. This was enough to convince police to interview the Krombach family. Everyone agreed that Kalinka had been perfectly healthy until the moment of her death. André Bamberski and his German lawyer felt that, at the very least, this indicated that the cobalt-iron injection had unintentionally killed her.

The police wanted to interview Dieter Krombach, but he insisted that he was far too busy with patients. So, they gave him a list of questions and allowed him to respond in writing at his leisure. For the most part, his responses lined up with his initial statement. But there were two key discrepancies: one, he said that he’d given Kalinka an iron injection because she suffered from anemia, not because she’d wanted a tan. Two, he’d also given her a sedative because she claimed to have trouble sleeping.

It sounded like Dr. Krombach was backtracking in an attempt to cover something up. André Bamberski now believed that Dieter Krombach had not given Kalinka an iron injection, but a sedative that would prevent her from fighting back as he raped his own stepdaughter. And worse, the drug had later caused her to choke on her own vomit. To him, this was murder. And Dr. Krombach was going to get away with it, because, once again, the German authorities closed the case due to a lack of evidence.

If only the world knew about the monster that was living among them. Surely, then, someone would have to do something. And this gave André Bamberski an idea. A stupid idea, true, but an idea nonetheless.

Trial in Absentia

A little over a year after his daughter’s death, Mr. Bamberski travelled to Lindau with a stack of homemade leaflets. It was Friday, the 30th of September, 1983, the last day of the city’s annual Oktoberfest beer festival. The streets were crowded with revelers. André handed out leaflets to anyone who would take them.

The two-page paper began, “You should know that a criminal lives in Lindau. It is Dr. Krombach, who practices at 23A Breganza Street. On the evening of Friday, July 9, 1983, he killed my splendid daughter Kalinka in his own home.”

It only took two hours for the police to show up and arrest André Bamberski. He was charged with disturbing the peace and defaming Dr. Krombach’s character. The police let him go several hours later, but Dr. Krombach sued him for defamation.

Considering the content of the flier, the court agreed that it had substantially damaged the doctor’s reputation. André Bamberski was ordered to pay his daughter’s killer five hundred thousand German marks. However, he merely skedaddled back over the French border in a move that essentially told the German government, “make me.”

Now unable to return to the country for the next five years, Mr. Bamberski mailed letters to German officials from his hometown of Toulouse. Most of the letters were ignored, but a handful agreed that further investigation was necessary. An especially unsettling detail from the autopsy report was the whitish substance inside Kalinka’s vagina, which had never been tested. If it proved to come from Dr. Krombach, it would give him motive for murder.

The autopsy report stated that any organs that had been removed during the examination had been returned for the burial. This meant that in order to examine the whitish substance, Kalinka’s coffin needed to be exhumed. André Bamberski readily gave his consent.

In 1985, three years after her death, Kalinka’s body was dug back up. The sealed coffin had kept her surprisingly well-preserved, but something was missing. Contrary to the paperwork, the organs that had been removed during her autopsy had not been returned. Kalinka’s genitals, perhaps the most important piece of evidence in the entire case, had disappeared. To this day, no one knows what happened to them.

This caused the case against Dr. Krombach to hit a wall. There was no new forensic evidence, and Germany, for the third time, decided to close the file. It seemed like there was nowhere else for André Bamberski to turn. But someone had mentioned that since Kalinka had been a French citizen, he might be able to pursue criminal charges in France. So, with nothing to lose, he brought his case to court.

In 1988, a panel of three French medical experts examined the tissue samples that had been taken from Kalinka’s body, including the injection site on her arm. They then compared their findings with the autopsy report and the original police investigation. Based on all available data, the team decided that Kalinka had died of an injection that may, or may not, be cobalt-iron. This resulted in the aspirated stomach contents that, ultimately, caused her death.

And considering Dr. Kombach’s bizarre attempts to revive her and his changing stories, he looked pretty guilty. They referred the case to the Assize Court of Paris, who did what the German government had not–charge Dr. Krombach with a crime.

With Kalinka’s genitals missing, the French court decided not to try Dieter Krombach for rape. His lawyers insisted that the tear on Kalinka’s vulva had been caused after death, by the funeral home preparing the body for burial (although that explanation only seems to raise more questions). And without being able to test the whitish substance in her vagina, there was nothing to connect the observations of the autopsy report to sexual activity.

Therefore, Dieter Krombach was charged with “afflicting of bodily harm which caused unintentional death.” Or, as it is commonly known in the English-speaking world, manslaughter.

The German government agreed to hand over the case files, but refused to allow French investigators into the country. The Assize Court of Paris requested that the defendant come to France and argue his case, but the doctor declined. He said that he was busy and a trip to Paris would be far too strenuous and sent a lawyer to argue the case for him. The already established facts would have to stand on their own.

It took until 1995 to receive a verdict, but to André Bamberski, it was worth the wait. Dieter Krombach was found guilty in absentia and was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, the maximum sentence for manslaughter.

All this time, André had been right. His fourteen-year-old daughter had been cruelly taken from him too soon, and now, her killer was finally going to face justice.

Germany, however, was having none of it. When asked to extradite Dr. Krombach, they simply refused. The German government claimed that because investigators had originally closed the case, he’d essentially already been tried and this was double jeopardy.

The case eventually made its way to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled that, no, closing a case is not the same thing as a trial and therefore this wasn’t double jeopardy. However, trying Dieter Krombach in absentia meant that he hadn’t been able to properly defend himself, regardless of whether or not he’d been willing to make the trip to Paris. If France wanted to put the doctor in prison, they’d have to do the trial in person.

France dutifully put out a warrant for his arrest, which was eventually upgraded to an all-Europe Interpol warrant. Germany said that wasn’t an extradition order, so they were going to ignore it.

However, it had been more than fifteen years since that fateful day in 1982 and the world was changing. Danièle had caught her husband having an affair with one of her friends and filed for divorce. Kalinka’s brother and stepsiblings were no longer children, but adults who could vote and have a voice in the wider world. Things had changed and moved on. And as a result, the world of Dr. Krombach was about to come crashing down.

Un Pervert Sexuelle

On Tuesday, the 11th of February, 1997, a sixteen-year-old Russian immigrant named Laura arrived at Dr. Krombach’s medical office for a routine gastroscopy. The procedure would send an endoscope down her esophagus and into her stomach to check for problems in the digestive system. As usual, she was given anesthesia and put to sleep for the procedure.

When the gastroscopy was over, Laura had issues waking up. This isn’t uncommon, so the doctors moved her to a couch in a recovery room where she could wait for the anesthesia to fully wear off. According to Laura, she was alone in this room when Dr. Krombach returned on his own and began to kiss her.

She tried to shove him away, but the drugs made it so she could barely move her arms. Apparently satisfied with this response, Dr. Krombach locked the door and raped her. When he was done, he wiped them both down with paper towels, put her clothes back on, and drove her home.

Once she was home, the teenage girl immediately told her parents what happened, and they called the police. Dieter Krombach was arrested and charged with “sexual abuse of an individual unable to resist.” Dr. Krombach declared he was innocent and Laura was a liar. However, there was no putting this cat back in the bag. Other women began to come forward, and their stories formed a disturbing pattern.

One of the women who spoke out was Svenja Mauer. She’d first met Dr. Krombach as a teenager in 1980s Lindau, as their family doctor. Dr. Krombach diagnosed Svenja and Yana with iron-deficiency anemia and began treating them with cobalt-iron injections.

The teenage girls had a turbulent home life, and the middle-aged doctor stepped up as a kind of substitute father figure. Soon, he was taking them horseback riding and out to fancy dinners. When he asked their mother if he could bring the girls on an overnight trip to the South of France, she saw no reason to turn him down.

However, once the girls arrived in France, they were surprised to discover that the hotel had only one large double bed and a small fold-out cot. Dr. Krombach insisted he needed the large bed, so the girls could decide among themselves who got the cot. Yana, perhaps sensing that something strange was going on, begged her sister to let her have the cot. She’d only packed a small nightgown, and she didn’t want to wear it to bed with a fifty-year-old man. So, Svenja agreed to share the large bed.

That evening, Dr. Krombach remarked that the girls were overdue for their cobalt-iron injections. Luckily, he had them in his medical bag, which he’d just happened to bring along. He could take care of it right before they all went to sleep.

Svenja and Yana fell asleep immediately after receiving the injections. At some point in the night, Svenja woke up to find that Dr. Krombach was assaulting her. She was so shocked that she froze, unable to move or speak. As the assault continued, she began to disassociate and even played dead. This seemed to alarm Dr. Krombach, because he then shook her until he was satisfied that she was still alive.

The girls tried to tell their mother about what happened, but she admonished them for making up lies about the kind doctor who’d so generously brought them on a trip. There didn’t seem much point in calling the police after that. If their own mother didn’t believe them, why would anyone else?

Another woman had first met Dr. Krombach in the summer of 1993. Unlike the Mauer sisters, she was in her late twenties, married, and struggling financially. Dr. Krombach diagnosed her with iron-deficiency anemia and recommended regular appointments for cobalt-iron injections. As the two saw more of each other, the doctor learned about her financial problems and recommended her for a job cleaning the medical office during the lunch break.

At first, it seemed like a pretty good gig. All the doctors went out to lunch, leaving the office empty and in need of a quick tidy. But one day, Dr. Krombach stayed behind, supposedly doing some work in the lab. He came out and suggested that he give the woman her cobalt-iron injection now, since they had an appointment for the afternoon anyway. It seemed logical, so she agreed.

The woman now believes that Dr. Krombach did not inject her with cobalt-iron, but something else. She remembers feeling paralyzed, and that it only took two fingers for the doctor to tip her onto the exam table where she lay, unable to move, as he raped her. Afterwards, she thought about going to the police, but didn’t bother. It was her word versus his, and who would believe a cleaning lady over a doctor?

But Laura, Dr. Krombach’s sixteen-year-old patient, had something that these other women did not: a rape kit. The DNA of the semen found in her vagina was a perfect match for Dieter Krombach. The doctor quickly changed his story and insisted that he’d been under the impression that Laura had consented to sex with a sixty-one-year-old man.

Despite the severity of the crime, Dr. Krombach received no jail time and a mere two-year suspension of his medical license. It was a surprisingly lenient verdict.

However, things were changing in Germany. The discussion of rape and sexual assault had long been taboo, but suddenly, people were talking about it. The current system assumed that only women could be assaulted, and defined rape only as extramarital sex with the threat of violence. Women and men alike were coming forward to say that the current laws had failed to protect them and that the Sexual Offenses Act needed to be changed.

It was in this environment that a female journalist came across the story of a Lindau doctor who had received only a two-year suspension for raping a teenage girl. In her opinion, this man should never be allowed near patients again.

Barbara Volkel requested an interview with Dr. Krombach as part of her news coverage. To her surprise, he agreed. But only pre-approved questions would be allowed, and his lawyer would be present. It would be the only interview the doctor ever gave about his crimes.

Once the cameras were rolling, Dieter Krombach clarified that he’d only agreed because his interviewer would be an attractive blonde woman. He then doubled down on the story that Laura had consented to having sex with him. When asked if she’d verbally said yes, he replied that she hadn’t said anything at all, positive or negative. Barbara Volkel pointed out that this might be the result of the drugs, and the doctor replied, “Like they said in ancient Rome: ‘Those who remain silent seem to agree.’”

When the segment hit TV, the response was explosive. Dr. Krombach’s medical license was finally revoked and he was forced to sell his practice. And from there, the doctor moved away from Lindau and disappeared.

Medicine Without a License

André Bamberski couldn’t believe it. After all these years, he’d been right about Dieter Krombach. The doctor was a sexual pervert with an interest in young girls, a category that likely included his stepdaughter. The stories of the other women established a pattern that neatly fitted with Kalinka’s: the anemia diagnosis, cobalt-iron injections, and finally escalating to rape.

At the house in Lindau, Kalinka’s bedroom had been the only one on the ground floor, a move that now felt suspicious. How many times had Dr. Krombach assaulted his daughter before he unintentionally killed her?

André Bamberski quit his job and devoted himself to the case full-time, keeping all of his documents in an expansive number of neatly labeled folders. He hired a private detective to keep track of the doctor, who was now frequently moving throughout Germany. If Dieter Krombach left the country, even briefly, the Interpol warrant would kick in and he could be extradited to France. All they had to do was wait.

In 2006, while André Bamberski worked away on his files in France, a librarian in Rödental, Germany received a call from her doctor’s office. Her usual physician had recently passed away, and the office had hired a temporary substitute to look after his patients while they hired someone new. In the medical world, this is referred to as a locum doctor.

The librarian was curious about the new substitute, so she asked his name and where he was from. The office responded that it was Dieter Krombach from Lindau. The librarian opened a computer and typed “Dieter Krombach” and “Lindau” into a search engine. The results were shocking.

The librarian found articles about Kalinka’s death, the sexual assault allegations, and the sixteen-year-old patient who’d accused him of rape. She even read about the death of Dr. Krombach’s first wife, whose mother believed that the brain hemorrhage was the result of an injection. The police had named the doctor as a prime suspect, but ultimately dropped the case due to a lack of evidence.

Surely, the librarian thought, her doctor’s office hadn’t hired a convicted rapist and potential murderer to do her medical exam. Besides, his license had been revoked. Maybe there were two Dieter Krombachs from Lindau? The librarian decided to keep her appointment and see for herself.

But when her doctor entered the exam room, there was no mistake. It was definitely the man she’d seen online. And the librarian was furious. When she got home, she wrote emails to the mayor, the local newspaper, and the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, demanding that action be taken immediately.

Germany might be willing to sweep sexual assault allegations under the rug, but practicing medicine without a license could not be ignored. An investigation found that Dr. Krombach had made photocopies of his medical license before handing it over to authorities, and he’d been using these copies to find locum positions. If anyone asked what happened to the original, he lied and said it had been stolen.

At the trial, two more women came forward with allegations of sexual assault. However, the charges remained focused on the illegal locum work. In 2006, Dieter Krombach was sentenced to twenty-eight months in prison for lying about his medical license, but he was released after only eighteen months due to good behavior.

After the doctor left prison, André Bamberski continued to track his movements, waiting patiently for the day that he could finally bring his daughter’s killer to justice. The French government had finally admitted that they hadn’t pushed for extradition because they were worried it would cause tension between France and Germany, something that André had suspected for years. He had also come to believe that Dr. Krombach must have someone high up in the German government who was protecting him, but others who’ve worked on the case disagree.

Rather, Dr. Krombach’s lack of consequences in Kalinka’s death was a perfect storm of unrelated circumstances. First, there was the German respect for doctors, which meant that Dieter Krombach was automatically assumed to be a hardworking and upstanding member of the community. The doctor could also be quite charming, which underscored this undeserved reputation. This created a presumption of innocence from everyone around him, from the medics who performed the autopsy to the police who took his statements.

When this generous presumption of innocence combined with some good old-fashioned incompetence and sloppy police work, it resulted in a lack of evidence. And then, when France began insisting that Dieter Krombach was a killer, patriotism kicked in. Extraditing the doctor would be admitting that France was right and Germany was wrong. So, despite mounting evidence that Dieter Krombach was a terrible person, Germany continued to allow a criminal to roam free because to do otherwise would wound their national pride.

But André Bamberski was not giving up. He tracked the doctor to the town of Scheidegg, not far from the Austrian border. At that point, it was 2009 and the thirty-year statute of limitations for manslaughter would expire in 2012. Not only would justice then be beyond his reach, but according to French law, Dr. Krombach could choose to sue him for defamation. André Bamberski had spent years raising awareness of the German doctor’s crimes. Soon, all that good work could be used against him.

But as long as the doctor stayed in Germany, nothing could be done. His best chance was that Dieter Krombach would temporarily forget the Interpol warrant and wander into Austria, where he could be arrested. So, André travelled to the border towns and distributed pamphlets with the doctor’s photo to local police stations, just in case.

It was during one of these trips that André Bamberski found himself in the town of Bregenz, where a chance encounter would change the course of his, and Dieter Krombach’s, life.

The Kidnapping

Now, everyone involved from this point on is understandably a bit cagey about what exactly went down. But the general picture is still pretty clear.

Bregenz is not far from Lindau, and sits on the Austrian side of Lake Constance. In a way, the whole story was coming full circle. As the statute of limitations drew closer, André Bamberski distributed posters in the town’s cafes and bars. That way, if Dr. Krombach set one foot out of Germany, someone would recognize him and call the police.

This was how André Bamberski came into contact with Anton Krazniki, a local bartender. Anton was born in Kosovo, but moved to Austria as a child. He was fluent in French and interested in André’s story. As a father himself, he was moved by André’s insistence on justice, not revenge. As he told the Netflix documentary My Daughter’s Killer, if it had been his daughter who’d been raped and murdered, it wouldn’t have been a thirty-year story. It would have been “tidy, short, quick.”

André explained to Anton about the trial in absentia and the Interpol warrant. But unless the German government suddenly had a change of heart, Dr. Krombach could continue hiding within their borders. Short of the man suddenly appearing on the steps of a French courthouse, nothing could be done.

Anton Krazniki listened carefully. He’d spent time in prison and still had connections with a Russian gang. If all that was needed was moving one old man from one country to another, that was something he could arrange.

But André Bamberski was suspicious. He’d inquired about such things before, but nothing ever came of it. He asked Anton what he wanted in exchange. The bartender insisted that he was doing this as a favor, father to father. All he asked was that his expenses be reimbursed.

André had nothing to lose by saying yes.

On the evening of October 17th, 2009, Anton Krazniki and two Russian acquaintances pulled up outside a house in Scheidegg, Germany. Reluctant to use his own vehicle, Anton had asked to borrow his sister’s, which had the advantage of tinted windows in the backseat. He wanted some privacy during his upcoming long drive.

No one was home, so the trio had to wait until about 9pm, when a car finally pulled into the garage. They waited for a light to go on in the house before they exited the vehicle and made their way to the front door.

The Russians stepped out of sight as Anton politely knocked. When the door opened, the bartender took several steps back, so the now-elderly man had to step outside to get a good look at this late-night visitor.

In German, Anton asked, “Are you Dieter Krombach?” The doctor confirmed that he was. That was the signal for the Russians to leap from the darkness and tackle him to the ground.

Now, André Bamberski had been very clear that Dr. Krombach needed to reach France alive, but unharmed wasn’t specified. The Russians were none-too-gentle as they wrestled him into the vehicle. Anton got in the driver seat, and the Russians stayed in the back to tie up their prisoner in the center aisle.

Dr. Krombach immediately guessed what was happening and asked if they were going to France. His captors didn’t answer and just kept driving. He then tried bribery, offering the men half a million euros to let him go. Anton replied that this wasn’t about money. Dr. Krombach asked if they were going to kill him. Anton said no, of course not, but that didn’t seem to satisfy his backseat passenger.

Anton turned around and saw that one of the Russians was holding a knife. Apparently, after hearing that Dr. Krombach had a habit of raping underage girls, this man was prepared to do what the German government had failed to achieve: make sure he would never do it again. However, his method was going to involve a makeshift castration in the back of a moving vehicle.

Anton immediately pulled over and told the Russian to get out. They still had several hundred kilometers to go, and he had zero interest in spending that time with someone who had a knife. The Russian demanded to be paid on the spot, so Anton counted out two thousand euros before leaving him on the side of the road.

It was several more hours before the group reached the French border. The further they drove, the more likely it was they’d be caught. But Anton had already decided to leave the doctor in close proximity to a police station. He decided the best place for the dropoff was Mulhouse, France.

The police station was, obviously, crawling with cops, so Anton and his Russian accomplice picked a small gated alley a few blocks away. Dr. Krombach had been gagged to avoid detection, but that didn’t stop him from trying to scream as his captors dragged him from the car. Together, his captors opened the gate, propped him up in a sitting position, and sped away.

At almost four in the morning, the Mulhouse police department received an anonymous call that the wanted criminal Dieter Krombach was in an alley at Rue de Tilleul. The officers were skeptical, but to their surprise, the caller was telling the truth. When officers pulled the tape off his mouth, the first thing the doctor said was: “Bamberski is behind this.”

As delighted as the police were to have a criminal dropped on their doorstep, kidnapping is still a crime. So when André Bamberski showed up in Mulhouse a few days later, officers were waiting at his hotel. He claimed to have no knowledge of the kidnapping, but police found a bag with nineteen thousand euros in cash that was meant to reimburse Anton for his “expenses.”

The identity of the real kidnapper might have remained a secret, but Dr. Krombach’s neighbors had woken up the next morning to find bloodstains leading from the front door to the driveway. They obviously called the police, who found a smashed pair of glasses, a shoe, and a phone bill with the name and address of Anton Krazniki. The pair of Russians has never been identified.

Germany asked France to give the doctor back, but they refused. Kidnapped or not, they finally had Dieter Krombach in their grasp. It was finally time to have a real trial that would decide, once and for all, if he was responsible for the death of Kalinka Bamberski almost thirty years earlier.

Trial 2

On the 4th of October, 2011, the trial of Dieter Krombach finally began at the Palais de Justice in Paris. The doctor’s kidnapping had created a sensation in the French media, and everyone was interested in the witness testimony that would decide his fate.

Almost thirty years had passed since the original crime, and both André Bamberski and Dieter Krombach had grown old. They were now in their seventies, with Krombach using a cane. The ex-wife of both men, Danièle, travelled to Paris to defend her former husband. He sustained multiple blows to the face during his kidnapping, which he claimed made him unfit to stand trial. The French doctors had disagreed, so there they were.

Unlike the first trial, the prosecution wanted to move forward on a rape charge. Kalinka’s genitals were still missing, but French scientists were confident that the tear on her vulva hadn’t been caused by the funeral home, but from a sexual assault that had occurred before she died. This opened the door for Dr. Krombach’s other victims to finally come to court and testify against him.

Perhaps the most sensational testimony came from a former neighbor, who claimed that she’d had an affair with Dr. Krombach that started when she was sixteen and he was still married to Danièle. According to her, the doctor would slip sedatives into his wife’s drink so that she would sleep through the infidelity happening in their living room.

This testimony changed Danièle from a character witness to a potential victim. A lawyer recommended that she file charges, which would give her access to the case files. Likely incensed by the revelation that her ex-husband had been cheating in her own home, Danièle followed this advice.

For the first time, Kalinka’s mother learned the full extent of her ex-husband’s crimes. She was shocked to discover that cobalt-iron injections are nowhere near as safe as Dr. Krombach had led her to believe. She’d allowed him to inject her, and her daughter, for years, and he’d never once mentioned the dangerous side effects. With the evidence laid out in front of her, Danièle finally realized that her ex-husband had been lying. All this time, he’d been her daughter’s killer.

One advantage to the long wait for justice was that new technology made it possible to run toxicology tests on the tissue samples taken during her autopsy. French doctors detected benzodiazepine, a powerful sedative that in large doses can cause coma or death. It wasn’t cobalt-iron that had killed Kalinka, but benzos.

The French court decided that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to convict the doctor of rape, but the drugs in Kalinka’s system were certainly his handiwork. On the 22nd of October, 2011, Dieter Krombach was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for voluntary manslaughter. After twenty-nine years, Kalinka’s killer had, at last, been brought to justice.

Conclusion

In the years that passed, the story of Dieter Krombach finally came to an end. He tried appealing his conviction to the European Court of Human Rights, but once again, they ruled this wasn’t double jeopardy. In 2016, he received a compassionate release due to terminal illness and returned to Germany to live in an old-age home. He died in 2020.

Anton Krazniki was returned to Austria for trial and sentenced to one year in prison for his role in the kidnapping. According to him, he was visited by his father while in prison, who said that he was very proud of his son for finally bringing a criminal to justice.

André Bamberski was tried for instigating the kidnapping in 2014. Germany had asked him to be extradited to face trial there, but France declined, a move that surprised no one. He pleaded guilty and received a one-year suspended jail sentence. To this day, he has no regrets for what he did.

Throughout this ordeal, André Bamberski has remained a devout Christian. He firmly believes that Kalinka is in heaven and she has been watching the thirty-year saga that followed her death. He hopes she is thankful for all that he’s done to bring her killer to justice and that he will see her again in the not-so-distant future.

Shortly after the verdict, André travelled to his daughter’s grave and left flowers at the headstone. Knowing that she would hear, he said: “I promised that I would give you justice. Now, you can rest in peace.”

Key Takeaways

• Kalinka Bamberski, 14, died in 1982 after her stepfather, Dr. Dieter Krombach, administered a fatal injection.
• Dr. Krombach’s initial claim of a cobalt-iron injection for tanning was suspicious, leading to multiple investigations.
• André Bamberski, Kalinka’s father, spent decades seeking justice, facing legal hurdles and national pride issues.
• Krombach’s history of sexual assaults and misuse of medical authority was revealed through multiple victims’ testimonies.
• Bamberski’s kidnapping of Krombach in 2009 led to a French trial, resulting in Krombach’s conviction for manslaughter.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to Kalinka Bamberski?

Kalinka Bamberski, aged 14, was found dead in her bedroom in Lindau, Germany, on July 10, 1982. Her stepfather, Dr. Dieter Krombach, claimed he had given her a cobalt-iron injection to help her tan, but the autopsy revealed she had choked on her own vomit while unconscious.

Who was Dr. Dieter Krombach?

Dr. Dieter Krombach was a cardiologist who worked for the German consulate. He was the stepfather of Kalinka Bamberski and was later accused of her murder. He had a history of sexual assault and was known to use cobalt-iron injections on his victims.

What was the initial cause of death reported for Kalinka Bamberski?

The initial cause of death reported for Kalinka Bamberski was sunstroke, but this was later disputed by her father, André Bamberski, who suspected foul play.

What did the autopsy report reveal about Kalinka Bamberski’s death?

The autopsy report revealed that Kalinka Bamberski had aspirated stomach contents in her lungs and airways, indicating she had choked on her own vomit while unconscious. The report also noted a tear in her vulva and a whitish substance inside her vagina, but these findings were not initially investigated as evidence of foul play.

What actions did André Bamberski take to seek justice for his daughter?

André Bamberski spent nearly thirty years pursuing justice for his daughter. He contacted authorities, hired lawyers, distributed leaflets, and eventually orchestrated the kidnapping of Dr. Dieter Krombach to bring him to France for trial.

What was the outcome of the trial in absentia for Dr. Dieter Krombach?

In 1995, Dr. Dieter Krombach was found guilty in absentia and sentenced to fifteen years in prison for manslaughter. However, Germany refused to extradite him, leading to a lengthy legal battle.

What happened during the second trial of Dr. Dieter Krombach in Paris?

During the second trial in Paris, Dr. Dieter Krombach was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for voluntary manslaughter. The court found that he had administered a powerful sedative to Kalinka, which led to her death.

What was the role of Anton Krazniki in the kidnapping of Dr. Dieter Krombach?

Anton Krazniki, a bartender from Bregenz, Austria, helped kidnap Dr. Dieter Krombach at the request of André Bamberski. He was later sentenced to one year in prison for his role in the kidnapping.

What was the significance of the cobalt-iron injections administered by Dr. Dieter Krombach?

The cobalt-iron injections administered by Dr. Dieter Krombach were used as a cover for his sexual assaults. He claimed to be treating his victims for iron-deficiency anemia, but the injections were actually a means to subdue and assault them.

What was the final outcome for Dr. Dieter Krombach?

Dr. Dieter Krombach was released from prison in 2016 due to terminal illness and returned to Germany, where he died in 2020.

Sources

• Original Into the Shadows video: His Daughter Was Murdered. So He Abducted the Murderer.
• Hero image source by P. Horálek/ESO / openverse, by.

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