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class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><figure data-ttid="IameEmbed" class="IameEmbedWrapper-sc-dRedg cjyRVU iame-embed"><div data-ttid="IameEmbedContaer" class="IameEmbedContaer-hptgUZ fXVBaX"><div class="IameEmbedAspectRatWrapper-hFVJps BKpgQ"><iame class="IameEmbedContent-cMdiev csnuAY IameEmbedContent lazyload" height="90" width="100%" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-orig allow-popups" tle="Embedd Frame" data-src=" allowfullscreen="" allow="toplay *; encrypted-media *; clipboard-wre; toplay; fullscreen; picture--picture"></iame></div></div></figure><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In 2017, a German man who go by the name Mar me across an article a Berl newspaper wh a photograph of a profsor he regnized om childhood. The first thg he noticed was the man’s lips. They were th, almost nonexistent, a tra that Mar had always found repellent. He was surprised to read that the profsor, Helmut Kentler, had been one of the most fluential sexologists Germany. The article scribed a new rearch report that had vtigated what was lled the “Kentler experiment.” Begng the late sixti, Kentler had placed neglected children foster hom n by pedophil. The experiment was thorized and fancially supported by the Berl Senate. In a report submted to the Senate, 1988, Kentler had scribed as a “plete succs.”</p><p class="paywall">Mar had grown up foster re, and his foster father had equently taken him to Kentler’s home. Now he was thirty-four, wh a one-year-old dghter, and her meals and naps stctured his days. After he read the article, he said, “I jt phed asi. I didn’t react emotnally. I did what I do every day: nothg, really. I sat around ont of the puter.”</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">Mar looks like a movie star—he is tanned, wh a firm jaw, thick dark hair, and a long, symmetril face. As an adult, he has cried only once. “If someone were to die ont of me, I would of urse want to help them, but wouldn’t affect me emotnally,” he told me. “I have a wall, and emotns jt h agast .” He lived wh his girliend, a hairdrser, but they never discsed his childhood. He was unemployed. Once, he tried to work as a mailman, but after a few days he qu, bee whenever a stranger ma an exprsn that remd him of his foster father, an engeer named Frz Henkel, he had the sensatn that he was not actually alive, that his heart had stopped beatg, and that the lor had draed om the world. When he tried to speak, felt as if his voice didn’t belong to him.</p><p class="paywall">Several months after readg the article, Mar looked up the number for Tera Nentwig, a young polil scientist at the Universy of Göttgen Instute for Democracy Rearch, who had wrten the report on Kentler. He felt both cur and ashamed. When she answered the phone, he intified himself as “an affected person.” He told her that his foster father had spoken wh Kentler on the phone every week. In ways that Mar had never unrstood, Kentler, a psychologist and a profsor of social tn at the Universy of Hannover, had seemed eply vted his upbrgg.</p><p class="paywall">Nentwig had assumed that Kentler’s experiment end the neteen-seventi. But Mar told her he had lived his foster home until 2003, when he was twenty-one. “I was totally shocked,” she said. She remembers Mar sayg several tim, “You are the first person I’ve told—this is the first time I’ve told my story.” As a child, he’d taken for granted that the way he was treated was normal. “Such thgs happen,” he told himself. “The world is like this: ’s eat and be eaten.” But now, he said, “I realized the state has been watchg.”</p><p class="paywall">A few weeks later, Mar phoned one of his foster brothers, whom he lls Sven. They had lived together Henkel’s home for thirteen years. He liked Sven, but felt ltle nnectn to him. They had never had a real nversatn. He told Sven he’d learned that they had been part of an experiment. But Sven seemed unable to procs the rmatn. “After all those years, we had gotten out of the hab of thkg,” Mar said.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">As a young boy, Mar liked to pretend he was one of the Templars, an orr of knights that protected pilgrims to the Holy Land. He was a lively child who ocsnally wanred around his Berl neighborhood unsupervised. At five, 1988, he crossed the street alone and was h by a r. He was not serly jured, but the accint attracted the attentn of the Schöneberg youth-welfare office, which is n by the Berl state ernment. Caseworkers at the office observed that Mar’s mother seemed “unable to give him the necsary emotnal attentn.” She worked at a ssage stand, and was stgglg to manage parenthood on her own. Mar’s father, a Paltian refugee, had divorced her. She sent Mar and his olr brother to day re dirty cloth, and left them there for eleven hours. Caseworkers remend that Mar be placed a foster home wh a “fay-like atmosphere.” One scribed him as an attractive boy who was wild but “very easy to fluence.”</p><p class="paywall">Mar was assigned to live wh Henkel, a forty-seven-year-old sgle man who supplemented his e as a foster father by repairg jebox and other electronics. Mar was Henkel’s eighth foster son sixteen years. When Henkel began fosterg children, 1973, a teacher noticed that he was “always lookg for ntact wh boys.” Six years later, a seworker observed that Henkel appeared to be a “homosexual relatnship” wh one of his foster sons. When a public prosecutor lnched an vtigatn, Helmut Kentler, who lled himself Henkel’s “permanent adviser,” tervened on Henkel’s behalf—a pattern that repeats throughout more than eight hundred pag of se fil about Henkel’s home. Kentler was a well-known scholar, the thor of several books on sex tn and parentg, and he was often quoted Germany’s leadg newspapers and on s TV programs. The newspaper <em>Die Ze</em> had scribed him as the “natn’s chief thory on qutns of sexual tn.” On universy letterhead, Kentler issued what he lled an “expert opn,” explag that he had e to know Henkel through a “rearch project.” He mend Henkel on his parentg skills and disparaged a psychologist who vad the privacy of his home, makg “wild terpretatns.” Sometim, Kentler wrote, an airplane is not a phallic symbol— is simply a plane. The crimal vtigatn was spend.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Mar was imprsed by Henkel’s apartment. It had five bedrooms and was on the third floor of an old buildg on one of the ma shoppg streets of Frien, an upsle neighborhood popular among policians and wrers. Two other foster sons lived there, a sixteen-year-old and a twenty-four-year-old, neher of whom was particularly iendly to Mar. But he was lighted to disver an armoire the hallway that held a ge wh two rabbs that he uld play wh and feed. In a report to the youth-welfare office, Henkel noted that Mar was “exced about almost everythg that was offered to him.”</p><p class="paywall">Every few months, Henkel drove nearly two hundred wh his foster children to see Kentler Hannover, where he tght. The viss were an opportuny for Kentler to observe the children: to “hear what they say about their past; their dreams and fears; to know their wish and hop, to see how they each velop, how they feel,” Henkel wrote. In a photograph taken durg one of their viss, Kentler wears a whe button-up shirt wh a pen the pocket, and Mar ss at a dg-room table bi him, lookg bored and dazed.</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">Mar had been livg wh Henkel for a year and a half when Sven moved . The police had found him a subway statn Berl, sick wh hepatis. He was seven years old, beggg for money, and he said that he had e om Romania. Notg that Sven had “likely never experienced a posive parent-child relatnship,” the youth-welfare office searched for a foster home Berl. “Mr. Henkel seems to be ially sued to this difficult task,” doctors om a clic at the Free Universy of Berl wrote.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Two ts plot to sue their owner." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“We n unr his feet, makg him trip and fall on . We sue his ass back to the Stone Age, the hoe is ours, and he’s the one sleepg a pile of stky lndry.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by Ivan Ehlers</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 10.991L18.4648 8.87225C19.5694 7.00002 18.9139 4.60601 17.0007 3.52508C15.0875 2.44415 12.6412 3.08562 11.5366 4.95785L9.53657 8.34782C8.432 10.22 9.08751 12.6141 11.0007 13.6949C11.1888 13.8012 11.382 13.8908 11.5785 13.9642C11.7819 14.0403 12.0058 13.9485 12.1147 13.764C12.2794 13.4849 12.1103 13.1276 11.8083 12.9992C11.7041 12.9549 11.6014 12.9044 11.5007 12.8475C10.0658 12.0368 9.57417 10.2413 10.4026 8.83712L12.4026 5.44715C13.2311 4.04298 15.0658 3.56187 16.5007 4.37257C17.9356 5.18327 18.4272 6.97878 17.5988 8.38295L16.3488 10.5017ZM7.6526 13.4983C7.79067 13.2643 7.70873 12.965 7.46959 12.8299C7.23044 12.6948 6.92464 12.775 6.78657 13.009L5.53657 15.1278C4.432 17 5.0875 19.394 7.00068 20.475C8.91385 21.5558 11.3602 20.9144 12.4648 19.0422L14.4648 15.6521C15.5694 13.78 14.9139 11.3859 13.0007 10.305C12.8127 10.1988 12.6195 10.1091 12.4229 10.0357C12.2195 9.95975 11.9956 10.0515 11.8867 10.236C11.7221 10.5151 11.8911 10.8724 12.1932 11.0008C12.2973 11.0451 12.4 11.0956 12.5007 11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">The two boys took on different rol their new fay. Sven was the good son, docile and lovg. Mar was more fiant, but at night, when Henkel me to his room askg to cuddle, or waed for him while he bshed his teeth before bed, he had to ply. “I jt accepted out of loyalty, bee I didn’t know anythg else,” Mar told me. “I didn’t thk what was happeng was good, but I thought was normal. I thought of a ltle b like food. People have different tast food, the way some people have different tast sexualy.” If Sven’s bedroom door was open and he wasn’t there, Mar knew what was happeng, but the two boys never talked about what Henkel did to them. “It was an absolutely taboo subject,” Mar said.</p><p class="paywall">One night, Mar took a knife om the kchen and slept wh unr his pillow. When Henkel approached his bed and disvered the bla, he whdrew quickly, lled Helmut Kentler, then hand the phone to Mar. “There’s a vil behd my wall,” Mar tried to expla. Kentler had a lmg, grandfatherly prence. He assured Mar that there was no such thg as vils, and Mar agreed to surrenr the knife.</p><p class="paywall">Mar’s mother and brother were allowed to vis roughly once a month, but Henkel often ncelled the viss at the last mute, or cut them short, sayg that they were disptive. Afterward, Mar would sometim urate his bed or lose foc school, wrg numbers and letters backward. “It was as if he wanted to say: there is no pot anythg,” Henkel wrote. Kentler warned the youth-welfare office that Mar’s “tnal succs are ed by a few hours of beg wh his mother.” Mar’s father was not allowed to see him at all, bee Henkel reported that Mar said that his dad had beaten him. Mar was so terrified of his father, Henkel said, that he suffered om “fearful fantasi when he noticed people of Arab appearance on the street.”</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><asi class="PersistentAsiWrapper-VGrR daRVRt persistent-asi" style="posn:absolute;top:to;height:to" data-ttid="PersistentAsiWrapper"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="vny67j"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></asi></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="y1cmp9"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Mar’s teachers remend that he see a child therapist, who was supposed to meet wh him for two hours a week. But the therapist said that Henkel was holdg Mar “prisoner”—Henkel always sat close by, an adjacent room. Mar remembers that, once, after a ssn began whout Henkel’s realizg , he barged to the room and h the therapist the face. When a school psychologist referred Sven for unsellg, too, Henkel would not allow him to take any psychologil tts, acrdg to rerds. “Not wh me!” he shouted. “If you all want to make a ‘se’ out of [Sven], then do whout me.” (Sven seemed upset by the outburst, askg Henkel, “Do that mean you want to give me away?”)</p><p class="paywall">In a letter, Kentler advised the youth-welfare office that, if a psychologil asssment had to be done, he would perform . “Insights beyond my fdgs are not to be expected,” he wrote. He acknowledged that Henkel uld appear “harsh and hurtful,” but “I ask you to nsir that a man who als wh such serly damaged children is not a ‘simple person,’ ” he wrote, another letter. “What Mr. Henkel needs om the thori is tst and protectn.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">When Mar was ne, his mother petned a district judge Berl to allow her to spend more time wh him. Mar’s father told the youth-welfare office that he uld not unrstand why Mar was growg up a “strange fay,” prived of an Arabic tn. He also “ma massive accatns agast the foster father’s behavr,” a seworker wrote. But Mar’s mother had signed an agreement statg that she would “always be guid by the bt terts of my child,” and that termatn was ma by the youth-welfare office.</p><p class="paywall">A hearg was held March, 1992, a month before Mar turned ten. The judge asked to speak privately wh Mar, but Henkel stood directly outsi the room and said, “If you are beg threatened, ll out!” Mar sound as if he had been ached. He told the judge that his foster father, whom he lled Papa, loved him, and his birth fay did not. When the judge asked if he still wanted his mother to vis, he rpond, “Not often.” He said that once a year would be better, and sisted that “Papa should be there.” He explaed that he was aaid of his blogil father, and now that he was wh Papa he was no longer sred. “Only sometim at night,” he add.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">After the hearg, Kentler sent a letter to the judge, sayg, “For the bt terts of the child, I nsir absolutely sential that ntact wh the fay of orig—cludg the mother—be pletely spend for the next two years.” Kentler also emphasized that Mar need distance om the men his fay, bee they set a bad example. He said that Mar’s mood changed when he spoke about his father. Though Kentler had never met Mar’s dad, he characterized him as thorarian, abive, and macho. He also disapproved of Mar’s fifteen-year-old brother, who was six feet four and weighed two hundred and twenty-five pounds. The boy “giv the (false) imprsn of strength and superry,” Kentler wrote, and was already moldg himself his father’s image; he was “addicted to beg the big man.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Kentler’s reer was amed by his belief the damage wrought by domant fathers. An early memory was of walkg the fort on a sprg day and nng to keep up wh his father. “I had only one wish: that he should take my hand and hold his,” Kentler wrote a parentg magaze 1983. But his father, a litenant the First World War, believed a “rod and baton pedagogy,” as Kentler put . Kentler’s parents followed the teachgs of Daniel Gottlob Morz Schreber, a bt-sellg German thory on child re who has been scribed as a “spirual precursor of Nazism.” Schreber outled prcipl of child rearg that would create a stronger race of men, riddg them of wardice, lazs, and unwanted displays of vulnerabily and sire. “Supprs everythg the child,” Schreber wrote, 1858. “Emotns mt be suffoted their seed right away.” When Kentler misbehaved, his father threatened to buy a ntraptn vented by Schreber to promote children’s posture and pliance: shoulr bands to prevent slouchg; a belt that held their cht place while they slept; an iron bar prsed to their llarbone, so they’d s up straight at the table. If Kentler talked out of turn, his father slammed his fist on the table and shouted, “When the father talks, the children mt be silent!”</p><p class="paywall">Kentler was ten durg Kristallnacht, 1938, when Nazi Storm Troopers raid Jewish templ, stor, and ho. Kentler’s fay was livg Düsseldorf, and Kentler was awakened by the noise of shatterg glass. He me out of his bedroom and saw his father a nightdrs, holdg the phone. “In his loud, domant voice, my father lled for a police ployment bee someone had broken to our buildg,” Kentler wrote “Borrowed Fathers, Children Need Fathers,” a 1989 book about parenthood. “It was a longer nversatn, durg which my father beme ever quieter, and ultimately he timidly hung up the receiver, stood there like he had llapsed and quietly said to my mother, who had been standg next to him for some time: ‘They’re gog after the Jews!’ ”</p><p class="paywall">Soon, the doorbell rang. A Jewish fay—a mother, father, and three children—who lived the apartment below stood at the door. Their apartment had been stroyed, and they asked if they uld spend the night wh the Kentlers. “No, that will really not be possible here,” Kentler’s father said. He shut the door. Kentler glimpsed his father’s nightshirt climbg jt above his knee, revealg his soft naked legs. “My whole father sudnly seemed lghable to me,” he wrote.</p><p class="paywall">Shortly afterward, Kentler’s father was lled back to active duty. He rose to the rank of lonel, and moved his fay to Berl, where he worked at the High Command of the army of Nazi Germany. “My father’s thory was never based on his own acplishment, but on the large stutns which he snuck to, that bbed off on him,” Kentler wrote. He was seventeen when the Nazis were feated and his father me home, “a broken man,” Kentler wrote. “I never aga obeyed him and I felt terribly alone.”</p><p class="paywall">The postwar years Wt Germany were marked by an tense preoccupatn wh sexual propriety, as if m uld solve the natn’s moral crisis and cleanse of guilt. “One’s own offsprg did penance for Achwz,” the German poet Olav Münzberg wrote, “wh ethics and moraly forcefully jammed to them.” Women’s reproductive rights were severely rtricted, and the policg of homosexual enunters, a hallmark of Nazism, persisted; the two s after the war, roughly a hundred thoand men were prosecuted for this crime. Kentler was attracted to men and felt as if he “always had one leg prison,” bee of the risks volved nsummatg his sir. He found solace the book “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Corydon</a>,” by André Gi, a seri of Socratic dialogu about the naturalns of queer love. “This book took away my fear of beg a failure and of beg rejected, of beg a negative blogil variant,” he wrote a 1985 say lled “Our Homosexualy.” But nothg uld be done to remedy his relatnship wh his parents. “They no longer loved me,” he wrote.</p><p class="paywall">In 1960, Kentler got a gree psychology, a field that allowed him to be “an engeer the realm of the . . . manipulatable soul,” he said at a lecture. He beme volved the stunt movement, and at a meetg of the Republin Club, a group tablished by left-wg tellectuals, he publicly intified himself as gay for the first time. Not long afterward, he wrote, he cid to turn “my passns to a profsn (which is also good for the passns: they are ntrolled).” He earned a doctorate social tn om the Universy of Hannover, publishg his dissertatn, a guibook lled “Parents Learn Sex Edutn,” 1975. He was spired by the Marxist psychoanalyst <a href=">Wilhelm Reich</a>, who had argued that the ee flow of sexual energy was sential to buildg a new kd of society. Kentler’s dissertatn urged parents to teach their children that they should never be ashamed of their sir. “Once the first feelgs of shame exist, they multiply easily and expand to all areas of life,” he wrote.</p><p class="paywall">Like many of his ntemporari, Kentler me to believe that sexual reprsn was key to unrstandg the Fascist nscns. In 1977, the soclogist Kls Thewele published “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Male Fantasi</a>,” a two-volume book that drew on the diari of German paraary fighters and nclud that their hibed driv—along wh a fear of anythg gooey, ghg, or smelly—had been channelled to a new outlet: stctn. When Kentler read “Male Fantasi,” he uld see Schreber, the child-re thor whose prcipl his parents had followed, “at work everywhere,” he wrote. Kentler argued that ias like Schreber’s (he had been so wily read that one book went through forty edns) had poisoned three generatns of Germans, creatg “thorarian personali who have to intify wh a ‘great man’ around them to feel great themselv.” Kentler’s goal was to velop a child-rearg philosophy for a new kd of German man. Sexual liberatn, he wrote, was the bt way to “prevent another Achwz.”</p><p class="paywall">The trials of twenty-two former Achwz officers had revealed a mon personaly type: ordary, nservative, sexually hibed, and preoccupied wh bourgeois moraly. “I do thk that a society that was more ee about sexualy, Achwz uld not have happened,” the German legal scholar Herbert Jäger said. Sexual emancipatn was tegral to stunt movements throughout Wtern Europe, but the pleas were more pched Germany, where the memory of genoci had bee extribly—if not entirely accurately—lked wh sexual primns. In “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Sex After Fascism</a>,” the historian Dagmar Herzog scrib how, Germany, nflicts over sexual mor beme “an important se for managg the memory of Nazism.” But, she adds, was also a way “to redirect moral bate away om the problem of plicy mass murr and toward a narrowed nceptn of moraly as solely ncerned wh sex.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Sudnly, seemed as if all relatnship stctur uld—and mt—be renfigured, if there was any hope of producg a generatn ls damaged than the prev one. In the late sixti, tors more than thirty German ci and towns began tablishg experimental day-re centers, where children were enuraged to be naked and to explore one another’s bodi. “There is no qutn that they were tryg ( a sperate sort of neo-Roseian thorarian antithorarianism) to remake German/human nature,” Herzog wr. Kentler serted himself to a movement that was urgently workg to undo the sexual legacy of Fascism but stgglg to differentiate among var taboos. In 1976, the magaze <em>Das Blatt</em> argued that forbidn sexual sire, such as that for children, was the “revolutnary event that turns our everyday life on s head, that lets feelgs break out and that shatters the basis of our thkg.” A few years later, Germany’s newly tablished Green Party, which brought together antiwar protters, environmental activists, and veterans of the stunt movement, tried to addrs the “opprsn of children’s sexualy.” Members of the Party advoted abolishg the age of nsent for sex between children and adults.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In this climate—a psychoanalyst scribed as one of “nial and manic ‘self-reparatn’ ”—Kentler was a star. He was asked to lead the partment of social tn at the Pedagogil Center, an ternatnal rearch stute Berl whose planng mtee clud Willy Brandt, who beme the Chancellor of Germany (and won the Nobel Peace Prize), and Jam B. Conant, the first U.S. Ambassador to Wt Germany and a print of Harvard. Fund and supervised by the Berl Senate, the center was tablished, 1965, to make Berl an ternatnal lear reformg tnal practic. Kentler worked on the problem of naways, hero addicts, and young prostut, many of whom gathered the archways of the Zoo Statn, the ma transportatn hub Wt Berl. The i was memorialized “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Christiane F.</a>,” an inic dg movie of the eighti, about teen-agers, prematurely aware of the empts of morn society, self-stctg, set to a soundtrack by David Bowie.</p><p class="paywall">Kentler beiend a thirteen-year-old named Ulrich, whom he scribed as “one of the most sought-after prostut the statn scene.” When Kentler asked Ulrich where he wanted to stay at night, Ulrich told him about a man he lled Mother Wter, who fed boys om the Zoo Statn and did their lndry. In exchange, they slept wh him. “I said to myself: if the prostut ll this man ‘mother,’ he n’t be bad,” Kentler wrote. Later, he noted that “Ulrich’s advantage was that he was handsome and that he enjoyed sex; so he uld give somethg back to pedophile men who looked after him.”</p><p class="paywall">Kentler formalized Ulrich’s arrangement. “I managed to get the Senate officer rponsible to approve ,” he wrote “Borrowed Fathers, Children Need Fathers.” Kentler found several other pedophil who lived nearby, and he helped them set up foster hom, too. At the time, the Berl Senate, which erns the cy—one of sixteen stat the untry—was eager to fd new solutns to the “life problems of our society,” orr to “nfirm and mata Berl’s reputatn as an outpost of eedom and humany,” Kentler wrote.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Kg talks to henchman about stranger wag to speak wh him outsi his stle." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“Do this mean I have to talk to someone I don’t know?”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by Brendan Loper</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair 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class="paywall">In 1981, Kentler was ved to the German parliament to speak about why homosexualy should be crimalized— didn’t happen for thirteen more years—but he strayed, unprompted, to a discsn of his experiment. “We looked after and advised the relatnships very tensively,” he said. He held nsultatns wh the foster fathers and their sons, many of whom had been so neglected that they had never learned to read or wre. “The people only put up wh the feeble-md boys bee they were love wh them,” he told the lawmakers. His summary did not seem to provoke ncerns. Perhaps the policians were receptive bee the project seemed to be the oppose of the Nazis’ reproductive experiments, wh their rigid emphasis on propagatg certa kds of fai, or perhaps they were unncerned bee, their opn, the boys were already lost. In the sixti and seventi, the polil éle were sudnly takg an tert the lower class, but their pacy for intifitn was apparently limed.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="k0gur"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">If there were ever fil the cy’s archiv documentg how Kentler’s project me to be approved—or how, exactly, he loted the men who served as foster fathers—they have been lost or stroyed. When Kentler publicly discsed his experiment, he offered tails about only three foster hom. But, a 2020 report missned by the Berl Senate, scholars at the Universy of Hilsheim nclud that “the Senate also ran foster hom or shared flats for young Berlers wh pedophile men other parts of Wt Germany.” The fifty-eight-page report was prelimary and vague; the thors said there were about a thoand unsorted fil the basement of a ernment buildg that they had been unable to read. No nam were revealed, but the thors wrote that “the foster hom were n by sometim powerful men who lived alone and who were given this power by amia, rearch stutns and other pedagogil environments that accepted, supported or even lived out pedophile stanc.” The report nclud that some “senate actors” had been “part of this work,” while others had merely tolerated the foster hom “bee ‘ins’ of tnal reform polici supported such arrangements.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Mar remembers Kentler and his foster father talkg for hours on the phone about polics. The tensy of their nversatns surprised him, bee Henkel was lanic at home, rarely speakg full sentenc. Mar and Sven didn’t talk to each other, eher. Mar spent all of his ee time his room, on an Amiga puter, playg SimCy and Mega-Lo-Mania. Both boys kept their doors closed. Once, when the neighbors played loud mic, breakg the silence their apartment, Henkel told the boys that he wanted to drill hol two microwave ovens and then aim the radactive wav toward each other, at jt the right angle, to give the neighbors a heart attack.</p><p class="paywall">Mar’s mother lost her plea for more accs to her son. She was still allowed viss every few weeks at the youth-welfare office, but the meetgs went creasgly badly. Durg the first vis after the urt hearg, Mar told his mother that he didn’t want to see her, bee she didn’t get along wh his foster father. “While he was sayg this, he did not make eye ntact wh his mother,” a social worker wrote. At the next vis, three weeks later, he refed to accept his mother’s gift—pens and a pad of paper—or to answer her qutns. He repeatedly asked to leave, until his mother reluctantly agreed. She was “visibly shaken and cried,” the social worker wrote. “She no longer knows what to do.” The next day, Henkel lled the youth-welfare office and said that he would support Mar “ monstratg his rejectn of his mother.”</p><p class="paywall">A year and a half later, Mar’s father rmed the youth-welfare office that he was movg to Syria and wanted to say goodbye to his son. There is no rerd of anyone rpondg. Mar’s opn of his parents beme overlaid wh the sults he’d heard om Henkel and Kentler. He imaged his mother as a lazy woman who spent her days eatg ssag, his father as a vlent patriarch. It wasn’t until two s later that he grasped that his parents had fought to have a relatnship wh him.</p><p class="paywall">Some nights, when Mar was eatg dner wh Sven and Henkel, he would have the sensatn that he was among strangers. “Who are you people?” he asked once. Henkel rpond, “It’s me—your father.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-4 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">When Mar was eleven years old, a new foster son, Marcel Kramer, moved . Kramer was a small boy wh dimpl, crooked teeth, and a sweet, open se. He was half a year younger than Mar and had spastic quadriplegia, a ngenal ndn that left him unable to walk, talk, or eat on his own. Mar and Sven beme Kramer’s retakers, feedg him strawberry-flavored k wh a spoon and removg muc om his lungs wh a suctn hose. When they went to Henkel’s hoe Brannburg, wt of Berl, Mar phed Kramer for hours on a tire swg. Kramer was the first person years for whom Mar had felt love.</p><p class="paywall">At school, Mar had no close relatnships. Henkel enuraged him to misbehave, rewardg him wh puter gam if he spat, talked out of turn, or overturned chairs. He skipped class and rarely did his homework. He end up swchg schools seven tim, which, he now believ, was Henkel’s plan.</p><p class="paywall">For years, Mar tolerated Henkel, but, as he began gog through puberty, he said, “I started to hate him.” He spent an hour each day liftg weights, so that he would be strong enough to fend himself. One night, when Henkel tried to fondle him, Mar h his hand. Henkel seemed startled but didn’t say anythg. He jt walked away.</p><p class="paywall">Henkel stopped tryg to sexually molt Mar, but he beme punive. At night, he locked the door to the kchen so that Mar uldn’t eat. (“His greed when eatg was noticeable,” Henkel once wrote.) He also h Mar. “Go on, let off some steam,” Mar sometim said, tntg Henkel. “He said he wasn’t htg me—he was htg the vil si of me,” Mar told me.</p><p class="paywall">When Mar turned eighteen, he was legally ee to leave Henkel’s home, but didn’t occur to him to move out. “It’s very hard to scribe, but I was never raised to thk crilly about anythg,” he said. “I had an empty md.”</p><p class="paywall">One day, Kramer veloped the flu. In the urse of forty-eight hours, his breathg beme creasgly labored. For years, Mar had checked on Kramer several tim each night, to make sure that he was breathg. Now he was so worried that he lay bed bi him. Henkel had always risted llg doctors for the boys. By the time he gave , Kramer uld not be rcated. “It happened ont of my ey,” Mar said. “I was lookg to his ey when he died.”</p><p class="paywall">The foster-re fil nta only a brief note documentg Kramer’s ath. “Call om Mr. Henkel, who says that Marcel died unexpectedly last night,” an employee at the youth-welfare office wrote, September, 2001. “Prevly there were no signs of an fectn.” A subsequent note says that Henkel, who was sixty, was lookg to take another child.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">After Tera Nentwig’s report on Kentler, 2016, she planned to wre her habilatn this, a requirement for a reer amia, on Kentler’s life and work. But there were many setbacks. Relevant fil the cy archiv of Berl were missg, unsorted, or sealed. Friends and lleagu of Kentler, who had died 2008, told Nentwig that they didn’t want to talk. “Some said that Kentler is a very good man and he has done only thgs which are good,” Nentwig told me.</p><p class="paywall">Nentwig giv the imprsn of beg a methodil and undramatic scholar, the type who never miss a adle. In the summer of 2020, when we first spoke, she told me, “I have no future the universy, bee is very hard to have succs wh this sort of subject. I am cricizg the amic world.” I assumed that, as amb people tend to do, she was motivatg herself wh a fear of worst-se scenars. But the next time I spoke wh her, this sprg, she had taken a job wh a regnal State Office for the Protectn of the Constutn, a German telligence agency that monors anti-mocratic threats. Her universy ntract had not been renewed, and she blamed the premature end of her amic reer part on her cisn to rearch Kentler. “I’m a polil scientist,” she said, “and people were always askg, ‘What is polil about this topic?’ ”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-5 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Nentwig and her former universy are now spltg the st, some six thoand ros, for a German amic prs to publish what would have been her this. In the book, which out September, she reveals that Kentler, the sgle father of three adopted sons and several foster children, appeared to be nductg his own, rmal versn of the experiment that the Berl Senate had thorized. Kar Désirat, the -thor of a book lled “Sex—Lt and Life,” told Nentwig that two of Kentler’s foster sons had e to her for therapy and divulged that Kentler had sexually abed them. Désirat “owed a lot to Kentler,” she said—he had helped her get her first teachg posn—and she did not want to get volved. She referred the boys to another therapist. The boys preferred to keep their abe private, she said, bee they “didn’t want to lose the posiv of Kentler’s re—that they had enough to eat and that they were taken re of and thgs like that.” Kentler’s experiment seemed to rt on the ia that some children are fundamentally send class, their outlook so promised that any kd of love is a gift, a proposn that his lleagu apparently accepted, too. (Désirat said that she eventually broke off ntact wh Kentler, ncludg that his behavr had been “creepy.”)</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="iz0kzl"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="bv7fdf"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Gunter Schmidt, a former print of the Internatnal Amy of Sex Rearch, which attracts the field’s leadg rearchers, was iends wh Kentler for more than twenty years. “I hontly had rpect for ,” he told Nentwig of the experiment. “Bee I thought, The are really young people who are the worst suatn. They probably have a long history at home, they had miserable childhoods and someone is lookg after them. And if Kentler is there ’ll be fe.” He add, “And the Berl Senate is also there.” When Kentler was fifty-seven, he wrote Schmidt a letter explag why he was agg happily, rather than beg lonely and rigned: he and his twenty-six-year-old son were “part of a very fulfillg love story” that had lasted thirteen years and still felt h. To unrstand his state of md, Kentler wrote, his iend should know his secret.</p><p class="paywall">For much of his reer, Kentler spoke of pedophil as benefactors. They offered neglected children “a possibily of therapy,” he told <em>Der Spiegel</em>, 1980. When the Berl Senate missned him to prepare an expert report on the subject of “Homosexuals as regivers and tors,” 1988, he explaed that there was no need to worry that children would be harmed by sexual ntact wh retakers, as long as the teractn was not “forced.” The nsequenc n be “very posive, pecially when the sexual relatnship n be characterized as mutual love,” he wrote.</p><p class="paywall">But 1991 he seemed to rethk his opn, after his youngt adopted son, the one he praised the letter to Schmidt, mted suici. Then he read the paper “Confn of the Tongu Between Adults and the Child (The Language of Tenrns and of Passn),” by Sándor Ferenczi, a Hungarian psychoanalyst and a stunt of Frd. The paper scrib how sexualized relatnships between adults and children are always asymmetril, exploative, and stctive. Ferenczi warns that to give children “<em>more love</em> or love of a <em>different kd</em>” than they seek “will have jt as pathogenic nsequenc as <em>nyg</em> <em>them</em> love.” Children’s “personali are not sufficiently nsolidated orr to be able to prott,” he wr. They will “subordate themselv like tomata.” They bee obliv of their own needs and “intify themselv wh the aggrsor.”</p><p class="paywall">In an terview wh a German historian 1992, Kentler spoke of his grief for his adopted son and said, “Unfortunately I only read the Ferenczi say after his ath.” He did not nfs to abg his son; stead, he said that the boy had been sexually abed by his birth mother. “He hung himself bee of that,” he told the historian. “I’ve experienced the biggt way, a very close way, and certaly I’m partly to blame.” He regretted that, until the Ferenczi paper, he had not read anythg about the emotnal aftermath of sexual abe and had not known how to help his son procs the trma. He didn’t unrstand that a child reverg om sexual abe feels spl, as Ferenczi scrib : he is “nocent and culpable at the same time—and his nfince the ttimony of his own sens is broken.” “I was too stupid,” Kentler said.</p><p class="paywall">By the late neti, Kentler had stopped seeg Henkel’s foster sons, or volvg himself their upbrgg. In what was likely his last rerd public statement about pedophilia, an terview 1999, he referred to as a “sexual disorr,” and allud to the impossibily of an adult and a child sharg an unrstandg of sexual ntact. The problem, he said, is that the adult will always have “the monopoly on fn.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">When I first began rrpondg wh Mar, the summer of 2020, our munitn was mediated by a man named Christoph Schweer, who referred to himself as Mar’s “iend.” Inially, I assumed that he was Mar’s lawyer. Then I looked him up onle and saw that he had received a Ph.D. philosophy, publishg a dissertatn lled “Homickns, Hero, Cheerfulns: Nietzsche’s Path to Beg a Superhero.” He worked for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Germany’s right-wg party, as an adviser for tn and cultural policy. The Party was recently vtigated by Germany’s domtic-telligence agency for unrmg mocracy by, among other thgs, mimizg the crim of the Nazis. The Party’s -lear has lled the Nazi era “jt a speck of bird poop more than 1,000 years of succsful German history.”</p><p class="paywall">Last Augt, Mar, Schweer, and Thomas Rogers, a Berl journalist, who also works as a translator, met at a hotel attached to Berl’s ternatnal airport, the only place we uld e up wh that would be sufficiently private. I spoke wh them via Zoom. Mar and Schweer sat chairs bi the bed, and they did not appear to have a particularly faiar rapport. Mar wore a flowery button-up Hawaiian shirt and had not shaved a few days. Schweer, drsed for the office, had a prim, bslike manner. Like an agent helpg his celebry client, he seemed a b bored by our nversatn but ocsnally chimed , promptg Mar to share memorable tails.</p><p class="paywall">“When you first saw him you thought, What a crooked mouth he has,” Schweer offered, referrg to Henkel.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-6 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">“He had no lips,” Mar clarified. He explaed that Kentler, too, had this tra. Schweer monstrated by prsg his mouth together, so that only a sliver of his bottom and upper lip were visible.</p><p class="paywall">“Do you know people who have no lips?” Mar said. “They are always egotistil and mean—I noticed that.”</p><p class="paywall">Schweer first ntacted Mar early 2018, after readg an article <em>Der Spiegel</em> about Kentler’s experiment, which Mar said that he’d been let down by the Berl Senate. After the publitn of Nentwig’s report, Mar wrote to the Senate askg for more rmatn about what had happened to him, but he felt that the Senate was sufficiently rponsive.</p><p class="paywall">Schweer had “offered help om the AfD,” Mar told me. “I immediately said, ‘Not for polil purpos, only bee I want help.’ ”</p><p class="paywall">From the perspective of an AfD polician, Mar’s life story was expedient, a tale about the ways which the German left had got sexual polics wrong. At meetgs of the German parliament, members of the AfD (which won more than twelve per cent of the vote the last natnal electn, beg Germany’s third-largt party) rallied around the Kentler se as a way of forcg left-wg policians to addrs history that did not reflect well on their parti, but also as a barely disguised vehicle for impugng homosexualy. An advocy group affiliated wh the AfD held “Stop Kentler’s sex tn” ralli, to prott the way that sexualy is currently tght German schools. “Kentler’s crimal pedophile spir liv on unbroken today’s sex tn,” a brochure prted by the anizatn explaed.</p><p class="paywall">History seemed to be loopg back on self. Right-wg policians were llg for a return to the kd of “terribly dangero upbrgg” agast which Kentler had rebelled. In s party manifto, the AfD stat that is mted to the “tradnal fay as a guidg prciple,” an ia that associat wh the matenance of Germany’s cultural inty and power. To unteract the flux of immigrants to Germany, “the only mid- and longterm solutn,” the AfD program says, “is to atta a higher birth rate by the native populatn.”</p><p class="paywall">At a hearg Febary, 2018, an AfD reprentative, Thorsten Weiß, plaed that the Senate had not taken rponsibily for Kentler’s crim. “This is a se of polil importance, which also requir polil actn,” he said. “The Senate is double-crossg the victims, and that is a sndal.”</p><p class="paywall">At another hearg, seven months later, Weiß cricized the Senate for beg slow to gather more rmatn about Kentler’s experiment. “We will not allow ernment-sponsored perasty to be swept unr the g,” he said.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="4c5tch"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Two policians om the Green Party, which has champned the rights of sexual mori, acced the AfD of manipulatg the victims. “What the AfD is tryg to do, to stmentalize this crime for s own purpos, is unacceptable,” a reprentative said.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Schweer, the AfD adviser, tried to fd a lawyer who uld advote for Mar a civil lawsu. “I stand up for a iend, the victim of the so-lled Kentler experiment,” he wrote an e-mail to a large Berl law firm. Mar had already filed a crimal plat, but the vtigatn was limed bee Henkel had died 2015. The lead seworker, who retired after workg for the office for more than forty years, exercised his right to rema silent when the police ntacted him. The public prosecutor, Norbert Wkler, nclud that Henkel engaged “ser sexual asslts cludg regular anal terurse,” but he uld not fd evince that anyone at the office was plic. The dilemma, he told me, was that whenever spicns arose the employe at the office “relied on the claims om Mr. Kentler, who was at the time a very renowned person.”</p><p class="paywall">Mar and Sven tried to file civil lawsus agast the state of Berl and the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district, the lotn of the youth-welfare office, for breach of official duti. But, unr civil law, too much time had passed. The AfD asked an expert to analyze whether the statute of limatns had to apply to this se. Berl’s tn senator, Sandra Scheer, a member of the Social Democratic Party, wanted to see if Mar and Sven would accept a pensatn package rather than pursue a lawsu that seemed doomed. She believed that the AfD was givg them bad advice, unnecsarily prolongg their attempt to get money. She told me, “I found que strange how the AfD worked wh the victims—how close their relatnship was, and that they gave legal advice to them. Of urse, is O.K. if the AfD draws attentn to jtic, but what happened here was unmon. I’ve never experienced somethg like .” (Weiß, the AfD reprentative, told me, “I would have been surprised if she had said anythg nice about .” He believ there is still a pedophile work Germany, and that those nnected to “e their polil fluence to make sure that the work remas unr the radar.”)</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image 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9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">Mar went to vis one of Henkel’s foster sons om the “first generatn,” as he put , to see if he wanted to jo his and Sven’s legal efforts. The son, whom I’ll ll Samir, lived Henkel’s hoe Brannburg, where the boys had spent summer vatns. The hoe, which had only one room, was ma om beige bricks and seemed to have been assembled too sually—uneven globs of mortar filled each crack. In photographs om the neti, the place is a ms: a plastic bag and half-eaten bread lie on the table; outsi the hoe, an old toaster oven, wh a badmton birdie lyg next to , rts on a yg drser.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-7 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Samir, who is fifty-seven and half Algerian, had not had ntact wh his birth fay for more than forty years. He had changed his last name to Henkel, and taken on a new German first name as well. His half sister, who liv Algeria, told me that she and her sister had tried many tim to get touch wh him, to no avail. He was the foster son whose teractns wh Henkel sparked a crimal vtigatn 1979, when he was fifteen. At the time, a psychologist had given Samir a personaly tt, and Samir had drawn himself as a u tree wter that “lacks all ntact to the nourishg earth.” The psychologist terviewed Henkel, too, and observed that he stggled to hold back his “enormo aggrsive impuls” and, through his foster sons, tried to “make up for somethg that he missed his own past.”</p><p class="paywall">Mar drove to Henkel’s old property and walked toward the hoe. Five-foot hedg now surround . The wdows were vered wh blankets. Mar said, “I wanted to offer him the opportuny to clear thgs up like I had wh Sven, but when I saw that—no, no, no.” Another foster brother, the first to move to Henkel’s home, lived a few away, but Mar cid there was no e visg him, eher. He walked back to his r and drove home.</p><p class="paywall">Wkler, the prosecutor, had sent vtigators to Samir’s home, and he scribed as a “garbage heap.” There was no nng water or electricy. There was barely even clear space to walk. Yet one rner of the hoe was tidy and purposeful. It had been turned to a kd of altar. An urn wh Henkel’s ash was surround by h flowers.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Henkel had n his foster home for thirty years. When he fally shut down, 2003—he hadn’t been assigned a new foster child—Mar was twenty-one. He had nowhere to live. He spent three nights sleepg on bench the park. Wh the help of a chary that assists homels youths, he eventually moved to a subsidized apartment. He sometim stole om grocery stor. “I didn’t know how the world functned,” he told me. “I didn’t even know that you need to pay for the electricy that out of a socket.” He woke up several tim the middle of the night, a hab om his time rg for Marcel Kramer. But, stead of gog to his foster brother’s room, he checked his own body to see, he said, “if everythg is still where should be and that I still exist.” He spent so much time by himself that he had trouble nstctg sentenc.</p><p class="paywall">Sven lived alone a small apartment Berl, too, but, unlike Mar, he stayed touch wh Henkel. “I always thought I owed the man somethg,” he told <em>Der Spiegel</em>, 2017. Mar and Sven lived as they had as adolcents: they spent the day on the puter or watchg TV, rarely speakg to anyone. Sven, who has experienced perds of severe prsn sce he was a child, still liv what he lled a “fortrs of solu,” and he did not want to talk about his past. “I don’t have any more strength,” he told me. “But I n assure you that everythg my brother told you about our time the foster home is one to one—the tth.”</p><p class="paywall">Mar had also existed a kd of hibernatn. But, after five years, he felt as if he were beg a “monster,” he said. “It didn’t go que toward crimal actns, but there was a stctivens, a lack of empathy.” When he was twenty-six, he was on a tra Berl and noticed three men starg at him. Whout makg a nsc cisn, Mar found himself beatg them up. “I should have said, ‘Hey, what are you lookg at?’ ” he said. “But, stead, I immediately fought them. I noticed I actually wanted to kill them.” One of the men end up the emergency room. Mar realized how much his behavr rembled that of his foster father. “It was a Henkel reactn,” he said. “I was a product. I was turng to the thg he had ma.”</p><p class="paywall">Around that time, he was walkg on the street when a female photographer plimented his looks and asked if he’d like to do what Mar lled “hobby mollg.” He agreed and sat for a seri of photographs, adoptg a variety of pos: some pictur, he looks like a chiselled lawyer off to work; others, he is wdswept and preppy. The photographs never led to jobs, but he began hangg out wh the photographer and her iends. He pared the experience to beg a foreigner an exotic untry and fally meetg people who are willg to teach him the language. “I learned normal ways of teractg,” he said.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Constctn worker directg crane operator to place tea bag their mug." 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class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">The mollg work spired him to get a haircut, and, at the hair salon, a glamoro woman wh a sprightly, cheerful prence, whom I’ll ll Emma, trimmed his hair. Mar tends to cred his appearance for the pivotal events of his life: he believ his looks were the reason that Henkel chose him—many of Henkel’s sons had dark hair and ey—and, twenty years later, the explanatn for his first ser relatnship. “I was pretty, and she didn’t leave,” he told me, of Emma. He add, only partly jokg, “Some women are jt really to asshole typ, and I was one of those asshole typ.”</p><p class="paywall">At first, he was ristant to a relatnship, but gradually he found Emma’s votn persuasive. More than once, she slept outsi his apartment door. “I noticed that she really lov me, and that life there’s probably only one person who along who will really fight for you,” he said. He tried to blunt his antisocial impuls by rememberg that they were not nate but had been ndned by his upbrgg. “I reprogrammed myself, so to speak,” he said. “I tried to re-raise myself.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">When I vised Mar, May, he and Emma had jt moved om Berl to a new velopment on the cy’s outskirts that he asked me not to name or scribe, bee he didn’t want his neighbors to know about his past. He now has two children, and they were playg wh Emma their large back yard. Insi, Mar listened to medative lounge mic and drank water om the largt ffee mug I’ve ever seen. I had the sense that wh a different childhood Mar might have aged to a fairly jolly middle-aged man. He was playful and earnt and spoke poetilly about his view of the afterlife. He shared his children’s velopmental ton wh nuance and pri. In a gt of hospaly, he asked if I wanted Emma to cut my hair, before apologizg profely and sayg that my hair looked jt fe.</p><p class="paywall">A few days before my vis, the Berl Senate had announced that would missn scholars at the Universy of Hilsheim, who had published the prelimary report 2020, to do a follow-up report about pedophile-n foster hom other parts of Germany. Sandra Scheer, the senator for tn, had apologized to Mar and Sven, and the Senate offered them more than fifty thoand ros— Germany, where pensatn for damag is much lower than is the Uned Stat, this was seen as a signifint amount.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-8 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Christoph Schweer, the AfD adviser, had urged Mar and Sven to keep fightg, but Mar uldn’t unrstand why. “We have gotten our wish, so there’s no pot further irratg or tyrannizg the Senate,” he told me. But Schweer kept phg him, Mar said. (Schweer ni this.) “Then I slowly got spic. I asked myself, What else should I want? That’s when I got the feelg that the AfD jt wants to e me, to play me up. And I said, ‘I don’t want to be a polil tool. I don’t want to get pulled to an electn mpaign.’ ” He dropped his lawsu and accepted the Senate’s offer. His only remag goal is that, the upg report, all the nam of people volved rryg out Kentler’s experiment be revealed. (Schweer said that he had been supportg Mar as a “private person,” not on behalf of the AfD. He also told me, “I have new ias, but for [Mar] ’s over.”)</p><p class="paywall">Mar and Emma were gettg married at the end of the month, and he didn’t want to thk about his past. “I jt wanted to end the whole thg, to have this chapter closed,” he said. He planned to take Emma’s last name. He hadn’t spoken wh his birth parents or his brother sce he was ten, and now he would bee nearly untraceable. He had tried to Google his brother once, but he nsired the ia of a rnn to be a waste of emotnal rourc that he uld vote to his children. “It wouldn’t brg me anythg, anyway,” he said. “The perd of beg shaped by my mother is over.”</p><p class="paywall">At the end of my vis, Mar’s weddg rg arrived the mail. Emma shrieked wh joy, but Mar held the rg his hand dispassnately and joked that he had to marry eventually, so he might as well do now. He disguised his obv tenrns toward her wh a show of difference that Emma apparently knew not to take serly. “The are jt the fics that I have,” he said, referrg to the lack of emotn. “I’ll get through . It don’t matter.”</p><p class="paywall">Three weeks later, on the eve of his weddg, he e-mailed me. “In an hour around 10 a.m. we will drive to the registry office,” he wrote. “Symbolilly, a new life begs.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">After leavg Henkel’s home, Mar had ntact wh him only two tim. The first time, when Mar was his mid-twenti, Henkel sudnly lled. He appeared to have veloped some sort of mentia. He asked if Mar had remembered to feed their rabbs.</p><p class="paywall">The next time was 2015, when Emma was pregnant wh their first child. Mar drove to a clic Brannburg where he’d heard that Henkel was hospice, dyg of ncer. Mar opened the door to Henkel’s room. He saw Henkel lyg bed, groang pa. He had a long, wizard-like beard and looked to Mar as if he were posssed. Mar gazed at him for ls than five sends, long enough to nfirm that he was actually dyg. Then he turned around, closed the door, and walked out of the hospal.</p><p class="paywall">After Mar got home, the rad his kchen was playg, but he didn’t remember havg turned on. A sger repeated the phrase “I’m sorry.” He felt as if Henkel were tryg to get touch wh him. “I beme a ltle b crazy,” he told me. “I thought Henkel was a ghost who was followg me, hntg me. It was fely him: he was tryg to apologize.”</p><p class="paywall">Henkel died the next day. Mar entered a state of grief so fluid and expansive that, for the first time, he cried over the ath of his foster brother Marcel Kramer. He had la bed wh Kramer for an hour after he died, holdg a kd of vigil; then he cut off one of Kramer’s curls, so that he’d have somethg to remember him by. But he had never properly mourned him. Sudnly, “the blockage disappeared,” he said. He realized why he hadn’t left Henkel’s home when he turned eighteen. “I was bound to the fay by Marcel Kramer,” he said. “I would have never left him behd.”</p><p class="paywall">A few weeks after Henkel’s ath, the sense of beg hnted began to rece. “The eedom me slowly,” Mar told me. “It was like a hunger that grows stronger and stronger. I don’t know how to say , but was the first time that I figured out that I am livg a life wh a billn different possibili. I uld have been anythg. My ner voice beme stronger, my tun that I don’t have to live my life the way he tght me, that I n keep gog.” ♦</p><le-embed name="" attrs="[object Object]" childTyp="" ntentType="llout:"><hr class="paywall"/><h2 class="paywall">New Yorker Favor</h2><ul class="paywall"><li>The <a href=">day the dosrs died</a>.</li><li>What if you uld <a href=">do all over</a>?</li><li>A spense novelist leav a <a href=">trail of ceptns</a>.</li><li>The <a href=">art of dyg</a>.</li><li>Can <a href=">readg make you happier</a>?</li><li>A simple gui to <a href=">tote-bag etiquette</a>.</li><li>Sign up for our daily <a href=">newsletter</a> to receive the bt stori om <em>The New Yorker</em>.</li></ul></le-embed></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="7s9u"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS kLQIUk grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__le-barrier article__body"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"><asi class="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper-iBnuqk lfXXa-D" data-ttid="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-le-barrier" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--paywall-le-barrier"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></asi></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ContentWrapperGrid-fvkmBv brYtrA grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__ntaer"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"></div></div></div></div></div></div></article><div class="ContentFooterWrapper-jVNdRG dTJkpP ArticlePageContentFooterGrid-ccsXYy eMZRHU article-body__footer"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><footer class="ContentFooterMagazeDisclaimer-gzKAqo iZIuUU" data-ttid="MagazeDisclaimerWrapper">Published the prt edn of the <a href="/magaze/2021/07/26" data-reactroot="">July 26, 2021</a>, issue, wh the headle “The Kentler Experiment.”</footer></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="ContributorsWrapper-eNpWFu GWFsc ntributors" data-ttid="Contributors"><div class="ContributorBWrapper-bnVHbt gMon"><div class="ContributorBAvatar-bIGTqf eMWbvj"><a href="/ntributors/rachel-aviv"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></span></a></div><div class="ContributorBContent-ubQdr jZTSSi"><div class="ContributorBHear-ledood XOIEx"></div><div class="ContributorBB-fBolsO giFhKz"><a href="/ntributors/rachel-aviv">Rachel Aviv</a> is a staff wrer at The New Yorker. She is the thor of “<a href=">Strangers to Ourselv: Unsettled Mds and the Stori That Make Us</a>,” which was published September.</div><div class="ContributorBFooter-brqDlv ezUmSv"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div data-ttid="TagCloudWrapper" class="TagCloudWrapper-gGgndx ctyZyK ContentFooterTagCloud-krQmRG ZLGh"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudSectnHear-cOforY iUEiRd bPyAoD kQQRmu">More:</span><a href="/tag/germans" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Germans</span></a><a href="/tag/germany" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Germany</span></a><a href="/tag/pedophil" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Pedophil</span></a><a href="/tag/experiments" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Experiments</span></a><a href="/tag/foster-children" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Foster Children</span></a><a href="/tag/pedophilia" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Pedophilia</span></a><a href="/tag/profsors" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Profsors</span></a><a href="/tag/child-abe" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Child Abe</span></a><a href="/tag/foster-re" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Foster Care</span></a><a href="/tag/sexual-abe" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Sexual 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rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz ktcjQn"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="The Tortured Bond of Alice Sebold and the Man Wrongfully Convicted of Her Rape" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN lapGFj summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Profil</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM dVrbhU summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ fzzTdh summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">The Tortured Bond of Alice Sebold and the Man Wrongfully Convicted of Her Rape</div></a><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd kxnNhB jDyfzW summary-em__k">Anthony Broadwater spent sixteen years prison and twenty-two more as a registered sex offenr. For him and for the thor of “The Lovely Bon,” jtice is a difficult dream.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Rachel Aviv</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hNpSyX summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below summary-em--layout-posn-image-left summary-em--layout-proportns-50-50 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm hKqhyj" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb cPpCwE summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz ktcjQn"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="The Novelist Whose Inventns Went Too Far" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN lapGFj summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Life and Letters</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM dVrbhU summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ fzzTdh summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">The Novelist Whose Inventns Went Too Far</div></a><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd kxnNhB jDyfzW summary-em__k">After the Ao-Cuban wrer H. G. Carrillo died, his hband learned that almost everythg the wrer had shared about his life was ma up—cludg his Cuban inty.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>D. T. Max</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hNpSyX summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below summary-em--layout-posn-image-left summary-em--layout-proportns-50-50 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm hKqhyj" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb cPpCwE summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz ktcjQn"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Why Everyone Feels Like They’re Fakg It" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN lapGFj summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Annals of Psychology</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM dVrbhU summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ fzzTdh summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Why Everyone Feels Like They’re Fakg It</div></a><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd kxnNhB jDyfzW summary-em__k">The ncept of Impostor Syndrome has bee ubiquo. Crics, and even the ia’s origators, qutn s value.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Llie Jamison</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm hKqhyj ad ad--read-more"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--read-more" data-no-id="5qmqwu"></div></div></div><div class="SummaryCollectnGridToActnWrapper-gnReGN eGayfk"></div></div></div></div></div></div><div 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This is a New Zealand classifitn of Gay Young Boys PJK – PTHC – KDV – ( RBV ) – PEDO --- 30 --- SK --- Starskysh --- Boys – 14yo – 15yo –...

Contents:

GAY YOUNG BOYS PJK – PTHC – KDV – ( RBV ) – PEDO --- 30 --- SK --- STARSKYSH --- BOYS – 14YO – 15YO – RSIAN –

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SplScreenContentHearMa-fNigKG daohZh"><div class="GridItem-buujkM eHLzLy grid--em"><div class="SplScreenContentHearTleBlock-sCMXE jActCi"><div data-ttid="ContentHearRubric"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX dZhWBL bric SplScreenContentHearRubric-cLHEJQ ildzkT"><a class="RubricLk-gRWSOU fgWnkQ bric__lk" href="/magaze/letter-om-berl"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Letter om Berl</span></a></div></div><h1 data-ttid="ContentHearHed" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SplScreenContentHearHed-lcUSuI iUEiRd NbxED dfelga">The German Experiment That Placed Foster Children wh Pedophil</h1><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SplScreenContentHearDek-emptdL iUEiRd wOnsu dJrDEb">Wh the approval of the ernment, a renowned sexologist ran a dangero program. How uld this happen?</div><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl SplScreenContentHearByle-kvEhqE ejWxsm"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH bwbwth byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn lOLCm byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG uhfVi byle__preamble">By </span><a class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM ByleLk-gEnFiw iUEiRd ggMZaT cXqSTL brYZgj byle__name-lk button" href="/ntributors/rachel-aviv">Rachel Aviv</a></span></span></p></div><time data-ttid="ContentHearPublishDate" dateTime="2021-07-19T06:00:00-04:00" class="SplScreenContentHearPublishDate-bMGEVk gvRvVr">July 19, 2021</time><div class="SocialInsWrapper-hKMEXV ffgPVr social-ins social-ins--standard SplScreenContentHearSocialShare-gSVclr kUKgnn"><ul data-ttid="socialInslist" class="SocialInsList-cHVTIA ivmblD 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class="SocialInContaer-huXzUC pMzVC social-ins__in-ntaer"><svg class="SocialInNetworkInComponent-cZaKGz dlOAhZ in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Save Story</tle><path class="in-bookmark-fill" d="M20 23.9508L12.5 19.7312L5 23.9508V2.95081H14V3.93211H6V22.1845L12.5 18.5536L19 22.1845V8.83866H20V23.9508Z" fill="black"></path><path class="in-bookmark-stroke" d="M23 3H20V0H19V3H16V4H19V7H20V4H23V3Z" fill="black"></path></svg></div></a></li></ul></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM eHLzLy grid--em"><div class="SplScreenContentHearLeadWrapper-jYfGAC kBeEbL"><div data-ttid="ContentHearLeadAsset" class="SplScreenContentHearLeBlock-nUOA cwQiEB"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset SplScreenContentHearLe-bGywFh gyNssY"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SplScreenContentHearLe-bGywFh gyNssY rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w, 1920w, 2240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Child" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></span></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK eRggVV grid grid-margs grid-ems-0 SplScreenContentHearGrid-kFpOdh fLkIyA"><div class="GridItem-buujkM kHPPIF grid--em"><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn SplScreenContentHearCaptn-iOfEOv ckLUKG"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">“I didn’t thk what was happeng was good, but I thought was normal,” one of the foster children relled.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Illtratn by Gérard DuBois</span></div></div></div></hear></div><div data-attribute-verso-pattern="article-body" class="ArticlePageContentBackGround-cNiFNN kbAoLA article-body__ntent"><div class="ActnBarWrapperContent-lasBkU 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class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><figure data-ttid="IameEmbed" class="IameEmbedWrapper-sc-dRedg cjyRVU iame-embed"><div data-ttid="IameEmbedContaer" class="IameEmbedContaer-hptgUZ fXVBaX"><div class="IameEmbedAspectRatWrapper-hFVJps BKpgQ"><iame class="IameEmbedContent-cMdiev csnuAY IameEmbedContent lazyload" height="90" width="100%" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-orig allow-popups" tle="Embedd Frame" data-src=" allowfullscreen="" allow="toplay *; encrypted-media *; clipboard-wre; toplay; fullscreen; picture--picture"></iame></div></div></figure><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In 2017, a German man who go by the name Mar me across an article a Berl newspaper wh a photograph of a profsor he regnized om childhood. The first thg he noticed was the man’s lips. They were th, almost nonexistent, a tra that Mar had always found repellent. He was surprised to read that the profsor, Helmut Kentler, had been one of the most fluential sexologists Germany. The article scribed a new rearch report that had vtigated what was lled the “Kentler experiment.” Begng the late sixti, Kentler had placed neglected children foster hom n by pedophil. The experiment was thorized and fancially supported by the Berl Senate. In a report submted to the Senate, 1988, Kentler had scribed as a “plete succs.”</p><p class="paywall">Mar had grown up foster re, and his foster father had equently taken him to Kentler’s home. Now he was thirty-four, wh a one-year-old dghter, and her meals and naps stctured his days. After he read the article, he said, “I jt phed asi. I didn’t react emotnally. I did what I do every day: nothg, really. I sat around ont of the puter.”</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">Mar looks like a movie star—he is tanned, wh a firm jaw, thick dark hair, and a long, symmetril face. As an adult, he has cried only once. “If someone were to die ont of me, I would of urse want to help them, but wouldn’t affect me emotnally,” he told me. “I have a wall, and emotns jt h agast .” He lived wh his girliend, a hairdrser, but they never discsed his childhood. He was unemployed. Once, he tried to work as a mailman, but after a few days he qu, bee whenever a stranger ma an exprsn that remd him of his foster father, an engeer named Frz Henkel, he had the sensatn that he was not actually alive, that his heart had stopped beatg, and that the lor had draed om the world. When he tried to speak, felt as if his voice didn’t belong to him.</p><p class="paywall">Several months after readg the article, Mar looked up the number for Tera Nentwig, a young polil scientist at the Universy of Göttgen Instute for Democracy Rearch, who had wrten the report on Kentler. He felt both cur and ashamed. When she answered the phone, he intified himself as “an affected person.” He told her that his foster father had spoken wh Kentler on the phone every week. In ways that Mar had never unrstood, Kentler, a psychologist and a profsor of social tn at the Universy of Hannover, had seemed eply vted his upbrgg.</p><p class="paywall">Nentwig had assumed that Kentler’s experiment end the neteen-seventi. But Mar told her he had lived his foster home until 2003, when he was twenty-one. “I was totally shocked,” she said. She remembers Mar sayg several tim, “You are the first person I’ve told—this is the first time I’ve told my story.” As a child, he’d taken for granted that the way he was treated was normal. “Such thgs happen,” he told himself. “The world is like this: ’s eat and be eaten.” But now, he said, “I realized the state has been watchg.”</p><p class="paywall">A few weeks later, Mar phoned one of his foster brothers, whom he lls Sven. They had lived together Henkel’s home for thirteen years. He liked Sven, but felt ltle nnectn to him. They had never had a real nversatn. He told Sven he’d learned that they had been part of an experiment. But Sven seemed unable to procs the rmatn. “After all those years, we had gotten out of the hab of thkg,” Mar said.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">As a young boy, Mar liked to pretend he was one of the Templars, an orr of knights that protected pilgrims to the Holy Land. He was a lively child who ocsnally wanred around his Berl neighborhood unsupervised. At five, 1988, he crossed the street alone and was h by a r. He was not serly jured, but the accint attracted the attentn of the Schöneberg youth-welfare office, which is n by the Berl state ernment. Caseworkers at the office observed that Mar’s mother seemed “unable to give him the necsary emotnal attentn.” She worked at a ssage stand, and was stgglg to manage parenthood on her own. Mar’s father, a Paltian refugee, had divorced her. She sent Mar and his olr brother to day re dirty cloth, and left them there for eleven hours. Caseworkers remend that Mar be placed a foster home wh a “fay-like atmosphere.” One scribed him as an attractive boy who was wild but “very easy to fluence.”</p><p class="paywall">Mar was assigned to live wh Henkel, a forty-seven-year-old sgle man who supplemented his e as a foster father by repairg jebox and other electronics. Mar was Henkel’s eighth foster son sixteen years. When Henkel began fosterg children, 1973, a teacher noticed that he was “always lookg for ntact wh boys.” Six years later, a seworker observed that Henkel appeared to be a “homosexual relatnship” wh one of his foster sons. When a public prosecutor lnched an vtigatn, Helmut Kentler, who lled himself Henkel’s “permanent adviser,” tervened on Henkel’s behalf—a pattern that repeats throughout more than eight hundred pag of se fil about Henkel’s home. Kentler was a well-known scholar, the thor of several books on sex tn and parentg, and he was often quoted Germany’s leadg newspapers and on s TV programs. The newspaper <em>Die Ze</em> had scribed him as the “natn’s chief thory on qutns of sexual tn.” On universy letterhead, Kentler issued what he lled an “expert opn,” explag that he had e to know Henkel through a “rearch project.” He mend Henkel on his parentg skills and disparaged a psychologist who vad the privacy of his home, makg “wild terpretatns.” Sometim, Kentler wrote, an airplane is not a phallic symbol— is simply a plane. The crimal vtigatn was spend.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Mar was imprsed by Henkel’s apartment. It had five bedrooms and was on the third floor of an old buildg on one of the ma shoppg streets of Frien, an upsle neighborhood popular among policians and wrers. Two other foster sons lived there, a sixteen-year-old and a twenty-four-year-old, neher of whom was particularly iendly to Mar. But he was lighted to disver an armoire the hallway that held a ge wh two rabbs that he uld play wh and feed. In a report to the youth-welfare office, Henkel noted that Mar was “exced about almost everythg that was offered to him.”</p><p class="paywall">Every few months, Henkel drove nearly two hundred wh his foster children to see Kentler Hannover, where he tght. The viss were an opportuny for Kentler to observe the children: to “hear what they say about their past; their dreams and fears; to know their wish and hop, to see how they each velop, how they feel,” Henkel wrote. In a photograph taken durg one of their viss, Kentler wears a whe button-up shirt wh a pen the pocket, and Mar ss at a dg-room table bi him, lookg bored and dazed.</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">Mar had been livg wh Henkel for a year and a half when Sven moved . The police had found him a subway statn Berl, sick wh hepatis. He was seven years old, beggg for money, and he said that he had e om Romania. Notg that Sven had “likely never experienced a posive parent-child relatnship,” the youth-welfare office searched for a foster home Berl. “Mr. Henkel seems to be ially sued to this difficult task,” doctors om a clic at the Free Universy of Berl wrote.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Two ts plot to sue their owner." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“We n unr his feet, makg him trip and fall on . We sue his ass back to the Stone Age, the hoe is ours, and he’s the one sleepg a pile of stky lndry.”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by Ivan Ehlers</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 10.991L18.4648 8.87225C19.5694 7.00002 18.9139 4.60601 17.0007 3.52508C15.0875 2.44415 12.6412 3.08562 11.5366 4.95785L9.53657 8.34782C8.432 10.22 9.08751 12.6141 11.0007 13.6949C11.1888 13.8012 11.382 13.8908 11.5785 13.9642C11.7819 14.0403 12.0058 13.9485 12.1147 13.764C12.2794 13.4849 12.1103 13.1276 11.8083 12.9992C11.7041 12.9549 11.6014 12.9044 11.5007 12.8475C10.0658 12.0368 9.57417 10.2413 10.4026 8.83712L12.4026 5.44715C13.2311 4.04298 15.0658 3.56187 16.5007 4.37257C17.9356 5.18327 18.4272 6.97878 17.5988 8.38295L16.3488 10.5017ZM7.6526 13.4983C7.79067 13.2643 7.70873 12.965 7.46959 12.8299C7.23044 12.6948 6.92464 12.775 6.78657 13.009L5.53657 15.1278C4.432 17 5.0875 19.394 7.00068 20.475C8.91385 21.5558 11.3602 20.9144 12.4648 19.0422L14.4648 15.6521C15.5694 13.78 14.9139 11.3859 13.0007 10.305C12.8127 10.1988 12.6195 10.1091 12.4229 10.0357C12.2195 9.95975 11.9956 10.0515 11.8867 10.236C11.7221 10.5151 11.8911 10.8724 12.1932 11.0008C12.2973 11.0451 12.4 11.0956 12.5007 11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">The two boys took on different rol their new fay. Sven was the good son, docile and lovg. Mar was more fiant, but at night, when Henkel me to his room askg to cuddle, or waed for him while he bshed his teeth before bed, he had to ply. “I jt accepted out of loyalty, bee I didn’t know anythg else,” Mar told me. “I didn’t thk what was happeng was good, but I thought was normal. I thought of a ltle b like food. People have different tast food, the way some people have different tast sexualy.” If Sven’s bedroom door was open and he wasn’t there, Mar knew what was happeng, but the two boys never talked about what Henkel did to them. “It was an absolutely taboo subject,” Mar said.</p><p class="paywall">One night, Mar took a knife om the kchen and slept wh unr his pillow. When Henkel approached his bed and disvered the bla, he whdrew quickly, lled Helmut Kentler, then hand the phone to Mar. “There’s a vil behd my wall,” Mar tried to expla. Kentler had a lmg, grandfatherly prence. He assured Mar that there was no such thg as vils, and Mar agreed to surrenr the knife.</p><p class="paywall">Mar’s mother and brother were allowed to vis roughly once a month, but Henkel often ncelled the viss at the last mute, or cut them short, sayg that they were disptive. Afterward, Mar would sometim urate his bed or lose foc school, wrg numbers and letters backward. “It was as if he wanted to say: there is no pot anythg,” Henkel wrote. Kentler warned the youth-welfare office that Mar’s “tnal succs are ed by a few hours of beg wh his mother.” Mar’s father was not allowed to see him at all, bee Henkel reported that Mar said that his dad had beaten him. Mar was so terrified of his father, Henkel said, that he suffered om “fearful fantasi when he noticed people of Arab appearance on the street.”</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><asi class="PersistentAsiWrapper-VGrR daRVRt persistent-asi" style="posn:absolute;top:to;height:to" data-ttid="PersistentAsiWrapper"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="vny67j"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></asi></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="y1cmp9"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Mar’s teachers remend that he see a child therapist, who was supposed to meet wh him for two hours a week. But the therapist said that Henkel was holdg Mar “prisoner”—Henkel always sat close by, an adjacent room. Mar remembers that, once, after a ssn began whout Henkel’s realizg , he barged to the room and h the therapist the face. When a school psychologist referred Sven for unsellg, too, Henkel would not allow him to take any psychologil tts, acrdg to rerds. “Not wh me!” he shouted. “If you all want to make a ‘se’ out of [Sven], then do whout me.” (Sven seemed upset by the outburst, askg Henkel, “Do that mean you want to give me away?”)</p><p class="paywall">In a letter, Kentler advised the youth-welfare office that, if a psychologil asssment had to be done, he would perform . “Insights beyond my fdgs are not to be expected,” he wrote. He acknowledged that Henkel uld appear “harsh and hurtful,” but “I ask you to nsir that a man who als wh such serly damaged children is not a ‘simple person,’ ” he wrote, another letter. “What Mr. Henkel needs om the thori is tst and protectn.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">When Mar was ne, his mother petned a district judge Berl to allow her to spend more time wh him. Mar’s father told the youth-welfare office that he uld not unrstand why Mar was growg up a “strange fay,” prived of an Arabic tn. He also “ma massive accatns agast the foster father’s behavr,” a seworker wrote. But Mar’s mother had signed an agreement statg that she would “always be guid by the bt terts of my child,” and that termatn was ma by the youth-welfare office.</p><p class="paywall">A hearg was held March, 1992, a month before Mar turned ten. The judge asked to speak privately wh Mar, but Henkel stood directly outsi the room and said, “If you are beg threatened, ll out!” Mar sound as if he had been ached. He told the judge that his foster father, whom he lled Papa, loved him, and his birth fay did not. When the judge asked if he still wanted his mother to vis, he rpond, “Not often.” He said that once a year would be better, and sisted that “Papa should be there.” He explaed that he was aaid of his blogil father, and now that he was wh Papa he was no longer sred. “Only sometim at night,” he add.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">After the hearg, Kentler sent a letter to the judge, sayg, “For the bt terts of the child, I nsir absolutely sential that ntact wh the fay of orig—cludg the mother—be pletely spend for the next two years.” Kentler also emphasized that Mar need distance om the men his fay, bee they set a bad example. He said that Mar’s mood changed when he spoke about his father. Though Kentler had never met Mar’s dad, he characterized him as thorarian, abive, and macho. He also disapproved of Mar’s fifteen-year-old brother, who was six feet four and weighed two hundred and twenty-five pounds. The boy “giv the (false) imprsn of strength and superry,” Kentler wrote, and was already moldg himself his father’s image; he was “addicted to beg the big man.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Kentler’s reer was amed by his belief the damage wrought by domant fathers. An early memory was of walkg the fort on a sprg day and nng to keep up wh his father. “I had only one wish: that he should take my hand and hold his,” Kentler wrote a parentg magaze 1983. But his father, a litenant the First World War, believed a “rod and baton pedagogy,” as Kentler put . Kentler’s parents followed the teachgs of Daniel Gottlob Morz Schreber, a bt-sellg German thory on child re who has been scribed as a “spirual precursor of Nazism.” Schreber outled prcipl of child rearg that would create a stronger race of men, riddg them of wardice, lazs, and unwanted displays of vulnerabily and sire. “Supprs everythg the child,” Schreber wrote, 1858. “Emotns mt be suffoted their seed right away.” When Kentler misbehaved, his father threatened to buy a ntraptn vented by Schreber to promote children’s posture and pliance: shoulr bands to prevent slouchg; a belt that held their cht place while they slept; an iron bar prsed to their llarbone, so they’d s up straight at the table. If Kentler talked out of turn, his father slammed his fist on the table and shouted, “When the father talks, the children mt be silent!”</p><p class="paywall">Kentler was ten durg Kristallnacht, 1938, when Nazi Storm Troopers raid Jewish templ, stor, and ho. Kentler’s fay was livg Düsseldorf, and Kentler was awakened by the noise of shatterg glass. He me out of his bedroom and saw his father a nightdrs, holdg the phone. “In his loud, domant voice, my father lled for a police ployment bee someone had broken to our buildg,” Kentler wrote “Borrowed Fathers, Children Need Fathers,” a 1989 book about parenthood. “It was a longer nversatn, durg which my father beme ever quieter, and ultimately he timidly hung up the receiver, stood there like he had llapsed and quietly said to my mother, who had been standg next to him for some time: ‘They’re gog after the Jews!’ ”</p><p class="paywall">Soon, the doorbell rang. A Jewish fay—a mother, father, and three children—who lived the apartment below stood at the door. Their apartment had been stroyed, and they asked if they uld spend the night wh the Kentlers. “No, that will really not be possible here,” Kentler’s father said. He shut the door. Kentler glimpsed his father’s nightshirt climbg jt above his knee, revealg his soft naked legs. “My whole father sudnly seemed lghable to me,” he wrote.</p><p class="paywall">Shortly afterward, Kentler’s father was lled back to active duty. He rose to the rank of lonel, and moved his fay to Berl, where he worked at the High Command of the army of Nazi Germany. “My father’s thory was never based on his own acplishment, but on the large stutns which he snuck to, that bbed off on him,” Kentler wrote. He was seventeen when the Nazis were feated and his father me home, “a broken man,” Kentler wrote. “I never aga obeyed him and I felt terribly alone.”</p><p class="paywall">The postwar years Wt Germany were marked by an tense preoccupatn wh sexual propriety, as if m uld solve the natn’s moral crisis and cleanse of guilt. “One’s own offsprg did penance for Achwz,” the German poet Olav Münzberg wrote, “wh ethics and moraly forcefully jammed to them.” Women’s reproductive rights were severely rtricted, and the policg of homosexual enunters, a hallmark of Nazism, persisted; the two s after the war, roughly a hundred thoand men were prosecuted for this crime. Kentler was attracted to men and felt as if he “always had one leg prison,” bee of the risks volved nsummatg his sir. He found solace the book “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Corydon</a>,” by André Gi, a seri of Socratic dialogu about the naturalns of queer love. “This book took away my fear of beg a failure and of beg rejected, of beg a negative blogil variant,” he wrote a 1985 say lled “Our Homosexualy.” But nothg uld be done to remedy his relatnship wh his parents. “They no longer loved me,” he wrote.</p><p class="paywall">In 1960, Kentler got a gree psychology, a field that allowed him to be “an engeer the realm of the . . . manipulatable soul,” he said at a lecture. He beme volved the stunt movement, and at a meetg of the Republin Club, a group tablished by left-wg tellectuals, he publicly intified himself as gay for the first time. Not long afterward, he wrote, he cid to turn “my passns to a profsn (which is also good for the passns: they are ntrolled).” He earned a doctorate social tn om the Universy of Hannover, publishg his dissertatn, a guibook lled “Parents Learn Sex Edutn,” 1975. He was spired by the Marxist psychoanalyst <a href=">Wilhelm Reich</a>, who had argued that the ee flow of sexual energy was sential to buildg a new kd of society. Kentler’s dissertatn urged parents to teach their children that they should never be ashamed of their sir. “Once the first feelgs of shame exist, they multiply easily and expand to all areas of life,” he wrote.</p><p class="paywall">Like many of his ntemporari, Kentler me to believe that sexual reprsn was key to unrstandg the Fascist nscns. In 1977, the soclogist Kls Thewele published “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Male Fantasi</a>,” a two-volume book that drew on the diari of German paraary fighters and nclud that their hibed driv—along wh a fear of anythg gooey, ghg, or smelly—had been channelled to a new outlet: stctn. When Kentler read “Male Fantasi,” he uld see Schreber, the child-re thor whose prcipl his parents had followed, “at work everywhere,” he wrote. Kentler argued that ias like Schreber’s (he had been so wily read that one book went through forty edns) had poisoned three generatns of Germans, creatg “thorarian personali who have to intify wh a ‘great man’ around them to feel great themselv.” Kentler’s goal was to velop a child-rearg philosophy for a new kd of German man. Sexual liberatn, he wrote, was the bt way to “prevent another Achwz.”</p><p class="paywall">The trials of twenty-two former Achwz officers had revealed a mon personaly type: ordary, nservative, sexually hibed, and preoccupied wh bourgeois moraly. “I do thk that a society that was more ee about sexualy, Achwz uld not have happened,” the German legal scholar Herbert Jäger said. Sexual emancipatn was tegral to stunt movements throughout Wtern Europe, but the pleas were more pched Germany, where the memory of genoci had bee extribly—if not entirely accurately—lked wh sexual primns. In “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Sex After Fascism</a>,” the historian Dagmar Herzog scrib how, Germany, nflicts over sexual mor beme “an important se for managg the memory of Nazism.” But, she adds, was also a way “to redirect moral bate away om the problem of plicy mass murr and toward a narrowed nceptn of moraly as solely ncerned wh sex.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-3 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Sudnly, seemed as if all relatnship stctur uld—and mt—be renfigured, if there was any hope of producg a generatn ls damaged than the prev one. In the late sixti, tors more than thirty German ci and towns began tablishg experimental day-re centers, where children were enuraged to be naked and to explore one another’s bodi. “There is no qutn that they were tryg ( a sperate sort of neo-Roseian thorarian antithorarianism) to remake German/human nature,” Herzog wr. Kentler serted himself to a movement that was urgently workg to undo the sexual legacy of Fascism but stgglg to differentiate among var taboos. In 1976, the magaze <em>Das Blatt</em> argued that forbidn sexual sire, such as that for children, was the “revolutnary event that turns our everyday life on s head, that lets feelgs break out and that shatters the basis of our thkg.” A few years later, Germany’s newly tablished Green Party, which brought together antiwar protters, environmental activists, and veterans of the stunt movement, tried to addrs the “opprsn of children’s sexualy.” Members of the Party advoted abolishg the age of nsent for sex between children and adults.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">In this climate—a psychoanalyst scribed as one of “nial and manic ‘self-reparatn’ ”—Kentler was a star. He was asked to lead the partment of social tn at the Pedagogil Center, an ternatnal rearch stute Berl whose planng mtee clud Willy Brandt, who beme the Chancellor of Germany (and won the Nobel Peace Prize), and Jam B. Conant, the first U.S. Ambassador to Wt Germany and a print of Harvard. Fund and supervised by the Berl Senate, the center was tablished, 1965, to make Berl an ternatnal lear reformg tnal practic. Kentler worked on the problem of naways, hero addicts, and young prostut, many of whom gathered the archways of the Zoo Statn, the ma transportatn hub Wt Berl. The i was memorialized “<a data-offer-url=" class="external-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">Christiane F.</a>,” an inic dg movie of the eighti, about teen-agers, prematurely aware of the empts of morn society, self-stctg, set to a soundtrack by David Bowie.</p><p class="paywall">Kentler beiend a thirteen-year-old named Ulrich, whom he scribed as “one of the most sought-after prostut the statn scene.” When Kentler asked Ulrich where he wanted to stay at night, Ulrich told him about a man he lled Mother Wter, who fed boys om the Zoo Statn and did their lndry. In exchange, they slept wh him. “I said to myself: if the prostut ll this man ‘mother,’ he n’t be bad,” Kentler wrote. Later, he noted that “Ulrich’s advantage was that he was handsome and that he enjoyed sex; so he uld give somethg back to pedophile men who looked after him.”</p><p class="paywall">Kentler formalized Ulrich’s arrangement. “I managed to get the Senate officer rponsible to approve ,” he wrote “Borrowed Fathers, Children Need Fathers.” Kentler found several other pedophil who lived nearby, and he helped them set up foster hom, too. At the time, the Berl Senate, which erns the cy—one of sixteen stat the untry—was eager to fd new solutns to the “life problems of our society,” orr to “nfirm and mata Berl’s reputatn as an outpost of eedom and humany,” Kentler wrote.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Kg talks to henchman about stranger wag to speak wh him outsi his stle." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“Do this mean I have to talk to someone I don’t know?”</span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by Brendan Loper</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair 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class="paywall">In 1981, Kentler was ved to the German parliament to speak about why homosexualy should be crimalized— didn’t happen for thirteen more years—but he strayed, unprompted, to a discsn of his experiment. “We looked after and advised the relatnships very tensively,” he said. He held nsultatns wh the foster fathers and their sons, many of whom had been so neglected that they had never learned to read or wre. “The people only put up wh the feeble-md boys bee they were love wh them,” he told the lawmakers. His summary did not seem to provoke ncerns. Perhaps the policians were receptive bee the project seemed to be the oppose of the Nazis’ reproductive experiments, wh their rigid emphasis on propagatg certa kds of fai, or perhaps they were unncerned bee, their opn, the boys were already lost. In the sixti and seventi, the polil éle were sudnly takg an tert the lower class, but their pacy for intifitn was apparently limed.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="k0gur"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">If there were ever fil the cy’s archiv documentg how Kentler’s project me to be approved—or how, exactly, he loted the men who served as foster fathers—they have been lost or stroyed. When Kentler publicly discsed his experiment, he offered tails about only three foster hom. But, a 2020 report missned by the Berl Senate, scholars at the Universy of Hilsheim nclud that “the Senate also ran foster hom or shared flats for young Berlers wh pedophile men other parts of Wt Germany.” The fifty-eight-page report was prelimary and vague; the thors said there were about a thoand unsorted fil the basement of a ernment buildg that they had been unable to read. No nam were revealed, but the thors wrote that “the foster hom were n by sometim powerful men who lived alone and who were given this power by amia, rearch stutns and other pedagogil environments that accepted, supported or even lived out pedophile stanc.” The report nclud that some “senate actors” had been “part of this work,” while others had merely tolerated the foster hom “bee ‘ins’ of tnal reform polici supported such arrangements.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Mar remembers Kentler and his foster father talkg for hours on the phone about polics. The tensy of their nversatns surprised him, bee Henkel was lanic at home, rarely speakg full sentenc. Mar and Sven didn’t talk to each other, eher. Mar spent all of his ee time his room, on an Amiga puter, playg SimCy and Mega-Lo-Mania. Both boys kept their doors closed. Once, when the neighbors played loud mic, breakg the silence their apartment, Henkel told the boys that he wanted to drill hol two microwave ovens and then aim the radactive wav toward each other, at jt the right angle, to give the neighbors a heart attack.</p><p class="paywall">Mar’s mother lost her plea for more accs to her son. She was still allowed viss every few weeks at the youth-welfare office, but the meetgs went creasgly badly. Durg the first vis after the urt hearg, Mar told his mother that he didn’t want to see her, bee she didn’t get along wh his foster father. “While he was sayg this, he did not make eye ntact wh his mother,” a social worker wrote. At the next vis, three weeks later, he refed to accept his mother’s gift—pens and a pad of paper—or to answer her qutns. He repeatedly asked to leave, until his mother reluctantly agreed. She was “visibly shaken and cried,” the social worker wrote. “She no longer knows what to do.” The next day, Henkel lled the youth-welfare office and said that he would support Mar “ monstratg his rejectn of his mother.”</p><p class="paywall">A year and a half later, Mar’s father rmed the youth-welfare office that he was movg to Syria and wanted to say goodbye to his son. There is no rerd of anyone rpondg. Mar’s opn of his parents beme overlaid wh the sults he’d heard om Henkel and Kentler. He imaged his mother as a lazy woman who spent her days eatg ssag, his father as a vlent patriarch. It wasn’t until two s later that he grasped that his parents had fought to have a relatnship wh him.</p><p class="paywall">Some nights, when Mar was eatg dner wh Sven and Henkel, he would have the sensatn that he was among strangers. “Who are you people?” he asked once. Henkel rpond, “It’s me—your father.”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-4 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">When Mar was eleven years old, a new foster son, Marcel Kramer, moved . Kramer was a small boy wh dimpl, crooked teeth, and a sweet, open se. He was half a year younger than Mar and had spastic quadriplegia, a ngenal ndn that left him unable to walk, talk, or eat on his own. Mar and Sven beme Kramer’s retakers, feedg him strawberry-flavored k wh a spoon and removg muc om his lungs wh a suctn hose. When they went to Henkel’s hoe Brannburg, wt of Berl, Mar phed Kramer for hours on a tire swg. Kramer was the first person years for whom Mar had felt love.</p><p class="paywall">At school, Mar had no close relatnships. Henkel enuraged him to misbehave, rewardg him wh puter gam if he spat, talked out of turn, or overturned chairs. He skipped class and rarely did his homework. He end up swchg schools seven tim, which, he now believ, was Henkel’s plan.</p><p class="paywall">For years, Mar tolerated Henkel, but, as he began gog through puberty, he said, “I started to hate him.” He spent an hour each day liftg weights, so that he would be strong enough to fend himself. One night, when Henkel tried to fondle him, Mar h his hand. Henkel seemed startled but didn’t say anythg. He jt walked away.</p><p class="paywall">Henkel stopped tryg to sexually molt Mar, but he beme punive. At night, he locked the door to the kchen so that Mar uldn’t eat. (“His greed when eatg was noticeable,” Henkel once wrote.) He also h Mar. “Go on, let off some steam,” Mar sometim said, tntg Henkel. “He said he wasn’t htg me—he was htg the vil si of me,” Mar told me.</p><p class="paywall">When Mar turned eighteen, he was legally ee to leave Henkel’s home, but didn’t occur to him to move out. “It’s very hard to scribe, but I was never raised to thk crilly about anythg,” he said. “I had an empty md.”</p><p class="paywall">One day, Kramer veloped the flu. In the urse of forty-eight hours, his breathg beme creasgly labored. For years, Mar had checked on Kramer several tim each night, to make sure that he was breathg. Now he was so worried that he lay bed bi him. Henkel had always risted llg doctors for the boys. By the time he gave , Kramer uld not be rcated. “It happened ont of my ey,” Mar said. “I was lookg to his ey when he died.”</p><p class="paywall">The foster-re fil nta only a brief note documentg Kramer’s ath. “Call om Mr. Henkel, who says that Marcel died unexpectedly last night,” an employee at the youth-welfare office wrote, September, 2001. “Prevly there were no signs of an fectn.” A subsequent note says that Henkel, who was sixty, was lookg to take another child.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">After Tera Nentwig’s report on Kentler, 2016, she planned to wre her habilatn this, a requirement for a reer amia, on Kentler’s life and work. But there were many setbacks. Relevant fil the cy archiv of Berl were missg, unsorted, or sealed. Friends and lleagu of Kentler, who had died 2008, told Nentwig that they didn’t want to talk. “Some said that Kentler is a very good man and he has done only thgs which are good,” Nentwig told me.</p><p class="paywall">Nentwig giv the imprsn of beg a methodil and undramatic scholar, the type who never miss a adle. In the summer of 2020, when we first spoke, she told me, “I have no future the universy, bee is very hard to have succs wh this sort of subject. I am cricizg the amic world.” I assumed that, as amb people tend to do, she was motivatg herself wh a fear of worst-se scenars. But the next time I spoke wh her, this sprg, she had taken a job wh a regnal State Office for the Protectn of the Constutn, a German telligence agency that monors anti-mocratic threats. Her universy ntract had not been renewed, and she blamed the premature end of her amic reer part on her cisn to rearch Kentler. “I’m a polil scientist,” she said, “and people were always askg, ‘What is polil about this topic?’ ”</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-5 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Nentwig and her former universy are now spltg the st, some six thoand ros, for a German amic prs to publish what would have been her this. In the book, which out September, she reveals that Kentler, the sgle father of three adopted sons and several foster children, appeared to be nductg his own, rmal versn of the experiment that the Berl Senate had thorized. Kar Désirat, the -thor of a book lled “Sex—Lt and Life,” told Nentwig that two of Kentler’s foster sons had e to her for therapy and divulged that Kentler had sexually abed them. Désirat “owed a lot to Kentler,” she said—he had helped her get her first teachg posn—and she did not want to get volved. She referred the boys to another therapist. The boys preferred to keep their abe private, she said, bee they “didn’t want to lose the posiv of Kentler’s re—that they had enough to eat and that they were taken re of and thgs like that.” Kentler’s experiment seemed to rt on the ia that some children are fundamentally send class, their outlook so promised that any kd of love is a gift, a proposn that his lleagu apparently accepted, too. (Désirat said that she eventually broke off ntact wh Kentler, ncludg that his behavr had been “creepy.”)</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="iz0kzl"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="bv7fdf"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Gunter Schmidt, a former print of the Internatnal Amy of Sex Rearch, which attracts the field’s leadg rearchers, was iends wh Kentler for more than twenty years. “I hontly had rpect for ,” he told Nentwig of the experiment. “Bee I thought, The are really young people who are the worst suatn. They probably have a long history at home, they had miserable childhoods and someone is lookg after them. And if Kentler is there ’ll be fe.” He add, “And the Berl Senate is also there.” When Kentler was fifty-seven, he wrote Schmidt a letter explag why he was agg happily, rather than beg lonely and rigned: he and his twenty-six-year-old son were “part of a very fulfillg love story” that had lasted thirteen years and still felt h. To unrstand his state of md, Kentler wrote, his iend should know his secret.</p><p class="paywall">For much of his reer, Kentler spoke of pedophil as benefactors. They offered neglected children “a possibily of therapy,” he told <em>Der Spiegel</em>, 1980. When the Berl Senate missned him to prepare an expert report on the subject of “Homosexuals as regivers and tors,” 1988, he explaed that there was no need to worry that children would be harmed by sexual ntact wh retakers, as long as the teractn was not “forced.” The nsequenc n be “very posive, pecially when the sexual relatnship n be characterized as mutual love,” he wrote.</p><p class="paywall">But 1991 he seemed to rethk his opn, after his youngt adopted son, the one he praised the letter to Schmidt, mted suici. Then he read the paper “Confn of the Tongu Between Adults and the Child (The Language of Tenrns and of Passn),” by Sándor Ferenczi, a Hungarian psychoanalyst and a stunt of Frd. The paper scrib how sexualized relatnships between adults and children are always asymmetril, exploative, and stctive. Ferenczi warns that to give children “<em>more love</em> or love of a <em>different kd</em>” than they seek “will have jt as pathogenic nsequenc as <em>nyg</em> <em>them</em> love.” Children’s “personali are not sufficiently nsolidated orr to be able to prott,” he wr. They will “subordate themselv like tomata.” They bee obliv of their own needs and “intify themselv wh the aggrsor.”</p><p class="paywall">In an terview wh a German historian 1992, Kentler spoke of his grief for his adopted son and said, “Unfortunately I only read the Ferenczi say after his ath.” He did not nfs to abg his son; stead, he said that the boy had been sexually abed by his birth mother. “He hung himself bee of that,” he told the historian. “I’ve experienced the biggt way, a very close way, and certaly I’m partly to blame.” He regretted that, until the Ferenczi paper, he had not read anythg about the emotnal aftermath of sexual abe and had not known how to help his son procs the trma. He didn’t unrstand that a child reverg om sexual abe feels spl, as Ferenczi scrib : he is “nocent and culpable at the same time—and his nfince the ttimony of his own sens is broken.” “I was too stupid,” Kentler said.</p><p class="paywall">By the late neti, Kentler had stopped seeg Henkel’s foster sons, or volvg himself their upbrgg. In what was likely his last rerd public statement about pedophilia, an terview 1999, he referred to as a “sexual disorr,” and allud to the impossibily of an adult and a child sharg an unrstandg of sexual ntact. The problem, he said, is that the adult will always have “the monopoly on fn.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">When I first began rrpondg wh Mar, the summer of 2020, our munitn was mediated by a man named Christoph Schweer, who referred to himself as Mar’s “iend.” Inially, I assumed that he was Mar’s lawyer. Then I looked him up onle and saw that he had received a Ph.D. philosophy, publishg a dissertatn lled “Homickns, Hero, Cheerfulns: Nietzsche’s Path to Beg a Superhero.” He worked for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), Germany’s right-wg party, as an adviser for tn and cultural policy. The Party was recently vtigated by Germany’s domtic-telligence agency for unrmg mocracy by, among other thgs, mimizg the crim of the Nazis. The Party’s -lear has lled the Nazi era “jt a speck of bird poop more than 1,000 years of succsful German history.”</p><p class="paywall">Last Augt, Mar, Schweer, and Thomas Rogers, a Berl journalist, who also works as a translator, met at a hotel attached to Berl’s ternatnal airport, the only place we uld e up wh that would be sufficiently private. I spoke wh them via Zoom. Mar and Schweer sat chairs bi the bed, and they did not appear to have a particularly faiar rapport. Mar wore a flowery button-up Hawaiian shirt and had not shaved a few days. Schweer, drsed for the office, had a prim, bslike manner. Like an agent helpg his celebry client, he seemed a b bored by our nversatn but ocsnally chimed , promptg Mar to share memorable tails.</p><p class="paywall">“When you first saw him you thought, What a crooked mouth he has,” Schweer offered, referrg to Henkel.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-6 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">“He had no lips,” Mar clarified. He explaed that Kentler, too, had this tra. Schweer monstrated by prsg his mouth together, so that only a sliver of his bottom and upper lip were visible.</p><p class="paywall">“Do you know people who have no lips?” Mar said. “They are always egotistil and mean—I noticed that.”</p><p class="paywall">Schweer first ntacted Mar early 2018, after readg an article <em>Der Spiegel</em> about Kentler’s experiment, which Mar said that he’d been let down by the Berl Senate. After the publitn of Nentwig’s report, Mar wrote to the Senate askg for more rmatn about what had happened to him, but he felt that the Senate was sufficiently rponsive.</p><p class="paywall">Schweer had “offered help om the AfD,” Mar told me. “I immediately said, ‘Not for polil purpos, only bee I want help.’ ”</p><p class="paywall">From the perspective of an AfD polician, Mar’s life story was expedient, a tale about the ways which the German left had got sexual polics wrong. At meetgs of the German parliament, members of the AfD (which won more than twelve per cent of the vote the last natnal electn, beg Germany’s third-largt party) rallied around the Kentler se as a way of forcg left-wg policians to addrs history that did not reflect well on their parti, but also as a barely disguised vehicle for impugng homosexualy. An advocy group affiliated wh the AfD held “Stop Kentler’s sex tn” ralli, to prott the way that sexualy is currently tght German schools. “Kentler’s crimal pedophile spir liv on unbroken today’s sex tn,” a brochure prted by the anizatn explaed.</p><p class="paywall">History seemed to be loopg back on self. Right-wg policians were llg for a return to the kd of “terribly dangero upbrgg” agast which Kentler had rebelled. In s party manifto, the AfD stat that is mted to the “tradnal fay as a guidg prciple,” an ia that associat wh the matenance of Germany’s cultural inty and power. To unteract the flux of immigrants to Germany, “the only mid- and longterm solutn,” the AfD program says, “is to atta a higher birth rate by the native populatn.”</p><p class="paywall">At a hearg Febary, 2018, an AfD reprentative, Thorsten Weiß, plaed that the Senate had not taken rponsibily for Kentler’s crim. “This is a se of polil importance, which also requir polil actn,” he said. “The Senate is double-crossg the victims, and that is a sndal.”</p><p class="paywall">At another hearg, seven months later, Weiß cricized the Senate for beg slow to gather more rmatn about Kentler’s experiment. “We will not allow ernment-sponsored perasty to be swept unr the g,” he said.</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="4c5tch"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa EOneK body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">Two policians om the Green Party, which has champned the rights of sexual mori, acced the AfD of manipulatg the victims. “What the AfD is tryg to do, to stmentalize this crime for s own purpos, is unacceptable,” a reprentative said.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Schweer, the AfD adviser, tried to fd a lawyer who uld advote for Mar a civil lawsu. “I stand up for a iend, the victim of the so-lled Kentler experiment,” he wrote an e-mail to a large Berl law firm. Mar had already filed a crimal plat, but the vtigatn was limed bee Henkel had died 2015. The lead seworker, who retired after workg for the office for more than forty years, exercised his right to rema silent when the police ntacted him. The public prosecutor, Norbert Wkler, nclud that Henkel engaged “ser sexual asslts cludg regular anal terurse,” but he uld not fd evince that anyone at the office was plic. The dilemma, he told me, was that whenever spicns arose the employe at the office “relied on the claims om Mr. Kentler, who was at the time a very renowned person.”</p><p class="paywall">Mar and Sven tried to file civil lawsus agast the state of Berl and the Tempelhof-Schöneberg district, the lotn of the youth-welfare office, for breach of official duti. But, unr civil law, too much time had passed. The AfD asked an expert to analyze whether the statute of limatns had to apply to this se. Berl’s tn senator, Sandra Scheer, a member of the Social Democratic Party, wanted to see if Mar and Sven would accept a pensatn package rather than pursue a lawsu that seemed doomed. She believed that the AfD was givg them bad advice, unnecsarily prolongg their attempt to get money. She told me, “I found que strange how the AfD worked wh the victims—how close their relatnship was, and that they gave legal advice to them. Of urse, is O.K. if the AfD draws attentn to jtic, but what happened here was unmon. I’ve never experienced somethg like .” (Weiß, the AfD reprentative, told me, “I would have been surprised if she had said anythg nice about .” He believ there is still a pedophile work Germany, and that those nnected to “e their polil fluence to make sure that the work remas unr the radar.”)</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image 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21.5558 11.3602 20.9144 12.4648 19.0422L14.4648 15.6521C15.5694 13.78 14.9139 11.3859 13.0007 10.305C12.8127 10.1988 12.6195 10.1091 12.4229 10.0357C12.2195 9.95975 11.9956 10.0515 11.8867 10.236C11.7221 10.5151 11.8911 10.8724 12.1932 11.0008C12.2973 11.0451 12.4 11.0956 12.5007 11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">Mar went to vis one of Henkel’s foster sons om the “first generatn,” as he put , to see if he wanted to jo his and Sven’s legal efforts. The son, whom I’ll ll Samir, lived Henkel’s hoe Brannburg, where the boys had spent summer vatns. The hoe, which had only one room, was ma om beige bricks and seemed to have been assembled too sually—uneven globs of mortar filled each crack. In photographs om the neti, the place is a ms: a plastic bag and half-eaten bread lie on the table; outsi the hoe, an old toaster oven, wh a badmton birdie lyg next to , rts on a yg drser.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-7 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Samir, who is fifty-seven and half Algerian, had not had ntact wh his birth fay for more than forty years. He had changed his last name to Henkel, and taken on a new German first name as well. His half sister, who liv Algeria, told me that she and her sister had tried many tim to get touch wh him, to no avail. He was the foster son whose teractns wh Henkel sparked a crimal vtigatn 1979, when he was fifteen. At the time, a psychologist had given Samir a personaly tt, and Samir had drawn himself as a u tree wter that “lacks all ntact to the nourishg earth.” The psychologist terviewed Henkel, too, and observed that he stggled to hold back his “enormo aggrsive impuls” and, through his foster sons, tried to “make up for somethg that he missed his own past.”</p><p class="paywall">Mar drove to Henkel’s old property and walked toward the hoe. Five-foot hedg now surround . The wdows were vered wh blankets. Mar said, “I wanted to offer him the opportuny to clear thgs up like I had wh Sven, but when I saw that—no, no, no.” Another foster brother, the first to move to Henkel’s home, lived a few away, but Mar cid there was no e visg him, eher. He walked back to his r and drove home.</p><p class="paywall">Wkler, the prosecutor, had sent vtigators to Samir’s home, and he scribed as a “garbage heap.” There was no nng water or electricy. There was barely even clear space to walk. Yet one rner of the hoe was tidy and purposeful. It had been turned to a kd of altar. An urn wh Henkel’s ash was surround by h flowers.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Henkel had n his foster home for thirty years. When he fally shut down, 2003—he hadn’t been assigned a new foster child—Mar was twenty-one. He had nowhere to live. He spent three nights sleepg on bench the park. Wh the help of a chary that assists homels youths, he eventually moved to a subsidized apartment. He sometim stole om grocery stor. “I didn’t know how the world functned,” he told me. “I didn’t even know that you need to pay for the electricy that out of a socket.” He woke up several tim the middle of the night, a hab om his time rg for Marcel Kramer. But, stead of gog to his foster brother’s room, he checked his own body to see, he said, “if everythg is still where should be and that I still exist.” He spent so much time by himself that he had trouble nstctg sentenc.</p><p class="paywall">Sven lived alone a small apartment Berl, too, but, unlike Mar, he stayed touch wh Henkel. “I always thought I owed the man somethg,” he told <em>Der Spiegel</em>, 2017. Mar and Sven lived as they had as adolcents: they spent the day on the puter or watchg TV, rarely speakg to anyone. Sven, who has experienced perds of severe prsn sce he was a child, still liv what he lled a “fortrs of solu,” and he did not want to talk about his past. “I don’t have any more strength,” he told me. “But I n assure you that everythg my brother told you about our time the foster home is one to one—the tth.”</p><p class="paywall">Mar had also existed a kd of hibernatn. But, after five years, he felt as if he were beg a “monster,” he said. “It didn’t go que toward crimal actns, but there was a stctivens, a lack of empathy.” When he was twenty-six, he was on a tra Berl and noticed three men starg at him. Whout makg a nsc cisn, Mar found himself beatg them up. “I should have said, ‘Hey, what are you lookg at?’ ” he said. “But, stead, I immediately fought them. I noticed I actually wanted to kill them.” One of the men end up the emergency room. Mar realized how much his behavr rembled that of his foster father. “It was a Henkel reactn,” he said. “I was a product. I was turng to the thg he had ma.”</p><p class="paywall">Around that time, he was walkg on the street when a female photographer plimented his looks and asked if he’d like to do what Mar lled “hobby mollg.” He agreed and sat for a seri of photographs, adoptg a variety of pos: some pictur, he looks like a chiselled lawyer off to work; others, he is wdswept and preppy. The photographs never led to jobs, but he began hangg out wh the photographer and her iends. He pared the experience to beg a foreigner an exotic untry and fally meetg people who are willg to teach him the language. “I learned normal ways of teractg,” he said.</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="Constctn worker directg crane operator to place tea bag their mug." class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn RponsiveCartoonCred-bKlQqO faLAFb rponsive-rtoon__cred"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT bmQtfn ptn__cred">Cartoon by Will McPhail</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" 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13.78 14.9139 11.3859 13.0007 10.305C12.8127 10.1988 12.6195 10.1091 12.4229 10.0357C12.2195 9.95975 11.9956 10.0515 11.8867 10.236C11.7221 10.5151 11.8911 10.8724 12.1932 11.0008C12.2973 11.0451 12.4 11.0956 12.5007 11.1525C13.9356 11.9632 14.4272 13.7587 13.5988 15.1628L11.5988 18.5529C10.7704 19.957 8.93555 20.4382 7.50068 19.6274C6.0658 18.8167 5.57417 17.0212 6.4026 15.6171L7.6526 13.4983Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178637"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button><div class="AlertWrapper-gvFATk MdjE RponsiveCartoonLkAlertPopup-BPAXn kdMXRM shoppg-alert" role="dialog"><div aria-hidn="te" role="prentatn" class="AlertArrow-daOgye AlLda alert-arrow"></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ AlertMsage-jgAjgo bVCFRm ifgabc iOlxjf alert-msage"><p aria-hidn="te">Lk pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" 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9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">The mollg work spired him to get a haircut, and, at the hair salon, a glamoro woman wh a sprightly, cheerful prence, whom I’ll ll Emma, trimmed his hair. Mar tends to cred his appearance for the pivotal events of his life: he believ his looks were the reason that Henkel chose him—many of Henkel’s sons had dark hair and ey—and, twenty years later, the explanatn for his first ser relatnship. “I was pretty, and she didn’t leave,” he told me, of Emma. He add, only partly jokg, “Some women are jt really to asshole typ, and I was one of those asshole typ.”</p><p class="paywall">At first, he was ristant to a relatnship, but gradually he found Emma’s votn persuasive. More than once, she slept outsi his apartment door. “I noticed that she really lov me, and that life there’s probably only one person who along who will really fight for you,” he said. He tried to blunt his antisocial impuls by rememberg that they were not nate but had been ndned by his upbrgg. “I reprogrammed myself, so to speak,” he said. “I tried to re-raise myself.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">When I vised Mar, May, he and Emma had jt moved om Berl to a new velopment on the cy’s outskirts that he asked me not to name or scribe, bee he didn’t want his neighbors to know about his past. He now has two children, and they were playg wh Emma their large back yard. Insi, Mar listened to medative lounge mic and drank water om the largt ffee mug I’ve ever seen. I had the sense that wh a different childhood Mar might have aged to a fairly jolly middle-aged man. He was playful and earnt and spoke poetilly about his view of the afterlife. He shared his children’s velopmental ton wh nuance and pri. In a gt of hospaly, he asked if I wanted Emma to cut my hair, before apologizg profely and sayg that my hair looked jt fe.</p><p class="paywall">A few days before my vis, the Berl Senate had announced that would missn scholars at the Universy of Hilsheim, who had published the prelimary report 2020, to do a follow-up report about pedophile-n foster hom other parts of Germany. Sandra Scheer, the senator for tn, had apologized to Mar and Sven, and the Senate offered them more than fifty thoand ros— Germany, where pensatn for damag is much lower than is the Uned Stat, this was seen as a signifint amount.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-8 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Christoph Schweer, the AfD adviser, had urged Mar and Sven to keep fightg, but Mar uldn’t unrstand why. “We have gotten our wish, so there’s no pot further irratg or tyrannizg the Senate,” he told me. But Schweer kept phg him, Mar said. (Schweer ni this.) “Then I slowly got spic. I asked myself, What else should I want? That’s when I got the feelg that the AfD jt wants to e me, to play me up. And I said, ‘I don’t want to be a polil tool. I don’t want to get pulled to an electn mpaign.’ ” He dropped his lawsu and accepted the Senate’s offer. His only remag goal is that, the upg report, all the nam of people volved rryg out Kentler’s experiment be revealed. (Schweer said that he had been supportg Mar as a “private person,” not on behalf of the AfD. He also told me, “I have new ias, but for [Mar] ’s over.”)</p><p class="paywall">Mar and Emma were gettg married at the end of the month, and he didn’t want to thk about his past. “I jt wanted to end the whole thg, to have this chapter closed,” he said. He planned to take Emma’s last name. He hadn’t spoken wh his birth parents or his brother sce he was ten, and now he would bee nearly untraceable. He had tried to Google his brother once, but he nsired the ia of a rnn to be a waste of emotnal rourc that he uld vote to his children. “It wouldn’t brg me anythg, anyway,” he said. “The perd of beg shaped by my mother is over.”</p><p class="paywall">At the end of my vis, Mar’s weddg rg arrived the mail. Emma shrieked wh joy, but Mar held the rg his hand dispassnately and joked that he had to marry eventually, so he might as well do now. He disguised his obv tenrns toward her wh a show of difference that Emma apparently knew not to take serly. “The are jt the fics that I have,” he said, referrg to the lack of emotn. “I’ll get through . It don’t matter.”</p><p class="paywall">Three weeks later, on the eve of his weddg, he e-mailed me. “In an hour around 10 a.m. we will drive to the registry office,” he wrote. “Symbolilly, a new life begs.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">After leavg Henkel’s home, Mar had ntact wh him only two tim. The first time, when Mar was his mid-twenti, Henkel sudnly lled. He appeared to have veloped some sort of mentia. He asked if Mar had remembered to feed their rabbs.</p><p class="paywall">The next time was 2015, when Emma was pregnant wh their first child. Mar drove to a clic Brannburg where he’d heard that Henkel was hospice, dyg of ncer. Mar opened the door to Henkel’s room. He saw Henkel lyg bed, groang pa. He had a long, wizard-like beard and looked to Mar as if he were posssed. Mar gazed at him for ls than five sends, long enough to nfirm that he was actually dyg. Then he turned around, closed the door, and walked out of the hospal.</p><p class="paywall">After Mar got home, the rad his kchen was playg, but he didn’t remember havg turned on. A sger repeated the phrase “I’m sorry.” He felt as if Henkel were tryg to get touch wh him. “I beme a ltle b crazy,” he told me. “I thought Henkel was a ghost who was followg me, hntg me. It was fely him: he was tryg to apologize.”</p><p class="paywall">Henkel died the next day. Mar entered a state of grief so fluid and expansive that, for the first time, he cried over the ath of his foster brother Marcel Kramer. He had la bed wh Kramer for an hour after he died, holdg a kd of vigil; then he cut off one of Kramer’s curls, so that he’d have somethg to remember him by. But he had never properly mourned him. Sudnly, “the blockage disappeared,” he said. He realized why he hadn’t left Henkel’s home when he turned eighteen. “I was bound to the fay by Marcel Kramer,” he said. “I would have never left him behd.”</p><p class="paywall">A few weeks after Henkel’s ath, the sense of beg hnted began to rece. “The eedom me slowly,” Mar told me. “It was like a hunger that grows stronger and stronger. I don’t know how to say , but was the first time that I figured out that I am livg a life wh a billn different possibili. I uld have been anythg. My ner voice beme stronger, my tun that I don’t have to live my life the way he tght me, that I n keep gog.” ♦</p><le-embed name="" attrs="[object Object]" childTyp="" ntentType="llout:"><hr class="paywall"/><h2 class="paywall">New Yorker Favor</h2><ul class="paywall"><li>The <a href=">day the dosrs died</a>.</li><li>What if you uld <a href=">do all over</a>?</li><li>A spense novelist leav a <a href=">trail of ceptns</a>.</li><li>The <a href=">art of dyg</a>.</li><li>Can <a href=">readg make you happier</a>?</li><li>A simple gui to <a href=">tote-bag etiquette</a>.</li><li>Sign up for our daily <a href=">newsletter</a> to receive the bt stori om <em>The New Yorker</em>.</li></ul></le-embed></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="7s9u"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS kLQIUk grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__le-barrier article__body"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"><asi class="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper-iBnuqk lfXXa-D" data-ttid="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-le-barrier" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--paywall-le-barrier"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></asi></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ContentWrapperGrid-fvkmBv brYtrA grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__ntaer"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"></div></div></div></div></div></div></article><div class="ContentFooterWrapper-jVNdRG dTJkpP ArticlePageContentFooterGrid-ccsXYy eMZRHU article-body__footer"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><footer class="ContentFooterMagazeDisclaimer-gzKAqo iZIuUU" data-ttid="MagazeDisclaimerWrapper">Published the prt edn of the <a href="/magaze/2021/07/26" data-reactroot="">July 26, 2021</a>, issue, wh the headle “The Kentler Experiment.”</footer></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="ContributorsWrapper-eNpWFu GWFsc ntributors" data-ttid="Contributors"><div class="ContributorBWrapper-bnVHbt gMon"><div class="ContributorBAvatar-bIGTqf eMWbvj"><a href="/ntributors/rachel-aviv"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></span></a></div><div class="ContributorBContent-ubQdr jZTSSi"><div class="ContributorBHear-ledood XOIEx"></div><div class="ContributorBB-fBolsO giFhKz"><a href="/ntributors/rachel-aviv">Rachel Aviv</a> is a staff wrer at The New Yorker. 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rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz ktcjQn"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="The Tortured Bond of Alice Sebold and the Man Wrongfully Convicted of Her Rape" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN lapGFj summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Profil</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM dVrbhU summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ fzzTdh summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">The Tortured Bond of Alice Sebold and the Man Wrongfully Convicted of Her Rape</div></a><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd kxnNhB jDyfzW summary-em__k">Anthony Broadwater spent sixteen years prison and twenty-two more as a registered sex offenr. For him and for the thor of “The Lovely Bon,” jtice is a difficult dream.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Rachel Aviv</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hNpSyX summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below summary-em--layout-posn-image-left summary-em--layout-proportns-50-50 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm hKqhyj" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb cPpCwE summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz ktcjQn"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="The Novelist Whose Inventns Went Too Far" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN lapGFj summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Life and Letters</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM dVrbhU summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ fzzTdh summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">The Novelist Whose Inventns Went Too Far</div></a><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd kxnNhB jDyfzW summary-em__k">After the Ao-Cuban wrer H. G. Carrillo died, his hband learned that almost everythg the wrer had shared about his life was ma up—cludg his Cuban inty.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>D. T. Max</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hNpSyX summary-em summary-em--ARTICLE summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below summary-em--layout-posn-image-left summary-em--layout-proportns-50-50 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm hKqhyj" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb cPpCwE summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href=" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz ktcjQn"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg bDvSkO summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Why Everyone Feels Like They’re Fakg It" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl XMZX summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN lapGFj summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Annals of Psychology</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM dVrbhU summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-4" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href=" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ fzzTdh summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Why Everyone Feels Like They’re Fakg It</div></a><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd kxnNhB jDyfzW summary-em__k">The ncept of Impostor Syndrome has bee ubiquo. Crics, and even the ia’s origators, qutn s value.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi cuRXdL summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Llie Jamison</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm hKqhyj ad ad--read-more"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--read-more" data-no-id="5qmqwu"></div></div></div><div class="SummaryCollectnGridToActnWrapper-gnReGN eGayfk"></div></div></div></div></div></div><div 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