German anatomist Gunther von Hagens, creator of Body Worlds, dies at 81

Claims

What the coverage asserts, and how well corroborated each claim is across sources.

• [● 23 SOURCES] More than 58 million people worldwide have visited Body Worlds exhibitions. (Institute for Plastination)
• [● 21 SOURCES] Gunther von Hagens invented the plastination technique in the 1970s. (Institute for Plastination)
• [● 22 SOURCES] Gunther von Hagens was born on 10 January 1945 in Alt‑Skalden (now Poznań, Poland) as Gunther Liebchen. (biographical records)
• [● 21 SOURCES] Gunther von Hagens founded the Institute for Plastination in Heidelberg in 1993. (Institute for Plastination press release)
• [● 24 SOURCES] Gunther von Hagens suffered from Parkinson’s disease for many years. (family statement)
• [● 15 SOURCES] Gunther von Hagens’s family intends to plastinate his body according to his wish. (family statement)
• [● 18 SOURCES] He was imprisoned in the DDR and later bought by West Germany for 40,000 DM. (T)
• [● 26 SOURCES] Gunther von Hagens died on 24 July 2026 at age 81. (multiple reports)
• [● 2 SOURCES] The family may display his plastinated body at the Plastinarium museum in Guben. (confirmed)
• [● 18 SOURCES] His family intends to fulfill his wish to be plastinated after death. (T)
• [● 2 SOURCES] He founded the Institute for Plastination and later Gubener Plastinate GmbH. (extracted)
• [● 6 SOURCES] The Body Worlds exhibition first went on show in Japan in 1995. (Institute for Plastination)