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The Man with the Camera

Achim Lippoth : The photographer Achim Lippoth denies the allegations made against him of sexual abuse of minors.

The photographer Achim Lippoth denies the allegations made against him of sexual abuse of minors. © Chenyue Yuan

He is perhaps the best-known child photographer in the world. But those who know Achim Lippoth have long suspected that he has sexually abused children. He denies it. Von Daniel Müller und Lena Niethammer

DIE ZEIT Nr. 22/2022

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There are quotes whose meaning changes over time. Not because their content changes, but because our view of it shifts. The following words, spoken by photographer Achim Lippoth in 2008, is one such quote. In an interview that year, he said:

"Although I wish that childhood could be a special time, a pure time and freed from the traumas of the adult world, it is not possible. No one can shelter children from the horrors and distraction of the contemporary world."

When that quote was published in the photography magazine Eyemazing, it seemed to express real concern, even resignation. But those who have spent the past several months focusing on Lippoth can’t help but be concerned that something else might be behind those words. Arrogance, perhaps. A feeling of untouchability.

Achim Lippoth is likely the best-known and most distinguished photographer of children working today. His images have appeared in the pages of some of the most important publications in the world: The New York Times, Vogue, Der Spiegel and the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, and in DIE ZEIT and ZEITmagazin. Lippoth has shot campaigns for Dolce & Gabbana, Kinder Chocolate, Zara and McDonald’s. He has won five Lions in Cannes and launched one of the most celebrated magazines for children’s fashion: Kid’s Wear.

Few other photographers can capture childhood like he does. Although his photos are posed, his images exude the unselfconsciousness of youth. His photos are so authentic that viewers are immediately overwhelmed by memories of their own childhoods.

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Achim Lippoth has spent the last 10 months in investigative custody. For decades, say prosecutors, he didn’t just photograph children, he also sexually abused them. Lippoth denies the accusations, but the recriminations are weighty. The trial is set to begin on May 31 in Cologne, and the indictment from public prosecutors lists 17 offenses committed between 1999 and 2021: one charge of owning child pornography, 12 instances of aggravated sexual assault, and four of sexual assault. According to the indictment, the abuse involves six children.

Achim Lippoth: The Man with the Camera

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ZEITmagazin has conducted exclusive interviews with dozens of people from Lippoth’s orbit, including colleagues, employees, his agent, his father and officials, in addition to alleged victims and their parents. Many of them were never approached by investigators. And two alleged victims are not included in the indictment.

Behind the story

The World Health Organization believes that one or two children in every classroom has experienced sexual violence. Child protection experts, psychologists and investigators are convinced that society cannot fully understand the problem if the specifics of such abuse are not explicitly discussed. Because the perpetrators should not be protected, we made the decision to explicitly describe some of the transgressions that were allegedly committed.

It is the story of a man who knew how to manipulate those around him with money and status, and to use them for the most abhorrent of deeds. Of alleged victims who remained unheard or who have only just managed to find their voices, and of people who could have stopped him long ago if they had looked more closely, including parents, public officials and co-workers. And of those who harbored suspicions, yet ultimately felt they could do nothing more than stand by helplessly.

We’ll start with the latter.

HELPLESSNESS

Katharina Koppenwallner met Achim Lippoth through her work as a stylist. It was in the mid-1990s; she was in her early 30s and he was in his late 20s. Lippoth had just launched Kid’s Wear, a magazine he hoped to turn into a worthy competitor of Vogue Bambini, the Italian children’s Vogue, which was the only relevant publication for children’s fashion at the time. He wanted to take the photos and for Koppenwallner to be the editor-in-chief.

Koppenwallner describes Lippoth as someone who gets what he wants. He was unyielding, she says, but it was a quality that led him to make things happen. And she found it appealing. When she suggested to shoot a series in Brazil in the style of photographer Mario Testino, they flew there. When Lippoth needed a sumptuously set table for a shoot in some hotel, it would appear a short time later.

Initially, she also got along with him well outside of work, she relates during a chat in the Mitte district of Berlin. He would always make wicked jokes about others, she says, which not everybody liked. But she found him funny and referred to him as "brazen." Only over time did she begin noticing behavioral patterns that slowly coalesced into suspicion.

During photoshoots, Lippoth would treat pre-pubescent boys, between eight and 12 years old, differently from other children. He would try to get close to them and roughhouse with them, she says, and he always wanted them to sit in his lap. After finishing the shoot, he would invite them for a ride in his Porsche or would take them to Phantasialand, a theme park. "He always behaved a bit as if he were one of them," says Koppenwallner. "Except that he was the one with the Porsche and the power."

She also saw a difference in the photos. Girls would remain childish in Lippoth’s photos, but boys would be presented "sexier," with more bare skin, different poses and more sweat. It can be clearly seen in photo series from the period. Koppenwallner remembers once going over the images from a shoot together. The subject was Nicolas, one of Lippoth’s favorite boys at the time. He was wearing underwear or a bathing suit, leaning against a motorhome as he looked into the camera, a lascivious expression on his face. You should really be sent to prison for that photo, Koppenwallner recalls telling Lippoth. It’s not my fault, Lippoth responded mischievously; the photo, she remembers him telling her, arose out of the situation.

Looking back, Koppenwallner says she believes she was naïve. At the time, she remembers thinking that Lippoth had pedophilic preferences, but she thought he wasn’t acting on them. She pauses. "Of course, I would no longer think that way today."

In early 2003, she introduced Lippoth to an acquaintance, Marc Schulze-Niestroy, who was 33 years old. Kid’s Wear had grown to become a favorite in the industry. Circulation was only around 30,000 copies per issue, but it was winning a number of prestigious awards, including Lead Awards and ADC awards, which recognizes magazines with avant-garde aspirations. Famous photographers and writers were eager to work for the publication and fashion labels were keen on placing ads in its pages. Marc Schulze-Niestroy would become Kid’s Wear’s new managing director.

At the time, says Schulze-Niestroy, everyone in the office would make occasional jokes about Lippoth’s fondness for young boys.

Schulze-Niestroy found it peculiar that the photographer’s favorite boys – the ones that received the most bookings, earned the most money and enjoyed the most privileges, the ones with whose parents Lippoth became friendly – would suddenly vanish. Take Nicolas. "It was Nicolas here, Nicolas there. Everything was great and a wonderful friendship. And suddenly, there was no more talk of Nicolas. And if you asked: ‘What happened to Nicolas?’, it was: ‘Oh, he’s doing something else now…’"

He and Koppenwallner wondered about what to make of it. Perhaps Lippoth grew too close to Nicolas and the parents had become uncomfortable? They still weren’t thinking of sexual abuse, but more along the lines of invasive contact.

One morning in late 2003, both Schulze-Niestroy and Koppenwallner received phone calls from co-workers who told them that the police had shown up and were seizing the computers. A criminal complaint had been filed against Lippoth for child molestation, the first of three that ultimately led nowhere. A mother, who was not named, had claimed that Lippoth had photographed her son naked and touched him during the shoot.

"Nobody could brush it off anymore. Everyone knew that it was true," says Schulze-Niestroy.

He was the first to do something about it. A few days after Lippoth stood before his employees and nonchalantly claimed that the accusations were without merit and that his furniture dealer, who wanted to harm him, was behind it, Schulze-Niestroy quit. He says he told Lippoth "fuck you" before he walked out.

Koppenwallner took a different tack. Because she was convinced that perpetrators had frequently been victims themselves, she wanted to give Lippoth the opportunity to respond. She says she set up a meeting with him in a restaurant. Casually, as if she had just randomly read something about it, she began telling him about a program that was just beginning at the Charité, Berlin’s renowned university hospital. The program for pedophiles who wanted to ensure that they never acted on their proclivities. She carefully asked him whether he had such tendencies. "I wanted to make it clear to him that if he admitted to such propensities, I would support him. And it was also clear, naturally, that if he didn’t admit to them, I wouldn’t stand behind him." She says that Lippoth froze immediately. He responded, "No," according to her recollection. After the meal, she says, it was obvious to both that neither of them was interested in continuing their professional relationship.

When Koppenwallner and Schulze-Niestroy learned a short time later that the legal proceedings stemming from the anonymous complaint had been suspended, they were initially incredulous, then angry and, at some point, they simply felt helpless. They were incredulous that the police didn’t at least investigate. Angry that they had worked for Lippoth for so long – and at their former co-workers, because it seemed as though they had simply forgotten the complaint had never existed. And they felt helpless because: Who would stop him?

"It was quite a shock for me," says Schulze-Niestroy. "I was completely convinced that everyone would quit, that it would be the end of the road for him."

In desperation, and against the advice of his lawyer, who was concerned that Lippoth could sue him for character assassination, Schulze-Niestroy wrote a letter to public prosecutors in Cologne saying he was convinced that Lippoth was a practicing pedophile and that he wanted his letter to be added to the files, even if he had no proof. He received no reply. Koppenwallner, for her part, says she wrote Lippoth’s agent, who merely responded that so long as there was no proof, there was no proof. When contacted by ZEITmagazin, the agent denied ever having received the letter.

In 2013, 10 years after Koppenwallner and Schulze-Niestroy, Max Valentin began an internship with Lippoth. He was 19 years old and had just finished high school.

Valentin is sitting on a bench in the Shoreditch neighborhood of London as he tells his story. He is now 29 years old, has large glasses and wears his curly hair in a mullet. He has since found success himself as a fashion photographer. Because he is concerned that his name could become linked with the sexual abuse of children, we have changed his name for this story.

Valentin says that, looking back, there were signs from the very beginning – even if he didn’t perceive them as such at the time. For example, the fact that his main task as an intern was to expand the child registry. He was supposed to cast children from the street, and Lippoth wanted Valentin to focus his efforts primarily on the poorer neighborhoods of Cologne.

Or the television. During the first part of the year that Valentin worked for Lippoth, the photographer’s favorite boy had been Samuel, the 14-year-old son of Lippoth’s girlfriend at the time. Then, Lippoth suddenly said that Samuel was too old for the registry. Valentin says that he and Lippoth took Samuel to Saturn to buy Samuel a television.

Valentin says he couldn’t understand at the time why Samuel had seemed so sad. "It was an awesome TV! Really the best. I was totally confused. I thought we had just bought Samuel a television for 3,000 euros and he didn’t even want to say thank you."

Now, though, he has a different view of the incident. "A typical Michael Jackson gift, a bargaining chip, compensation, bribery. I don’t know how else to interpret it."

Then, on Nov. 7, 2013, Lippoth asked him and an assistant to move boxes from a rented basement space to a new one. It was the day that the relationship between Lippoth and Valentin would come to an end.

Valentin lifted one of the boxes and wondered why it was so heavy. He waited until he was alone in the basement for a moment and tore off the tape.

"I opened the box and the first thing I saw was the photo of a child whose anus was being penetrated by two fingers." He says he started sweating and his heartrate spiked to 180. Shock.

He grabbed the first six or seven photos and looked at them, glossy photos of two girls showing their vulvas and several photos of child penises. There were many more photos in the box, he says, but he wasn’t able to look at any more of them. The assistant returned and Valentin quickly closed the box.

Everything okay? Yeah, fine, said Valentin. When the assistant left the basement for a moment, Valentin grabbed his mobile phone and started taking pictures: the basement, the boxes inside and five or six pictures of the topmost photos. ZEITmagazin is in possession of the pictures.

Both had a car, and Valentin was careful to load the opened box into his vehicle. They then drove off to the new basement.

"I was thinking: What do I do?! I was panicked that Achim would see that I had torn open the tape. Covered in sweat, I drove to a store, bought new tape and closed up the box just as I had found it. But that meant that I got there 10 minutes late."

Valentin says that during those 10 minutes, Lippoth had called him constantly. Where are you? What’s holding you up? When are you going to get here? "Looking back, it was the saddest day of my life. I should have just taken the boxes and gone to the police."

When he arrived, says Valentin, Lippoth was waiting for him. He specifically grabbed three of the boxes in the cars, says Valentin, including the one he had looked into. And then he drove off.

"I told the assistant: There were photos … Achim is taking them away, we have to stop him! He’s taking the boxes away! It can’t be!" says Valentin. The assistant then told him that Lippoth had called when they were in the old basement and said he should keep an eye on Valentin and make sure he didn’t look inside any of the boxes. The assistant confirmed much of Valentin’s story to ZEITmagazin, though he said he could no longer recall specific details. "I just did my job and didn’t see anything," he said.

The next day, Valentin went to the police to file a complaint for possession of child pornography and called in sick to work. He would never return, and even left Germany entirely a short time later. First, he went to New York for six months and then moved to London. At some point, he stopped thinking about Lippoth entirely.

Until, that is, he returned to Cologne for a one-day visit, two or three years later. He was on his bicycle waiting at a red light when he noticed that a Porsche had stopped next to him and then backed up a bit, as though the driver wanted to avoid waiting next to him. Valentin turned around, saw the license plate and then looked more closely. He recognized Lippoth behind the wheel and Collin – nine, maybe 10 years old, his favorite after Samuel – in the passenger seat. "I thought, how can it be that Collin is alone with him in a car without his mother?"

Through contacts, Valentin learned that the investigation into Lippoth had been suspended. The files from that investigation indicate that the photos from the box had been taken by Will McBride, a famous photographer. The pictures had been published in his controversial – but, in Germany, legal – "educational" 1974 book, "Show Me!" Ownership of the book is illegal in some U.S. states, but it was never indexed in Germany, despite significant protests.

When Valentin again ran into Lippoth half a year later, and Lippoth once again had Collin with him, Valentin says he wanted to intervene. The incident took place in Soho House in Berlin, a members-only club and hotel. Valentin was just leaving when he saw Lippoth and Collin going in. They briefly exchanged glances. Now is the time, he thought to himself. He quickly said goodbye to a friend, but when he turned back to where Lippoth and Collin had been, they were gone.

While watching a Spiegel TV documentary a short time later about the investigation into the Social Democratic politician Sebastian Edathy over possession of child pornography, Valentin learned of a publishing house called Pojkart. The publishing house was linked to the company from which Edathy had bought photos of young boys. Valentin started googling Pojkart, and he found what he was looking for. On eBay, he came across a photobook from the publishing house which included images of boys posing on a bed, a sheet covering their privates. The book was called "Children in Front of the Camera." Author: A. Lippoth.

Now I’ve got him, Valentin thought.

He described the book to the police, but to his surprise, they weren’t interested.

Valentin continued to periodically conduct research into Lippoth over the ensuing months. He met with his former co-workers to learn if they had noticed anything. He set up an Instagram account under the name A. Lippoth, uploaded the photos from the book he had found and followed all those who also followed Lippoth’s real account. At some point, a colleague wrote him that he should be careful. During this period in 2017, Valentin also got in touch with several journalists from German and international newsmagazines, including from ZEITmagazin.

Lippoth is no stranger to ZEITmagazin. He worked on commission for DIE ZEIT and ZEITmagazin on a handful of occasions between 2005 and 2010. In 2007, Lippoth took photos for a DIE ZEIT cover story about gender roles among children. That same year, he also took photos for a long story about fatherhood in the now defunct ZEITmagazin Leben. In 2010, he provided images for a ZEITmagazin cover story on the difficulties of being parents. There was one boy and one girl involved in all three photoshoots. To the best of ZEITmagazin’s knowledge, the children are not among the photographer’s alleged victims.

MISDEEDS

On the afternoon of Aug. 11, 2021, Nicolas Bernardi, 30, received an email from the Cologne police with the subject line "Investigation into Achim Lippoth." It was immediately clear to him what it was likely about.

Two days passed before he worked up the courage to open the email. The investigators were asking him if he had anything to contribute to the investigation, the focus of which was child sexual abuse.

Six weeks later, he and his brother, two years younger, were sitting in a car and heading for Cologne. They weren’t talking about what had happened, but Bernardi could see that his brother was struggling. They had never spoken with each other about their experiences with Lippoth, but when Bernardi told him about the email, his brother, Louis, didn’t seem surprised by the investigation either. "We just knew," says Bernardi.

At the station, the police recorded their personal details, then they were interviewed separately, each for about 45 minutes. Bernardi still remembers the extremely detailed follow-up questions that led him to suspect just how much further Lippoth may have gone with others. He also recalls the file that was lying on the table, so thick that it had to be bound together with a belt.

That was eight months ago. "May I," Bernardi asks, looking at a large, blue box sitting on one end of the table. He is sitting in a roomy, modern apartment in a European country that is not Germany. It is important to him that none of those around him learn of his experiences. His name and that of his brother have been changed for this story and places have also been concealed. All additional alleged victims and their family members have also been anonymized by ZEITmagazin.

The blue box contains Bernardi’s past as a child model for Lippoth. He begins pulling out photos, negatives and old pamphlets in which he or his brother can be seen. Soon, they cover the entire table.

He picks up a small catalogue from a fashion label. His first photoshoot.

"That must have been around 2000." Bernardi was eight years old.

Lippoth had traveled in for the shoot but hadn’t brought along enough child models. So he spontaneously sent two assistants to a nearby school to cast more children. The next day, the brothers were told that they had been chosen. Bernardi remembers Lippoth standing in the door later to pick them up. In the background, was his Porsche, along with a young boy in the passenger seat.

The brothers had fun at the photoshoot, which involved taking pictures outside next to a cabin. For three years, the brothers became some of the most-photographed children of Lippoth’s career. They traveled to Cologne several times a year, initially with their parents, who slowly became friends with the photographer. At some point, the boys were allowed to go to Cologne on their own. They would be paid a few hundred euros for each shoot and then spend the night in Lippoth’s apartment.

"I never felt uncomfortable," says Bernardi. "Achim always made sure we had what we needed. That was also the reason why I never said anything, because I saw it as a really cool time."

When they were at the studio, they only had to pose for photos for half an hour. The rest of the time, they could play video games in the gaming room. And there was always a small cart with sweets and cola.

The assault allegedly took place in fall 2002. He, his brother and Lippoth were heading south from Cologne by car, on their way to a Mediterranean island. Two photoshoots were planned, one for Kid’s Wear and another for a fashion label.  A single mother was also coming along with her children and Lippoth’s assistants, but they were travelling in a campervan. As a result, Lippoth, Bernardi and his brother were soon far ahead of the others, and the three of them spent that first night in a hotel in a seaside city.

Bernardi describes how tired they all were when they arrived at the hotel that evening. Lippoth, though, made him and his brother to take a shower anyway, and they were told to leave the bathroom door open. As he, Bernardi, was still standing under the water, Lippoth appeared in the bathroom door and asked them, to Bernardi’s surprise, if they had really washed themselves well. When Bernardi was getting dressed, pulling his pajama bottoms up over his underpants, Lippoth again intervened. That’s not how you do it, he allegedly said, you don’t wear underpants under pajamas. Bernardi was again surprised, but took off his underpants.

They then went to bed, he says as he grabs a sheet of paper to draw the room. To the left, he says, was the bathroom. Right next to the bathroom was a sofa bed, where his brother slept. To the right was a double bed, he says, where he and Lippoth slept – just as Lippoth had wanted, he adds.

His next memory from that night is of suddenly waking up. He was lying on his back, his pajamas had been pulled down. Lippoth was in the process of performing oral sex on him.

He shows how he reacted at the time, his body tense, his eyes wide open.

"I didn’t move, because I didn’t want him to notice that I had noticed anything."

Minutes passed during which Bernardi simply endured and gathered his courage. Then, hoping that Lippoth would think it was a natural movement, he turned onto his side, his face toward the wall, his back to Lippoth. Lippoth, though, tried to turn him onto his back again, says Bernardi, but he resisted. When Lippoth then got up and went into the bathroom, he quickly pulled up his pajamas. At some point, he says, he fell back to sleep.

Bernardi says that his memories of the rest of the trip are hazy. Of Lippoth, who simply acted as though nothing had happened. Of the others in the camper, where the brothers slept the following nights. There was the sparse landscape, the river where they played and the camera that followed them around. Lippoth was constantly taking pictures, with some of them later ending up in Kid’s Wear.

He says they slept at Lippoth’s place many times after that trip, but that nothing happened except on that one occasion. He hesitates for a second and then corrects himself. "Actually, I should say: I only woke up once."

Bernardi’s narrative can largely be verified through photos and with the help of former employees, including the stylist who initially cast Bernardi and the assistant who was along for the trip to the island. Koppenwallner and Schulze-Niestroy also helped out. There is, though, no witness for what happened in the hotel that night. Lippoth denies the accusations and Bernardi’s brother was asleep. It’s one person’s testimony against another’s.

But in 2021, the police spoke with five other boys who claim to have been sexually abused by Lippoth.

One of them is Louis Bernardi, Nicolas’s brother. He told the police that Lippoth performed oral sex on him, allegedly in Lippoth’s apartment in Cologne. On another occasion, Lippoth allegedly masturbated while touching Louis’s penis.

Another is Ben Hippe, the son of an employee of Lippoth’s. He told the police of a trip in spring 1999 to Disney World in Orlando, Florida, saying that Lippoth penetrated him with a finger in a swimming pool.

Malte Thole was also a child model for Lippoth. Over the course of several years, his parents would send him alone on vacations with Lippoth. The alleged sexual abuse perpetrated on him in the years 2003 and 2006 are described in the indictment, which ZEITmagazin has seen, in almost unbearable detail. On a trip to the Maldives, the defendant allegedly laid the boy across the edge of the bathtub and penetrated him anally – and continued "despite pain" experienced by the child.

Samuel Wehmann, the boy for whom Valentin bought the television, told the police of an incident of mutual masturbation in 2012.

And then there is Collin Zapfe, the favored child Valentin repeatedly saw together with Lippoth. It was Zapfe who went to the police in summer 2021 when he could no longer stand it – triggering the investigation. Most of the abusive acts listed in the indictment were performed on him. The allegations go from repeated oral sex to attempted anal sex. One time, Collin was allegedly forced to lie on a bed with his legs spread. Another time, Lippoth allegedly made a video of the abuse.

ZEITmagazin approached Lippoth with all of the accusations, but he declined to provide comment. A warning from his media lawyer from July 15, 2021, pertaining to the investigation into suspicions of the sexual abuse of minors, reads: "The accusations are denied by our client."

ZEITmagazin’s reporting has revealed that there could be even more alleged victims.

POWER

For five long minutes after the name Achim Lippoth is mentioned, only heavy breathing can be heard through the telephone. "How did you find me?" asks Matthias Loibl.

Oberrot is a community of 3,600 near Schwäbisch Hall, just outside Stuttgart. It has two churches and a sawmill. The Way of St. James, a famous pilgrimage route, leads through town, and the local football club puts on a summer camp for girls and boys. It is the team for which Achim Lippoth played many years ago. And Oberrot is where Mathias Loibl grew up.

Loibl slumps into an old easy chair. He is 47 years old, just six years younger than Lippoth. Until today, he had only ever spoken with his ex-wife and with Lippoth himself about the allegations. Never with the police.

"I think I was his first victim," he says.

He was 10 or 11 at the time, he says, and Lippoth was 16 or 17. Loibl’s parents had asked the Lippoth family if Achim could look after the younger Loibl from time to time. Lippoth had wanted to teach Loibl how to scuba dive in his parent’s pool, says Loibl, adding that he thought it was great at first. But then, he says, he slowly started wondering why Lippoth would use every possible excuse to touch him. He says it was mostly harmless contact, almost incidental, as they were putting on diving gear, for example, or taking off the wetsuit and adjusting masks. Loibl says he now believes that the contact was Lippoth’s way of trying to figure out if Loibl would resist what came next.

One day, they happened past a farmer’s barn. As they were roughhousing in the hayloft inside, Loibl says that Lippoth suddenly pulled him down and rubbed himself naked against him. At some point, he felt something wet and Lippoth then stopped.

He says it took him several minutes before he was able to separate himself from Lippoth. The older boy then told Loibl that the incident had to remain between them, and Loibl answered that he didn’t need to worry.

Loibl says that at least two more assaults similar to this one took place in the ensuing months. He tried to avoid having to go to Lippoth anymore, pretending that he was sick when his parents tried to send him.

He says that in the years that followed, he slowly but surely lost control of his life. He could no longer concentrate, avoided swimming pools, steered clear of girls and did so poorly in school that he had to be sent to a special school.

His allegations cannot be verified. Loibl and Lippoth were always alone when the assaults took place.

Twenty years passed before Loibl decided that he had to do something. It was a time when he was reading a lot about other such cases, where the victims were never able to come to terms with what they had experienced. "I didn’t want to end like that. I wanted to get my life under control. And more than anything, I no longer wanted to be in this inferior position."

He was convinced that it made no sense to go to the police, certain that the statute of limitations had already passed. So Loibl began searching the internet for Lippoth. He was able to find out where Lippoth lived, where he worked and with whom. He wrote down the addresses.

On July 29, 2010, a Thursday, Loibl, 36 by then, drove to Cologne to have a look at the places he had found. He took a look at the studio, at the garage and at the surroundings. He even walked into the studio, consumed by fear, but an employee led him back out, saying it was only possible to meet with Achim with an appointment. The employee demanded to know who he was, but Loibl says he just turned around and walked out. Outside, he took a picture, which ZEITmagazin has obtained. An employee also recalls a visit from a strange man whose description matches Loibl’s. Another employee says that Lippoth installed a lock afterward so that nobody else could simply walk into the office.

Loibl says that he realized after that visit that he had to make better plans before confronting Lippoth. He says he set up a cryptic email address and used it to write to Lippoth. He never said who he was in his emails, just that Lippoth knew him well and that there was an incident he had thinking about for several years. Lippoth even responded, Loibl says. They exchanged a few emails, and then a meeting between the two of them was arranged at a restaurant in Frankfurt.

Loibl no longer has the email address.

Loibl said he was immediately bothered by how uncannily relaxed Lippoth seemed when they finally met face to face, as though it was the most natural thing in the world to see Loibl. Loibl then requested that they go inside. From the very first moment, he wanted to be the one to set the tone.

They sat at a table in the very back corner of the restaurant.

"The entire time, I was trying to lead the conversation – calmly, yet assertively. And I just kept asking him questions. How he felt when I was forced to lie on him. How he felt when he came and when he used me to climax. How he felt when he made me put my hand on his member. Questions like that, over and over again. I wanted him to feel at least a little bit guilty, and I needed to understand for myself that it wasn’t me who was guilty, that I had just been used by him."

Lippoth, he says, mostly just sat in silence. "Maybe he thought I was recording our conversation and he didn’t want to admit anything." He says that Lippoth essentially confessed when he didn’t protest as Loibl demanded 75,000 euros in compensation for personal suffering. Lippoth merely asked, says Loibl, if he could then be certain that Loibl would stay quiet once he had his money. Loibl told him that he would stick to his word.

Loibl says he received the money within two days. A stack of 500-euro notes as thick as his thumb, enclosed in a light-brown envelope. An eyewitness who is not linked to Loibl in any way and whose identity must be protected, confirmed to ZEITmagazin that the handover had taken place in Frankfurt. He was watching as the envelope changed hands.

The money has long since been spent. Loibl took a couple of nice trips, invested a bit in his company and donated some of it as well. He says he also bought himself a complete set of scuba gear. He just doesn’t know why.

He is happy that he took the path he did, says Loibl, for the way that it reversed the power equation. But the money never really felt quite right, he says. When you get money for something you’ve achieved, he says, you can be happy about it. But in this case, he didn’t do anything for the money for which he could be proud. Rather, he had done something that he had never wanted to do in the first place.

HERITAGE

Just a few kilometers away, Lippoth’s father is sitting in a blue lawn chair on the terrace of his small, ground-floor apartment. Nobody in Oberrot yet knows of the allegations against his son. And the father himself doesn’t know much either. His son, he says, has only told him of one charge since his arrest last year. Lippoth’s mother passed away 11 years ago.

Achim is an only child. Because his parents owned several restaurants, he was largely raised by his grandfather. Even when he was young, other children were crazy about him, says his father. He talks of the large pool that they had at the time. Children from the entire village, he says, would come with their parents to go swimming.

Achim played right wing on his football team and was quite fast, says the father. First in Oberrot and then in Schwäbisch Hall and then with VfB Stuttgart. Later, when he was 17 or 18, he went to a soccer school in Manchester. There are still old team photos of him hanging in the hallway. Lippoth’s father says he never expected his son to find so much success in a completely different métier.

He says his son found his first jobs as a photographer taking pictures for kindergartens and schools. At some point, he was discovered by his present-day agent.

Lippoth’s father says that he can’t believe the accusations against his son and that Collin had loved Achim so much. He knows Collin, having met him when he came for a visit with his mother. The boy was entirely focused on Achim, he says. "It just doesn’t make sense that he would then press charges against him." He thinks Collin’s mother might be behind it, maybe out of revenge because Achim didn’t want to marry her.

When asked if he had ever heard of a monetary payment, he says yes, that it had gone to Loibl from the village, adding that he doesn’t know how large it was. "I just know that he swindled him and that Achim then gave him money." He says he thinks that Loibl just needed money and had threatened his son to get it.

When the father learns from ZEITmagazin that there are several children who may have been involved, he falls silent for a time. "Achim is famous around the world. He has so much work. I simply can’t imagine that he would do something like that." He says his son has just written him from investigative custody, saying he didn’t need to worry and that everything would be fine. He shows the letter.

"He always told me that the parents really liked him and that he was never alone with the children as he worked, that there was always an entire crew. Then they must have seen something?! If Achim had approached a child, the child certainly would not have said: Oh, that’s nice. Please keep going."

STRATEGIES

With his child-casting agency, Achim Lippoth established a system that continually supplied him with children, and thus potential victims, for two decades. With the help of accounts from 13 former employees, it is possible to gain a better understanding of the strategies he used to do what he allegedly did. Aside from Katharina Koppenwallner and Marc Schulze-Niestroy, they have all asked to remain anonymous. Some because they are afraid of never again getting a job in the industry, others out of fear of facing revenge from Lippoth. Many feel they bear some guilt for having worked for him in the first place.

After Achim Lippoth faced charges the first time in 2003, he apparently grew more careful. Whereas he at least sporadically had private interactions with employees before 2003, people who worked for him later described him as unapproachable. "You had the feeling that he had no life."

Several employees say that on many occasions, children who had been extremely active as models would suddenly disappear from the registry.

He apparently would also spread rumors about people who could potentially present a danger, with the goal of destroying their credibility. He would allege that one person was out for revenge, and would say another had embezzled money. During our reporting, ZEITmagazin was constantly warned by former employees about other former employees for precisely that reason. On the other hand, he sought to keep some potential victims close to him. Malte Thole, one of the victims listed in the indictment, later became an assistant to Lippoth. One of the boys pictured in the Lippoth book found by Valentin works for him as a photo editor. When, during a conversation with ZEITmagazin, he saw the photos from the book Valentin had found from the Pojkart publishing house, he broke down in tears. He said that he, too, used to frequently sleep over at Lippoth’s apartment when he was a child.

Externally, Lippoth tries to preventatively distance himself from any suspicion. He photographed a campaign against child molestation for Innocence in Danger, an NGO that works to fight the sexual abuse of children around the world. The slogan: "Sexually abused children are betrayed by someone they trust."

But Lippoth also seemed to have been afraid of being discovered. One employee describes having encountered Lippoth the morning after Max Valentin had posted the images from Lippoth’s book on Instagram. It was the first time the assistant had ever seen Lippoth agitated, to the point that he was shaking. The assistant says Lippoth said that someone wanted to get him in trouble. He claimed he had needed money at the time, which is the only reason he had worked on the Pojkart project.

There is another vital strategy that Lippoth used to coverup his actions: Illusion.

Even early on in his career, co-workers had the feeling that Lippoth was trying to feign heterosexuality to distract from potential pedophile tendencies. Koppenwallner says that Lippoth was constantly making remarks about women like: "Oh, she has huge breasts." Or: "That’s a loose one." They sounded almost as though he had memorized them, like a 12-year-old seeing just how far he could go. Koppenwallner also says that Lippoth liked to claim in front of others that she was his girlfriend.

Almost all those who spoke with ZEITmagazin said that Lippoth was constantly looking for familial ties. Several employees say that he would introduce children as his godchildren even though they weren’t.

Whereas in the early years of his career, he was more inclined to adopt the role of the godfather or family friend, he carried on long relationships with the mothers of his last two suspected victims. Employees from this period say that the relationships bothered them. Lippoth’s attentions, they say, were constantly focused on the sons, who often seemed obsessed by him. "You never saw affection between him and the mothers," says one former employee.

Several employees say that Lippoth would frequently sleep in the same room with the children on trips, while the women would be put up in different rooms, sometimes even in other buildings. One employee with access to Lippoth’s accounts says that he would constantly be buying the women expensive presents: bags from Louis Vuitton, Prada or Gucci. Furthermore, says the employee, he paid for a new kitchen on one occasion and renovation work on another, in addition to taking care of private school tuition.

RESPONSIBILITY

Susanne Wehmann, 52, is sitting at a long table in the offices of her lawyer, Alexander Cormann. For five years, she was the woman at Achim Lippoth’s side.

Did he give you presents?

"Yes."

What kind of presents?

"Yeah, expensive ones."

What kind of expensive presents?

"Bags. Things like that."

Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton – right? Did he give you those kinds of bags?

"Yes, that’s right."

And expensive clothing?

"Yes, but not so much, sometimes a mobile phone."

Could you say more about it?

"No, there were just a lot of presents."

She swallows.

She and Lippoth met on Dec. 6, 2009, in a department store. He told her he wanted to cast Samuel for a photoshoot. Early on, says Wehmann, she was skeptical. Back home, she plugged his name into an internet search, and two days later, Samuel was standing in front of his camera for the first time.

"What should I say? The photos were really great. My son had always been really cute, really photogenic. I thought at the time, maybe he’ll find real success."

Lippoth had been extremely solicitous to her, says Wehmann. She says he would constantly drop by to show her the newest photos.

In the beginning, she says, she hadn’t really liked him at all. He was too fat for her. But she liked the fact that he was so interested in her son, whose father was perennially absent. She also liked the fact that he would pay for trips for the small family to Los Angeles or the Maldives. "I mean, I have a good job and earn my own money. But I can’t just fly off to the Maldives!"

Just one thing wasn’t quite right. They had their intimate moments, she says, kissing and the like. But Lippoth didn’t want to have sex, Wehmann says. In five years, she says, they never once slept together. She spoke to friends of hers about it, and they also found it strange. "I often thought: I’m going to break up. This isn’t right." But each time, she says, he was able to change her mind, telling her of a painful separation he had experienced, which had triggered a blockage in him. She says he would tell them over and over again: "You are the most important part of my life! I need you!"

Susanne Wehmann pauses for a moment, and then says: "Now, of course, I know that he was using me. That it was never about me."

Is it true that her son also slept over at Lippoth’s place by himself?

"Yes, that’s true."

Is it true that they also slept separately while on vacation? She in one room and her son with Lippoth in another?

"Yes, sometimes. For me, it was just a nice break. The two of them got along so well."

She hesitates. Then she says: "Why didn’t I see it? Did I just not want to see it? Did I let myself be bought?"

Achim Lippoth ended the relationship in spring 2015, she says. Samuel was 14 at the time. The three of them had just been on the Maldives for what was quite an amicable vacation, she says. At the train station in Cologne, she recalls, he suddenly told her it was over. Just like that. It’s better for them, he said.

During the conversation with ZEITmagazin, Wehmann would occasionally laugh at the wrong moments, as one does when one simply doesn’t know how else to deal with a situation. She seemed distant at times, trying to get the facts right, but acting almost as though it had nothing to do with her.

Her son is now 22 years old. Sometimes, she says, he seems distant and unwilling to share his feelings. The testimony he provided to the police, his lawyer says, is rather thin. He says the son didn’t want to incriminate Lippoth.

MISTAKES

On August 27, 2013, a young man, 20 years old, took a seat at Cologne police headquarters. He said he wanted to file a criminal complaint against a photographer named Achim Lippoth. The acts he was reporting dated back to the years 2000 and 2001. David Bakary told the police he had been a child model for Lippoth and that he had slept over at Lippoth’s home twice. He claimed that both times, something untoward had taken place: Once, he says, Lippoth masturbated using Bakary’s hand and, on the other occasion, Lippoth rubbed his penis against Bakary’s buttocks.

According to the transcript, the interrogation lasted only 34 minutes. Bakary, now 29, tells ZEITmagazin that even then, he knew that his complaint wouldn’t lead to anything.

Accusations of sexual abuse, especially involving events that took place long ago, are a delicate issue in criminal law. There is almost never physical evidence or witnesses.  Memories become blurred. Ultimately, all that’s usually left is the testimony of the victim and the denial of the alleged perpetrator. Investigators are fully aware of this. But with Bakary, there is more to the story than just that. Several people confirm that he began speaking of the acts as early as 2001. One of those is his mother, to whom he told everything after she asked. The other is the woman from the child protection agency to whom his mother took him for advice. And when Bakary contacted the authorities in 2013, they were already in possession of the anonymous report of child abuse that had been filed in 2003.

After Bakary went to the police, though, nothing happened for three months. That, at least, is what the investigation file indicates. Only after Max Valentin, the intern, filed his report and the name Achim Lippoth came up a second time within a few months in connection with alleged pedophilia did things begin moving. On Nov. 11, 2013, the Cologne District Court issued search warrants for three properties: Lippoth’s apartment, his office and his basement.

But then, the court made a serious mistake. David Bakary was supposed to be given a lawyer. But the letter, which included the alleged crime ("sexual abuse of children"), wasn’t just sent to Bakary and his lawyer, but also to a previously unsuspecting Achim Lippoth. Advanced warning. The searches turned up nothing.

Instead, the investigators commissioned a report to evaluate the credibility of Bakary’s testimony. Bakary says that the evaluator was very nice and that although he couldn’t answer all of her questions, he had indicated to him that she felt he was credible.

Nevertheless, the public prosecutor’s office suspended the investigation for alleged sexual assault against Achim Lippoth.

The evaluator still remembers it to this day. She says she remembers wondering why the case never went anywhere. She says Bakary hadn’t remembered the incidents in great detail, which may have suggested a false accusation – that is, if he hadn’t also told his mother about the events in 2001. She says she had suggested that the public prosecutor’s office invite the mother and ask her if her son had really told her about the incidents at the time. "If that could be confirmed, then he could not have been talked into it after the fact."

The investigators actually did call in Bakary’s mother. The investigation file shows that she confirmed her son’s account. Not only that, she even gave the investigators the first name and age of another child whom she feared could also have been abused. The investigators, though, were unable to locate him at the time. He is one of the victims included in the current indictment.

COURAGE

It was June 11, 2021, when Malte Thole received the call and the name "Achim Lippoth" popped up on his display. He hadn’t heard from the photographer in quite some time, but it wasn’t unusual for him to get in touch on a birthday or other special occasions.

Lippoth said on the phone that he wanted to see Thole right away and the two arranged to meet in a restaurant. They had only just arrived when Lippoth began explaining that he had just spent a night in police custody, and that there was a preliminary investigation against him for the sexual abuse of children. Lippoth quickly continued, saying that there had already been such a proceeding against him in 2013, but it had collapsed and there was no problem. "He then looked me in the eyes and said: ‘You won’t betray me, will you? You still love me, right?’"

Malthe Thole, now 26 years old, is sitting in his one-room apartment with his skateboards and a poster of Kurt Cobain. He seems shy. In front of him there is a big television, a present from Lippoth. Almost silently, he describes his last encounter with Lippoth. "Of course, Achim," he recalls saying, "I won’t tell the cops anything."

Lippoth must know that almost nobody can hurt him as much as Thole. Over the course of six years when he was a child, his parents would let him go on holiday alone with Lippoth, several times a year, sometimes for weeks at a time. The extent of what he might have experienced is unimaginable. When asked what Lippoth did to him, Thole answers quietly: "Is it enough if I say, ‘The worst’?"

Over the years, he says, Lippoth would subtly yet repeatedly indicate to him that speaking out wouldn’t help. Once, for example, when the allegations that Michael Jackson had abused children were making the rounds in the media, Lippoth told him that the allegations wouldn’t stand up in court if there is only the testimony of a victim. For 18 years, Thole remained quiet – ignoring what he had experienced, as he put it. In part to avoid being overwhelmed by the images and feelings of that time.

He suffered from depression and anxiety attacks and had problems at school. Even in therapy, he wasn’t able to open up. Lippoth repeatedly got in touch with him, and Malte Thole always answered, went to him, even worked in his photography studio for a time.

One week after their conversation in the restaurant, his cell phone rang again. Lippoth was still a free man at the time. He would only be taken into custody a second time a few days later at an airport, on June 21, 2021. "Don’t you want to come over for the weekend?" But Thole declined. Then the police got in touch. They wanted him to testify. At first, he decided to protect Achim, to deny everything.

He still doesn’t entirely understand why he changed his mind at the last minute. Maybe it was a number of things. The training program on sexualized violence he had sat through at his workplace the day before. The friend who had realized that something was amiss, grabbing him and saying: Just tell me finally what’s wrong, man! The same friend who then picked up Thole’s phone and dialed his mother’s number for him: "Now you have to tell her."

That evening, at the kitchen table, he told his mother everything. They went to the police station together the next day. Soon, he will be testifying in court.

Translated by Charles Hawley and Thomas Rogers

Correction: An earlier version of the article stated that the Düsseldorf-based agency Revolvermänner, acting on behalf of Achim Lippoth, deleted information from the Internet that could be damaging to Lippoth. The agency has informed us that it solely acted for Achim Lippoth to enforce copyright claims.