``We are looking into it right now,'' said Elke O'Donoghue, spokeswoman for prosecutors in Heidelberg. She could not say how long the process would take.
Critics, including the Lutheran and Roman Catholic churches, have also denounced von Hagens' work as disrespectful to the dead. He says he simply helps people understand their bodies.
In Frankfurt, authorities have warned parents not to allow children younger than 14 to view the exhibit, which they said could ``shock and frighten.''
At a London show, a visitor took a hammer to one of the bodies -- a man holding a liver -- while another threw a blanket over the corpse of a pregnant woman, saying he could not bear to look at the fetus.
``It's a very emotional topic,'' acknowledged von Hagens, dubbed ``Dr. Frankenstein'' in November after performing Britain's first public autopsy in more than 170 years. Even in Dalian, one of his employees jokingly referred to him as ``Dr. Death.''
In one airy room, skinned corpses wrapped in white cloth and covered in plastic lay stretched out on tables, surrounded by ``dissectors'' -- many of them medical students. They hunched over the bodies, picking out fat and tissue with tweezers. In another area, bodies hung ``curing'' with gas, light or heat.
Each body requires up to 1,500 hours of work to prepare, von Hagens says. In their final plasticized state, the corpses are rubbery to the touch with a crystalline finish -- the color of raw pork.
The room where the bodies are assembled into position is large and sunny and filled with models in different stages of production -- a snowboarder here, an ice-skater there. In one area, a dead man poses in an homage to Rodin's The Thinker.
Von Hagens, too, is thinking these days -- about how to quiet his critics without giving up his life's endeavor.
``I'm sure I will survive this storm in the water glass as I have survived so many before,'' von Hagens said. ``I touch here a taboo, which is our body, and nothing is so near as our body is to us.''
He adds, ``I know that I am innocent. This gives me a good feeling and good sleep every day.''
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