Stübing has served several prison sentences for violating German laws prohibiting sexual intercourse between siblings, and Karolewski has been held under supervision for the same.
Their case has featured in public debate about whether sibling sexual relations should be decriminalised in Germany.
[2] Karolewski, who has a personality disorder which the court determined left her "only partially liable" for her actions,[5][3] gave birth to their first child in October 2001.
[2] Karolewski subsequently gave birth to two more children; at Stübing's second trial, in 2004, she was accused as his co-defendant because the second child was conceived after her 18th birthday.
He was sentenced to 10 months in prison, and she was put under the supervision of a social worker but not convicted of anything (because of her personality disorder).
[2] The couple's first two children are slightly mentally and physically disabled; the third was born with a heart defect that was corrected with surgery.
[2] In 2014, in response to the case of Stübing and Karolewski, the German Ethics Council voted in favour of decriminalising consensual incest between siblings, while the CDU party of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel opposed abolition of the law.