Happy New Year
Our annual Christmas booze tour became a kind of tradition, where we tried to motivate pub and restaurant staff to play our specially made sampler tapes while we were busy celebrating in these localities. We put on our tapes at the Tadsch Mahal in the Holtenauer Strasse which was quite unspectacular.
At the turn of the year 1983/84, however, an event took place which, if the local newspaper had actually reported on it, could have been formulated as follows:
Skinhead beats Rocker
Kiel/ Altenholz
On New Year's Eve at about 11pm a violent clash between a skinhead and a rocker took place on a parking lot near the Famila market in Altenholz. After a quarrel between a group of skinheads and four rockers, one of the rockers attacked the skinheads' ringleader, who defended himself with a bottle. Before the rocker could hit his opponent, the skinhead knocked the half-full bottle of rum on the head of his opponent, so that the 17-year-old trainee suffered severe cuts at the hairline. The 17-year-old skinhead took flight, but was later arrested by the police. After the personal details were noted, he was released.
Behind this fictitious article a longer story was concealed, that is retold below:
With the bottle in his hand
My lifestyle had completely adapted to the world of skinheads. I still attended the notorious conservative grammar school, where I had had serious problems with teachers and classmates over the years. I was not an easy schoolboy. I received average to bad marks, I was prone to aggression and considered a criminal. In the meantime I had a whole pile of long-playing records with skinhead music from the Tutti Frutti record store and Vinyl Boogie. Once a month I shaved my skull with an electric clipper with a three-millimetre limit comb, because I wanted to be a real skinhead. As usual, we met almost daily in the afternoon with like-minded people on the playground behind the Ansgar Church in the city centre. I drove this route into town mostly twice a day: in the mornings to school and in the afternoons to my friends at the Ansgar playground. The usual scenario awaited me there. We put our money together and bought alcoholic beverages in the nearby supermarket: beer, sparkling wine or spirits. Later in the evening we got further supplies from the petrol station or at the beer vending machine. We always made the same procedure – fixed a date, meeting, drinking, cursing, fighting, rioting and at the end a complete blackout. During our next meeting we talked about the incidents during the last intoxication. In autumn and winter, when it slowly became colder, we usually stood drinking in house entrances, if that was tolerated.
This year was a very cold winter in which I wore my bomber jacket all the way through, even though I froze my arse off in it. Especially in the kidney area, bomber jackets cannot really warm you up, so you needed constant movement in the cold. My Docs were deadly on black ice despite the ribbed sole.
New Year's Eve was approaching slowly. We already knew where parties should take place, but we were not invited anywhere because of our notorious behaviour. The mods let us down this time as well. On New Year's Eve we finally met in the city already in the late afternoon. I had a bottle of rum I had stolen from my father's schnaps stock without asking. Our group of skinheads sat down first in a house entrance in the Holtenauer road 348 near the Wik laundrette. There we started to slosh and worried about where to celebrate the New Year. We knew about a party nearby that Barne organized for a few punks in his parents' flat. Since I knew Barne best of all, from school and the Penny playground, I was sent out as a scout to check the situation to see if we as a skinhead group would be welcome. I rang the doorbell in the Wik in Hohenrade, where Barne lived with his parents. His parents spent New Year's Eve with friends. Barne opened the flat door and was surprised to see me standing in the stairwell. We talked briefly at the threshold, until the punk with the round nickel glasses asked me for a drink in the flat. I was allowed to sit on the couch with the other punks in the party room, and Barne immediately handed me a cool beer. In the living room there were real punks and no pseudo-punks. They had dyed hair and leather jackets with studs and band names. I enjoyed the beer in the company of the punks, chatted for a while and felt like a skinhead in the lion's den. The host showed me his single's collection and played me something by his favourite band Mayhem, whose name was written in white on his studded leather jacket.
"Who are you with?"
asked Barne.
I listed the names, and the punks knew most of the skinheads in the house entrance at the Holtenauer. Our group was too large for the punks, they didn't want the whole group of skinheads to join the punks because there wasn't enough space. There were more skins than punks.
"This place is getting too crowded, the flat is too small. I'm not in the mood for that many people. That's just trouble!"
said Barne.
"These are all correct people. Even Brandy is there!"
I tried to persuade him.
"You can have another beer here, but I can't take all the skins."
Meanwhile the other skinheads waited a few hundred metres away in the stairway and sloshed. I stayed for a few more minutes and talked to the host of the New Year's Eve punk party. Barne made a little deal with me now. Since he owned a T-shirt of the English skinhead band The 4-Skins and I still kept the LP of the outrageously in punk band One Way System, we decided to exchange both in the new year. He briefly advertised an English band called Combat 84, that he called a skin-punk band, but the crude nature of this combo was simply not my style.
I only spent 20 minutes at the New Year's Eve punk party. After I had finished my beer, I said goodbye and quickly went back to my folks who were still sitting on the stairs behind the entrance of the house,
"This place is too small for all of us, there's no room for us. Besides, they have no desire for 'trouble',"
I said as I returned to my folks via the courtyard entrance into the stairwell.
"And what are we doing now?"
Brandy asked frustrated.
I took my opened bottle of rum back and we scratched our heads. With the rum I had prepared two cola mixtures, one in a litre bottle of cola and the other in a rum bottle. The litre bottle was almost empty, and I was already quite tipsy when we decided to take the bus to Altenholz, because there should be two other better parties. We got the last bus on line 64, that was to go to Altenholz-Stift on this New Year's Eve. This last scheduled bus left shortly after half past eight. The atmosphere on the bus was relatively reserved for New Year's Eve. Most of the passengers were well dressed and carried bottles of sparkling wine with them, that they wanted to keep for midnight. Seven in our group of eight or nine wore bomber jackets while we continued to drink our drinks of beer and rum.
When we finally got off at Stift, it was shortly after 9pm, we still had to walk almost two kilometres. We were already heavily drunk, the first firecrackers were ignited, and after a walk of roughly an hour with various breaks we stood on the parking lot of the supermarket in Altenholz-Klausdorf. We weren't quite sure which party to go to first.
After a short conversation we went to a celebration in a private family house. I think this was in the street Fliederweg. Here the daughter of a former youth soccer coach held a party. A few years ago the coach prophesied that I had a career in football, but, unfortunately, he was wrong because I had a lot of adolescence problems at that time. After minutes of negotiations with my ex-coach, only I was let in to take a quick look into the party room. I got a beer and persistently tried to get access for all my skinhead friends. Finally, the old coach took me aside, he was quite strict. He tried hard to make it clear to me, his former sports protégé, that his daughter and her guests did not under any circumstances want the group of skinheads to take part in the party,
"Do you understand? The young people definitely want to stay among themselves and not let anyone in."
"But we're not causing any trouble."
"Hey you, they want to keep to themselves."
"But we're all right!"
"Understand, the party is private!"
he repeated again and again.
Aggressively and angrily we left and stood again for a while on the parking lot near the shopping centre "Famila". Here we kept on carousing and asked almost every pedestrian who passed us where to find a recommendable party,
"Hey, where is a party here?"
Most of them played dumb, turned out to be ignorant and just walked on. Our manners and our outfit didn't strike a chord in the least.
We knew there was a party of "ordinary people" nearby. Alhough we never gave up hope of finding something better. Now came a group of radiated "acers" with acer haircuts past the parking lot. I still held the 0.7-litre bottle of rum mixture in my hand, that was no longer half full. Suddenly there was an intense battle of words between the two groups. In principle, that was unavoidable. Our four opponents wore long hair, motorcycle leather jackets and were clearly part of the rocker scene. As was to be expected, there was a dispute with rude, typical scene swearing. To be on the safe side, the skinheads left and went to the next corner. Only I stopped, because I didn't want to put up with everything from the rockers. I waited with a half-full rum bottle in my hand ready to fight anyone who upset me. From the background my mates cursed he newly forming group. The first rocker, a strong guy with golden blond, shoulder-length curls and a thick, tight-fitting motorcycle jacket came straight at me with clenched fists. Before another word could be spoken, and before the rocker had the chance to grab me, I hit the rum bottle directly over his head. The remaining mixture splashed all around viciously and shards and glass splinters flew in every direction. The rocker cried out in pain and held his hands to his forehead. Slowly the blood ran over his face, in front of which he held his hands. Ready to defend myself further or to be able to attack – as you take it – I held the bottle neck with the sharp glass tips in front of my body like a switchblade. Slowly I moved a few metres backwards, away from the place of the event.
I was myself a little shocked about what had just happened. The other three rockers hurried to the injured man's rescue. Nobody followed me while I ran away to the other skinheads who were still standing at the corner of the parking lot, still shouting loudly. We quickly recognized the explosive nature of the situation and decided to flee. We vanished in all directions, and I with the bottle in my hand walked along the main road on the bike path back in the direction we had come from. It was foreseeable that in a few minutes there would be a sirens' wailing and flashing blue lights.
A moment later I noticed that I was drunk and exhausted from running. So I walked the rest of the way. It was cold. I felt the stinging cold in the kidney area again. A car was approaching from behind. I noticed that it suddenly slowed down and a sliding door was opened. I turned my head to the left and saw that a small police bus stopped at the roadside. My reflex was to throw the bottle neck away with my right hand – directly down the small slope next to the road into a hedgerow. I had taken the rum bottle almost half a kilometre with me, now the corpus delicti flew down the slope. None of the henchmen in the car noticed the disposal operation. One of the cops got out and told me to stop. When I turned to the police bus, I already saw Arnt, one of my skinhead friends, sitting inside with his bomber jacket, whom they had picked up in the village. This Arnt, a shipyard trainee, was notorious in Kiel-North for his hard, unannounced headbutts. Now, however, he felt strongly browbeaten. We both didn't deny we knew each other. A police officer took down my personal details immediately. Again I could only show my pupil ID card. The question whether I was the person who knocked the bottle over the teenager's head in the parking lot next to the shopping centre was answered with a negative,
"No, that was not me. There must have been other youths there that I had nothing to do with."
My mate Arnt in the car also denied being involved. He also said independently of me,
"It must have been the other kids."
The two of us had to make a strong effort and concentrate during this short interrogation, because the high alcohol level caused us problems. I was further detained as there were still a few questions to be answered. Finally I got my pupil card back and was allowed to get out of the police bus. I didn't go any further in the direction I had gone before, but back to the shopping centre. My mate was still in the cop car when this drove off. The police logic said that he was the perpetrator, as he was the first who had been arrested near the scene of the crime.
On my way back to the mall I didn't realize that midnight New Year's Eve was already over. I had not twigged about the many fireworks in the distance. Now I met Hecker again at a street corner in the village, besides Brandy the only one of the group with hair a little longer. He was straying around because he was still looking for the party he had originally wanted to go to. We went back to the parking lot and tried to locate the blood puddle in order to estimate how severe the damage must have been. We saw broken glass and there was blood.
"Oh, he's hit pretty good."
Hecker recognized.
"Let's just get out of here!"
I said, and we disappeared. We didn't talk any further about the incident. Hecker took me with him. We walked through the terraced housing estate and finally found the house where the party was to take place. The host, an ordinary guy, who was throwing firecrackers around the front door, didn't mind that we joined the party. It must have been just before one o'clock in the new year, when we entered the last terraced house in the row and mingled with the other party guests. We were exhausted from all this. I secretly felt like a hero because I hit the rocker in the forehead with a bottle of rum and stood strong against rockerism. I kept the action secret from the other party guests. We also met Steff again, who had also taken part in our New Year's Eve trip until the incident with the rum bottle. We put our heads together several times. It was analysed again and again what exactly had happened. That must have seemed like secrecy to the other party participants.
I remember there was a lot of light in the flat. The bright light and the white wallpaper hurt my eyes. In my boozey state I scribbled something on the white wallpaper in the hallway,
"Oi! Oi! Oi!"
the battle cry of the skinheads. I was afraid that this could be brought back to us, and I painted a T before,
"Toi! Toi! Toi!"[1]
Somehow the night ended, and after a long walk I went back safely to my parents' house. I slept off my intoxication until the afternoon. My thoughts revolved several times around the fight with the rockers and the deed with the rum bottle. I hoped to get away with it again, but secretly I feared that the matter could have a considerable aftermath.
The first days of the new year passed, and as planned, I met Barne, the punk I visited at his party on New Year's Eve a few hours before the bloody deed. As agreed I had the punk LP with me as an object of exchange, the punk had the red, white and black T-shirt of the skinhead band The 4-Skins.
Barne already knew of the incident in the New Year's Night. Word had got around like wildfire. He laughed happily and pretended that I had done a great deed, because at that time the rockers hated skins and punks equally. Despite some friction between us, we felt we were allies now when fighting these rockers. Accordingly, he presented me the shirt like a trophy for my bravery towards the rockers. I in turn had brought Barne the All Systems Go of One Way System, that I presented to him at the same moment. For a few seconds I asked myself whether this was really a fair exchange. I had bought them right after Zico, the die-hard punk, had praised them as an insider tip in the squatted house. I had listened to the LP many times before I converted to being a skinhead. The album was totally well preserved, because I always handled records very carefully. With T-shirts, on the other hand, it was always problematic. Once they had been washed a few times, the intensity of the colours diminished significantly. There was still the problem that my mother simply destroyed my punk shirts with a flat iron when she got her hands on them, or threw them uncompromisingly into the garbage. The LP of One Way System no longer corresponded to my attitude, unfortunately. I should describe to Barne briefly my version of the incident – as is so often these days. I didn't feel any real shame about it. It was a self-defence reaction from me. I went into detail, using the typical iconoclastic gestures that everyone in the scene knew and used, demonstrating the swinging movement and slamming accompanied by the words "zack" and "dong". Again the event was acknowledged with joyful, approving laughter. Barne couldn't get himself together. Now we parted again and I went with the feeling of having got a bargain back to the bus stop Knorrstrasse, from where I already drove with my skinhead friends to Altenholz on New Year's Eve. I would wear the T-shirt almost daily in the coming days and weeks. From then on I was outlawed but highly regarded in both the skinhead and punk scenes.
I secretly expected a subpoena, because the henchmen had taken my personal details on New Year's Eve, but maybe they let it go by the board? I decided to stop shaving my hair in the forthcoming time.
Almost two weeks after New Year's Night, I received the subpoena to "the 7th" police station as feared.
I was in a rather desolate condition, as I was exposed to a high learning pace as a grammar school pupil, but in my free time I continued to drink a lot of alcohol, suffered from family problems and also put people's backs up everywhere in the football club. I even got an internal two-week ban in the football club because while I was drunk I accused a supposed high performer in front of the assembled team and coaches of starting too many unnecessary dribblings.
My parents found out a large part of my misdemeanours immediately, because they opened my letters as soon as they discovered the coat of arms of the henchmen on a green envelope. I talked myself out of it, claiming I was accidentally torn into it. My parents didn't really want to believe me, but didn't besiege me any further for the time being. When I went to the scheduled subpoena, I rang the the buzzer outside of "the 7th", and described my request in one sentence through the interphone. I immediately received admission and showed my subpoena at the reception desk of the station. There was a phone call inside the police station, and a policeman with a gun on his belt took me into an office room.
First of all, I had to show my identity card, from which the data was tacitly taken. What followed was an interrogation lasting about an hour, during which the policeman constantly asked me questions and carefully recorded everything in his own language, even though he sometimes offered me several options when choosing words. I did not deny that I was in Altenholz on this New Year's Eve. However, I firmly claimed that I had nothing to do with the clash between the skinhead gang and the rocker group. At the end of the interrogation, I was given the document for review. I skimmed through the freshly typed document and signed it without thinking further about the fact that I knowingly made a false statement.
From my clique, another teenager received a subpoena. That was my mate Arnt, who was the very first to get arrested by the henchmen on New Year's Eve. He also stated for the record that he had had nothing to do with the dispute and had not even noticed anything. The police officer in charge could only assume that we made a prior arrangement before the interrogations. Now the henchmen had two false statements from the skinhead group at their disposal, on the other hand two statements from the rocker group were available: the victim's and the nearest eyewitness from the group.
After a few weeks we two from the skinhead group who were the only ones that could be arrested on New Year's Eve received another subpoena, this time to the police headquarters in the city centre. We should get some identification treatment there. I now had much longer hair than on New Year's Eve. It makes a difference if the hair is almost two centimetres long after two months, after you were last sighted with millimetre-short hair. At that identification treatment I appeared properly dressed – even without Docs – but looked a little pale from the many alcoholic excesses in recent times. I had fresh self-confidence, for I was still celebrated as a hero in my environment, because I hit hard-boiled when my group was attacked by rockers. Word got around in the scene quickly that the yobbish rocker got a cut at the hairline on New Year's Eve, but that his eyesight and the rest of his face remained undamaged by the glass splinters.
I underwent the identification treatment without further resistance. I felt like a felon during that time. The fingerprints were taken cleanly and thoroughly, although there was no corpus delicti to compare the fingerprints with. Now photos were taken from various perspectives, profile shots, totals, semi-totals, frontal and portrait shots and shots at a certain angle. It was like they wanted to measure my skull. I felt connected to an X-ray machine and tried not to put my teeth together during this shooting, but to keep my lower jaw slightly open while my mouth was closed. I hoped that I could manipulate the recordings a bit so that I wouldn't be recognized. There was also talk of an identity parade, but it never took place. Arnt, the second arrested teenager from our skinhead group, also received the identification treatment. He later made the most serious accusations because I had got him into trouble. In the following weeks we heard nothing more of the henchmen. We thought we'd gotten away with our false statements.
Now I made the mistake and shaved my hair again, kept bragging about the deed when I met like-minded people, sounded the New Year's Eve incident on the bus when I drove drunk back from the city centre and also displayed the 4-Skins T-shirt I had received in exchange from Barne, the clever punk with the round nickel glasses. I went downtown again more often during evenings. My person was more in demand in the scene than ever. Furthermore my folks regarded the New Year's Eve event like a heroic deed, especially because I had risen against the rockers, who were strongly represented in the city. Not only the skins considered my action as a small triumph, also the punks were secretly very happy. I heard that over and over again.
When I was driving home on the last night bus one weekend, I was sitting in the back row as usual and talking to several of my friends. Someone from the rocker clique of New Year's Eve must have recognized me. The following week I received another subpoena to the cops' main office and already suspected that the rocker trouble could have another aftermath. Finally, the cops informed me in advance by telephone that I had been clearly recognized by a witness from the rocker group first in the bus and then when the identification recordings were checked again.
"The witness is 100% sure!"
it was said on the phone. I couldn't hide the truth anymore.
At the time I was in constant contact with the other youths from the skinhead group who, like me, were slowly getting nervous and giving me amicable advice. One of them literally besieged me,
"You must revoke the false statement!"
The subpoena date at the police headquarters was approaching and I decided to revoke the false testimony because I realized that my previous account of the events was no longer tenable. With a heavy heart I went to the appointed subpoena date into Blumenstrasse. In this old building, a plainclothes policewoman asked me into a spacious room, that rather spread a private atmosphere. In an absolutely trustworthy conversation, the attractive official worked out the benchmarks of the new interrogation protocol. It included a revocation of the first statement. The confession of the false testimony and the reasons – I called for it the fear of punishment and further consequences – were recorded by the policewoman in declarative sentences in the first person singular. It was said that the revocation of the false testimony would mitigate the sentence. I also made a point in the questioning that I was already heavily drunk at the time of the offence. She asked me intensively about the moment of the crime, and why I knocked the half-full bottle of rum over my counterpart's head,
"What did you feel?"
and
"Do you realize that the young man could have lost his sight?"
I apprehended that. Nevertheless, I relied on the fact that I was attacked by the four rockers first, because they had it in for me,
"It was pure self-defence, otherwise the four blokes would have beaten me up for sure."
After about an hour and a half, I was presented the correction of the false testimony for review, and I received a ball pen to sign the statement. I skimmed through the text and with a heavy heart put my signature under it.
I felt relieved when I was allowed to leave the frightening building in Blumenstrasse, that we all called "Blume" (Flower). It was spring and I was looking forward to warmer temperatures, but not to the upcoming trial.
After the police questioning, I took the bus home and avoided boasting about the incident and the aftermath so far, quite different from what I used to do in the weeks after the crime. I seemed purified and from my friends' point of view I was no longer quite the same. Soon a trial was to follow and I also had to confess the new starting situation to my parents.
My father was unsurpassedly angry about it. He had already suspected something was going on, but when he found out that the weapon involved came from his schnaps cellar, he got angry, so that I ran the risk to get a slap in the face. My father contacted one of the local lawyers and accompanied me to his law office. He later also paid the lawyer's fee. The lawyer first recommended that an apology letter be sent to the injured party, as this would also mitigate the sentence. I sat down, wrote the letter as the lawyer had instructed me, and handed it over to the lawyer who forwarded it to the injured party. It wasn't until years later that I learned that this lawyer had specialized in divorce law rather than criminal law.
With clenched fists
The lawyer also recommended presenting a defence witness who was to describe the crime from his perspective, as it had to be proven that the attack with the bottle was a self-defence reaction. I named one of the skinheads involved, who watched the fight from the other end of the parking lot. This defence witness was supposed to agree with me beforehand that he really wanted to testify to the incident. After consultation with my skinhead colleague Marius, the alleged witness, the lawyer received his addresses, which he passed on to the cops. The cops sent him a subpoena and made a statement together with him. Marius only agreed, because I promised to buy him a couple of drinks. This protocol actually relieved me, because my skinhead friend described that the rocker rushed towards me with the intention of an assault. He put on record
"He came at him with clenched fists."
This description gave the impression that on New Year's Eve I had no choice but to avoid the rocker's attack. However, I did so with a "dangerous weapon", because a bottle is considered as such in judicial jargon when it is used to strike.
Now an employee of the youth welfare office announced himself who had received an order from the court to prepare an expert opinion about me. My parents were informed that this gentleman wanted to ask me about my previous career and my attitudes and views. It had to be at my parents' house on a date to be fixed. When the appointment was due, my mother led the social education worker into the living room, where he already sat down and took out his documents from a folder. Now my mother called me from my room,
"Come down, the youth welfare officer is here!"
"Yes, I'm coming."
I went down the stairs and saw the man with a grey full beard sitting on a seat element of the sofa, on which my father never sat, because he had a bad view of the TV from there. This gave an unfamiliar impression, especially since the television was not switched on now as it usually was in the afternoon. The man seemed to me like an old hippie with short hair or a "68-er" (participants of the students unrests of 1968) who now collaborated with the state, whom he fiercely fought with word and deed during his student days. I sat down at the foot of the long couch on which my mother used to lie when she came home from work exhausted before preparing lunch for the children.
We greeted each other with a friendly, painstaking welcome, and the youth welfare officer asked his first questions. We addressed each other in the "Sie" form. In the following three quarters of an hour I was asked about my everyday school life how I got along with my teachers and classmates. The man was also interested in my grades and achievements. He soon found out that Latin was one of my favourite subjects, although my grades were not as good as in the sixth school year.
"I gave up French after a year,"
I told him, and
"I am good at maths, but I have problems with the maths teachers. That's why my notes are not very good. "
I continued answering him,
"German and history are my weak spots. I always struggle with the spelling. Even the notes in history suffer from this. My favourite subject is definitely sports. I have the feeling that my sports teachers would support me."
The alleged old hippie questioned my alcohol consumption, whether I sometimes go to the disco and whether I have a girlfriend. I always gave short and precise answers. On the topic of alcohol, I said,
"Every now and then I drink a beer. That's not a bad thing."
"Do you have a girlfriend?"
"Not at all."
He asked for information about my social environment, my role in the family and my relationship with my sister, who is one year older than me. Now he wanted to find out a few details about the events on New Year's Eve, but the catchword "skinhead" was not used. Neither my idiosyncratic record collection was thematized, nor my typical scene outfit. I developed the unreal fear that I might be questioned by this strange and obscure man about these peculiarities – both musical taste as well as scene affiliation and subculture in general. I began to wriggle as I expected questions in this regard every second. Meanwhile, my mother was in the kitchen tidying up a little bit. Since the kitchen was connected via a double-door hatch in the wall unit to the dining area and thus to the living room, everything seemed soundproofed, both the work of the mother in the kitchen for the two of us in the living room, and the conversation in the living room for the hard-working housewife. So I had to be doubly careful that I didn't spill the beans.
Luckily, the youth welfare officer didn't want to torture me any longer. In the end, the ultra-friendly and well-prepared man noted a few more key points on a thick DIN A4 block that looked like a small file. I was spared the most embarrassing questions. When the social clown finally rose and said goodbye to his protégé, I was visibly relieved that I had mastered this unpleasant situation as well.
More uncomfortable days of waiting passed. My parents and the sister felt confirmed in their assumption that the son and brother was no good for anything and had only wild ideas and nonsense in his head. For my father, I was throughout a lost cause. They reacted to me accordingly. For my sister I was nothing more than a parasite, which she said to my face several times. She also liked to call me gay, criminal and drug addict. Finally the court appointment was arranged and four subpoenas were sent: one each to the injured and to his companion, who clearly recognized me in the night bus as the perpetrator, and one each to my skinhead mate Marius and to me. Arnt, the first young man arrested by the cops on New Year's Eve, was not subpoenaed. After his false testimony and the ID treatment, he didn't even need to revise his testimony. That was settled, because the real perpetrator was arrested, but to be on the safe side, they still kept his pictures. In the days before the trial, the lawyer asked me to come back to his office to mentally prepare me for the trial. There were photos on his desk under a foil. At first glance it seemed like porn photos, and I avoided looking at the spot again. I can be wrong about that, too. It's funny, though, that I associated it like this when it wasn't porn photos. The lawyer advised me to approach the injured person as soon as I saw him in the courtroom, reach out to him and apologize for the bloody deed in the presence of the judge. My lawyer reported that he had already sent the victim the letter with the apology.
The court date approached from day to day. I became more and more restless as I could not estimate what judgment awaited me. I avoided going to the barber before the trial or, as so often, having Steff shave my skull bald with an electric clipper.
The morning of the trial, I was extremely tense. I had barely slept. I had myself released from school for the morning. My father drove me with his green VW Passat to the courthouse at Schützenwall. We waited outside the courtroom until the lawyer joined us. This always well dressed lawyer was incredibly punctual and talked to me again. Marius, my relief witness, had also arrived and was sitting on one of the benches in front of the courtroom. I had a brief friendly chat with him, and he promised to emphasize that on New Year's Eve the strongly built rocker came at me "with his clenched fists". Outside in front of the hall was a small glass cabinet with the timetable of the trial plan for this court day. It was now almost ten o'clock, and the trial was due to begin at any moment. My father went straight into the room at the beginning of the trial. He wanted to follow the whole process. The lawyer also went into this big, cold hall. All witnesses and as well the person concerned should first wait outside until the court had got prepared. First, the injured party was called into the courtroom by loudspeaker announcement. So far he waited on the other side of the corridor whispering with the invited witness of his rocker fraction. More depressing minutes passed, each of which seemed like an eternity to me. I continued to sit on the bench with my witness and was very tense inside, although I was able to talk to my colleague.
"This waiting! I can't take it anymore!"
I said.
"They can't do anything to you, it was self-defence,"
my friend Marius tried to calm me.
Next, the witness from the rocker group was called into the room. Again several unbearable minutes passed. Now the witness for the defence was called, and I sat myriads of minutes all alone on the scratched wooden bench. I tried to concentrate again on what the lawyer had told me to do. It was minutes of contemplation and remorse that finally ended with me being the last to come to the gathering in the courtroom. When I recognized the damaged rocker right in front of the judge's desk, I walked straight up to him, shook his hand and apologized for the bloody deed on New Year's Night,
"Excuse me! I'm very sorry this happened!"
My voice still seemed weak and broken, while I shook the rocker's hand to apologize. I turned to the judge who asked me to sit down. I sat down in the designated dock. First, I, the defendant, should present my version of what happened on late New Year's Eve. At that time, the judge had already taken note of the description of the events by the injured party and the two witnesses summoned. I was the fourth and last person to be questioned by the judge and the young prosecutor. After describing the events, it was first the judge's turn to ask more detailed questions,
"Where did you want to go on New Year's Eve to celebrate the New Year?"
"We were on the way to a party. We did not find it right away,"
I replied.
"And why have you been in the parking lot at that time?"
asked the judge.
"We weren't quite sure which way to go. In the parking lot we took a break to consult. It was centrally located,"
I testified.
"How much alcohol had you already drunk at this time?"
the judge wanted to know.
"That was several cans of beer, and we shared the bottle of rum we had mixed with Coke."
I replied, concealing that I had drunk the bottle almost all by myself.
The judge asked another embarassing question,
"And how did it come to this incident with the other young people?"
"They walked by the parking lot and we had a brief argument. I don't remember who started it. Anyway, the four people suddenly attacked us,"
I made that very clear in the courtroom.
"And then you just hit him with the bottle?"
the judge appealed to the defendant's conscience.
"Yes, I suddenly stood all alone. The others were already on the way and waited at the corner on the other side of the parking lot. One of the four went straight at me and had already clenched his fists. If I hadn't struck first, I would have been the loser, he would have struck first. For me it was self-defence."
Of course, I couldn't trumpet the fact that I was a little belligerent that evening.
"And why did you not just run away?"
the judge enquired.
"I don't know. I just stood rooted to the ground!"
I said.
Now the judge gave the prosecutor a sign that he should continue with the questioning.
"And the victim went straight to you without warning you, is that right?"
asked the prosecutor.
"He went straight to me without hesitating a moment and without saying anything,"
I answered.
"And he saw that you were carrying a half-full rum bottle?"
the prosecutor investigated.
"Yes, sure, It was in my hand the whole time."
First I wanted to say that I deliberately hit him on the head and not directly in the face to avoid worse things, but I denied myself this statement.
The prosecutor indicated that he had no further questions.
Now the judge prepared the verdict and asked the prosecutor to give his summary. This was as follows,
"This is a clear self-defence situation. The defendant was attacked by the four other youths who were clearly in the majority. By the blow with the bottle he acted unmistakably in self-defence. As such, I plead for acquittal."
When I heard that, relief spread within me and I thought I was off the hook, but before the judge wanted to give his final judgment, my lawyer was finally asked for an assessment. He gave the following remarks,
"My client has struck with a dangerous weapon, and this could have had more serious consequences than the cut at the hairline. That is why I am not calling for acquittal, but for a ten-hour sentence for community service. My client must realize that he was highly negligent."
I was flabbergasted when I heard this, as were the rest of those present, since the prosecutor had previously demanded an acquittal, and the judge should now weigh a mediocrity between the pleas of the prosecutor and the defence lawyer in his judgment. The tension increased immeasurably. Finally, the judge rose to speak again,
"I base my decision on the ten hours of community service suggested by the defence. I base my sentence on the fact that the accused youth used a bottle as a dangerous weapon. The working hours must be completed in a social institution."
With this judgement, the judge closed the trial. When everyone had left the courtroom, my father came to me very disappointed and said that he was angry with the lawyer, because he had finally imposed a ten-hour sentence on me,
"I have to pay a high lawyer's fee. I don't like the fact that he nevertheless demanded ten hours of work. I'll say that directly to him again."
I, on the other hand, made no remark upon the verdict because I was simply relieved that the trial was over.
We went home again. My witness later demanded that I buy him a couple of drinks as promised, since he testified as agreed that the rocker came to me "with clenched fists", which my mate on New Year's Eve actually could not even see from a distance. So I bought him a beer or two at Bergstrasse. Later I sighted the damaged rocker several times in the disco of the community centre Altenholz. I immediately recognized him by his long gold-curled hair. He looked like a real heavy metal singer.
Finally, I worked ten hours in a house for the elderly close to my home, where I stood in the kitchen and had to help with the dishes. The nights before I was very drunk, so I started work in the morning with a hang-over. I spent two Saturday mornings of five hours each in the kitchen of the retirement home. After work I went directly to Friedrichsorter Jenner for boozing, who lived in a construction wagon next to the house of the elderly. We listened to PIL and Angelic Upstarts. I cursed the day I hit the rocker with a bottle on the head. Why did I stop there on New Year's Eve instead of just walking on? Now I had finally got my reputation as a thug.
The ashtray in the "Nieselpriem"
During the following times I went through a really bad period. At the bus stop Lehmberg in the direction of Gutenbergstrasse I had trouble with a couple of wavers while I was hanging around drunk. After a battle of words, I approached one of the wavers, who intended to go to a party in Flensburg that evening, and kicked him with the steel cap against his shinbone. I felt sorry for that the minute I hit him. He screamed out loud,
"Ouch!"
and bent. Another waver, Koh, arbitrated. Nevertheless, the kicked one had to stay at home. I really fucked up on that one. A few days later, the punishment followed. I finally got a punch on my nose from Gonnrad at the same bus stop. I wasn't sure if this was related to the trouble I had with the wavers. I accepted that Gonnrad punched me. From the moment his fist hit me head-on, I knew it was the just punishment for shinbone kick against the poor waver. I immediately associated the steel cap kick in my booze head, even if it was just pure coincidence that Gonnrad socked me exactly at the same place. It was clear to me: Gonnrad wanted to avenge the waver, but they probably didn't even know each other. He certainly didn't know about the shinbone kick. It was weird.
The other skins were no better. We still understood each other to some extent, but everyone seemed to hate us and we already were on the skids.
There were very special highlights at the beginning of the month when the welfare recipients among us received their payments. As soon as Gonnrad, Mig and Stidi had their welfare money in their pocket, we all profited from it, because the money was spent like there was no tomorrow. Now and then we visited the Nieselpriem – a kind of pub – in Schauenburger Strasse.
On one of those drunken evenings only Stidi, Mig and I remained. We could just afford a visit to the pub Nieselpriem, although the first of the month was just over. We sat down at the bar, on which several huge ashtrays of glass stood, ready for trouble and rebellious, and continued to slosh concentratedly. Slowly but surely we got blind drunk.
Almost every day at that point a terrible fight broke out between the two brothers. I think Stidi called Mig a Beo (hill myna) again. As a matter of principle, that always was the last straw for Mig, he couldn't stand it at all. The name Angola-Konz drove him mad as well. That night, the fight completely escalated. After the umpteenth beer, the wrangle at the bar started. The pub owner was unable to defuse the situation. Suddenly Stidi took an ashtray and clapped it in his brother's face with full force. A loud scream – and the blood splattered. Mig was wearing a gaping laceration wound under his left eye. After that, our right of residence in the Nieselpriem was over. We had to leave the pub immediately. Mig went alone to the nearest hospital, swearing and covered in blood. The wound was stitched the same night.
The following days he walked around with an extra thick plaster under his left eye. This did not detract from drinking together at the Ansgar playground. Only the two brothers hated each other more than ever and did not talk for a few days. That ashtray thing was extreme. I had never seen brothers so despised and warred against each other. That made them famous and notorious all over the city.
My first-time Clockwork Orange
At the time, I was wearing my right lower leg in plaster after I was brutally fouled in a U17 county league match against Kilia (Football Club in Kiel). They knocked me down on purpose so that I would receive a torn ligament and a laceration of the ankle joint capsule, but with only one Doc Martens on the left this would not diminish my initiative spirit. The plaster only had to be replaced once, as it broke at one point due to the excessive overload while being on the road boozing. I couldn't believe that my football career was basically over and I got sloshed all the more.
One afternoon I met Vielmann, Feycer and Brandy to watch the cult movie "A Clockwork Orange" in "Regina Movie Theater". We had never seen this jewel of movie history before, even though we had already heard a lot about it. The time was ripe as it was now finally shown at 'Regina'. After a short and quick drink with much anticipation we bought our ticket from a punk woman at the cash desk of the Regina. We looked for a comfortable place centrally in the front area of the cinema and self-confidently tore open more beer cans. When the movie finally began, we were already catapulted into a new world with the first camera shot, that was to change our lives significantly. We laughed, were concerned, laughed again, got into admiration and tore open more beers. The movie was over, but it was installed into our minds forever. A Clockwork Orange not only changed our vocabulary and language behaviour, but also our understanding of fashion. The movie didn't make us more aggressive, it made us more creative. My Clockwork Orange friends became friends for life – just droogs. It still bothered me that I still had to walk around with my leg in plaster, but with it I was at least as fast as Heimerich, who came along similar sluggish with his wooden leg. In the future we were able to train and expand our Clockwork Orange vocabulary effectively at our drinking sessions on Ansgar playground, at the beer vending machine and in the laundrettes. This brought us even more fun and cohesion. We greeted each other with,
"Hi, hi, hi my little droogs!"
If someone had a headache, it was said,
"Oh, my gulliver hurts so much!"
No "punches" were distributed among each other, instead we said,
"Give him tolchocks!"
I something was too drastic, we said,
"Stop the horrorshow!"
If anyone inquired about a woman, he might ask,
"What's the name of the devotchka?"
The expression word for "frogging" was,
"The old in and out!"
Asked someone,
"What's it that you are drinking?"
The answer was,
"Moloko plus, what else?"
When someone called out for a monologue, he started with,
"Well, well, well,"
or even with
"Welli, welli wellum!"
And if something was answered in the affirmative, it was said,
"Righty right"
or even in extreme situations,
"Righty, righty, rightum!"
And if someone didn't follow or became weird, it was as usual,
"What's going on, Chikko, mm?"
We planned to get our own droog outfit sometime. That's why I ordered a pair of white trousers from Blue Moon, but at first our project failed because of suitable "Shlapas" like bowlers or toppers. One evening, however, we ended up at an event at Ostseehalle (Baltic Sea Hall) with a few people, including Radke and Gonnrad, in an improvised droog outfit, at least with bulky boots and white trousers – please don't ask me what kind of event. We hung out at the beer stand all evening and sloshed. It remained peaceful.
The captured leather jacket
A higher order had already called a guy named Feycer on our schedule at the beginning of the year with whom we watched the said movie A Clockwork Orange. He brought the colour back into our lives. Vielmann became aware of Feycer because he had painted himself big ALEX on the side of the boots.
Feycer was the only one who was able to teach real lessons. He was also the only one who already owned the few music videos of the Oi! and street punk bands that were available at highest prices exclusively via record mail order. He managed to get us to stare at his TV set in silence and not even toast each other with beer bottles anymore. For the first time we saw the droogs of The Adicts in action, playing "Chinese Takeaway" and "Viva la Revolution". If at all, we knew our heroes only from record covers and a few photos from punk zines, because our youth culture was at that time almost completely out of all media.
Feycer not only refurbished our minds, but he changed the balance of power between us and the rockers by taking them to task and creating a new hierarchy that would change and shape our little world. He succeeded in hurting the vanity of the heavy metalists with words and deeds without really taking away their pride. When he visited me once in Pries-Friedrichsort where we went together to the Youth Club Buschblick, he immediately chose the most feared rocker and brought him to the ground with one single blow. It happened so fast, we couldn't believe our eyes. Feycer had far worse dark sides, that are outlined in the following.
In the early to mid-1980s, it was fashionable for many kids in Kiel to form mobs or gangs or even street clubs, to put pressure on other kids, to assault them and to perform crimes. Most of the time, however, it wasn't about money, watches or jewellery, but rather status symbols such as studded belts, bomber, baseball, leather jackets or even boots. This was not a question of poverty, but a question of brutality and gang domination. Street club patches were also often torn off jackets. There was nothing in the papers about these crimes. When reports to the police were given, the perpetrators could rarely be identified, and police statements by randomly picked up young people disappeared in ring binders. There existed different youth gangs, who had it in for scene-goers and members of other gangs. The cops had already founded the first special commission specializing in youth gangs. They called it "Soko Street Clubs" (Soko is the acronym for "Sonderkommission" = special investigation team). The victims of the gangs were mostly around during the evenings and usually alone, some were on the road in only small groups.
One of these bizarre incidents took place in Eckernförde, Schleswig-Holstein, when a thug from Kiel, together with a few friends, took on a 30 km tour to steal the leather jacket of a poor rocker in cold blood. This thug was called Feycer in the scene. He was neither punk nor skinhead, but saw himself as a droog based on the main characters in the cult movie A Clockwork Orange. Visually, he was a handsome young man, but he had his faults. He had a deep, inspiring, powerful voice and a physique that clearly set him apart from many other young men. Other important personalities on the scene were extremely reluctant to compete with him, for he would not avoid a fight if given the opportunity. Feycer had now irrevocably planned to get himself a leather jacket that day in Eckernförde, because he needed a new one. In addition, his friends really incited him. Someone drove the young people by car to this small town where the sidewalks are "flipped up" in the evening. The small group walked several times through the pedestrian zone until they met several hard rock oriented youngsters in a side street. One was wearing a black motorcycle leather jacket. Feycer wanted it right away. It all went quite quickly. The victim was asked to take off his jacket and hand it over,
"Take off that jacket, it's mine now!"
"What are you doing, that's my jacket,"
whimpered the rocker.
As the victim continued to refuse, Feycer finally turned violent and mistreated his opponent. Since our Feycer tackled him incredibly hard, he only half-heartedly fought back. After one or two minutes the droogie was in possession of the coveted leather gem. Without comment they turned their backs to the victim and his passive followers. The Droogs returned to the parking lot, sat down in the car beaming with joy and to recall what they had got. They talked about how they tormented the victim, how Feycer used violence and how the victim began to moan. They laughed in the car almost the whole way back. Feycer now owned a new jacket and wore it parading with it up and down. Vielmann, one of the companions during the leather jacket robbery, finally asked if he could buy it for 50 Deutschmark. Feycer agreed without batting an eyelid, because it wasn't his only leather jacket, but even this new owner, who was considered a good friend of Feycer, did not keep the jacket for long and offered it to me for 50 Deutschmark. When I learned the story, I fell head over heels in love with the jacket. I knew Feycer quite well, but was not present at the incident in Eckernförde.
When I bought the used leather jacket, the background story was more important to me, because the brutal storyline gave the jacket a sentimental value for its environment. It was a kind of motivation for me in my current mental state to be allowed to take over the piece that Feycer himself had captured. I also suddenly thought I had to own a leather jacket again. I avoided spreading the cowboy story excessively, for I was afraid that the jacket could be torn away from me again because true legends and fantasies about the quest for this leather piece were generated in the scene. I kept the jacket for quite a while, until Hecker borrowed it for a weekend to go to a punk concert. He did not give it back to me and instead wore it himself permanently provocatively, even at events where I showed up. We fought a long time over the thing, but I, the fourth owner, didn't get it back. I just couldn't fight with my old mate Hecker, with whom I had been through so much during the Chaos Days in Hanover. I threatened to call in Hecker's mother to increase the pressure on him to get back the legendary leather jacket, even though it wasn't legally mine. Awkward as he was, Hecker, the fifth owner, had already got rid of the jacket. He sold it to a Scholar School pupil for an outrageous DM 100. When I sussed that out, I didn't want to show up at the Scholar School pupil and reclaim the jacket. Such a reclaim at the front door violated my basic principles and could have backfired in this form, so I decided to have a talk with Hecker instead. I confronted him several times,
"I definitely want that leather jacket back, that's my best piece. It means so much to me!"
My old punk friend was once again stubborn and he promised under pressure to get the jacket back. It took precious time, and I gave Hecker an ultimatum. I even threatened to take away his four-row pyramid studded belt instead, whose exact origin was unsettled as well. In the end we agreed that Hecker would send me 50 Deutschmark. At that time I didn't even know that he had sold the jacket to owner number six for twice that amount. The leather jacket, which Feycer captured back then in Eckernförde, was endowed with wide ribbed shoulders and a gold-coloured zipper. When I finally confronted owner number six and asked him about the jacket, he said,
"Yes, I bought it from Hecker at the time."
"And what did you give him for it?"
"Ay, that were a hundred Deutschmarks he got out of me."
I got a real shock, because I only received 50 Deutschmark from Hecker. The whole story flashed through my head again. In the end he gave me the jacket free of charge after I made it clear that it belonged to me, but too much time had passed since then. I now became repentant when I saw through in a flash how the jacket had travelled from owner to owner. Could I really ask my old pal Hecker for the 50 DM difference for a jacket Feycer took from another teenager in an act of violence?
I thought of the victim, also of Feycer, as well as of the third owner Vielmann and even of Hecker, who had borrowed it from me and simply flogged it off without permission. This thing seemed crazy. I wondered what it would be like if Vielmann also demanded a difference from the others, as I had bought the jacket myself for 50 Deutschmarks. Or what if Feycer himself appeared at our door and taught everyone another lesson? Was it to be expected that he would once again charge a special fee to all later owners?
I had to imagine again the victim in Eckernförde from whom Feycer snatched the jacket. The vicious circle had to be broken. Finally, despite bad ulterior motives, I renounced the remaining 50 Deutschmark from Hecker and did not consider exerting any more increased pressure on him for the time being. Furthermore, there existed a kind of danger that the very first owner, the rocker from Eckernförde and thus legitimate buyer, could spot me in this piece of jewellery and recognize the jacket. I got more scruples. Or had this rocker from Eckernförde also not legally purchased this object and taken it from an even slimmer youngster on the street, for whom the jacket was much too big? I don't think we'll ever learn the truth.
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