The skinhead party on the adventure playground
When it's hot in summer, you're young and call yourself punk or skinhead with a lot of alcohol in your blood, you really can come up with some ludicrous ideas. Two of the gang were not in the city that evening, but in Kiel-North. Oi!-music had been heard all the time and several units of beer were already consumed. Someone claimed that drinking beer from grain glasses would make you drunk faster with less alcohol. This has been tested and disproved. Nevertheless, both of us were pissed at some point. Afterwards, a criminal activity began with two figures meandering through the suburb without any real plans. Suddenly one of them had the idea to visit the local football club and see if anything could be discovered there. They soon reached the sports grounds and discovered an unlocked entrance gate to the main field. They approached the sales kiosk. Of course, this one was locked. The story goes that the two figures subsequently broke into the mentioned kiosk. Accordingly, they initially tore at the door at the back with full force, but it could not be opened. They didn't want to give up so quickly, because they suspected there was something in the hut – kiosk drinks, sausages and sweets were sold during the league games. Finally, they went to the front and concentrated on the locked hatch. The joy was great when they were able to open the hatch a tiny bit. They tore further at the massive wooden plate until finally the gap was so big that one of them could climb through. He set the flame of his lighter to have a little more light. He immediately noticed the Holsten export cans and the oversized refrigerator. With delight he reported what he had discovered. Shortly afterwards he opened the door of the fridge so that the interior light was switched on automatically. There were bags of sausages in the fridge. This information was also reported from inside the kiosk with joy,
"We'll take it all with us!"
it sounded from outside.
"What do you think, how should we carry all this?"
it sounded back.
"Anyway, we're gonna make it!"
The 24-box export cans were shrink-wrapped in plastic foil and therefore easy to transport. They decided to take only two bags of the sausages, but definitely all the beer, but how much could they carry at once? Finally, they took only two boxes each and carried them into the garden behind his parents' house. They put the beer right behind the garage and went back to the sports field. There they bent the hatch open again so that one could crawl inside to hand out two bags of 50 sausages each and another beer box each. The joy was great and they carried the rest of the booty behind his parents' garage. First plans for a party were already in full swing. The front door was unlocked and the two bags of sausages were placed in a refrigerator under the roof, which was normally rarely used. They had to be quiet so as not to wake their parents. Now the loot was safe. One of them stored the beer in the refrigerator the following day. When his parents later discovered the many beers and sausages, it was boldly claimed that the things had been bought for a party. His mother just shook her head. Already on the following weekend a large grill party should take place on the "Abbi", the adventure playground Hohenleuchte. They telephoned all the skins and quickly realized that the response was great. Those who did not know the adventure playground received a rough description of the way including bus connection. The weather was perfect, so nothing could prevent us celebrating a successful barbecue party. It was supposed to start on Saturday at 4pm. Finally, 12 skins came together to celebrate a glorious party on this wonderful summer evening.
Beer and sausages were carried to the fireplace, this time Steff had his tape recorder with him. Several blokes, including myself, got their self-made sampler tapes with Oi!-music. Even Stidi and Mig came all the way from Gaarden. Gonnrad was not in the mood for Friedrichsort. We collected wood, lit a campfire and got small sticks from the hedgerow behind the adventure playground to prong the sausages. The sausages were speared either lengthwise, or crosswise and then held over the fire. We ate them directly from the grill stick, sometimes half-grilled, sometimes burnt and sometimes well-grilled. We had neither ketchup, mustard nor plates with us – let alone cutlery. The beer ran in large quantities. We just had to be careful not to burn our mouths because the sausages were extremely hot. The atmosphere was excellent and we enjoyed the fantastic evening. Soon we realized that we had far too many sausages. We were already heavily drunk when one of us speared his next sausage across a barbecue stick and broke the saussage in two parts which landed in the grass. We picked up one of the halves and threw it against the head of another barbecue guest. Now we all threw the nibbled sausage remains, sausage ends and later whole, ungrilled sausages against each other, because we simply had too many of them. It became a real sausage fight. We were so drunk from the beer in the burning evening sun it was really great fun. Soon the sausage scraps were scattered all around until we finally got fed up with the sausage fight. We took the remaining beers and caught the bus into town. The beers were emptied quickly, so we had to go to the beer vending machine in Knooper Weg, where the evening ended desolately. This section of the Knooper Weg was basically our territory. At some point the whole bunch ran in all directions, some went to the Annen pub, others to the Bergstrasse, others went home. I guess the sausage remains on the adventure playground had attracted all the rats in the area. The gang had their fun as usual. In the end I was proud that the skins, apart from Gonnrad, made their way to Friedrichsort.
Money for beer and muscato
For a while Messrs Gonnrad, Stidi and Mig phoned me almost daily after I got home from school and ordered me back into town to drink. My mother handed over the phone to me several times,
"Gonnrad is on the phone!"
or
"Here, it's Stidi!"
I heard them say,
"Shelter, we'll meet at the Ansgar playground later."
"I'm up for it. At what time then?"
I was quite happy that they wanted me as their drinking partner. I was almost always there and only cancelled when my football team at SV Friedrichsort needed me. At that time I still played in the U17 county league and was to go up in the U19 after the summer break. I was needed in the skinhead scene, I drove almost daily in the afternoon directly after I returned from school and having had lunch in my parents' house, went back to town to meet my skinhead friends at the Ansgar playground. There were still a few mods who were retail apprentices who wanted to run with the pack. For a schoolboy like me, this drinking agenda was a tough routine, if not a vicious circle.
One day I was in a miserable state after an inebriation in the evening, that lasted until late in the night. During the school break I sat cowering on my chair in the classroom. Nazi-Gerd came to me and said,
"Oh boy, you're a mess. Breathe on me!"
I breathed on him willingly.
"Oah, you stink of alcohol. Just go home and sleep it off."
Gerd also ordered me to tell the teacher that I felt sick without getting too close to the teacher so that he would not smell my breath. I behaved exactly as Gerd had told me to. During the bus ride to Pries-Friedrichsort I felt really dirty. I bent a little, kept staring out of the side window and got scared that I might throw up. At the stop Eiche all those comprehensive school pupils got on my nerves, because they behaved differently than us city pupils. One stop later I finally got out. At home I immediately undressed, went to bed and slept off my intoxication.
It wasn't always easy to finance the booze. Soon I reached the point that I began to convert my very last punk records for cash at Tutti Frutti's to scrape together a few marks for drinks. When I finally sold the Everything went Black from Black Flag to Tutti for a measly two Deutschmarks, that was the last straw. This double LP that contained repetitive but different versions of old Black Flag songs – all with varying singers – plus radio jingles and a front cover, that showed a hedge trimmer that at punk times was regarded as an ideal tattoo pattern – for a ridiculous two marks,
"That really hurt!"
I got angry and could barely control myself. I also got rid of Exploited's Punks not Dead, which didn't cause me much pain. Tutti just refused to pay out more. She would not tolerate negotiations on the purchase prices. I sold some more records that day. I swore I'd take revenge on Tutti for those miserable purchase prices. That's why I stole two singles. That was unfair of me, and of no use. I had to sell more and more old punk records.
When Tutti later decided to give up the shop at the corner of Waitzstrasse, I saw my hour come and stole several LPs and maxi-singles from the remaining stocks. I was downright vengeful, since Tutti had previously resold the used records for relatively expensive money despite the absolutely low purchase price. In my opinion, that was pure capitalism. Later, of course, I felt sorry for my behaviour, because such dishonest reactions to Tutti's buying and selling policies contributed to the decline of this popular record store in Holtenauer Strasse, but that's what crazy teenagers do. My excuse "decay of character by means of alcohol" could not be accepted in this case. I was always treated hypercorrectly when it came to new purchases. I also bought my first Blitz LP Voice of a Generation directly in the store. At home I noticed that the vinyl was dented and therefore almost inaudible. When I complained about it, Tutti took the record back without any problems. I did not do what blokes do listening for hours to one record after another in the store without buying anything in the end, although she seemed to have a lot of sympathy for those people. I met Tutti and her new partner years later again at the parties of a former Blitz records seller. I thought briefly whether I should confess to her the shoplifting of that time, because I was ashamed of it. Instead we talked about Gonnrad, whom she classified as Kiel's chief punk.
After all, I kept scraping together a few Deutschmarks through my emergency sales – money with which we just bought nothing else but beer and muscato in the nearby Mini-Mal market. Muscato was a trendy drink for us. It was cheap and tasted good.
Our medical examination
Many young men had a crisis as soon as they received their defence registration and later the medical examination order. Some came up with the strangest problems to get rejected. A friend from the football club, who was a trainee at HDW (Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft, biggest shipyard in Kiel at that time), even inhaled hot cocoa for days to feign unfitness with a pretentious cough and a shadow on his lung.
At that time I scribbled the band name Sham 69 with Tipp-Ex on my leather school bag and was constantly asked what Sham means in German and what it's about. I always said,
"Sham means fraud or deception!"
"And what's all this about?"
"This is a British punk band, hey!"
At some point a decision from the regional military recruiting office flew through the mail slot that I had to take a suitability test. As luck would have it, Hecker's Bundeswehr suitability test was arranged for exactly the same date in Küterstrasse. Hecker was more into punk at the time than ever. We were even sitting in the same room during the test and both suffered from severe concentration problems. The night before we got heavily drunk in order to perform as badly as possible during the test. In the visual tests and the concentration test we scored particularly miserably. During my medical examination, the Bundeswehr physicians didn't look at my arse. That's what I was most afraid of. Despite Scheuermann's disease, colourblindness and despite the injured right ankle joint, the bastards gave me the degree of fitness level two. Hecker – as a football playing punk was as fit as a fiddle and only slightly harmed by sloshing – was also considered fit for the army.
I refused military service only much later, when I had just received my draft notice for a radio unit at Eckernförde. With my tearful refusal essay, which was about my grandmother's agonizing death, I got through without complications. The problem was, however, that several friends who wanted to refuse as well photocopied my refusal or wrote it off and, if at all, slightly changed it. I was afraid that this would be discovered and that I might suddenly appear as a criminal, since the official pencil-pushers and white-collar criminals might no longer be able to clarify who was the original author of the refusal essay. My fears had so far proved to be baseless.
My new Toy Dolls single
The radio station NDR2 regularly delighted its listeners at selected locations with a live wish programme called "Junge Welle Nord" (young wave north). This time, they chose the auditorium of the "Kiel School of Scholars" to broadcast a special programme of the visitors' choice. The news spread quickly around the young people from the area that they could visit the said auditorium and bring their favourite records to hand them in to the NDR2 team and have them played, provided that the radio presenters agreed to the material. If their songs were played, the youngsters would receive the brand new Bruce Springsteen LP Born in the USA as a reward. Since I wanted to influence my fellow beings constantly with my music anyway, I took my new Toy Dolls single "Alfie from the Bronx", that I had just received from Vinyl Boogie. I drove that afternoon, it was a working day, along with Ringo on line 44 to Dreiecksplatz. We arrived punctually a few minutes before the start of the show at the "School of Scholars", a school I had always had a huge respect for because of the word "scholar". Two radio presenters were around, as well as several visitors who sat glued to their chairs of the auditorium – most of them Scholar School pupils – including those kids who wanted to have their favourite song played. The latter should first contact the technician next to the mixing console and hand in the record to be played. They were listened to briefly, and the name, band and song titles were noted by the NDR staff member in order to ensure a trouble-free procedure. I took my Toy Dolls single to the mentioned person, told my name and the song concerned and handed him my beloved single. The auditorium went live on time and the presenters asked the first kids about their favourite songs. Meanwhile Ringo and I sat excitedly in the midst of the auditorium visitors and nearly wet ourselves laughing over the music tastes of the other kids. At some point, two young people who had brought an LP from the band Die Zimmermänner were interviewed. The NDR2 team played the song "Ich werde in der Sonne immer dicker" (I get thicker and thicker in the sun). The two young fans of Die Zimmermänner answered the curious questions of the radio presenter under loud shouting of their mates. Immediately afterwards, the presenter handed over to his colleague Jörgen, who was already sitting next to me with a microphone in his hand.
"Now Rollant is sitting besides me. Rollant came to me and said, why don't you play something funny. Rollant, what would you call funny?"
"Yes, Toy Dolls from... no, Toy Dolls, the band, and... the song is Alfie from the Bronx."
"Can you say anything about the band?"
"Yes, quite unknown actually ... should get famous with this kind of music."
"I already looked at the record, it seems to be an import record?"
"Yes, from England."
"So it isn't available here?"
"Nah, you can only... order it."
"Well, let's see if we can get a taste for it."
Thereupon the song resounded from the NDR loudspeakers in the auditorium and simultaneously in the entire North German broadcasting area and probably also in parts of the Northwest GDR. Meanwhile I sat on one of the hard auditorium chairs between Ringo and the radio presenter and was as merry as a lark, Ringo of course as well. I was incredibly proud to make millions of people happy with my Toy Dolls single. When "Alfie from the Bronx" finally faded away, Jörgen's moderator colleague already questioned the next youth. Meanwhile I picked up my single at the mixer next to the stage and received the Born in the USA LP as a reward, in which I had no interest at all as skinhead. I accepted the LP with discomfort. After the end of the event we walked back to the bus station with the LP and single to return to Kiel-North. On the bus I met a teammate from football. I told him about the radio appearance and sold him unscrupulously the not yet heard LP on the spot for ten Deutschmarks. It just wasn't my music. With all due respect, I found it pathetic that the NDR-blokes had offered no alternative to Born in the USA. Later, I was approached by a schoolboy of the Ricarda Huch school who happened to tape my short appearance on the NDR2 program "Junge Welle Nord" on the said day. He lent me the tape to copy. I was shocked to hear my own voice on the radio recording. I just kept the tape. I should have given it back to him.
The Tautz thing
We knew that some of the Kiel punks were busy training Eskrima. Even Barne practiced this martial art regularly. One evening, in the middle of the week, I went with Manki, the poor punk from Stromeyerallee, to Bergstrasse. We were quite sloshed and went to the hand pizza shop next to the Golden Gate. I was smoking Manki's tobacco that night. As usual, I would have favoured smoking filter cigarettes while boozing, preferably West or Prince. We wore our cheap bomber jackets from C&A, stood there on the pedestrian way and talked. Manki had significantly longer hair than I did, wore his combat boots from punk times and a pair of jeans. In principle, he looked like a punk in a bomber jacket. Suddenly two tall Wik Punks positioned themselves in front of us. I recognized one of them as Tautz, who was almost a head taller than me. He seemed pushy. I knew that Tautz had a notorious hatred for all skinheads and anyone who wore a bomber jacket. His colleague stayed in the background. Tautz stood now on my left side, Manki stood directly opposite me with his back to the pizza counter. Tautz categorized us immediately as skinheads and confronted us. He asked,
"Are you right-wing or what?"
"No, we're not. Why?"
I answered resolutely.
"Yeah, you guys are walking around in bomber jackets."
"We don't have to be necessarily right-wing."
The verbal pogo continued. Tautz asked the next question,
"You'll be hanging out with Gonnrad and the Konz brothers, won't you?"
"Yes, and? A lot of people do that. That means nothing."
I felt like I was being interrogated. I held Manki's tobacco pouch in my hand, took a paper and a little tobacco. While I was rolling one, I answered further questions when Tautz suddenly knocked the half-finished cigarette out of my hands without warning. With fast reactions and without batting an eyelid, I immediately struck him in the face with my right fist, turned around and sprinted away. Tautz tried to run after me at first, but realized that he could no longer catch up with me. Instead he went at Manki, suddenly pulled a bludgeon out of the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled him over the poor Manki's head. After my short sprint I noticed that Tautz wasn't following me anymore. I wandered briefly through the area, went through Legienstrasse and turned into the Jägersberg opposite the main portal of the Technical College for Electrical-Engineering in order to make my way to the bus stop, Dreiecksplatz. I had to pass the playground on the right-hand side. As I had just passed the entrance to the playground, I saw a shadow rushing towards me out of nowhere. It was Tautz, the protofascistic brutalo, with the bludgeon in his hand, which he had already swung over his head. With my mind full of adrenaline, I ducked away, started to sprint again and just got away. I just thought
Fucking Nightmare!
I sprinted to the Holtenauer and ran further north. Sometimes running, sometimes walking I finally reached the stop Waitzstrasse. A little later the bus arrived. I got in through the entrance in front at the driver and went further backwards. I did not recognize Manki, who was cowering under one of the benches, because he was afraid that Tautz might also be on the bus or boarding. Later Manki and I realized that we were on the same bus. As he sat down in the back row, I immediately saw the laceration and the horn on the top of his forehead. I was pretty scared. Manki said,
"That bastard pulled his bludgeon all over my head."
"Damn, he hit you hard. Did he mean to kill you?"
Manki made heavy accusations against me, because I had punched Tautz as a reflex and thus only made him see red. I tried to make it clear to Manki that I had no other choice, as Tautz was up for an escalation anyway. Tautz's attack made us suddenly sober. The shock was deep, because this punk was ready for the extreme. After that evening, I felt different. Manki did not forgive me about these actions for quite a while. Later we would laugh about it. Fortunately I never saw Tautz again.
Stenko attacks me with an axe
Stenko, a weird waver from Kiel-Suchsdorf who we mistakenly thought was a chartered accountant, was basically a new wave fan from the very beginning. He hung out with us skinheads one Saturday evening when we went to the formerly occupied house in Hansastrasse 48, that was now legalized and a registered association. We liked Stenko not only because of his bad personality and the indifference in his voice, but also because he always called the Bergstrasse "The Complex",
"Shall we go to the complex?"
"The complex is still open!"
On that evening we were once again looking for a drinking hall, and the premises of the cultural centre in Hansastrasse, including the cinema and event hall, were open at all times. We looked around a bit and made ourselves comfortable. After a while Stenko found an axe in the toilet aisle. I just came out of the toilet and walked past him. He raised his axe and came at me. For some reason, he was fed up and wanted to make quick work of me. When I saw the aroused Stenko with his axe raised, I was terrified, jumped aside and took flight. I just got away when the axe crashed down next to me. Stenko, who always drank to the utmost and spoke at high speed under high stress while gasping for breath, just missed me by a narrow margin that evening. In a panic I ran to the others who I thought could prevent Stenko from performing another axe attack. Finally, he let himself be disarmed and the axe was hidden somewhere in Hansastrasse. Later I saw crazy Stenko with different eyes in the following time and I became attentive as soon as he approached me. I knew I would never turn my back on him again.
A little later he met a Peruvian woman and retired from the scene. The axe attack could have gone wrong. If I hadn't dodged and run away, in the worst case he could have split my skull or even chopped off one of my arms. Or boozed as he was he might have rammed the axe into his own knees. It was this bad action that made me realize how wasted he really was. Even today, I don't know what was driving Stenko at that time.
In the rehearsal room of the Spy Kids
Gonnrad and the Konz brothers learned about the existence of a Kiel ska combo called Spy Kids, who rehearsed at Youth Club North. After we had drunk a lot again on a Wednesday afternoon, the four of us went to their rehearsal room. The band members seemed quite advanced musically, they even had saxophone and brass with them. I even knew the female saxophonist from my school. She was in my original parallel class, I think even in Maxi's former class. After we four skins entered the rehearsal room, the woman looked at me briefly, but we didn't greet each other. We had two shopping bags full of beer with us and continued boozing in the rehearsal room. The rehearsal room of the Spy Kids was a lot bigger than the basement hole of 'The Victims' in the same building. It was obviously a bit embarrassing for the Spy Kids to have to show their skills in front of us skins. The singer Clerens wore a new wave hairstyle and seemed a little shy. After a few songs from their repertoire, the Spy Kids revealed to us that they needed an additional singer. Gonnrad replied with a whimsical grin that I was just the right person for it. This came as a surprise to me, especially as I never had any experience in this field. Finally I was pushed halfway towards the microphone I was supposed to share with Clerens. Now I felt masculinity arousing inside of me while standing at a microphone for the very first time in my life. The song the Spy Kids rehearsed was called "Agenten". Clerens, the regular singer, scribbled the short text with a pencil on a torn matchbox and handed it over to me.
"Here, that's all. Thou shalt sing no more."
I read through the very short text,
"Agenten, Agenten sind keine Kontrahenten." (Agents, agents are not rivals.)
Now I stood next to the lead singer on the microphone stand with my boozy breath, and the band started playing the song. Suddenly Clerens sang the lyrics for the first time and signaled with a gesture that I should sing along. I looked again at the lyrics and sang along to the rhythm,
"Agenten, Agenten sind keine Kontrahenten."
Whenever Clerens approached the microphone, I would also move towards the microphone stand and sing,
"Agenten, Agenten sind keine Kontrahenten."
I was drunk as hell and on top of the world. The other three skinheads were proud of me as well. After the song the rehearsal was over. Gonnrad now suggested to play the song "Skinhead Moonstomp" by Symarip at the next rehearsal. As a skinhead, I was the rightful presenter of the intro text to it, so I was to return to the next band rehearsal and was commissioned to find the spoken intro text for "Skinhead Moonstomp" and to learn it by heart. I listened to the text and wrote it down. I went through it several times and tried to memorize it,
"I want all you Skinheads to get up on your feet... put your braces together and your boots on your feet... and give me some of that old moonstomping."[1]
Now I knew the said intro text by heart, but I missed showing up for the next appointment in the rehearsal room. Unfortunately, we didn't go to the Spy Kids rehearsal again. Too bad – missed an opportunity.
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