(No) Future for the fascists?
While I was still at Hebbelschool, Töle's brother told me in the smoker's area of our school yard,
"You either have to be completely right-wing or completely left-wing!"
That was modified by Steff, who had meanwhile changed from the Kiel-Pries Secondary School to Hebbel Grammar, as he said,
"Someone can be so extremely left-wing that the person is already right-wing again!"
Steff was the very first person I ever heard using the expression "left-wing fascist". It was really a very politicized time. In German lessons with a young female teacher, we had finally discussed the topic of right-wing extremism. That definitely was two years too late, maybe even three years for those who had repeated the class, like me. Nevertheless, we did not read a single book about right-wing extremism at school. After the experiences from my skinhead time, my conviction was that you are only acceptable as a skinhead guy or girl if you clearly position yourself against right-wing extremism and at the same time make a statement against right-wing extremism with your outward appearance – be it through a patch, button or T-shirt.
Since pissing in the assembly hall in the U2a class, I was on the shitlist of every teacher at Hebbelschool and felt literally like I was walking through hell. Whenever I met teachers in the administration corridor and humbly greeted them with "Good morning" or "Good day", they simply didn't respond. Even when I met them in the corridor alone, or when my class teacher passed by, they would hard-heartedly ignore me and just walk on. That was inhumane, as if I were a convicted felon. The mental punishment lasted three more years, and I despaired of it in the long run. That's why the television series Tod eines Schülers (Death of a Schoolboy) repeatedly haunted me, which was controversially discussed in the nationwide media for years. This always caused anxiety in me.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a real chance at Hebbel Grammar anymore. With the teachers it was over, and my school performance got worse and worse. By '86 I finally managed to leave Hebbel Grammar and enrolled myself at a Comprehensive School in Kiel-Friedrichsort, where a commie teacher had just been banned from teaching. Due to this cross-transfer I lost another school year. After the new start at school, I felt liberated of a heavy burden. After that I never saw Nazi-Gerd again. He and his peers had incited countless people to extremism and seemed to have got away unharmed themselves. I was told that he went to the Bundeswehr after school, then studied business administration and joined his father's security company.
Many years later, after reunification, I learned that he had moved to Dresden and had founded a private armed security company guarding Bundeswehr properties. I think his security company was just a vehicle for him to complete his evil work. You could count on five fingers what Gerd planned to do in Dresden, and as former secretary of the BHJ he could have made a contribution to kick-starting the right-wing scene there.
It was blatant that his companion, Nazi-Thorben, after leaving Hebbelschool as well, went to Kiel Business Grammar School with my sister to get his A-Levels. I have been told by various sources that he holds a mid-level position as a credit risk analyst at H-SA Ortbank. The suspicion automatically arose that, given his past as a leading right-wing extremist in Kiel, he could pursue a kind of right wing cronyism as the person responsible for granting loans. Did Nazi-Gerd and Nazi-Thorben perhaps even try to establish a right-wing operative network? There is a lot that is unclear.
As far as my own misery was concerned, I could not shift the entire blame onto Gerd and his companion, the fascist piss artist. I also could not blame the teachers for my career, who were in some cases former participants in the war, who beat and reprimanded us – their pupils – and occasionally tried to manipulate our opinion about the Third Reich. I should have shown stronger steadfastness and personal responsibility in order to resist the manipulative efforts by the two young Nazis and the right-wing teachers. As long as I was part of the punk scene, this worked quite well, because we could stand our ground using a lot of mockery during breaks and after school. When I showed up later with my bomber jacket, however, people from different sides tried verbally to bring me into line. I did not remain true to myself and my principles, otherwise I would have fought with Stidi much sooner and would have defended myself against Nazi-Gerd more decisively. I should have more strongly opposed the creeping process of spreading right-wing radical thoughts in the skinhead scene. However, I have to say that someone from the scene had tricked me into taking a pill as Heimerich later claimed. As I tried to ask him for details, he played it down. I couldn't find out whether he meant Gerd's supposed caffeine tablet before the sports class, or if there was another incident with LSD. Maybe it would have been better to leave school immediately during the hard punk times, because Hebbel Grammar was no fun for people like me at that time. Unfortunately, I was too cowardly, to simply strike back at the teacher Haberlack. Only Maxi was able to do something like that. I would have been spared a lot of suffering if I had found another school in time.
Hot coffee
I don't recall what kind of elections were to take place, whether state or local elections were called, but the election campaigns were running at full speed. Word had got around that the radical right-wing party, NPD (National Democratic Party of Germany), was driving through the Kiel working-class districts with a loudspeaker in order to distribute its right-wing propaganda. I was just standing in the large amusement arcade in Friedrichsort, as someone shouted from the entrance,
"The NPD car is coming!"
I held a full plastic cup of coffee in my hand, which I had just bummed for free from the amusement arcade supervisor. The cup was very hot, so I could only touch it at the top and had to move it from hand to hand several times to avoid scalding my fingers. When I arrived on the platform in front of the arcade, I saw the NPD car driving at walking speed down Friedrichsorter Strasse. With a loudspeaker fixed to the roof of the small, white car, the occupants blasted the citizens of Friedrichsort with right-wing extremist slogans. Determined, I went to the opposite side of the street with the full cup of coffee and waited for the car. Meanwhile, the dirty slogans ran from the car's cassette player. Beside the driver sat a muscle-packed front-seat passenger as a reinforcement. The usual hate speech about migrants was being spread, with which the NPD typically tried to dupe the population. When the car finally arrived at the area opposite the arcade, I walked up to the car, leaned diagonally over the windshield, and emptied the entire load of coffee into the forward-facing megaphone. At that moment a librarian from the district library walked by and shouted,
"Well done!"
With a light crackle, the inflammatory slogans of the NPD fell silent. End of the announcement. The bodybuilder in the passenger seat reacted grumpily and seemed to want to get out, but the driver gave him a sign to stay seated, because he had noticed that the young martial-arts-experienced Turks of the "Bloody Eagles" had gathered in their black bomber jackets, with patches sewn on, in front of the arcade, from where they watched the action attentively. Instead of getting out of the car and knocking me down, the NPD members got the car into gear and drove off in the direction of An der Schanze Street. I was afraid that I might be charged for the defective loudspeaker, but if the NPD pack had got out, the "Bloody Eagles" would certainly have rushed to my aid. The situation would have been different if the NPD had called the cops, but for that they would have had to get out and dial 110 from the phone booth. They obviously shied away from doing this because it would have put their anti-immigrant slogans on record.
Leather jacket theft at the Alte Meierei (Old Dairy Farm)
Over the years, two new dark wave bands were formed in Kiel. One was called New Dawn Fades, with Gerti as the singer; the other was called Church of Insanity, with Manja on the mic, who used to sing in a punk band. Many mixed up the two singers with their permanently dyed black hair. They also backcombed their hair in the same way. In the end, they were nothing more than punk girls turned goth. Later, even $abrina and Zilvana tried to start a small singing career – one in metal and the other in rap.
My self-confidence had now recovered and I was able to resist against people from the right-wing scene, just as I had always managed to do before Gerd tried to convert me. The mates that I knew from school, the sports club and the big amusement arcade stabilized me again. A stable circle of friends redeveloped, and I made sure that I kept in touch with them. I really blossomed again, had wild hairstyles and my record collection became more colourful. Also, my love for punk became revitalized, but not as extreme as in my early days. I slowly developed into a fan of the Dutch band The Ex, which I liked to hear while sitting alone in my armchair at home.
I occasionally got punk zines, including Trust and, later, Wahrschauer. Despite my positive development I still had a few distinct habits. I wore electronic resistors, which I'd bent into shape, and a small skull from a chewing gum machine as earrings.
I hit back at others more consistently than ever if someone expressed a right-wing attitude in my presence. My negative experiences with the neo-fascists were serious and left their mark on me for life. These events should not repeat themselves again. I even corrected people's speech, called them to task and put an end to their right-wing ideas, but here, too, there was always the danger of getting caught with the wrong people.
Soon the day came, when the LP Neither Washington nor Moscow lay permanently on my turntable. My hair was ten centimetres long at that time. Whenever I saw the record cover with the sailor pictured on it, I had to think of my dead cousin, who worked as a mechanic on the supply ship Spessart. He searched in vain for an effective treatment programme. My cousin was not the only one in my family who died of an overdose. This also happened to a half cousin in Austria, whom I never met in my life and who was presumably in the punk scene with a mohawk.
With our clique we attended a lot of concerts. We extended our range of movement, going more often to Hamburg to the venues Fabrik, Markthalle, Molotow and Docks. Among the highlights were concerts by The Pogues, Meat Puppets, Bad Religion, Hüsker Dü, Serious Drinking and, finally, Peter and the Test Tube Babies. In Lübeck, at a venue called Alternative, we saw The Neurotics and Attila the Stockbroker, and landed again at Plünschli in Husbyries, where The Vibes and The Sting-Rays played – both trashy psycho-combos.
At the Sting-Rays gig I was drunk and stoned. Smoking weed happened every now and then, even with inhalation. After the gig, I took a guitar that probably belonged to the supporting band. This was a really idiotic deed that I later felt sorry for.
Before the Vibes concert we went to a cemetery near Flensburg. To make matters worse, Töle knocked over a tombstone. That was totally unacceptable, even though there was something annoying engraved on it. With $abrina I even stole a microphone from the PA during a New Model Army concert. I simply removed it while $abrina held her open imitation leopard skin handbag in front of me. All of this was not very positive.
The Alte Meierei was, meanwhile, fully established and enriched the cultural life of the city with punk concerts. Especially on weekends, punk bands from all over the world were regularly presented there. Not only when American groups like Youth of Today, Verbal Assault or False Prophets performed in this wonderfully filthy venue, it was crowded to overflowing. We saw countless convincing and rousing concerts here. At the cash desk we usually had to pay eight Deutschmark. Sometimes there was a so-called "Vokü" or "Volx Küche" ("people's kitchen" with cheap food for everyone), in which large quantities of food were cooked for visitors. Many people here had dyed hair, some wore Rasta curls, some mohawks, others skinheads. I also saw Radke here again, who with dyed red hair also distanced himself from the skinhead scene. Here you met normal intellectuals, students, workers and certainly plain-clothes policemen who wanted to check out whether potential terrorists or drug dealers were running around. From time to time we saw punks with the RAF emblem on the back of their leather jackets.
There were constantly dogs running around, sometimes quarrelling violently, sometimes barking or sniffing each other. The drinks were remarkably cheap. What annoyed many people was the elitist behaviour of some autonomists, who always felt superior and even regarded righteous punks with suspicion – skins anyway. Many of the old Kiel punk dinosaurs avoided the Meierei because the scene became too political for them. When the venue was crowded, people liked to dance bare-chested in front of the stage, and stage diving was not stopped either. Many wore leather jackets, band T-shirts, "Against Nazis" patches and Doc Martens with steel caps. Studded belts were everywhere to be seen, even though the wide, four-row ones with large pyramid studs became increasingly rare. Last but not least, the toilets were to prove unsuitable and disgusting for the residents, bands and visitors. The sanitary facilities were already so filthy at the time that a thick layer of fungus grew on the enamel of the basins and elsewhere. This proved itself difficult to tolerate, especially for women, and was repeatedly discussed.
Next to the cash register there were always leaflets on current political topics, such as drug addiction, Kurdistan or the police state, although these were not imposed upon visitors. However, these DIN A4 sheets were not noticed by many young people. The concert posters, that were placarded everywhere in the city, were quite imaginative and rich in contrast. That was what accurately characterized the Alte Meierei at the time. Sometimes I even found their posters on electricity boxes in Kiel-Friedrichsort.
But the venue was a thorn in the side of the city administration from the very beginning, because they didn't want anyone, even if they were just a few critical youths, to organize themselves subculturally or politically. The people here were brightly-coloured; some had tribal tattoos, hair ornaments and many piercings. Unfortunately, there were black sheep in this scene who liked to pinch leather jackets, parked bicycles or backpacks. Some visitors were afraid to go too far away from their belongings when they were drinking, pogoing or chatting, because they could get stolen under certain circumstances. In principle this could have happened in any Kiel disco or concert venue. Usually junkies were – as is the case everywhere – under general suspicion.
At the end of one concert, as a dark, Irish folk-punk band played, Töle, the little punk from Kiel-Wik, who was by no means a junkie, grabbed an old leather jacket out of the blue and left the venue with it. We did not expect him to act like this. We were shocked, because he had never done anything like this before. In former times he wouldn't have dared to even think about it. Töle, as though he was being remote-controlled, went outside with the black leather jacket, which had been lying in a corner, and followed us, his mates, to the parking lot at Lübscher Baum, but he failed to reckon with the owner. As we crossed the parking lot, a well-built, autonomous, left-wing woman with shoulder-length, blond curls suddenly stood behind him. She was probably a martial artist. She zealously threatened Töle that he should immediately hand over her jacket.
"Are you sure that is your jacket?"
"Oh, isn't that my jacket?"
"Give me back my jacket immediately!"
Töle handed her the jacket. Otherwise, the woman would probably have attacked him. Töle felt highly embarrassed about his misbehavior. He said very quietly,
"I'm sorry."
Without saying a word, the woman turned around and crossed the Theodor-Heuss-Ring towards the Alte Meierei. After all, should she have thanked Töle for returning her jacket without any complications? On the whole way back, Töle seemed to be extremely concerned by his own deed. His behaviour was inexplicable to him. Something had gone completely wrong with him – a classic blackout, in which he threw away all good qualities and virtues. But in this case there was a lot of booze involved. Even though he had some bad habits, he usually behaved very well, treated his friends fairly and, later, even did his alternative civilian service in caring for the elderly, for which I admired him very much. He never did anything seriously wrong, except the small, chaotic binge-drinking events with the punks, which were criminalized all over town. Töle never put his hands on other people's leather jackets again, even though he would have liked to have owned one.
A pile of punk records
A Friedrichsorter pothead, a former HDW trainee (Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft, the biggest shipyard in Kiel) who is now unemployed, had given me a few cannabis seeds and explained to me how to sow them and grow the plants. A few weeks later, several marijuana plants were growing on the windowsill of my room in my parents' house. The risk was that there ran a small path next to the house, from where everyone could see the plants. The further the mini hemp plantation sprouted on the windowsill, the more it became a bone of contention in the family. My parents protested strongly against my illegal plant-growing. However, they did not dare to do anything about it or throw the plants into the dustbin or onto the compost. When they were ripe, I cut the plant stems cleanly, let the plants dry and assessed the harvest which fully met my expectation. I stowed the plucked leaves and blossoms in a blue Adidas shoebox. When Marwelli, who was still drudging in the tank construction company, got some of the harvest to smoke, he immediately wanted to buy the whole shoebox full of grass in his dazed state. Marijuana was considered a scarce commodity throughout Kiel at that time. You could only get the dirty, thinned down hash of the rockers and disco jerks. In exchange, Marwelli offered me his last 30 punk LPs. When he told me which rarities were in the pile of records, I agreed without hesitation. I handed him the blue shoebox at my parents' front door, which really weighed next to nothing. At the same time he handed me the aforementioned pile, among them Endangered Species by UK Subs, the first three Slime LPs – uncensored – and, finally, the Beton Combo LP Perfektion ist Sache der Götter. Also, several popular samplers like Chaos en France, Underground Hits Vol. 1 and the Back-Stage Pass-Sampler were in the pile. Without scruples I integrated Marwelli's last punk records into my own stock. Even today he still swoons over the grass.
My new sunglasses
A Friedrichsorter junkie had specialized in the theft of sunglasses by trying them on at opticians and pocketing them or, in some cases, leaving the store cheekily without taking them off. Or he walked inconspicuously away from the sunglasses stand outside on the pavement. I passionately enjoyed talking to junkies at the time. I envied them for their broken stories, even though the other side effects of their lifestyle hurt. The junkie in question was in the hotel room where my cousin overdosed. He was not able to revive him.
This junkie had just taken an expensive Ray-Ban Wayfarer pair in cold blood from Brillen-Reese in Friedrichsorter Strasse, and was now searching for a buyer in the big arcade to finance his addiction. I haggled him down to a price of ten Deutschmark, which I would otherwise have put into a Venus Multi slot-machine. It was an uplifting feeling to be able to add real Ray-Bans to my rediscovered punk style. I felt indescribably cool with them, but the fun didn't last long.
When I walked up and down Kielline (a party zone during Kiel Week) with Töle one weekday during that year's Kiel Week, I started off still wearing the Ray-Bans on my nose. As usual, when we started drinking together, we were in quite a jocular mood. Suddenly Töle began to beg to try on the sunglasses. Several times I decidedly said no, but in the end I let myself soften as it slowly got dark. Töle, who was at that time more of a fashion punk and was finally equipped with his own leather jacket, walked next to me for hours with my new sunglasses on his nose, until he pushed them over his hairline onto the raised punk haircut. We caroused through the night and at dawn we lay, pissed, on a slope at the Kleiner Kiel pond to watch the swans. When we had had enough, we took the next bus towards Wik to head home. From Wik I wanted to try to hitchhike to Friedrichsort or take the next 44. While I dwelled on the penultimate seat on the right, Töle sat on the penultimate seat on the left and drummed with his palms on the backrest of the seat in front. The first commuters were on the bus, looking forward to their working day. We got off at Knorrstrasse, and I demanded my sunglasses back when I said my goodbyes. Töle claimed, to my horror, that he had left them lying on the seat next to him on the bus. At first I believed that. I judged the situation in such a way that I was not entitled to claim compensation from Töle for the sunglasses that a junkie had shoplifted, but when I later ordered an LP and a single with his next Malibu order, I simply owed him the money. That was my form of response. It's just a pity that his mother was paying the money in advance. It later dawned on me that forgetting the sunglasses on the bus was a white lie so he could keep them. The junkie couldn't steal me a new pair, because he too died of an overdose soon after. The Turk, Tomb, sold him the heroin on a regular basis. It's incomprehensible how a single dealer could drive so many people to death. Even the first woman to whom I ever made timid advances at the youth club was later hooked on heroin by that bloke.
A neo-Nazi leader at the Ferry Pub (Fährstübchen)?
Someone told us that the FAP leader Michael Kühnen was due to come to the Fährstübchen (Ferry Pub) near the Skagerrakufer in Friedrichsort, in order to give a speech and possibly force people to join the party. We were shocked that the fascists now apparently even wanted to convert the workers in Friedrichsort. The Fährstübchen was located halfway between the tank and engine construction company on one side and the large shipyard on the other. This dive had the reputation of a run-down workers' pub.
The FAP, the Free German Workers' Party, was regarded as the most right-wing extremist party in Germany at that time. We only learned about the event at short notice on the same day, and we didn't manage to drum up any more people to turn the place upside-down with a majority. I still had a baseball bat at home, which a while ago I had taken from a former member of the Friedrichsort kick-start moped club, Clash, unopposed. The two of us, St. Pauli Bole and I, had just decided to go down to the Fährstübchen pub, armed with the baseball bat, with the intention to break up the event. We had quite an unpleasant feeling as we approached the Fährstübchen pub, because we didn't know what to expect or how many people would gather there. When we finally showed up right in front of the place, it was pitch-dark inside. We tried to peek through the windows, but nothing moved inside. The event seemed to be cancelled at short notice. Had the fascists pulled back? Otherwise there probably would have been a catastrophe. We stood a few more minutes, threatening and belligerent, in front of the pub, until we moved back up to our neighbourhood near Wagnerring Street. I brought the baseball bat back home safe and sound. Since we had reacted immediately, we still felt satisfaction. Or did someone deliberately make a fool out of us?
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