Barne’s fall
I met Barne very rarely then. He had worn a mohawk that was not nearly as tall as that of Leo in former times or that of $abrina. Finally a new disco opened at Bergstrasse on the old premises of Pfefferminz. Maybe this was even the second, third or fourth follow-up disco after the Pfefferminz. The dance floor was no longer at the back, as in the old Pfefferminz, but further in front, where the first bar was located near the entrance. That's why it always seemed like rush hour on the dance floor. That was a bit annoying. I talked to Tall John there, who worked as a bartender at a pub called Sonderbar in Jägersberg Street. Gonnrad danced alone on the dance floor. Barne wore half-length dreadlocks and sat with three young punk girls on the ground at the edge of the dance floor. We all watched Gonnrad dance and found it weird how he moved because we had never seen him dance at a disco before. I suddenly had trouble with Tall John who didn't speak a word of German. He suddenly became very aggressive. When I wanted to piss off, he yelled at me,
"Stay!"
I had another drink, watched Gonnrad and looked at the scenery. Anyway, this was one of the last times I saw Barne. I later met him again at a Roskilde festival. He had arrived without luggage and showed me his side cutter, that he pulled out of the inside pocket of his leather jacket, with which he cut his way through the fence of the festival grounds to avoid the horrendous entrance fee. The very last time I saw Barne was when he was sitting in front of the entrance to the Alte Meierei at a punk concert. He now had a bald head and, as usual, his round, metal-rimmed glasses. I can't remember exactly which bands were playing that night, but I guess it was the Culture Shock concert. Maybe I was wrong, it might have been a Leatherface concert. I am not sure. When he recognized me, he immediately shouted,
"Moin Shelter!"
and laughed. I greeted him back, but I didn't feel a great need to talk to him, because we all knew that he was on heroin. To be honest, I was also a little irritated that he suddenly ran around with a skinhead haircut, although he used to backbite on skinheads like all other Kiel punks. I finally entered the Alte Meierei and listened to the concert. Barne stayed outside. I never saw him again afterwards. A short time later I learned that he had died from an overdose of heroin. Hecker was at his funeral and reported back. They played his favorite song. I think it was "Gentle Murder" by Mayhem. A sad story. We were all strongly affected and devastated. He was simply too popular in Kiel, almost legendary. In the following time, even more people passed away. For some it hurt more, for others it hurt less. Suddenly the despised Long Jock was found murdered in Kiel-Gaarden, and the Konz brothers soon followed into the realm of the dead. Although Mig managed to get his entrance qualification for the polytechnic university – he even started studying electrical engineering at a university of applied sciences – he later became so addicted to drugs that he died of his addiction. This was a heavy blow for all those who knew him better, but especially for his young brother, who himself fell down afterwards. Stidi couldn't get rid of alcohol and finally died in agony of cirrhosis of the liver. When I recently learned that our old punk idol Gonnrad had also died in a terrible way, I realized that a whole punk era had come to an end.
For many, unfortunately, the whole thing here was just a short appearance. Recently I counted all reported drug-related deaths in my family, circle of friends and acquaintances. Believe it or not, I counted 17 of them – exact figure unknown. And even then the conventional suicides of drug users from my environment are not considered at all. Evil, evil, evil. I knew the majority of the dead from the Buschblick Youth Club. Greetings to Christiane F.
The car attack
As far as I am concerned, I was regarded as left-wing scum by some people, while at the same time others regarded me as right-wing or formerly right-wing because of my skinhead times. As if that wasn't bad enough, I was also cursed by the rocker scene. The problem never seemed to disappear completely and flared up again and again, but in many cases I persuaded myself to think that. When I hoped that my mental wounds from punk and skinhead times had healed to some extent and the waves had been smoothed out, I was once again proved wrong.
One day I rode my bicycle along Fördestrasse. Coming from Kiel-Pries, the way led me to the neighbouring district of Schilksee in the north, where I wanted to visit friends. To get to Schilksee I had to cycle one kilometre through a rural area on Fördestrasse. Right beside the road was the bicycle path for both directions, and immediately beside the bicycle path a broad, deep ditch extended, which did not completely reach to the Seekamp exit. About 15 metres to the right of the ditch ran an old parallel road, which I should have taken instinctively despite its damaged condition. On this section of the Fördestrasse there were neither houses nor any other buildings.
When I cycled the route that day, there was not much traffic, because it was a weekend. I cycled a good distance – as usual, at a relatively good speed – but without exhausting myself. During the ride I was already thinking about topics I wanted to talk about with my friends. These included new releases on the record market, scandalous events among friends and problems with people from the right-wing scene.
It was dead quiet at first, when a car gradually approached from behind. I continued cycling normally, without suspecting anything, until I suddenly noticed changes in the engine noise of the approaching vehicle. The car accelerated and shifted gears rapidly in order to reach the highest possible speed. I turned around suspiciously, to see a car pulling out onto the cycle path and racing towards me. I had to be careful not to lose control of the bicycle, but I saw two sadistically laughing skinheads sitting in the front seats of the car, heading straight towards me. In an instinctive action I made a sharp turn to the right side, drove into the ditch and fell off the bike. I picked myself up again in a matter of seconds, jumped up immediately and climbed up the ditch's slope. I saw a total of four skinheads sitting in the car – one of them fat and fleshy. These jesters were apparently Karl Melitz and his fascist skins. The driver accelerated and the car moved away at high speed, so I could only recognize from the license plate that it was a Kiel registration. Was this a murder attempt or just a stupid joke? I was in shock, especially as I realized that the skinheads were obviously after me. I pulled my bike out of the ditch, checked that it was intact, and continued my journey, worried and with my clothes dirty from the fall. I rushed to Schilksee-Süd to turn right onto Graf-Luckner-Strasse at the pedestrian tunnel, in case the skins made a U-turn to come back. I was rather disturbed and permanently afraid that the car of fascists could appear again. I still had several minutes to cycle, and all sorts of delusions took place in my head: why they did that, whether they were drunk or whether they even wanted to run me over deliberately, because they recognized me from behind. I finally visited my friends and immediately told them about the car attack. They were almost more worried than I, because they recognized what a murderous incident had happened. It was more puzzling to think what the motives for this car attack could have been and whether it was a murder attempt. If I hadn't rescued myself in the ditch, they would have hit me with the car. It was obvious that they were the Schilksee and Strande skins. We didn't follow up the matter, because there would have only been more bad blood.
Several times, I saw the aforementioned little group of skinheads at different street celebrations at Strande and Schilksee. I thought I recognized the same sadistic laughter I saw through the back window of the car when they attacked me with their vehicle. The whole fascist clique seemed to know about it and were maliciously happy about the attack.
The dead hitchhiker
My old hitchhiking spot near the comprehensive school was not used much at all by hitchhikers. During the day you could spot single hitchhikers there from time to time, or you could spot a hitchhiker on weekends or in the evenings who wanted to get into the city centre or to Bergstrasse. It was always the same people who stood there and held out their thumbs – first and foremost, students. There were different rush hours, during which many cars raced along – mostly at times when the big companies had the evening off or the comprehensive school had their lunch break, or at the end of school. At Hohenleuchte junction, the vehicles, most of them coming from Pries-Friedrichsort, turned left into Fördestrasse, where my hitchhiking spot was located. Other peak times were during summer and particularly at weekends; when there was a run on nearby Falckenstein beach; and when the beach visitors arrived in the morning or at noon, or drove back into the city in the late afternoon. These cars were often already on the main road coming from Schilksee and drove straight on. For many drivers, the hitchhikers standing at the bus stop were a thorn in their side. These were usually local drivers who couldn't stand seeing hitchhikers like me standing there so often. They detested the lifestyle of the hitchhikers. Some were notorious hitchhiker haters.
I stood there regularly for years; maybe I was the person who held out their thumb the most. That bothered some in particular. They regularly symbolized this to me with grim facial expressions, curses and disparaging gestures, but I didn't let myself be intimidated and continued to hitchhike at that bus stop in the future, especially when there was no bus or when I had just missed one.
At that hitchhiking spot one afternoon, a notorious rocker attacked me with his heavy motorcycle. He came from the direction of Hohenleuchte Street, turned to the right onto Fördestrasse, and when he saw me he grumbled something as he nearly hit me and immediately folded his visor down at the end of his sharp turn into the bus bay, in which I stood, hitchhiking. I had to jump to the side of the pavement. The rocker was visible through the narrow slits of his visor. He was probably just trying to scare me.
On another day, a skinhead in a jeep that came from the direction of Pries drove directly towards me and accelerated, as if he wanted to lift me onto his radiator hood. I saw a skinhead sitting at the wheel and had to make a big jump to the side to prevent a collision with the jeep. The driver made a serious steering error in the stopping bay, that he ran the risk of losing control of the vehicle. When he had stabilized the jeep again, he returned to the right lane. The skinhead cursed during this action, as if he wanted to tell me,
"Don't let me see you here again, or I'll run over you!"
At first I wasn't sure whether the driver of the wine-red jeep just wanted to scare me or actually knock me down on purpose. I even knew him by sight. He ran around as a skinhead for a relatively short time and played handball in the local sports club. That could have quickly gone wrong.
One day an article appeared in the local newspaper, Kieler Nachrichten, in which a kind of traffic accident was described. A taxi driver noticed, several metres behind the hitchhiking spot at which I stood so often, that he dragged along a heavy object under the car. When the driver finally stopped and checked it, he noticed the lifeless body of a man below his car. The newspaper article did not give more details about the incident. That was absurd enough. They neither wrote about the cause of death nor about the victim himself. When I read that article, it raised more questions in me than it gave answers. I suspected that something terrible had happened there. The newspaper article sounded harmless, as if something like that could just happen every day. At first glance, the text gave the impression that a person lay down on the street at night until he was caught by a taxi and dragged along. Of course, the suspicion arose in me that the dead person could have been a hitchhiker who had been hit by a car before, or even killed by that car on purpose, and finally lay lifeless on the street. The reader had to assume that in the next issue of the newspaper the case would be dealt with in more detail. But no follow-up article appeared on the incident. I remembered the driver of the wine-red jeep, who had almost mowed me down with his vehicle while I was hitchhiking a while ago, and also the brainless skinheads, which had driven their car onto the bicycle path.
Since the identity of the dead hitchhiker remained unmentioned and no characterizing body details were given, I also suspected that some people in my town and my circle of acquaintances mistook the dead person for me. Slowly but surely, I had to understand that my days in Kiel were numbered. Therefore, I thought it would be better to move to Berlin in order to have a happy and safe life there.
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