Stories from Hamburg
It was supposed to be just a normal trip to an away-game of Borussia. But some violent acts messed up the weekend of many visitors.Everything had started so smoothly. The Bundesgrenzschutz officers on the train to Hamburg were indeed friendly and communicative so the trip itself was not worth mentioning in this context. Having arrived in Hamburg, the BVB supporters did face a huge police squad but the custodians of the law were mainly concerned with a demonstration in the same place. No problems on the way to the stadium, either.
They began upon entering the AOL-Arena. The stewards refused some supporters admission. They were said to be drunk. 4.0 per mille of alcohol were tested on one of them. A strange drinker who is able to walk and speak quite well with such an amount of alcohol in his blood. To cut a long story short, it was obvious that the breath testers were not working properly. Too bad for those “extreme drunkards”. The stewards in the stands of the away-team were much more cooperative. But the usage of our largest flags was only allowed in the upper (seating) area. Therefore, tickets had to be exchanged which was no problem with the stewards’ help. The troubles started when the Arena sheriffs realized that one of our flags covered the expensive advertising spaces. As its owner did not immediately obey and roll it up, the stewards threatened him to take the flag away. So the fan gave in. But when he was holding his property in his hands, suddenly four stewards entered the stands and pulled him (17 years of age, only 1,60 metres small) violently away. The whole atmosphere became more aggressive. The Stewards threw a flag into the lower section. Police entered the visitor’s area, arrested a few supporters and beat a woman. Now the Arena squad started to throw those fans out of the stadium who had come to the upper level in order to help their friends because they had no valid tickets for that section. It seemed as if they prefered to attack young, smaller and weaker guys from Dortmund – for simple reasons. Back in Dortmund, Jens Volke of schwatzgelb.de and THE UNITY – Supporters Dortmund critizised his fellow fans: “With the purchase of a ticket one has to obey certain rules and everybody knows this. If I’m seeking confrontation, I have to live with the consequences.” But the fact that mainly younger fans were arrested almost arbitrarily still makes him angry. “I’m sick of the fact that I have to suffer only because you are angry about working on weekends”, he addressed the police. “We only demand a little bit of respect.”
The match HSV-BVB ended in a 1-1 draw. On their way back to the railway station some BVB-supporters, among them Arne Kazperowski of schwatzgelb.de, witnessed a fight between two HSV fans. The victim was struck heavily in the face, kicked in the ribs – and the police were watching. Two complete vans were present but nobody moved. The guys from Dortmund started to help the man, who was bleeding heavily from his nose. Kazperowski asked the policemen for support and informed them about his profession – paramedic. “I don’t care”, was the reply. After a much too long discussion the policeman finally went for his first aid kit, but found nothing in his van. The second car’s kit was incomplete, too. The officers approached the victim only twice. The first time to ask for his identity (if that was the only problem the guy was having) and the second time to ask Arne Kazperowski if he had already called an ambulance. About 30 officers had been all over the place and none of them did manage to call for an ambulance, at least! It did not seem to fit into their view that the people from the Ruhr area helped a man from the North. As a consequence of this incident, Arne Kazperowski wrote an open letter to the mayor of the city of Hamburg, Ole von Beust. A copy was sent to newspapers, some published an excerpt of the reproaches. A disciplinary complaint against the policemen who did not “serve and protect” is in progress.
Geschrieben von borussiamaniac
