880501. CHAPTER
Maien enjoed Labor Day as a holiday on Sunday.
He looked at the street crowds and did not
manage to get back to his familiar home.
Manuskcript from: Carl Mai, How it went on, Berlin 1941-92
The First of May. Jomai, jomai! For ninety-nine years the international holiday of the workers. You are still proud of it as an unemployed person, because you once stood in the work process. Only now they leave you on the left, because no more work is required of you.
I worked. You worked. She worked. He worked. We worked. You worked. You work.
How funny: Olle Adolf was born ninety-nine years ago, for ninety-nine years we've had Labor Day, and fifty-five years ago he taught us by law, the Fuhrer, that we then always have May Day off. Now we still have the holiday. Only we don't want to have the Führer anymore. Nobody has found his body yet and the holiday is still not abolished.
Actually, every day is a day-of-work. We want the day-of-the-machine, so that we can bask in the happiness of the work-free paradise. The robot is supposed to bring prosperity to the entrepreneur. But: Will we then get everything as a gift? With what shall we then pay for his prosperity?
And thirty-seven years ago the democratic representatives of the people tightened the thumbscrews even tighter by law: If you take a day off before or after May Day, you don't get paid for the public holiday. Who is supposed to recover from celebrating?
That is almost not true today. Yesterday was Saturday, a privileged worker has a day off anyway, and on Sunday too. There you muzst you halt today before the Monday take care. You have to show up at work on Monday. It's like Easter, Pentecost and Christmas, because the church has signed a state contract with the state.
Thus they want to force us in life and in faith to a power, so that we are in bondage to them.
Today, the first of May, is Sunday. The sun ball shines on us from four o'clock fifty-four to nineteen o'clock forty-five. And after that the full moon rises in the night sky. That's what the calendar says.
Now at nine o'clock I got up this day, because I wanted to enjoy the day-of-work. And when I get up, I first turn on the TV. Then I don't have to look out the window to see what's going on outside. That's what the TV freaks bring into my house via macrowaves and electricity. All I have to do is flip the switch from off to on and the whole world flickers at me.
I don't know how it happened. In any case, the first East program was there in the flicker screen. Big First of May parade on Karl-Marx-Allee. Erich Honecker is standing around with the whole Central Committee on the protected elevated grandstand. Even Egon Krenz has made it back to his position in the front row after all the bickering. Erich waves to his controlled people alternately with his right or left arm, because he can't hold one arm up all the time. I thought he was holding up a wooden arm with a support underneath. You can't really tell, because the bulletproof balustrade reaches almost to the chest of those standing in the first row. And the march past of the common people takes at least two hours.Martin tells me that he has to copy slogans from the First May banners for his school. I tell him: "It's best to take some from the East, I'm sure no one in your class has them. We sit writing in front of the flicker box, while Honni still waves down from the stands with his wooden arm. Colorful cloths, flags and cardboard signs read: "Berlin City of Peace, Meeting Point of the World for a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone", "Onward from Zero-Solution to Zero-Solution", "Unbreakable Friendship with the Soviet Brother Nation", "Learning for Peace", "Not only Unter den Linden, Everywhere We Are to Be Found", "Berliners Think to Themselves, and Put on an Extra Pitch", and, and, and ...
Sayings of Rosa Luxemburg are missing this year. The thoughts of the rulers are not those of the people. When the difficulties are exaggerated, they come to a better solution.
In front of the ZK tribune one of the Stasi stands and lifts up the children with the flags and flowers one by one to Erich. Otherwise, everything is cordoned off so that no one can attack the bigwigs. Everything is controlled. Everything supervised. Everything selected. The television mixer shows only happy people. And all of them are on the way.
I want to be on the road with a healthy portion in my brain. The soft-boiled egg with my morning coffee is an excellent way to do this. A basis must be. Otherwise the stomach eats its way through the pituitary gland.
Along the wall I cycle through garbage, broken glass and wildly growing nature observed by border towers to the Reichstag out of Kreuzberg. There, in the traditional manner, the unions meet for the First of May.
At twelve o'clock, most of them are already going home and sporadically stream towards me. The relief road is still closed. There you can cycle on a six-lane car road funny between the pedestrians. Even the cops are helping us, but they have sealed off the Soviet memorial at the Brandenburg Gate against foreign attacks with sheepdogs. Who still wants to have the tanks that are standing there as a reminder? Probably the state authority wants to separate the spirits here, so that the quarrel from the past does not spill over into the present.
In the ambush of the Reichstag there are numerous tubs, also called GruKraWa's. With the state power this is the abbreviation for group power vehicles of the police officers, where in each case at least eight beating officers in the execution sit in it and in the May heat for their order are stewed.
Sometimes they drink a bottle of spirits or more in there to be funnier on the job. That way they better not remember what they did then. I mean the ones in the tubs, of course, not the ones in the Reichstag. That would be even nicer, since it says "To the German people" on the building.
In front of the Reichstag, where we no longer have an empire and where the trade unions meet every year for May Day, as they did this time, only a few people came. Already at noon they dismantled the loudspeaker systems for the sweeping speeches. The whole central square was an empty grassy area. Only the kebap and fallafa stands were still standing in their sizzling clouds of smoke, surrounded by eating union families with their children. The red carnation as a pin wants to have even for itself still ne mark.
There one may not calculate at all, how full the unions are by their membership dues. Then also still the red carnation from plastic is to bring the Knete. Yes, it's always the same saying: "Finally, a colleague who does something! Only, when it starts, the functionary is on a training course.
Yes, in the past. Heino used to appear here and sing "Black Barbera". And Appel rode on an elephant because he wanted to become the governor of Berlin. The elephant in the china store. But that didn't help him much, because Vogel wanted that too. He then hung up advertising posters for himself everywhere: "Vogel für Berlin. Overnight, his slogan was changed by someone else, so that it read: "Vogel vögelt für Berlin" (Bird fucks for Berlin). So the bird saw that he can not fuck with Berlin and had his advertising collected again. And then Diepgen was elected governor.
The very impudent even wrote "Diebgen" and "Harald Juhnke for President" on the walls of the houses. Because what the people complicate is worth something to the superiors, if it does not go to them to the collar. They just blatantly clown around for the economy.
Where to write down banners and slogans when everyone is eating and drinking? Oh, how well we're doing.
Next to me, a man is standing on the Reichstag sports field in front of the Reichstag "For the German People" and chatting into his microphone radio. He's talking to his station operators: "Should I stay here? There's nothing going on here anymore! I want to go to Kreuzberg! And Hertha is still playing in the Olympic Stadium today! They might win ten to nil!" This reporter is very hectic. Not really suitable for a trade union demonstration that has fallen asleep, I think in my pituitary gland. On his car next to it is a big sign: "Radio 100.6". And some video freak records everything with the reporter in his car and me in the picture. But I don't want to be on it and therefore prefer to look for the distance.
In Kreuzberg there's also a First of May. So I leave this horrible place to see the next horror at the Kreuzberg May.
My way leads me by bicycle away from the Reichstag again along the wall to SO 36. No man's land between barrier and concrete slab border. Ebertstrasse. Hindenburgplatz. Square in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Young birch trees sprout from the pavement. Tree roots drive the asphalt up into humps. Various plants, popularly called weeds, sprout out of the cracks towards the sun.
From the watchtower nen border guard shouts down: "Drive out of there!" I had no choice but to call out to him in a friendly manner, "Come on over!"
On the rusty west scaffolding tube stands the well-dressed tourists of the free world to get a ridiculous view of the East. The cameras click picture-perfect with automatic distance setting. All in the same direction. Is that Nefertiti lying in the bathtub? The tourist buses load the people to any merrymaking on the run-down east. What a business. Oh, leave the wall for the safari park visitors!
Wasn't there once a guy here who said, "Tear down the wall!" A film actor whom they elected president in a faraway country. If you want to fly there, Tuesday is Wednesday. And when you come back, Wednesday is Tuesday. Watch out, if it's your birthday then, because you won't have one.
It's no laughing matter. Erich is still shooting at the people fleeing from the state-owned enterprise. Why are the uniforms always the accomplices?
Further along the wall. The Tiergarten trees attack the border. Walkers stroll under the canopy of leaves. Nature grows wildly rampant. Nightingales sing their melodious songs with crescendo. Their nesting and territorial struggle is still in full swing. The fence at the Lennedreieck gapes apart for a passage on a trampling path through a lush wilderness, which still belongs to the east without walls. The wild vegetation has shot here the history into the weeds. Adolf's meanest and sharpest judge Roland Freisler of the People's Court lived here in Lennestraße. The literary cabaret Die Bösen Buben and the catacomb in Bellevuestraße three played here.
Potsdamer Platz. The Wall across the street. Souvenir and French fries stands lined up and surrounded by consumers. Plenty of hustle and bustle here in the warm May sun. The tour buses are packed tightly together. Tourists over tourists in bright colors waved back and forth. The viewing platform for the view over is packed with gawkers at dizzy heights. When will the rusty high stand collapse? That would be a deep fall for the Piepels.
Baccardi from the Russian Day & Night pub once told me that someone has built a tower to see communism, no, rather to see it when it comes. He is still sitting on it today. Not Baccardi. As a Leningrad citizen, he speaks fluent German, reads the BILD newspaper with the praline and stuns the alcoholics with beer and schnapps for his earnings.
Always further hard along the wall. Stresemannstrasse. Behind a hedge, German shepherd dogs are romping around on a club training ground. The commands of the trainers "Close the barrel!", "Fetch!", "Heel!" penetrate through the green bushes.
Niederkirchner Strasse. The Gropius Building. The sacred halls of noble art for the enlightened bourgeoisie. Next to it, the excavated Gestapo grounds. No one wants to have done it.
Wilhelmstrasse. Zimmerstrasse. Burned-out car wrecks. The Wall Street Gallery tinkers with the Wall. The distance between the Anti-Fascist Wall and the walls of the houses is only three meters.
Friedrichstrasse. Checkpoint-Charlie. Someone is protesting with a placard around his neck for something he still has in the East. Young Yanks on the road with cameras and licking ice cream. Little traffic from west to east-eastwest. Allied Kontrollettis standing around bored in front of their barracks. The chip shop even sells eroticizing, no, amortizing drinks, these are vitamin juices, and exchanges the dollar for a mark fifty. That's what it says.
And always further hard along the wall around the Springer his high-rise. The former newspaper district. The Ullstein publishing house displays the day's temperature with the time. Twelve eight forty.
Oranienstrasse. The federal banknote printing plant. Secured with walls, barbed wire and bars. Gray uniforms control the entry and exit openings. Across the street, the beverage market for the federal printers. I wonder if they'll be printing banknotes for a holiday bonus on May Day. The federal eagle above the entrance will be watching over it.
Moritzplatz. The traffic circle for the east. The Germans are allowed to go over there with the Berliners to Erich, if it's approved.
Oranienstraße further to Oranienplatz. This is where the Kreuzberg First of May meets. But, stop! Right at the first traffic light on Oranienplatz, the green-skinned law enforcement officers are already standing around handing out their own flyers to passers-by. Typewriter sheet large. "Info to the 1. May demonstration" stands thickly above on the flier drauf. And "Demo without trouble is great / Everything else is baloney / Express your opinion / Have fun / Practice solidarity / Tolerance instead of arrogance / Acceptance instead of militancy / SO 36 / Published by: the police chief of Berlin." Then there's a photo of a Kreuzberg house facade with a bobbing child on it and a beautiful police star with a pretty blonde policewoman peeking out from behind it. But such a friendly reception is unusual. Hopefully, it will not be too colorful here, if the state power starts so friendly. They still paid for the paper for the big flyer. The printing house belongs to them anyway.
However, I thought to myself: "Friends are more necessary than fire, water and bread. For, pious people live far apart.
This leaflet, now kindly handed to me by the green-robed officials who are authorized to enforce laws, I turned over with my two hands and marveled at the back with my two eyes.
Now the thing became substantially more serious, which I do not want to illustrate here, because otherwise the extent of the history could be blown up. But there it was written in black and white: If it also corresponds to your self-image to demonstrate peacefully, then you don't really need to go any further [I read that wrong. It actually says:] then you don't need to read any further. But does that also apply to your NEIGHBOR?
Now I got all dizzy in my head thinking about my neighbors because there were so many standing around me, including the green berocks. So who is my neighbor? The one or ones standing next to me? The one or ones who live on the same street with me? The one or ones who live in the same house with me? The one or ones who speak the same language with me? Or the one or the ones who pay with the same bills?
Since I was not so much interested in knowledge, because I was more interested in my own life, because who likes to hang on the other rope, I bought a Duden at the flea market. There you get the knowledge cheapest, if you want to know something. And for the emergency also the stupidest must know what.
So: I looked up the word neighbor in the Duden for a mark, where everyone can read, like me, who doesn't know what a neighbor is:
Neighbor: the neighbor's garden, neighbor; neighbor's garden; get a new N.; neighbors become; with the N., with night bars to consort; with neighbors; Mr. neighbor! (fam. salutation for unknown names); our western neighbor. -It is impossible for the most pious to live in peace if it does not please the wicked N. (Seh.). Neighbor, your bottles! (G.). Neighbor see resident, man, neighbor, sharp as neighbor's Lumpi, eager.
With this knowledge I looked now again with my eyes at the me bystanders, in order not to show them my back, because I stood under them. Perplexed, I read on:
Your contribution
- Act moderating or distance yourself already at the beginning of violence!
- Explain to your neighbor that it is possible without "trouble".Our contribution:
- Protection of your basic right to assemble WITHOUT IF AND BUT,
- Use the discretionary power wherever possible,
- Determination not to tolerate acts of violence against people and property,
this also applies to the preparation of violence, the mummery.
With - weapons - fire - destruction ends any tolerance.Now my head became even dizzier while reading and I began to confuse the fronts. With the text one should send times a leaflet to the state authority which asks us every four years only whether forty per cent of us want to elect it. I am also determined not to tolerate acts of violence against people, things and even animals and plants. Let there be war!
The rest of the state leaflet brought me the total shock with carrot and stick. There followed an immense enumeration of punishable actions with enumeration of paragraphs, which nobody actually never wants to undertake, if he does not want to come to money and property. I must unfortunately drop the comment to it, because it is too much of the words because of the circumstances. I let my spinning head come to rest and read the conclusion of the state leaflet:
For those who do not yet know and to pass on, a short excursion through the legal norms: § 777 StGB: public incitement to commit a crime / § 123 StGB ff: Trespass / § 725 StGB ff.: Trespass / § 223 StGB ff: Assault / § 240 StGB: Coercion / § 303 StGB ff.: Damage to property / § 306 StGB et seq: Arson offenses / § 2 VersG: Prohibition of disturbance and carrying weapons / § 17a VersG: Prohibition of protective weapons and masking / The police chief in Berlin.
O ye righteous in the West: Where there is punishment, there is fruit; where there is peace, there is discipline. Oh, you righteous in the Occident: Give us the water cannon for discipline and the jail for fruit.
I've had enough of reading now, because I didn't want to know how happy the state authority is, especially since I don't know how its house stands when it employs its stupid servants for a good chunk in their pockets.
I prefer it when the wise servant hears the words of his master, but does not act on them and prefers to follow his own wisdom.
So I stood around here at Oranienplatz and looked at my neighbors standing around.
Many young people in the most colorful colors. English speakers next to me. Laughing about the beer being so cheap here. Wounderfull. A can for a mark and even cooled by a Turk from the kebab stand. In front of me a slim girl with a rolled up banner, only the color black is visible. In the middle of the street a drunk sings: "We're going east, we're going west, but it's best in the west ...". So I ask him, "Why do you sing such dissolute songs?" And he even answers me: "Why demonstrate? You are doing well! Why?"
Now I didn't know what to answer for the singer either. He was also so busy with himself that there was a possibility that he did not know where he was now because of his drunken stage.
Only, I was still standing around here at Oranienplatz, where in the meantime about four or five thousand peoples had gathered. There the German people of the trade unions at the Reichstag did not come any more with, since they were less in their with the fellow members assembled society.
However: Should I convince all the bystanders that there is no violence going on here, because according to the leaflet I should have a moderating influence on my neighbor?
In my surroundings someone shouts: "We will do that!"
It's okay. I can't manage to persuade everyone here to trespass. Not even my life is enough for that. Not even for trespassing. At least I still have a makeshift identity card with me, which is valid until the second of June for the Kontrollettis. At least I can identify myself without saying anything.
Mental calculation. I have half a century in my life behind me and I don't know how much longer life will go on. Five thousand people are standing around me, whom I have to convince of trespassing. For each one I need ten minutes so that she/he gets it. That makes 833 consecutive hours or 35 days without sleeping. So day & night.
How am I supposed to do that here on May Day on Oranienplatz? Then the demo is already long over! Will the cops help me?
Everything can still develop. The state often strikes unpredictably with the help of its undercover and paid provocateurs in the infiltrated ranks of the common people on the street. Because: Whoever builds on the streets must also let the people talk.
Most of the First May people are standing around loosely, lying on the grass of Oranienplatz and the leafy traffic islands. Springlike colors sprout from people and nature all around. From a loudspeaker car sound any incomprehensible speeches in German and Turkish. There is not even funny music flying through the air. Everyone stands, sits and lies around while waiting. Yes: Whoever is serious, everybody wants to put his sack on.
At one o'clock the "revolutionary" First of May demonstration should start. Now it is almost two. And nothing has started yet. It's always the same old story: the party won't really get going until everyone is properly on top of things with the brain-altering drugs. Of course, it can't be done any other way, that's the opinion of those who do it.
There are discarded and trampled flyers lying around on the ground: "Schwarz-Rote Perspektiven. No state with this state" looks at you from the street dirt in big letters. And so I picked up some of the leaflets that were lying around.
"This article was written by colleagues from Solex, who do not read it out themselves, otherwise they will be dismissed and kicked out of the union." It is about Saturday work, three-shift system, unemployment, early retirement, medical officer, rent speculation, welfare office, and so on. Yesterday's cold coffee for tomorrow. Oh: Let's rent out the park benches to the early retirees.
"The Intelligence Process. The involvement of the state and constitutional protection services in the Schmücker case." The Second of June. Benno Ohnesorg. Now he's taken care of, because he's dead, Ohnesorg, according to those who agree with the state. That's where the protests go down. In the meantime, the whole movement has died.
And then there was a double sheet from the "Red Help" lying around on the floor: Solidarity is a weapon. Everyday life as depression. If it doesn't help, it hurts.
There are so many sheets lying around. Who counts their names, calls the parties by their amen? There is even an agency for the self-abolition of the proletariat. A lot of preaching makes the spirit tired.
The demonstration procession forms itself slowly in the hose of the house canyons in the direction of Heinrichplatz. Some instinct for order is inherent in them, so that they move forward slowly on the street. From a loudspeaker car again an incomprehensible voice drones shrilly. From the side streets the tubs of the fighting cops drive up. Mercedes has even earned his mite on the tubs. And again other cops stride weightily in combat uniform with combat helmet, neck guard and plastic shields on the sidewalk. Battle-hardened group leaders direct the cops in the operational situation with squeaking radios.
Speaker boxes hang out of apartment windows here and there with some punk sound. It goes ahead. Somewhere you can also hear Die Toten Hosen.
Probably four to five thousand people march along with banners, flags, loudspeaker trucks, musical instruments and children. The molecules of the crowd slowly move forward, sometimes more densely and then more loosely. There is always a reason for delay. This usually annoys the cops, because they don't know how to proceed, even though the route has been previously agreed with the demonstration leadership.
At the Görlitz subway station, someone speaks to me: "Why all the noise here? You're all right!" He is looking for his son and wants to know where Lausitzer Platz is. I show him the direction and tell him that it all has to be like this when many people live on one spot. Because few always want to enrich themselves at many and that would not go in the long run. He does not understand this and goes shaking his head in the indicated direction to find his son.
The Revolutionary First of May demonstration never ends and moves across Wiener Strasse to Ohlauer Strasse. The probably about a hundred black masked people in the black block have secured themselves all around with a thick rope, which the people running on the outside hold in their hands, so that no one can be picked out by the cops. A running roped around elongated rectangle. I wonder how many masked civilians are running inside?
All are peaceful and in a funny mood. The cops and female cops are keeping a low profile. The sun in the clear sky gives us a pleasant summery spring warmth. Peter, Kalle and Dieter greet us from the roadside. Good day. Good day! How are you? Come on over!
Since now the many people preceded me too slowly, I overtook the Zugspitze Abkürzenderweise and went over the Bürknerstrasse, the Schönlein and the Dieffenbachstrasse to the day & night at the Zickenplatz, which is actually called Hohenstaufenplatz, the vernacular however this designation never accepted. There is supposed to be the destination of the Revolutionary First of May demonstration.
Here there is still peaceful calm before the beating state power. Turkish children play joyfully on slides, turntables, swings and zip lines in the warm sand, watched and supervised by white- and black-masked fat Turkish mothers.
Conny, the zapper at Tag & Nacht has put two tables on the sidewalk, because the pleasant spring air feels better than a dark pub with nicotine and alcohol smoke. DruckerJürgen, civil servant-Marina, the cemetery man, the easterner with his girlfriend and the desperate teacher-Rainer sit merrily approached at the tables with the chairs put out. The pub boss is gone and the free corn schnapps is poured. Cheers, VEB-grain. The boss always gets it from the Intershop so that he earns more. He buys the bottle for five marks ninety west and pours the sip for one mark fifty. For thirty-five sips he can then collect fifty-two marks fifty and has earned forty-six marks sixty. The border crossers have the greater overview, while the native locals swallow the stuff.
I sat down there now, because a chair was still free. From the day & night the jukebox then roared roaring out: Good morning dear sun / Black-brown is the hazelnut / I have a bungalow in Santa nowhere / I would like to be in your pub tapper, then I pour you for free what a ...
At this volume the cops came by day and night because of disturbance of the peace. However today before day & night a green VW bus of cops stands around. And there stands dran' at the autosheet metal wall: PRESSEINFORMATIONSWAGEN. Inside sit three older cops without combat uniform. The sliding door of the police information van is open. However, no one wants to get information. Should I let myself be blackmailed by the press information? I'd rather think, let them sweat and I'll just sit here.
Yes, now I have counted it exactly: Sixteen tubs suddenly drive up in a row in the Dieffenbach. None of the fighting cops gets out. Everyone remains seated in the tubs. Each tub is manned by twelve people. That makes 192 fighting cops in one fell swoop. They park in a long row in front of TAG & NACHT at the edge of the street. I wonder what they're doing in there. So many people can't have the same will at the same time, can they? Woe, if they are released from the tubs! Then no more fun remains!
But we are not bothered by this day and night. Someone of us taps inside what we drink outside and again someone has pressed inside on the jukebox: There stands a horse on the corridor ... The sound penetrates booming through the open door to the outside. The mood becomes funnier and funnier here.
The cops and female cops walk past us in olive-colored combat uniforms, padded from the inside like ice hockey players. Their combat helmets dangle strapped to their thick leather belts. Radios chirp here and there. And blackbirds warble in the street trees. Is their turf war still on?
From afar, the sound waves of the demo loudspeaker trucks drift over. Kottbusser Damm is car-free because the First of May is gathering here. The sounds are as incomprehensible as the garbage on the street. Beer cans, smashed bottles, trampled flyers, painted pavement, gawking people. People spread out here for a breather until everyone regroups for the departure towards Lausitzer Platz.
In front of the Zickenplastik at Zickenplatz with the fighting bitches in bronze, there is still a completely drunk man, whom the cops turn from right to left and rummage through his pockets. With the found identity card he is checked by radio and then left lying.
The Revolutionary First of May demonstration has meanwhile moved back down Kottbusser Damm, across Kottbusser Brücke into Mariannenstraße. There, the windows of a gambling parlor are rattling. There are at least fifty of them around here. Most of the time, the glaziers break the windows themselves on such occasions to get money for their business.
Those who play along need dough, too. And: Where does all the dough come from, if the Bank Deutscher Länder only issues limited money? After all, the money has to be covered somehow. What kind of collateral is there? Or are they already flipping on the human capital? Keynes or Friedman? Money circulation speed or money exchange society? Actually, it would be better to have a barter society: Two sausages for three vodkas, or a fender for a bag of cement, or a window for a front door, or a husband for two housewives, or two district court judgments for an acquittal at the regional court. There is no appeal. The lawyer is on vacation, we defend ourselves and the court pays.
That's the way it is when the ducks on the Landwehr Canal don't want to eat the bread you throw into the water. In winter it is different. Only today the other is not.
The demonstrators gradually spread out around Lausitzer Platz near the Emmaus Church. A huge number of people are already hanging around here. The crawling is like an ant colony.
Information stands, book stands, food stands and booze stands line the roadside in alternating succession. I don't meet anyone I know. Are they all civilians or senate employees here? Or are they from Spandau? Drink an ice-cold can of beer for a mark from a bicycle trailer and eye the crowd around me.
All seem to move in circles around the church on the square and do themselves at the stalls. One in front of me pulls out just nen Fuffi and wants to buy with it a can of beer for a mark from the trailer, which is overwhelmed with it. I haven't seen a Fuffi myself for a long time and neither has the bicycle trailer.
Beside me stands ne large Pappplastik of a monster on a four-wheeled car mounted like with the Karneval in Cologne. It is greedily baring its teeth, swinging a woman's sign in its left claw and a big "A" in a circle in its right. I've seen this thing before in the demonstration procession at the Revolutionary May. Now the kids are playing around on it and have already half destroyed it.
All around the Lauseplatz loud music is coming out of the windows: Ska, Punk, Reggae, Rock'n Roll ... Young people look down from the windows with bottles in their hands and call out their wishes to acquaintances here and there. Even Hamburg carpenters walk around in their black clothes. It's a hustle and bustle.
In front of me, a young, colorful punk is building a huge pot of carrot and potato soup on a wobbly chair. A blow ne Markfünfzig stands at the pot on it. The first eater arrives with a twenty. No change there. After a short back and forth he digs out his change. In return, he gets a whole paper plate full of soup scooped out of the pot with a cup. And she is proud of her first cash collection.
And behind me, some Arabs are building a large charcoal grill, on which they then brown the raw pieces of meat. The charcoal smoke mixes with the other smoke on the Lauseplatz to a large fragrant appetizing cloud.
The crowd, the masses, the smoke, the warm air, the crush, the music and the First of May, it's all too much for me now. Tired from the seen I roll myself home to a pleasant evening sleep after the day's desire and effort and make a deep sleep until around nine in the evening.
However, I wake up at ten, drenched in sweat, without being able to remember my dreams, which have racked my brain. I stifle my hunger with self-made sandwiches: Cheese from the plastic wrapper and shredded meat from the corned beef can with vegetable margarine on the greasy bread from the mass production. There is not enough time for more in the daily rush. The time for eating is just scarce, if you want to look at the world. Because, who wants to eat all the world, must have a big stomach. And I don't like it.
So, on the first of May, there were still two hours missing, which I wanted to experience until the end. When will such an evening come again? The big red-yellow full moon hung low over the sea of houses. I wonder if it was fed with carotene to sell better. In any case he smiled at me, without me being moonstruck.
On Kottbusser Damm, cars race by at eighty. From the open car windows drones the Quadrostereohifisound. The dog shit on the sidewalk forces me not to step in it.
On the way to the Lausitzer place I remain in the German Arabimbiß at the Ohlauer road. Inside in front of the bar is an Italian woman who is talking to two German boys in English. The Tower of Babel got us into this mess in the beautiful Bible. The smell of sausage grease and disco sound from thick speakers. The Arab boss settles the score with the temp because she made fifty marks. Three half chickens are still going out of the microwave. Here I drink the beer for fifty marks. A drunk talks German with the Germans and Italian with the Italian. All irrelevant stuff. To my left, two mestizos are talking French. In which language do I actually think? Pidgindeutsch? No! I think in electrical currents: from plus to minus, from minus to neutrinos and from neutrinos to plusminus. Then the equilibrium gets going.
I put another cold can of beer in my warm pants pocket and leave the Arabic french-fry, chicken and boulet snack bar.
Before the door at the Ohlauer with the Viennese makes me one, which looks for its bicycle. Good that I do not have mine with me. I try to help him. He: "It's at Lausitzer Platz and I don't know where it is!" I go with him in the right direction. But the Spreewaldplatz is in between and it's blocked off by a whole chain of ice hockey-like padded green combat cops, and we want to get through.
So I ask the representatives of state power friendly: "We want to go to Lausitzer Platz and pick up our bike." The gruff answer to that was, "Nobody comes through here!" And with an outstretched arm he points in the direction of Görlitzer Bahnhof: "That's the way!"
So there is no point here. But we don't go that way, we go back to the Wiener and wait. The cordon of green officials dissolves. So we try again to get to Lauseplatz because of the bicycle. However at the elevated railroad at the Skalitzer it goes no further. The air is saturated with tear gas.
From dark corners, the cops fire their tear gas cartridges, most of which smash senseless against the walls of buildings. It must be fun for them to shoot something that flies away from them. They seem to be trying out the new ammunition. In the past, there wasn't so much gas and smoke coming out of a cartridge.
The eyes hurt and the nose burns. Why should I help them because of a bicycle?
On Skalitzer, right next to the elevated train, there's a big green water cannon with a blade. From it sounds loose ne loudspeaker voice out: "Hey, bring times your buddy home!" It's so loud that it echoes through the entire street. Is he talking about us? And again the voice from the water cannon: "Hey dude, drink up your beer!" What's with the volume, who's being addressed here? I don't have any beer with me!
"What's going on here?" I think to myself and let my eyes wander into the surroundings. In the Viennese, the tubs are nervously rising up quite massively. Well, you can't get through there anymore. And from the fire station there the professional fire department races out with Tatütata to the right and left. Are these the ambulances for the state disaster?
The bicycle seeker has suddenly disappeared. "Never give up your goal," I think to myself, "why did I want to help him?"
The cops have meanwhile cordoned off almost everything: Lausitzer Platz is closed, Skalitzer is closed, Spreewaldplatz is closed, Wiener is closed, Görlitzer U-Bahnhof is closed! Only the Lausitzer Straße is still free as an escape route!
"There comes a day when one wants to go abroad...", Freddy once sang from the Waterkant in Hamburg. So I walk leisurely down Lausitzer past St. Mary's Hospital. No need to panic. The tear gas smoke decreases and my cigar smoke increases.
At the Lausitzer Ecke Wiener I meet the Ostler with his friend, who immediately fetches three cans of beer from the next kebab store as a welcome. On the median strip of the wide street we talk about the past and the future. We are not interested in what is going on around us. The mild full-moon May evening gives us the feeling of a big party.
We go for a walk and meet here and there. Only the fact that the cops want to get involved disturbs everyone a bit. Why don't they leave us alone?
We lean against a street tree and put down our beer cans. I have to roll a cigarette from the hit, because the cigars are all gone. "Oh, you dear nicotine!" The easterner and his friend start to look around uneasily because of the bambul all around. Don't get it. Suddenly they both run away like crazy.
"I'm sitten in a railway-station. Want to see the light ...," I sing to myself. I stand still, leaning against my tree. And there already a whole armada of the padded state power in combat suit on rubber soles with truncheons and battle shields rushes past me. Who or what is hunted there, is not to be recognized. The cops soon race around as if they had all been electrocuted. That's fine with me, because now I'm in possession of three almost full cans of beer. It can't get any better than that. No money, but three cans of beer, but no tobacco and no cigars. Consideration over consideration. What should I do first? Run off with the beer cans and get tobacco with leaves? I still have the rolled in my hand. So I waited here a little longer to see how this would develop.
The whole Viennese around me is swept as empty. Not a soul to be seen, not even the beating state power. After five minutes I feel so alone here. I wanted to experience the sociability of the First of May. Just as I'm about to leave, all the people come back without the cops.
The Ostler, who has crossed over, is back with his friend and wants his beer cans back, which I have been guarding in my peace. "Here you have back what you left," I say. We laugh. So we are together again.
However suddenly schepperts beside us again quaintly. Some barrier plates lie on the road and the tubs race over them like crazy. That rattles then quite beautifully, sheet metal on asphalt and cobblestones.
Now I'm slowly moving away from here. I stood before nevertheless in the protection of a thick tree. The next protection is on the road center a thin traffic light, which still functions. Alternating red, yellow, green, yellow, red, ... it illuminates me in alternating sequence.
The state power drives around with its tubs again so crazily that I must give care not to be knocked down here with the traffic light. Thus I go under the elevated railroad by the Görlitzer in the direction of Skalitzer and make sure that no tub of the state power attacks me, although the situation becomes quite threatening. Nothing like purely into the first house entrance at the Skalitzer. Kreuzberger Fernsehkeller is written on it outside. But this is already close-up viewing.
A totally frightened girl is standing in the entrance. She actually says, "I'm about to pee my pants with fear." Calm her down: "Calm down and stand still is the best thing, otherwise something will happen. The cops just run after everyone who runs and flees. The rock in the surf is not recognized by them!"
So we stay in the dark entrance of the house and talk. She is studying politics at the Otto Suhr Institute, where Diebgen has also been. "That's funny," she says. "That's good," I say. I used to sit in a pew with him at the Gummina School, and he studied politics, too, and very difficult languages like Arabic and so on. He's now a bigwig in the Federal Foreign Office. You can still become that.
Suddenly, a crowd of people, including Turkish boys, rushes into "our" entrance. They even turn on the lights in the stairwell. "Are you crazy," I shout to them, "it's your turn in a minute!" And right behind them, the fighting cops come running.
We quickly hide in the dark backyard behind the garbage cans. A terrible rumbling in the stairwell booms down to us in the darkness. It's worth noting when the cops run up the stairs in their riot gear with all their shields and truncheons. There's probably some extra training for that. Jogging and such. You'd have to go to Grunewald more often to laugh at them practicing in the gravel pit. However, are we supposed to be the peeping Toms with the cops?
After ten minutes the spook in the stairwell is over. We crawl out from behind the garbage cans, climb on them and look over the backyard wall to the Görlitzer subway station. The tubs race around as if devilishly in the tightest of spaces. The Mercedes tub wheels bang over the curbs without breaking off. Is this the dance of the vampires? Are they still people, thundering around so brutally?
Barrier grids, construction fences and scaffolding tubes fly around under the car wheels on the street. Bang, bang, bang, bang, exhaust, sheet metal, ... The shards clatter away.
Wait, wait and wait until the disaster calms down. After half an hour, the next calm before the bull storm. Let's get out of the backyard. You can touch your light.
Tired of the First May load, we flee in the bright full moon night to the next Turkish restaurant on Oranienstrasse. Running fast, we reach it in seconds.
Through the large door pane to the street we can recognize the beating cops with the other fugitives. They are no longer under electric shock but under drugs. Such actions are inhumane.
Should one still admire that? There still the fight cops on their own signs with their truncheons, in order to make themselves courage. Noise against frustration. Who still has desire there?
It's like on the sea. An eternal up and down of the waves. When will the wind finally calm down? It's past twelve and we want to go home!
