880502. CHAPTER
Maien is arrested by the authorities and stews in a single cell.
After endless hours, he is released with a criminal complaint
into freedom.
Manuscript from: Carl Mai, How it went on, Berlin 1941-92
My cell in police station with air conditioner fixed at 28 degrees.
In the Türkenkneipe at the Görli, where I was staying with the political student at midnight on May Day for fear of the authorities, many others had fled in, so that the place was packed. Actually, everyone wanted to go home. Unfortunately, this could not be put into practice, because the Kabus (= fighting cops) let off steam in a real dance on the street. After half an hour of waiting, the majority of those present left the location, strangely enough. However, the Turkish owner of the pub became more and more nervous about the rampage outside. Friendly he asked me and my fellow student to go to the back part of the pub, because he was afraid for his big shop window. There were too many stones clattering on the street.
Bang, bang, bang, the street becomes too narrow. Boom, boom, bang and bang, who still pays attention to us? Since we didn't want to put up with it, we waited until the bull terror had calmed down halfway so that we could go outside. That was not so easy. Should we be guilty of anything? Why should we? We were not aware of any guilt. No stone had fallen into our hands. Only they were all lying around on the street. And the Buwas (= bull tubs) burned the stones with their spinning wheels on the road around. Bang, bang, bang, ...
When we then went outside, it came over us quite frighteningly. The nearer streets around us were cordoned off by kabukettes. "Is this a cauldron here? Are they trying to starve us all out here?" I thought to myself. The Manteuffel closed on the right and left, the Skalitzer closed in front and behind, the Wiener closed. Only on Oranien in the direction of Heini were no Kabus to be seen. So, best first down there to the way home.
However, also at the Heini denied us ne whole wild Kabukette the way home with crash helmets, truncheons and battle shields. Behind it stood still threatening a large green Bulawa (= bull loudspeaker car).
Loosely and calmly, I approached one of the Kabus in the chain, "We want to go home. Can you please let us through here?" The only thing he replied to me was, "Nah, there's no way!" Without batting an eye, he remained standing wide-legged in front of me with his combat shield ready to attack, unwilling to provide any further information in his duty to fulfill.
Beside me a Turk, who proved by his identity card that he lived at the Heini, talked insistently to nen Kabu, without success for his home. Others began to discuss with the Kabus about the sense of the whole state-violent actions here. The front could not be softened.
Now, however, from the nearby green bulava it sounded out mightily in full volume: "Please leave the area of police action! This is the first request!"
The brief silence that now followed paralyzed everyone. Energetically, however, I now turned back to my previously addressed Kabu in the chain, "We would like to leave the area of police measures. Please let us out of here!" He again refused and pointed us with his club to go in the direction of the Görlitz subway station. There, however, everything was also cordoned off.
Now now it already resounded again sensitively loudly from the Bulawa out: "Leave immediately the area of the police measures. This is the last call!"
"We can't get out of here," I said to the politics student, "they want to know who's walking around. Recognition service treatments are in order. We have to get out of here. But without hurry and haste. Just don't attract attention."
Loosely and calmly, I approached one of the Kabus in the chain, "We want to go home. Can you please let us through here?" The only thing he replied to me was, "Nah, there's no way!" Without batting an eye, he remained standing wide-legged in front of me with his combat shield ready to attack, unwilling to provide any further information in his duty to fulfill.
Beside me a Turk, who proved by his identity card that he lived at the Heini, talked insistently to nen Kabu, without success for his home. Others began to discuss with the Kabus about the sense of the whole state-violent actions here. The front could not be softened.
Now, however, from the nearby green bulava it sounded out mightily in full volume: "Please leave the area of police action! This is the first request!"
The brief silence that now followed paralyzed everyone. Energetically, however, I now turned back to my previously addressed Kabu in the chain, "We would like to leave the area of police measures. Please let us out of here!" He again refused and pointed us with his club to go in the direction of the Görlitz subway station. There, however, everything was also cordoned off.
Now now it already resounded again sensitively loudly from the Bulawa out: "Leave immediately the area of the police measures. This is the last call!"
"We can't get out of here," I said to the politics student, "they want to know who's walking around. Recognition service treatments are in order. We have to get out of here. But without hurry and haste. Just don't attract attention."
Only this time it was not the safest thing for me to do. Because suddenly several, martial their club swinging Kabus surrounded me. The longest of those opened to me dryly, "You just threw a rock! You are under arrest!" For my part, I said nothing. What could I do in the face of such an excess of state power? There was no point in resisting. I'd get hit with a club right away. My head was too good for that.
So I followed their instructions and went along "willingly" without letting them touch me. Surrounded by the Kabus, they led me to a waiting tub on Oranienstrasse. There I had to stand with upraised hands broad-legged at the tub sheet metal. First with my face to the sheet metal and then with my back to the sheet metal. At the same time, one of the kabus frantically and brutally frisked me from top to bottom.
Then the Kabu was not yet satisfied with my leg position. Therefore he kicked me with his heavy combat boots decently in my legs, because I should make them even wider, and thereupon grabbed me from behind strongly in my scrotum. "Is that a weapon, then? Can you hide something in it?" I asked him cautiously, but received only kicks in response.
After the pat-down, the Kabu felt all the pockets in my clothes, spinning me around like a top.
for eighty shots per film, my green Berlin makeshift identity card the BVG unemployment entitlement card, my telephone directory, a linen handkerchief from my youth, a bunch of keys with a chain attached to a leather belt and an empty, transparent film can. The scanner thought it was all worthless stuff and gave it all back to me. Strange, otherwise they were always hot for the camera and had ripped the film out of there or taken the whole camera with the film to develop the pictures themselves. Fortunately, I had always managed to avoid having any pictures on there. "Who knows how to develop everything properly with the laws when you are authorized to enforce them," I thought to myself.
Then the brutal Kabu asked me to get into the tub immediately. Did that again "willingly", in order not to have to expose myself to direct violence. However, when I got in, I turned around again while standing and looked out at the bystanders who were now witnessing my arrest in large numbers. From the crowd, someone called out to me, "What's your name?" Raising my head, I called out three times: "Carl Mai . . . Carl Mai ... Carl Mai ... but with "C" at the beginning and "i" at the end!"
And now a great ride began. Kabus jumped in from all sides into the tub, which was now packed to bursting. Nevertheless, I still got a seat as a person concerned close to the rear tub door in the corner. Kabus were even lying around across the aisle and two were even hanging in the driver's window. Basically this was a funny society here, in which I found myself. No dogged faces. All young people under their combat helmets. I even thought I spotted a female Kabu among them. With the combat fatigues from the hockey players in green olive, I had some difficulty determining it. However, I felt it.
So we departed together with merry laughter and the rattling of plastic combat shields on the tinny tub wall. After a short wild ride, during which I did not realize where we were going, the view to the outside was blocked by the many cabooses, I was transferred at Moritzplatz into a Intub {= interrogation tub).
"Damn it," I thought aloud with myself, "there are plenty of law enforcement officers standing around here with their vehicles!" The purest Wabu like in the old Boer war (= Wannenburg). And the Vewa stood exactly at the corner of Moritzplatz and the border crossing at Heinrich-Heine-Strasse. "The escape possibilities look pretty bad there," I realized, "there's the wall of the workers' and farmers' state in front. I can't get through, because I don't have a pass with me, even though the Grekos (= border controllettis) from the East are standing there in bright light. Yes, and back? There are Kabus and tubs, Wawes (= water cannons) and civilian cars, Getrapos (= prisoner transporters) and Bulas (= cop trucks) for clearing operations, Bumos (= cop motorcycles) and Bubas (= cop excavators) with clearing shields. "
"So no means of escape! What for? Which uniformed man should I give the medal to, because he has seized me on the escape? The medal is always given by the others, whom you have to masturbate before", it went through my head.
Such thoughts were pointless now, because everything had already taken its course. Two Kabus led me right and left under my arms to a Vewa.
Bright interior. Two benches along the walls of the car, between them a small fixed table on which several forms were lying around. With an outstretched index finger, a Nobu (= normal cop) instructed me: "Sit down there!" The Nobu was actually still quite friendly after the brutal treatment from the Kabus.
Beside the Nobu now on the bank in the Vewa several paving stones lay piled up together with a large yellow stone. I had not yet seen such a large yellow stone in Kreuzberg. "Maybe I'm sitting around here with a state geologist or a stone fetishist. That could be a work of art, all those little gray paving stones and the big yellow one," I mused, "what does the state want to do with it?"
"Your ID, please!" "Here it is!" Nobu made a polite impression here, though. Was even addressed here with 'you' in the meantime. The shirt-sleeved Nobu - because of the May heat he had taken off his uniform jacket - took my makeshift ID card. Without looking at me, he filled out a pre-printed form with my data.
That must have been a report he was putting on paper. I didn't want to look too closely at his paperwork, otherwise he might have made a mistake in the sequence of his letters. Strangely enough, he didn't ask me anything either. He just kept writing on his pre-drawn form lines. Then he picked up a gray cobblestone from the pile on his bench and slipped it into a brown DIN A-4 envelope. On this bag he scribbled my name with his ballpoint pen. Then he attached the form filled out by him to the bag and gave me back my makeshift identity card.
I had not thought at all that this goes so fast with the arguments foisted. Fortunately, I did not get the big yellow stone. There was no such stone on the streets here. I would have had to bring it at least in a shopping bag from home.
It was quite strange. The cops didn't let me rest at all. They were only interested in processing cases with file numbers. "You can't do anything with explanations once you get into the mill," I noted.
Now the shirt-sleeved normal cop with a blond-haired normal bull asked me to take a picture in front of the door of the interrogation room. "Stand there, please! Against the wall of the car!" the blonde said to me in a medium friendly manner and pulled out a plastic Polaroid camera. She pointed the camera right at my head for a half-portrait and searched for me in the viewfinder. I looked into the instant camera and squinted my left eye. There was a flash and the camera technology whirring spat out a self-developing photo.
Secretly, I thought to myself, "This is all still quite nice here. Maybe I'll be released in a minute."
However, nothing of the kind resulted, which corresponded to my fantasy. I still had to stand at the vewa wall, because the two Nobus of different sexes in front of me still stared strained at the shot color photo of me. Since I had been familiar with the relevant photography for at least thirty years - after all, I thought these were always the most realistic pictures - my connoisseur's eye caught sight of a black square with a white border on the Polaroid photo from afar.
"Oho," I thought to myself, "black squares have always been my friends. The black hole in the right angle. Should the Nobus have photographed my black soul in their zeal?"
Slowly I stepped now to the made photo. There was really nothing to see but black, even after looking at it for a while. So far I had not been able to make such a photo even from myself. However, I had no desire to bring here my photographic knowledge on the tableau. With my written off escape thoughts in the head I waited for how the Nobus would decide. "I don't give advice for recognition photos," I ordered myself.
Both Nobus were now discussing their Popoka (= police polaroid camera} and realized that there must still be photo material in the Popoka. After a short while of discussing they decided to take another picture of me.
"Stand against the wall of the car again, please," the two Nobus said to me, pointing the popoka at me like a pistol. Again I looked into the lens with a trusting expression. However, this time I squinted my right eye briefly while taking the picture. The electronic flash slammed me full on and the Popoka spit out again whirring a new photo.
The two Nobus smiled in relief. Happily they called into the mild May night with the full moon: "The picture develops slowly ..."
But I also wanted to take a look at that and therefore pushed myself to the photo. The Polaroiderfinderfritze had always so ne nice slow development speed built into his technique. My likeness increased in sharpness and colorfulness more and more. The blond Nobuin held the photo into the light of the lantern at the Moritzplatz.
Very slowly in the middle of the black square now developed a colorful spot with my visage and the squinted right eye. Well, more did not come out then but from me. My head looked like a laughing Buddha and everything around was black again. Because of my closed right eye the two Nobus did not complain at all, because they were glad to be able to recognize something. It was a photo like taken through a telescope fish eye. If they had grumbled, I would have told them that I am always so jumpy when flashing. After all, I never know what I'm doing when I'm being illuminated.
However, the Nabu couple again puzzled over the photo they had taken. They couldn't decide if it was enough for the first detection treatment. Having become unsure, they asked a superior Nobu in the Wabu. He wanted to compare me with my likeness. For this purpose, however, I quickly stepped back into the darkness behind the Vewa, so that he could only look at my photo without being able to take a look at me. Finally the three Nobus agreed. Unanimously they were of the opinion: "That's enough!".
Then I was asked again to go back to the Vewa. "Willingly" I followed their request. Now the Nobu pinned the Buddha photo of me to my brown stone bag, which still lay on the fastened table between the wooden benches.
Then, at first, nothing happened. The Nobus were exhausted from their previous activity of filling out forms and taking pictures. However, the blond Nabuin kept looking around nervously in the Vewa, as I noticed. Unexpectedly, she suddenly pulled out a thermos flask from a pocket under the wooden benches. In plastic cups she poured herself and the Nabu the hot, steaming black bean coffee. There I was however baffled. Unabashedly I asked the blond Nabuin: "I also like to drink coffee with milk and sugar. Can you give me some of that?"
Now I was even more gobsmacked because the blonde Nabuin handed me the hot coffee with sugar in another plastic cup. She apologized that she had no milk with her. If I had now still ne black cigar with it, the pleasure would be to me at the moment the greatest. Nabu cigarettes they would have given me also still. "However, what is a glow stick against a thick black cigar?"
And so I waited in the Vewa with the two Nobus in our contradictory exhaustion while drinking coffee for the actions that were to come. After ten minutes of waiting, the Nobu abruptly began to grumble: "Where is the Getrapo? He should have been here long ago!"
Since now nothing was to be heard of an arriving or departing vehicle, we continued to sit together in the Vewa. My Nobu coffee was running low. And not even a single word came out of our closed mouths at either of us.
However, our common peace was suddenly disturbed unexpectedly. Because suddenly two Nenobus (= New Normal Cops) stormed into our Vewa and shouted frantically at me: "Come along!". One of them pulled me by the sleeve through the open door to the outside. "Is it now over with the friendliness", I asked the Nenobus friendly. That did not interest them at all. They pulled me through the wabu and pushed me into a waiting Getrapo. Boom, bang, bang. Very gruffly they pushed the tin box door shut behind me.
Das war aber wirklich ne alte Schrottkarre, diese Getrapo. Ein oller Borgward aus den fünfziger Jahren, außen blau, innen grau, ungepflegt und reichlich angerostet.
Some freaks buy such a thing at a bull auction. They repair everything on it and turn it into a motorhome to drive through the desert or to Afghanistan. So they are then happy in it in their way of life.
There I was, sitting in the Getrapo, at night with two other guys who had packed the Kabus in there before. A single six-volt ceiling light illuminated the three of us in the gray tin wasteland. Crude dirty metal benches were bolted to the steel floor. Just like in the 4th railroad class in the forties. Instead of windows, only a few narrow vents in the side walls. They did not allow a view to the outside. Instead, the exhaust fumes from the cars bubbling away outside came in. No connecting door to the driver. Trapped in a dirty tin box. Where do the cabooses want to take us?
Nothing happened. The sparkler burned away and the two younger captured guys smoked their cigarettes with relish. What can I say? Maybe they are civilians who are still fantasizing for their wages during the trial. And who likes to do something when he has experienced the procreation process in his innocence?
From outside, through the ventilation slits of the Getrapo, an incomprehensible babble of voices rang out to us. The state authorities were arguing about the destination. The driver's door swung open and shut. Now the journey seemed to be starting.
The driver started the diesel engine, but unfortunately it wouldn't start. After several attempts he did not manage to get the Getrapo moving. It did not work. Maybe the battery is dead at your place? Despite civilian concerns, we laughed in the prisoner's box. One said, "They can't run us in now!"
When the Getrapo diesel engine finally started, we were slowly set in motion. We curved around here and there, at first probably to leave the tricky wabu. There you can only determine the direction in your brain if you know the compass. The sky is then always up. The windowless tin box with the ventilation slits denies you any insight into the passing surroundings.
But that was really a daring driver. In the curves we were thrown to the right and left. Where is the ride going? The next jail can't be that far away, can it? Didn't someone once sing, "There's a train going nowhere and no one turns the signal from red to green!" This incarcerated ride has now lasted probably close to twenty minutes, interrupted by stopping and continuing, and interrupted by slowing down and speeding up. Maybe they would take us to the Grunewald and drop us off there without a sound, which had also happened to me once before after a paid carousing in Neukölln. Unfortunately, I had not understood the sense of it. The journey went on and on. The stops were the traffic lights on the route, which were sometimes closer and sometimes farther apart.
Suddenly, the Getrapo driver stopped again and the creaking sound of a gate opening came through the vents. Then the car rolled a bit more. From the outside, the Getrapo door was ripped open and one of the guys was pulled out.
Through the open door I could see that we were in the courtyard of the women's prison on Lehrter Strasse. In the seventies, a squatter demonstration took place here, where the MDK played punk music from a truck for the prisoners: "And the animal, the animal, the animal in me awakens. An impetuous force that suddenly awakens, that renews everything and destroys everything, ..." So the punk roared in to the inmates at that time.
And now the Nobus here led one of from the Getrapo out, which was our cab. Well, that really had to be a civilian. A guy in a women's prison, that didn't even exist in a concentration camp. None of us said anything about why he had just been taken out. The Nobus slammed the Getrapo door shut again with the external lock and our journey continued.
However, the rolling of the wheels did not last long. Again the gates creaked with the slamming doors. And again the Nobus yanked our Getrapo door wide open. "Come with me!" they shouted at me first, and again I followed them willingly. The new building here was a bohemian village to me. After ten meters of concrete walkway, the Nobus pushed me into a white room probably close to two by two meters. Bright neon light. A small table stood in there and nothing else.
And then there was a guy standing around as a juvobe (= correctional officer), who yelled at me: "Come on, get undressed!" Simple-mindedly I asked him, "Everything?" "Yes, everything! But quick!" the Juvobe yelled at me, cursing: "Doesn't it ever end here? Always the asses!" Thereupon I undressed leisurely, because I also had to find the suitable buttons on my clothes. After all, it was not about undressing for my girlfriend.
And again the command tone: " Go faster! The things from the bags and on the table! Go, go, go!"
Oh horror and horror. My proofreader's soul discovered a brown DIN-A-4 bag on the small table. It said "Heinz Schmidt" on it. The Nobus had slammed the bag there when they pushed me into this room. I pointed out to Juvobe that that was not me. My name was a different one.
Now the excitement started. The doorbell rang, the door rattled. The brown envelope was taken out, but no new one came in. I didn't know what "Heinz Schmidt" would be charged with. "Later I'll be charged with attempted murder," I thought to myself, or whatever else was going on. I didn't want to put on that shoe in this dicey situation.
When I had got rid of my clothes and they came to lie on the dirty floor, the contents of my bag were also on the little table.
The Juvobe was in a really lousy mood. Again he shouted at me in my nakedness, "Go! Face the wall! Legs wide!" He was also not satisfied with my leg position: "Go! Legs wider apart!" Then he tore me my ass cheeks in each other's directions, shone me with ner flashlight in my back hole and rummaged me there without rubber gloves with his fingers in it around.
What he wanted to feel and see except shit? Fortunately I did not have to fart. Maybe he was looking for stones in my ass? Or what else should I have in there but my feces? Told him friendly, he should take his fingers out of my ass, because I did not want to have the AIDS here from him. "That's none of YOUR business," he grumbled to himself and then ordered me again: "Go on! Get dressed! Just socks, shirt and pants! The rest stays here!"
Door rattling and ringing again. A gray uniformed locksmith came into the naked room and asked me extremely unfriendly: "Come along! Jacket and shoes in hand!" When I came along, I had to hold on to my pants, because my belt had also been taken from me, so as not to come into conflict with my pants in a running manner.
Then the gray locksmith led me down a long paved corridor. On the right, the numbered cells were lined up, and on the left were the offices, through whose open doors I could see hectic activity. The May warmth bore shirt-sleeved fruit here.
The locksmith now turned rudely to me again: "Freeze!" We stood together in front of cell seven. His bunch of keys jingled and the cell opened for me. First a simple door with a small window, then an anteroom and behind it a large grating like in a predator cage with a grating door inside. I had to take off my jacket and shoes in the anteroom with an old dirty wool blanket.
In the barred cell, someone was already sitting on the rough beechwood cot. Two fluorescent tubes constantly illuminated the room and a humming air conditioner was also constantly running. The cell window could not be opened. A stuffy warm air hit me. The unreachable air-conditioning regulator was set to 27 degrees. I said hello to my cellmate, although it was night, and that I was tired. We agreed on the crude wooden cot fixed on the floor. He lay down at the foot of the bed with his legs drawn up, and I lay down at the head of the bed to get some rest in my sleep.
However, this state did not last long. Key rattling and door rattling startled me. The locksmith again roughly to me: "Come along! To the doctor!" Told him that I wanted to put on my shoes because I had something against athlete's foot. "The shoes stay where they are!" So I walked on my socks down the long corridor with the cells and offices. In the hallway stood a pretty shirt-sleeved blonde Nobu with a leather shoulder holster and a big gun in it. I looked at her in amazement. That was probably the beauty queen here at the state power, I thought to myself.
"Come on! Come with me! In here!" my locksmith forced me again. Then I found myself in a small dingy room with makeshift lighting. In front of me sat a guy in a white coat who turned out to be a prison doctor. And behind me, standing wide-legged in the open doorway, was a shirt-sleeved knabu (= prison cop) with a shoulder holster, a gun and gray Bundeswehr leather gloves. Grimly he looked down on me, at any time ready me powerfully to attack, if I should offer resistance.
I did not want to resist him, but only wanted to know what was going on here. The doctor now turned to me, saying, "Sit in the chair, please. Which arm do you want?" Answered him that he should know, he was the doctor here. "The right one then!" So he wanted to draw my blood from my body. With ner Fixe he pulled me then the red juice off, while I looked at the broad-legged Knabu in the door frame. Fixes are repugnant to me. That's why the Knabu glared at me even more grimly.
Now that the bloodsucker was done with his business, he laid a form out for me, "Please sign there!" Told him, however, "I'm not signing anything!" He again: "I need only ne writing sample!" "What should I write there?" "Then just write: 'I am imprisoned by the police'." On his recommendation, I wrote this in block letters on the line provided on the form. Then, in my presence, he filled in several other questions on the form, which I could not decipher because of his slovenly handwriting, without asking me further questions.
The locksmith then took me back to the overheated fluorescent tube cell number seven, where the other one was still sitting. Sleep was out of the question, because suddenly another Knabu stood at the barred door and ordered me: "When was your father born?" "He died in the concentration camp in March 46." "Exact date of death?!" "There isn't. The Russians must know that, they owned the camp." He now scribbled something with a ballpoint pen on paper, which he held against the wall for support. "When was her mother born?" "She died, too. 1943." And satisfied, the Knabu took off again.
I thought I had seen Knabu before when I was arrested, but I wasn't quite sure. He had such a crazy look in his eyes that they flickered. Under Adolf, he would have put me up against the wall and shot me on the spot, he made such a hot impression on me. But when I was arrested, they were all dressed in powerful battle gear with helmet visors, and now they were running around in their shirts with pistol shoulder holsters. But somehow I remembered the look. You don't forget something like that. He wanted to make me all. I'm sure he'll write a nice report.
In his eagerness, Knabu left the viewport door open a crack, so that one could see something of the hectic activity in the hallway and in the opposite office room. The iron-barred door was, of course, locked. In the office room, several Knabus were sitting at typewriters, typing in the two-finger search system. In the corridor there was a constant up and down of restless Knabus. One of them shouted that they were all living like vandals and that they should be dealt with much more severely. And yet another Knabu pushed the door with the viewing window shut as he passed, so that the cell was now hermetically sealed off from the outside. Now we were stewing in the heat and the stuffy air.
Calls like "Release!" and "Don't release!" were still coming through the cracks in the door. From the adjoining cells there was the din of cell bars, on which the prisoners were banging about terribly, because they wanted to get out. And again there was renewed shouting, scolding and shaking of the iron bars.
I did not feel like resisting in this way. Now I really fell asleep from all the exertion on the wooden cot at the head end, which my fellow occupant at the foot end was also capable of doing. The light kept burning and the hot air conditioner kept humming. It was still dark outside, which could be seen through the barred frosted glass window. I didn't even dream anything in my sleep. This was not a dream here, but an apparatus that was running at full speed.
Without any sense of time, I woke up at some point when my Knabru (= jailbird) was taken out of here. He never came back to me in cell seven. There followed an excited pattering on the Knaflu (= prison corridor). Some knabu shouted that no one was coming in here, when it was about the lawyers of the prisoners.
Now I was finally alone with myself and fell asleep again with the now flickering fluorescent lights and the constantly humming air circulation system. However, my sleep did not last as long as I wanted it to, since I had had enough of this in the meantime.
Undaunted, I first looked at the cell into which I had been imprisoned: I used my feet as a measuring rod. On the narrow side the cell measured seven feet and on the long side ten feet. That must have been about two by three meters. The cell walls were covered up to the ceiling with yellow glazed tiles, on which an unspeakable dirt stuck. No one had ever cleaned the place or swept the floor. Up to shoulder height, the wall dirt was partially scoured off, probably because those imprisoned here had leaned against the tiled wall too often to escape the hard wooden cot. Here and there, dried-up rubbings in dazzling colors stuck to the wall. In the dust of the upper tile wall, other fingers had written: Bull Pigs, Old Cunt, Cunt Dirt, Liar, Sow, .... Even a gallows was painted there in the dust.
Not even a privy or a bucket for the basest human needs was in here. Only a beechwood cot on a steel frame.
The cell door consisted of vertical stainless steel pipes in hand-width distance from the floor to the ceiling, just like at the lion cage in the Berlin zoo, only that here no gaffers stood in front of it. The experts had neatly worked a man-sized stainless steel tube door into the stainless steel piping to close it. The pipes even continued in the door. Which architects and craftsmen design something like that? Have they ever sat in here?
Well, there were no spectators hanging around in front of the stainless steel pipes, because there was only a small anteroom, about 1.20 x 2 meters in a rectangle. There on the concrete floor lay my leather jacket, the dirty cell wool blanket and my shoes, which I would have liked to wear because of the dirt in here.
In the anteroom, which could be closed by the aforementioned viewing window door, on the left wall was the inaccessible setting controller for the air conditioning system, which was actually an air circulation system. The regulator had settings from 18 to 30 degrees Celsius engraved on it. And I had been set to 28 degrees. A real pain without a humidifier. Later on, you'll get a sticky cough and nosebleeds. And on the right wall of the anteroom was an accessible bell button. "I wondered if it was possible to press that button.
Through the closed and barred cell-milk-glass pane I noticed that the sun must already be high in the firmament and that this could probably be noon time. So I had been sitting in here for at least ten hours without getting anything edible or drinkable. And in such dry air it is not hunger that torments you so much as thirst. The nicotine withdrawal didn't bother me at all as a cigar smoker.
So I trotted around like the lion in the zoo cage always along the wall in the rectangle. However, I didn't do this because I wanted to have my freedom back, because that doesn't exist outside either. Outside the prison is just bigger, because the oppressors do not die out. No emergency committee can help. Rather, I thought of my own needs first, although I didn't want to be next to myself.
Bravely and resolutely, I pushed the accessible bell button through the stainless steel strut. Without being in possession of a watch, my sense of time told me that the representative of the state authority needed at least ten minutes to appear at my cell anteroom. It was then a small gray locksmith.
With calm voice I made clear to him that I would like to speak absolutely my RA (= lawyer), namely by telephone. Totally unfriendly he babbled at me: "The phone is busy!". Thereupon he disappeared again.
I gladly forgave him this answer. After all, which locksmith opens the cell when he is instructed to do so by the inmate who wants to get his rights?
So I trotted around in my cell again to get some exercise and to give my thoughts a quicker run. But my gray locker again prevented me from doing so. Strange: When I wanted him, he didn't come. If I did not want him, he came. Again he ordered me: "Come along!" But they had a small vocabulary here: come along, stand still, undress, get in, ...
On my socks I set off with him for the interrogation. A large, bright room at the end of the hall. The fresh air in it did me good, although the open barred window let in only sifted air. An elderly Vebu from the CID asked me kindly, "Why don't you sit down on that chair?" I was standing in front of her in socks, undershirt and pants, which I still had to hold on to. Otherwise they would have slipped down here.
"You are Mr. Carl Mai, living in Berlin?" "Yes, that's me, standing here!" "Now tell me how that was!"
"I'm just talking to my lawyer. I'm not telling you anything!"
"If you say anything, it's for your own benefit!"
"I'm familiar with such advantages! Ten hours I've been sitting in here! I'm not telling you anything at all!"
"Think about it again!"
"I don't need to think about that, because I already know that beforehand!"
And again the Vebu starts to whine: "But that would be better for you if you comment on it!"
"No, I'm not saying anything about it. Finally!"
Now the Vebu typed what into her typewriter, for which she pressed twice the lever for the whale transport. By the large distance of me to her it was denied to me to determine, what she brought to paper in her Vebu mania. She then ordered a locker by telephone, which neatly locked me back into my cell.
Since my thirst had made me so lively in the meantime in the head that I had to consider seriously how I could quench it, I hung only on this thought. So I took my grievance logically by the horns: Where is there water here? In the bathroom! So far you have not used this facility. That is your advantage! How do you get there? You press the bell. Then the locksmith comes and has to take you to the toilet. He has to do that, because there is no toilet in the cell. Just remember: If you drink too much water in the toilet, it will run through your body very quickly and you will have to piss. This then results in a doorbell ringing again. He can then grumble and say: "You were just on the toilet. Now you can't do that again. If everyone would do that!" If you then pee into the dirty cell in your distress, you'll get a fine for contaminating state property, no, for causing damage to other people's property. That's the right name for it. Poor Germany. Louis XIV was better off. He simply said 333 years ago: "L'Etat, c'est moi!" "The state is me!" Unfortunately, I am not.
So I had finished my logical thoughts and pressed the bell button through the stainless steel lattice tubes by simply pressing with my most important finger at that moment, it was the index finger.
The closer did not come immediately, but soon. After the planned exchange of words, he did what I wanted him to do. In the toilet finally a water tap. Drinking cool water, I first quenched my thirst, washed my face and hands after the dirty night day and was happy about it. In this place, of course, I was alone again. The locksmith did not watch my needs, but stood waiting for me in front of the toilet door. The large toilet window could be opened wide. Warm pleasant spring air penetrated through the grating to me in with the beautiful car exhaust gases from the passing street. Because of the limited view, I could not tell from the surroundings where I was in Berlin. No street sign was to be seen. And from the opposite houses also nobody looked out, to which I could have called something.
From the position of the sun in the cloudless sky I took that it must be about the noon time in this new building prison. I took full advantage of the toilet break. My locksmith did not push me either. That would have been even nicer, then I would have just started shitting. In emergencies one can always simulate that.
Back in my cell, I didn't worry about possible hunger, because I had enjoyed the water. Rather, I was disturbed by the constant humming of the air circulation system, which had meanwhile turned my cell into a brood cell with thick stuffy air. The fluorescent tubes no longer flickered despite their long burning time, but they hummed unpleasantly again. Is this supposed to be the Eternal Light?
So with these two means, these state forces wanted to finish me off: bad air and constant light. "You can't let that happen," I thought to myself, "you must immediately occupy yourself with other thoughts. There are still so many beautiful things in the world. Clear your thoughts, then they are the right thoughts!"
I for my part thought now about what the people do there at the moment probably actually everywhere, because, how should they do it, if they cannot differently? In the process, I became so tired that I prepared myself for a pleasant midday nap on the hard wooden slatted bed. By the way, a recommendable place to sleep. You float when you sleep because you are constantly rolling around. This is what I now began to do slowly.
Clunk, clunk, groan, the cot is so nice. Oh dear. I tore open my eyes. A Schliebu suddenly stood in front of me at my camp: "Come with me! To the Erkennungsdienstlichen treatment!" Now I really began to loudly express my displeasure: "Damn it. First you let me stew and fry in the cell and then you drag me in front of your shitty camera for an undignified mug shot. I don't like it! I'll think of something else! I'm coming with you!"
Again I ran on socks across the hall with my slipping pants without a belt, accompanied by my Schliebu, so that I would not leave this building fleeing. He opened an unbarred door for me to a large room with appropriate installations that I was yet to learn about. I told the Schliebu still in my anger: "Who goes first into the pub, must pay the bill!" That's probably why he stayed behind, because now I should notice that a strong soup was served to me.
In the Reroo (= recognition room), I now stood in my shamelessness with my pathetic outfit in front of a small civilian typist and her typewriter, which was not even an electric one. Her face was covered with a probably five millimeter thick make-up layer, so that nobody could recognize her underlying pimples. And peeking out from under her typewriter desk was a little petticoat. Dr. Duden calls it a "stiff waist petticoat." Next to her, a civilian, who, as it turned out later, was the Bufo (= cop photographer), was eyeing me. Thus we were to three in the Erkrau, because the Schliebu had evaporated within the building.
The typist stretched at my imposing sight with pointed red-painted fingernails a pre-printed form into her heavy machine. My eyes, which can sometimes see around corners through my brain - unfortunately, one cannot show such things in the circus - recognized my name on the form header, namely Carl Mai. The reason for the identification service treatment was already written underneath by a foreign hand. It read "For breach of the peace". "Oho," I thought to myself, "am I supposed to have plunged my country, in which I have lived since birth, into discord? How can that be? Surely this is an economic miracle!"
Now the typists with the bufo really got down to business. They gave me almost no respite in their desire. The thin fingers of the typist were ready to attack on the keys. "What language do you speak?" she asked me pointedly. "Latin!" I answered her. Without wanting a language sample from me and without noticing that we were talking German here, she typed "Latin" into her machine, since there was no box to check for this. In her simplicity she did not understand Latin. "Coito ergo sum," I merely remarked.
"What special physical features do you have?" she asked me,
"What special physical features do you have?" she asked me when she had checked off my height, weight and the color of my eyes. "I don't know that myself," I told her, "I can take off my clothes here, then you can determine my special physical features yourself." Then the bufo intervened in the questioning: "You don't have to do that here!" And again he examined me from top to bottom: "There, on your head, you have a scar!" I told him that I didn't know that because I rarely look in the mirror. I am not interested in my face. "Yes, you have a scar there!" And already he was running his finger along a list attached to the cabinet wall and saying to the typist, "One hundred and thirteen!" She then typed that number into the machine. "Aha, you're numbering my features," I merely remarked. But I didn't want to ask her what number the pimple on my dick had or why my left toe was so big on my right foot.
That had also no more sense, because now the Bufo ordered me to wash my hands at an automatic water tap. "There!" was all he pointed. I quickly figured out that if I put the bottle of liquid soap in front of the photocell, the faucet would keep running. So I played my funny little game with the bufo. For my fingerprints, he needed clean hand lines. Either these were still too much with soap afflicted or too wet for his action, so that I had to run several times to the water tap with my trousers at the hand. Each time I put the soap bottle in front of the photocell so that the water ran continuously. Then the bufo went there to put the bottle away again to interrupt the water flow. In the meantime I brought him then his tools in another order until he had become so nervous that he stepped to the action:
The Bufo now managed this in his own way. First, he blackened a plate with printing ink using a roller. He took great pains to distribute the ink evenly, as if it were a matter of printing banknotes. Then he took my fingers one by one, rolled them on the black plate and then on the form on which my Latin language was recorded. For each finger the state authority had drawn there an extra box.
After all ten fingers that I had with me had been printed, the bufo blackened my entire palms for a total counterprint on the paper. "That's good," he said, "now wash your hands!" And the same game began as before with the soap bottle and the faucet, with the makeup tip also intervening. However, the blackness could hardly be removed from the hands, so indanthren was the state recognition.
Now it was my head's turn. The bufo strode to his camera, ordered me to stand against a wall with a scale, and looked through his camera viewfinder looking for me. Doesn't the state authority have a fixed position there? It's always the same procedure! Anyway, the bufo could not get away from his viewfinder. Its illumination for the admission for me did not possess too large brightness, so that here long exposure times were to be expected. The photo flash had not yet struck here.
"Just you wait," I thought to myself, "I'll teach you. You don't know who you're shooting. I'll be able to mess you up." He didn't even have an instant camera with him to check his result. He was still looking strained through his viewfinder and giving me instructions: "Turn right. Hold still. Turn left. Keep still! Look straight ahead. Hold still!" At the decisive moment of releasing the shutter for the mug shot, I turned my corpus delicti in a flash, which resulted in a total blur on the later photo. A number of artists have been inspired by blurred photos. Maybe this Bufo belongs to that genre. At the end he said again: "That's good!". And a Schliebu brought me back to my hot cell. However, I didn't forget to accidentally drop my pants in front of the makeup typist beforehand, so she could get a flash in her brain at the sight of my ass. "Come along!" screamed there the Schliebu.
Oh, you my cell, if you would give me fresh air, water and something to eat, I would be grateful to you for shielding me so beautifully from the outside world. Unfortunately, only the last of these wishes came true.
So I wandered around in cell seven, doing arithmetic problems, writing essays in my mind and talking to myself in many a useless way, so as not to have to occupy my brain with agonizing questions and problems, because these only wear you down, and I didn't want that. Time passed. The afternoon was making itself felt. My cell milk glass became cloudier. The corridor in front of my cell had also calmed down, since the Vebus, Knabus, Bufos, Schliebus and Bübus, that is the office cops, had grown tired of their work. The time of fatigue invaded the system.
Then, in this quiet afternoon hour, luck struck me in the back. The fruits of my name calling in front of the first Buwa (= bull tub), which had run me in, suddenly came to fruition to my amazement.
My Schliebu tore me out of my useless thoughts from my cell and led me to a lawyer who wanted to make sure of me in an airy Veze (= interrogation cell). Someone must have remembered me. How names do matter.
In the interrogation cell I told the lawyer Heiß, that was his real name - because what I don't know doesn't make me hot - my concern and my power of attorney by explaining to him the facts of my arrest and also my social environment with my children, the divorced women's movement and the attack on me by the Turks, whereby a lawsuit is still running because I had defended myself there, and that I am imprisoned here, where I would like to get out again under better conditions. He showed great understanding for this and spoke to me as a father, although he was the younger of us both, because the father is recognized by the child like the weather by the wind, because the Lord's Prayer is the lawyer's interest. How shall one perish when nothing is sufficient for it?
The lawyer Heiß now showed great understanding for me, precisely because he still wanted to distinguish himself in his career and sensed a business in me. Who does something for free?
I therefore promised him the pay for his work, also because he had come so close to me at this place, the Veze, and acknowledged this with my signature for his power of attorney. In return, he gave me his torn-off letterhead as a business card, which I then faithfully kept in my pants pocket. How else could I find him again in the big world?
Then my lawyer Hot told me something about a detention examination, which would take place perhaps tonight, at the latest, however, tomorrow morning, in another prison place. For this he promised his presence in order to get me released. And he also said that I would have to expect a sentence of two years on probation.
"But this is how things take a pleasant course. Who is punishing me here?" I asked myself. The lawyer, the state authority or the judge? Yes, the separation of powers: Everyone wants his share. There is no innocence left in this, our country.
The friendly lawyer Heiß then said goodbye to me with his briefcase, wished me a good outcome in my existence and handed me over to Schliebu, who again faithfully locked me up in my cell seven according to his regulations.
Now I sat down for the first time on the wooden plank bed in my cell, which turned into a sauna. Unfortunately, I had no water to sweat out. What a luck that you may sweat in the hell with the purgatory. With my will I arranged my balance in my physical household: I gave nothing of me and also did not demand to want to take something.
In thirst is good whispering, but not good catching fish. So I satisfied myself on myself by running my tongue around in my mouth to catch the saliva and to feast on it, which is my own. But I didn't do this too often, otherwise I would have gotten sore muscles in my own tongue, and I still needed them to communicate with my environment.
The afternoon was now slowly drawing to a close, so that I lulled myself into the cheerful hope that the state apparatus had finally satisfied itself with its violence on me.
Aha, masturbation and breach of the peace. How does that work? It works best when both are satisfied.
The not to be opened barred milk wire glass cell window to the outside world became darker and darker opposite my constantly humming fluorescent tube cell lighting. Occasionally I heard in the distance still the Rammeln at the cell lattices from the unsatisfied Einsitzenden. How should they be able to do otherwise, if they are locked up in their brain. Take the sunglasses to the hand, so that the world becomes still darker! And so I thought to myself in this lousy cell, "Where have my toilet seat gone?" Even this relic of civilization was withheld from me here.
Now it became quite whimsical to me. Suddenly a tall gray locksmith stood in front of me - it must have been a shift change for them on lockdown - and offered me lukewarm water from a large coffee pot in a paper cup. In addition, he handed me a sample pack of Bahlsen cookies, the expiration date of which was already two years ago.
"I won't say no to that," I said to him, "this is the first offering after fifteen hours without these gifts that they are now bringing me. Is this the Lord's Supper now? With the priests they serve wine!"
"No," he replied, "soon they'll be out of here and transferred to Gothaer Strasse!" I was familiar with that. The Gothaer in Schöneberg. Right nearby, in the Swabian, the folk musician Paul Lincke had lived composing: "The Happy Waltz", "Berlin Air" and "It was in Schöneberg in the month of May ..." And now we have the beautiful May.
Outside, night had meanwhile conquered the day. My frosted glass window to the outside world showed complete darkness. Slowly I let melt still in small bites the dry, over-aged cookies in my mouth, so that the hunger could not seize power over me. In our Christian Occident nobody starves.
In this quiet evening hour I only waited for my judge to bring me my release from this hot isolation cell. I didn't have to wait much longer for that, because now my Schliebu came for the last time with his "Come with me!
Joyfully I took my jacket and the shoes in receipt. Only my trouser belt was still withheld from me. "Never mind!" In any case, "It goes ahead!".
Through various windowless concrete corridors, I was led outside to a ramp. Here, too, the surroundings were so well shielded that I could not tell whether I was in Busendorf, in Kotzen or in a Berlin district. There in the concreted inner courtyard, my Schliebu instructed me to get into a waiting green Getrapo.
In the inner corridor, on the right and left, there were individual cells as narrow as mini closets. Schliebu awkwardly locked me into one of them. Was he afraid of me in the narrow corridor?
One small mobile cell among many: 70 x 80 centimeters square. The purest oil sardine can. Fortunately, the sheet metal wall had a few ventilation slits to the outside. Again, no view to the outside.
Nach entsprechendem Türenklappern und lustigem Schlüsselbundklingeln After the appropriate clattering of doors and the funny jingling of keys, the Getrapo set off with the people sorted into the minicells. The ride through the street labyrinth swung the car sometimes in this or that direction. In the traffic circle, the centrifugal force pressed me almost completely against the metal wall. Like at a fairground. Through the ventilation slits, the exhaust fumes of the Getrapo and the accompanying traffic were coming in from the outside. "That is already almost ne Vegawa (= gasification tub)," it reproached me in my head. That lasted then so a three-quarter hour, until we were at the announced goal, the jail in the Gothaer road.
Here I marveled at an ancient courtyard without any possibility of escape. What was the point of escaping? After all, I had done nothing wrong. "My heart is small, my heart is pure. Your will can't get in there!"
Now several Schliebus pushed me into a building lock. Only when one door is locked behind you, the next one is opened. Like the ship locks, the bacteria locks, or the ATM locks.
"Do I get into the next isolation ward here now?" I asked the UFO (= uniformed person). Without batting an eye, an extremely unenthusiastic Ubu (= examining cop) yelled at me: "Drop your pants and spread your butt cheeks wide!" Belligerently, the ubu stood next to me with his middle finger extended. "Stop!" I answered him now also irritably: "I don't do that any more here. I'm not going to let the state bang me in the ass anymore! My hemorrhoids are too good for that! They only start to bleed with your fumbling! My blood is repugnant to me!"
Awkwardly, the Ubu put on transparent PVC gloves at my remarks to reach into my posterior hole. I let him aim and then withdrew from his desire in a flash. His grip went up in the air. "Hold still!" he growled, baffled by his own willful slowing of his senses. During his renewed assault on me, there was a very powerful thunder at the sluice-cell door. Then I noticed that the Ubu was getting into stress, because he still had to grope others who were standing with the Schliebus in front of the barred door lock.
So he let go of me, because he thought he had a halfway reasonable person in front of him. Had I not even offered to finger him in his asshole. He pushed open a door for me, the opening of which was only in his power, and yelled, "Move along!"
"Finally, no more of that eternal 'Come along!" . Here the vocabulary is already more extensive. It goes ahead!"
Things were moving forward now, but unfortunately downhill for the time being: all alone, I found myself on a landing. The steps led only downward, which my feet in the shoes obeyed. All alone, I stood in front of a barred door. Again, as if in a lion's cage. A gray Schliebu opened for me to a small anteroom.
My literal ability was not sufficient to describe this Schliebu in her gray, ugly, tight Trevira knee skirt with the perlon tights and the black low shoes with anarchistic block heel. After all, I knew pictures of concentration camp dominants whose lust was for violence, even though they were only in the first third of their lives. "Maybe you were brought up to do that, too," I excused the Schliebu.
Again a lattice door stood open for me to the short-obligatory slip through into the next how many anteroom to freedom? In it stood now the Schliebu with me and another male Schliebu. Both had enclosed themselves to their desire or their pleasure in an adjoining smallest cage a young Punkerin with supermini skirt. This sat there with spread legs on a table, offering herself to the state power and the Schliebus. Her long running stitches led exactly into her pussy. She offered herself to the state power. Only this is a Samaritan's work for a lost cause, because with the officials the "B" is so close to the "Te". And then most of the time they have one in the "Te"!
"It's a peep show for uniform wearers. Who is horny on whom?" it came into my senses. Only, the senses have nothing to do with the sensuality, because they always run among themselves crosswise!
In this tense air, the Schliebu and the Schliebu outdid each other in their friendliness: "Please go on in there." And again a barred door closed behind me.
Now I was finally of good cheer, for I was standing in a barred hallway among several young people, whose number probably reached twenty. All of them had been brought in by the state forces at the Revolutionary May Day in Kreuzberg. Only German boys. The workers' holiday had lost its international character here.
One of them was even standing around in a nightgown. The Kabus had driven him in from a phone booth while making a call. With the warmth actually a pleasant clothing.
However, there was no happy mood here. One was depressed. We had all been in jail for more than twenty hours. And some of them were getting ready for something. Some of them already had a criminal record for fraudulent use of public transportation, which is called "fare evasion" in the vernacular, or for the theft of luxury goods from department stores. There the people says then "mouth robbery" to. Then it looks bad with the Haftverschonung. The chain of the Kriminilasierung receives its links with the small people.
Most conversations in this cell corridor with two open cells revolved primarily around eating, drinking and smoking. A friendly Schliebu even handed us two cigarettes through the iron bars, which were no longer stainless steel pipes here. In the old building, they let the grates rust. Actually, they say there's a grate!
In the grate frost we sat now unanimously together and smoked in turn what the Juvobe handed us through the grate. Everyone tried to get a puff, which was then also accomplished, because we were suppressed here together by the state power.
Oh, you beautiful pressure from the supreme power! As long as you still exist, we can make jokes about you. And if you were no longer there, we would be witless. Please, do not let this happen! Because: There is a lot of joke in a little man's bag. Yes, where one jokes around, one adds. Where one counts power, go away!
So we sat around in the collective cell corridor. Time passed in the late evening. Some of us were taken out and led to an unknown place. Those who were taken out did not come back either.
The hard core remained, sorted out in a special way. In the end there were only nine of us. They had already taken the nightgown from us.
Yes, ten little people, they were on the road. One was led out, the rest sat on the courtship.
Now it came so far that we were asked to nine by a friendly Schliebu in the second floor of the prison. We went along willingly, because we all believed in a change. Let's get out of here, was the thought of all of us. However, nothing came of it for the time being. The friendly Schliebu locked us up there on the second floor together again in a large barred cell. The large table inside with benches all around gave us hope for something good.
And indeed: A little later, a Juvobe handed us a large one-and-a-half-liter pot of lukewarm, sugared peppermint tea through the bars. A second Juvobe also pushed his arms through the bars with the cups for us. Such cups are put out for drinking coffee even in the worst station waiting room. Then came the sliced bread shrink-wrapped in plastic bags, the smear cheese wedges and the hunting sausage from Aldistandard. Everything with long expired use date. Even the stringed instruments in the form of knives with round tips found their way to us. These are actually weapons, aren't they?
Everyone happily spread his sandwich or two on the raw wooden table with the rancid butter. Because of our great thirst after the long dryness in the solitary cells, we were given two pots of tea as a second helping, which did us a lot of good at first.
Time went by again and nothing happened. In any case, it was easier to endure here: no booming and droning air circulation system, no individual isolation.
But, little by little, there was movement again in the enforcement apparatus. At certain intervals, a Schliebu led one of us out in alphabetical order. The rest of us slowly melted away every 20 minutes and none of us came back.
Soon it was the turn of the letter "M" and thus the turn of me, Carl Mai. My faithful Schliebu guided me through corridors, locked doors and stairs into a large dark room illuminated by light bulbs.
Although a Ubu wanted to examine me here before, I could still stop his undertaking with friendly coaxing. What did I have with me, except myself? I was able to make that clear to him, so that he let go of me. "There must be some sensible people," I thought to myself, "there are enough controls. What are you officials punished with?"
The large room that now surrounded me was occupied by the hari (= magistrate), the justia (= judicial clerk), the prosecutor and my lawyer. They sat at their respective places, as it was proper in a proper distance among themselves. For my part, I had the impression that all the shysters were waiting for me here in great tension, probably because the evening had become too late for them and they wanted to clear the air here quickly in order to get home quickly to their other desires.
The pure table they covered now to my astonishment with the strangest china. After short questions of the Hari, whether I was the one, the Justia typed violently something into her machine on a red sheet of paper.
Then my hari read me a hair-raising prepared charge without asking me a question. Quickly mumbling along he announced to me reading from the sheet:
"ARREST WARRANT! Against Carl Mai, born on September 24, 1942 in Finsterwalde, residing at Sonnenallee 42, 1000 Berlin 44, custody is ordered. He is accused of having violently resisted in Berlin on May 2, 1988, at about 1:23 a.m., an official appointed to enforce laws and decrees, while performing such an official act, in a particularly serious case, since he was carrying a weapon in order to use it in the act. Following a street party in Berlin-Kreuzberg, Lausitzer Platz, after 8 p.m. in the area of Adalbertstraße, Heinrichplatz, Manteuffelstraße and Waldemarstraße there was a gathering of about 300 people, from among whom - in changing groups - shop windows were smashed or broken, barricades were erected, fires were set, police officers were attacked with series of stone throws and Molotov cocktails, and attempts were made to loot stores. / The accused participated in the riots of the aforementioned crowd in such a way that at the height of the house Oranienstr. 3 he threw a small cobblestone specifically at a police group car, which was driving along Oranienstr. in support of police officers and at that moment turned around in front of Oranienstr. 3. / The defendant is strongly suspected of the crime with which he is charged on the basis of the statements of the witnesses A. and B., as well as the other results of the investigation. There is the reason for detention of the danger of flight, with a significant incentive to escape punishment to expect (§ 112 para 2 No. 2 StPO).
"Oops. That's better than a "Tischlein-Deck-Dich"! The landlord will be pleased!"
I was given a small advantage when, at the request of the prosecutor, the last prepared sentence in my arrest warrant was mixed and declared invalid. It was worded like this:
"By the way, the defendant is unemployed, social ties cannot be established."
I had previously informed the separation of powers that I was unemployed and had been divorced from my family with my two sons.
But that is a concession that I am not recognized because of my age. At some point they also think about their pension claims, which have to be brought in by the youth.
Who works for whom? Who works hand in hand? Who pushes it to the other? Who goes crosswise with what presses him? Who creates the desire in the displeasure?
However, the powerful on the legal side raised their finger only insofar as they imposed on me that I had to report to my police station twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays from zero to twenty-four o'clock, in order to be spared the arrest warrant.
So my case came to an end after twenty minutes. The judge showed me the way to limited freedom and my dutiful Schliebu led me back to the cell wing.
Once there, I did not have to make the acquaintance of a cell again. Instead, a Knabu handed me back my things, which the Ubu had taken from me the night before, in exchange for a signature. I was happy to be able to pull my belt through my baggy pants again, so that I had a foothold when walking. I was not so much interested in my wallet, because there was nothing in it anyway.
Then the Knabu led me through an infinite number of corridors, bars and doors to a large old Wilhelminian exit portal, before which I finally found myself in the dark in the so-called freedom.
Here my lawyer Heiß was already waiting for me and handed me the copies of the red arrest warrant with the reporting requirement as a farewell.
Without money, torn and tired, I had to take the black subway home. With a terrible pressure in my ears, a nosebleed and a terrible cough, I then lay down in my bed and called for sleep.
