Hamburg "Pimmelgate": Police paint over a poster at the Rote Flora cultural center

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Overpainted poster on Rote Flora: »Soko Wall and Color«

Photo: Markus Scholz / dpa

According to our information, the head of operations is called Barbra Streisand, by the way, "wrote the Rote Flora team on Twitter on Sunday morning, followed by a clown smiley. In the tweet, the operators of the left-wing autonomous cultural center in Hamburg's Schanzenviertel showed the picture of a poster on the building facade that the police had allegedly painted over in black overnight: The banner's ironic headline: "Soko wall and color".

The night and fog action by the authorities is the latest escalation stage in the so-called »Pimmelgate«, an amusing guerrilla war between the left-wing alternative scene in the Hanseatic city and the controversial Interior Senator Andy Grote (SPD). After the police had removed numerous stickers with the slogan "Andy, you are so 1 dick" near the Grotes apartment in the St. Pauli district in the past few weeks, they were now confronted with the large poster with the same inscription. But why Barbra Streisand?

The Streisand effect is the phenomenon that unpleasant information spreads on a large scale and attracts attention the more ineptly the attempt is made to suppress it. The actually marginal trigger of the affair was a comment directed to Grote on Twitter with the wording "You are such a dick". It came from the account of a fan bar not far from the St. Pauli Stadium in response to a tweet by the 53-year-old politician in which he described people as "ignorant" who celebrated in the Schanzenviertel despite Corona. However, at the beginning of the pandemic, Grote himself came under fire when he celebrated his renewed appointment to the Interior Senator in complete disregard of the Corona rules in a pub - and according to media reports, he had to pay a fine of 1000 euros for this.

However, the matter only became a "pimmelgate" when the public prosecutor's office had the apartment of the alleged author of the Twitter comment searched in September following a criminal complaint by Grote for insult.

Thousands criticized the action on Twitter as disproportionate and excessive, the resentment not only against Grote, but also with the behavior of the police and prosecutors.

The unknown author of the Pimmel comment, however, experienced a wave of solidarity.

more on the subject

• After the Pimmeltweet: Andy, you are so 1 heroA column by Margarete Stokowski

• "Pimmelgate": Hamburg police move out to remove stickers

• »Pimmelgate«: Hamburg's Senator for the Interior insulted - house search

As a result, strangers have been distributing dozens of yellow stickers with the slogan "Andy, you are so 1 dick" around the Grotes apartment since the beginning of October. They were also removed by the police, on the one hand to avert danger, it was said to justify, as there was a suspicion of insult, and on the other hand to preserve evidence. The state security investigates the matter against unknown.

In the meantime, however, the whole Pimmelei also draws circles in politics.

The CDU opposition in the Hamburg citizenship sees the SPD man Grote as an ever greater burden, not only for the Senate, but also for the police: »With his Corona party and the lack of insight that has persisted to this day, he has lost the integrity of the is indispensable for the office of Interior Senator, "said CDU interior expert Dennis Gladiator, according to a report by the dpa news agency.

The events around the "Pimmelgate" are now only absurd.

"Thousands of victims of hatred and agitation would wish if their advertisements were processed anywhere near as intensively," said Gladiator, adding, "The standards here are completely insane."

It will be interesting to see when and in what form the next dick will appear on St. Pauli.

bor / dpa