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Poster at the Rote Flora: Back and forth with the police
Photo: Bodo Marks / dpa
"Pimmelgate"? Outside of Hamburg, this word creation is likely to raise large question marks. In the Hanseatic city, however, people are still dealing with the controversy over Interior Senator Andy Grote (SPD) and the criminal prosecution of an insult in the short message service Twitter. The fact that the matter assumed increasingly absurd proportions also has to do with the particular tenacity of the left-wing scene around the autonomous center of Rote Flora. And with a police force that may have been looking particularly carefully for that very reason. What has happened in the past six months? And what are the consequences of the case for those involved? The chronology:
It begins on June 10, 2020: On this day, Grote and 30 guests toasted his reappointment as Senator in a bar in HafenCity.
Because he is violating the applicable Corona requirements, Grote has to pay a fine of 1000 euros.
Almost a year later, on May 30, 2021, Grote criticized people who celebrated in the Schanzenviertel despite Corona as ignorant.
He writes on Twitter: "What a stupid action!"
Some Twitter users point out the double standards in the Senator's behavior in their comments under Grotes Tweet.
So also »ZooStPauli«, account of a fan bar not far from the FC St. Pauli Stadium, with the wording »You are so 1 dick«.
A policeman who noticed the statement thereupon files a criminal complaint, as the "Welt" reports. Since the insult is a crime that is only prosecuted at the request of the injured party, a criminal complaint is necessary. According to the public prosecutor, Grote provides this in the course of the proceedings. This is how the investigation begins.
However, the matter only turned into a "pimmelgate" when the public prosecutor's office had the alleged author of the tweet's apartment searched on September 8th.
However, the man probably no longer lives in the apartment at the time, his ex-girlfriend was surprised by the officers, reports the "Taz".
»ZooStPauli« is now tweeting again.
Six officers carried out a house search.
Accordingly, they were looking for the device from which the user's contribution had been canceled more than three months earlier.
Many people criticize the action on Twitter as completely disproportionate and excessive, with the resentment directed not only against Grote, but also against the behavior of the police and prosecutors.
The alleged author of the offensive tweet, on the other hand, received a lot of encouragement.
Criticism of the judiciary's approach is growing.
"I have the feeling that sparrows are being shot here with cannons," says Horst Niens, Hamburg's head of the police union on the day after the search.
The court's decision is "astonishing".
The renowned Hamburg criminal defense attorney Gerhard Strate complains: "That is beyond any proportionality." It is "bad" that an investigating judge "issues such a search warrant."
After the raid, the police first announced that this was not uncommon.
In a "middle double-digit number" of comparable cases, there have already been raids this year.
A spokeswoman for the public prosecutor's office quickly admits that these are estimates by police officers.
In an answer to a request from the Left MP Deniz Celik, the police later said: An evaluation showed that only seven searches had taken place this year due to comparable cases of insult. Celik senses a deception. The process is apparently "not free from political interests." A spokeswoman for the police then told the "Hamburger Abendblatt" that the "average number" relates to hate crime as a whole. It was about "different questions" to which there are different answers.
The red-green Hamburg Senate will stand behind the Interior Senator in its session on September 14th. "The word sounds cute, but the topic is indeed a very serious one," says Senate spokesman Marcel Schweitzer after a Senate meeting. There was "very intensive discussion of the subject of hatspeech". Nobody has to accept being insulted in public. “You don't fight hatespeech by looking the other way. And that is why the Senate encourages all citizens who feel offended, especially on social networks, to file a complaint. And the members of the Senate will continue to do so. "
In the first half of October, the police removed almost 40 yellow stickers with the words "Andy, you are so 1 dick".
These had been distributed in the vicinity of the Senator's apartment in St. Pauli.
On the one hand, the operation was carried out to avert danger, as there is a suspicion of insult, and on the other hand to preserve evidence, the police said.
The state police are investigating the matter against unknown persons.
Last Saturday, a meter-high poster with the slogan was emblazoned on the outer wall of the Rote Flora - but not for long.
On Sunday morning, the police painted over the text allegedly made by activists of the left-wing autonomous cultural center in the Schanzenviertel with black paint.
The title of the poster is “Soko Wall and Color”.
A back and forth follows: Police officers paint over the poster twice, each time the lettering reappears.
The last time was on Tuesday, this time with the note to Grote: "resign".
The "Hamburger Morgenpost" dedicates a title page to the play.
Satirists rush to the subject, which has now assumed curious proportions.
The first person suggestion that comes up when searching for the term "dick" on Twitter is Andy Grote's account.
And in the German Wikipedia entry on the Streisand effect, "Pimmelgate" is now listed as an example.
This describes the phenomenon "when the attempt to suppress undesirable information achieves the opposite, in that the clumsy procedure generates public attention that significantly increases interest in the dissemination of the information."
The German Police Union (DPolG) in Hamburg criticizes the many operations in connection with "Pimmelgate". According to media reports, the police have more important things to do than constantly being a master painter in front of the Rote Flora or scratching off stickers, says DPolG country chief Thomas Jungfer. A certain thick-skinnedness would do everyone good.
The Hamburg police announced on Tuesday that in the »Pimmelgate« controversy they would put the brush down for the time being - and not paint over the lettering. It was decided that one »has to get out of this spiral«, says a police spokeswoman. In addition, the Senator for Interior recently signaled to the public prosecutor that he was unwilling to file a criminal complaint for every new insult of this kind. Therefore, the police can do without a report in these cases, said the spokeswoman. People around the senator said that Grote was glad that the children's stuff had finally come to an end and that the police no longer had to deal with it.
Politically, however, the subject is far from over: The opposition in the Hamburg citizenry asked Grote on Wednesday to leave.
"The Interior Senator has to resign to avert further damage to the police and the city," says Dennis Gladiator, domestic policy spokesman for the CDU parliamentary group.
"If he doesn't see that, Mayor Peter Tschentscher will have to fire him."
Grote no longer has any authority because of his handling of his own corona violation.
At that time he failed to apologize in a timely and credible manner, that is how Gladiator sees it.
"The most recent incidents show that he can no longer admonish people to adhere to rules without making a mockery of himself."
Gladiator also emphasized that anyone who feels offended by the expression "dick" has "of course" the right to file a complaint.
In the meantime, however, the standards are crazy in the Grote case.
"The police have more important things to do than remove Pimmelgate stickers and paint over walls in town."
He had the impression that Grote was being given preferential treatment as a suspected victim of a crime.
"For example, in many serious cases of hate crime against women, the proceedings are often silently closed."
In the libel proceedings that Grote started with his criminal complaint, no decision has yet been made.
"The investigation is ongoing," said a spokeswoman for the Hamburg public prosecutor's office.
With material from dpa