BERLIN DIARY:The Hells Angels and rival Bandidos gang have been engaging in riots, street battles and shootings, writes DEREK SCALLY
MICHAEL WAS on the way home from the supermarket last September when the killer struck, knocking him down from behind and driving a knife into his thigh.
The 33-year-old dropped his shopping – jam, a beer and a bottle of cola – and tried to flee when a bullet from a small-calibre pistol penetrated his back and ripped through his heart.
He struggled on for another 100 metres before collapsing in a pool of his own blood as his killer disappeared down a side street in Berlin’s eastern neighbourhood of Hohenschönhausen.
Police blame the killing on the victim’s decision to leave Berlin’s Hells Angels and join the rival Bandidos gang. In the six months since then, the killing has triggered gang warfare unheard of in the normally peaceful German capital, running street battles that have hardened local attitudes to the rocker groups.
Until now, you could be forgiven for mistaking the local Hells Angels – heavyset middle- aged men in leather jackets on custom Harley-Davidsons – as just another part of Berlin’s love affair with the 1980s that includes mullet haircuts, Bonnie Tyler and stone-washed denim.
The Hells Angels – apostrophes are for wimps – was founded in California in 1948 and the Berlin Hells Angels arrived in 1990. They also answer to the name “Bad City Crew” but bristle if anyone calls their “motorcycle club” a “gang”.
Spokesman Django – real name Rudolf – describes the Hells Angels as a “brotherhood” based on four principles: respect, honesty, dependability and freedom.
“There are some basic rules,” he says. “Don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t take drugs, don’t hurt children or animals, don’t hang a brother out to dry and don’t steal a brother’s woman.”
To believe the Hells Angels, the organisation comprises urban cowboys on mechanical horses who, like the Freemasons, are a peace-loving people misunderstood by a cynical world.
There are approximately 700 Hells Angels in Germany, but no reliable figures for Berlin. The numbers keep changing because of their violent feud with the Bandidos.
Formed in Texas in 1966, the Bandidos is a much smaller organisation with about 2,400 members worldwide. A decade ago the organisation came to Germany and began recruiting Hells Angels – a move viewed as an affront in the older organisation, where membership is for life.
Since the killing of their newest member, Michael, in Berlin, the smaller gang has demonstrated just how seriously they take their motto: “God Forgives, Bandidos Don’t”.
The on-off feud between the two gangs has flared up like never before and has spread around the country. From Duisburg in the west to Leipzig in the east, police report night-time riots, shootings and all-out street battles between the two motorcycle gangs.
The violence has also spilled over into ordinary life. Last month in Berlin’s upmarket Steglitz neighbourhood, police were called to a bar that had been stormed by 12 Bandidos brandishing knives and axes, reportedly demanding protection money from the proprietor.
Most of the gang members escaped on their motorbikes but two were apprehended by police trying to flee in a Volkswagen Golf.
Police say they are unable to break the cycle of violence because the Hells Angels and Bandidos see their feud as a private matter and refuse to co-operate with the authorities.
So police look on as gang members keep switching sides and fanning the flames. On March 14th, hours after 40 Bandidos defected, their betrayed brothers attacked a Hells Angels club building in Berlin with Molotov cocktails.
Shocked, the Hells Angels declared a ceasefire – but that lasted less than 24 hours.
At 5am on March 17th, masked men showed up at the Bandidos Berlin headquarters and burned the building down with flame- throwers. Two men inside at the time reported hearing shots before they escaped to safety.
Faced with a nationwide gang war, German politicians are divided over whether to ban the gangs or try to lock up their ringleaders. Criminal investigators say any action has to go beyond the testosterone- fuelled street battles and tackle the real war: control over the drug and vice networks the gangs have built up in Germany’s major cities, hidden behind respectable fronts of property, security and drinks delivery companies.
The Hells Angels insist they are an organisation of motorbike and rock-music lovers and blame all racketeering allegations on biased police officers and excitable tabloid journalists. “If it was all about drug dealing and battles for sales areas, then where is the damn money?” asks Django.
So, if not racketeering, what lies behind the violence?
“Violence is part of human nature, like sex,” he says. “This is about material issues, often it’s about respect. And we know from history that sometimes a society has fallen over a woman.”