What are the shootings doing to the Graefekiez?: “For me it’s normal. Kreuzberg is really bad”

At first glance, there is nothing to suggest that shots were fired here less than 24 hours earlier. For the fifth time in three months. Investigators suspect protection rackets and turf wars in the area of ​​organized crime are behind this. Members of large families of Arab origin are often involved. What are these milieu feuds doing to an area that is primarily known as a green, thoroughly gentrified family paradise for high earners?

On Tuesday afternoon, under the midday sun, two police officers and one police officer in thick black protective vests were securing tracks at the intersection of Graefestrasse and Urbanstrasse. They dig in tufts of grass, peer under trees, and examine cars. Are they still looking for bullet casings? “Yes, and after damage. We have to document the facts here,” they say.

There is a black SUV parked in one of the remaining parking spaces in the traffic-calmed neighborhood. A bullet hole can be seen at the rear.

The police also discovered the hole. “Someone decorated the car,” says the officer. Shortly afterwards, the Berlin police will publish a call for witnesses with details from the previous night and ask: Who can provide information?

Anyone who doesn’t feel affected speaks up

Clues? Anyone who asks around in the neighborhood will sometimes come across silence and hostile faces. In the falafel shop, in the barber shop, in the casino – the same answers everywhere: “We were closed yesterday”, “I wasn’t there”, “Didn’t hear anything, the music is always playing loudly here”. Some even react openly in a negative way and simply turn around when the word “shots” is heard. Some people seem alarmed.

People react more calmly in the Urban beer house, but nobody wants to talk here. The landlady groans: “You’re at least tenth today!”

Three men sit at the counter, one rolls his eyes. “We didn’t notice anything, we don’t know anything, and we’re pretty annoyed.” Not because of the shootings, apparently, but because of public interest in them.

Lars is standing on the corner of Dieffenbachstrasse and selling a street newspaper. The Graefekiez is the center of his life, he says. Does the repeated shootings scare him? “No,” he says. “For me it feels abstractly far away. Even if it’s happening here on the corner.”

A young mother who crosses the street with a baby in front of her stomach sees it similarly. “It sounds totally selfish, but I don’t feel threatened because I know I’m not a target.” She points behind her with her hand: “There are just stark contrasts here.”

One neighborhood, one street, two worlds

Two worlds meet in the Graefekiez. While young urban audiences celebrate on the Admiral Bridge and watch the sunset, large families of Arab origin are fighting each other on the street corner.

But geographically, Graefestrasse also has two faces, separated by Urbanstrasse. If you leave the northern, thoroughly gentrified part with its magnificent Wilhelminian-style buildings, organic shops, yoga studios and sourdough bread bakeries behind you, a different picture emerges: garbage lying around, discarded shopping carts, aging new building facades, a Späti.

His seller has clear words for what happened: “Always the same: shots. Then the police come. Then it’s over. Then more shots. And so on.” But why worry? “No. This is normal for the customers and me. Kreuzberg is really bad.” Next door in the Almaha women’s hairdresser, four women sit under a fan. “It’s just Kreuzberg,” they also say. “What should you do?”

Opposite is the playground where there was shooting the night before.

The Werner Düttmann settlement begins right next to the playground. The police have observed gang formation in the past in the ensemble of 577 apartments, which was built as social housing in the mid-1980s and is considered a social hotspot.

“Parallel world,” says Thomas Tatzky, who is walking with his wire-haired dachshund. He has lived here in the southern Graefekiez for 40 years, and yes, something has changed. “When we moved here, a completely different clientele lived here.” Then he points “over there”, to the other side of Urbanstrasse. “It’s okay there. But here… Anyone who can afford it has long since moved away.”

He sometimes finds the atmosphere in the neighborhood frightening. Fights, the police on the street early in the morning – that’s the order of the day. “When a group of young men stand together, I feel uneasy.” But still: “Not all clan members are criminals. I have one in the house of a well-known extended family – he’s a great guy, very nice.” And move away, no, he doesn’t want that anyway.

The police are overwhelmed

Change of location: 400 meters away as the crow flies, on Kottbusser Damm, the window front of a breakfast house was shot at on Sunday night. Two days later there is no sign of it anymore. The two employees greet you warmly. At the word “shots” the smile dies. “What’s with it?” one of them snaps. Both of them, visibly excited, chatted in Turkish, then: “We’re just working here. The boss isn’t there. We can’t give any information.”

There is a police car in front of the door. “They don’t like us either,” the officer smiles. He had also just come to inspect the store and was surprised that at first glance there were no traces of gunshots.

In general, all the shootings in the neighborhood. He just met a colleague this morning. He was looking forward to his day off with the family, but had to go to work in the morning. “We simply can’t do it anymore, we don’t have enough people.” He looks at the storefront and sighs. “This is not going in a good direction.”