I was attacked in Berlin once. This is how it played out

I’ve been assaulted once in my life, and I hope it remains the only time. I never did find out the reason for the assault, or who did it. I didn't report the incident afterwards, for reasons that may become clear, but with the rise of the far right and the normalisation of hate speech, I think now is as good a time as any to tell this particular story. This is how it played out.

It happens in Berlin, in 2009, a few days before New Year, or Sylvester as continental Europeans call the end of the year celebrations. I had spent the late afternoon and evening visiting record shops and streetwear stores, dropping off copies of the first issue of Irie Up, a new magazine I was publishing. It was a return to journalism and publishing after a few years off the media scene, and Irie Up was a niche publication in a niche market, but part of a bigger operation I was working with in Berlin with a couple of friends that included a studio, a shop and a soundsystem. Yaam was heart of the reggae scene in Berlin, and also my last stop that evening to drop off some magazines and catch a bit of the late show. In my backpack I still had a box of magazines and some vinyls I’d picked up in trade earlier, and I thought about getting a taxi back to Kreuzberg, but the snow was falling softly, and I decided instead to walk instead.

It’s a fifty minute walk from Yaam in Friedrichshain down to Blücherstrasse in Kreuzberg, and Berlin on winter nights can be enchanting, with the vintage street lights, the snow falling between the trees, and the cozy bars harbouring late night chats. I walked down Engeldamm and turned south on Adalbert. It was quiet on the streets, quiet enough that I’d noticed a car drifting along behind me earlier, an old Renault Megane, someone looking fruitlessly for a parking spot, I guessed. But as I came down Adalbertstrasse towards the U-bahn at Kottbusser Tor, I noticed the car was still behind me. Why would anyone be following me, I wondered? Surely nothing to do with the magazine? Maybe someone had seen me doing the rounds of the shops and figured I have a backpack full of cash, or drugs? I’m humming a tune to distract my fears and I can only smile to myself when I realise the tune is old old hip-hop tune about depression and paranoia called My Mind Playing Tricks On Me.

But late at night, something ain’t right
I feel I’m being tailed by the same sucker’s headlights.

I’ve always been a bit paranoid: it’s a useful trait for a journalist. I cross Skalitzerstrasse at Kottbusser, and head down Admiralstrasse, and when I look back, I can’t see the car and feel relief. My chest relaxes. I cross the short bridge and take Grimmsrasse and instead of continuing on down Körtestrasse, I decide to stay off the streets so I take a right on Urbanstrasse and then a left down through the trees onto Fontanepromenade. It’s there that the incident happens. The whole thing plays out in about fifteen seconds.

I hear three car doors shut in quick succession and I see three men come around the corner into the park to my right, walking towards a point in the path where they will cut me off in ten or fifteen metres. All three are tall and wiry, with shaved heads, all wearing black jackets and pants, and they’re definitely coming towards me. I’m watching them from the corner of my eye as I walk ahead and notice that none has snow on their jackets. I guess they’ve just gotten out of a car. Is it the same car I noticed earlier?

They look like the security team at a Nazi nightclub, and the way they are walking towards me, I’m certain that they’re coming to beat me. I don’t recognise any of them. First rule of defence: run. But just to my left, at the bend at the top of Fontanepromenade, there’s three big bell-shaped recycling containers. And I’m carrying this heavy backpack. We’re still walking towards a meeting point and I'm watching them from the corner of my eye. They're walking together, keeping close, and they're bumping into each other. They're amped up on something, trying to stay cool, but I deck that they're nervous. Then I see against the snow that the man in the middle is holding a slim baton in his right hand, trying to keep it out of sight. I have a dread feeling at that moment because I know that these men are not professionals. Even if they're not meant to kill me, they may do just that by mistake. And with no place to run, I accept that this night may be the night when I’m going to have to take a beating from these ugly Nazi motherfuckers, three of them against one, and one of them armed with a baton. I feel preternaturally calm but alert. Two of them walk up beside me, and the third one hangs back.

“Hey,” says the one on the left, as he steps onto the footpath. “You. Have you Rizzla papers?”
I turn to face them and I pat my pockets as if looking for papers.
“No, sorry,” I say.
My questioner has now taken out a pouch of tobacco, and I can see he already has a pack of rolling papers in the pouch.
“You must have some papers, man, come on,” he says again. The one with the baton steps to his left, moving behind me. In the silence I can hear the cuff of his jacket twisting as he raises the baton over his head.

I step forward and twist to look over my left shoulder and see the baton already in motion. I’m wearing a parka with a big furry hood but I know that the baton is going to lay me flat and I throw up my left arm. The metal baton glances off my arm and ricochets back off the metal recycling bin onto his forehead. His feet seem to rise under him and he collapses on his back. He looks unconscious. One of them hasn’t seen what happened. He is staring at me with his mouth open. I look back at the other one, who steps back from me, and then goes around to crouch down and shake the body. The bin is still resonating gently.

I run very fast the length of the park and it’s only when I get down to Südstern that I look back and see that there’s no sign of a pursuer. I walk half way down Blücherstrasse, and just before I get to my building, I turn and give the finger with both hands back in the general direction of the park and laugh and then wince in pain. My shoulder and wrist are smarting. The baton hit my shoulder first.

In the yard the next morning, one of neighbours, is smoking and drinking a takeaway coffee in the archway. I nod as I pass by.
“Hey man,” he says. “There was a guy shouting in the street last night, sounded just like you.”
“Like me?”
“He was saying: ‘Fuck you, you fucking Nazis fucks.’” He grins. “Are you fighting Nazis now?”
I shake my head. He pats me on the shoulder.
“Someone’s got to do it.”

Later that day I told the story to two friends. One asked if I reported it to the police. The other laughed grimly.
“Of course he didn't. He thought it was the police.”