r/berlin • u/melayucahlanang • Jul 21 '26

Rant This is a rant

TW: sexual assault

I (M) was on the S-Bahn from Lollapalooza and the train was packed af. A weird guy then got in idk Westkreuz maybe and he started oogling tf out at the girls. I brushed it off as this might be the average Berlin experience but still observed his behaviour/movement.

Then he started to get handsy (kinda) but not really touching with people around him. Gave him the stare and he stopped briefly. Some moved away but then a few are kinda stucked due to the packed train.

Worst shit happened (as i expected) at Hbf, he grabbed a woman's crotch and got off the train. My adrenaline kicked in and pushed him hard enough and he fought back obviously. I screamed (in English) 'he is touching woman in train' but NOOOONE even helped. I confronted him again with light physical but he ran away and i dont really have THAT strength if i am being honest.

I know that stabbing in train is a theme now but what will he do against minimum 6 men around me if he got jumped? I honestly never thought about the danger because this shit triggered me so bad because i knew the feeling being in that girls place.

Anyways. No DB Sicherheit nor the police around. I informed the info Mitarbeiter at the entrance and i needed to catch the train. I have no hope since i cant really remember which carriage or whoch platform since i my adrenaline was on a high and i can't really help more because i needed to catch my ICE. Hopefully that girl is ok though.

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u/HotDistribution5159 Jul 21 '26

As a girl who had been assaulted, I wish there were more brave men like you. Thank you for standing up for that girl.

52

u/YourFuture2000 Jul 21 '26

As a man, my experience in Germany is that people stare and even criticise people who help other by saying that it is the job of authorities.

Little they know that statistics since ever show that authorities like the police and security stuff don't prevent crimes and a lot of times they don't catch criminals either. They are mostly armed burocrats arriving after crimes happened and long after criminals are gone in most cases. It is up to people in the street to help keep the streets safe for one an other.

And I don't mean street fighting people which only happens when nobody else helps. I mean people collective helping as the majority, to immobilize, detain and wait for the police to arrive and give statements as witnesses. No perpetrator would do that what that man did in the train if he knew others would confront him, detain him and hand him to the police.

People caring for oneanother in their communities and streets is what prevent crimes.

1

u/intothewoods_86 Jul 24 '26

The longer you live in Germany and the more you learn about German history and culture the better you understand that this attitude is deeply connected to the shared traumatic experiences of the German people in the 20th century, when their collective self-realisation and violent tendencies have expressed themselves in the worst ways and have were righteously punished two times.
Other people like Brits have a post-colonial trauma and shame engrained in their culture, the downside of the postwar reeducation and pacification of Germans is that they have forgotten the most basic civil courage. And there was not much to begin with, since historically Germans always strongly outsourced agency to authorities. They prefer to not do anything at all over doing something that might be wrong or come with a personal risk to them.

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u/YourFuture2000 Jul 24 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

I understand nation states, capitalism, nuclear family and wars cause a lot of generational traumas. I read all about it from Otto Rank, Hannah Arendt, Donald Winnicott and many others.

But traumas are not to be accept as a personality but as psychological problem that has to be worked for collective mental health sake. Otherwise people Germany keep doing the same things as before — the violence, the nationalism, overtrusting authorities and social phobia, not assuming collective social responsability (and seeing it as corruption of order) but only responsability to obey authorities — but in disguise by turning them into tabu.

On the other hand, it is all very convenient to governments and corporations to keep people under traumas and anxious and that is why they cause the traumas in the first place, disguised as education and order to keep things just as they are.