Bernie Flottmann

Bernie Flottmann (actually Bernhard Thomas Flottmann ; born October 12, 1945 in Hamburg-St. Pauli ; † December 11, 2006 in Hamburg ) was a doorman in Hamburg-St. Pauli . Pauli.

Life

Flottmann was born the son of a pilot and a prostitute . After he was expelled from school, he worked as a doorman in St. Pauli when he was 17. He got his first job in the Star Club , where he soon worked not only as a bouncer but also as a supervisor for the bands performing there . In particular, he worked for the musicians as a guide through the nightlife of St. Pauli. Rumors that he also brokered prostitutes for the band members could never be confirmed. Flottmann was tried several times for pimping , but was always acquitted for lack of evidence. In fact, he had good contacts in St. Pauli, especially in the pimp scene. He broke off the latter in the 1980s, when the violence in the scene with the rise of “Wiener-Peter”, who commissioned numerous murders from Werner Pinzner , became more and more violent. He left Hamburg temporarily and lived in various places in Westphalia .

Flottmann made use of his contacts in the music scene and from then on worked as a roadie , driver , sound engineer , background singer or organized the catering for numerous bands on tours . He worked as a sound engineer for a Hamburg record studio for several years.

For many intellectuals like Henryk M. Broder or Stefan Aust , who published the pornographic St. Pauli-Nachrichten from 1968 onwards, Flottmann had nothing but mockery and ridicule, which did not diminish his popularity in the neighborhood . Although the mocking Flottmann was known as a peaceful and friendly person - albeit with a coarse sense of humor - he could sometimes become violent after using drugs. He usually apologized to his victims later. So he physically attacked the anarchist "thinker" Bernd Drücke , but apologized to him when he behaved according to the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount "if someone hits you on the right cheek, hold out the left one too!" Flottmann later boasted, “Apart from an anarcho, I also beat out a Jesus freak. So everything still has its good points! ”.

Flottmann died on December 11, 2006 in a nursing home in Hamburg.

Appreciation

In 1973 Udo Lindenberg set a musical memorial to Bernie Flottmann on his album “Alles Klar auf der Andrea Doria”. The title song says:

A guy in the alcove shocks his bride

and Bernie Flottmann thinks

he would be an astronaut.

Now someone comes over from the booming disco

and I believe

that our steamer will soon go down.

But otherwise everything is clear on the Andrea Doria today.

swell

1. ^ Danuta Harrich-Zandberg: The St. Pauli killer . In: Helfried Spitra (ed.): The great criminal cases. The St. Pauli killer, the escape king and nine other famous crimes . Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-593-37438-2 , pp. 11–34.
2. ↑ Thomas Hirschbiegel: "Wiener-Peter" sent Luden Killer into the house ( memento from December 21, 2006 in the Internet Archive ).
3. ↑ Interview from: Bernd Drücke (ed.): Yes! Anarchism. Lived utopia in the 21st century. Interviews and discussions, Karin Kramer Verlag, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-87956-307-1