Dietrich Wagner

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Demonstrators and 9000 water cannons in the middle palace garden, September 30, 2010

Dietrich Wagner (* 1945 ) is a German engineer from Stuttgart . On September 30, 2010, he suffered serious eye injuries from a water cannon during the violent evacuation of the Stuttgart palace gardens for the controversial Stuttgart 21 railway project and the associated protests in Stuttgart .

Eviction and injuries at Wagner

According to his own statements, Wagner was initially not against the large-scale project, but was convinced during discussions with project opponents that it was nonsensical. Prior to that, with the exception of his student days in Tübingen, he was hardly politically active.

When clearing the palace gardens for tree felling, Wagner was hit in the face by the beam from a police water cannon. The magazine Stern described Wagner's account that he had “tried to help young people who had been swept away by the jet of the water cannon. So he threw up his arms and waved the police officers to tell them to stop. Then the jet of water hit him directly in the face. ” The Stuttgart police accused Wagner of complicity because he “ did not duck back ” . According to Wagner, the water cannon was about 13 meters away from him. Police President Siegfried Stumpf stated: “We kept taking the man behind the barricades aside, but he kept running back. He placed himself directly in the beam. "

A video recorded by the police on September 30th and broadcast by Sat.1 on October 6th, 2010 showed him throwing an object that was not exactly recognizable. The goal cannot be seen either. Wagner then admitted to having thrown “two or three chestnuts” and spoke of a “symbolic act” : “Hundreds of chestnuts were thrown, but without any effect because the police officers were equipped with thick uniforms, helmets and visors. “ Wagner emphasized that it happened a long time after the water cannon was injured. So he did not provoke the police.

The chief physician Egon Georg Weidle found severe bruises on both sides at Wagner's Katharinenhospital in Stuttgart , torn eyelids , fracture of the floor of the eye , a torn retina and destroyed lenses . The left eye remains completely destroyed and only perceives a glow on the left edge. The vision of the other eye is 8% and will no longer be sufficient for reading or driving a car.

In the Katharinenhospital and the Charlottenklinik for ophthalmology , 16 more eye injuries had to be treated, including four inpatients.

Political and legal consequences

Photos showing Wagner being supported bleeding by two fellow demonstrators were published in almost all German media. At the following demonstrations, numerous demonstrators appeared with blood-red make-up under their eyelids to commemorate Wagner's injuries. Wagner became a symbol of the demonstrations and police violence in Stuttgart, the Rheinische Post described Wagner as a "symbolic figure of Stuttgart 21", and the Westdeutscher Rundfunk as a "symbol of police violence". The Süddeutsche Zeitung sees him as the "face of resistance". According to Jakob Augstein, "[the picture] may have played a major role in the fact that Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Mappus lost his office." In July 2011, Mappus also gave up the state chairmanship of the CDU Baden-Württemberg.

The then Interior Minister of Baden-Württemberg , Heribert Rech ( CDU ), visited Wagner in the hospital after the incident. Wagner did not receive an apology. Instead, Karin Maag , a member of the CDU Bundestag, addressed the image of the injured man on October 6, 2010 in her speech in the German Bundestag and described the image as "manipulative"; the police processing of the events must be awaited.

In fact, the Stuttgart public prosecutor's office first checked whether there was any initial suspicion against Wagner for assaulting police officers. Wagner criticized this. The case against him was later dropped. In addition, one investigated against Wagner also because of "resistance against enforcement officers in the unit of crime with attempted damage to property", since he should have thrown chestnuts and a stone at a police vehicle. This investigation was also discontinued in 2011.

Wagner, for his part, filed a criminal complaint against Interior Minister Rech for bodily harm . On October 28, 2010, Wagner and three other injured parties filed a lawsuit against the state of Baden-Württemberg at the Stuttgart Administrative Court because the police operation was not proportional . Wagner was a co-plaintiff in the proceedings against two operations section managers who, according to the indictment, “improperly allowed the use of water cannons”. The Stuttgart Administrative Court ruled in November 2015 that the police operation was unlawful. Siegfried Stumpf , police chief at the Stuttgart police headquarters until 2011 , was sentenced in March 2015 for negligent bodily harm in office in four cases to 120 daily rates of 130 euros each, the former police chief accepted the order and is therefore considered to have a criminal record. In July 2016, the state of Baden-Württemberg offered compensation payments of 120,000 euros. Wagner accepted it in December 2016.

About a year after the incident, Wagner told journalists that he “sees the September 30, 2010 incident as one of the worst crimes committed by the nationwide state after World War II. The matter was planned for the long term and intentionally and he knew from a reliable source that the American occupiers in the greater Stuttgart area had been informed three days in advance. "

Wagner continued to support the resistance against Stuttgart 21. At the beginning of 2020, however, he told Bild-Zeitung that he had changed his mind in the meantime. He has also been campaigning against the police's use of water cannons since the incident. In 2014, he visited the UK and asked Theresa May ( Home Secretary ) not to authorize the use of water cannons.

At the end of December 2019, he suffered a stroke .

Honors

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dietrich Wagner (66): "I only wanted to help the young people" . In: Hamburger Abendblatt , October 6, 2010
  2. ↑ A video and many new questions . In: Spiegel Online , October 7, 2010.
  3. ^ Protest against "Stuttgart 21" escalated. In: Picture , September 30, 2010.
  4. ↑ Almost blind activist wants Mappus to apologize. In: Spiegel Online , December 28, 2010
  5. ↑ Water cannon seriously injured Dietrich Wagner: Stuttgart demonstrator threatens to go blind. ( Memento of October 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: RP Online , October 9, 2010.
  6. ↑ a b A video and many new questions. In: Spiegel online , October 7, 2010.
  7. ^ The torn eyelids of the pensioner Wagner. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , October 6, 2010.
  8. ↑ The man with the bloody eyes. In: Stern , October 6, 2010.
  9. ↑ a b Dietrich W. does not duck back. In: Frankfurter Rundschau , October 5, 2010.
  10. ↑ a b Ingrid Eißele, Anna Hunger: "I just wanted to stop the gentlemen." In: Stern online , October 7, 2010.
  11. ↑ One injury, two stories. In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten
  12. ^ Pensioner Wagner - a provocateur? In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 7, 2010.
  13. ↑ Stuttgart demonstrator threatens to go blind. ( Memento of October 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) In: Focus Online , October 6, 2010.
  14. ↑ Injured protester remains blind in one eye. In: Die Zeit , October 14, 2010.
  15. ↑ a b Protester remains blind in one eye. In: Die Welt online , October 13, 2010.
  16. ↑ Demonstrators threaten to go blind . In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , October 6, 2010.
  17. ↑ Stuttgart 21: Bloody protest. ( Memento of September 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) In: RP online , October 22, 2010.
  18. ↑ Martin Kaul: Blinded by reality . In: the daily newspaper , October 6, 2010.
  19. ^ Dietrich Wagner, Symbolfigur von Stuttgart 21. ( Memento from October 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) photo gallery. In: Rheinische Post , accessed on November 4, 2011.
  20. ↑ WDR TV report ( memento from January 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) about angry citizens from September 29, 2011.
  21. ↑ Politics: Face of Resistance. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 30, 2011 ( online ( memento of April 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on November 4, 2011)
  22. ↑ Jakob Augstein: “When in doubt, left: when in doubt, strike”. In: Spiegel Online , June 3, 2013.
  23. ↑ Karin Maag: Speech in the German Bundestag on October 6, 2010 ( online )
  24. ^ Doubts about peacefulness by Dietrich Wagner. In: Frankfurter Rundschau , October 7, 2010.
  25. ↑ Rainer Wehaus: Police will not accept punishment. In: Stuttgarter Nachrichten . September 20, 2012, accessed June 24, 2015 .
  26. ↑ Roland Muschel: One photo, two stories . In: Der Tagesspiegel , October 8, 2010.
  27. ↑ Injured demonstrators complain against police operations. In: Die Welt , October 28, 2010.
  28. ^ Complaint filed for beating. In: Kölnische Rundschau , October 28, 2010.
  29. ↑ Injured Stuttgart-21 opponents complain against Land. In: Westfälischer Anzeiger , October 28, 2010
  30. ↑ Oliver im Masche, Christine Bilger: Police officers reject allegations. In: Stuttgarter Zeitung , June 24, 2014, accessed June 24, 2014.
  31. ↑ Court decision: Police violence against Stuttgart 21 demonstrators was illegal. In: Spiegel online , November 18, 2015
  32. ↑ instead of many: VG Stuttgart, judgment of November 18, 2015, Az. 5 K 1265/14, Link
  33. ↑ Ex-Police Chief Stumpf accepts a fine. In: stuttgarter-zeitung.de
  34. ↑ Police violence: Baden-Württemberg pays compensation to Stuttgart-21 victims. In: Spiegel Online . July 25, 2016. Retrieved June 9, 2018 .
  35. ↑ chz: Stuttgart 21 demonstrator: Victim Wagner should receive 120,000 euros in compensation for pain and suffering . In: Focus Online . November 21, 2016, accessed October 14, 2018 .
  36. ↑ Injured demonstrators accept compensation from the country. In: zeit.de
  37. ^ Roman Deininger: One year "Black Thursday." In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . September 30, 2011, accessed December 26, 2012 .
  38. ^ Operation victim Dietrich Wagner continues to demonstrate. In: swr.de , September 29, 2011
  39. ↑ What became of Dietrich Wagner? ( Memento from January 25, 2013 in the archive.today web archive ) In: gulli.com , April 9, 2011
  40. ↑ People of Britain, beware of the water cannon ': a warning from Dietrich Wagner, near-blinded in Stuttgart. In: The Telegraph , February 21, 2014, accessed March 22, 2014.
  41. ↑ S21 Schlossgarten: Stroke in Dietrich Wagner? Concern about the man who lost an eye on the demo , swp.de, January 15, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Wagner, Dietrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German demonstrator against the Stuttgart 21 project, went blind after being shot at by water cannons
DATE OF BIRTH 1945