Norbert Witte

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Norbert Witte (born April 27, 1955 in Landshut ) is a German showman and grandson of the famous fairground artist and impostor Otto Witte ( King of Albania ). From 1991 to 2001 he was the operator of the Berlin Spreepark amusement park . He is divorced and has five children.

Life

Norbert Witte grew up as the son of a showman and a teacher in the Hamburg showman milieu. When trying to remove a defective gearbox on his compact looping catapult on the night of August 13-14, 1981 , Witte's telescopic crane got into the trajectory of the Skylab carousel . In the most serious fair accident to date, seven people died and 15 were injured, some seriously. In 1985 the Hamburg Regional Court sentenced him to a suspended sentence of one year for negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm. Because Witte had evaded the process, he had to spend some time in custody.

Unknown people carried out an arson attack on the looping catapult , which was parked in a warehouse in Hamburg , in which it was badly damaged. Smearings on the walls of the warehouse indicated an act of revenge in connection with the accident.

After the sale of the damaged catapult , Witte made a guest appearance with a music express mainly in Yugoslavia , as he was no longer permitted to participate in German fairground events. Around the beginning of German reunification, Witte rented two rides in Berlin's Kulturpark in 1990.

In 1991, Spreepark GmbH, represented by his wife at the time, Pia Witte, was awarded the contract from among seven applicants to take over the VEB Kulturpark Berlin, which was handled by the Berlin Senate . The original East Berlin fairground culture park was redesigned as a Spreepark to a leisure park based on the western model. In 1997, a leasehold contract was finally signed with the Berlin Senate .

From 1997 Norbert Witte and his family became increasingly politically active in the CDU in the Berlin district of Treptow . For example, employees of the Spreepark were deployed in the Berlin election campaign to distribute displays and stick up posters. In a survey in 2003 had Oliver Scholz, chairman of the Treptow-Köpenick CDU local federation, admit that more than 100 of Witte and his family recruited new members only inactive members are. In return, Witte's commitment was rewarded with an almost blind trust by politicians, which ultimately cost the State of Berlin 15 million euros.

At the end of the 2001 season, Spreepark GmbH & Co. KG filed for bankruptcy . On January 18, 2002, Norbert Witte went to Lima in Peru with his family and his closest colleagues . He shipped the six attractions Magic Carpet , Butterfly , Spider , Baby Flight , Waltz Ride and Jet Star in 20 shipping containers. Witte let employees believe that he was dismantling the rides for repair purposes. In the course of the bankruptcy proceedings carried out in 2002, debts of 11 million euros remained.

Norbert Witte also failed in Lima with the plan to run a lunapark . On May 19, 2004, Witte was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. In November 2003 he tried to smuggle 167 kg of cocaine from Peru to Germany in masts of the flying carpet amusement park in order to finance the return transport of the equipment. On November 6, 2003, Witte was arrested in Berlin. He suffered a heart attack while in custody in Berlin-Moabit . In May 2008, Witte was released early from the Düppel prison.

various

The Neukölln Opera has processed the debacle surrounding Witte and the Spreepark into a documentary play. Director Peter Dörfler shot the documentary roller coaster (2009) about the Witte family and the Spreepark .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ CDU chief wants more transparency . In: Berliner Zeitung , April 15, 2003
  2. ↑ Stories from the Plänterwald . In: Berliner Zeitung , August 25, 2006
  3. ↑ Roller coaster documentation
personal data
SURNAME Witte, Norbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German showman
DATE OF BIRTH April 27, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Landshut