Internet search for homeless people in Hamburg: How far can you go to find your father?

On one day in November, the homeless Thomas sits in front of a subway station in Hamburg's Hamm district, drinks beer, looks into the clouds. The air is freezing cold and Thomas alone. "What do you think, Klaus is up there now?"

At the same time it's in Boston after midnight. Norman is lying in his bed, updating the inbox on Twitter. Does anyone in Germany have an indication where his father Klaus might be? Has one of Norman's close to 35,000 followers seen him?

They share his request for help, comment, comfort, promise that they are on the lookout. The son makes an au-pair year in America, the father is not findable, tens of thousands of Twitter users are looking for a person who does not know that, does not even have a mobile phone.

Klaus is gone, relatives, friends and authorities are wondering if he is still alive. At this time, none of them suspects that he will be in Altona on these November days, being treated in a hospital because of his open shoulder. Normally, Klaus does not leave his neighborhood, son Norman says.

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Norman, 25: Father's search from Boston

Klaus is a homeless person who, according to the police, has been in Hamburg-Hamm for several years. He is a buddy of Thomas, the two sit in the evening often at a subway station in the district and drink beer, claims Thomas. And Klaus is a father who said goodbye to his family more than ten years ago.

In Germany homeless people are a blind spot in the statistics. Exact numbers do not exist, says the Federal Working Group on homelessness, and estimates: About 52,000 people lived in 2016 on the street. Klaus is one of them.

How far do you go to find the lost man you are descended from?

Childhood and pub

Norman's father Klaus spent most of his life in Karlstein am Main, Bavaria. He learned roofing, got two boys with his wife. Norman was the second. It went well for eleven years. "We did not have much money," says Norman, "but we had a big garden." Norman's voice sounds scratchy, excited as he portrays his version of the past.

One day before the summer holidays in 2004, it happened. The two brothers sat in the kitchen with their mother when Klaus came home from work. Without a word, he put a letter of termination on the table and said, "The store is broke, I'm with Conny."

The pub at the end of the street, landlady Conny. The place where Klaus became another. He found no new work, drank instead, more often, more drunk, came home drunk, mother awake in bed, tears in the bedroom.

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Klaus, son Norman: tears in the bedroom

The parents separated. Klaus moved out. Nothing was talked about in the family, says Norman, even among the brothers barely. In the village of whispering: Where is Klaus? Nobody knew what, even friends never saw him. When Norman turned 16, the father called drunk and ordered congratulations. Norman was so perplexed that he did not get the urgent questions out. Where did Klaus leave off?

Since then, Norman has been asking who is to blame for his childhood ending so early, whether he should not have been looking for it. On Twitter, he tells about his life, also shows selfies that agree, Constantly Norman gets new followers. He asks them how they find his tie, thoughts between them: "I drove to the sea just now and kicked everything that weighed me down."

After the father had moved out, Norman studied for the Abi, studied psychology, mourned for the dying grandfather, fell in love for the first time. Everything without Klaus. "And your father?" WG roommate wanted to know. "He's dead," Norman said. He had told himself so many times that it was okay to say it. "It was not a lie," says Norman. Klaus was dead for his son.

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7 pictures

Then Norman got this WhatsApp message. One guy wrote to him that he had seen his father in Hamburg. The father mentioned Norman's name. Then the guy googled and found Norman's mobile number. He sent a picture of Klaus sitting in a savings bank branch. "Is that your father?", The unknown wanted to know.

Norman froze. Father. Hamburg. His entire childhood lit up in front of him in the display. His father was dead, but he lived. Death, life! The cell phone shone.

The stranger could not tell him exactly where Klaus was. Somewhere in Hamburg, while Norman was about to start the au pair year in Boston. He wanted to get out, finally, the suitcases were packed in the hallway. Now some stranger had reminded him of what he wanted to forget far from home.

Norman flew to America. He found himself in a new family, but it kept coming up, Papa, Hamburg. At Christmas, Norman uploaded the image on Twitter that the stranger had sent to him, asking for help finding the man. Someone recognized him on the street in Hamburg-Hamm.

A few days later Norman boarded a plane, Twitter always with him, and drove to Hamm. He met his father again, shortly. Klaus was over. Before he hugged Norman, he took a sip of beer. The two, a heavy alcoholic and his son, did not speak long. Norman gave Klaus a kiss and informed the people waiting on Twitter.

Father. ♥ pic.twitter.com/aReIPoWwio

Then Norman had to go back to Boston. There was a family that needed it and no one was drunk. From Boston, Norman kept in contact with his father, especially via a Twitter friend from Hamburg-Hamm. He looked after Klaus, again and again, and then wrote Norman. Most of the time the news contained nothing more than the information that Klaus was drunk, fallen, or confused. Now and then Norman was sent: The father asked for the son.

From the US, Norman called the German authorities. Social workers tried to bring Klaus to the Hamburg job center. But he resisted, says Norman. Against everything. "He reluctantly accepts help."

Plans for the spring

Norman decided to go to Hamburg in March 2019 when the employment contract expires in Boston. But there Klaus dived again a few days ago. The Twitter friend, who often looked for Klaus for Norman, suddenly could not find him anymore, and although many in the neighborhood know Klaus, nobody knew where he could be.

Penny Branch Manager does not say, "He's just causing trouble," she said. "The loungers with his friends in front of the door, steals, has house ban." The customer review has been automatically translated from German. The people from the gas station, where Klaus often gave away bottles, not: "Not seen in weeks, but a nice one, we know him."

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Gas station in Hamburg-Hamm: "We know him"

The social worker in the community center once gave him five euros: "He was pretty down and smelled severe." The district police officer who patrols the neighborhood said, "Even with a missing person report, I could not do much." Klaus is an adult and no danger to the public, but it was noticeable. "

Because he always slept in the lobby of the savings bank, the changed their opening hours: from now on, closed at night. In the Café May, where Klaus often had coffee for free and chatted with the waiters, he had not been for a long time.

Tweet to live

"Dad, are you okay, I miss you," Norman wrote on Twitter for an old photo of Klaus. Norman is also an adult, 25 years old. And he's a kid who lost his father when he went to the pub 14 years ago.

Mother and brother are more likely to stay out. You want to complete. When Norman searches, he searches alone and yet with thousands, on Twitter. He is also criticized for that.

Some find it strange, on the one hand tweets with funny emojis, on the other hand fear for Klaus. Some wonder why Norman does not break off his au-pair year, it's finally about the father. Norman says he built something up in Boston, looks after children. When he speaks of them, he says, "Home." Leave a new life to go to an old one?

Some do not think it's good that Norman shares private pictures, but the father did not approve. "It's alien to being upset about," says Norman. "What am I supposed to do - tweet better than leave him out there."

Norman almost shouts that his followers are his support. He checks the feed every minute. Twitter against the pain, Twitter as hope, privacy no matter.

It helped again, Klaus is back, a follower found him on Friday night. He sent Norman on Twitter a recent photo of Klaus and wrote: Where exactly the father was in recent weeks, Klaus could not say, but the hospital in Altona, he still knew.

Altona, then. Disappeared, found, gone, back again. How do you do that?

I look at the picture again and again because I did not believe it anymore, but yes, sure, that's Dad, he lives and how he raises his eyebrows, as if he does not understand all the excitement.

HELLO, WE HAVE PROVIDED US pic.twitter.com/Rss4KPHjnl

The morning after Klaus returns to his neighborhood, a drugstore saleswoman working near the subway station says, "I saw Klaus in the morning and he looked sad." Norman says it's still night time in Boston, "I'm so happy, dad is alive, he makes me feel better."

Is that him? When is the next time so far, nocturnal despair, drama on Twitter?

Klaus is back at his subway station in Hamburg-Hamm, with beer, and while his latest photo on Twitter is still getting likes, Klaus's life is not even clear what time it is. Klaus is sitting, wearing woolen hat. Drinking.