In the foliage behind the cemetery is still wire. You see, the work is not done yet. Here, on the edge of the village of Steinfeld in Lower Saxony, a man wanted to repair the fence on Tuesday morning. But he was interrupted.

It is still not clear what bothered the worker. He himself states that a wolf bit his forearm and saw three other animals nearby. It would be the first attack on a human in Germany since the return of wolves in the 1990s.

Since the incident there are in Steinfeld, just under 250 inhabitants, located about 30 kilometers northeast of Bremen, actually only one more topic: the wolf. A word that Jochen Albinger does not like to utter. "I have deleted it from my vocabulary," says the mayor of the community Bülstedt, belongs to the Steinfeld. He prefers to speak of "this big predator".

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Steinfeld: Bite in the cemetery

Albinger does not want to meet journalists anymore. For three days there is no other topic, he says on the phone. From his point of view, everything is said: "One animal, one bite, one human - that's all we have." He wanted to wait until the DNA test.

Albinger says that although wolves have been seen in the area around Steinfeld, but isolated and far away from people. He says the citizens of Steinfeld reacted calmly. "They say: My God, there was one bit bitten." The attacked person had not gone to the doctor until the next day because he did not think the injury was that bad. A few bite marks were visible on the man's forearm, nothing more. "He wanted to go to work again."

"Take care of your grazing animals, wolves were spotted here"

The man was annoyed by the media hype. The 55-year-old does not want to talk to the SPIEGEL. He comes from Bülstedt and helps out in the community more often, mowing lawns, patching fences.

Bernd Mindermann is a farmer and orders the field next to the cemetery. Grasses and herbs grow here, food for his cows. Mindermann leans against the post of the fence where the worker is said to have been attacked. "We have no problems with wolves," he says.

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Bernd Mindermann

Mindermann looks over the field and pushes directly but behind. On the day of the attack, he says, he had sat down with local farmers and hunters. At that time the incident was not yet known. One said, "Take care of your grazing animals, wolves were spotted here."

Mindermann has experienced this himself, in April 2016. The 58-year-old and his son drove in the tractor across a field in Steinfeld, brought out fertilizer. Then he saw him, about 50 meters away. His son, then 10 years old, was happy: "Look, a wolf." Ten to 15 seconds, the animal was just there. "Then he went on and I drove on, that's how it is in the village," he says.

Mindermann says like the mayor, the stone fields are relaxed. But the wolf is just the topic. He knew farmers from the area whose sheep had been torn by wolves. Cattle dealers and dairy car drivers talked about it. And he worries about his cows grazing in the pasture for six months in the pasture. The stone fields have become accustomed to the idea that wolves roam through their forests, that they are sneaking over their fields.

But of course there are worries. Especially when an animal comes so close to the place. Several stone fields say that you have to shoot wolves again. Hunters report that there is hardly any game - because of the wolves. A woman from the village says that her daughter no longer dare to go to the bus stop in the dark.

"I'm shocked," says Friedrich Schmätjen. He is 80, born in a house in Steinfeld, where he runs a bus company today. Since the incident, he thinks about taking along a walking stick with his forest walks. "So that I can drive the animal away."

His family does not see the incident as dramatic. But he himself would not have thought it possible for a wolf to come so close to man. If it was a wolf. "But what else should it have been?" Says Schmätjen. "A pack of dogs?"

The stone fields are laid back, but not free of worries: The street lamps are burning all night now, according to Mayor Albinger. "So people will see it happen," he says.