Football: HSV fan clubs and parts of Hamburg politics criticize fan raid on the train

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The police stopped a train on Saturday evening and checked over 850 fans

Photo: LENTHE-MEDIEN / Andre Lenthe / IMAGO

A police check of hundreds of Hamburger SV fans on a regional train in Hamburg-Bergedorf becomes an issue among the Hamburg citizens. According to a spokeswoman, the left-wing faction has announced that it will submit a small inquiry about the police action to the Senate. “The entire operation raises serious questions about proportionality,” said Cansu Özdemir, justice policy spokeswoman for the Left Party.

Around 400 emergency services searched the RE1 regional train on Saturday evening, with which HSV supporters were on their way back to Hamburg after a game at Hansa Rostock (2:2). The action lasted more than six hours. Some of the 855 fans had to stay on the train the entire time until they were checked.

»When over 850 fans are checked for hours for a few suspects, it gives the impression that the fans are being taken into collective custody. It is absolutely inappropriate to lock people in police custody for hours without toilet facilities and to leave them to provide themselves with drinking water on an overheated train," wrote Özdemir. The operation must urgently be dealt with politically and legally, she demanded.

Looking for perpetrators of a fight

According to a federal police spokesman, the officers were looking for 60 suspected violent criminals who were said to have clashed with Borussia Dortmund supporters in September last year. At that time, HSV and BVB fans attacked each other in the Mannheim train station. There were injuries on both sides.

In addition, there were also physical attacks after the game in Rostock on Saturday, for example by throwing bottles. According to the statement published on Sunday, the police identified 31 suspects during the control operation in Bergedorf.

The large-scale controls resulted in numerous significant delays in regional transport, as Deutsche Bahn announced on X (formerly Twitter).

German police union: large-scale control is a reaction

The state chairman of the German Police Union (DPolG), Thomas Jungfer, rated the operation as successful “to a not inconsiderable extent” because of the identification of suspects. "An action like this always has two sides," he told the German Press Agency.

On the one hand, there are people who are innocently drawn into a control. On the other hand, there were indications of suspects in connection with serious crimes that justified the check. "And then it's better if you get the people together once instead of spending a long time investigating."

According to the police unionist, large-scale checks are not carried out lightly, but are always a reaction to previous crimes.

CDU supports the approach, SPD and FDP have doubts

Such a measure must always be the result of careful consideration, said Dennis Gladiator, domestic policy spokesman for the CDU parliamentary group in Hamburg, when asked. "In these serious allegations, a consistent approach to identifying the perpetrators is necessary and was successful in this case."

»Violence in football is a massive problem that we have to tackle and get under control. In this respect, police operations are unfortunately necessary to catch and arrest violent perpetrators," said Sören Schumacher, domestic policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group, when asked. The fact that a police measure lasts around six hours raises questions that need to be answered when the operation is processed.

The FDP politician Anna von Treuenfels-Frowein said that the growing brutality in arguments in the fan milieu made it necessary to protect peaceful football fans from rioters. »However, the Bergedorf campaign raises the question of whether holding around 1,000 people on a train for up to six hours is proportionate. This will probably be resolved in court.”

The Fanhilfe Nordtribüne and the HSV Supporters Club announced on Sunday that they would support those affected in taking legal action. “The entire operation was arbitrary, disproportionate and illegal,” the fan association said in a published statement.

During the hour-long checks, the supply of water on the train was "only barely guaranteed by the efforts of many HSV fans."

ast/dpa