He had no chance of surviving

December 21, 1985:A young Turk is attacked and killed by neo-Nazis on his way home to his pregnant girlfriend. The Hamburg case of Ramazan Avci made international headlines.

by Oliver Diedrich, NDR.de

"I'll be back in an hour at the latest," says Ramazan Avci to his heavily pregnant fiancée Gülistan. He waves goodbye to her again from outside. It's Ramazan's birthday today, he turned 26 years old. In the evening he goes out with his brother and a friend to sell a car. He wants to use the money to get a cot for the baby.

But Ramazan Avci did not live to see the birth of his son. On this Saturday, December 21, 1985, he and his companions were brutally attacked by right-wing skinheads in Hamburg-Hohenfelde.

Bottles with severed necks

It's around 11pm. Ramazan Avci and his two companions are on their way back. They want to wait for a bus at the Landwehr S-Bahn station. At this moment, several skinheads come out of the "Landwehr" restaurant. They discover the Turks and attack them. Swear words and beer bottles fly. The Turks leave. But a little further on, the confrontation erupts again. The skinheads hold bottles with severed necks. Avci panics. He sprayed the attackers with irritant gas, which he carried with him, "like many foreigners who now find themselves exposed to menacing hostilities in large western German cities," as Der Spiegel later wrote. The three Turks continue to flee. But the young men with the shaved heads stay on their heels. Then finally a bus comes. Avci's brother and his friend escape inside. But as Ramazan Avci runs across a street, he is hit by a car.

Blows to the head with ax handles

Avci is on the ground. The attackers beat him with ax handles and rubber truncheons and kicked him with combat boots. One of the first blows to Avci's head - as an expert will later testify in court - probably shatters Avci's skull. The 26-year-old loses consciousness. The skinheads keep beating the guy lying on the asphalt. Splinters from his crushed skull bone bore into Avci's brain. "He had no chance of surviving," according to the report.

The skinheads also attack the bus with Avci's companions. They smash several panes. Even shots are said to have been fired. Avci's brother says after the robbery of the "Bild-Zeitung":"The ten passengers and we threw ourselves on the ground. The skins then ran away. I went out to my brother. He lay there and didn't answer anymore."

"He wasn't really alive anymore, actually"

An ambulance takes Avci to the hospital. The pregnant fiancée Gülistan, who is waiting for him at home, initially only learns that Ramazan was hit by a car. You want to protect them. "When I went to the hospital the next day, I was the only one allowed to see him. I had insisted on seeing him. That's when I realized how serious his situation was:he was unconscious and on machines and actually not at all more really alive," she later told the "tageszeitung". Only then did she find out in the hospital that Ramazan had been attacked by skinheads.

Keyword skinheads

In connection with right-wing extremism, the term skinhead has often been used since the 1980s as a collective term for the rather disorganized militant right. External features were shaved heads (skinheads), combat boots and bomber jackets. The term skinhead is hardly ever used today, fashion preferences have changed. In the discussion about skinheads, it has always been disputed how strongly political they are. The assumptions range from a merely "fun-oriented" group with a racist world view to a gang of thugs controlled and used in a targeted manner by neo-Nazis. Apparently there were both - with many gradations. The skinhead scene emerged in Great Britain in the 1960s, and left-wing groups, so-called Redskins, also developed from it.

Nationwide horror

"While Ramazan was struggling with death in the hospital, a judge had the alleged main perpetrator taken into custody. His accomplices remain at large for the time being," reported the "Hamburger Abendblatt" on December 24. On the same day, Avci dies from his injuries.

Many newspapers are now reporting, nationwide there is horror. Hamburg's First Mayor Klaus von Dohnanyi (SPD) was deeply shocked, headlined the "Abendblatt" on December 27. Interior Senator Rolf Lange (SPD) says:"We will do everything to allay the concerns of our foreign fellow citizens with quick investigations."

Not the first victim

But the fear of right-wing extremist thugs runs deep among the "foreign fellow citizens". Avci is not the first death this year. On July 24, 1985, skinheads killed 29-year-old Turk Mehmet Kaymakci with a concrete slab. A fight in a tavern had preceded it. In court, however, the act is classified as a non-political brawl. In the Avci case, Hamburg politicians are trying to limit the damage diplomatically. After a meeting with the Turkish Consul General Mehmet Nuri Ezen, Interior Senator Lange said:"The Consul General assured me that the Turks felt very comfortable in Hamburg. We agree that this terrible incident has no precedent and will hopefully remain an isolated case becomes." But Ezen later also says:"Our compatriots feel unsafe in Hamburg." They would have to expect "every day in buses, S-Bahn or on the street" that "something will happen to them too".

Tat reaches the big politics

A week after his death, Avci's body was driven to Hamburg Airport to be taken to Turkey and buried there. On this New Year's Eve, a long motorcade follows the hearse. "We mourn the loss of Ramazan Avci" reads a large sign on the limousine's radiator. Consul General Ezen and a Senate representative are also in the convoy. The deed has long since reached the big political scene:a spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry is demanding compensation for the victim's family. In addition, the Federal Republic must "distance from this act". The chairman of the Bundestag's interior committee, Axel Wernitz (SPD), calls for a ban on skinhead gangs. They are helpers of right-wing extremist parties and neo-Nazi associations.

Mayor appeals to the "dear Hamburgers"

In the New Year, thousands of people demonstrate in Hamburg against xenophobia. Mayor of Dohnanyi appeals in Turkish and German to the "dear Hamburgers" to break the chain of violence. "The city wants peace". Around 50,000 Turks lived in the Hanseatic city at the time. After Avci's death, there were "brawls and stabbings between German and Turkish youth gangs almost every day" in some parts of the city, as reported by the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung". And points out that "organizations of foreign young people sometimes 'hunt' for the members of the other side". This also includes the "Bomber" gang, a kind of self-help militia made up of Turks and other young people with foreign roots.

Defendant:"Just wanted to beat him up a bit"

The trial against Avci's attackers begins in May 1986. Five men between the ages of 18 and 24 have to answer before the district court. The accused testify that they first met in Hamburg-Bergedorf on the day of the crime and drank beer. Then they drove to the "Landwehr", which was known as a skinhead meeting place at the time, and continued to drink. When they heard noise at the door, they ran out and got tear gas in their eyes. To take revenge, they just wanted to "beat up Avci a bit," says one of the accused. The act had nothing to do with xenophobia. They deny belonging to the skinheads and have nothing against Turks in principle. However, they had already been attacked by the "bombers" themselves, so they always had weapons with them. All defendants only concede a few punches and kicks against Avci, but no life-threatening attacks. But the court does not believe the latter.

Scandal at the verdict

The verdict will be on July 1st. The court assumes that two of the perpetrators expected their victim to die. One received ten years in prison for manslaughter committed jointly, the other six years in prison. The other accused are sentenced to youth and prison terms for bodily harm resulting in death or complicity.

There are loud protests in the courtroom:"The judiciary and the police protect the fascists" and similar calls can be heard. It is incomprehensible to many listeners in the hall and to the joint prosecutor that there is no murder verdict. It is said that the court did not pay sufficient attention to the motive for the crime:hatred of foreigners. This was only accepted as one of several motives in the verdict, but not as the central motive. Did the court not shed sufficient light on the accused's background - as the co-plaintiff says?

"Justice turns a blind eye"

Some critics raise serious allegations. "Politicians stipulated that there should be no hatred of foreigners in the Hanseatic city. The public prosecutor's office pointed the way with their manslaughter charge and the court reported execution," says a commentary in the "Hamburger Rundschau". After the verdict, the mayor can now talk about a cosmopolitan Hamburg again. "Our judiciary, in a tried and tested tradition, deliberately closes the right eye."

Such views are fueled by spicy details during the process. A senior police officer, it turns out, has a son who is involved in the skinhead scene himself and is a friend of one of the accused. And it was precisely this police officer who let the young man go again shortly after the crime. Proceedings against the officer were later dropped. But there are other inconsistencies - for example, the assumption that the police knew about the armed gathering of skinheads in the "Landwehr" on the evening of the attack on Avci, but did not intervene. Police files have temporarily disappeared. "The background remains unclear," writes "Zeit" after the verdict.

Gülistan Avci:Important not to forget the case

Avci's widow Gülistan gives birth to her baby ten days after the death of her fiancé. She names her son Ramazan. She, too, was outraged by the verdict from back then:"I was very angry. I didn't think it was appropriate. A punishment that was far too soft for someone who killed someone in the spring of his life," she tells NDR. The Turkish community commemorated the dead on Monday with a memorial service on the forecourt of the Landwehr S-Bahn station named after Ramazan Avci. Among other things, as a reaction to the Avci case, the Alliance of Turkish Immigrants was founded at the time, which was later renamed the Turkish Community.

Gülistan Avci says 30 years after the crime:"I'm reliving it all as if it happened yesterday." It finishes her. "But on the other hand, I think it's important not to forget the case."