On the Pentecost weekend, the 9-euro train ticket brought various punks to Sylt in addition to the usual first big “summer wave” of tourists. The network had previously called for “chaos days”. It was quiet until Sunday. On the night of Monday, however, there was a noticeable accumulation of damage to property in various places.
It’s been almost 30 years since the Germans’ most popular North Sea island was so much the focus of attention due to riots as it was this year. It was in 1995 when crowds of punks, leftists, autonomists and rioters came to Sylt with a similar train campaign as the 9-euro monthly ticket with cheap tickets to cause trouble against the “rich and beautiful”. In the end, two train compartments were demolished by rampaging hordes, and dozens of people were arrested.
Since, in contrast to back then, almost every adult today has a smartphone with various social media apps, calls such as “Chaostage” on Sylt develop a resonance power well in advance that far exceeds what ultimately arrived on Sylt.
On Saturday and Sunday there were also police reports of up to 150 punks who besieged the island all day long and above all a well and basin in the center of Westerland. Early on and uninhibitedly, they had begun consuming beer and liquor in industrial quantities. There was shouting, loud music was heard, one or the other passer-by who jerked his mobile phone was teased with counter-recordings. Affected passers-by usually quickly fled. Right in the middle: A small pack of dogs that the punks, who had come from various parts of Germany, had brought with them on their 9-euro rides on the regional trains.
But the announced riots or even “chao days” – they stayed away on Pentecost Sunday. “If you stay as good as you are now, everything is great, then there will be no problems,” said an official Saturday morning directly at the fountain of the “Dicke Wilhelmine”, a fountain statue, in conversation with some punks.
Most of the operations would have taken place in Westerland, where there are always a few punks in the summer who only visit the island briefly, as locals report to FOCUS Online on site. But there were also police operations in Hörnum, Kampen and Wenningstedt.
A taxi driver and employees from the catering trade in Wenningstedt and Kampen have reported some smeared and also scratched cars in the upper price range. The police in Sylt have not yet been able to confirm this information when asked.
Bodendorf, known throughout Germany not only for his cuisine in the “Bodendorf’s” gourmet restaurant, but also from TV shows such as “Game of Chefs” and “Kitchen impossible”, hopes that the cup of the “long-term stress test” will pass Sylt by. And that applies not only to concerns about possible rioting, but also to the daily commuter traffic of several thousand seasonal workers who have to take the regional train at peak times. “One can only hope that the railways will react accordingly to the increased volume of travel because of the 9-euro ticket in order to enable smooth commuting.” Because without the seasonal workers, nothing works on Sylt in summer.
At least as far as the work of the police officers is concerned, it was full on the island at Pentecost, “but the individual burden was no different than in previous years,” was the first summary of the Pentecost balance of the security authority on Monday.
On Saturday, some guests and also islanders even paid respect to the shrill mainstream opponents for the fact that they had camped wildly, but then left everything as they found it: clean. After the first incidents, however, this credit seems to have been used up.
