It’s noon at the Pasing train station. Peaceful lunch break time. Also for the bus driver, who casually leans against an electricity box and smokes a hand-rolled cigarette. But he also knows the forecourt quite differently.
His shift here often starts at 3 or 4 a.m. at night. And that doesn’t feel so casual at all. He feels queasy here at night, he says. Because recently there would be more groups of young people cavorting. “Black jacket, hoodie.”
That it’s getting less comfortable at the Pasing train station – that’s not just a vague feeling from people like the bus driver, who work here day and night. The station and its forecourt have fallen into disrepute. They appear again and again in reports from the Munich police.
For example, with a knife attack on New Year’s Eve. Or last week. On Monday, two 17- and 18-year-olds were hospitalized at the nearby soccer field, in the evening two schoolchildren were approached by young people at the station forecourt, with whom they went to the nearby Herrmann-Hesse-Weg – where a large group of young people were waiting, beating them up and robbed.
On Tuesday, four young people of the same age approached two young people at the train station and threatened them with a knife at the nearby gas station. Valuables were stolen from you.
Has it really become more dangerous here? How threatened do the local people feel? And what needs to change? The AZ pursued these questions for several days at the train station. For example at the nearby Esso petrol station, where an employee recently had to defend herself physically against a drunk and where the young people were robbed last week.
Not much is going on here at lunchtime, the employees have time to talk. Yes, says one with certainty, the situation has recently become more dangerous. In the last three or four months, more and more young people have been meeting at the gas station at night and blocking the toilet. The 14 to 16 year olds, “small dealers” as she says, are the most dangerous. A thesis that is also supported by information from the police. In the football field robbery last week, for example, one of the perpetrators was just 14.
The gas station employee says many have a knife with them. She also worries about her colleagues, who have to go home at night after the end of their shift. The gas station has now responded to the new situation. After 8 p.m., customers are no longer able to enter the shop, where employees sometimes had to resolve conflicts with larger groups late in the evening. The gas station only has one night counter open in the evening.
The location at the station is changing the business – so is the Thai snack bar on the edge of the station square. The owner complains that the problems with the young people are “damaging to business” and that customers stay away late in the evening because people no longer feel comfortable here. He says more social work is urgently needed – but also more police presence at the train station.
When the violence escalates, as it has so often in recent weeks, it is obviously mostly about conflicts between young people. How do young people in the district themselves see the situation?
Three teenagers are waiting for their bus after school. One is telling the others how a group of girls here in front of McDonalds got in trouble with the police on Wednesday. The boys are relaxed about their own safety. But of course, over there at the football field, groups meet to bat. The “winners” would then deduct the losers, “so that they can come away with a profit.” Everyday life at the Pasing train station. Pasing train station rules.
A young couple, born in Pasing, comes out of the train station. Dennis is 20, a trained painter, carries a brown leather bag – and sees the situation quite soberly. “Mei, things are going in a bad direction at the moment,” he says. His girlfriend Aylin is 18 – and sounds a lot more concerned. “I find it shocking the increase in fights and conflicts among young people near the train station.” For the past year, she says, the situation has been “more tense.”
Recep Yildiz also occasionally has problems with the young people. He runs a kebab shop on the north side of the Bahnhofspassage. From time to time young people would soil his terrace at night, he tells the AZ. On the other hand: Somehow there has always been trouble here, that is not new. He’s not worried about himself.
Annette Litschke, who walks her dog in the forecourt, does not feel personally threatened either. “The only thing that bothers me is that sometimes the youngsters are disrespectful to their elders,” she says. What is missing in Pasing, she says, are facilities where young people can also meet in the evenings.
Even in winter, Ante Susnjar sits in front of Café Alex. Coffee, cigarette, his beefy dog on a leash. “They don’t bother me,” he says with conviction. There is stress everywhere anyway and it is worse at the main station. On the other hand: He is glad that his younger brother finally has a girlfriend. And don’t hang around the Pasing train station at night.
Nobody is really unconcerned in Pasing these weeks. Not even the relaxed man with the beefy dog.
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The original of this article “How a Munich train station becomes a dangerous knife hotspot” comes from the evening newspaper.
