2023-11-19 10:06:26
The international match in Berlin is keeping the capital on tenterhooks, and not just in terms of sport. Several incidents around the duel between Germany and Turkey (2:3) in the Olympic Stadium made headlines in the city on Saturday (November 18, 2023).
The Berlin police, who had already prepared for a large-scale operation in several places in the city, were deployed with massive forces. A questionable appearance around the stadium nevertheless flickered across the screen in a live broadcast on WDR.
Controversial wolf salute on WDR broadcast – police stop Turkish fan march
When reporter Julia Büchler reported to the “Current Hour” around 7 p.m. from the forecourt of the Olympic Stadium, a Turkey fan suddenly approached from the background with a crazy look.
After initially posing for several seconds with his index finger raised, at the end of his scary appearance he briefly showed the hand signal of the Gray Wolves, who are classified as right-wing extremist. While the greeting is even banned in Austria, the symbol is not punishable in Germany.
WDR responded to complaints about the scene on X (formerly Twitter) and wrote: “The Gray Wolves hand salute was shown by football fans behind the reporter during a live broadcast. In this dynamic situation, the reporter could not see this and therefore could not react to it.”
When uploading the program to the media library, the location should be adjusted so that the hand sign can no longer be seen, according to the account of the “Current Hour”. The corresponding moment is actually not visible there. Instead, the message “This excerpt is no longer available for editorial reasons” appears for a few seconds.
It wasn’t the first time that the Gray Wolves became an issue in connection with football: in July, a photo on social networks revealed that world champion Mesut Özil (35) had a tattoo of the movement on his chest.
Gray wolves under surveillance at the Office for the Protection of the Constitution
According to the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which is monitoring the Gray Wolves, the movement known in Turkey as “Ülkücü” is characterized by “excessive nationalism and group-related misanthropy such as racism and anti-Semitism.”
Away from the stadium, the police had repeatedly intervened when Turkish supporters set off pyrotechnics in the middle of the city. The organized fan march at Theodor-Heuss-Platz in Westend was stopped and detained several times.
We only continued again when the glowing torches had gone out. As Sky reported, the police cordoned off a large area of the march. Overall, the march went largely smoothly. A total of 3,000 police officers were on duty on Saturday due to various demonstrations and the international match.
The atmosphere in the stadium was heated at times. Tens of thousands of Turkish fans had secured tickets for the game, which was sold out early, and were clearly superior acoustically. When the German goalkeeping trio Kevin Trapp (33), Oliver Baumann (33) and Janis Blaswich (32) stepped onto the pitch to warm up, there was a shrill concert of whistles. Later, DFB captain Ilkay Gündogan (33) was particularly booed.
In the last meeting there so far, Özil was heavily booed by Turkish fans in 2010 because he chose the German national team and not his parents’ home country. (BC)
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