It was once considered a typical Viennese landmark. But today the Brunnenmarkt has degenerated into a typical Viennese landmark with a few Syrian stalls. Karl Mahrer, police officer and head of the ÖVP Vienna, can no longer look away. Together with the daily press, he ventures into the crisis area.
VIENNA – Karl Mahrer closes the laptop. In preparation for the death trip, he watched a current situation report by Colonel Markus Reisner on the Brunnenmarkt on YouTube. “The situation at the front is even more oppressive than expected,” Mahrer sighs.
As he laces his field shoes, his wife looks worried and fights back tears. “I have no other choice,” says Mahrer with a determined look. “Unfortunately, we have to copy the FPÖ in order to take away their votes and stay in power.”
On to the front
On the subway towards the front line, Mahrer checks the fit of his ballistic protective vest. “My life insurance,” he murmurs, patting his chest. Shortly before arrival, his facial expression changes. His determination and his enthusiasm for the war have given way, Mahrer looks anxiously out of the window.
“Is that a so-called kebabs over there?” he peeks furtively at the end of the wagon, where two teenagers are sitting and eating. It’s Mahrer’s first time venturing outside the belt.
Unnerved, the ÖVP politician gets out of the U6. He had to stand for a full 13 minutes. “Typically red Vienna: The 700-euro seat reservation via the website ‘veryreal-wienerlinien-official.xyz’ in First Class obviously didn’t work,” he grumbles about the conditions here in the Middle West.
Hell trip through the fountain bazaar
We enter the fountain bazaar together with Mahrer. To our left, traders offer cheese and spices from all sorts of distant, exotic countries such as Vorarlberg or the Waldviertel. “Look at these barbarians,” shouts Mahrer. “They eat hand grenades here!” Mahrer stares at a Turkish restaurant where guests put falafel in their mouths. “The first casualty of war is humanity,” he wrote in his war diary.
“I long to go back to the Kohlmarkt,” Mahrer whispers, but his return to the ÖVP area in the first district is still a long way off. “In the center of Vienna, the world is still fine there, only Arabs and Russians live there: For example, there is this Russian oligarch who already has five penthouses there and he goes around and says I’ll buy a 6th or 7th one ., I’ll pay any price, I have enough money. Then I say from the ÖVP: great, great, I praise that.”
Mahrer caresses an amulet that is dangling around his neck. Hidden in it is a holy picture of the former district leader Ursula Stenzel. He clings to his memories of home. It is only through this active suppression that he can endure the conditions in the Brunnenmarkt crisis region.
Alarm
Then the situation escalates. “Calorie bomb alert,” shouts Mahrer and takes cover. A trader empties several juicy dates into a box. One falls to the ground and rolls towards Mahrer. He takes off his combat helmet and puts it over the foreign calorie bomb.
“That was close,” he gasps, dabbing the sweat from his forehead with his handkerchief. Trembling, he retreats. A WKO helicopter lands in the middle of the street and flies him out.
traumatized
When we meet Mahrer at the Kohlmarkt the next day, it’s like he’s changed. Marked by the war, he stares apathetically at the hat shops and furriers’ windows. “Post-traumatic stress disorder, say the doctors,” says the ÖVP politician with a broken voice. Again and again he falls to the ground, throws himself back and forth in panic and yells: “Dates, dates, dates, aaaaaaaah!”
These are images that are disturbing. Before us sits a broken man. A man who no longer knows his true identity. “No, not a schnitzel for me,” he murmurs to the waitress. “Today is Ramadan.” Mahrer may have left Brunnenmarkt alive – but Brunnenmarkt will never leave him again.
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