How a Doorman Experienced the Horror Night in Cologne

An original translation by Nash Montana with much thanks

From this German news site

It all started right around 19:00 hours: “Groups of 6, of 10, and of 12 North Africans. I have never seen anything like it in my life before,” says Ivan Jurcevic. “They looked like a real army.” Jurcevic has been a doorman since 1989. Every year at Silvester [German for New Years Eve]  he protects the entrance to the Hotel Excelsior in Cologne. The hotel is located to the west of the dome within eye sight.

“They came with beer- and schnapps bottles in hand. Most of them were already staggering”, he remembers.

“Come with me*

Problems immediately started: hotel guests who were smoking cigarettes outside in front of the entrance, were verbally accosted: “Give me cigarette”, they muttered. “Come with me”, they loudly propositioned women.

At the exact same time, Peter Erkelenz and his wife were walking across the Dome plaza. Erkelenz is the brother of CDU city council member Martin Erkelenz. He calls himself an original Cologne native. He was wondering about the mass of Arabic speaking young men. The mood was aggressive. Erkelenz got worried and he and his wife quickly moved away from the Dome plaza.

As at around 22:00 hours the situation escalated completely at the Dome plaza, fireworks and light rockets were fired into the crowds, and east of the Dome, the owner of the bar “Kunstbar” Paolo Campi, was watching: “It was totally anti social,” he says. “There’s always chaos in front of the dome on silvester every year. If it was worse this year, it’s hard to tell.” He also can’t tell if it was mostly North Africans who caused the chaos.

But where Ivan Jurcevic was standing in front of the Hotel Excelsior, things got increasingly bad: “Two women came running, they were fleeing a mob of North Africans and asked him for help.

I’m not one to be tangled with

The men in pursuit of the two women threatened the experienced martial arts trainer: “I am 1:98 meters tall and weigh 130 kilo. I am not the kind of guy you want to mess with”, the otherwise calm, collected and friendly Jurcevic mentions.

When one of the pursuing men attacked him, he drop kicked the man off his feet and then immediately retreated inside the hotel. The men came closer. “So I got back out, kicked one in the chest so that he flew back three meters. After that they retreated”, said the Croatian who’s lived in Germany for 40 years.

As the attackers retreated they verbally threatened him: “We will come back and ice you”, they called to him in English. At that point the director of the hotel had already told all guests not to stand in front of the doors anymore for a smoke. The guests accumulated on the first floor and we’re watching the chaos with horror written in their eyes.

Rioters were beating each other up

Meanwhile, a police force of a hundred showed up. Jurcevic could see, how they were shot at with fireworks. Even the police forces seemed to be intimidated.

After midnight: Several fights in front of the hotel had broke out. Jurcevic observed one knife fight. The arabic north africans seemed to also chase black africans that came from countries south of the Sahara.

The rioters were also fighting amongst each other: In front of Jurcevics eyes they saw how one man was beaten with a bottle until he passed out. When the man with the bottle started to kick the passed out man’s head, Jurcevic and a doorman from the neighboring restaurant stepped in.

No time for filing police complaints

Police walked up, and arrested the man – only to let him go again in a few minutes, because all of the police jail vans were hopelessly overfilled. As a goodbye, the man spit on the squad car’s window. “Fuck the police”, he yelled Jurcevic in the face. Jurcevic lost his nerves and punched the man to the ground.

At 1:30 in the morning, Peter Erkelenz and his wive left their Silvester party they were attending. They wanted to take the subway to get home. But the subway at the main train station was closed.

There was a police woman that stood right in front of Erkelenz. Suddenly a man jumped her from behind, grabbed for the pocket inside her coat, then fled. She gave chase and managed to wrestle him to the ground. Then she lectured him. And that was it. There was too much chaos to make arrests or police reports, the cops had to put out too many fires all at once.

Erkelenz then learned why the subway wasn’t operating: dozens of men were walking on the tracks, attacked subway passengers, and were chased around by the police. The subway was not gonna operate anymore that night. Erkelenz and his wife, who got out of the chaos without getting hurt, took the street car instead.

“I was very afraid”, Erkelenz said. “Especially now that our annual Spring Festival is coming up, and what all could happen then.”

It was only between five and six in the morning that the chaos started to die down. The vandalizing men started to disappear. Only a few drunks stayed behind. In the meantime, the police had gotten the first nauseating police reports of women who were molested and harassed. One woman was raped. Many didn’t immediately go to the police because they were in shock. It took until Tuesday that 90 reports were registered. Apparently only a handful of perpetrators have been arrested.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

One Reply to “How a Doorman Experienced the Horror Night in Cologne”

  1. Any chance the city and agencies release the cc footage? I assume the whole area wad surveilled as was the subway. Not a chance you say?