[Den deutschsprachigen Aufruf findet ihr hier, die türkische Version hier]
Call for Action “No fame for Famous”
In the autumn of 2018, around 700 residents of Neumünster made it clear at the demonstration “We are more – the North against the Right” that there is no room for xenophobia and discrimination in the city on the Schwale. They sent a clear signal against the shift to the right, including against well-known Nazi pubs such as the Titanic. The recent elections in Brandenburg and Saxony also showed that human rights and social freedom are being attacked ever harder. In Neumünster, the NPD has been a member of the council for years and was able to achieve the strength of a parliamentary group (2 representatives) at the last election.
Neumünster’s inner city has also not been spared from the shift to the right: after the move of the tattoo studio “Famous” from the Holstenstraße to the Holstengalerie discussions increasingly centered on the Holstengalerie, because its operators come from the Nazi and rocker scene – thus from circles, to which not every city rolls out the red carpet.
Central figures in “Famous” are Peter Borchert and Matthias Stutz. Stutz is officially employed in the tattoo studio, but also belongs to the rocker club “Bandidos”, who fought a bloody power struggle with the enemy “Hells Angels” in Neumünster and have repeatedly attracted attention through forced prostitution, human trafficking and arms trafficking. Stutz was sentenced in 2017 for stabbing an enemy rocker together with other “bandidos”. Peter Borchert avoids that his name appears in official papers of “Famous”, but is – as reported by different media – actually the driving force behind the team around straw man Christian Franz. That he wants to stay in the background is due to the fact that the convinced racist and former NPD state president, who spent a large part of his life in prison, is one of the most notorious neo-Nazis in Germany.
Although various newspapers and also the local radio station reported about the entanglements of “Famous” in the milieu of the right-wing rockers, the center manager of the Holstengalerie did not react with a warning or dismissal, but defended her business partners Stutz and Franz. A radio interview, during which unpleasant questions about her business relationship were posed, was removed from the media library of Freies Radio Neumünster as a result of her pressure, thus attempting to complicate critical reporting.
The Holstengalerie is managed by the Hamburg shopping center operator ECE, which is owned by the Otto family who also built the shopping mall with their private money. The Otto Code of Conduct strictly prohibits the discrimination of people on the basis of their “ethnic, national and social origin” and explicitly refers to the “UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women”, and also states that “by entering into a business relationship with the Otto Group, business partners undertake not only to comply with the standards in their companies, but also to comply with them in their dealings with the subcontractors of Otto Group.
The “No Fame for Famous” campaign is calling for people to come to the Holstengalerie/exit at Gänsemarkt on Saturday, 19 October 2019 at 3 p.m. in order to
– make it clear that “Famous”, through its entanglements with the fascist Bandidos, cannot be a normal business partner
– make it clear that the racketeering of the “Famous” operators is contrary to the Otto Code of Conduct
– educate the citizens of Neumünster about who they throw their money at when they get tattooed at “Famous”
– emphasize that Neumünster must not be a place for extreme right business worlds
– urge the city administration to dry up the criminal swamps in which Famous, Notorious Ink and The Edge breed, which are considered to be rocker money laundering operations
#nofameforfamous – a more beautiful life without Nazi shops