D The police sergeant at the entrance has a clear opinion on the whole story: “There’s a breakdown being made! It used to be common practice here that the police officers were smooched! Hanover is degenerating!”
That could be fun, I think. Put the press card back in and walk to the hall. It is – supposedly – one of the largest in the Hanover district court, but it still only offers space for around 20 spectators. Even the first look into the hallway shows that it won’t be enough.
The case, which is scheduled to be heard here on Thursday – and will not be heard in the end – has already caused a stir in the summer of 2025 and filled various comment columns. Two members of the Hildesheim bachelor company of 1831 jumped up to a police inspector who was standing on the sidelines to secure the event during the big shooting parade.
They held her by the upper arm and pressed a kiss on both sides of her cheek, near the corner of her mouth, with the words “Old customs, good manners.” The police commissioner felt “emotionally taken by surprise”. This is what the court press release says.
At the last minute they accepted the punishment order
While the two men, aged 33 and 43, marched happily on, the 29-year-old policewoman informed her colleagues. A little later they pulled the two out of the train and confronted them. But the men didn’t want to know about sexual harassment any more than they wanted to know about an alcohol test.
What followed: a complaint, public support from the police chief, an investigation and finally two criminal orders. It contained 30 daily rates of 70 euros each, 2,100 euros per man. That was probably too much for the gentlemen. They objected, denying the sexual intent of their act.
The court duly scheduled a public main hearing. To which 14 witnesses were also summoned. Only when everyone was crowding into the courtroom, which was too small, did it become known: the two men’s defense attorneys withdrew their objections at the last minute.
Unfortunately, it remains unclear whether this is a late realization, whether the public hype became scary to them or whether they were simply afraid that the punishment would be even higher. The penalty order is therefore legally binding. You are convicted and have to pay.
Are kisses a trivial matter?
A lot of ado about – well, what actually? If I’m being completely honest, my first instinct in this case was the thought: I wouldn’t have reported this. Not because I think it’s okay when drunk shooters (or carnival goers) drool on everything that comes their way without being asked. But because I wouldn’t have wanted to go through the “outline” and the debates for such a trivial matter.
But can I even say that? That a kiss seems like a trivial matter to me? Of course, you quickly get into strange waters. “Just a kiss,” “nothing sexual at all,” and “tradition” are the shooters’ line of defense.
But then you might have to ask yourself how often this tradition affects the bull-necked man in his mid-fifties in uniform. He’ll probably just have to let himself be bussed by female shooters. If it’s not sexual at all, why is it so straight?
When it comes to the keyword “tradition,” things get even more tricky. In the village where I grew up there was also a bachelor company.
As far as I remember, the tradition looked something like this: drinking a lot of schnapps, marching through the village and singing “Oh Helene – you have such beautiful legs – but you don’t have any tits”, grabbing the waitress’s ass in the festival tent – or better yet under her skirt -, staggering drunkenly across the dance floor and “accidentally” falling into the cleavage of strange women, clutching another woman on the way out and slurring in her ear, how nice She was told by the boyfriend of one of these women that she was a film crack. The next day breakfast.
Is this another generational thing?
Maybe that’s why the kiss seems like a trivial matter to me. But maybe it’s a generational thing. Like most women of a certain age, I have experienced my fair share of assaults.
Hands on my breasts, my butt and between my legs that I didn’t want there. Men masturbating next to me on public transport. Obscene gestures and disgusting sayings from passing cars. Howling packs blocking my path. I didn’t show any of it. It doesn’t help anyway. You have to be careful, not them. That’s just how it was.
Like most women, I know those moments when you’re annoyed that you didn’t react better. The Insta/Tiktok psychobubble is full of clever explanations for this.
Either the damn instinct is to blame, which only knows fight, flight or freeze. There is rarely a plausible explanation as to why freeze occurs so much more often. Or it’s this damned female socialization that has trained us to be compliant and quiet, to put the needs of others above our own – so definitely not to “make a fuss”.
In addition, in such situations you always have to make a lightning-fast risk assessment: How big, strong and drunk is the bird now? How aggressive will he be? How many potential supporters does he have standing around here? What is my position in this group and how does it change if I do the loud thing now? Are there clear escape routes?
A little police violence would have been nice here
It takes a lot of bad experiences, increased self-confidence and a lot of training to arm yourself against it. By the time you get the hang of it, you’ll be so old that you’ll hardly fall into the prey pattern anyway.
Is it dishonest to expect anything different from a young policewoman – as a representative, so to speak? Just a tiny bit of police violence at the right moment? A strong push, a well-dosed clamp, a sophisticated pain grip?
What would be elegant would be a very tall, strong, preferably gay police colleague who would energetically smooch the two bachelors back
But well, you don’t want to imagine what the public discussion would have been like. And of course such a reaction doesn’t change the fact that an attack is just an attack.
Of course, it would be more elegant to have a very tall, strong, preferably gay police colleague who would energetically smooch the two bachelors back. Because that’s the mistake in thinking that men often make when they say: “I wouldn’t have a problem if a woman did something like that to me.” You can’t imagine how it feels when someone is superior to you and the attention is really unwanted.
But in the end, such petty revenge fantasies and the old would-have bicycle chain game don’t help anyone at all. Maybe it was a good thing that someone dared to set an example. Apparently something has changed.
Only one question remains: Does the whole thing actually count in the statistics of increasing attacks against emergency services that the Interior Ministry keeps? Or does this necessarily require migrants with New Year’s Eve rockets?