Man cries 'Heil Hitler,' beats American

[Ban Hammer 14,297]

BERLIN - An American was attacked in western Germany by a man who shouted "Heil Hitler," police said Thursday.

The attacker confronted the 54-year-old American for speaking in English with a woman at a McDonald's restaurant in Gelsenkirchen, in the industrial Ruhr region, police said.

The man demanded to know why the two were not speaking German. The woman said her friend did not speak German well, and the American asked, "What's your problem?"

Police said the assailant then said: "We are in Germany. German is spoken here," before shouting "Heil Hitler" and raising his right arm. The Hitler salute is illegal in Germany.

The American, who was not identified, threatened to call police. As he reached for his cell phone, police said, the stranger head-butted him, and he fell to the floor. The assailant then repeatedly kicked his left ankle.

The attacker fled and the American was taken to a hospital for treatment, police said.

Police released two video surveillance photos showing the suspected assailant and appealed to witnesses to come forward.

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[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

*mutters* damn kraut

[eric&gen 0]

Crazy people.

[Peikko 1,575]

Oh no, a nutter who wants only German spoken in Germany!

Mind you, using the Hitler salute was going a bit too far.

[Ban Hammer 14,297]

Oh no, a nutter who wants only German spoken in Germany!

Mind you, using the Hitler salute was going a bit too far.

shoulda just told him "blasen mir einen" or " ficke du"

[Otto 83]

*mutters* damn kraut

[Ta Ta 1]

*mutters* damn kraut

:angry:

[MaRob 0]

I was just in Germany and I don't know very much German i would hate to think i could be beat up bc I traveled to another country to see a new and different culture and got punished bc i didn't fit in....

maybe we should do that to anybody who doesn't speak english when they come to the U.S.

[JODO 2]

That's terrible!

[Dr. Obvious 49]

Reason 32457 not to go to Gelsenkirchen. Everytime I had to go there, I wanted my time back afterwards. Gelsenkirchen has high unemployment and looks fairly washed up. Maybe not as bad as Hagen, but it sucks. Want to see nice cities in the Ruhr Valley? Go to Essen and Dortmund, maybe also Duisburg and Dusseldorf.

After my husband had various insults hurled at him at the train station in Witten by a small group of neo-Nazi ####### because I wasn't white enough (#######??!), yeah, I am not really surprised something like that happened in the general area. He would often complain that compared to where he was from the area had quite a number of unsavory characters. Probably just a natural consequence of the area being so densely populated.

To qualify though, 99.9% of the time there was never a problem. There is also a number of left wing punks who see it their life's mission to fight neo-Nazis and I don't mean just with words. I never personally knew of anyone who was a neo-Nazi. I doubt you would see them as a tourist unless you knew what you were looking for. And beyond that, the area is again heavily populated. I am not sure why an American was singled out, though I have a theory. On any given day, you will hear a large number of languages spoken in the region. German, Turkish, English, Italian, Greek, Russian, Polish, Arabic, French, etc, etc. It is a fairly diverse area, the Ruhrgebiet. I doubt neo-Nazis there would ever constitute even a significant minority there.

I would not avoid taking a trip to Germany because of it. I would just avoid Gelsenkirchen because it is a waste of time compared with the other places you could be seeing. Hell, even the backwoods around Witten is more interesting then Gelsenkirchen.

[kerewin21 2]

It's amazing to me that despite the amount of time Germans spend in school learning about World War II and the Holocaust there is a movement of neo-Nazism.

[Sprailenes 47]

Wow Germany and Quebec should go out on a date together.

[Ban Hammer 14,297]

It's amazing to me that despite the amount of time Germans spend in school learning about World War II and the Holocaust there is a movement of neo-Nazism.

not really - my german g/f had very little of a clue about the topic, i knew more about hitler than she did.

[peejay 327]

I got "the treatment" a couple of times in Belarus when the wrong person overheard me speaking English in public. A drunkard on the bus started babbling something in Russian about "Americanski", "George Bush", etc. and wanted me to shake his hand. He started squeezing my hand extra hard and wouldn't let go. It didn't cause me any discomfort and I was just ignoring the insults while grinning at him. Unfortunately my wife made a big deal out of it, got into an arguement with this idiot, and started hitting his hand to get him to let go. Fortunately the guy's stop came up and he left the bus while hurling curses in Russian at me. Very weird.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Wow Germany and Quebec should go out on a date together.

LOL