The following documentary concerns criminal Arab clans in Berlin. Twenty families have divided up the turf and settle their disputes with violence.

You can’t really call them an underclass; it’s more like an underworld — an Arab mafia that manages larceny, rackets, and drug trafficking in the Berlin underworld.

Many thanks to MissPiggy for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Video transcript:

00:00 Berlin — the Neukölln area.

00:03 The area around the Sonnenallee is considered “Clanland”.

00:06 Here the only laws are Arabian clan laws.

00:10 They are enforced, when necessary with violence.

00:15 As with this barbershop.

00:19 It was vandalized in the middle of the day by 20 hoodlums.

00:25 With an ax, with knives, with wood. If they hit you with the knife or ax, you’re dead.

00:32 A film from RBB/ARD (Kontraste) +Berliner Morgenpost

00:39 Berlin is the capital of the clans.

00:42 12 of the 20 biggest family clans reside here.

00:46 A visit to Neukölln’s Arabian clans

20 clan families divide up the streets of Berlin

The shameless boldness of Berlin’s clans

15 shots fired at the Arafat Snack Bar in Berlin

00:51 Khaled Miri belongs to an Arabian family clan. He’s a member of the biggest clan in Germany,

00:56 the Miri Clan. —If you grow up here on the Sonnenallee,

01:01 then you feel like you’re back home, y’know what I mean? The homeland of your parents, and so

01:05 you learn Arabic well, every dialect. Do you know what I mean?

01:09 If I were to tell you we are not involved with violence, I’d be lying. Short and sweet.

01:14 Violence is everywhere. It’s the same with us. But that’s

01:17 the last resort with us. —Anyone involved with Khaled always has to reckon with the whole clan.

01:21 Even at funerals, the family clans stay together.

01:26 At cemeteries they have their own area.

01:33 Demarcation to the outside and cohesion on the inside make it powerful.

01:39 Family means everything to me.

01:43 Family is the most important thing you have in life.

01:46 They are behind you every day. If something happens to me, my cousins come.

01:49 That’s a given.

01:52 Some resort to violence, some attack — no idea, bring their big brothers.

01:57 That’s what I would do for them too, that’s family. We stick together.

02:00 The family as a successful business model.

02:03 People have a certain respect for us. People know:

02:06 They can’t deal with us the way they want. If they disrespect us, it will have consequences.

02:10 Serious consequences, you know what I mean?

02:13 Arab refugees have become a power in Germany.

02:19 In North Rhine-Westphalia, in Berlin, in Lower Saxony, and in Bremen.

02:23 Those are the states where these groups

02:28 settled from the mid-eighties to early nineties. —Civil war in Lebanon, this was

02:32 an important criterion. We are aware that there are connections among the families,

02:36 within these states; they communicate, spend time together, have business partnerships.

02:41 These businesses are: Drug trafficking, robberies, protection racketeering

02:46 and the “authority” to enforce it all. The newest product: Rap.

02:51 Azizz21 also belongs to the Berlin Miris; he sings about the fights on the street.

02:56 “Boys from the street, you get your a** beat

03:02 Cell phones gotta discard, and buy new sim cards

03:05 Police on my neck — always after me — are you still alive, Hajji?

03:08 Sack after sack — the merch must be packed — What a gangster! What a bankster!

03:13 You pay your protection money — You run for your life — the first shot fired”

03:16 The lyrics from Azizz21 reflect reality more than many might think.

03:19 So sure, if people come from somewhere else and provoke us

03:23 we can definitely do things differently.

03:29 Let’s just say, now I’m not talking about my family, but about someone else I’ve seen.

03:35 For example, if someone betrays another guy. Then, he’ll get hurt.

03:42 Let’s say he stabs someone from the family or other members,

03:46 then it can definitely lead to death.

03:51 The courts react with hesitation.

03:54 Officials are intimidated. Witnesses suddenly forget.

03:59 There have been incidents in the past,

04:02 when police officers especially were threatened on their days off.

04:07 [The speaker is a state official who asked to remain anonymous] Of course this has an effect.

04:11 These officers were so brave, they continued, not wanting to be intimidated,

04:16 but I could well understand that when you suddenly realize that in front

04:21 of the school where your own children are taught,

04:24 the same black car is always there and clear messages are sent,

04:29 that then perhaps you use less pressure (on the clans).

04:32 Large actions against the clans have been seldom successful.

04:38 One exception: The robbery of the department store KaDeWe in 2014.

04:42 The perpetrators were sentenced to several years in prison.

04:49 Even here, the accused clans tried to silence witnesses.

04:53 Susann Wettley, State Prosecutor: “They do not have to do anything

04:56 nothing more concrete, they simply build on what they have done,

04:59 through verbal threats of violence, here and there,

05:04 because they’ve done bodily harm to others in the past. So we know they’re afraid to testify.

05:08 These witnesses know that if they give testimony against someone

05:12 who injured or killed their own brother, cousin, or an uncle —

05:16 that person is ready to do the same to them.

05:19 It is absolutely understandable to be afraid to testify.

05:22 And so the family clans feel untouchable.

05:27 We can’t help it that people have seen things, seen our mistakes,

05:32 and as a result won’t testify in court. It’s not our fault.

05:36 They might read something in the newspaper, something exaggerated.

05:39 They read someone is from this clan, or from this family or a member.

05:44 Then I can’t help it when the witness reads the newspaper

05:47 and then says to himself: “I’d better not say anything,” or suddenly can’t remember.

05:52 It happens — it’s totally coincidental. For the victims, this is a total mockery.

05:56 They feel abandoned by the rule of law.

06:01 Just like the barber on the Sonnenallee.

06:06 I’m waiting for the police to do something. The police have to work faster.

06:10 It’s too slow. I don’t know why.

06:14 I see these people. —You see these people?