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All I remember is a red-haired boy standing there,
wanting to play. That was Denis.
Until then, there were only two of us.
That's Dirk, and that's me. 1981, I think it was.
From that day on, there were three of us.
Our first trip together, Dirk, Denis and me.
All the way to the coast, that's what we had in mind.
For us, skateboarding was like
reinterpreting the gray boredom around us,
turning it into a playground.
It was our beautiful, mysterious, ugly concrete playground, the GDR.
For peace, for friendship and for anti-imperialist solidarity.
Every girl and every boy
can freely develop their talent.
Be at the ready! -Always ready!
At home, skateboarding was just a game.
But here it was somehow different. You could tell it meant something.
We were an attraction, but people didn't really know
what to think of us.
That's not how the GDR worked.
The streets weren't for playing.
Denis sets a gym on fire. Nothing happens.
Accosts people on the street, destroys things, cars...
All the times we just took off. Nothing ever happened.
Everything that went down at my place. We knew they were watching us.
Nothing happened.
Something was bound to happen.
They didn't want just anyone, they wanted the ringleader.
When I think of my childhood and my youth,
I don't think of the GDR.
I think of my little, idiotic brother Denis.
That was nearly 30 years ago.
Now he's gone.