Reform Along the Raper

At one end of the broad, cobblestone boulevard stands a cluster of trim modern apartments; at the other rises a glass-and-steel office building. In between lies "the Raper"--Europe's greatest and gaudiest fleshpot. The Reeperbahn of Hamburg's Sankt Pauli district strings more sin along its garishly lighted main drag and crooked side streets than ten Tijuanas or 16 Sohos.

Of Sankt Pauli's 13,000 inhabitants, fully 3,000 are prostitutes. In the 200 yards of Herbertstrasse alone, 20 bordellos stand perfumed cheek by painted jowl, while round-the-clock shifts of whores sit waxen and wooden-faced be hind show windows. Elaborately coifed transvestites in spike heels wobble lumpily along the side streets, brushing shoulders with stewbums in cowboy boots and pale-faced hoods with patent-leather hair. At the Hippodrom, on a lurid avenue appropriately named Grosse Freiheit, bored horses trot in a circle as equally bored equestriennes strip while balancing on their backs. Along the Raper, a tourist can shoot a fake duck, get a tattoo, watch an "intimate" movie in Technicolor, or cheer a brace of Amazons clad only in black panties as they wrestle in a tub of mud.

The Black Gang. What a tourist can do most easily, though, is get clipped. Unwary visitors commonly find themselves staring at bills for as much as $80 after a brief bout of drinking. One sucker discovered to his horror that he had been buying champagne for the whole house, including band and B-girls, and finally coughed up $600. Blackmail, extortion and strong-arm tactics complete the repertory, and in recent years many a waiter has become an owner himself, or else tucked away a small fortune before leaving the Raper for more respectable surroundings.

Most blatant of the district's toughs was balding, broad-shouldered Paulie Muller, 38, head of the "Black Gang" and "King of Sankt Pauli." Flanked by his muscle man, a hulking waiter known as "Hans the Swine," and tailed by such hangers-on as "Boxer Fred," "Emil the Bull" and "Gambler Heini," Muller cut a wide swath along the Raper, intimidating bar owners and roughing up anyone who challenged him. But last October Paulie Muller met his nemesis in the form of a camel's-hair coat.

It was brand-new and the proud property of a nightclub waiter named Heinz ("Harry the Ox") Hopp. When Muller expropriated the coat for himself, Hopp got hopping mad, pulled a gun on Paulie and was rewarded for his temerity with a beating that put him in the hospital for a month. It was enough to turn Harry the Ox into Harry the Fink: he provided the police with sufficient evidence against Muller and the Black Gang to bring them to trial. Last week a motley audience of shills, pimps, whores, strippers and bullyboys gathered in Hamburg's dingy criminal court to hear sentence pronounced on the Black Gang. Found guilty on 16 counts ranging from assault and battery to extortion, Paulie Muller was sentenced to five years in prison, while Hans the Swine drew a four-year term and others of the dozen defendants received fines and shorter jail terms. A young blonde in a green sweater sobbed quietly, while a nattily dressed sharper muttered:"It's a damned dirty trick, putting Paulie away."

The Golden Egg. The demise of the Black Gang marked a major triumph for Hamburg's Security Chief Kurt Falck, 42, who for the past year has been crusading to clean up Sankt Pauli and the Reeperbahn. Realizing that the district's reputation was driving away tourists, Falck began by withdrawing cabaret licenses from the more flagrant violators and refusing to license prospective troublemakers. To date, he has pulled 22 licenses and refused 34 applications, while under his prodding, bar and cabaret operators have grudgingly turned back $1,150 to customers who complained of overcharging.

Old merchant sailors who remember Sankt Pauli when it was the roughest, toughest port on the North Sea run fear that Falck's crusade will eradicate whatever sinful spontaneity remains along the Reeperbahn. But Hamburg is not about to kill the leering goose that lays a $25 million golden egg each year. "We don't want to chemically clean Sankt Pauli to the point where it's a convent school for 15-year-old girls," says one official. "We want to keep it a place where men can seek pleasure without fear or danger." With the Black Gang gone, it might be just that.

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