Berlin Sera Tousjours Berlin

Americans weeping for a fabled EUrotopia of their very own have a hard time coming to grips with the real, living, every day life of “EUrotopia”

An incident at a Berlin subway station at the weekend in which a man was savagely beaten by a drunken youth has raised concerns that penalties for crimes of this kind are not severe enough.

The incident in question – one of a string of similar crimes in recent years - involved a 28-year-old who was confronted by an 18-year-old youth on the platform of the Friedrichstrasse subway station in the early hours of Saturday morning.

The youth provoked the man, then punched him in the face and repeatedly kicked and stamped on his head. The brutal attack was captured on the station's CCTV. A passing tourist stepped in to diffuse the situation and was himself attacked by the youth who then fled, together with an accomplice.

Nonetheless, the hand-wringing at Deutsche Welle can finally end: Tougher crime laws to follow U-Bahn bashing.

The Justice Ministry would draw up draft legislation within the next two months, Krings said.

“Young offenders properly discover what it means to be behind bars and are at the beginning of their probation period faced with the clear consequences of re-offending.”

Greens MP Christian Ströbele rejected the plan as “absolute rubbish,” saying that existing maximum penalties were rarely used, so it made no sense to toughen them further.

Warning shots wouldn’t have helped in the current case because the main offender hadn’t appeared in court before, he added.

Which proves nothing, but these kinds of silly arguments work with the German public most of the time. "I'd let you get tough, but it won't work because it isn't tough enough. So just keep not getting tough on this kind of thing. M'kay?"