KAISERSLAUTERN, Germany — The Army is investigating a brawl that erupted outside a popular Saarbrücken nightclub and resulted in the arrest of 11 U.S. soldiers and three airmen.
The incident happened last month, but the Army is still trying to sort out the details.
Senad Deumic, a manager at the Kufa, said the fight was so big that his 10 bouncers called the police instead of intervening and trying to stop it. He said about 22 Americans were involved.
“Everybody was fighting with fists, with feet,” Deumic told Stars and Stripes. “It was a real fight, a hot fight.”
Two weeks later, another fight involving American GIs occurred about 200 yards from the club, managers said. It prompted the club to give entering Americans a “safety briefing” that encouraged them to have fun, but behave or get booted.
German media reported that a military police patrol from Kaiserslautern teamed up with local police the following weekend, and the combination helped prevent another round of fighting.
Heiko Dixson, a former U.S. soldier who is a manager at the club, said Americans are among the best-behaved patrons and that the two incidents are isolated and unrelated. He acts as a sort of liaison between the establishment’s security and American customers, greeting GIs at the door.
He suspects that some servicemembers involved in the fights recently returned from Iraq.
“If you ask me, they were just blowing off a little stress,” he said. “But that’s it. The whole thing has been overblown.”
The first fight was April 3. A group of Americans started arguing inside the Kufa and the dispute spilled outside between 2 and 3 a.m., club managers said. The group scattered when police arrived.
German police caught 14 of the servicemembers and arrested them. They were then transported to U.S. security forces in Kaiserslautern and eventually returned to their commands.
The three airmen who were arrested are assigned to Spangdahlem Air Base’s 52nd Fighter Wing, base spokesman Capt. Tom Crosson said. He said if any were punished, it would have been done “administratively” by their units, and privacy concerns prevented release of information.
The 11 soldiers who were arrested are assigned to the 1st Battalion, 35th Armored Regiment, 1st Armored Division, based at Baumholder. Army officials could not comment in detail because the incident is under investigation, said Maj. Michael Indovina, chief of public affairs for 1st AD. Investigators are looking separately at each individual’s involvement, and there has been no final action, Indovina said.
The Kufa was named one of Germany’s best clubs by MTV. Managers said hip-hop artist Ja Rule visited a month ago just to hang out, and U.S. servicemembers come from as far as Frankfurt and Mainz on Saturdays, which is known as “Black Beat Night” and features disc jockeys playing hip-hop, soul and R&B music.
Americans make up about 25 percent of the clientele, Deumic said. But he said that if another fight involving Americans occurs, he would have to ban U.S. servicemembers, or he suspects that military commanders will bar their personnel from going to the club.
“One more fight like this and we have to do it,” he said. “We have no other choice.”
Reporter Terry Boyd contributed to this story.
