Boris Becker was released from prison early and all of Germany is talking about it. “Unfair!”, many grumble and blame Becker’s new freedom on his celebrity status. About a man about whom society makes a new judgment every day.
“Christmas amnesty – and Boris Becker was released from prison. We live in a satirical simulation,” reads just one Twitter comment among thousands. Another reads: “Look, Uli, I only had 7 months!” Boris Becker, prisoner number A2923EV, has been released early from prison. That seems to be a real sensation, Becker’s name is trending immediately to number 1 of the short message service that is currently in the stranglehold of the new boss Elon Musk. The “Bild” newspaper even speaks of a “deportation thriller” that eventually became a “weather thriller”. This lousy winter surprise every year in December. Nobody can guess.
It feels like the whole of Germany is talking about the man who was supposed to go into prison for two and a half years on April 29 for bankruptcy offences, but was now allowed to leave Huntercombe Prison in Oxfordshire before the minimum period of imprisonment. After only seven months. Good leadership, Christmas amnesty – and then the British jails should be so overcrowded!
Admittedly, that sounds unfair. And it’s entirely understandable that the conventional wisdom among the common people is that, at the end of the day, people like Becker or Hoeneß who broke the law are still people with influence and expensive lawyers. Those in the upper ten thousand who, even if they are broke, always feel like they somehow get away while the little man feels the full force of the law.
Like it or not, Becker is a legend in this country. A whole generation grew up with him. He was the first German and youngest player to win Wimbledon. He was the best tennis player in the world. And to a certain extent it has also become something of a German cultural asset over the decades. We had and have the feeling that we know the now 55-year-old and his whole life: his first wife Barbara, his children Noah and Elias, the broom closet story, the resulting daughter Anna, who looks like her father and the many women who spent a summer (or a few) at his side.
And we whispered when suddenly Sabrina Setlur, aka Sister S., was “Bobbele’s” new love. The musician herself once described her short relationship with the tennis star almost 20 years ago as a “borderline experience”. And if you read again today how she experienced that time at his side back then, it also shows that the tabloid media always treated people in the same way in the same way. There is neither distance nor decency and certainly no respect for privacy. Like hyenas, they pounce on anything useful to feed the hungry gullet of the sensation-seeking pack.
The experiences Setlur described in 2003 are like a blueprint that you can basically overlay on anyone that is of interest. These statements could also be from Meghan Markle: “Suddenly things were written about me (…) Suddenly people came rummaging around in my life, lurking on my doorstep and asking friends – I was very shocked by its dimensions. Also, how unfairly you are suddenly treated. I really developed a hatred for these people, I mean, I didn’t kill or rape a child or anything like that. It had nothing to do with what you believe in and what you live for . I just wanted to be left alone.”
Now that Boris Becker has been released from prison, the tremendous hype surrounding him has started all over again. It may have slacked off a bit lately, but it never went out. And there’s not much you can say about those who think different laws apply to celebs who have committed crimes. A Becker documentary will be released soon. The broadcaster Sat.1 is said to have paid the fallen tennis star more than half a million euros for an interview. And maybe soon – like the convicted fraudster Anna Sorokin – there will be a series on a streaming service and the ruble will roll better than ever.
But the question of whether you can feel sorry for Becker must be allowed. There is a man whose life has been reviewed and expounded in the gazettes since his youth. Who was courted for a long time and often led to the slaughterhouse by the media. In whose garbage people are still rummaging around and who dismantled himself in 2013 at the latest when he revealed himself to ridicule with a cap with two fly swatters on his head in a show by Oliver Pocher.
Becker is someone who had everything and lost everything. One that you don’t have to like like your uncle, but who somehow belongs to the family. A human with mistakes, bad advisors and stupid decisions. For some he paid for it, for others his early release from prison is unfair and owed to his celebrity status.
It is said that the former tennis ace has integrated well into everyday prison life and got along well with the other prisoners. Certainly Becker had a lot of time to think. About what was and what is to come. Now he’s back on the court of life. Man, Boris, that’s your big point!
