Hospital staff warn of threats and violence from criminal clans

A nurse at an emergency department in Berlin describes a work environment where shootings, knife injuries, and threats from criminal clan environments have become a recurring part of everyday life. When a clan member is brought to the hospital, the entire emergency department can be cordoned off and the admission of new patients halted for several hours.

The nurse, who works under the pseudonym Felix Wolf and has about ten years’ experience in emergency care, shares the situation in an interview with the German newspaper Welt. He states that the hospital receives patients with gunshot and knife wounds several times a week. According to him, not all such incidents are recorded in official crime statistics because the police are not always contacted, for example, in the case of less serious knife injuries.

Wolf also states that he has noticed that the perpetrators are becoming increasingly younger. He describes treating 15- and 16-year-olds who, according to him, know exactly where to stab in order to cause as serious injuries as possible. The situation becomes particularly sensitive when an injured person is connected to one of Berlin’s criminal clan environments.

When certain surnames are mentioned, the nurse states, the hospital must immediately contact the police. In such cases, between 15 and 20 police vehicles and large forces may be sent to the site. The hospital area, and sometimes neighboring streets, are cordoned off while police check people, secure evidence, and investigate the circumstances of the shooting or knife attack.

As a result, according to Wolf, the emergency department may close to new patients for several hours. At the same time, large groups of relatives can show up. He describes situations where as many as 20, 30, or 40 people gather outside the hospital and act aggressively. According to the nurse, Telegram groups are also used to quickly mobilize relatives.

No name tag

The threat situation has led the staff to take their own security measures. Wolf states that for several years he has not worn a name tag in the emergency department, since he does not want to be identifiable. He also describes how the staff adjusts their staffing when young men with connections to Arab clan criminality come in.

In such situations, he makes sure, among other things, that there is a male nurse in the team and avoids placing colleagues with Jewish-sounding surnames in some cases.

The risk of a patient dying in the hospital is also described as a particular security concern. Wolf says staff fear what may happen if a clan member dies inside the clinic, as relatives might then direct their anger at health care staff, police, and other emergency personnel.

The hospitals, at the same time, have limited resources for their own security and are therefore largely dependent on the police.

Changing jobs

The problem is not limited to individual hospitals. Berlin’s authorities published in June this year’s situation report on clan criminality in the city. It shows that 685 people were considered to belong to clan criminality at the turn of the year. In 2025, 952 crimes linked to 342 suspected people in this category were registered. The number of recorded crimes increased by twelve percent compared to the previous year, while the number of suspects rose by sixteen percent.

The nurse emphasizes at the same time that he does not want to turn these problems into a general debate about immigration. His criticism is mainly directed at the violent clan criminality and at the fact that healthcare staff, according to him, are forced to adapt to a threat situation they did not create. He is also critical of the expectation that healthcare workers must increasingly handle dangerous situations through de-escalation and self-defense training.

According to Wolf, this development contributes to staff leaving emergency care. He estimates that many nurses stay in emergency care for a maximum of five or six years before moving on to other parts of the health care system. He therefore describes the violence as a problem that not only affects the individual employees’ safety, but also risks weakening hospital staffing in the long run.