Christian (25) from Germany, Clara (22) from Spain and Giulia (21) from Italy, three of the more than 200,000 people, the on 24 are. July 2010 at the Techno Party Loveparade in Duisburg want to celebrate. Christian, Clara, Giulia – a total of 13 women and eight men from Australia, China, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain, die by the deadly traffic jam of the visitors on the way to the festival grounds, the first fenced in a love parade. Survivors have Shoe prints on T-Shirts and in the face. 652 people are injured, many are traumatized.
Who is to blame, who bears the responsibility for this catastrophe in Germany, where all the trust that you are safe? This question torments the Survivors and survivors from the beginning. The then Minister President of the Federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Hannelore Kraft, said in 2010, at the funeral, the will, everything cleared up completely.
enlightenment in the process?
But there is no Committee of inquiry. The process for the love parade, begins only in December 2017, against ten defendants, the city of Duisburg and the organizer Lopavent. In may 2020, it is terminated without a final verdict. The court refers to many of the causes of the accident and a rather low guilt of the accused. It is now clarified everything, such as power promised? “I’m not right,” said the SPD-politician, almost ten years after the love parade in the NRW state Parliament. In the process, but have contributed much to the enlightenment.
Director Dominik Wessely writer Antje Boehmert pursue this process, one of the largest in German criminal proceedings with more than 60 in addition to plaintiffs – for reasons of space in an exhibition hall relocated to Düsseldorf – from the first to the last day of the trial.
For her documentary “the love parade. The procedures to” join the parents of the dead and Survivors. You ask the judges, prosecutors and the expert, an accused, defenders and a police officer. So about 184 days of Negotiation a view from many perspectives on the disaster and the legal investigation in the German state of law.
Agonizing years for parents and the accused
“mass panic at the Loveparade in Duisburg”, “office of the public Prosecutor, the casual killing determined due to driving” – a Tunnel of the German-Spanish co-production begins. Short Videos of crowds of people, paramedics, the scene of the incident – show a picture of the devastation. Christian, Clara, Giulia, and the others were crushed and jammed people suffocated in the lot between the Tunnel walls, a staircase.
“It’s not about revenge,” says Gabriele Müller, Christian’s mother, on the first Day of the trial that it wants enlightenment, wants to find peace. Francisco Zapater and Nuria Caminal, the parents of Clara, to put the photo of your daughter. They come from the Spanish town of Tarragona to the process.
Clara’s father reported to the journalists in Dusseldorf how to obtain 2010, the news of your death, your daughter will need to identify you in the coffin back at home: “That was very hard.” A few months later, Zapater, himself a lawyer, says, a long process had been “a real ordeal, not only for the victims, but also for the accused”.
Clara’s parents would have seen how many others like Adolf Sauerland, 2010, the mayor of Duisburg, Lopavent-boss Rainer Schaller on the dock. Both wanted the love parade, and meadows, after the accident of responsibility. As witnesses do not emphasize that they were with the actual planning involved.
In the Film, Edith Jakubassa describes a visit to the Sauerland region, not long after the death of their daughter, Marina (21). He was Not like that as a “misery” in the arms: “to me, to him what happened.”
pictures of disaster: a defendant is crying
“Good Morning, please take a seat”, with the greeting of the presiding judge Mario Plein all recordings in the process room must end, as it is regulated in Germany. The filmmakers let the key passages on the basis of a legal Protocol to repeat, in addition, the observer reports. So an intense chronicle of the process of exploring the causes of the love parade disaster, in order to clarify the guilt of the accused arises.
Gabriele Müller, whose son Christian died in the crush, says the DW before the trial, in the court-room safe Videos were shown of the disaster, for the accused “perhaps it would be good if you see it on the big screen”. In January 2018, the shrill cries of the love parade-visitors in danger to life due to the large trade fair hall: “help, I can’t!” Faces of desperate people twitching on the big screens. After that, it is completely silent, only the air conditioning humming.
“You’re in the vicinity of dead young people,” in the process he became aware of a sudden, says Jürgen Dressler, the documentary filmmakers. In 2010, he directs the Baudezernat of the city of Duisburg, which has granted permission for the love parade on the site of the old goods station. He and five of his employees to sit until the beginning of 2019 at the dock. In the process he had perceived the accident really, says Dressler: “As I sat there and I cried.” It had been pictures, “which were not to be”.
“How very sorry I am” – as a human being, as a police officer
On the day of the love parade, the police streams a major role in the control of the visit. When it is full, it forms chains of three Police. Policeman Torsten Meyer testified as a witness. He describes how radio and telephone connections fail, again and again, how he coordinates with the event organizer how difficult it is to survey the streams of People on the site and back and to control. He sees the Close to the staircase from above, it looks “dangerous, but not fatal,” he says in the Film.
As a colleague reports, “here Dead lie”, he meant: “You must be mistaken.” Later the feeling that he had watched people die, but followed him: “I couldn’t see it.” His statement in the process is important to him, because he wanted to say to Victims and survivors, “how infinitely sorry I am”, as a human being – “I, myself, father of a family” and as a police officer, wants to, “that’s all am sure of”.
The Film complements his narrative with the statements of the expert Jürgen Gerlach: simulations show that it would have been without police chains of the life-threatening traffic jam. The cordoned-off area with the close guidance was not suitable for the love parade, says Gerlach, but the misfortune could have on the day of the event still be prevented.
Prosecutor: “Organized irresponsibility”
the setting of The Loveparade-the process, the court explained in a 44-page decision. Judge Mario Plein says, the “big villain” you have not found. Senior Prosecutor Uwe Mühlhoff explains that it’s always a matter of individual criminal liability.
An example: Wolfgang Rabe, the head of the clerk’s office and coordinator of the love parade, was not indicted. As a witness, he admits that he put pressure. Mühlhoff commented: “From my point of view, Mr Raven certainly has a moral responsibility for the accident, but criminally I don’t see it until today.” The staff of the building authority had a documented concern, but the approval of the organiser is granted.
a Total of speaks Mühlhoff at the Loveparade in Duisburg, Germany, of the “organised irresponsibility”, many were involved: “in the end remained even unclear who is responsible for what. This has led to the disaster.”
The Film about the process shows how complex the question of responsibility is and how the German law works. “There are no easy answers,” says Director Dominik Wessely of the DW, for many, the end of the procedure, must remain “emotionally unsatisfying”.
the NRW state Parliament: New rules, asking for forgiveness
Shortly before 10. The anniversary of the Loveparade topic in the NRW state Parliament is. Cross-party members decide: The relief Fund for the victims will be increased to five million euros. A Commission is revising the rules for large events and to analyse how such complex events better in the future can be processed. Co-plaintiff-representative Julius horsemen of the DW says: “We see in these decisions is also a necessary reaction to the disappointing conclusion of the criminal proceedings.”
“Lack of guilt in the legal sense does not mean that there is no responsibility”, – emphasized Ex-the Minister-President Hannelore Kraft. She calls the names of all 21 victims and quoted Nadia Zanacchi, mother of Giulia, the experienced, after the misfortune of all each other’s responsibility put. Sends power from the state legislature a Signal to survivors and the Survivors: “We ask you for forgiveness.”
author: Andrea Grunau
*The contribution of “Loveparade 2010: questions of guilt and responsibility,” published by Deutsche Welle. Contact with the executives here.
Deutsche Welle
