Love Parade Trial 2018 Archive · January–May

Sharp criticism of former Lord Mayor Adolf Sauerland

Following Adolf Sauerland's appearance before the court, prosecutors, defence lawyers and representatives of the co-plaintiffs publicly criticised the way in which the former Lord Mayor had described his role in the planning and approval of the Love Parade.

Particular attention was directed towards his assertion that he had not been actively involved in the technical approval process and had relied upon the responsible municipal departments and senior officials to resolve outstanding concerns.

Senior prosecutor Uwe Mühlhoff was reported as questioning Sauerland's understanding of responsibility. Other legal representatives challenged the extent to which the head of the city administration could distance himself from the process surrounding such a major event.

The exchanges illustrated one of the recurring themes of the proceedings: criminal liability depended upon specific duties, actions and causation, while political, administrative and organisational responsibility could be understood much more broadly.

Debate continues over Sauerland's understanding of responsibility

The reaction to Sauerland's evidence continued beyond the days on which he had appeared before the court. Reporting focused on his description of a municipal structure in which technical responsibility rested with individual departments rather than with the Lord Mayor personally.

Sauerland acknowledged knowing that concerns had existed during preparation for the event. In particular, former Duisburg police president Rolf Cebin had publicly questioned whether the Love Parade could be safely accommodated in the city.

Sauerland's position was that such concerns had been passed into the administration for professional examination. When he was later informed that approval had been granted, he understood that to mean the relevant concerns had been resolved.

Critics argued that the evidence raised a wider governance question: whether a senior public authority leader should have exercised greater oversight when a major event remained subject to substantial planning and safety concerns.

The worst day of your life

Rainer Schaller, owner of Lopavent and the public face of the Love Parade organisation, appeared as one of the most prominent witnesses of the proceedings.

Before detailed questioning began, Schaller addressed relatives and people affected by the disaster. He accepted what he described as moral responsibility because the deaths and injuries had occurred at an event organised by his company.

He distinguished that moral position from responsibility for specific planning and operational decisions. According to his evidence, detailed organisational work had been delegated to senior employees within Lopavent.

The court examined the company's organisational structure and questioned the extent to which senior management remained involved in budgets, personnel, safety planning and liaison with the City of Duisburg.

This became important because formal organisational charts could be compared against evidence about the way authority and decision-making actually operated in practice.

Schaller: "I was only the face of the Love Parade"

Schaller described his own role as being heavily focused on the public and commercial presentation of the Love Parade. He said responsibility for detailed preparation had been delegated to experienced personnel.

The hearing considered the difference between being the owner and public representative of an event company and personally undertaking the technical work required to prepare the event.

Questions were also directed towards expenditure and staffing. Co-plaintiffs and legal representatives sought to establish whether financial pressures had influenced the level of resources available for crowd management and other operational arrangements.

Schaller stated that he had not imposed savings that compromised safety and maintained that specialist employees were expected to determine what resources were required.

"I simply know nothing about that"

Former Duisburg Lord Mayor Adolf Sauerland was questioned for several hours about what he knew of the planning and approval process for the Love Parade.

Sauerland repeatedly stated that he had not been actively involved in technical approval. He regarded the assessment of safety, building regulations and event permission as the responsibility of the appropriate specialist departments.

Judge Mario Plein examined how far Sauerland had been informed about concerns inside the city administration and whether the political objective of hosting the Love Parade had affected the handling of those concerns.

An internal note was discussed which had encouraged municipal personnel to contribute towards making the major event a success. Sauerland said he had no specific knowledge of the document.

He also referred to departmental head Wolfgang Rabe as one of his principal sources of information regarding the progress of the project.

Nothing seen. Nothing heard. Nothing known.

WELT's reporting concentrated on the extent to which Sauerland appeared to distance himself from detailed preparations for the event.

He acknowledged that the proposal to bring the Love Parade to Duisburg had political support and that he had promoted the city's involvement, but maintained that once the project moved into technical preparation it became a matter for professional departments.

The court explored what Sauerland knew about earlier warnings from police and the reservations held by some officials. Sauerland said that those concerns had been referred to the appropriate departments for examination.

He later received confirmation that approval had been issued and interpreted this as evidence that the outstanding technical concerns had been satisfactorily addressed.

Former Lord Mayor appears as witness

Deutschlandfunk reviewed the significance of Sauerland's appearance and the extent to which he had become associated publicly with the disaster.

Immediately following the incident, early information suggested that victims might have died after climbing barriers. That understanding was subsequently shown to be incorrect: the fatalities resulted from severe crowd compression.

Sauerland's early public comments and his response in the period after the disaster became a source of substantial criticism. He was subsequently removed from office through a citizen referendum in 2012.

Criminal investigators, however, had not concluded that he had been personally involved in the specific technical decisions upon which the prosecution was based. His role in the trial was therefore that of a witness rather than a defendant.

Preparing for Adolf Sauerland's evidence

Ahead of Sauerland's appearance, attention centred on what he might be able to explain about political involvement, administrative oversight and the concerns raised during planning.

Although he had not been charged, survivors and relatives continued to associate him strongly with the disaster because he had been the city's most senior political figure.

The court was expected to examine whether warnings reached him, whether political pressure was applied to departments and what senior city leaders understood about the unresolved problems surrounding the event.

The extraordinary scale and cost of the proceedings

Contemporary reporting examined the considerable financial and administrative requirements of the Love Parade trial. Around 150 participants were involved and more than 30 defence lawyers represented the ten defendants.

The rooms normally available to the Duisburg Regional Court were insufficient for a case involving the defendants, defence teams, prosecutors, judges, co-plaintiffs, their legal representatives, media and members of the public.

A hall within the Düsseldorf Congress Centre was therefore converted into a courtroom. Contemporary reports placed the rental cost at approximately €14,000 for each hearing day.

Additional judicial and administrative personnel were also required. Dedicated positions were created to support the exceptionally large proceedings, adding considerably to the overall cost.

Public attendance did not remain as high as initially expected, although particular witnesses such as Sauerland and Schaller generated renewed media and public interest.

Adolf Sauerland due to appear before the court

Media interest increased ahead of the expected appearance of former Lord Mayor Adolf Sauerland.

Court spokesman Matthias Breidenstein stated that Sauerland was expected to be questioned comprehensively about his perception of the planning process and his role as Lord Mayor at the time.

Victims' representative Julius Reiter described Sauerland as a symbolic figure in relation to the failure of the municipal administration and expressed interest in whether his evidence would reveal political pressure to ensure that the event took place.

It was also confirmed that organiser Rainer Schaller was expected to appear as a witness in May.

Sauerland appearance rescheduled

Sauerland had initially been expected to appear in late April. The hearing was postponed following a bereavement affecting a member of the court and was rearranged for early May.

The delay did not alter the anticipated scope of the evidence. The court still intended to question him about the planning of the Love Parade, information supplied to him by senior officials and his role within the city administration.

Forensic specialist: fatalities resulted from asphyxia

Forensic specialist Lars Althaus described the findings from post-mortem examinations carried out following the disaster.

His evidence explained that severe compression of the chest prevented normal breathing. The mechanism was therefore consistent with traumatic or compression asphyxia rather than victims simply being trampled.

The medical evidence was important because it helped the court understand the physical consequences of very high crowd pressure and the mechanism through which apparently upright or partially supported people could lose consciousness.

Althaus explained that consciousness could be lost rapidly once effective breathing was prevented. Death could follow within minutes if the compression was not released.

Was the Love Parade disaster preventable?

Professor Wolfgang Seibel discussed research examining the administrative and organisational processes that preceded the event.

His work considered whether warning signs had been recognised but inadequately acted upon, whether political objectives affected technical decision-making and whether the structure of the municipal administration allowed safety concerns to be overridden or diluted.

Seibel argued that the disaster had been preventable and that the administrative process surrounding the event provided important lessons about institutional responsibility.

For crowd-safety practitioners, the analysis extends beyond the physical mechanism of the incident. It illustrates how governance, organisational culture and pressure from senior stakeholders can influence the management of safety-critical decisions.

Separate legal case connected with access to the Love Parade trial

The original archive recorded a separate legal development involving allegations that a lawyer had attempted to obtain access to the Love Parade proceedings as a representative using inaccurate information concerning a client's health or status.

The allegation included claims relating to the use of documentation and representation rights within the proceedings.

This material did not concern the causes of the Love Parade disaster itself. It was retained because it related directly to participation in the criminal proceedings and attracted contemporary reporting.

The continuing struggle over guilt and responsibility

By late March the taking of evidence had progressed more quickly than some observers had initially expected. Much of the first survivor evidence had been heard and the court had begun dealing with documentary and forensic material.

A central legal difficulty remained the distinction between systemic failure and proof of individual criminal responsibility. Evidence could demonstrate that the event had been planned and operated unsafely without automatically establishing the criminal liability of a particular defendant.

Defence teams continued to argue that decisions made by agencies and people who were not defendants — particularly aspects of police activity on the day — also required detailed examination.

The trial was also being conducted against the background of the limitation period. The court therefore faced the challenge of examining an exceptionally complex event within a finite legal timetable.

Adolf Sauerland confirmed as a witness

The court confirmed that Adolf Sauerland would be questioned later in the proceedings.

His appearance was significant because of his position as Lord Mayor at the time of the event and because public debate had frequently associated him with political responsibility for the disaster.

Sauerland was not one of the defendants. The criminal investigation had not concluded that he was directly involved in the technical planning decisions at the centre of the indictment.

Nevertheless, his evidence was expected to address the information he received, concerns expressed within the city and the relationship between political leadership and professional departments.

Forensic evidence and key planning documents

The court continued hearing evidence from forensic specialists concerning the people who died during the disaster.

The evidence described the consequences of severe external pressure on the chest and the mechanism through which the victims became unable to breathe effectively.

Attention then moved towards the documentary record. Important material included the organiser's security concept, police operational plans and other documents that had been circulated among agencies before the event.

These records allowed the court to compare the intended operational system against witness accounts of what actually happened on 24 July 2010.

They were also important in establishing what hazards had been identified in advance, what assumptions underpinned the plans and which organisations were expected to control particular parts of the crowd journey.

Medical evidence followed by surveillance footage

Forensic specialists presented detailed evidence concerning the injuries and causes of death of individual victims.

The court sought to minimise unnecessary exposure to distressing imagery and relied extensively upon oral explanations of the post-mortem findings.

Planning documents were also formally introduced into evidence. These included material produced by Lopavent and records associated with municipal preparation and approval.

Surveillance footage from a camera overlooking the ramp was then shown. Earlier recordings depicted comparatively normal movement, with visitors able to walk through the area.

The footage was important because later recordings could be compared against those normal conditions, demonstrating how movement progressively deteriorated as opposing flows, accumulation and crowd pressure developed.

Financial and psychological support for those affected

The North Rhine-Westphalia state government made additional funding available to support victims and relatives during the trial.

Funding was provided for psychological and pastoral support, recognising that participation in lengthy proceedings could require survivors and bereaved families to repeatedly revisit traumatic events.

Additional support was also discussed in relation to travel and accommodation for co-plaintiffs required to attend hearings in Düsseldorf.

The measures recognised that the consequences of the disaster continued long after physical injuries had healed and that the trial itself could place additional pressure on those directly affected.

Day 17: a family history

Two twin brothers appeared separately as witnesses and co-plaintiffs. Their father, a lawyer, accompanied them in court.

The brothers described the progressive deterioration in crowd conditions and the point at which they began to fear that they might not survive.

Because both had experienced the same event from related positions, their evidence allowed the court to compare individual recollections of the same developing circumstances.

Their accounts were useful in illustrating the sequence through which ordinary congestion became dangerous: movement slowed, physical contact increased, individuals lost the ability to choose their own direction, and eventually some could no longer maintain balance or breathe normally.

Such testimony also highlighted an important limitation of retrospective analysis. People within a high-density crowd may perceive only a very small part of the overall system and may not understand the causes of the movement affecting them.

Interpreter struggles with tears during survivor's evidence

A Dutch survivor described travelling to Duisburg with his friend Jan-Willem. The day had initially begun as an ordinary festival trip, with good weather and a celebratory atmosphere.

The witness described increasing congestion as the pair approached the site. After eventually reaching the tunnel and turning onto the ramp, movement became progressively restricted.

He described being moved sideways by forces within the crowd, losing contact with the ground and being gradually forced backwards and downwards.

His friend Jan-Willem was lying nearby. The witness attempted to locate a pulse but was unable to detect one and believed his friend had died.

He described police officers positioned above parts of the ramp and recalled feeling that insufficient assistance was reaching those trapped below.

Eventually he was pulled from the accumulation of bodies. His testimony also addressed the substantial long-term psychological consequences of the experience, including depression and recurring memories.

The evidence was sufficiently distressing that the interpreter translating his testimony reportedly had to pause while struggling with emotion.

Witnesses from outside Germany give evidence

WDR also reported the Dutch witness's description of the extreme density within the crowd. People were positioned face-to-face and had very limited ability to move.

After being knocked down he became trapped beneath other people. His friend was nearby but appeared unresponsive.

An Australian witness was also expected to give evidence in relation to the death of a friend, although translation issues affected the hearing.

The international evidence reflected the multinational character of the Love Parade audience. Among the 21 people who died were visitors from several countries.

Witness describes the loss of his friend Eike Mogendorf

A young man from Osnabrück described attending the event with a group of friends, including Eike Mogendorf.

He recalled the crowd becoming increasingly dense as the group moved towards the event. Movement slowed until the friends were effectively unable to choose their own direction.

The witness described seeing a young woman near them becoming distressed. Members of the group attempted to support her but eventually lost contact as the pressure continued to increase.

He then described the crowd beginning to sway. People who lost their footing became difficult or impossible to recover because others were being forced above them.

The witness himself eventually fell. He described people lying beneath him and further layers of people accumulating above. Breathing became increasingly difficult and he believed that he might die.

Friends attempted to help one another breathe. The witness was eventually removed from the crowd by police officers.

He later learned that Eike had died. His testimony contributed to the court's understanding of how progressive crowd collapse could develop and how quickly individuals could lose the ability to assist people immediately beside them.

"I had the impression that the woman was dying"

A 34-year-old witness described being almost completely immobilised close to the stairway. One arm was trapped at his side while the other remained raised above his head.

A woman nearby began hyperventilating and appeared increasingly distressed. The witness described her eyes becoming unresponsive before she began to disappear lower into the surrounding crowd.

He and another person attempted to pull her upwards but were unable to overcome the forces acting upon them. He did not know whether she survived.

The witness said that this was the point at which he recognised that his own life was also in danger. Despite this, he attempted to remain calm rather than forcefully pushing through the people around him.

At another point a movement passed through the crowd, causing people to lean while their feet remained constrained. A friend lost consciousness and had to be encouraged to remain responsive.

The court also explored the reliability of memory after a traumatic event. The witness's recollection of whether he had sought medical treatment differed from documentary records indicating that he had attended a doctor shortly afterwards.

People were using force to save their lives

A second witness gave a markedly different account of his own reaction to the developing conditions.

He described wave-like movements within the crowd and said the stairway appeared to act as a powerful visual attraction because it looked like a possible means of escape.

He acknowledged using substantial physical force to move towards it, explaining that people around him believed they were fighting for their lives.

A person higher on the stairs attempted to pull him upwards but was unable to maintain their grip. The witness fell back before eventually being directed away from the most compressed area.

The testimony is relevant to crowd-safety analysis because behaviour that might superficially appear aggressive or disorderly can occur when individuals perceive an immediate threat to survival and see only one apparent route of escape.

The witness also described substantial long-term psychological effects and difficulties returning to ordinary employment and daily life.

As the images run, the courtroom becomes quiet

The taking of evidence entered a new phase when survivor Rosalinda B. became one of the first people directly affected by the disaster to testify.

She had travelled to the Love Parade with her sister. After her sister injured her hand, they attempted to find medical assistance and became caught within the increasingly congested access area.

Rosalinda described severe pressure from both directions, difficulty breathing and an inability to control her own movement. The sisters became separated.

A young man attempted to keep her head and hair above the people around her. As she tried to reach the stairway she fell and became trapped beneath others.

A young woman close to her was also calling for assistance, but Rosalinda was physically unable to help because she could not free herself.

Her next clear memory was waking in hospital. Although she did not suffer permanent major physical injury, she described continuing psychological consequences and reactions to situations that reminded her of the crowd.

The court subsequently viewed video recordings documenting the conditions on the ramp. The visual material had a strong effect upon those present and provided an important contemporaneous record of the developing situation.

"Like sardines in a tin"

WDR's report focused particularly upon Rosalinda's description of the physical environment.

She described the site as resembling a maze of barriers and police lines. Near the stairway she became trapped in severe congestion.

Because of her height, her view was largely restricted to the upper bodies and backpacks of the people around her.

She described air being forced from her chest as pressure increased. After falling she was unable to free herself because people were above and around her.

A second witness described attempts by people to escape via the stairway and his efforts to resuscitate casualties after the pressure reduced.

WDR also reported that financial assistance would be made available for victims and relatives during the proceedings, including psychological and pastoral support.

Survivors describe painful memories of the disaster

Deutsche Welle reported the testimony of Rosalinda and Manfred B., who had recorded extensive video footage during the Love Parade.

Manfred had initially been filming the festival as an ordinary visitor. As the situation worsened he continued recording, recognising that the images might later become evidence of what was happening.

The recordings documented frightened visitors attempting to escape from the confined area around the ramp, tunnel and stairway.

Manfred also described attempts to assist casualties after the crowd pressure reduced, including efforts to resuscitate people who had become unresponsive.

His evidence illustrated the continuing emotional consequences of the disaster. Although he had returned to employment and ordinary activities, detailed questioning about the event still generated a strong emotional response.

The court regarded contemporaneous video evidence as particularly valuable because it was not dependent upon memories reconstructed more than seven years after the event.

"Hold my hand — don't let go"

WELT also reported Rosalinda's evidence and the point at which she became separated from her sister.

Her account showed how quickly conditions changed. The sisters initially entered the area while looking for medical assistance, but soon found themselves unable to move freely.

Rosalinda described pressure becoming so intense that breathing became difficult and she could no longer determine her own direction of travel.

The evidence provided the court with direct testimony about the physical experience of high crowd density: loss of personal space, restriction of limb movement, chest compression, separation from companions and eventual loss of consciousness.