2023-07-18 00:19:46
Suspicions of sexual assault persecute the German band Rammstein on their European tour, including concerts at their ‘home’ in the Berlin Olympic Stadium, which does not prevent tickets from being sold out or protests at the entrances to their venues being rather symbolic. Revelations about alleged sexual abuse by the band’s leader, Till Lindemann, erupted after the tour started in Lithuania in May.
A young Irish woman claimed to have been a victim of the singer, who at 60 displays the same aggressiveness on stage as when the band was founded in 1994. Several more testimonies followed, mostly anonymous or through social networks, but also the result of journalistic investigations by reference media such as ‘Der Spiegel’ or ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’. These women talk about the use of so-called ‘ko drops’ that leave the victims unable to respond, to whom a recruiter offered a position in line zero, and about attacks that were consummated in an ‘after party’.
Wrapped in this scandal, they performed in Munich, Madrid and other European venues while more news broke about the investigations opened by the German Prosecutor’s Office, although without revealing more details. “We are home again. Thank you, Berlin”, Lindemann bellowed on the stage of the Olympic Stadium in Berlin on Saturday and Sunday, each day with 60,000 tickets sold out. Outside, about 300 people were protesting with banners. The German authorities imposed preventive measures, such as the removal of those zero lines. Two ministers of Chancellor Olaf Scholz – Culture, Claudia Roth, and Family and Women, Lisa Paus, both from the Greens – expressed their astonishment at some cases that point to gender violence in the musical field. And Rammstein hired a team of lawyers to manage the statements of the members of the group and act against false accusations in the media.
Last Sunday, before the band’s last concert in Berlin, new accusations broke out in two media – the regional public television NDR and the newspaper ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’ – of other women implicating not only Lindemann but also another member of the iconic band, Christian ‘Flake’ Lorenz.
Christian ‘Flake’ Lorenz, in a concert in 2019. AFP
Rammstein was blamed in the past for flirting with Nazi aesthetics and displaying machismo, especially through his most celebrated piece, ‘Pussy’, which Lindenmann used to sing over a pressure foam cannon in the direction of his audience. None of this intimidated his followers. On the contrary. So far, on their tumultuous European tour, there has been only one notable police incident: on Sunday two women were arrested who were seen by security teams in a suspicious attitude near the cables that lead to the public address system next to the stage. Proceedings were opened for them and shortly after they were released.
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