During the carnival parade on Shrove Monday in Halle, a pedestrian was seriously injured. After the accident between a theme car and the woman, the move was canceled. This was announced by the President of the Halle-Saalkreis Karneval Verein (HSKV), Ingo Küßner. The woman was taken by rescue workers to a hospital, police said. How it came to the accident and who is the injured, was initially unclear. The closing event on the market square was also canceled, according to police.
In other cities, people are celebrating the highlight of the street carnival on the streets for the first time in three years. In 2021 and 2022, the trains were cancelled due to Corona, but now the highest holiday of the fools took place again as usual. The carnivalists were caustic in criticism of Vladimir Putin. In the Cologne Shrove Monday procession he kissed the devil and turned the world through the meat grinder as a vampire. In Düsseldorf, the Russian president took a bloodbath in a tub in the Ukrainian colors of blue and yellow.
A hesitant Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz was taken on the horns by a goat in the Düsseldorf train and pushed forward - the animal was labeled "Strack-Zimmermann", the name of the energetic chairman of the defense committee. The Mainz Shrove Monday procession also referred several times to the war in Ukraine. Putin blew a cold east wind in the direction of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who tried to protect herself with an umbrella. On another wagon, a sunflower confronted a tank: "F*** you, Putin!"
Until Shrove Monday, the motives were secret
The Düsseldorf sculptor and designer Jacques Tilly, whose cars often attract international attention, kept almost all his designs secret until the exit on Monday morning. One showed Economics Minister Robert Habeck eating toads: Whether nuclear power or armament, he has to swallow one by one.
Another car featured a triumphant, Union Jack flag-waving "Miss Brexit '23", but emaciated to the bone – a reference to Britain's economic losses after leaving the EU. The Catholic Church – a declared favorite topic of Tilly – was also represented again: The abuse scandal in the form of a devil wants to drag the Cologne Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki away with him, but he clings to Cologne Cathedral with all his strength, causing the church building to collapse.
The center of the car "Free Iran" was the head of a young woman, in whose blowing hair a "Mullarsch" is entangled. "What these women take for their freedom, that's madness," Tilly told the German Press Agency on Monday. "I really have the utmost respect for their courage."
The Cologne Shrove Monday procession, which celebrated its 200th anniversary this year, started for the first time in Deutz on the right bank of the Rhine and then crossed the Rhine to the city centre on the left bank of the Rhine. For Johannes B. Kerner, a "little lifelong dream" came true because he was allowed to ride on one of the cars in Cologne for the very first time. The 58-year-old TV presenter was born in Bonn and grew up with carnival. He would not skimp on camels, he promised before the start: "I still know it as a child, so to speak. And I always thought that they threw far too little."