Love Parade was born in 1989 in West Berlin as an initiative of Matthias Roeingh, known as Dr. Motte, and his partners Danielle de Picciotto. The first parade, organized under the slogan “Friede, Freude, Eerkchen” (“Peace, joy, pancakes”), attracted about 150 participants. The festival quickly became a global phenomenon, attracting up to 1.5 million people in the peak years. Trucks with DJs, crowds of dancing people and the ubiquitous techno energy made Love Parade a world brand.
Could the tragedy on Love Parade avoid? Twice as many people came
In 2010, Love Parade took place for the first time in Duisburg, in the former freight station, as part of the Ruhr.2010 campaign, promoting Ruhr's Zagłębie as the European capital of culture. The slogan of the event was “The Art of Love”, or “The Art of Love”. The event area, limited to a maximum of 250,000 people (it is estimated that almost half a million viewers came), it turned out to be insufficient. Ok time. 17, in a narrow tunnel at Karl-Lehr-Straße, there was a disaster.
Tunnel after the rescue operation
This tunnel was the only entrance and exit to the festival, which was a key organizational error. The crowd pressed from two sides: some tried to get to the party, others wanted to leave the crowded square in front of the main stage. The evacuation outputs were blocked, and the police, despite the presence of over 3,000 officers, she was unable to control the situation. As a result, a crush was created that turned into a panic. 21 people aged 18 to 38 were killed and over 650 were injured. Autopsy showed that the cause of death was crushing the chest, leading to suffocation. Contrary to the initial reports, it was not a classic “crowd panic” or “tracking”, but the phenomenon described by researchers as a “turbulence of the crowd” – a chaotic movement of the mass of people in a limited space, preventing escape.
People are running away in a panic from the tunel in Duisburg
Witnesses of those events describe scenes like a nightmare. One of the participants, quoted in the NTV television report, recalled: “People were trampling each other. Some climbed to the fence and embankments, just to escape. It was a mass panic.” Another witness, an anonymous man, said: “The atmosphere was explosive. Many people seemed drunk. When they began to fall down the stairs, pulling others, it just got chaottical. It was hell on earth. I would never forget the view of these bodies lying at the exit of the tunnel. Their faces were sine.”
Terrifying accounts of Love Parade witnesses in Duisburg
Bruce Cullen, an artist from the Trance Elements group, who performed on the platform “The Ship of Fools”, already expressed fears before the event: “We all said that it would not succeed. There was not enough police at the tunnel entrances. I am simply furious because people died. Everyone came to have fun.”
The tragedy took place in this tunnel
The investigation showed numerous organizational errors. The area of the event, limited to the former freight station, was not prepared for such a large number of participants. A narrow tunnel, no open evacuation outputs and insufficient police are just some of the problems. The 2012 report, based on scientific analysis, rejected the theory of “crowd panic” for the “turbulence of the crowd”, indicating that the key factor was the bad organization of space and the lack of appropriate safety procedures.
The lawsuit, which began in 2017, concerned 10 people – employees of Lopavent, the organizer of the event, and officials of the city of Duisburg. Finally, in 2020 it ended without a sentence, which aroused controversy. The judges decided that the accused's fault was minimal and the evidence was not sufficient for conviction. This decision caused indignation among the families of the victims, which still demand justice.
