-Analysis-
BERLIN — The hairs on your neck stand up when you read the news: The public prosecutor’s office has dropped the investigation against Till Lindemann, lead singer in the popular German band Rammstein.
Several victims have reported to the media, including Die Welt, that they were deliberately brought to singer Lindemann at Rammstein concerts for sexual acts, often without knowing the real reason for these meetings. The band’s drummer himself later said “things” happened “that I personally don’t think are okay.”
No evidence
As a parent of young girls, even all these weeks after the original wave of attention, one might still want to personally track down not only Lindemann, but also his “casting director” Aleena M., and threaten them with blows.
Fortunately, this is forbidden. And also fortunately, Germany, like most liberal democracies that operate under a Constitution, has a functioning judicial system to deal with such decisions, which may be painful on the personal moral level.
The evaluation of evidence, according to the argument of the Berlin public prosecutor’s office conducting the investigation, did not provide any indications that Lindemann had committed sexual acts against women against their will.
Nor could it be proven that he had “administered substances that influence or disable the will of women or exploited a power imbalance with underage sexual partners” in order to have sex with them.
Mockery and gloating
Some find this unbearable, because they are convinced that something did happen, and also because they believe that, despite recent amendments, Germany’s sexual offense law is unable to catch misconduct like what Lindemann is alleged to have done. They argue that there is a systematic disregard for female accusations against powerful men.
Others have droned on about defamation of character, and made mocking, gloating posts on social networks about the accusers and about feminists and activists, who they asked to “apologize.”
But perhaps the Lindemann case can be seen as an opportunity for a reform process that goes in two seemingly opposite directions: strengthening trust in justice on the one hand, and sharpening society’s view of what constitutes assault on the other.
