carnival
Rose Monday parades in Cologne, Düsseldorf and Mainz
The “Meenzer Schwellköpp” are on the road in the Mainz Rose Monday procession. photo
© Arne Dedert/dpa
Hard times, tough satire: This applies particularly to Düsseldorf on Rose Monday, where car manufacturer Jacques Tilly criticizes Putin and Trump in a caustic manner, but also does not spare Olaf Scholz.
Russian President Vladimir Putin gets oral pleasure from church patriarch Kirill, Donald Trump cuts a swastika into the US flag and Chancellor Scholz is a “hollow” without a brain – the Rose Monday processions are on the move and hold up a mirror to world politics. Particularly Düsseldorf stands out with caustic criticism.
In the carnival strongholds of Cologne, Düsseldorf and Mainz, the train routes were lined with thousands of costumed revelers. Unlike on Weiberfastnacht, this time the fools were spared from rain; in Cologne the sun even broke through. The first Jecken had already gathered there in the dark several hours before the “Zochs” began in the city center in order to secure good places.
Scholz as a sloth and castaway
The Cologne satirical floats showed, among others, Olaf Scholz as a sloth in a hammock and Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock as an elephant in a china shop. On another car, a jester figure stretches out his bare buttocks towards some arms stretched out in a Hitler salute – one arm has the AfD logo emblazoned on it. “This car actually says it all: They can kiss our asses,” said BAP singer Wolfgang Niedecken on WDR television.
North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU), who walked on the Cologne train, said that Carnival is about living diversity. Incidentally, it is beneficial to have “a little fun” every now and then.
In Mainz, Chancellor Scholz was seen as a castaway with an eye patch. Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) was portrayed as Flying Robert, reminiscent of the character of the same name from “Struwwelpeter”, because he lost his grip on the ground with his heating law. CDU leader Friedrich Merz is resisting the AfD dragging him over a firewall into the brown swamp.
But it was once again the Düsseldorf car builder Jacques Tilly who delivered the toughest and most impressive cars. Tilly told the German Press Agency that with his blowjob motif he wanted to denounce the Russian Orthodox Church’s shared responsibility for the war of aggression against Ukraine. “The collaboration between Start and the church is of course disastrous. Kirill is, so to speak, creating the ideological background for the war. That’s why my contempt applies not only to Putin, but to Kirill equally.”
AfD, Trump and the Middle East conflict
When it came to the AfD, he decided on a clown who takes off the AfD’s friendly mask – revealing a skull behind it. At least since the Correctiv revelations about the Potsdam right-wing meeting, it has been clear whose brainchild the AfD is, said Tilly. This is now also driving people onto the streets – which is what a second car expresses on the subject: a small, poisonous fish with the speech bubble “We are the people!” eaten by a much larger one. Its inscription: “We are more!”
Commenting on his depiction of Trump with a swastika motif, Tilly said: “If this man gets the trigger again, he will unleash a revenge agenda across the country and probably damage American democracy beyond recognition. That is totalitarian, and that’s why “This comparison isn’t too wrong, I think. In the end, it’s a warning.” A second car addresses the Republicans’ torpedoing of American aid to Ukraine – here Trump stabs a Ukrainian soldier in the back with a spear.
Tilly also ventured into the Middle East conflict: here, a Hamas terrorist pushes a Palestinian family in front of an Israeli tank. “Both sides are not doing well with this car.” Regarding Scholz as a brainless “Hohlaf”, Tilly explained: “This is our comment on his chancellorship: At the beginning we all thought: a smart man with strategies and overview. But now we know: He’s just a small official who has to deal with that Job is overwhelmed. He just doesn’t do anything.”