136 people die in the flood in summer 2021. The public prosecutor’s office lists failures, but they now have no criminal consequences – a scandal for the survivors.
Many deaths, but no trial: Almost three years ago, 135 people died in the flood in the Ahr Valley, but no one will have to answer for their deaths in court.
The investigations against the then Ahr district administrator Jürgen Pföhler (CDU) and an employee from the crisis team have been discontinued. There was no sufficient suspicion, said the head of the Koblenz public prosecutor’s office, Mario Mannweiler, at a two and a half hour press conference in Koblenz. For many relatives, this is difficult to bear. For them, the consequences of the deadly flood night are present every day.
“Emotionless, objective and sober”
Review: In the flood disaster in the summer of 2021, 136 people died in Rhineland-Palatinate, 135 of them in the Ahr region and one in the Trier area. Thousands of houses were destroyed and roads and bridges were washed away. One person is also still missing. The then district administrator had not been on duty since August 2021 due to illness and was retired in October 2021 at his own request due to incapacity to work.
The flood brought untold suffering to the valley. The public prosecutor also spoke about this. The human fate and losses also affected everyone greatly during the investigation, said Mannweiler. The investigators also find it difficult to free themselves from emotions. “Nevertheless, we must force ourselves to assess the matter and the legal situation in an emotionless, objective and sober manner.”
What was the accusation and how did the investigation go?
The State Criminal Police Office and the public prosecutor’s office have been investigating the matter for more than two and a half years. The accusation against Pföhler and the employee of the district’s crisis team was negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm through omission.
For the period of the flood from July 14th to 15th, 15,500 emergency calls were secured at fire and police control centers, said the head of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Criminal Police Office, Mario Germano. More than 300 witnesses were interviewed. In total, the investigators viewed over 20 terabytes of digital data, of which around 300 gigabytes were relevant to the procedure. There are around 20,000 pages of paper files.
During the hours of the flood there were more than 3,000 fire brigade operations in the Ahr Valley. “To put this into context, this roughly corresponds to the average volume of operations in the Ahrweiler district for an entire year,” said Germano.
How does the public prosecutor justify the decision?
After more than two and a half years, the investigation has now been completed. “The law requires that a conviction is at least probable. And that is not the case here, and then the public prosecutor’s office has to stop the proceedings,” said Mannweiler. “This is not a discretionary decision.”
According to the public prosecutor’s office, there are strict rules for bringing charges. It should have been determined that certain actions would have “almost certainly” saved more people, said Mannweiler. And that was exactly not possible.
Pföhler and the employee were responsible at night. But individual measures would not have led to the rescue of individual people with such a high probability. Mannweiler cited warnings as an example: There is no certainty as to how people will react to warnings. “Even if there are of course probabilities for this. But with probabilities, as I said, no people are convicted criminally in Germany.”
How did those affected react?
The lawyer for the former district administrator Pföhler said that he and his client had expected the decision. “We pointed out from the beginning that criminal liability on the part of Dr. Pföhler was not an option under any circumstances,” said Olaf Langhanki. “The matter is closed for us.”
Not by a long shot for those left behind. The lawyer for some of the survivors, Christian Hecken, said he was considering a complaint against the termination of the investigation. “We are actually forced to do this, also in order to get a clear picture of the file situation,” he said. “In principle, I can’t say that much.”
The investigations were conducted one-sidedly. The Minister of Justice Herbert Mertin (FDP) is completely shirking responsibility, said Hecken. “Then you can simply come to the conclusion that this Minister of Justice is no longer acceptable.” Ralph Orth lost his daughter in the flood disaster. He now spoke of a judicial scandal.
Political dimension of the Ahr flood
The Ahr flood has not only concerned many people legally in recent months. There were also consequences in politics. Two ministers resigned in the wake of the investigation: the former Environment Minister Anne Spiegel (Greens), who was already Federal Minister for Family Affairs, and the long-time Interior Minister and SPD state leader Roger Lewentz (SPD). A committee of inquiry in the state parliament looked into the disaster.
What’s next?
The political debate is likely to continue. And the case is not yet completely over in the judiciary: According to the public prosecutor’s office, a complaint, as Hecken has already announced, is possible. The Koblenz Public Prosecutor’s Office will then decide on this. If the latter rejects the complaint, an application for a decision can be submitted to the Koblenz Higher Regional Court. The deaths of the 135 people in the Ahr Valley could end up in court at some point.