exclusive
The Bundeswehr’s district liaison command had known for years how poorly the crisis team was positioned in the Ahr Valley. Because the Bundeswehr is only allowed to advise on request, the then head’s hands were tied.
135 people lost their lives in the flood disaster in the Ahr Valley in July 2021. An investigative committee has been dealing with the question of responsibility for years, and the Koblenz public prosecutor’s office is still investigating the former district administrator. At the political level, the question arises: Was the Ahrweiler district not well prepared because the district administrator never took part in exercises and did not set up an administrative staff?
As head of the Bundeswehr’s district liaison command, it was the reservist Harald Trinkaus’s job for years to advise the district administrator of the Ahrweiler district in crisis situations. The district liaison command acts as an interface between the military and civilian institutions such as the district administration. For example, Trinkaus coordinated the Bundeswehr’s operations in the Ahrweiler district during the flood disaster and the corona pandemic.
In 2016, during the so-called flood of the century in the Ahr Valley, Trinkaus noticed that the district administration lacked an established administrative staff – also known as a crisis team in other federal states. In the management of the flood situation, it became clear to him that “a lot could certainly be optimized” for future crisis scenarios, the former Bundeswehr soldier, who is now retired, remembers in an interview with SWR.
District administrator did not accept Disaster response exercises part
He repeatedly discussed the topic privately and asked himself “whether something should be said about it.” But he says he was “rejected” by his “military superiors.” It was said: “Absolutely not.” The Bundeswehr is not there to criticize or improve organizational structures in district administrations.
As a reservist in the Bundeswehr and head of the district liaison command, it was his job to “naturally support and advise the district administration and those with overall political responsibility in any way possible” in the event of a crisis, but only as requested. Furthermore, the Bundeswehr is not allowed to exert any influence.
But the topic didn’t leave the former Bundeswehr soldier in peace. Also because the Federal Academy for Civil Protection and Civil Defense (BABZ), where district administrators and administrative staff from all over Germany receive training in disaster control, is based in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, three kilometers away from the district administration.
In front of cameras, the then district administrator Jürgen Pföhler praised the academy highly: “You can’t practice it often enough so that in an emergency you get everything right,” he said in one in 2013, for example SWR-Contribution on the occasion of the academy’s 60th birthday. “We always want to make sure that we have the whole team on the same level.”
He obviously didn’t see this need for himself. In the Rhineland-Palatinate investigative committee into the flood disaster, it became known that the district administrator had never taken part in any training there.
Event revealed deficits
The long-time head of the Bundeswehr’s district liaison command wanted to change that. In 2019, behind the back of the district administrator and contrary to the instructions of his military superiors, he organized an event at the Federal Academy, in which at least one member of the technical operations management and at least one person in charge of the Ahrweiler district administration are said to have taken part.
His goal: A joint disaster control exercise between the district administrator and administrative staff. In doing so, he “far exceeded his competence,” said Trinkaus. He speaks of a “private initiative to perhaps move this matter forward.”
SWRReporters were able to view parts of the files from the Koblenz public prosecutor’s office, which is currently investigating the former district administrator on “suspicion of negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm in office through omission”. In it, a BABZ witness also reports on this event initiated by Trinkaus. It was confirmed here, it is said in the files, that the Ahrweiler district was not well positioned in terms of disaster control in terms of premises and training and that there was no administrative staff.
Interior Minister: Legal obligation to exercise
The academy made concrete seminar offers to the district administrator. They were not accepted. On SWRJürgen Pföhler’s lawyer responded to questions about all of these allegations with a letter that did not address any of the questions asked. The lawyer said that the “extensive, albeit one-sided and therefore not objective, investigations to the detriment of my client” had “not revealed any facts that would be suitable to justify the accusation of criminal liability through alleged omissions.”
To date, there are no mandatory exercises for district administrators and their crisis teams in the Rhineland-Palatinate Fire and Disaster Protection Act. Interior Minister Michael Ebling (SPD) announced in an interview with SWR now an amendment to the law and the issuance of a disaster protection ordinance “during this legislative period”. The next state parliament will be elected in Rhineland-Palatinate in 2026.
The amendment to the law and the issuance of a disaster protection ordinance take into account the findings from the flood disaster in July 2021, the report of the study commission and the demands of experts in the field of disaster control, said the Interior Minister: “But that too regularly It has to be practiced, it has to become a duty.”
Legal Commitments for Bundeswehr officer overdue
After the flood disaster in 2021, the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament set up a study commission that, among other things, should deal with the question of how disaster protection in Rhineland-Palatinate should be better positioned following the experiences in the Ahr Valley. At the end of last year, the commission presented its final report to the state parliament. It states that in order to “optimize cross-level disaster and civil protection” “uniform and binding guidelines are necessary across the country”.
The commission recommends that an amendment to the Disaster Protection Act be examined and that concrete information be provided for “optimizations and clarifications that need to be made in the short term” for implementation by the municipal authorities “within the framework of a disaster protection regulation or a state disaster protection concept”. What should be highlighted here are, among other things, “information for mandatory and regular exercises” as well as “the establishment and provision of similarly structured units such as shift-capable crisis teams (technical operations management and administrative staff)”.
For the then head of the district liaison command, the now announced revision of the law is long overdue. In his view, much more must be stipulated by law than is currently the case. “If I don’t give any instructions, then a district administrator or mayor doesn’t necessarily have to do anything voluntarily.” But the former professional soldier himself experienced what this can lead to during the flood disaster in the rooms of the technical operations management.
Disaster prevention “stepmotherly” treated
Jörg Beckmann also emphasizes the importance of disaster control exercises. Beckmann conducted exercises for administrative staff and technical operations management for 19 years for the State Fire Brigade and Disaster Control School, now the Rhineland-Palatinate Fire Brigade and Disaster Control Academy.
His experience: “Disaster protection in Rhineland-Palatinate has actually always been neglected. If I now compare it with other countries, people there have always been prepared to spend a lot of money.” When it comes to the topic of administrative staff, in his experience in Rhineland-Palatinate, for a long time “it wasn’t that common to think about it.”
Since 2019, Beckmann has headed the disaster control department in the responsible state office in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. There is not only an obligation to exercise in the law. He also has money available from the state office to support the districts with costs.