The man everyone is waiting for appears shortly before 6 p.m. before the investigative committee of the Mainz state parliament. Jürgen Pföhler (CDU), black suit, black patent leather shoes. He was district administrator in the Ahrweiler district when the Ahr flooded villages almost a year ago. As district administrator, he could have declared a disaster and evacuated houses along the river – but he didn’t do so until late that evening. In guilt, insul, Dümpelfeld, houses had already been swept away, and people were sitting on the roofs and praying.
Why so late?
Jürgen Pföhler sits just before the deputies in the Mainz state parliament. He says his age, 64 years, his job, former district administrator. Otherwise he says nothing, just as his wife hadn’t said anything either. The Koblenz public prosecutor’s office is investigating him and another member of the crisis team. The suspicion: negligent homicide by omission. On July 14, 2021, the disaster was only declared at 11:09 p.m., and 134 people died on the Ahr during the night.
There are many questions to be answered, such as why he came to the crisis team in the district administration with Interior Minister Roger Lewentz (SPD) at around 7:20 p.m., but not after that. Where he was instead and what he did to mitigate the effects of the flood.
He doesn’t talk, but others talk instead
And so others have to talk that day, an investigator from the State Criminal Police Office, a chief inspector, neighbors. You draw the picture of a man who was obviously worried about himself – and about the people on his street – during one of Germany’s biggest natural disasters.
First there is an investigator from the Rhineland-Palatinate State Criminal Police Office. She says that Jürgen Pföhler had the most contact with an employee in the district office that evening. Then with a woman from his private circle, whom he saved under the pseudonym “Nring”. At around 10:25 p.m., he texted her: “I hope the house doesn’t collapse.” Shortly after midnight, another: “Disaster, dead, injured, people on roofs, no helicopter, power outages, our house is flooded, I’m finished.” The investigator could not say where Pföhler was that evening because the location data was not recorded.
An investigation is underway against Jürgen Pföhler, the former district administrator of Ahrweiler. Before the committee of inquiry, he was silent on Friday.
(Photo: Thomas Frey/dpa)
Then there is a chief inspector from the State Criminal Police Office, who questioned the then district administrator and people from his environment. The commissioner says that the district administrator should have realized by 8 p.m. that the risk of flooding was “generally very high”. Then he released a press release that said the Ahr had reached a level of 5.09 meters near Altenahr – much more than at the flood in 2016. After 8 p.m. no one saw the district administrator in the crisis team.
The investigator from the State Criminal Police Office reports phone calls and phone attempts between the district administrator and an employee of the crisis management team, and that Pföhler’s wife only said that her husband was at home that evening “and gone from time to time”.
His conclusion?
“I have no finding that the county commissioner took any proactive action that evening to combat the aftermath of the flood.”
If not in the upper reaches, where the river had shot through in the early evening, then maybe in the lower reaches?
“No.”
The next morning at 5:47 a.m., Jürgen Pföhler called the head of the Federal Academy for Civil Protection. He wanted to know what was actually going on.
A neighbor says the district administrator disappointed her
And last but not least, there are neighbors in the Mainz state parliament. A woman says that Jürgen Pföhler visited her between 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. and said that “houses would swim” in guilt. Her house also had to be evacuated. Why was he already warning you, even though the official warning came later? “Maybe because we are neighbors?” A pensioner says that between 10:15 p.m. and 10:45 p.m. – just before she goes to bed – she saw a red Porsche being driven out of the Pföhlers’ garage. She couldn’t tell who was behind the wheel, but she was surprised because the Porsche was “a Sunday car.” But it was Wednesday and it was raining. The pensioner says she was disappointed with Pföhler. His car was saved, the other 30 in the garage were flooded.
And last but not least, there is the neighbor who says she met the Pföhler couple on the street two days after the flood. Mrs. Pföhler cried. Mr. Pföhler said he wanted to get his son’s application documents from his house. “I thought: Doesn’t he have any other problems,” recalls the neighbor.