Germany’s Carnival season reached its highpoint yesterday, with US President Donald Trump finding himself a major target of the political satire that is a feature of the annual event.
Held this year under top security, the United States leader was portrayed as a bull in a china shop or as attempting to sexually assault New York’s Statue of Liberty in the huge cartoon-style papier-mache figures, which are mounted on floats that are part of the Carnival parades.
In one parade float in Cologne, Donald Trump is presented as the new boy at school, who no-one wants to sit next to, that is except Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Mounted each year in the run up to the start of Lent when Christians are called upon to fast and repent for their sins, so-called Rose Monday (Rosenmontag) is the highlight of the Carnival, which is launched in November and is mainly marked in cities and towns across Germany’s Rhineland.
In addition to Carnival revellers taking to the streets decked out in costumes often based on obscure historic characters, Rose Monday is marked by parties, poking fun at political leaders and lots of drinking.
Normally it is local politicians such as Chancellor Angela Merkel who find themselves lampooned during carnival time.
But this year, with events on the global stage dominating the news.
Carnival organisers turned their attention to international leaders.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the chief of Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice party Jaroslaw Kaczynski and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban found themselves portrayed as fat caterpillars feeding off the green leaf of democracy in one parade.
At the same time, Carnival organisers seized on the surge in support for Germany’s centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) after the party nominated former European Parliament president Martin Schulz to head up its September election campaign to present Merkel as under political pressure.
On one parade float, the chancellor was shown like a beetle lying helplessly on her back with the new SPD leader running up behind.
But overhanging the festivities was the very visible police presence following the recent series of terrorist attacks in Europe, including last July in the southern French city of Nice and in Berlin in December when trucks were driven into large crowds.
The result was a ban on trucks near carnival events in the cities of Cologne, Dusseldorf and Mainz.
As part of the security effort, some police made their way through the Carnival crowds carrying machine guns as others mounted checks on vehicles.
While 1,700 police officers were called in to watch over the parade in Cologne, another 1,000 were deployed in Dusseldorf and Mainz.
“I think that it’s good,” said one reveller, who was dressed as a mouse. “I was not afraid, but somehow you feel safer.”



Related Story