The decisive factor was reporting on an alleged sexual assault from 1996.
The Berlin law firm Schertz Bergmann has obtained another injunction against the Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) on behalf of Till Lindemann. The reason is reporting on a case that is said to have happened in 1996. The Rammstein singer is said to have been accused of sexual abuse or rape. According to an official statement by Schertz Bergmann, the regional television station was banned from any further reporting on the matter due to a lack of evidence.
Lawyers complain about biased reports about Till Lindemann
The injunction was revealed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) of the law firm’s official profile on Wednesday (16 August). It states that the NDR, in the research association with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, had “disregarded its journalistic duty of care” due to “insufficient determination of a minimum amount of evidence”. Schertz Bergmann’s allegations are that the NDR spread premature and probably prejudgmental news in the Till Lindemann case due to a lack of proof.
The wording of the injunction
The background is a report by the television station about a female person who identified herself as “Sybille Herder”. She is said to have spent a night with Lindemann in 1996 and woke up naked in his hotel room the next morning with abdominal pain. From the point of view of the lawyers, however, the report on their clients was not “impartial” and “independent”, the letter goes on to say. It is now the third action for an injunction that the law firm has filed against the NDR before the Hamburg district court.
Only a few days earlier, the Lindemann lawyers issued a cease-and-desist letter against “Campact eV”. withdraw. The organization was committed to the “No stage for Rammstein” petition, which sought to ban the band from concerts in Berlin. This was about the phrases “sexual abuse” that “Campact” used in the petition letter. Since the three Berlin concerts ended in mid-July and were no longer relevant, Schertz Bergmann withdrew the order.