Till Lindemann 2016 in Buenos Aires.
Photo: LatinContent via Getty Images, Santiago Bluguermann. All rights reserved.
It’s a statement against a statement – can the media still write about it? The Frankfurt regional court has now decided in the case of reporting on the Till Lindemann case: Yes! Otherwise, “this would result in a possible incident such as the present one never being reported,” the court said.
Till Lindemann defended himself against the reporting
The Southgerman newspaper published the article “At the End of the Show” on June 2, 2023 and reported together with NDR that several women were accusing Rammstein singer Till Lindemann of abuse of power and sexual assault. They were also among the first to address the alleged “casting system” before and after Rammstein concerts. Lindemann’s lawyers countered, as the SZ now writes: “While Till Lindemann and his lawyers do not deny this casting system, they argued in their injunction against the SZ that the sexual acts described in the article were consensual and therefore in the singer’s privacy who saw them hurt by the SZ’s reporting. In addition, the article is unbalanced. The SZ opposed this.”
This is what the Frankfurt Regional Court decided
However, the Frankfurt regional court completely rejected Till Lindemann’s lawyers’ request for an injunction and also explained why there was nothing against the reporting. The chamber sees an “overwhelming public interest in information”, especially “from a prevention perspective”. “This also includes the sexual contacts described, when ‘young women are systematically selected for sexual acts with the plaintiff and brought to him in an organized manner’ and ‘in this context, due to their inexperience, they can end up in situations in which sexual acts occur “They are no longer able to free themselves due to fear or shame or significant alcohol or drug intoxication,” according to the verdict.
In order to substantiate the claims, the SZ presented, among other things, affidavits from the women allegedly affected. The judgment also states that the SZ was also able to credibly demonstrate that it “made sufficient efforts to verify the accuracy of the information” before publishing the article.
Lawyer has announced that he will file an appeal
Opposite the portal “Legal Tribune Online” Simon Bergmann, Till Lindemann’s lawyer, explained that he could not explain the decision. The “LTO” website says: “Since the women themselves only described consensual sexual intercourse, their statements could not possibly be used as evidence of sexual contact without consent.” For Bergmann, the reporting was anything but balanced. Before making a further statement, we would first like to wait for the reasons for the judgment. For the lawyer, however, it is already clear: “We will definitely appeal to the Frankfurt Higher Regional Court.”