The Night Cologne Failed - Bahnhofsvorplatz
On New Year's Eve 2015/16, hundreds of women were surrounded, groped and robbed on this station forecourt and the cathedral steps while an overwhelmed police force called the night largely peaceful. Of 1,210 complaints, only three people were ever convicted of sexual offences.
About this place
Every day more than 300,000 people cross this forecourt between Cologne's main station and the broad steps up to the cathedral, the city's grand front door. On the last night of 2015 it became a place of fear. From around nine in the evening, a crowd of mostly young, heavily drunk men grew to more than a thousand, firing rockets into the crowd. After midnight, women coming from the trains or heading home were encircled by groups of men, groped, sexually assaulted and robbed, on the square, on the steps and inside the station. At most 143 state police officers and about 70 federal officers were on duty, and the first press release spoke of largely peaceful celebrations. By the end of 2017, police had registered 1,210 complaints and 648 victims of sexual offences, yet poor camera images meant most perpetrators were never identified, and only three people were convicted of sexual offences. The police chief was sent into retirement, a state inquiry produced a report of 1,352 pages, and Germany rewrote its sex crime law around one principle: no means no. Today police cameras watch this forecourt, a lasting reminder of the night the city failed to protect its guests.
Key facts
- 648 victims — People recorded as victims of sexual offences in Cologne that night, among 1,210 criminal complaints counted by December 2017.
- 3 convictions — The only people convicted of sexual offences, because blurry camera images and the chaos made it almost impossible to identify individual perpetrators.
- 1500 police officers — State police planned for Cologne the following New Year's Eve, roughly ten times as many as had been on duty in 2015.