The Berlin public prosecutor’s office announced on Tuesday August 29 that it would end the investigation it had opened in mid-June against Rammstein singer Till Lindemann, accused of sexual assault. “The evaluation of the available evidence (…) and the hearing of the witnesses did not make it possible to establish that the accused had non-consensual sexual intercourse with women”, writes the Berlin prosecutor’s office, about the singer German-speaking group having sold the most albums in the world.
The case began at the end of May with the testimony of a 24-year-old Irish woman, accusing the singer and lyricist of the group of having drugged and sexually assaulted her, at the end of a concert the same month, in Lithuania. Other young women then testified, all describing more or less the same scenario.
The spectators would have been spotted in the front rows of the concerts, filmed or photographed, so that Lindemann could make his choice, before for some of them being invited backstage for parties. Some would then have been drugged before being attacked by the singer, currently 60 years old, who denied through his lawyers.
The outcry over the allegations had led to protests ahead of the band’s concerts in several countries, as well as the cancellation of after-show parties at concerts in Germany.
Rammstein’s success is largely based on the excessiveness of the concerts, with a lot of pyrotechnics, guitar riffs and the imposing physical presence of Till Lindemann.
