Süddeutsche article - Till Lindemann new accusation (DeepL translation))

Are fans being cast for sex with Till Lindemann at "Rammstein" concerts? Numerous women accuse him of abuse of power and sexual assault. About a system that delivers whatever the singer wants.

Rammstein know their way around border areas, the border area is their territory. Hypersexualised lyrics, black-bread-crusting German buffoonery and, time and again, targeted provocations in song lyrics, poems, videos.

To promote the song "Deutschland", they released a video excerpt in advance in 2019 showing the band dressed as concentration camp inmates with a star on their chest on the gallows. At the time, the Central Council of Jews saw the Holocaust as being "misused for marketing purposes". The video currently has more than 317 million views. That's how it works.

Now the band, especially its frontman Till Lindemann, is confronted with accusations that go beyond even the very broad Rammstein framework for controversy. Several women are unanimous in describing an elaborate system that is probably used to target women to the band leader. It is about the seduction of female fans through proximity to a very prominent person, about possible abuse of power and alleged sexual assaults.

And it's about the risk that apparently any woman who fits the visual mould can get into situations over which she could lose control at some point - just because she gets an offer that sounds so appealing that she doesn't want to turn it down: to meet Till Lindemann.

Rammstein is probably Germany's most valuable artistic export of the present. There is this partly fantastic music and the style-defining live shows:
The band's perpetual contradiction is also reflected in the lyrics of Till Lindemann, 60, a very accurate lyricist on a good day, whose protagonists are not infrequently both: sex-obsessed raptor and poor little sausage.

At least in the first decades. In contrast, the most recent albums fell off somewhat. Sometimes lyrics and music could no longer be clearly distinguished from Ballermann hits: "She doesn't have to be smart, no / She doesn't have to be rich / But there's one thing I'd like to ask for: / Big tits".

Separating the art from the artist, Lindemann is the masterclass for that.

The final exam for Lindemann's comprehenders was his poem "Wenn du schläfst", from the volume "100 Gedichte" published by Kiepenheuer & Witsch in 2020, (edited by Alexander Gorkow, one of the feuilleton heads of the Süddeutsche Zeitung). Lindemann's protagonist, who, as in all such cases, is of course not the same as the author, is acting out a r**e with the use of knockout drops: "I like to sleep with you when you sleep," it says. And at the end: "A little Rohypnol in the wine (a little Rohypnol in the glass) / You can't move at all / And you sleep / It's a blessing".

All covered by artistic freedom. What fantasies might drive the musician in real life has been publicly discussed since Shelby L. reported on social networks what she says happened to her last week at the Rammstein concert in Vilnius. The Irish woman expressed the suspicion that she might have been given alcohol spiked with a drug at a party before the show.

Till Lindemann, she tweeted explicitly during the debate, had not touched her and had not r**ed her - she had never claimed that. What she did write, however, was that she had been specifically chosen for the stage meeting with the musician. The singer had offered her alcohol and assumed that she would want to have sex with him during a concert break. According to Shelby L., she refused, whereupon the singer became aggressive. Then her memory stopped again and again.
Rammstein denied it, but by then the wave was already rolling: more and more women reported their experiences.
In the morning, she found bruises on her body in the hotel and called the police, she reported. An unofficial drug test came back negative, but she said she had not drunk nearly enough to black out. And: She was not the only one who could report such or similar experiences.

The band has denied the account - barely four days later. "Regarding the allegations circulating on the net about Vilnius, we can rule out that what is being claimed has happened in our environment. We are not aware of any official investigations into this," Rammstein tweeted, in German and English.

But by then the wave was already rolling: more and more women reported their experiences around Rammstein and Till Lindemann.

Süddeutsche Zeitung and NDR have spoken to numerous women in the past few days. Some of them made serious accusations against Lindemann. All names are known to the editors, some of the women affirm their statements in lieu of an oath. All those allegedly affected remain anonymous in this text for their protection; the names used are not their real ones. The research has not revealed any evidence that the women know each other. However, their accounts add up to a picture that looks like the industrial version of the once romantically transfigured groupietum.

In the Lindemann case, the accounts no longer contain a trace of romance. The women with whom the singer is said to have been supplied before and after the band's performances - or at his solo concerts - also for the purpose of sexual gratification, were selected according to visual criteria, approached before or during the concerts, supplied with backstage bracelets and alcohol. Some of them are said to have been fed to the superstar. Some of them were prepared for potential sex with Lindemann, others are said to have been taken completely by surprise.

The Rammstein management did not respond to an enquiry. Lindemann also left questions about all relevant points in this text unanswered. His lawyer sent a letter from which it was not allowed to quote. It deals with criteria of suspicious reporting and references to his client's privacy, which had to be taken into account.

Cynthia A. was 21 when she attended a Rammstein concert in Hanover in 2019. There, she says, she came into contact with Alena M. for the first time. On online platforms, the Russian is considered a door-opener for the backstage area of Rammstein, on Instagram she calls herself "Casting Director, on the tour with @till_lindemann_official".

Alena M., 35, was an actress - and is first and foremost a fan. In 2013, Rammstein were headliners at "Rock over the Volga" in M.'s hometown of Samara. Free entry, tens of thousands of fans, and ten young women were chosen to join them on stage. Alena M. was one of them. "There are these moments and encounters," she once wrote later on the net, "that divide life into a before and an after."

She also did not answer questions from the SZ. Through social media posts and conversations with people who had dealings with her, however, it is possible to understand how Alena M. apparently became more than an ordinary fan. "The most famous Russian groupie", an online magazine calls her. She slept with all kinds of stars, articles say. She seems to have been particularly taken with Rammstein.
Alena M. calls Lindemann a friend. She shares birthday wishes and selfies together in front of the Christmas tree with her followers on Instagram, Facebook and the Russian network VK, he in a black suit, she in a red dress. And again and again videos and photos of Rammstein concerts, she with a AAA pass around her neck, which grants access everywhere. In 2019, Alena M. went on a Rammstein tour. In the meantime, she was not only very close to her idol, but apparently also made sure that other women could be close to him.
Word got around: anyone who wanted to get into "Row Zero" at Rammstein - the area directly by the stage, still before the barrier, and to the after-show party - had to contact Alena M.. She is not paid for her services, they say, at least not with money.

Alena M. was the one who greeted the Row Zero girls at the Rammstein concert in Hanover in 2019, remembers Cynthia A. She herself was there with a friend at 6 o'clock, they had already heard about Alena M. on the net. Both women were later given admission wristbands for the after-show party.

Witnesses agree that there were two very different types of parties: one with the band and one only with Lindemann. According to their own testimony, Cynthia A. and her friend celebrated with the band, Alena M. and other women had moved on to the exclusive meeting with Lindemann. Many eyewitnesses describe the events with all the musicians as a great experience; none of them, not even Cynthia A., reported any assaults or aberrations.

From then on, Alena M. followed her on Instagram and asked her if she was at the concert in Vienna, says Cynthia A. "But I wasn't there. Instead, she bought tickets for a concert on Lindemann's solo tour in Hanover in February 2020. Before this event, Alena M. had written to a friend of Cynthia A. and asked "if she knew any girls who wanted to meet Till". She also asked if she knew anyone "who would spend a night with Till". The friend then sent Cynthia A.'s profile to Alena M., "without being asked", says A. Alena M. replied: That should fit.
In the month before the concert, she and other young women had been accepted into a Whatsapp group, says Cynthia A. They were looking for three women to dance in a disco ball during the concert. "And I was one of the three. I really wanted to meet Till, I was a really big Rammstein fan." There were no work contracts, money or choreography. It was just supposed to look cool, a co-worker said.

According to Cynthia A., it is difficult for her to talk about what happened in the dressing room where a bodyguard took her. Only later, when she told people about it, some of whom reacted "quite shocked" or "with blatant condemnation", did the thought occur to her "that maybe what happened to me there was bad".

What is said to have happened: Lindemann had offered the three women alcohol, which they had refused. "I had never drunk alcohol at that time," says Cynthia A. The singer showed them the recently released music video for the song "Platz eins" on a laptop, a film with hard sex scenes, violent fantasies, naked women and the lyrics: "Alle Frauen, alles meins / Alles dreht sich nur um mich". Lindemann had beckoned her, Cynthia A., with a wave of his hand because he wanted to "show her something". "I was still very inexperienced, I didn't have a real boyfriend yet. I thought right before the show he really wanted to show me something cool."  She had assumed that if she agreed to go with him at some point, "it would be in his hotel room after the show". Enough time, then, to think things over.

Cynthia A. describes what happened next as follows: "He took me to the dressing room, closed the door and then it just started. I don't want to say that it was r**e, because I agreed to it, but I wasn't obviously happy about what was happening. I was also in a lot of pain and he must have noticed that it wasn't easy to make love to me. And that I was cramped. I was also bleeding afterwards and it took maybe ten minutes. It was all quite fast and quite violent. At that moment I just thought: 'Oh my God, that hurts, I hope it's over soon'. But I also didn't want to say that it hurt, because it was Till Lindemann. After ten minutes he was done and thanked me and said he was feeling better now." He never asked her for her name.
Rammstein fans immediately closed the front after Shelby L.'s first descriptions.

Their tenor in the social networks: an ego-addicted fan girl complaining that things didn't turn out the way she had imagined beforehand. It was all voluntary after all.

"This 'incident' never happened!", Sophia Thomalla, Lindemann's partner from 2011 to 2015, told the Bild newspaper. The accusations by Shelby L. were "freely invented by a person who wants to get fame on the back of a rock star for five minutes". Her ex is a man who protects women.

Meanwhile, Alena M. posts posts from fans thanking her for the unforgettable experience of being backstage with Rammstein and Lindemann. Everything was great, great party! M. herself asked women for help via Whatsapp - a corresponding chat message is available to SZ and NDR: "Tell people the truth. Fans should post stories with photos and videos from the after-show parties and please use the hashtags #istandwithrammstein and #justiceforrammstein.

She doesn't want Lindemann to be cancelled "just because one fan didn't like it", says a woman who claims to have partied with the singer in his dressing room after a concert in Zurich in 2022 - the best party of her life, she says. Ten or fifteen other women were there, one danced on the table, one showed Lindemann her breasts. While dancing, he put his hand on her waist. She told him that she didn't want him to get close to her, which he must have misunderstood. And he accepted it, even apologised. At the end of the evening, Lindemann went home without a female escort, even though, according to her impression, "there were enough women who wanted to sleep with him".
The system, which female concert-goers from various cities and countries tell the SZ and NDR about, suggests a kind of sexually connoted selection. The whole thing, if it applied to the last consequence, would go far beyond the unfortunate circumstance that superstars can no longer simply sit down at a bar and meet women there.

Other celebrities also sometimes grant fans access to the backstage area, sometimes harmlessly for selfies and handshakes, often coupled with a hefty VIP ticket surcharge, and sometimes for sex, drugs and rock'n'roll - consensually.

The casting rules for Lindemann's backstage area stipulate photo applications to "casting director" Alena M.. The women were later sent the dress code, sexy-elegant, gothic rock, cocktail dresses, all good, just no Rammstein T-shirts please. Corresponding chat histories are available to SZ and NDR.

Josephine D. attended a Rammstein concert in Gelsenkirchen in 2019. When Alena M. wrote to her on Facebook asking if she wanted to "party with the band", she initially thought it was a joke and refused. Later, M. wrote her again that Lindemann was alone in his hotel in Düsseldorf: "I want to find a nice girl for him ... to have some fun in the hotel. He was a gentleman. Josephine D. also thought this was a joke. When M. later asked her to come to Row Zero at the concert, she listened to her "bad gut feeling" and said no.

Miriam K. says she was recruited by Alena M. for a concert in Gothenburg in 2022. She was also at the backstage party with 60 or 70 other women. But then this party could not take place, Alena M. and Joe L., DJ and tour assistant of Rammstein, had told them and selected about 20 of them to celebrate in another room, without smartphones. Lindemann showed up later and was aggressive - very different from the party before the show. Lindemann had appeared "nice and very gentleman-like", "as everyone describes it". Later, Lindemann disappeared from the room again and again with different women, and the same song was played over and over again, which was "only about sex".
According to Jessica B., she was invited by a woman to a concert in Cologne in 2020. Alena M. asked her directly if she would sleep with Lindemann or if she could bring someone who wanted to. This did not happen at the party, Jessica B. declined. Later, however, she was asked if she wanted to eat with Lindemann in his hotel - and if she would celebrate Christmas with him because Lindemann was lonely. She was only told not to reveal her age, as the singer's "age limit" was lower than hers. Jessica B. was in her late 20s at the time. She says she turned down the invitation.

The women report that photos were also taken before the concerts, but for whom and for what purpose remained open. Wrong dress? Change or get out. Boyfriend to come along? Unfortunately no. Keep your mobile phone? Sorry, you have to go. The SZ and NDR have corresponding chat messages and recollection reports. There is also talk of a lot of alcohol in general, and cocaine is also said to have been offered to women.

The question is whether all the women who end up with Lindemann still arrive there with such a clear consciousness that they can regain control themselves at any time or remember correctly later. Or whether the whole process is not so asymmetrical, so manipulative from the outset, that one can no longer speak of voluntariness and that in retrospect it is easy to sow doubts about the credibility of the women.

In view of the granted closeness of an otherwise unapproachable star, of staged peer pressure, of the imposing posturing of a rocker who allegedly smashes a refrigerator, can one speak of voluntariness? What does it trigger when every no could mean the end of a dream journey? When the expectation of being able to drop out at any time is overtaken by reality? And what does it mean that fans usually think their idols are good people, after all?
"The band was a big part of my life, so I really wanted to meet them," says Kaya R., who attended a Rammstein concert in her hometown of Vienna on 22 August 2019. If her descriptions are true, she too went through all the stages of the casting system. She too with a bitter ending.

In her case, it was again Joe L. who had chosen her as a woman from the front row, blond, then 21, to come to the after-show party. There she celebrated with the band members, but without Till Lindemann, "it was very nice", including free alcohol and good conversations with band members. Joe L. left questions from SZ and NDR unanswered.

Then she was asked by Alena M. if she wanted to meet Lindemann. "I was already aware that there was a sexual component to all this, but I didn't assume that anyone would do anything I didn't want." She had wanted to meet him, not as the only one, there had already been several of them in the taxi and then even more women in the hotel. There had also been "a lot of alcohol" in the hotel, she had been drinking, her memories had become incomplete. That she had been sitting next to Lindemann, that she had been in the lift with him and another man.

She doesn't remember how she got into a hotel room: "I was no longer conscious. When she woke up, "Till was on top of me". When he realised that she had woken up, he asked her if he should stop. And she did not even know what he wanted to stop. He then left at some point.

The question remains: Why has only Shelby L. contacted the police so far? Why not Kaya R., why not Cynthia A.?

The reasons could be complex. On the one hand, there is possibly the shame of having got involved in a situation that relatives or close friends can hardly understand. "I didn't feel bad the next day and I told people that Till was quite nice and I had fun and everything was fine," says Kaya R., who even went to the second concert in Vienna, again in the front row, again to an after-show party, the one with the band. "It was a protective mechanism because I wanted to have fun, and I lied to myself about it," she says.
It was only later, when she read Lindemann's poem "Wenn du schläfst" and an interview with him in which the musician talked about giving women alcohol if you wanted to sleep with them, that she was "triggered". She did not go to his solo concert, although she had tickets. "I couldn't hear his voice any more.

Then there is the fear of confrontation. Who will believe you? Can you win, as an individual fan, when Rammstein are on the other side?
And finally there is one's own uncertainty about what really happened. Cynthia A., the young woman from the dressing room in Hanover, says she later danced in the disco ball, and at the after-show party Lindemann kissed her in front of everyone. And she even asked a bodyguard if she could come to the party with Lindemann at the hotel. "I wasn't even aware at the time that it was an assault," she says, saying she was "completely blinded" "because I felt so special at that moment, like an addiction".

Cynthia A also says she later went to another concert, in Cologne. After she had told her friends what she had experienced backstage, she could no longer judge "whether I had done something bad or something bad had happened to me".

Then Corona came, she was locked up for a year with the memories, changed as a person, drank alcohol, took drugs. At some point she went to therapy: "It was really hard to separate myself from this whole story."

Flake, the Rammstein keyboardist, described the world backstage in his book "Heute hat die Welt Geburtstag" (Today is the World's Birthday) as follows: "Especially in America, the backstage area is considered a kind of paradise. No ass, No pass say the veteran musicians. By that, of course, they only mean the women. Men tend not to have any place here anyway."

It looks like Till Lindemann has left Rammstein's traditional territory, the border area.