From Trump to Putin, Germany's Carnival puts politics on parade
Hundreds of thousands of costumed onlookers watched and cheered as Germany's beloved Carnival parades made their way through city centres on Shrove Monday, the highlight of festivities each year.
The biggest parade on Shrove Monday, known in Germany as Rose Monday, was held in the western city of Cologne with some 12,500 participants accompanying satirical - and sometimes explicit - floats and throwing some 300 tons of sweets into the crowds celebrating along the route in bright sunshine.
This year's festivities were marred by heightened security following a string of deadly attacks in Germany in recent months.
Just as people were celebrating Carnival, at least two people were killed and several injured when a car drove into a crowd in the south-western city of Mannheim, according to police.
An investigation into the incident is in full swing, with police yet to determine whether the incident was due to an attack or an accident.
Speaking ahead of Monday's parade, Cologne police president Johannes Hermanns told dpa that he wasn't worried about security at the event, with a large police contingent deployed to ensure a peaceful celebration.
Marc Michelske, head of Cologne's Shrove Monday parade, also said he felt "very relaxed," adding that it was important to show resilience against intimidation, following calls on social media for attacks during Carnival.
Carnival celebrations in Germany kicked off on Thursday as huge costumed crowds began cutting loose, especially in the twin Carnival capitals of Cologne and Dusseldorf.
Parties and parades continued through the weekend, culminating in the Shrove Monday parades before festivities come to an end on Ash Wednesday, which in the Christian calendar marks the beginning of the Lenten season of prayer, fasting and atonement.
US President Donald Trump featured prominently on Carnival floats in Cologne and elsewhere this year, with Jacques Tilly, a float builder in Dusseldorf, telling dpa this was "due to his madness, we ... can hardly keep up with it."
One of three floats depicting Trump in the Dusseldorf parade showed the US president making a "Hitler-Stalin-Pact 2.0" with Russian President Vladimir Putin while crushing Ukraine, a reference to the 1939 agreement that cleared the way for Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union to invade and divide Poland.
Another float included nude versions of Trump, Putin and Chinese Xi Jinping. They have pudgy bellies and huge testicals, on which are inscribed "Make America Great Again," "Make Russia Great Again" and "Make China Great Again."
In Cologne, a Trump float depicted the US president putting a leash on the Statue of Liberty and Lady Justice, while in the parade in Mainz, another Carnival stronghold in south-western Germany, he was shown drilling for oil.
Carnival floats traditionally also take a dig at domestic politics, with far-right leader Alice Weidel of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) depicted on a seesaw with US billionaire Elon Musk.
Musk had come out in support of the party, which is being monitored by domestic intelligence as a suspected far-right extremist group, ahead of Germany's parliamentary elections on February 23.
Another Dusseldorf float showed AfD leader Weidel as an evil witch trying to lure young voters Hänsel and Gretel with a swastika-shaped gingerbread.
"The float is intended to show that the AfD is very adept at using social media to lure young people into a radical world view," Tilly said, adding that he was subject to a flood of threats and abuse in response to the float, images of which had been released in advance.
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