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Photo: Henning Kaiser / dpa
Shortly after Philipp Treudt wakes up early Thursday morning and realizes that war is now being waged in Europe, he takes his mobile phone and starts typing.
He writes about his horror at what is happening in Ukraine.
"We are against war, racism, violence, oppression, sexism." He also puts a picture of the peace sign and posts it on Instagram.
Then he throws himself into his snow-white Nasa astronaut suit.
Treudt goes to the »Schnörres«, a bar in the southern part of Cologne that he has owned for seven years.
Only a little later he is at the DJ desk and plays carnival hits.
Costumed people are dancing and drinking beer around him.
There are far fewer than usual. No crowds, no squeezing, as is usually the case when the street carnival in Cologne begins on Indian Thursday.
Treudt keeps checking the news portals from time to time.
He struggles with his guilty conscience
The 43-year-old restaurateur and event manager is at odds with himself.
In the small pub kitchen, he says he's struggling with his bad conscience.
When he hung up, he asked himself: »What am I actually doing here?« Creating an emotional atmosphere and at the same time being affected by a bloody conflict, he can't quite put it together.
"It's torture."
If he weren't a restaurateur, he probably would have stayed at home.
But there is also the other side: Two years of pandemic have left their mark on the economy, the 20 employees who are supposed to work shifts until late at night have to be paid.
And then there is the urge, especially from the younger generation, who are thirsting for freedom and exuberance after the long period of Corona measures and who have been looking forward to the start of the street carnival for so long.
"It would also be crazy," says Treudt, "to take this moment away from them."
Not only in the southern part of the city, but on almost the whole of Cologne, an oppressive heaviness weighs on this Thursday, when carnival madness usually moves into the city.
At noon it became known that a peace demonstration should replace the Rose Monday festival in Cologne.
And with every swaying, the question resonates: Is that morally responsible in these times?
Until Wednesday evening, the main discussion here was about the corona protection requirements.
After tough negotiations and some quarrels with the Rhenish chief carnivalists, the NRW state government finally decided to allow so-called customs zones in which celebrations should be possible.
The Cologne administration initially considered which areas they should designate and then simply declare the entire city a customs zone.
2G+ applies.
Anyone who wants to celebrate must be recovered or boosted and present a daily test, the ban on masks has been lifted.
The public order office has sent dozens of teams to the streets and pubs to carry out checks.
Severe penalties are threatened.
Those who do not comply with the requirements have to pay 250 euros, restaurateurs even 5000 euros.
But overnight, measures and the pandemic have become a minor matter.
The war in Ukraine overshadows the hustle and bustle.
The city had prepared for tens of thousands of people traveling to Cologne by train.
That morning, in his first reaction to the Ukraine war, a spokesman for the festival committee said that all the revelers could no longer be stopped, even if one wanted to.
At the Alter Markt, where the Cologne carnival traditionally opens at 11:11 a.m. and where there are usually crowds of people, there is an almost ghostly emptiness.
It's raining.
The artists on stage strive to create a good atmosphere.
Carnival veteran Marita Kölner belts out a few hits.
The Cologne triumvirate also strikes up a soulful song and thunders a triple »Alaaf« into the microphones.
Jungfrau Gerdemie says that after the cancellation of the carnival last year, there is now a lot to catch up on.
But the great things don't want to leave the stage without a crisis statement.
One does not want to be determined by people “who trample on freedom and peace”.
A short cheer erupts.
Shortly before, the prince, peasant and maiden were received in the Pietta of Cologne City Hall by Mayor Henriette Reker.
Here, too, there is horror.
Reker expresses her condolences to the Ukrainians and observes a minute's silence.
She doesn't feel like celebrating, she says.
But in the end everyone has to figure that out for themselves.
In any case, she cannot cancel the carnival.
Annette and Gitta, 60 and 68 years old, came from Wuppertal.
The two girlfriends have been coming to Cologne for almost 40 years.
Seeing the place so empty brought tears to her eyes, says Gitta.
In the morning, the two had considered letting the partying be better.
"I'm terribly sad and deeply shocked," says Annette.
'But let's be honest.
We can't change anything.
Isn't it better to just enjoy the day?
Who knows what tomorrow will bring.”
The carnival has its own identity.
It is his job, as the people of Cologne understand it, to offer a way out, at least temporarily, especially in bad times.
To drive away sorrow, to make sorrow bearable.
Giving in when the situation and decency call for tears, but you still want to laugh.
A woman in a clown costume says, "Death and merriment are close together."
A spokesman for the Cologne Festival Committee says that people have learned in the recent past that carnival has an important function for people in times of crisis.
Letting a despot dictate the limits of cheerfulness does not correspond to the idea of carnival.
After the Second World War, when the first revelers in jesters' caps stalked through the rubble, it was seen as a symbol of burgeoning life.
Especially the top guardians of customs from the Cologne Festival Committee like to use such images with strong symbolic power.
Also to differentiate themselves from what they hated more and more over the years: the uncontrolled flat rate drinking on well-known party miles, which is repeatedly criticized as a complete dissolution of boundaries beyond a carnivalistic-humanistic value concept.
When the carnival falls into disrepute again
In fact, the student district of Kwatier Latäng offers a completely different picture.
By noon all hell broke loose here, the entrances had to be closed due to the threat of overcrowding.
These are the images that one is familiar with when the carnival falls into disrepute again.
People throwing up or otherwise voiding on the spot.
A man is lying on the ground in front of a club, police officers are on him, they tie his hands with cable ties.
Bass booms from pubs and from knee-high Bluetooth boxes that party people push across the closed streets.
War and peace are also an issue here.
However, not one that you want to lose too much thought about today.
And yet they are using another big concept here: that of freedom that has finally been regained.
In the late afternoon, the problem almost takes care of itself. Strong gusts sweep through the city.
A severe weather warning has been issued for Cologne.