Overview
- The Cologne Pride parade took place on Sunday, July 5, with organisers saying about 1.5 million people attended and roughly 60,000 registered participants across some 90–100 floats.
- Police had deployed several hundred officers to protect the event and reported no incidents in Cologne through Sunday afternoon, citing a plan to intervene early against people with radical, queer‑hostile intentions.
- The multi-day festival required extensive traffic and public-transport changes, including Altstadt road closures, the Deutzer Brücke limited in one direction and Stadtbahn lines 1, 7 and 9 split with replacement buses affected.
- Organisers used the political slogan 'Für Queerrechte – Viele. Gemeinsam. Stark!' and pressed concrete demands such as adding sexual and gender identity to the Basic Law, strengthening counselling and reforming parentage law for rainbow families.
- Separate, smaller CSDs saw isolated attacks — in Chemnitz eggs were thrown from a building, causing a minor injury and two reports of bodily harm — and performers criticised an increasing party and sexualised tone that some say distracts from Pride's political roots.