Overview
- Henriette Reker says her advice for women to keep an “arm’s length” distance after the 2015/16 attacks was wrong, adding that victims could not have protected themselves in those circumstances.
- Reker reveals Olaf Scholz, then Hamburg’s mayor, phoned her shortly after the night and advised what she could expect from Cologne police, support she says she gratefully accepted.
- Authorities recorded about 1,210 criminal complaints, including 511 sexual-offence reports; prosecutors charged 46 people and won 36 convictions, only two for sexual coercion.
- Criminal psychologist Rudolf Egg reports many women felt completely helpless because police were absent or did not intervene, describing spontaneous copycat behavior among groups of mostly North African youths.
- A decade later, coverage highlights lasting psychological effects on victims, notes the “No means no” legal reform’s acceleration, and features scholars who question claims that the episode singularly reset Germany’s migration policy.