The night of fainting

What seemed like a peaceful New Year's Eve in the early evening hours of December 31, 2015 around Cologne Central Station turned into a nightmare overnight.
"Like a civil war", is how eyewitnesses describe the scenes that take place between the main station and the cathedral steps.
Groups of perpetrators form again and again.
Most of them are intoxicated, drunk and uninhibited.
They shoot fireworks into the crowd, fight and make a ruckus.
But above all, they steal.
And they harass hundreds of women.
The emergency services on site are understaffed, haphazard and overwhelmed.
In the end, there are more than a thousand criminal charges and well over a thousand alleged victims.

How can something like this happen?
How can anarchy rage for hours on end in one of Cologne's busiest squares?
Could the catastrophe have been prevented?
It is a story that is racing around the globe.
Issues such as security in a constitutional state, the treatment of foreigners, false tolerance and a "naive welcoming culture" find new fuel in this night.

This 45-minute documentary meticulously reconstructs the night, its causes and its consequences to this day.
After nine months of intensive research, we show previously unpublished archive material.
For the first time ever, we hear police radio traffic and people's emergency calls directly from the night.
These are the voices of young girls, women and men who became victims that night and whose moments of powerlessness still gnaw at them today.
New video footage from security forces, cell phone videos from eyewitnesses and surveillance cameras provide a meticulous account of the incidents.
Victims and eyewitnesses, police representatives, public prosecutors, politicians and journalists have their say.
A broad and colorful ensemble that reflects not only the significance of the night for Cologne and Germany, but also its international implications.

A production of LAMBDA Stories & News GmbH.

First broadcast: Monday, December 12, 2016, 22:15 on RTL EXTRA-Spezial.