He was notified by the night security staff when they saw several perpetrators running away between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. on May Day morning. But by then it had already happened. One of the beer trolleys, which had been set up for Rhine in Flames this weekend, was lying in the lake. A second one had been sprayed all over with a fire extinguisher. Harder published photos on Facebook on Wednesday morning. The police confirmed that the incident had taken place. Investigations are underway.

According to Harder, authorities were working to secure the beer cart in the morning. He says: "It won't be easy to get it out of the lake. The shore is not reinforced and it slopes." According to Harder, a normal tow truck cannot be used to retrieve it for these reasons.

At first, night security had chased away some perpetrators who had knocked over fences at the rose garden, a good distance away from the lake. Shortly afterwards, the beer cart landed in the water. Harder says: "Unfortunately, we can't be everywhere. I'm usually here during the set-up, but not at night."

Harder asks for possible eyewitnesses to come forward with any leads. In his anger, he does not mince his words. On a Facebook post, he writes: "If anyone can give any information on this, I'd really pay some money to arrest the idiots for it.”

One clue could be the numbers "187", which the perpetrators apparently wrote with their fingers into the powder residue from the fire extinguisher. According to Harder, the numbers stand both for a music group from Hamburg, and in the USA for a death threat.

It’s difficult for Harder to give an accurate estimate of the total damage since the beer cart has not been salvaged yet from the water. But the cooling unit inside the cart is not likely to come out unscathed, having been completely submerged in the water.

Orig. text: Anja Wollschlaeger Translation: Carol Kloeppel