Georg Wickensack from Warendorf in the Münsterland region reports something similar. The parking lot assigned by police had been "a harvested maize field with very sticky loamy soil". "We had 390 tractors there, plus some from other convoys. We wondered immediately how the streets should be cleaned afterwards", says Wickensack.

Also councilman Georg Schäfer from Buschdorf shakes his head. Instead of sending the agricultural machinery to rain-soaked fields, the police could have designated the Engländerweg to the banks of the Rhine as a parking area. "It was free all the time," reports Schäfer.

Schäfer, a hobby farmer, is also puzzled as to how the loam on the tyres could become a veritable cleaning problem. "From the departure of the last farmers at 17 o'clock to the next morning at 9 o'clock there was no problem reported. Only after that did the city order service report the pollution.

According to the Bonn police, the top priority was to clear the L 300 and thus also the Hersel motorway access after the rally, in view of a backlog as far as Wesseling and the departing traffic. Press spokesman Frank Piontek says: "It is possible that the tractors were led into the field on purpose". The exact procedure is still being explored. Contact has been made with the property owner concerned.

Employees from Bonnorange, which is responsible for the section of the L 300 up to the city boundary, first had to deal with the dirt with sweepers on Wednesday, reports Jérôme Lefèvre Bonnorange - since the clay was already compacted, a vain undertaking. Later it had to be softened on the streets of NRW with a washer and removed with two high-pressure cleaning vehicles, which would otherwise fight oil spills. The work lasted until the evening. The road closure also caused considerable traffic obstructions.

(Original text: Martin Wein; Translation: Mareike Graepel)