Men Day: forests, mass brawls and face plants
Ascension Day in Germany is also 'Herrentag' – or men day – when middle-aged men let out their inner lad. It's a treasured tradition that sometimes goes a bit wrong. We present you the strangest - and saddest - incidents of Herrentag 2015.
Germans decided long ago that the fortieth day after Easter, when Jesus made his journey up to heaven, is the perfect day for men to celebrate being men – which apparently involves cycling with your mates into the forest with a trolley full of beer and a sound system and seeing if you can make it back in one piece.
But not all men stick to this time honoured rule. Police report that drink driving incidents are three times the average on Herrentag.
And that's not the only thing that goes wrong. Here are some of the incidents which made headlines, some hilarious others tragic:
At around noon in Essen train station a 35-year-old man was detained after he swore at police – which, as it turned out, was a lucky break for the coppers. They were already hunting him on three charges including one count of robbery. He now faces 17 months in jail, Bild reports.
In the late afternoon a man in Nussloch, on the outskirts of Heidelberg, sustained serious head injuries after cycling straight into the wall of a house. Out and about with a group of around a dozen friends, the man apparently misjudged a corner and cycled head-on into the wall.
A foam party in Bitterfeld in Sachsen-Anhalt had something of a bitter ending. The posters had advertised a night with the 'sexy pudding cats' – skimpily clad girls who would be writhing around in the foam.
Unfortunately all the excitement got a bit much for the good men of Bitterfeld. When the party kicked off at ten at night, a 19-year-old attacked a police officer and within minutes a mass brawl had broken out involving some 40 men. Two police officers were injured in the process.
At one o'clock on Friday morning In Nuremberg train station police arrested a man who had commandeered a floor cleaning buggy and was joy-riding it around the station. Upon being breathalysed the man registered a quantity of 2.2 per millilitre, over four times the legal limit for driving a car on the road.
In one case, the frivolity ended in tragedy when a 51-year-old in Munich fell from his bike and struck his head against a metal pole. He was not wearing a helmet and later died of his injuries after doctors in the nearby hospital had tried to resuscitate him.
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Germans decided long ago that the fortieth day after Easter, when Jesus made his journey up to heaven, is the perfect day for men to celebrate being men – which apparently involves cycling with your mates into the forest with a trolley full of beer and a sound system and seeing if you can make it back in one piece.
But not all men stick to this time honoured rule. Police report that drink driving incidents are three times the average on Herrentag.
And that's not the only thing that goes wrong. Here are some of the incidents which made headlines, some hilarious others tragic:
At around noon in Essen train station a 35-year-old man was detained after he swore at police – which, as it turned out, was a lucky break for the coppers. They were already hunting him on three charges including one count of robbery. He now faces 17 months in jail, Bild reports.
In the late afternoon a man in Nussloch, on the outskirts of Heidelberg, sustained serious head injuries after cycling straight into the wall of a house. Out and about with a group of around a dozen friends, the man apparently misjudged a corner and cycled head-on into the wall.
A foam party in Bitterfeld in Sachsen-Anhalt had something of a bitter ending. The posters had advertised a night with the 'sexy pudding cats' – skimpily clad girls who would be writhing around in the foam.
Unfortunately all the excitement got a bit much for the good men of Bitterfeld. When the party kicked off at ten at night, a 19-year-old attacked a police officer and within minutes a mass brawl had broken out involving some 40 men. Two police officers were injured in the process.
At one o'clock on Friday morning In Nuremberg train station police arrested a man who had commandeered a floor cleaning buggy and was joy-riding it around the station. Upon being breathalysed the man registered a quantity of 2.2 per millilitre, over four times the legal limit for driving a car on the road.
In one case, the frivolity ended in tragedy when a 51-year-old in Munich fell from his bike and struck his head against a metal pole. He was not wearing a helmet and later died of his injuries after doctors in the nearby hospital had tried to resuscitate him.
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