by Thorsten Koch
GermanPolicy.com

Within a week, the Action Alliance for Disaster Relief, supported by the TV broadcaster ZDF, recorded over 36 million Euros in donations. A spokesman said there was hardly any comparable willingness to donate. The German Red Cross, Caritas, Diakonie and Unicef ​​are united in the action alliance. On the Saturday of the previous week, Caritas announced that it would be paying out 1.5 million Euros in short-term help to those affected, according to what was most urgently needed. Caritas is “overwhelmed by the solidarity”, the organization expressed.

The ARD broadcast network collected over 16.5 million Euros on Friday, together with the alliance ‘Aktion Deutschland hilft’, until a television broadcast completed the day. From morning to midnight, the ARD set a “sign of solidarity in Germany” in order to encourage courage and above all to support the people in the flood regions. Numerous singers were present for live performances, for example Herbert Grönemeyer, Sarah Connor and Rea Garvey. The ARD told stories about people in Central Germany who had similar experiences in 2002 and 2013, as is now the case in western regions of Germany.

As the German Foundation for Monument Protection announced, an emergency aid program for cultural sites has been launched. In coordination with the local administrations, 1 million Euros are to be made available, unbureaucratically, in order to restore historic city centers and rivers, for instance. The Hermann Reemtsma Foundation helped the program with another 1 million Euros.