Beached whale grips and divides Germany: ‘free Timmy!’

The sad saga of a humpback whale stranded a month ago on the German coast has sparked a flood of compassion but also a media frenzy, angry disputes, conspiracy theories and death threats.

As Germans have followed the travails of the sea mammal, dubbed “Timmy” by a newspaper, on their live news tickers, television screens and influencers’ social media channels, some worry about what its epic struggle says about a nation’s collective psyche.

Sociologist Christian Stegbauer said the whale, a highly intelligent and social animal, had become an object of human “projections”, with people engaging, especially on social media, in “a kind of competition on who cares most for the animal”.

While rescuers have exhausted themselves in cold water, the odyssey has also featured heated rifts between veterinarians and self-proclaimed “whale-whisperers”, fundraising scams and esoteric attempts to heal the whale through chanting.

The drama began when the 13-metre (over 40-foot) cetacean was beached on a Baltic Sea sandbank on March 23 at the seaside resort Timmendorfer Strand near Luebeck, far from its Atlantic Ocean habitat, with remains of a fishing net in its mouth and in poor physical condition.

Since then a series of rescue attempts – involving volunteers, environmental groups, maritime police, work crews with excavators and millionaire sponsors – have repeatedly raised hopes that were quickly dashed, as the whale has swum off, zigzagged and ended up beached again.