durchstoßenes herz

On this day in 1988, the until-then world’s worst air-show disaster occurred at the US Air Base in Ramstein when jets of the Italian Air Force display team (Frecce Tricolori) collided while attempting a formation called the piercing-heart (il Cardioide) before a huge crowd of some three-hundred thousand spectators, killing sixty seven audience members and three pilots with hundreds more sustaining serious injuries.
The scope of the disaster revealed some grave logistical and compatibility shortcomings between the coordinated response between German and US military emergency services and this confusion and delay (since redressed through investigations, reform and closer cooperation) were the potential causes for more fatalities. Formed in 1989, Rammstein took its name from the catastrophe, with the original billing for the band being the Rammstein-Flugschau. It is disputed whether the second “m” was a misspelling or a reference to door-stops, Rammsteine.