Photo Gallery Carnival Mayhem
A raucous, alcohol-fuelled party fills the streets in Duesseldorf where the regional carnival season culminates with the Rose Monday parade.
Getting there in time is a priority for most locals.
As always, the convoy of floats is a hotbed of political satire. Here Angela Merkel makes an appearance in a princess outfit, cozying up with the atomic lobby, represented by frogs.
The German chancellor appears here in another guise: as a voodoo priestess poking needles into her political foes.
Traditional musicians provide the soundtrack for the event which lures visitors from across Germany and beyond.
A popular target this year was Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg who resigned from his post as defense minister last week after a plagiarism scandal. Here zu Guttenberg crashes into the Chancellery, triggering "Merkel's September 11th".
In the city of Mainz, zu Guttenberg masks are popular accessories for carnival goers.
This massive papier-mâché creation shows a bishop with a boy sitting on his lap, a reference to the child abuse scandals which have rocked the church.
And here the Pope, holding condom balloons, is seen at the traditional carnival.
Moammar Gadhafi is another star of the show. His papier-mâché lookalike clutches an oil barrel while being kissed by a man representing Europe.
Festivities are underway across the region, with major Rose Monday parades in Cologne, Mainz and Duesseldorf. In Mainz, pictured, more than 10,000 people took part in the parade.
Google Street View, highly controversial in Germany, is mocked by this float. It is among a line of colorful vehicles making the seven-kilometer trek through downtown Mainz.
This float homes in on the inflammable properties of Thilo Sarrazin, author of the controversial book 'Deutschland Schafft sich ab' (Germany does away with itself). His book caused a storm last summer for blaming immigrant groups for a number of Germany's ills.
Immigration, a hot topic in Germany, is also the theme of this float.
A Rio-esque dancer joins the parade, albeit in somewhat colder climes than her Brazilian equivalents.
Red clown noses, pictured here in Mainz, crop up across the region. Even the sun makes an appearance for the annual lunacy.
A float in Düsseldorf shows the face of German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle depicted as a saw: The term Nervensäge in German means a "pain in the neck" or nuisance.
Here, in Düsseldorf, a float shows controversial author Thilo Sarrazin using a jousting lance to spear a Turkish woman and her children. Each year, the floats satirize the big news events of the past 12 months.
