It is a rather sad story that happened 72 years ago in Wuppertal. A female elephant named Tuffi was squeezed into suspension railway carriage number 13 to promote a circus. The animal panicked while driving and jumped out of the cabin. Luckily the elephant was only slightly injured. Just like some of the passengers who rode the Tuffi Schwebebahn.
Such adventurous events, which would already be forbidden today due to significantly stricter animal welfare regulations, are happily passed on from generation to generation. In Wuppertal, the Tuffi story is kept alive with two sculptures. A concrete version is in the Wupper – near the crash site – the other in bronze is in the pedestrian zone.
And as if that weren’t more than enough Tuffis, Oberhausen has now also taken on the successful accident story. Why? A few days before the crash in Wuppertal, Tuffi drove a tram in Oberhausen and also paid a visit to the mayor in the town hall. Except for nibbled flowers there were no problems there. But Oberhausen also wants to benefit from Tuffi’s popularity – and also relies on a work of art. That copies Wuppertal’s history by attaching the elephant sculpture to a suspension railway scaffolding in front of the LVR Industrial Museum. Three Tuffi sculptures within a 40 kilometer radius – and none is significant in their design. Why are our urban spaces clogged with such infantile stories?