German police reached the accident to find what news stories would describe as a scene from a horror show: seven horses on a dark highway had been ripped to pieces by two cars. The drivers had been badly injured.
Investigators found pieces of auto wreckage and horse flesh scattered around the site.
But the reason the December accident has remained national news for weeks has only a little bit to do with the carnage. What's made the accident the talk of Germany is its suspected cause: wolves, which reportedly spooked the horses into the paths of the oncoming cars.
It's difficult to capture the fear and excitement that wolves generate in this country. The predator has played a role in many a German fairytale, and for nearly 150 years it was considered extinct in Germany.
Now, however, wolves have made a comeback, growing over the past two decades to a stable population of 35 packs, about 150 wolves in all. That's set off a furor over whether Germany is big enough for both people and wolves.
Critics say that Germany is too populated for a large, wild carnivore to be allowed to roam freely. Fans and scientists say they're simply part of the natural order, and signs of an ecosystem in need of a predator.
How far apart the two camps are is highlighted by the December accident. The Hunters Association of Saxony says wolves caused the horses to flee their pen and head onto the road.
"With great concern we are following the uncontrolled spread of the wolf," the organisation wrote to the Interior Ministry.
Others have strong doubts that wolves were in any way involved. They note that no evidence of the presence of the animal was found at the scene.
It's hardly the first time Germans have voiced such fears. One need look no further than Grimm Brothers tales such as Little Red Cap - the Grimm version of Little Red Riding Hood - and The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids. In those tales, the wolf was depicted as voracious and dangerous.
How seriously the Germans took the wolf threat was evident about the time those stories were published. In the early 19th century, for example, Germans organised a wolf hunt on the Rhine River, where thousands of "drivers" crashed through the wilderness pushing the wolves before them to the hunters.
Each time a region cleansed itself of the threat, hunters erected a "Wolfstein" or a tombstone in the field where the last one was killed.
The Tiger of Sabrodt was officially the last wolf killed in Germany, in 1904, but the animal had been considered extinct in the country since before the original unification of Germany in 1871.
The head zoologist at Gorlitz Senckenberg Museum of Natural History, Hermann Ansorge, said the wolves he studies aren't nearly so dramatic as those creating public fear and political panic.
His office studies wolf droppings to determine what the creatures eat. Ansorge says 52 per cent of the diet is tiny roe deer, 25 per cent the larger red deer, and 16 per cent is wild pig. Sheep, cattle, goats and house pets combined make up less than 1 per cent of the diet.
"There is no human in the diet," he said, smiling, before adding, seriously, "None."
