You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.A humpback that became stuck in the Baltic seemed to unite a nation in hope. Rescue efforts followed, and then finger-pointing.The humpback whale, nicknamed Timmy, trapped near the island of Poel, Germany, in April.Credit...Jens Büttner/DPA, via Associated PressTimmy the Whale Got Stranded Off the German Coast. Then Things Got Weird.A humpback that became stuck in the Baltic seemed to unite a nation in hope. Rescue efforts followed, and then finger-pointing.The humpback whale, nicknamed Timmy, trapped near the island of Poel, Germany, in April.Credit...Jens Büttner/DPA, via Associated PressListen · 14:12 min By Jim Tankersley and Jenny GrossJim Tankersley reported from Poel Island, Germany, and Berlin. Jenny Gross reported from London.May 20, 2026Updated 10:33 a.m. ETOn a mid-April day off Germany’s northeast coast, a Peruvian spiritual author and motivational speaker named Sergio Bambarén slipped into the Baltic Sea. He plunged his head into the chilly water and began singing to a humpback whale.Mr. Bambarén is not a marine biologist. He had just arrived in Germany at the request of one of a pair of millionaires who were funding a private effort to save the humpback. The whale, nicknamed “Timmy” by the news media, had become stranded in March, and public officials had tried and failed to set him free several times.Mr. Bambarén, who said he was the veteran of five humpback rescues, sang underwater as he touched the young whale. Timmy, he said, sang back: “He immediately felt we were trying to help him.”At the time, it felt like an entire country was, too.Crowds flocked every day to a sleepy lane on Poel Island, where they watched the whale lie half-submerged and mostly motionless in the water. Thousands more tuned in via livestream. People flooded online message boards and local government meetings, pleading for the whale’s rescue.In that first month, Timmy seemed to bring out the best in the German public.By the end, he’d brought out something else entirely.ImageA rescue team watering Timmy. Credit...Frank Molter/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT