On the final leg of the journey, after boarding, the pilot asked for volunteers to leave the plane as they were too heavy to take off.

They had flown a 50 min flight from my final destination to where I was and, without fuelling, were turning around to go back. They were adamant that the plane was too heavy and (with a print out from one of the flight computers in hand) were asking for 27 people to leave the flight. //

LH2327, today (11.2.20) A320 Neo. I'd guess at somewhere around 120 people (two full bus loads). they definitely didn't refuel. They said they filled the plane in Munich the day before to give the plane more balast to cope with the storm winds. //

The filling of the plane with fuel thing might have been a red herring, one of the stewards said it, although they hinted it was to keep it more firmly planted on the ground during the storm, not to affect flight performance in any way.