Category Archives: Germany

‘It’s a big lever for change’: the radical contract protecting Hamburg’s green space

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Citizen power forced Germany’s greenest city-state into a binding agreement balancing housing and nature

When Fritz Schumacher laid out his vision for Hamburg a century ago, the sketch looked more like a fern than a town plan. Fronds of urban development radiated from the centre to tickle the countryside, bristling with dense rows of housing. The white spaces in between were to be filled with parks and playgrounds.

Schumacher was Hamburg’s chief building officer in the early 20th century, and a pioneer of green cities with widespread access to nature. “Building sites emerge even if you don’t invest in them,” he warned in 1932. “Public spaces disappear if you don’t invest in them.”

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Project to build German EV microchip factory put on hold

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US firm Wolfspeed and German car parts supplier ZF postpone plans over doubts about viability

A project to build a €3bn factory making microchips for electric vehicles once hailed as part of a “return of the industrial revolution” in Germany has been put on hold, as the crisis in the country’s hi-tech manufacturing industry deepens.

The US company Wolfspeed and the German car parts supplier ZF have postponed plans to build an EV chip factory, adding to problems caused by a delay to two large-scale factories belonging to the US chip giant Intel and possible factory closures being considered by Volkswagen.

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Side of cocaine with that? German police raid pizzeria after finding secret ingredient

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Authorities smash drugs gang in North Rhine-Westphalia after learning Düsseldorf pizzeria was delivering narcotics

Pizza No 40 was long one of the best-selling dishes at a restaurant in the German city of Düsseldorf, until police discovered the secret ingredient: a side of cocaine.

Authorities say uncovering the illicit narcotics delivery scheme allowed them to smash an organised crime ring in Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia. About 150 officers, including from elite units, last week searched 16 properties in nine cities, arrested three suspects and seized caches of weapons, the news agency DPA reported.

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‘We leave viewers smarter’: fears over plans to close ‘world’s most highbrow’ TV station

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Unique experiment in German-language public broadcasting 3sat faces pressure from populist right

In many countries around the world, breakfast TV means cele­brity interviews, soap operas and last night’s football highlights. On the German-language channel 3sat this Sunday morning, it means a one-hour philosophical discussion on trauma psychology, followed by a book review programme and a classical concert by the Munich Radio Orchestra.

The collaboration between public broadcasters in Austria, Germany and Switzerland is a unique experi­ment in pan-European broadcasting that has defied doubters for almost four decades: highbrow television.

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Russia’s aim is to ‘create havoc’ if it is behind DHL fires, says air freight expert

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Goal seems to be for people ‘to lose confidence in the system’, says head of industry body after devices found in Birmingham and Leipzig

If Russia is proved to be behind an incendiary device plot that caused fires at two parcels warehouses in July, it will be evidence that Moscow is aiming to disrupt western confidence, an expert has said.

The dangerous packages, which caught light at DHL sites in Birmingham and Leipzig, are not thought to have been sophisticated but in both cases appear to have evaded security checks. German authorities warned this week that a plane could have been downed if the devices, which were both sent by air, had ignited in flight.

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Traces of meeting hall and houses found at bronze age site in Germany

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Archaeologists say site near Seddin once had surprisingly densely populated community of farmers and traders

Archaeologists digging at the site of a bronze age kingdom in northern Germany have uncovered remains of what they say was a surprisingly densely populated community of farmers and traders whose lives were upended by climate change.

Traces of eight large houses have been laid bare in the sandy soil outside the village of Seddin, about 95 miles (150km) north-west of Berlin, near the spectacular “triple grave” of King Hinz, remembered as a kindly ruler, who was laid to rest, purportedly in a golden coffin, next to his wife and a loyal servant.

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Former Stasi officer jailed for 10 years over 1974 Berlin border shooting

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Martin Naumann, 80, shot Czesław Kukuczka in the back at close range as he tried to cross into West Berlin

A former officer in the East German secret police has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for the murder of a Polish firefighter at a Berlin border crossing 50 years ago.

Martin Naumann, now 80, shot Czesław Kukuczka in the back at close range on 29 March 1974 as Kukuczka walked towards the last in a series of control posts at a transit area in the divided city, having been told he had a free pass to escape to West Berlin.

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Joe Biden set to visit Germany to discuss Ukraine and Middle East

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US president likely to meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz within next week during rescheduled trip, say sources in Berlin

Joe Biden will visit Germany this week, government sources in Berlin said, after he cancelled a planned trip last week due to Hurricane Milton.

The senior German officials who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed media reports that the US president would travel to Berlin, probably within the next week, but declined to provide further details. Planning for the visit was believed to be ongoing.

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Three-armed robot conductor makes debut in Dresden

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German city’s Sinfoniker says aim is not to replace humans but to play music human conductors would find impossible

She’s not long on charisma or passion but keeps perfect rhythm and is never prone to temperamental outbursts against the musicians beneath her three batons. Meet MAiRA Pro S, the next-generation robot conductor who made her debut this weekend in Dresden.

Her two performances in the eastern German city are intended to show off the latest advances in machine maestros, as well as music written explicitly to harness 21st-century technology. The artistic director of Dresden’s Sinfoniker, Markus Rindt, said the intention was “not to replace human beings” but to perform complex music that human conductors would find impossible.

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Hospitals evacuated in Cologne after discovery of second world war bomb

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1,000kg US ordnance to be defused at building site after complex evacuation that also included thousands of homes

Authorities in the German city of Cologne have evacuated three hospitals and thousands of homes after the discovery of an unexploded second world war bomb during construction work on a new medical campus.

The 1,000kg US aerial bomb, equipped with a front and rear impact detonator, is due to be defused on Friday.

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18 treated for severe nausea in Stuttgart after opera of live sex and piercing

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Florentina Holzinger’s bloody Sancta was criticised by Austrian bishops and is now a sellout in Germany

Eighteen theatregoers at Stuttgart’s state opera required medical treatment for severe nausea over the weekend after watching a performance that included live piercing, unsimulated sexual intercourse and copious amounts of fake and real blood.

“On Saturday we had eight and on Sunday we had 10 people who had to be looked after by our visitor service,” said the opera’s spokesperson, Sebastian Ebling, about the two performances of Sancta, a work by the Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger. A doctor had been called in for treatment in three instances, he added.

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European summit to discuss Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s ‘victory plan’ is postponed

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World leaders pull out from talks in Germany after Joe Biden withdraws due to Hurricane Milton

An international summit on Ukraine where Volodymyr Zelenskyy was going to present a “victory plan” to western leaders has been formally postponed – though the Ukrainian president will try to organise a tour of European capitals instead.

Organisers said that the Saturday meeting of about 20 world leaders at the US Ramstein airbase in Germany would be rescheduled, a day after Biden had said he had to stay at home to respond to Hurricane Milton’s landfall in Florida.

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Zelenskyy ‘victory plan’ summit in doubt after Joe Biden pulls out

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US president prepares for arrival of Hurricane Milton as German chancellor says meeting will be rescheduled

Joe Biden has called off a four-day trip to Germany this week that had been intended to culminate in a summit to discuss Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “victory plan” for Ukraine.

The White House said on Tuesday evening that the president would stay at home “to oversee preparations for and the response” to Hurricane Milton, which is expected to make landfall in Florida on Wednesday.

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Prosecutors to appeal after Madeleine McCann suspect acquitted in separate rape trial

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Christian Brückner found not guilty in Germany of three charges of aggravated rape and two of sexual abuse

The main suspect in the disappearance of the British toddler Madeleine McCann is likely to be released from prison next year after he was found not guilty of all charges in a separate rape and sexual abuse trial.

Christian Brückner, who is serving a seven-year sentence for rape, was acquitted by the district court in Braunschweig, northern Germany, of three separate charges of aggravated rape and two of sexual abuse of children in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.

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Interpol campaign to identify remains of women in Europe expands to 46 cases

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Police forces in France, Italy and Spain join cold-case initiative after launch last year of Operation Identify Me

Police have expanded a cold-case campaign aimed at identifying dozens of women who were murdered or who died in suspicious circumstances across Europe, taking in three new countries and more than doubling the number of cases.

The international policing organisation Interpol said on Tuesday that forces from France, Italy and Spain had joined those in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, which last year launched Operation Identify Me to help name 22 female victims.

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Germans decry influence of English as ‘idiot’s apostrophe’ gets official approval

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Linguistic body has relaxed rules on use of apostrophe to show possession, not traditionally correct in German

A relaxation of official rules around the correct use of apostrophes in German has not only irritated grammar sticklers but triggered existential fears around the pervasive influence of English.

Establishments that feature their owners’ names, with signs like “Rosi’s Bar” or “Kati’s Kiosk” are a common sight around German towns and cities, but strictly speaking they are wrong: unlike English, German does not traditionally use apostrophes to indicate the genitive case or possession. The correct spelling, therefore, would be “Rosis Bar”, “Katis Kiosk”, or, as in the title of a recent viral hit, Barbaras Rhabarberbar.

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How remigration became a buzzword for global far right

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Electoral success of parties in Germany and Austria backing mass deportation linked to the term’s growing use by mainstream politicians, say experts

They poured on to streets across Germany in the tens of thousands, wielding placards that read “Nazis out” and “Never again is now”.

Appalled by revelations that some among the far-right Alternative für Deutschland had attended a meeting in Potsdam at which “remigration” had been on the agenda, the protesters offered a powerful rebuttal to the idea that the mass deportation of migrants – including those with German citizenship – was a valid policy option for any decent politician.

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Europe’s exhausted oyster reefs ‘once covered area size of Northern Ireland’

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Study uncovers vivid and poignant accounts of reefs as high as houses off countries including UK, France and Ireland

Only a handful of natural oyster reefs measuring at most a few square metres cling on precariously along European coasts after being wiped out by overfishing, dredging and pollution.

A study led by British scientists has discovered how extensive they once were, with reefs as high as a house covering at least 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) from Norway to the Mediterranean, an area larger than Northern Ireland.

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Prosecutors call for 15-year sentence for McCann suspect in unrelated rape trial

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Prosecutors say Christian Brückner, main suspect in the Madeleine McCann case, should be kept in preventive detention

German prosecutors have called for a sexual offences conviction and 15-year prison sentence for a man who is also under investigation separately over the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann.

The 47-year-old German national, who has been identified by local media as Christian Brückner, is on trial at the Braunschweig state court in northern Germany over offences he is alleged to have committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.

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German far-right politician accused of using political prisoners as cheap labour in Belarus

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Reports of dissenters working for £4 a day on onion plantation owned by Saxony state parliament AfD member Jörg Dornau

Midway through Nikolai’s shift sorting onions alongside other political prisoners in a warehouse in western Belarus, a tall and bald foreigner entered the building.

“He arrived in a car with German license plates. Then he came over and greeted us warmly,” Nikolai*, recalled in an interview with the Observer.

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