‘Every piece of evidence is vital’: Holocaust survivor calls for victims’ shoes to be salvaged

Manfred Goldberg, 94, urges authorities to preserve fragments of thousands of shoes left to rot at Stutthof concentration camp site

One of the last remaining survivors of the Stutthof Nazi concentration camp has appealed to authorities to salvage fragments of tens of thousands of shoes belonging to murdered Holocaust victims that were recently discovered in a forest at the site.

Manfred Goldberg, who was imprisoned as a teenager at Stutthof, 24 miles (38km) east of Gdańsk, said he was “shocked and dismayed” to hear of the existence of the remnants, eight decades after the shoes’ owners were forced to remove them before being gassed and cremated.

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Munich’s Oktoberfest to ban Italian disco hit co-opted by far right

Managers say no place at beer festival for song adapted with Nazi slogan ‘Germany for the Germans, foreigners out’

The managers of Munich’s Oktoberfest have said they will seek to ban an Italian disco hit from being played at the world’s most famous beer festival after its hijacking by far-right revellers.

In recent months the schmaltzy love lyrics of L’amour Toujours, a catchy 2001 hit by Italian DJ Gigi D’Agostino, have repeatedly been drowned out at public gatherings by a Nazi slogan: “Germany for the Germans, foreigners out”.

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Hopes grow of G7 deal to support Ukraine with $300bn in frozen Russian assets

Foreign ministers confident of agreement to use bank assets as security for Ukraine reconstruction loan

Hopes of a multi-country deal to use $300bn of Russian state assets frozen in the European banking system to support Ukraine have grown after it emerged that G7 ministers were confident of overcoming technical and political obstacles at a meeting in northern Italy on Saturday.

The Canadian finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, said she was optimistic that G7 leaders would reach an agreement, as support coalesced around a plan to use frozen Russian central bank assets as security for a $50bn (£39bn) loan.

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Von der Leyen quizzed on whether she would work with far-right in EU election debate – as it happened

Frontrunner to be European Commission president was questioned over alliances with Meloni and others in face-off with rival candidates

Sandro Gozi, representing Renew Europe Now, has walked on stage.

Walter Baier, representing the Party of the European Left, has entered the stage.

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EU’s far-right parties expel Germany’s AfD from their group

ID group of populist parties cuts off Alternative für Deutschland after its candidate’s comments that SS were ‘not all criminals’

The far-right German party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has been expelled from its pan-European parliamentary group after a string of recent controversies over its policy choices and the conduct of some of its leaders.

“The bureau of the Identity and Democracy group in the European parliament has decided today to exclude the German delegation, AfD, with immediate effect,” the ID group of populist far-right parties said in a statement on Thursday.

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Europe’s far right in disarray as Germany’s AfD candidate resigns

Maximilian Krah’s SS remark highlights growing divisions within European far-right and nationalist groups

The lead candidate for Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in the European parliamentary election has resigned from the German far-right party’s leadership, as growing divisions between Europe’s nationalist parties threaten to undermine their expected gains in next month’s ballot.

Maximilian Krah, who last weekend told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that the SS, the Nazis’ main paramilitary force, were “not all criminals”, said in a statement on Wednesday that his comments were “being misused as a pretext to damage our party”.

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Nine on trial in Frankfurt on charges of plotting to overthrow German state

Self-styled aristocrat, a former judge and retired military officers among suspected Reichsbürger members appear in court

A group including a self-styled aristocrat, a former far-right politician and retired military officers sought the approval of the Russian state as it plotted a violent “seizure of power” in covert meetings at motorway service stations and a hunting lodge, a court in Germany has heard.

On the first day of their trial, nine defendants appeared in court in Frankfurt charged with high treason, facing allegations they plotted over a period of about 18 months to overthrow the state.

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Eight climate activists arrested in Germany over airport protest

About 60 flights cancelled after members of Letzte Generation glue themselves to ground at Munich

Eight climate activists have been arrested after causing Munich airport to close, leading to about 60 flight cancellations.

Six activists broke through a security fence and glued themselves to access routes leading to runways, officials and local media reported.

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Woman accusing Christian Brückner of rape says his eyes ‘bored into my skull’

Hazel Behan, who says main suspect in Madeleine McCann case raped her in Portugal in 2004, tells court she will never forget his eyes

A woman who alleges she was raped at knifepoint by the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has told a court she would never forget the eyes of her attacker, which “bored into my skull”.

Giving evidence in the trial of Christian Brückner, who stands accused of five sexual assaults in Portugal of women aged between 10 and 80 between 2000 and 2017, Hazel Behan, 40, who was raped in June 2004, told the court: “I believe that this man was my attacker.”

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Woman raped at knifepoint in Portugal gives evidence in Christian Brückner trial

Main suspect in Madeleine McCann case in court in Germany charged with three rapes and two indecent assaults

A woman who was raped at knifepoint by a masked man in Portugal 20 years ago has told a German court how the trauma of the ordeal had left her suffering from frequent panic attacks.

Hazel Behan, 40, broke down as she recalled how a man dressed in black had entered her apartment in the resort of Praia da Rocha in the Algarve at 3am on 16 June 2004. She told how he stood over her bed and woke her by calling her name before proceeding to rape her repeatedly over several hours.

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German court fines senior AfD politician €13,000 for using banned Nazi phrase

Björn Höcke, party’s candidate to lead Thuringia state, found to have deliberately used SA slogan in 2021 speech

A German court has fined a leading member of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party for using a banned Nazi phrase at a political rally, in a high-profile trial just months before an election in which he aims to become a state leader.

The state court in Halle convicted Björn Höcke, the firebrand chief of the AfD in the eastern region of Thuringia, of deliberately using a slogan associated with the Nazi party’s paramilitary wing, the SA, in a speech at a campaign event in May 2021.

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Angela Merkel memoirs to be published in November

Freedom: Memories 1954-2021 will cover Merkel’s childhood, political rise and 16 years as German chancellor

Angela Merkel will release her long-awaited memoirs in November under the title Freedom: Memories 1954-2021, sketching her journey from life behind the Berlin Wall to the top echelons of power “more intimately than ever before”.

Merkel, whose image in Germany and abroad has been tarnished by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, will turn 70 in July. She notes that her life can be neatly cleaved into experiences in “two German states – 35 years in the German Democratic Republic, 35 years in reunited Germany”, according to the book’s English publisher, Pan Macmillan.

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Scandals fail to knock Germany’s AfD off course before electoral tests

Far-right party’s poll numbers have fallen but analysts say negative headlines unlikely to sway its supporters

Scandals buffeting Germany’s far-right AfD are unlikely to do enough damage to blow the party off course before pivotal elections this year, analysts say, but the votes will offer crucial insights into whether the centre can hold against an anti-democratic onslaught.

Embarrassing allegations of spying for China and collusion with Russia, after the bombshell revelation in January of a mass “remigration masterplan” for foreigners and German nationals alike backed by several party members, have sent the AfD’s poll numbers plunging to as low as 15% nationwide. That is its worst score since April 2023.

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Far-right EU election gains could boost nationalist parties on home turf

Polls indicate a surge for the right across the continent in next month’s ballots but the centrists are still likely to hold sway in parliament

Far-right gains in next month’s European elections will be hard, if not impossible, to parlay into more power in parliament, experts say, but they could boost nationalist parties in EU capitals – with potentially greater consequences.

Polling suggests far-right and hardline conservative parties could finish first in nine EU states, including Austria, France and the Netherlands, in the polls between 6 and 9 June, and second or third in another nine, including Germany, Spain, Portugal and Sweden.

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Eight hundred protesters attempt to storm German Tesla factory

Demonstrators opposed to expansion of factory near Berlin claim it would damage environment

Hundreds of protesters opposed to the expansion of a Tesla plant in Grünheide, near Berlin, clashed with police on Friday as some of them attempted to storm the electric vehicle manufacturing facility.

About 800 people took part in the protest, according to the organizing group Disrupt Tesla, which claims the expansion would damage the environment. Tesla has attracted intense backlash since the company opened the factory in March 2022, and later announced plans to expand into a nearby forest to increase its production capability.

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Olaf Scholz condemns attacks on politicians after third assault in a week

German chancellor says attacks are ‘outrageous and cowardly’ after politicians have been hit and injured in Germany

Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has strongly condemned a rash of attacks on politicians after a senator and former mayor of Berlin was struck over the head in a public library in the third assault on an elected official in less than a week.

Franziska Giffey, a member of Scholz’s centre-left Social Democratic party (SPD) was slightly injured and briefly hospitalised after a man hit her from behind with a bag containing an unidentified hard object on Tuesday. Police have arrested a 74-year-old male suspect.

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European People’s party declines to sign letter condemning far-right political violence

Commitment of Ursula von der Leyen’s party to fighting destructive forces is in question, say signatories

A row has broken out among political parties in Europe after the centre right group to which Ursula von der Leyen belongs refused to sign a letter condemning the far right and a spate of attacks on politicians in Germany, Belgium, Spain, Sweden and Ireland.

The open letter calls on von der Leyen to “reject any normalisation, cooperation or alliance with the far right and radical parties” and denounces a physical assault on the German centre-left politician Matthias Ecke. Ecke was “seriously injured” after allegedly being attacked by four young men while putting up campaign posters.

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Suspect detained after Berlin senator attacked – as it happened

Franziska Giffey was injured when a man struck her from behind with a heavy object in a local library. This live blog is closed

A 74-year-old has been detained in Germany, after Franziska Giffey, a Berlin senator and former city mayor, was injured when a man struck her from behind with a heavy object in a local library.

Reuters reported, citing police, that the suspect was previously known to law enforcement for hate crime and unspecified incidents against state security, and was also believed to have mental health issues.

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‘Countries are now forced to confront it’: Rise in Chinese espionage arrests alarms Europe

Increase in cases reflects changing mood across continent towards Chinese threats, say experts

As China’s president, Xi Jinping, arrived in Serbia for the second leg of his European tour, authorities across the continent were grappling with a wave of allegations about Chinese spying.

On Tuesday, the UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, revealed that a “malign actor” had compromised British military payroll records, with reports pointing the finger at China.

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Clashes and arrests as pro-Palestinian protests spread across European campuses

Students set up encampments at universities across continent as they call for ceasefire in Israel-Gaza war

Student protests demanding that universities sever ties with Israel over the Gaza war have spread across Europe, sparking clashes and arrests as new demonstrations broke out in the Netherlands, Germany, France, Switzerland and Austria.

Students at various European universities, inspired by ongoing demonstrations at US campuses, have been occupying halls and facilities, demanding an end to partnerships with Israeli institutions because of Israel’s assault on Gaza.

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