Heavy rain and floods have caused the collapse of six houses in Germany’s western state of Rhineland-Palatinate, leaving at least 38 people dead and many missing or stranded on rooftops. Two firemen drowned and the army was deployed to help stranded residents on Wednesday, after a slow-moving low-pressure weather system caused once-in-a-generation floods
Continue reading...Category Archives: Germany
Nazis, fear and violence: when reporting from Berlin was dangerous
Our Germany correspondent salutes the man who did his job 100 years ago, when it was far more perilous and unpredictable
Frederick Augustus Voigt, who was the Manchester Guardian’s Berlin correspondent between 1920 and 1932, did not look like an intrepid reporter.
A 1935 portrait by the Bauhaus photographer Lucia Moholy makes it appear as though he wants to back away from the camera, distrustful eyes barricaded behind thick, round glasses. His physical appearance was described in his 1957 obituary as “fragile-looking and nervous in manner, shortsighted, with a trick of smiling from the mouth downwards.”
Continue reading...CDU leader Armin Laschet: ‘Even in the coldest of cold wars there was dialogue’
Cheerful Rhinelander poised to succeed Angela Merkel aims to reach out to likes of Russia and Hungary
Over her 16 years as German chancellor, Angela Merkel has gained a reputation as the world’s go-to consensus-builder, a relentless forger of compromises between political opponents. The man most likely to step into her shoes this September presents himself as someone with the ambition to outdo her.
Armin Laschet, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and conservative candidate for the top job at federal elections on 26 September, says he is a passionate European, a committed transatlanticist and a reliable ally of Israel.
Continue reading...Pop-up ‘coronabikes’ test German love of order
Mobile Covid testing units offering results in 15 minutes are among a host of rapid tests that play a crucial role in keeping rates down
Parked outside an espresso bar on Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz junction, Maximilian Fritzsch’s mobile coronavirus testing unit aims for similar speed of service as an on-the-go shot of caffeine. Working from the back of a cargo e-bike, staff in lab coats take a quick swab from the nostrils of stressed commuters, who usually receive the result in their inboxes within 15 minutes.
“It is a bit physically intrusive”, said office worker Luisa Larsen, 42, as she impatiently checked her smartphone for the test result. “But then again it’s free, and it feels like the responsible thing to do.”
Continue reading...After Brexit, Merkel probably dabbed her eyes – and moved on
Analysis: when the German chancellor steps down in September, her departure will leave a gaping hole
Angela Merkel, now on an affable UK farewell tour including tea with the Queen, leaves a paradoxical legacy for many British.
She is often hailed as the upholder of a liberal Europe that faced a populist onslaught from Donald Trump. But she is also the woman who refused to throw David Cameron a lifeline on immigration ahead of the Brexit referendum, judging it not in the national interest. But for Merkel’s stance then, her jocular host now might not have been Boris Johnson, who leaves her cold, but an ageing Cameron in his 11th year in office.
Continue reading...Angela Merkel and PM to discuss Covid travel curbs during final UK visit
Prime minister will welcome German leader at Chequers in her last visit as chancellor
Boris Johnson is to welcome Angela Merkel to Chequers on Friday, with coronavirus travel restrictions anticipated to be high on the agenda for their meeting.
The German chancellor, who is making her final visit to the UK before stepping down, has called for quarantine for all UK travellers entering the EU, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated, due to concerns over the Delta variant.
Germany has already designated the UK a “virus variant region”, meaning anyone travelling from the UK has to quarantine for two weeks on arrival – excluding those in transit.
Continue reading...‘A downward spiral that began in 2016’: German media react to England’s win
Press criticises outgoing coach Joachim Löw for selection and tactics, tempered with praise for opponents’ ‘efficiency’
For England, Tuesday’s 2-0 win ended a 55-year jinx against a side they had repeatedly failed to edge past in the knockout rounds of major tournaments. But for Germany, too, the defeat at Wembley marked the end of an era.
“The Euros were meant to be a dignified send-off for national coach Joachim Löw,” said Boris Büchler in a comment for broadcaster ZDF. In his first 10 years in charge of Germany’s national team, Löw had taken his sides at least to the semi-final of every tournament they participated in. In 2014, he came home from Rio de Janeiro with the World Cup.
Continue reading...England v Germany: Euro 2020, last 16 – live!
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45+1 min: A dreadful pass by Thomas Muller is intercepted by Sterling, who advances through the centre. He charges forwards and is tackled on the edge of the Germany penalty area. The ball squirts towards Kane, who looks like he can’t miss ... but Mats Hummels sticks out a leg and relieves him of possession as he tries to take the ball around Neuer. That was close!
45 min: Kalvin Phillips gets booked for a meaty challenge on Toni Kroos. Both England’s holding midfielders are on yellow cards.
Continue reading...‘At first I thought, this is crazy’: the real-life plan to use novels to predict the next war
Three years ago, a small group of academics at a German university launched an unprecedented collaboration with the military – using novels to try to pinpoint the world’s next conflicts. Are they on to something?
As the car with the blacked-out windows came to a halt in a sidestreet near Tübingen’s botanical gardens, keen-eyed passersby may have noticed something unusual about its numberplate. In Germany, the first few letters usually denote the municipality where a vehicle is registered. The letter Y, however, is reserved for members of the armed forces.
Military men are a rare, not to say unwelcome, sight in Tübingen. A picturesque 15th-century university town that brought forth great German minds including the philosopher Hegel and the poet Friedrich Hölderlin, it is also a modern stronghold of the German Green party, thanks to its left-leaning academic population. In 2018, there was growing resistance on campus against plans to establish Europe’s leading artificial intelligence research hub in the surrounding area: the involvement of arms manufacturers in Tübingen’s “cyber valley”, argued students who occupied a lecture hall that year, brought shame to the university’s intellectual tradition.
Continue reading...Fractious EU summit rejects Franco-German plan for Putin talks
Bloc to explore sanctions instead, as gathering also holds ‘emotional’ debate over Hungary’s LGBT laws
A Franco-German plan to restart talks with Vladimir Putin has been rejected at a fractious EU summit that resulted in a decision to explore economic sanctions against Russia instead.
The two-day gathering in Brussels also included an “emotional” debate over LGBT rights in Hungary, as EU leaders confronted Viktor Orbán over a law that will ban gay people from being shown in educational and entertainment content for minors.
Continue reading...After 16 years of Merkel, EU summit could mark end of an era
Analysis: Outgoing German chancellor attended her first summit in 2005 with likes of Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac
When Angela Merkel attended her first EU summit in December 2005, her fellow leaders included Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac. It was a different world from the one that exists now as she attends what could be her last.
Europe’s divisions over the Iraq war were still raw. Blair was running the European Council, as the British held the EU’s rotating presidency. During the summit, the UK brokered a deal on the EU budget that cut the British rebate to pay for enlargement into central and eastern Europe.
Continue reading...Goretzka sets up Germany v England last-16 tie after Hungary threaten shock
What a white knuckle ride this was and how fortunate, in the end, Germany can consider themselves to have reached the last 16. They will play England at Wembley on Tuesday and it may either gratify or worry Gareth Southgate that another display like this would render their chances extremely slim. Surely they can only improve on a night’s work
When Andras Schafer headed them back ahead a minute after Kai Havertz cancelled out Adam Szalai’s opener, they looked bound to send the home side packing. But Leon Goretzka’s equaliser transformed the picture and staved off the ignominy of repeating Germany’s group stage exit of Russia 2018.
Continue reading...All UK arrivals in EU should be quarantined, says Angela Merkel
German leader’s comments come as disease control agency says Delta variant will account for 90% of EU cases by end of August
Angela Merkel has said travellers from the UK should be quarantined wherever they arrive in the EU, as the union’s agency for disease control forecast that the Delta variant of Covid will account for 90% of cases in member states by the end of August.
Ahead of Thursday’s summit with fellow EU leaders, the German chancellor said she wanted better coordination to fight the spread of the highly transmissible variant that has surfaced strongly in the UK and is now bedding down in the bloc.
Continue reading...Moving on: why the EU is not missing Britain that much
On the 5th anniversary of Brexit, commentators reflect on the EU’s success at rallying together after Britain’s exit
On the night of 23 June 2016 a storm broke out over Brussels. Rain poured, thunder rolled and lightning flashed over the headquarters of the European Union’s institutions.
Then in the small hours came a political thunderbolt almost no one had forecast: the UK had voted to leave the union. Five years on, the Brexit tempest has subsided – in Brussels, if not in London.
Continue reading...Italy’s PM says Euro 2020 final should be moved to Rome due to UK Covid rates
After Mario Draghi’s remarks, head of Italian football federation says they are not seeking to move match
Italy’s prime minister Mario Draghi has said he wants the final of the European football championships to be held in Rome rather than in London, because of Britain’s rising number of coronavirus infections.
Asked during a news conference in Berlin if he was in favour of the move, Draghi said: “Yes … I will try to stop the final being held in a country where infections are rising quickly.”
Continue reading...German army appoints first rabbi as religious counsellor in 100 years
Hungarian-born Zsolt Balla speaks of his ‘historic responsibility’ to serve Jewish soldiers
The German army has installed its first rabbi as a religious counsellor in 100 years, in a symbol of the renewal of Jewish life decades after the Holocaust.
Priests and pastors are already providing religious services to the estimated 94,000 Christians in the military.
Continue reading...Bee-friendly urban wildflower meadows prove a hit with German city dwellers
Countrywide scheme is flourishing after being set up to reverse a 75% decline in insect populations
To escape the Berlin bustle on a summer afternoon, all that Derek O’Doyle and his dog Frida have to do is lap the noisy building site outside their inner-city apartment, weave their way through the queue in front of the ice-cream van, and squeeze between two gridlocked lorries to cross over Baerwaldstrasse.
Bordered by a one-way traffic system lies a bucolic 1,720 sq metre haven as colourful as a Monet landscape: blue cornflowers, red poppies, white cow parsley and purple field scabious dot a sea of nettles and wild grass as armies of insects buzz through the air. Two endangered carpenter bees, larger than their honey bee cousins and with pitch-black abdomens, gorge themselves on a bush of yellow gorse.
Continue reading...‘It’s such a relief’: how Europe’s Covid vaccine rollout is catching up with UK
More supplies and vaccination centres have put France, Italy and Germany back on track in battle against coronavirus
On Friday morning, Leyla Çelik woke up with butterflies in her stomach. For weeks, the 22-year-old student at Berlin’s Freie Universität had tried in vain to get an appointment for her first Covid-19 vaccine shot so she could volunteer as a polling station administrator at federal elections in September. “I’d basically given up hope.”
But last week her university had suddenly got in touch via email, offering her a chance to get a first dose of Moderna vaccine on campus, and within a few days. By 9am on Friday, the anxiety has turned into euphoria: “It’s such a relief,” said the native Berliner, nursing her achey shoulder at Freie’s biology institute, converted into a vaccine delivery point as of this week. “At last I can catch a train or a bus without feeling anxious.”
Continue reading...German police appeal for information after 17th century paintings found in skip
An art expert believes the paintings are by Dutch artist Samuel van Hoogstraten and Italian Pietro Bellotti
German police have appealed for information from the public after two 17th century paintings were discovered in a skip at a highway rest stop.
Police said a 64-year-old man found the oil paintings at the rest stop near Ohrenbach in central Germany last month. He later handed them in to police in the western city of Cologne.
Continue reading...More than half of Europe’s cities still plagued by dirty air, report finds
Data shows only 127 of 323 cities had acceptable PM 2.5 levels despite drop in emissions during lockdowns
More than half of European cities are still plagued by dirty air, new data shows, despite a reduction in traffic emissions and other pollutants during last year’s lockdowns.
Cities in eastern Europe, where coal is still a major source of energy, fared worst of all, with Nowy Sącz in Poland having the most polluted air, followed by Cremona in Italy where industry and geography tend to concentrate air pollution, and Slavonski Brod in Croatia.
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