Germany news

Germany news

The state's government - made up of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) - has announced it will halve its funding for integration services for international residents, dropping from €6 million to just €3 million in 2026. This means that only 21 out of 91 integration projects applying for funding will receive support in the coming year, according to the Saxony Refugee Council ( Sächsischer Flüchtlingsrat - SFR).

With China covering, for instance, more than 95% of the rare earth market, you cannot replace this in a short time," he told DW. "These are long-standing and reliable trading relationships, and the material and processes are proven.

Many of the objects dating from 1933 to 1945 up for sale under the title "System of Terror Vol II" contained the names and personal information about the persecuted. "For victims of Nazi persecution and Holocaust survivors, this auction is a cynical and shameless undertaking that leaves them outraged and speechless", Christoph Heubner, the executive-vice president of International Auschwitz Committee said in a statement. "They should be displayed in museums or memorial exhibitions and not degraded to mere commodities."

A 300-kilogram bronze church bell stolen in Bremen days ago has been recovered, the city's police said on Friday. A recycling center employee contacted the authorities to notify them he had purchased the stolen bell from two unknown men, before later learning about the stolen church bell and connecting the dots. The bell will return to the tower of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Bremen, which is mostly used now as a charity shop.

The biggest Christmas Post office is the branch in Himmelpfort, Brandenburg, just north of Berlin. It dates back to 1984, when a local postal worker discovered two letters to Santa from children in Berlin and Saxony. The postal worker replied to them herself, but word quickly spread that this was the place to write to if you wanted to reach Santa. Now Himmelpfort receives around 300,000 wish lists every year.

Lars Klingbeil's trip is the first visit to China by a cabinet minister of the current German government, and the trip to Berlin's most important trading partner comes at a sensitive time. Chinese export controls, especially on rare earths, have highlighted the German economy's heavy dependence on China. The German automotive industry, for example, has felt the effects as it faces a shortage of important parts. The trip comes six months into the current government's term

Other Bundesliga clubs have queried the wisdom of bringing Melnikova in to help Chemnitz's title push. "There were only sporting reasons," club coach Tatjana Bachmayer told DW. "We didn't want to provoke anyone, and above all, we didn't want to make a political statement. We are aware that this could be seen as problematic. But for us, what counts is solidarity in sport and international understanding."

"The proportion of municipalities that see themselves in emergency mode and describe themselves as overburdened has visibly decreased to 11%," said Boris Kuhn from the Migration Policy Research Group at the University of Hildesheim. "At the same time, however, more than 70% of municipalities continue to say that the situation is challenging. It would therefore not be accurate to talk about a relaxed situation across the board," he added.

Idealo pursued legal action against Google, claiming that the Alphabet subsidiary was "self-preferencing" its own platforms, which led to unfair market advantages that hindered competitors. The company first demanded at least 3.3 billion euros, or more than $3.8 billion, in damages in February 2025. To counter, Google said it made changes in 2017 that allowed competing shopping platforms the same opportunity as Google Shopping to display ads through Google Search.

Germany's coalition government has finalised the 2026 federal budget after a marathon meeting on Thursday night. The more than €500 billion package promises targeted relief for individuals and selected industries but also record new borrowing. A draft of Germany's federal budget for 2026 was agreed on in the early hours of Thursday by the government's budget committee. The total planned expenditure stands at €524.5 billion, which is €4 billion more than initially anticipated.

The new Hamburg State Opera by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) will establish a contemporary home for the State Opera and Hamburg Ballet. The project is set to be located on the Baakenhöft peninsula in HafenCity - a sprawling waterfront development - and will replace the company's mid-century house on Dammtorstraße. It will extend the German city's long tradition of pairing cultural architecture with the harbor's open horizon.

Earlier this week, some reports out of England suggested that Bayern Munich might very well look to offload Nicolas Jackson as early as this January, when he would be participating in the African Cup of Nations with Senegal. His loan spell from Chelsea with the German Rekordmeister is set to run through the remainder of this season and, despite the rumors of a potential January departure, he looks set to stay at Bayern and see through the entirety of his loan spell.

A German court ruled that OpenAI's ChatGPT violated the nation's copyright laws by training its language models on licensed musical work without permission, multiple news outlets, including The Guardian reported. The decision came from a lawsuit that GEMA, the society that handles music rights in Germany, filed last November against OpenAI. The company was ordered to pay an undisclosed amount of damages to GEMA, but said it disagreed with the ruling and is "considering next steps."

If you want to understand the state of Germany in these last weeks of 2025, grasping the meaning of two entries in the German dictionary are essential: stadtbild and haftbefehl. The first term technically means cityscape. But since chancellor Friedrich Merz gave a speech in the state of Brandenburg on 14 October, it has taken on a new political meaning. We have come far with migration, he said, but of course we still have this problem in our stadtbild.

The Saudi-born doctor accused of carrying out a deadly car attack on the Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg has said he was "as cold as ice" on the day. He has said he wishes to testify "for hours, perhaps days" from Tuesday as his trial continues. Six people were killed and more than 300 injured in the December 20, 2024, attack.

"to kill a large number of people"

Bundestag President Julia Klockner, of the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU), recently implied that Germany had become the "brothel of Europe" reigniting the national debate about sex work. In a speech read out at an award ceremony on Tuesday, Klockner criticized Germany's current legislation, saying sex workers are not adequately protected. "I am firmly convinced that we must finally ban prostitution and the purchase of sex in this country," the conservative Klockner said.

It can seem like a strange coincidence to see children parade through the streets of Germany with lanterns to mark St. Martin's Day on November 11 while, at the same time, colorfully dressed carnival revelers shout "Alaaf" or "Helau." Do these things really go together? In fact, Carnival and St. Martin's Day are two customs that share a common origin dating back several centuries.

A total of 1,906 initial asylum applications from Syrians were rejected in October, compared to 163 during the period from January to September, statistics from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) showed on Saturday. The figures come as BAMF resumed processing "young, able-bodied" male Syrians' asylum requests at the end of September after suspending almost all such decisions last December following the change in government in Syria. "In justified individual cases, the Federal Office has also issued full rejections against Syrian nationals," the BAMF said, referring to cases involving criminals and people considered to pose a potential danger.