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Openly living in a same-sex relationship in early 20th-century Germany, she later used her privilege, resources and courage to help Jewish families flee Nazism.

In the annals ofWorld War IIhistory, few would have expected a British-born Sikh princess from a dethroned royal family to quietly resistNazi Germany, and live openly with a female partner long beforeLGBTQ+ rightswere acknowledged — let alone accepted.

Yet, that is precisely what Princess Catherine Hilda Duleep Singh did.

The daughter of the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, Catherine blazed her own trail and defied social norms.

The recognition of her legacy is relatively recent. Among those who've brought her acts to the forefront is British biographer Peter Bance, who has spent over two decades researching and writing about the Duleep Singh family, besides piecing together Catherine's extraordinary contributions from scattered records and family documents.

Bance explained toMetroin 2023: "She didn't do these things for self-promotion, so the stories weren't in books or anything. Her stories have survived through the people she saved. Her intervention at that time have seen families across the world thrive."

Born in 1871 in Suffolk, England, Catherine was raised far from the land her father once ruled.

At age 10, Maharaja Duleep Singh was forced to surrender the Sikh Empire — and the(in)famous Koh-i-Noor diamond— after the British annexed Punjab. In return, he received a pension from the British Crown on the condition he "remain obedient to the British Government."

He later married Bamba Müller, a German-Ethiopian woman, with whom he had six children; Catherine was the fourth. The family lived in exile, but under the patronage of Queen Victoria, who was also Catherine's godmother.

Educated at Somerville College, Oxford, Catherine supported the suffragette cause with her two sisters, campaigning for women's voting rights. But it was her private life — especially her years in Germany — that would come to mark her unconventionality and gumption.

Having lost both her parents during her teens, Catherine had developed a close bond with Lina Schäfer, her German governess. In the early 1900s, Catherine left England and moved with Schäfer to the central German city of Kassel. The villa in which they lived together for more than three decades still stands today. Their relationship, though never formally acknowledged, defied social norms of the time and remained steadfast until Lina's death in 1937.

Catherine initially felt at ease there  — among others, the couple enjoyed annual visits to theBayreuth Festival— but the 1930s saw Germany degenerating into a police state under Hitler.

"Being brown-skinned and gay in Germany during the rise of Hitler was dangerous for her," according to Peter Bance. "I remember reading some correspondence between her and her accountant. He urged her to leave the country warning she was going to be targeted. She was being watched by the local Nazis, but she refused to leave."

As the Nazi regime tightened its grip, Catherine used her resources and influence and helped several Jewish individuals and families escape persecution in Germany and start over in Britain. She wrote letters of recommendation, provided financial support, and personally guaranteed immigration documents that were crucial to survival.

One of the most documented examples involves the Hornstein family. Wilhelm Hornstein, a Jewish lawyer and decorated First World War soldier, was arrested during theNovember Pogrom of 1938and imprisoned in a concentration camp. He was later released on condition that he left Germany. Catherine arranged safe passage to England for him, his wife Ilse and their two children.

Catherine hosted them at Colehatch House, her country home in the village of Penn, Buckinghamshire, as well as other Jewish refugees, including a physician named Wilhelm Meyerstein and his partner, Marieluise Wolff, and a violinist named Alexander Polnarioff. She also advocated for those interned as "enemy aliens" — a cruel irony for Jews who had fled the Nazis.

"I think she did her part for humanity. There was a lot of atrocities going on at that time which were going under the radar, and some were there blatantly as well, and people were sort of turning a blind eye. And she could have quite easily turned a blind eye and said, it's not my business, but she made it her business," Bance tells DW.

In 2002, one outcome of her "one-woman rescue mission" resurfaced in a chance encounter.

Bance recalls how, after having published a local article about Catherine, a man named Michael Bowles walked into his office and told him: "My mother and my uncles and my grandparents were saved by Princess Catherine in Germany. And if it wasn't for her, I would not be alive today."

Bowles, it turns out, is the grandson of Ursula, one of the Hornstein children saved by Catherine's intervention.

Catherine died in 1942, aged 71. Neither she nor her siblings had any descendants. In her will, she'd requested that part of her ashes be buried at Lina Schäfer's gravesite in Kassel.

Over the decades, the site fell into disrepair and Bance is now working with Kassel's Main Cemetery to formally mark their shared grave. "I really think it's something Princess Catherine would have liked … They spent their whole life together. And she loved her so much," he explains.

Their bond, though subtle in its time, resonates today. Bance tells DW that while Catherine never hid her relationship "and her sisters obviously knew about it, but it was very hush hush," since in that era "it was not something they would have sort of flaunted or advertised."

However, as Catherine's valor gets more media mileage, LGBTQ+ communities have been posthumously embracing her as an icon for having fearlessly loved and lived as she willed. And she has since headlined media coverage during diverse Pride Months, including one by the BBC in 2023.

Bance is now working on a new book set to coincide with a Kensington Palace exhibition titled "Princesses of Resistance," set for March 2026 that will focus on Catherine and her sisters Sophia and Bamba.

"It's a very female-oriented exhibition showing the efforts of these Duleep Singh princesses," Bance tells DW, adding that he'll be lending items from his personal archive of nearly 2,000 family artifacts that he's collected over the course of 25 years.

While details continue to emerge about the Jewish families that Catherine helped, Bance had once described her as an "Indian Schindler,"  in reference to German industrialistOskar Schindler (1908–1974), who is credited with saving around 1,200 Jewish lives during the Holocaust.

Acknowledging that Catherine's efforts may not meet the scale of the original Schindler's list, Bance nevertheless tells DW: "Saving one life or saving 10 lives, it's still 'saving.' You're saving somebody who's not your color, not your religion, not your ethnic background, but you're doing it based on humanity."

A profile on her alma mater's website sums it up: "A true LGBTQ+ icon, who put herself at risk for the comfort of her aging lover, and the very essence of the Somerville motto: 'Include the excluded.' Catherine did not just include the excluded: she saved them, campaigned for them, fought for them."

One French billionaire is spending millions of euros to boost far-right initiatives. But the case of Pierre-Edouard Sterin is just the tip of the iceberg and prompting calls for stricter rules.

On May 20, the hearing of a French billionaire before a parliamentary inquiry committee was intended to lift the lid on what the committee had earlier called an "outright ecosystem of political conquest."

The lid, however, had to be kept tight because Pierre-Edouard Sterin didn't show up to theNational Assembly.

Originally, French lawmakers wanted to question the billionaire founder of Smartbox — a company that sells experience gifts — on his Pericles project, through which he's invested about €30 million ($34.24 million) in initiatives promoting his conservative values.

"Yesterday, Mr Sterin told us he wanted to testify via video link for security reasons," the committee's president, Thomas Cazenave, said.

"I replied that we had taken appropriate measures to protect him, just like for lawmakers who regularly receive threats," Cazenave — a lawmaker for the government coalition Ensemble! — stressed, adding that he deplored Sterin's "stalling technique."

"It means we won't be able to verify whether Pericles respects French campaign rules," Cazenave added.

The Pericles project's general director, Arnaud Rerolle, had shown up for a hearing a week earlier, saying France's "economic, social and moral situation is in a dire state."

"We're an incubator on the right of the political spectrum for meta-political projects. So far, we have financed less than 15% of the 600 applications we received," he told the committee.

Among the initiatives supported by Pericles are far-right magazineL'Incorrectand theObservatoire du decolonialisme, which, for example, denounces what it calls "woke obscurantism" — a catch-all term used to decryleft-wing ideologies, often centered on the identity politics of minorities.

However, Sterin is not the only billionaire trying to steer French political opinion towards the far right and notablyMarine Le Pen'sNational Rally (RN).

Rerolle refused to unveil the names of all the supported projects — less than a third of which are known. But he said Pericles didn't finance political candidates, which is legally allowed only for political parties under French campaign financing laws.

Pierre-Yves Cadalen, a lawmaker for the far-left party France Unbowed (LFI) and the committee's vice president, calls Rerolle's statement "wishy-washy."

"Daily newspaperL'Humanitepublished an internal document, according to which Pericles aims to help the far right National Rally (RN) win 300 cities in the 2026 municipal elections," Cadalen told DW.

During his hearing, Rerolle had confirmed the document was genuine, but called it "outdated."

According to Rerolle, €150 million will be spent over a decade tofight against Islamism, immigration and gender ideologyand work towards a victory at the 2027 presidential and parliamentary elections.RN President Jordan Bardellaand RN presidential candidate Marine Le Pen are being qualified as "people of trust."

"It's a problem for democracy when billionaires interfere this much with political life," Cadalen said, adding that he wasn't only talking about Sterin.

In France, 80% of the daily generalist printed media are owned by 11 billionaires, with their TV and radio stations reaching more than half of the country's audience.

Cadalen thinks that Vincent Bollore — the majority shareholder of logistics and communication group Bollore — especially wields "huge influence through his media conglomerate, which includes TV channel CNews, radio station Europe 1, the weeklyJDD, plus polling institute CSA.

"Together, they have huge firepower and spread far-right narratives that are then picked up by other media," said Cadalen.

Abel Francois, professor for political economy at Strasbourg University, says that the way they wield so much influence is "relatively new” to French politics. "Billionaires used to buy up media to influence politicians, for example, to be chosen in public tenders. Today, it's about boosting a certain ideology," Francois told DW.

In public interviews, Bollore has maintained he has no influence on the content of his media.

DW's requests for interviews with both Bollore and the Pericles project remained unanswered.

Meanwhile, France's concentration of media ownership has far-reaching consequences, says Amaury de Rochegonde, an  economic journalist at weekly magazineStrategiesand public radio station RFI.

Journalists "self-censor" when it comes to reporting about those billionaires because no-one wants to get "on the wrong side of a potential future employer."

What's more, the billionaires are teaming up, Rochegonde told DW. "Bollore and Sterin are known to have met. Both are pushing for a union of the right, meaning an alliance between the conservative Republicans' right wing and the RN", he said.

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Alexis Levrier, a media historian at northern Reims University, has experienced what it means to rattle the Bollore cage.

"I received thousands of messages with insults and even death threats, including from an arms dealer," Levrier told DW in one of his first interviews on the issue since late February.

Back then, he told daily newspaperL'Opinionthat he supported a decision by the French media watchdog to revoke the license for C8, one of Bollore's TV stations. The withdrawal came after C8 was found to have ignored dozens of formal reprimands, including for sexism and homophobia.

Levrier believes that another of Bollore's media outlets, CNews, which unleashed the hate campaign, should receive a similar sanction.

"Many fellow researchers don't dare to speak up against the Bollore empire any more. The cultural sector has also gone quiet, although artists used to be staunch advocates of humanist values," said Levrier.

Yet Bollore and Sterin are exceptions among entrepreneurs, says Herve Joly, a historian at national research institute CNRS, because hardly any business leader openly supported the RN.

"In the past, employers didn't endorse the far right before it came to power. They tended to back established, conservative parties. Nowadays, entrepreneurs even promote progressive values, such as gender equality and the fight against climate change," he told DW.

At the same time, he warns that this could change if the far right were to rise to power. "In Germany, company bosses cooperated with Hitler after he had taken over and even consolidated his power."

LFI lawmaker Pierre-Yves Cadalen wants to prevent that with "new regulations against market concentration" in French media.

"Reactionary forces are using these platforms to push for dismantling our rule of law just like in the US," he said.

But Ensemble! lawmaker Eleonore Caroit, also a member of the investigative committee, doesn't think that new laws are needed.

"We can fight against projects like Pericles by laying them bare," she told DW. "I'm sure that's why Sterin didn't show up for the hearing."

The French billionaire now risks two years in prison and a fine of up to €7,500.

Many popular holiday destinations are struggling from the environmental impact of huge visitor numbers. How can the issue be tackled?

Tourismis booming all over the world. In 2024 there were around 1.5 billion holiday makers, setting the second highest ever record after 2019.

From Gran Canaria to Mallorca andRome, many population destinations are now overcrowded with visitors.

Overtourismdescribes the excessive, and often simultaneous, rush of vacationers to one place. According to the UN World Tourism Organization it is usually defined as the point at which locals or visitors feel tourismhas negatively impacted the quality of lifein a region to an unacceptable degree.

All of this applies to theseven Canary Islands.The archipelago in the Atlantic, home to 2.2 million locals, hosted a total of 15.2 million visitors last year — and a new record is expected this year.

While tourism accounts for more than a third of the islands' economy, it is mainly large investors that profit, according to local groups.Rents are exploding, the environment is suffering and living space for the local population is becoming scarce as property owners capitalize on lucrative short-term rentals.

Overtourism exacerbates the existing problems of heavy tourism and often stretches infrastructure and local resources to their limit.

Noise, littering, drones flying through the air to take holiday snapshots and traffic jams are just a few of the less pleasant aspects of surges in visitors.

Landscapes are often altered by additional footpaths or new parking lots catering to tourists, disrupting the local flora and fauna.

Tourism threatens water resources, especially on islands and in warm regions as vacationers, particularly wealthy ones, generally consumemore water than locals.

Waste water is also often a problem. For example, the wastewater discharged into the sea off the popular Spanish Balearic island of Mallorca has caused underwater seagrass beds, important helpers in the fight against theclimate crisis,to shrink considerably.

Emissions from tourism increased by 65% between 1995 and 2019. Today it is today responsible for 8% to 10% of allglobal greenhouse gas emissions.Air travel is the main driver of its growing climate impact. While flying accounts for a quarter of all vacation trips, it is responsible for three quarters of tourism emissions.

Added to this are emissions from localtransportation, accommodation and leisure activities. The general rise in travel often leads to overtourism: If more people are traveling, particularly popular destinations become more crowded.

Short trips are becoming more popular. Last year, Germans alone took around 94 million short trips — an increase of almost a quarter compared to the previous year. This type of travel is particularly damaging to the climate, as the largest proportion of tourists' CO2 emissions comes from the journey to and from a destination. More short trips equals more arrivals and departures, and this means more emissions.

According to the Swiss non-profit organization fairunterwegs, air travel has a particularly influential role in driving overtourism. They say the existence of nearby airports, particularly if they are served by low-cost airlines, encourages the emergence of overtourism. Mallorca, for example, would probably not be as popular if people had to travel there by ship.

Howevercruise shipsare also criticized for exacerbating the problem. Cruise ship tourists tend to go ashore for only a few hours, putting a strain on local infrastructure and contributing relatively little to the local economy, as they are usually fully catered for on board.

And then there is the phenomenon of so-called set-jetting. The filming locations of popular TV series often experience a huge spike in visitor numbers. On Maui and Sicily, the filming locations for the first two seasons of US series "The White Lotus," the number of guests has risen by 20% since the islands appeared on-screen.

Dubrovnik in Croatia,where much of Game of Thrones was filmed, is also suffering from overtourism. And in Hallstatt,Austria,a local initiative is fighting against the impact of a tourism surge, likely driven by the picturesque town being featured in the South KoreanNetflix series"Spring Waltz."

Some cities and regions are trying to limit thenumber of travelers at certain times or altogether.

In Venice,day tourists have to pay up to €10and Lisbon charges cruise ship operators €2 for every disembarking passenger. Tenerife is restricting access to the summit of the Pico del Teide volcano to 300 visitors per day.

Paris has moved to limit the number of days per year locals can rent out their main residence via platforms such as Airbnb, while Thailand is closing the popular Similan and Surin Islands this year until autumn to allow local ecosystems to recover, and is planning to charge entrance fees in future.

In addition to access restrictions and higher taxes on overnight stays, visitor flows are also managed through digital booking systems that help avoid queues in front of monuments or museums. Some tourism hotspots are also promoting attractions outside city centers.

Copenhagenis trying a different approach by instead rewarding more climate-friendly travellers, with those arriving by train able to access free rental bikes, yoga lessons, guided tours and reduced admission prices.

This article was first published in German.

In 2024, more than 11,000 people contacted the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency — mainly to report racism or sexism. These figures are higher than ever before.

Last year, theAnti-Discrimination Agencyreceived a record number of complaints from individuals like Mahmoud, who was desperately searching for an apartment and yet was rarely invited to view potential properties.In contrast, his German friend Stefan was invited to view an apartment that had supposedly already been taken.

Other cases of alleged discrimination include agay couplewho were told by Germany's child welfare agency that they had a "pathological, unnatural web of relationships," and a trainee at a logistics company who repeatedly became the victim of aggressive sexual harassment by a colleague.

All of these people contacted the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency in 2024 to report their experiences ofdiscrimination.

"Discrimination is a growing problem in Germany. We have a massive problem with racism. We have a massive problem with sexism. And there is a huge reluctance to allow people with disabilities to participate equally," says Ferda Ataman, the independent federal anti-discrimination commissioner.

However, Ataman also believes that the increase in requests for advice is a sign of trust in the rule of law, as more and more people are "aware of their rights and are standing up against discrimination." This is particularly true when it comes toracism.

Last year, more than 3,800 people reported incidents of racism — almost half of all complaints received by the Anti-Discrimination Agency.

Ayman Qasarwa is the managing director of DaMOst, the umbrella organization for migrant organizations in eastern Germany. In the annual report of the Anti-Discrimination Agency, he describes the experiences of those affected by racism: "Migrant youth experience racist harassment in schools most often, and they often don't have anyone competent to turn to for help."

Black women and women who wear headscarves are also targets of racist hostility. "They are verbally abused on the street, spat on, or attacked, and sometimes their headscarves are torn off." These experiences also occur in the workplace. "For example, female doctors in hospitals hear patients say, 'I don't want to be treated by that woman,'" says Qasarwa.

Women of color often face double discrimination. In 2024, there were 2,133 reports of gender discrimination — more than twice as many as just five years ago. "Gender discriminationis still deeply rooted in our society — and it's on the rise again," says Ferda Ataman.

People primarily seek support for issues related to discrimination in the workplace. Women frequently experience sexual harassment there, including obscene gestures, intrusive stares, unwanted touching, and emails with sexual content.

But other examples include being passed over for promotions because of pregnancy or parental leave. Often, women are not given the same job opportunities. Muslim women who wear headscarves are particularly affected by this, as their applications are often disregarded.

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Women in Germany still earn less than men in the workplace, on average 16% less. The main reasons for the wage gap are that women are more likely to work part-time or in professions that are critical to society and yet are not well paid, such as nursing.

But even when women do exactly the same job as men, they may still find themselves taking home less money at the end of the month. This was the case for Astrid Siems-Knoblich, who, as mayor of Müllheim in Baden-Württemberg, earned less than her male predecessor and her male successor — and successfully sued for equal pay.

"I didn't do this just for myself, but for all women who are also affected by this kind of discrimination," she writes in the Anti-Discrimination Agency's annual report. "Equal pay is ultimately a basic right, and no one in our country should be afraid to demand their basic rights."

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"Anti-discrimination legislation has never been more important. The government must take decisive action against discrimination and reform the Non-Discrimination Act," demands Ataman. "In Germany, parking violations are punished more severely than discrimination against other people."

The law, which was passed in 2006 and is therefore almost 20 years old, was a milestone in terms of anti-discrimination, but it has not been reformed ever since and, according to Ataman, it is no longer up to date. This is because it does not cover discrimination by state institutions: government offices and authorities, the judiciary, state schools, or the police.

"We currently have the absurd situation where people are better protected against discrimination in the supermarket than at school or in government offices," she said, urging swift action to remedy this. "Discrimination is not just a problem for those who experience it. Discrimination harms the economy, endangers democracy, and threatens our constitutional state as a whole."

This article was originally written in German.

While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter, Berlin Briefing.

On Italy's island of Sicily, Mount Etna has spewed lava almost continuously for thousands of years, threatening inhabitants, but also supporting flora and fauna.

Italy's Mount Etna lays claim to several titles. It is:

Mount Etna rises 3,357 meters (11,014 feet) above Catania, a city on the east coast of Sicily, Italy.

It covers an area of 1,250 square kilometers (482 square miles).

Mount Etna is what geologists and volcanologists call astratovolcanoorcomposite volcano.

Stratovolcanoes typically have steep inclines and many separate vents, formed over tens to hundreds of thousands of years.

According to Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV),Etna has more than 500,000 years of eruptive history, but it's only taken its current, conical shape in the past hundred thousand years.

Stratovolcanoes can be highly explosive when they erupt. They spew a variety of magma types, including basalt, andesite, dacite, and rhyolite.

When UNESCO inscribed Mount Etna as a World Heritage Site in 2013, it said it was "an iconic site" that continued "to influence volcanology, geophysics and other Earth science disciplines. The volcano also supports important terrestrial ecosystems including endemic flora and fauna, and its activity makes it a natural laboratory for the study of ecological and biological processes."

It is difficult to determine the exact level of danger posed by Mount Etna. When it began erupting in June 2025, INGV set its alert level for Etna as "basic."

While the volcano has beenspewing lava non-stop for thousands of years, volcanologists can pinpoint new eruptions at least once or twice a year.

According to the INGV, Mount Etna is in a state of persistent activity, with "continuous outgassing [which] can evolve into low energy Strombolian activity."

"Strombolian" describes a type of eruption, caused by expanding gas that ejects clots of glowing lava in a cycle of almost continuous, small eruptions.

Etna is also prone to "terminal and sub-terminal eruptions" at craters at the top of the volcano or nearby, and "lateral and eccentric eruptions" at vents along the slopes of the volcano.

Few people live within 5-10km (3.1-6.2 miles) of Mount Etna, but they do face a constant threat of debris and dust, even from the smallest eruptions.

Lava flows have been known to reach as far as the eastern seaboard of Sicily and run off into the Ionian Sea.

It is about 40km from Etna to Catania, which has a population of more than 300,000 people, mostly in its outskirts.

Research by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany, suggested the eastern flank of Mount Etna was "slowly sliding towards the sea."

In 2021, researchers at the Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences saidthe flank was sliding into the Ionian Seaat a rate of centimeters per year: "Such unstable flanks could fail catastrophically, triggering landslides that could generate tsunamis."

This has happened in the past, about 8,000 years ago.

Mount Etna and its surroundings are home to avariety of animals, including foxes, wild cats, porcupines, pine martens, rabbits, hares; and birds of prey like sparrowhawks, buzzards, kestrels, peregrine falcons and golden eagles.

Farming has left a significant human footprint around Mount Etna, largely because volcanic soil is good for agriculture.

As the British Geological Survey explains, "Volcanic deposits are rich with magnesium and potassium […] when the volcanic rock and ash weathers, the [magnesium and potassium] are released, producing extremely fertile soils."

The volcano has also shaped its surrounding woodlands: vineyards, olive groves, orchards, hazelnut and pistachio groves flourish, and higher up, birch trees are exclusive to the area.

Jonathan Tah is one of the best defenders in Europe and a fixture on the national team. The 29-year-old spoke to DW about his career and his connection to his father's homeland.

If Jonathan Tah suddenly decided to retire, he could already look back on an accomplished career. Seen as one of the best defenders in Europe, Tah played a key role inBayer Leverkusen's unprecedenteddouble of winning the Bundesliga and the German Cup unbeaten in 2024.

"As of now, I've done everything I can to be the best version of myself," Jonathan Tah told DW at theGerman national team'straining camp in Herzogenaurach. "But of course, I can and want to always get more out of myself."

Tah again performed at his consistently high level this past season, winning 65% of his tackles and completing nearly 94% of his passes. Such stats weren't lost onBayern Munich, who swept in to sign the defender for the coming season.

Becoming a regular on the national team didn't come easy for the Hamburg native, who made his debut in early 2016 under then-national team coachJoachim Löw. However, he wasn't called up for any major tournaments after that.

It's only sinceJulian Nagelsmanntook over as Germany coach that Tah has become a fixture in the central defense, alongside Antonio Rüdiger.

"It's like life," there are always a few ups and downs," said Tah, who always believed in the value of hard work.

"I don't mean to sound arrogant, but it was logical that at some point it would pay off."

He creditsXabi Alonso, his coach atLeverkusen, with helping him get to where he is now.

"He said I needed to maintain that focus and concentration in every game to be able to consistently deliver that level of performance at that high level."

Tah signed his first professional contract with Hamburg at the age of 17, but they gave up on him, selling him to Leverkusen in 2015.

"I think talent probably brought me to Leverkusen. But everything that came after that was hard work," Tah said. "In the end, you can only reach your full potential if you work hard, not if you rely solely on your talent."

Off the pitch, Tah likes to spend time with his wife, his friends and his dog,

"It's good for me to step out of the role of 'Jonathan Tah, the professional footballer,' and into the role of husband and friend, not even talk about football at all."

One of his other passions is travel. Last month, he made a trip to a place that is particularly close to his heart as his father was born there, Ivory Coast.

"The last time I was there, I was 14 years old. I wanted to visit my grandmother again and see what had changed in the country," he said.

"Many said they were proud of me and of what I had achieved with Leverkusen. I simply felt a lot of love from the people. It was a very nice experience."

Tah was impressed by how "football-mad" African fans really are.

"They simply love this sport, and you can feel this passion," he said.

"It's a different country, a different culture, and yet people still support you. That fills you with pride. I believe I can inspire and motivate people."

Even though it was only a short trip, meeting with ordinary people in the West African country made an impression on Tah.

"It was extremely grounding for me and my wife," he said.

"It makes me think: 'What kind of problems do I actually have here? Are these really problems, are these legitimate complaints? Or is it actually nonsense to worry about little things?'"

Tah plans to visit his father's homeland more often in the future, but now his focus is back on football and Germany as they look to a third place Nations League playoff on Sunday afterlosing to Portugal in Munich in the semifinals on Tuesday.

This article was originally published in German.

A German court has handed a life sentence to a Syrian man for crimes against humanity, including murder and torture. The man committed the atrocities while fighting for dictator Bashar Assad in Syria's civil war.

A court in the southern German city of Stuttgart on Tuesday sentenced a Syrian man to life in prison for war crimes it said he committed duringSyria's civil war while fighting for the country's former dictator,Bashar Assad.

The trial, which began last October, involved testimony from 30 witnesses, most of them Syrian nationals now living around the world.

The court said the verdict could be appealed.

The 33-year-old was found guilty of leading aHezbollah-backed militia that committed atrocities against Sunni Muslim civilians in his home town of Busra al-Sham in southern Syria.

The Lebanese Iranian-backed Shiite group Hezbollah gave its support to Assad during the civil war.

Among other things, the court found that in 2012, the militia raided and plundered the house of an unarmed 21-year-old student, shooting him dead. The victim's mother and brother were among the witnesses for the prosecution.

The court also said that in 2013, the militia beat three people with Kalashnikovs before handing them over to Assad's military intelligence, which tortured them and held them captive under inhumane conditions.

The court verdict also said the group in 2014 forced a 40-year-old man and his family from their home, after which the man was tortured to such extent that he was unable to walk owing to his injuries.

The man was arrested in December 2023 in the southern state of Baden-Württemberg, of which Stuttgart is the capital.

German prosecutors have made use of universal jurisdiction laws to seek trials for several suspects believed to have committed atrocities during Syria's civil war.

In 2022, a German courthanded a life sentence to ex-intelligence officer Anwar Raslanfor murder, rape and crimes against humanity committed at the notorious Al-Khatib jail in 2011 and 2012, the first conviction for state-backed torture committed during Syria's civil war.

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Several other cases relating to crimes committed during the Syrian civil war are being heard by German courts, as well as in France and Sweden.

Syria's civil war, which began after a crackdown by Assad's regime on peaceful pro-democracy protests in 2011, ended only in late 2024 when the autocratic leader was ousted inan Islamist-led rebel offensive.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has defended his government's efforts to turn away asylum seekers at the country's borders. He faces opposition criticism after a court ruled that the pushbacks were illegal. DW has more.

This blog is now closed. Read about these developments and more news from Germany on Tuesday, June 3, 2025:

Germancustoms cleared more than four times as many items in 2024 compared with the previous year, according to data released by the customs office on Tuesday.

"The key word here is e-commerce," Armin Rolfink, president of the German customs office, said on Tuesday.

Customs dealt with 235 million online deliveries in 2024, of which "90% come from China," Rolfink said while presenting his office's yearly report.

Finance MinisterLars Klingbeilhas said more cheap goods and counterfeit products are coming to Germany via China.

Klingbeil has said discussions are ongoing,including at the European level, about abolishing the existing tariff limit of €150 ($171), above which goods face import duties. This would affect deliveries of cheap consumer items fromwebsites like Temu.

The European Commission has proposed adding a flat fee of up to €2 on packages to tackle the surging number of small deliveries from China.

Among other items seized by the customs office were 161 weapons of war, such as guided missiles, flamethrowers and rifle grenades.

The customs office is also tasked with preventing drug smuggling. While the amount of cocaine seized dropped from 39.3 metric tons in 2023 to 16.3 tons, the officeconfiscated 12.6 tons of marijuana, up from 8.6 tons.

Rolfink said he has "no findings" on whether the rise in marijuana seizure was linked to Germany'spartial legalization of the drug in April 2024.

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Some 20,000Volkswagenemployees have already agreed to leave the company by 2030 under a sweeping cost-cutting program, the automaker says.

Board member Gunnar Kilian told a company meeting that the first steps of the "Future Volkswagen" agreement were now underway and that the company was "on track."

The firm aims to eliminate more than 35,000 of its roughly 130,000 jobs in Germany in a socially responsible manner over the next several years.

Kilian said the changes are already delivering results, with "measurable progress in factory costs in Wolfsburg" and "socially responsible job cuts" at Volkswagen's six German sites helping to speed up the company’s transformation.

The restructuring follows atough round of collective bargaining in December, which led to a multi-billion euro austerity deal between Volkswagen and IG Metall. As part of the agreement, the company committed to a job guarantee until 2030 and ruled out immediate plant closures. In exchange, workers agreed to delay wage increases.

An estimated 20,000 people will have to leave their homes in Cologne on Wednesday following the discovery of three unexploded American World War II bombs in the city's Deutz neighborhood directly on the Rhine river.

Each of the bombs weighs around 1 ton, and contains an impact fuse, which will need to be defused.

On its website, the city of Cologne said the evacuation will the city's largest since the end of the war in 1945.

The evacuation is due to begin at 8 a.m. The evacuation area includes Museum Ludwig and the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, as well as large companies such as the television station RTL.

The historic center of Cologne is also in the evacuation radius, with 58 hotels and other accommodation providers needing to be evacuated. Three bridges over the Rhine will also be closed.

The Cologne-Messe/Deutz railway station, Cologne City Hall, a hospital and two nursing and retirement homes will also be evacuated but the iconic Cologne Cathedral is just outside the evacuation area. The central rail station is also outside the evacuation zone.

Bomb disposal is a normal occurrence in Cologne, which was one of the most heavily bombed German cities during World War II.

One of the central figures in Germany's massive"Cum-Ex" tax fraud scandal, which is estimated to have cost European treasuries tens of billions of euros at its peak — has been convicted.

Bonn Regional Court sentenced lawyer Kai-Uwe Steck to one year and 10 months in prison, suspended on probation.

Steck was found guilty of five counts of serious tax fraud and ordered to forfeit around €24 million (about $27 million). The court said his actions contributed to nearly half a billion euros in tax losses.

Presiding Judge Sebastian Hausen called Steck "a central figure" in the fraud, which involved manipulating stock trades to claim illegitimate tax rebates.

The scheme — named for transactions made with ("cum") and without ("ex") dividend rights — allowed investors to reclaim taxes they never paid.

Steck, formerly a partner of Hanno Berger — the scandal's alleged mastermind — cooperated with prosecutors and served as a key witness in the case. The court acknowledged his remorse and assistance as mitigating factors in the sentencing.

Berger was sentenced in 2022 to eight years in prison. The scandal was at its height between 2006 and 2011.

Germany'sConstitutional Courthas rejected a challenge to the results ofFebruary's parliamentary electionsbrought by the populistSahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).

The BSW won 4.981% of the vote, very narrowly missing the 5% required to have representation in the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament.

In its challenge, the party argued that its placement on election ballots and the failure to carry out a recount had violated its right to equal opportunity.

It claimed that up to 32,000 votes for the party were either not counted or were incorrectly assigned.

The court rejected the arguments, saying that the "applicant has not sufficiently substantiated the possibility of a violation of its right to equal opportunities."

If the BSW had overcome the 5% hurdle, the new coalition government of the conservative CDU/CSU bloc and the center-left SPD would have not had a majority.

The BSW, led by Sahra Wagenknecht and Amira Mohamed Ali, splintered from the Left Party just over a year before the election, partly over Wagenknecht's continued support for Russia.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merzhas defended his government's effort to turn away asylum seekers at the country's borders, one day after a court blocked the move.

Theemergency decision by the Berlin Administrative Courtwas a blow for Merz, who has promised he will curb irregular migration.

Speaking in Berlin, the chancellor said the ruling may narrow his administration's room for maneuver, but there was still scope.  "We know that we can still carry out [border] rejections."

Merz, who took office last month, said his government would "of course do this within the framework of existing European law."

"We will do so in order to protect public safety and order in our country and to prevent cities and municipalities from being overburdened," he added.

Merz stressed that Germany would have to "maintain controls on the internal" until the situation at the European Union's external borders has improved significantly in his view.

Shortly after taking office last month, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt orderedpolice to beef up border checksand turn away irregular migrants, even if they apply for asylum.

The court ruling on Monday found that three Somalis who were turned back to Poland on May 9  should have been processed under the European Union's Dublin Regulation for asylum cases. The court found that the government's evidence to proclaim a "national emergency" to justify the measure lacked sufficient evidence.

Merz's immigration policies have beenrepeatedly criticizedas violating both German and EU law.

Germany's Federal Anti-DiscriminationAgency has announcedanother rise in reportsfrom people who say they have been disadvantaged because of their race, disability or gender.

Anti-discrimination commissioner Ferda Ataman said the agency had received 11,405 reports — an increase of 6% compared with 2023 and double the number in 2019.

Most of the reports (43%) mentioned in the agency's 2024 review concerned racist discrimination.

Twenty-seven percent of the reported cases of discrimination were to do with disabilities, and 24% concerned cases where people were subjected to unfair treatment on the basis of their gender.

Here,womenwere most frequently the victims, Ataman said, with the number doubling in the past five years.

She said women mostly experienced discrimination at work or while seeking employment, with job applications by young women often ignored because they could end up having children.

Reports of sexual harassment were also at a record level of 348 for the year, she said.

Ataman said she sees a direct connection between the rise in popularity of the far-rightAlternative for Germany (AfD)party and the growing number of cases of discrimination.

"What I notice, and what we observe in the agency, is that as the approval ratings for aright-wing extremist partyrise, more and more people feel legitimated in making denigrating remarks in everyday life."

Ataman also criticized anti-discrimination laws in Germany, saying that "parking offenses are prosecuted rigorously more than discrimination against other people."

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Interior MinisterAlexander Dobrindton Tuesday called cybercriminality "a growing danger to our security," withGermany seeing a record rate of digital crimes.

"Cybercriminality is becoming constantly more aggressive, but our counterstrategies are also getting more professional," he said at the presentation of the Federal Criminal Police Office's (BKA's) cybercrime report for 2024.

Pro-Russian and anti-Israel cyberattacks are factors in the rise in cases, authorities say.

The financial damage caused by cybercrime in Germany was estimated at €178 billion ($203 billion), mostly due to blackmail.

Dobrindt said that Germany was "massively" upgrading its capacities  to combat cybercrime.

But, he said,artificial intelligence(AI) was giving cybercriminals even more tools.

BKA head Holger Münch said that despite successes, just 32% of cybercrimes were able to be prosecuted in 2024, in comparison with 58% of other crimes, as most perpertrators were located outside Germany.

Two people from the UpperBavariantown of Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm have recently been infected with the rare Bornavirus, with one dying as a result, regional authorities reported on Monday.

They said that the local health department was "working intensively on clarifying a possible mode of infection of the two affected persons."

The second infected person was reported to be undergoing medical treatment.

The Bornavirus is spread by the bicolored shrew, among other animals. Contact with the excrement, urine and saliva of infected animals, who may themselves not become ill, can cause infection in humans.

According to Germany'sFriedrich Loeffler Institute, which is in charge of animal health issues, the virus is present in bicolored shrews living in many parts of Bavaria.

Up to seven cases of infection have been reported in Germany since March 2020, when registering such cases became mandatory.

So far, 55 infections have been registered across the country.

The virus was not identified as causing severe brain inflammation in humans until 2018.

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The commander of the German army division responsible for homeland security has said that Germany might have to introduce some form of conscription to ensure it hasenough soldiers to do the work needed.

"For the protection of critical defense infrastructure, I simply need more soldiers than we can currently get," Major General Andreas Henne told the RND media group in remarks published on Tuesday.

Although the army was currently relying on recruiting volunteers, this would probably not suffice to enlist the numbers of military personnel that were necessary, he said.

"The more soldiers we need, the more likely it is that we will reach the limits of voluntary enlistment," he said.

Henne  did not specify what such compulsory measures would look like.

The coalition agreement struck by the conservative bloc ofChristian Democrats (CDU)and theChristian Social Union (CSU)with the center-leftSocial Democrats (SPD)contains a plan for a new military service model based on voluntary enlistment at the start.

The plan isa compromise between SPD demands for a completely voluntary system and the conservative bloc's desire to end the current suspension of compulsory military service in Germanythat was put in place in 2011.

Politicians from theGreenandLeftparties have accused the conservative bloc of ChancellorFriedrich Merzof creating migration chaos after a Berlin court ruled on Monday thatpushbacks of asylum-seekers at the border — a measure ordered by the government — were illegal.

"It is underhand and very concerning if people keep trying to test the legal framework to the limit and are also willing to break the law in the process," Green Party leader Felix Banaszak told newspapers from the Funke media group on Tuesday.

Banaszak said the conservatives, who lead the coalition government, were trying to "push through their agenda in Trump manner" by making provocative announcements and giving orders that were obviously not legally viable.

"Measures that undermine European law are not helpful, but only create chaos" amid efforts to achieve "real improvements" in migration policy, he said.

Jan van Aken, who heads the Left Party, told the dailyRheinische Postthat the government was violating the law "only because it needs scapegoats."

"The government has to finally deal with the real problems — a rent limit, an active investment policy and a wealth tax" instead of trying to distract from these issues at the cost of the weakest in society, van Aken said.

On Monday, the Berlin Administrative Court ruled that the rejection of asylum-seekers at the German border ordered by Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt was against the law.

Dobrindt has, however, said that he will continue with the policy, claiming that the ruling pertained only to one specific case.

Guten Tagfrom the team in DW's newsroom in Bonn!

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