A male driver rammed into a crowd in Passau in Germany's state of Bavaria. Police suspect the motive for the incident was personal. Follow DW for more.
This blog, covering the latest news fromGermanyon Saturday, June 7, is closed.
German Interior MinisterAlexander Dobrindthas called for police to be equipped with non-lethal electroshock weapons — better known as Tasers.
In remarks to theFunke Media Group, Germany's third largest newspaper and magazine publisher, Dobrindt said he is "convinced that the use of Tasers by our police is absolutely necessary."
The interior minister said he would ensure that the "necessary legal framework" is put in place to make sure that the country's federal police are equipped with the non-lethal weapons.
Dobrindt said the use of Tasers was an "appropriate" response to the rising "threat to police in public spaces."
There has been a spate of violent incidents involving knife attacks in the country in recent months, and the minister believes Tasers are the "right device" to use in such situations to allow officers to "more effectively neutralize" attackers and "better protect themselves."
While technically classed as non-lethal weapons, Tasers are nevertheless controversial. They deliver electric shocks from a distance, causing severe, painful muscle contractions that render the subject unable to move.
People with cardiovascular issues, as well as pregnant women and the elderly, can be particularly vulnerable to Tasers.
A survey conducted by the Moscow-based polling institute Levada showed that Germany is now considered the most hostile country toward Russia by Russians.
Germany was identified as the unfriendliest state by 55% of survey respondents, marking a 40-percentage-point rise since May 2020.
In contrast, only 40% of respondents named the United States, which held the top position for two decades, as the unfriendliest state, compared to 76% last year.
The United Kingdom ranked second among countries perceived as hostile to Russia, with 49% of respondents naming it as such. Ukraine, of whichRussia launched a full-scale invasionin February 2022, followed with 43%.
The institute attributes this shift to the revival of Russian-American relations under US PresidentDonald Trump. Meanwhile, Germany has been criticized in Moscow for supporting Ukraine militarily.
The survey also asked Russians to name the five countries friendliest to Russia.
Belarus topped the listwith 80% of respondents, followed by China with 64%. Kazakhstan ranked third with 36% of the vote, followed by India with 32% and North Korea with 30%.
The German police shot and killed a 30-year-old woman who attacked passersby with a knife inMunich.
Bildnewspaper initially reported the incident, but the police later confirmed that they had shot the woman.
The incident occurred near Theresienwiese, a major park in theBavariancapital where theOktoberfestfestival takes place every autumn.
According to the police, the attacker first attacked a 56-year-old man. Shortly afterward, she injured a 25-year-old woman.
The condition of the two was not immediately known. It was also unclear whether the woman had any connection to them.
Police then shot an attacker, and she was taken to the hospital where she underwent emergency surgery but died shortly thereafter.
A 22-year-old man crashed a sports car into the sales area of a gas station in Nuremberg, which is in the German state ofBavaria.
According to the police, he also tore a gas pump from its anchorage. The car lurched forward and became lodged in the gas station window. The station was reportedly unoccupied at the time of the early Saturday morning accident.
A police spokesperson said the 22-year-old may have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Police took a blood sample from the man and his 16-year-old passenger.
Police found around 70 grams of marijuana in the car. A later search of his flat revealed more narcotics.
Initial findings indicate that the driver and passenger were not injured but were taken to hospital for treatment.
It also emerged that the two men had already caused an accident that same night. The man reportedly crashed his car into a parked car in a supermarket parking lot and then fled.
Police have said that the criminal investigation so far has revealed evidence suggesting that a possible custody dispute may have triggered the ramming incident inPassau.
The Passau criminal investigation department, together with the Passau public prosecutor's office, is now leading the investigation. A decision on detention of the suspect will be made on Sunday, police said.
The 48-year-old man, reportedly an Iraqi national, has been detained.
His wife and daughter, along with three other injured people, are receiving treatment in hospital. A police spokesman said that the severity of the injuries is not yet entirely clear, but that no one is in a life-threatening condition.
The police report also revised the age of the man's wife from 38 to 40.
The tabloidBild, citing police, reported that initial witness interviews in the Passau ramming incident pointed to a custody case.
"The group of five also included the man's 38-year-old wife and his five-year-old daughter… Initial witness interviews in the group indicate a custody dispute," a police spokesman toldBild.
The German DPA news agency also cited a police spokesman as saying that police suspect the incident may be linked to his relationship.
The spokesman also toldBildthat there is currently one person with moderate injuries and four with slight injuries.
A man drove a car into a group of people inPassau, a city in southern Germany's state of Bavaria, police said on Saturday.
Police added they do not yet know if the act was intentional. "At present, it cannot be ruled out that the man deliberately drove the vehicle into the group of people," it said.
According to initial findings, a 48-year-old Mercedes driver is said to have driven into a group of people standing on the pavement, including the driver's wife, aged 38, and daughter, aged 5.
The circumstances of the incident are still unclear, as is the number of people injured and the severity of their injuries.
ThePassauer Neue Pressenewspaper reported that three people were seriously injured in an incident.
The Passau criminal investigation department is conducting the on-site investigation, police said.
The driver has been detained, police said.
According to a new poll, German ChancellorFriedrich Merz's popularity has increased significantly in his first weeks in office.
The survey, conducted by the INSA research institute for the tabloidBildand published on Saturday, found that 36% of the 1,202 respondents were satisfied with the performance of the 69-year-old conservative thus far.
This rating is 13 percentage points higher than it was four weeks ago. Meanwhile, 45% of respondents said they were dissatisfied with Merz, a 4-percentage-point decrease from the last survey. Another 19% did not know how to answer.
The popularity of Germany's coalition government under Merz seems to have also increased.
The survey found that 37% of respondents expressed satisfaction with the partnership between theChristian Democrats (CDU)and their Bavarian sister party, theChristian Social Union (CSU), and theSocial Democrats (SPD).
This represents an increase from the previous survey's 29%. Meanwhile, 45% expressed dissatisfaction, and 18% did not know how to answer.
The gap between the CDU/CSU and the far-rightAlternative for Germany (AfD)is also growing. The conservative bloc gained one percentage point from the previous week, reaching 27% support.
The far-right AfD followed with 23% support, down one percentage point from the previous week.
The German armed forces have three years to acquire the equipment necessary to counter a potential Russian attack on NATO territory, according to the head of military procurement.
"Everything necessary to be fully prepared to defend the country must be acquired by 2028," Annette Lehnigk-Emden, head of the Federal Office for Military Procurement, toldTagesspiegelnewspaper.
Lehnigk-Emden stressed that ChancellorFriedrich Merz's new government is enabling the upgrade byallocating hundreds of billions of euros for defense. Heavy equipment such as Skyranger anti-aircraft tanks would be the priority, she added.
Recently, Germany's Chief of Defense General Carsten Breuer warned that Russia could be in a position to "launch a large-scale attack against NATO territory" as early as 2029.
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TheEuropean Union'sexecutive arm has been accused of paying environmental groups to launch lawsuits and negative campaigns againstGermancompanies to reaffirm the policies to tackleclimate change, a German newspaper reported.
Welt am Sonntagsaid it had seen secret contracts between theEuropean Commissionand several green groups worth millions of euros dating back to 2022.
The newspaper alleged that the Berlin-based NGO ClientEarth was paid €350,000 ($399,000) to entangle German coal-fired power plants in legal cases that would increase the operators' "financial and legal risk."
The report alleged that Friends of the Earth was paid to campaign against theMercosurfree trade agreement between the EU and South America.
Other groups received funding to influence EU lawmakers before votes on pesticides and chemicals, the paper alleged.
The report accused officials in Brussels of coordinating with activists down to the last detail.
Former MEP Markus Pieper, of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, said the payments were a violation of the principle of separation of powers in government.
Monika Hohlmeier, an MEP for the Christian Social Union (CSU) party, hit out at what she said were "radical actions, covert political lobbying," as well as the "exertion of pressure on decision-makers."
"I was particularly shocked by the subversive plans to force everything from farms to coal-fired power plants to abandon their economic activities through lawsuits and the massive tightening of documentation requirements," she told the paper.
Germany's economic downturnhas cost more than 100,000 jobs over the past year, research by EY has found.
The auditing and consulting giant found that by the end of the first quarter of 2025, German industry employed 5.46 million people — 1.8% or 101,000 fewer than a year earlier.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a record high of around 5.7 million people were employed in the industrial sector.
EV used data from the Federal Statistical Office in its research.
The firm found thatGermany'sauto sectorhad cut 45,400 jobs on a net basis as the transition to electric vehicles is lesslabor-intensive.
Jan Brorhilker, managing partner at EY, told dpa news agency that German firms remain under intense pressure.
"Aggressive competitors, particularly from China, are driving down prices, key sales markets are weakening, demand in Europe is stagnating at a low level and there is significant uncertainty surrounding the entire US market. At the same time, companies are struggling with high costs for energy and personnel, for example," Brorhilker said.
He added that EV expects at least 70,000 more industrial jobs to be lost by the end of the year, due to cost-cutting in the mechanical andautomotive engineeringsectors.
A center-right German politician has accused asylum activists of "staging" an incident where three Somali asylum seekers were turned away at the border.
The decision led a court in Berlin on Monday to declare Germany's newmigrationpushback policy illegal, as it was not handled under the EU's Dublin Regulation.
Alexander Hoffmann, the new head of theChristian Social Union's(CSU) parliamentary group in the Bundestag,Germany'slower house of parliament, singled out the group Pro Asyl, accusing them of helping the trio to circumvent immigration rules.
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The CSU is the Bavarian sister party of ChancellorFriedrich Merz'sconservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party.
Hoffmann told theAugsburger Allgemeinethat the incident on May 9 bore "almost absurd traits."
He alleged that the Somalis had received support from Pro Asyl even before they tried to enter the country, which the group strongly rejected.
"Pro Asyl has been traveling along the refugee routes for years, including at the border crossings. Refugees are advised to throw away their ID cards because this makes deportation from Germany much more difficult," Hoffmann said
He added that one of the Somalis was "of legal age" during their first two attempts to enter Germany, but then identified as a minor on the third attempt, and had carried forged identity documents.
All three had new cell phones that could not be used to trace their route of travel to Germany.
"For me, this has clear traits of a staging by asylum activists," Hoffmann told the newspaper.
Although the trio were returned to Poland, they were later allowed to enter Germany following the court ruling.
Pro Asyl Managing Director Karl Kopp denied Hoffmann's allegations and criticized the turnbacks under Merz's government as violating European law.
A major fire that devastated part of the former home of the state operetta inGermany'seastern city ofDresdenhas been extinguished, authorities said.
The blaze erupted on Friday evening, prompting an emergency response by up to 150 firefighters.
The theater, located in the east of the city, was once home to one of Germany's oldest operetta ensembles, dating back over 240 years. The building has lain empty for years.
Firefighters said the rear section of the building, which housed the audience area, was destroyed.
Due to the risk of collapse, both the main structure of the theater and the former auditorium can no longer be entered.
There were no immediate reports of casualties. One firefighter was treated on-site for circulatory problems.
Two nearby residential buildings were evacuated as a precaution.
Smouldering pockets in the roof and rear of the building were still being extinguished on Saturday morning.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Germany'sleading industry organization has welcomed ChancellorFriedrich Merz'smeeting with US PresidentDonald Trumpthis week, saying it is hopeful of an easing in the trade dispute between theEuropean Unionand theUnited States.
"The personal meeting between Chancellor Merz and US President Trump was a positive signal for trans-Atlantic relations," Wolfgang Niedermark, an executive board member of the Federation of German Industries' (BDI), told theRheinische Post.
"We also see this as a positive boost for the ongoingtariffnegotiations between the EU and the US," he added.
Niedermark noted how Germany is the third-largest foreign investor in the US, but that investment had slowed due to Trump's "trade policy turbulence."
He said German firms were particularly active in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, digital hardware and networking, and in mechanical engineering, where he said "the US relies on our expertise."
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Merz met Trumpin the White House on Thursday in what has generally been seen as a positive debut on the foreign policy front for the new chancellor.
While Trump hastemporarily pausedsome of the tariffs threatened against the EU in April, Brussels and Washington are struggling to find a solution to the dispute.
Germany'sInterior MinisterAlexander Dobrindtsaid the German government would seek a ruling from theEuropean Court of Justice(ECJ) on the legality of migrant turnbacks at the border.
Dobrindt's comments to the Funke media group follow aruling by a court in Berlinon Monday that the refusal to allow three Somali nationals to enter last month was unlawful.
The court ruled that on May 9, border guards failed to initiate proper asylum procedures and returned the trio to Poland.
According to the court, Germany should have applied theEuropean Union'sso-called Dublin Regulation, establishing which country is responsible for the asylum claim of the migrants, before they were sent back.
The Dublin rule specifies which EU state should process an asylum application, partly to prevent arrivals from making claims in wealthier countries rather than the first EU nation that they entered.
Dobrindt said the government would provide its rationale for invoking Article 72 — a special clause under EU law that permits exceptions to the Dublin rule in emergencies.
"We will submit sufficient justification, but the European Court of Justice should decide on the matter," Dobrindt said, adding: "I am convinced that our actions are in line with European law."
Dobrindt insisted that Germany had to crack down on illegal migration, which he said would prevent the far-rightAlternative for Germany(AfD) party from pushing more radical solutions.
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Germany introduced tougher border checks on May 7, including new rules allowing asylum seekers to be turned away at the border for the first time.
In thefirst days of the new rule, 19 people who sought asylum in Germany were denied entry, along with nearly 300 other migrants, local media reported. Following this week's court ruling, the cabinet approved evenstricter measures.