A regional court in the southern German city of Ulm on Tuesday sentenced a 27-year-old man to life in prison for murder and attempted murder following a knife attack on two schoolgirls last year.
The killing, as the girls walked to catch their morning school bus, prompted a wave of shock and anger across Germany.
Fresh on the heels of a breakthrough victory in Thuringia, where the conservative, antiglobalist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) had its candidate—for the first time in the party’s history—elected to serve as the district administrator in Sonneberg, the AfD took yet another historic step forward this weekend as its candidate won a mayoral election in Saxony-Anhalt.
The German right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) won an absolute majority in local elections for the first time ever. The government-funded German Jewish Council was appalled, but AfD is the most pro-Israel party in Germany.
A wave of outrage and disgust from around the world greeted the election of a modest lawyer named Robert Sesselmann to the provincial office of county commissioner in Sonneberg, Thuringia, a woodland province in Eastern Germany. The reactions must seem familiar to Israeli voters who support the Conservative government Netanyahu VI. You would think they elected Itamar Ben-Gvir as police minister.
The attention showered on an obscure by-election for the humble office of county commissioner in East Germany’s tiniest county is quite astounding. The real reason for the outburst, of course, is the nationwide upsurge in support for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
The Catholic church in Germany has revealed it is losing followers like never before, with more than half a million people deciding to renounce their membership last year.
According to the Bonn-based German Bishops’ Conference, 522,821 people left the church in 2022, a number far surpassing predictions made by the institution itself and higher than most observers had expected. The previous record year for departures was in 2021, when just under 360,000 people left.
For the first time in Germany, the AfD has won a district council election, administrators announced on Sunday.
Voters in the central German town of Sonneberg elected AfD candidate Robert Sesselmann at the expense of incumbent district administrator Jürgen Köpper of the CDU.
In the runoff election in the Thuringian district of Sonneberg, Sesselmann won 52.8% of the vote, earning him the necessary absolute majority, according to election officials.
German judge said they had enough castor beans to produce ricin capable of killing as many as 13,500 people. It is the second such case in Germany in recent years.
Earlier this year in January, two brothers were arrested by German police following a raid on their home in the town of Castrop-Rauxel near the city of Dortmund, as police asserted that the two Iranian nationals were radical Islamic extremists plotting a mass casualty terrorist attack.
Now, five months following their arrest, the Düsseldorf Public Prosecutor’s Office has indicted 26-year-old Jalal J., the younger of the two brothers, for plotting a terrorist attack and trying to create a biological weapon, a report from the German tabloid Bild reveals.
The Koblenz Higher Regional Court on Wednesday sentenced a woman, Nadine K., on Wednesday for being part of the so-called “Islamic State” militant group and taking part in abusing a Yazidi woman.
The court ruled that the 37-year-old had abused a Yazidi woman, forcing her to be a “household slave” while living with the group in Iraq and Syria. She was found guilty of crimes against humanity as well as aiding and abetting genocide.
The Yazidi woman testified at the trial and said she recognized the defendant. She traveled to Koblenz again for the verdict.
German police crime statistics presented in April grossly undercounted the number of knife attacks perpetrated in the country. The statistics presented by the President of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) Holger Münch and the Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) counted 8,160 knife attacks. Official figures from Germany’s federal states and state criminal investigation offices have revealed that the real number of knife attacks is significantly higher.
Several people were injured, including two police officers, when a mass brawl broke out on Friday evening in the city of Essen, in western Germany.
Police said more than 100 people were involved in the fight, which broke out in front of a restaurant.
Police said they did not have an exact number of injured people.
Tweet translation : “300 Lebanese against 200 Syrians: street battles in Essen, migrant war in the Ruhr area!
The Ruhr area has long been a powder keg and now it is exploding: After two family clans from Syria and Lebanon fought each other with machetes and knives in Castrop-Rauxel on Thursday, things continued on Friday evening. At the Salzmarkt, in the middle of downtown Essen, 300 supporters of the Lebanese clan and 200 Syrian clan members faced each other, there was heavy fighting and street battles that lasted for hours. The police wanted / were allowed to watch, but the situation only calmed down on Saturday night.
Imported conflicts from around the world are fought on our streets, which resemble battlefields. It finally needs a different migration policy and a return of criminal foreigners to their home clans. What else has to happen?!”
„300 Libanesen gegen 200 Syrer: Straßenschlachten in Essen, Migrantenkrieg im Ruhrgebiet!
Das Ruhrgebiet ist schon lange ein Pulverfass und jetzt explodiert es: Nachdem sich am Donnerstag in Castrop-Rauxel zwei Familienclans aus Syrien und dem Libanon mit Macheten und Messern… pic.twitter.com/sc0WcnqnjE
— Ralf Schäfer (@Anandathah) June 17, 2023
A bronze sword more than 3,000 years old , which is so well-preserved that it “almost still shines”, has been unearthed in southern Germany, officials say.
The Bavarian state office for the preservation of historical monuments (BLfD) said the sword, which is believed to date back to the end of the 14th century BC — the middle of the bronze age — was found during excavations last week in Nördlingen, between Nuremberg and Stuttgart.
70 years ago an uprising of 1 million people in communist East Germany (GDR) was crushed by Soviet tanks. Today, Ukraine is fighting for its independence.
What does Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine have to do with the failed popular uprising in the communist German Democratic Republic (GDR), which took place on June 17, 1953?
Strictly speaking, nothing. But if you take a broader perspective, you will recognize similar motives at play despite the differences in historical circumstances — both on the side of the aggressors and on the side of the people fighting for their freedom and independence.
Just four per cent of Germans think the hard left poses no threat to society, with an overwhelming near-six-in-ten saying it does, in research that comes days after serious left-wing riots over the conviction of a politically motivated hammer-attacker.
European countries are still feeling the pinch of being cut off from Russian gas as the German Federal Network Agency, the Bundesnetzagentur, has revealed that the country will be dependent on purchasing electricity this winter from neighbouring France, relying on French nuclear power.
The current German leftist coalition of the left-wing Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the pro-free market Free Democrats (FDP) have confirmed the findings of the “needs analysis” conducted by the agency, which regulates electricity, gas, and other utilities, according to a report from the German tabloid Bild.
Germany’s oldest university hosts many scientists conducting groundbreaking work. Little did they know how they would become entangled in China’s quantum military strategy.
The podium is decorated with pink and white plastic flowers. The Chinese man behind it speaks at length about a laser radar system for detecting stealth aircraft. Amid the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, his audience joins him virtually for the talk.
A young participant is curious — why is quantum research so important for Xinjiang? The Xinjiang Association of Science and Technology has organized the online session to showcase groundbreaking achievements in Chinese quantum research.
A blanket ban on edged weapons on German trains and buses may shortly become reality, despite the obvious challenges of compliance and enforcement.
The idea has been germinating since last January’s Brokstedt tragedy, the mass stabbing that occurred on a train in Brokstedt, Schleswig-Holstein, claiming two lives.
