Germany news: Berlin rushes to fly in 535 Afghan refugees

60% of Germans would be in favor of a ban on private fireworks on New Year's Eve, according to a new survey conducted by Forsa on behalf of German broadcasters RTL and ntv.

While cities around the world invest in spectacular fireworks displays to celebrate the new year, many Germans take to the streets themselves and set off their own fireworks in a tradition which is said to scare off evil spirits ahead of the new year.

On New Year's Eve last year, the German fireworks industry reported a record €197 million ($231 million) turnover from sales of rockets and bangers.

This year however, only 16% of Germans say they intend to purchase their own fireworks, meaning the mass setting off of fireworks in public may be losing its appeal, which would appear to explain the survey results.

According to the survey, women are more likely to be in favor of a firework ban than men.

Part of a street near the German parliament building in central Berlin is to be renamed after Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem.

A recommendation was passed by the responsible parliamentary committee on Thursday in response to an initiative led by the Friends of Yad Vashem group, with an official confirmation expected early next year.

Committee chairman Omid Nouripour (environmentalist Green Party) welcomed the move, saying: "The unshakeable commitment to securing Jewish life in our country is more important than ever."

Berlin mayor Kai Wegner (conservative CDU) told the city's Tagesspiegel newspaper that the renaming would be "a strong and important signal, especially at a time of increasing antisemitism."

The renaming will apply to a 130-meter (142-yard) stretch of the current Dorotheenstrasse, named after Dorothea, Electress of Brandenburg (1636-1689), which runs up to the Reichstag building and will now be called Yad-Vashem-Strasse. The rest of Dorotheenstrasse will remain unchanged.

Kai Diekmann, former editor of German tabloid BILD and now head of the Yad Vashem Society, said the renaming of the street would set a visible sign at the political heart of Germany.

"It points to the responsibility to entrench memory permanently in the public realm," he said.

Germany's Bundeswehr has just signed a €1.7 billion ($2 billion) deal with domestic defense contractor Rheinmetall.  

Though Rheinmetall is primarily known as a tank and artillery maker, the deal signed Thursday pertains to the company's new satellite business. 

Thursday's deal is a multi-year endeavor with the possibility that orders may be further expanded down the road.

The Synthetic Aperture Radar or SAR satellites featured in the deal will be capable of relaying large numbers of detailed reconnaissance images to troops on short notice regardless of weather conditions.

Currently, the Bundeswehr receives such imagery from 62 satellites operated by Rheinmetall's Finnish partner ICEYE.

Rheinmetall's profits have soared since the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine put European defense front of mind for the bloc's leaders. 

The conflict has also underscored the importance of satellite technology when it comes to the massive drone and missile attacks that have been seen there on a daily basis, as well as for detecting troop movements.

Though Rheinmetall does not foresee an end to the need for conventional weapons, it nevertheless intends to expand its market share by broadening its product palette to include satellites that it will produce in Germany from 2026 with help from ICEYE.

"Modern armed forces depend on access to and control of space-based reconnaissance, communications, and mission control," said Rheinmetall CEO Armin Papperger in a statement announcing contract details.

In November, Berlin presented its first space security strategy, with the aim of making the country "credibly capable of deterrence and defense."
The German Defense Ministry plans to allocate €35 billion of its budget to spaceflight and space security by 2030.

German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil announced the creation of what he called the "Germany Fund," which is intended to be a €130 billion ($153 billion) vehicle for investment in start-up companies in the country.

The plan is to use €30 billion in government seed money as a way to attract as much as €100 billion more in private investments. 

Klingbeil said the focus will be on supporting AI, defense and robotics projects.

"We want the jobs of the future to be in Germany, we want ideas that originate in Germany to be able to grow in Germany," said Klingbeil on Thursday. "We are creating a one-stop shop that you can call or email, a place where investors can be while we try to get Germany back on track."

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has promised hundreds of billions of euros worth of investments in Germany's crumbling infrastructure and depleted defense, but analysts says deep structural problems persist as growth forecasts remain utterly anemic at 0.8% for 2026.

Germany's Federal Court of Justice on Thursday heard the case of a 30-year-old Pakistani woman claiming to be the victim of racial discrimination in her attempts to find a place to live.

Humaira Waseem claimed racism after several appartment viewing applications from her, her sister, and her husband were immediately rejected after being submitted in November 2022, but the same application was approved when a common German name was typed in rather than her own.

Waseem sued a real estate agent in the western state of Hesse to demand compensation under Germany's General Equal Treatment Act.

Waseem's original suit was dismissed in district court but she won an appeal at the Darmstadt Regional Court.

The real estate agent was fined €3,000 ($3,522) at the time, as well as being ordered to cover Waseem's legal costs.  

The case is now before the nation's highest court on appeal from the real estate agent.

The Karlsruhe court must determine whether the agent is liable for the behavior of individual landlords or if they alone are responsible in such cases. 
 
A decision is not expected until sometime next year.

Federal prosecutors on Thursday brought charges against seven young Germans accused of being members and supporters of a far-right extremist organization that plotted violent attacks in hopes of sparking a "race war" to bring down the government and "preserve the White race."

The group, which called itself the "Last Wave of Defense," was the target of a series of police raids across Germany in May. 

The individuals on trial — aged 14 to 21 at the time of those raids — are accused of membership in a terrorist organization, conspiracy to commit murder and grievous bodily harm. 

One individual who was 13 at the time was not included in the trial as he was too young. Criminal responsibility begins at age 14 in Germany. Those individuals over 18 will be tried as adults.

Prosecutors say the youths planned to target asylum seekers, asylum housing facilities and political opponents in arson and explosive attacks to trigger the collapse of the current democratic system in order to "defend the German nation."

Beyond posting anti-Semitic and racist messages, the group is also thought to have been behind an arson attack in the state of Brandenburg, a failed arson attack in Thuringia, and another planned attack in Brandenburg.

Thursday's charges were filed at Hamburg Higher Regional Court. 

A trial date has not been announced.

A judge in the city of Magdeburg has said that the trial of a 51-year-old Saudi Arabian man for murder and attempted murder in an attack on the city's Christmas market in 2024 will go ahead despite the defendant's efforts to delay proceedings by undertaking a hunger strike.

Although the man admitted to intentionally driving a rented SUV into a crowd of holiday revelers, killing six and injuring over 300, the defendant began a hunger strike the day after his trial began on November 10.

At the time, the defendant said: "I started the hunger strike yesterday. I intend to do it for three weeks. No physical harm is expected."

On Thursday, the court's presiding judge, Dirk Sternberg, declared the defendant unfit to stand trial.

The accused is said to have lost a significant amount of weight and doctors say he is at acute risk of organ failure.

Back in Novmber Judge Sternberg told the defendant, "You do not have the power to delay or torpedo the trial by going on hunger or thirst strike." 

Sternberg says the trial will go on without the defendant.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on was blunt on Thursday when addressing fellow European leaders at an EU summit in Brussels. Speaking of the contentious idea of using frozen Russian assets to finance Ukraine's war effort, Merz said, there is "no better option."

"The reactions of the Russian president in recent hours show how necessary this is. In my view, this is indeed the only option. We are basically faced with the choice of using European debt or Russian assets for Ukraine, and my opinion is clear: We must use the Russian assets.”

The EU and its member states have extended massive technical and financial assistance to Kyiv in its nearly four-year defense against Russian invaders at great cost to their own domestic budgets. 

The idea of using Russian assets frozen in the EU has struck a nerve, with Merz, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and others advocating their use in bankrolling Ukraine to relieve the burden on EU allies; and others, such as Bart de Weever, prime minister of Belgium — where the assets in question are currently held — and the Moscow-friendly governments of Hungary and Slovakia opposed. Bulgaria, Italy and Malta are currently undecided. 

Belgium fears it could eventually be on the hook to repay those unfrozen assets to Russia, something EU leaders promise will not happen, saying that multiple layers of protection will be put in place to shield Belgium from individual responsibility.

Merz on Thursday said he hoped that Belgium's fears could be addressed.

A 40-year-old German man was remanded into psychiatric detention after being found guilty in a March car-ramming incident in which an 83-year-old woman and a 54-year-old-man were killed and several individuals injured.

The man was sentenced to life imprisonment by a state court in Mannheim.

The man faced two counts of murder and several counts of attempted murder in a March 3, 2025, incident in which he sped his car into a pedestrian area, repeatedly accelerating to run down individuals celebrating carnival.

A taxi driver blocked the defendant as he attempted to flee according to authorities.

The man subsequently shot at the taxi driver, then shot himself before attempting to hide at a nearby construction site before police found him.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed in requesting the man be placed in a psychiatric hospital.

Germany is set to host the next women's European football championship, Euro 2029. DW's Jonathan Harding looks at what has been touted as the first profitable women's Euros, and why the competition is about so much more than money.

Read more on Euro 2029 in Germany here.

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt on Thursday said the government in Berlin is keen to fly some 535 Afghan refugees with standing admission approval to Germany as soon as possible.  

"We have an interest in ensuring that this is dealt with as quickly as possible and are in contact with the Pakistani authorities," Dobrindt said. "We want to conclude this as far as possible in December. But there may still be some cases that need to be handled in the new year."

A government-chartered flight on Tuesday brought a group of 160 Afghan refugees to Germany.

Berlin previously promised Afghans who assisted German troops or institutions on the ground in Afghanistan as well as individuals it deemed to be particularly threatened by Afghanistan's hardline Islamist Taliban a new home, but the coalition government of Friedrich Merz has sought to backpedal on the the promise.

Last week, the Interior Ministry said there was "no longer any political interest" in admitting a group of 640 Afghans stuck in Pakistan. Berlin instead offered them financial assistance if they voluntarily returned to Afghanistan.

Islamabad initially gave Germany until the end of the year to retrieve Afghans, saying that otherwise those individuals would be deported back to Afghanistan. 

Guten Tag from the newsroom in Bonn. Thanks for joining us for the latest news from Germany.

In Berlin's latest tack on the issue of what to do with Afghan asylum seekers promised a new home in Germany, the Interior Ministry has said there is "interest" in getting hundreds of Afghans to Germany as soon as possible. Last week, the ministry said there was "no longer any political interest" in the admission of a group of 640 such refugees.

Amid a number of car-ramming incidents in the news in Germany these days — a Munich trial, the Magdeburg Christmas market trial, foiled plots in Bavaria and Saxony-Anhalt — a verdict is expected Thursday in Mannheim, where a German man is on trial for murder and attempted murder. Two people were killed and several injured when the perpetrator is said to have intentionally sped his car into a crowd of carnival revelers.

Stay with DW for these stories and the rest of the news from Germany.