Germany news: Wagenknecht steps down as BSW leader

A woman belonging to the Uighur minority group has been deported from Germany to China, German authorities confirmed on Monday. 

Der Spiegel reported that the woman was arrested in the town of Rotenburg, Lower Saxony, and put on a flight to Beijing.

However, this was reportedly not possible because the woman had a Chinese passport, and Turkish authorities informed the Rotenburg district that she was not registered there.

According to a spokeswoman for the Rotenburg district administration, the woman later reached Istanbul via Dubai.

Human rights groups have accused the Chinese government of systematically oppressing Uighurs, including by detaining hundreds of thousands of them in reeducation camps.

The Chinese government refutes these allegations.

A German court has imprisoned five men for managing a darknet website where hundreds of thousands of users shared images and videos of child sexual abuse.

The individuals, aged between 44 and 63, were sentenced to jail terms ranging from five and a half to 10 and a half years, a spokesman for the Mönchengladbach court said.

The judges ruled that one of the men must be kept in preventive detention once his sentence comes to an end, owing to the likelihood that he is likely to reoffend.

The website was shut down after being targeted in nationwide raids in September 2024.

German politician Sahra Wagenknecht said she is stepping down as chair of the party she founded, the left-wing populistSahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), with MEP Fabio de Masi replacing her at the helm.

Wagenknecht will not run for re-election at the federal party conference in early December and will instead focus on the party's political agenda as chair of a new BSW core values commission, she said at a news conference in Berlin.

“In the future, I want to have my head free again for the things with which I can really help the BSW," Wagenknecht said.

Wagenknecht recognized that the BSW's profile had recently become "less clear" to many voters, which has been reflected in falling poll ratings and poor election results.

"We have lost voters, some of them to the AfD (Alternative for Germany), and we cannot be satisfied with that."

As head of the new Basic Values Commission, Wagenknecht will have a seat and a vote on the party executive committee. She also said she would be involved in election campaigns and public debate.

Wagenknecht founded the BSW party in 2024 after an acrimonious divorce from the leftist Left Party.

Shortly before his trial on 6 counts of murder and 338 counts of attempted murder broke for lunch, Taleb A. asked to be able to address the court to answer the charges.

He said he would like to speak for "hours, maybe days" about his crime.

Earlier this year, he shocked several victims by sending them letters from prison apologizing for his actions.

Judge Dirk Sternberg said he would have an appropriate amount of time to address the court after it reconvened at 2 p.m. local time.

The visit of former Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen to Berlin is a "private" trip, Germany's Foreign Ministry said when asked if she would be meeting with any government representatives.

There are no officials meetings scheduled, the Minsitry confirmed.

On Monday, Tsai is expected to address the Berlin Freedom Conference, a democracy summit.

Taiwan has been fighting for stronger connections in Europe as successive US administrations have had little interest in maintaining a robust alliance.

Taipei is increasingly under pressure from mainland China, which has made no secret of its desire to bring the island under its control, by using force, if necessary. 

Although Germany, and most countries around the world, do not formally recognize Taiwan due to pressure from Beijing, they still maintain unofficial ties, for example, through representative offices and NGOs.

Beijing often bristles at present or former Taiwanese officials meeting with representatives of foreign governments, as China considers this as offering a veneer of legitimacy to the idea of Taiwanese sovereignty. 

The Dutch Consumer Association, Consumentenbond, is launching a class-action lawsuit against German automaker BMW over claims it falsified emissions data.

The case involves some 100,000 vechiles sold between 2009 and 2019.

Consumentenbond accuses the car giant of using software that lowered emissions registered during testing. 

"However, under normal driving conditions, these vehicles exhibit alarmingly high emissions," the association said.

Consumentenbond chief Sandra Molenaar added that it is "shameless how BMW misled both inspection bodies and consumers."

When asked about the case by French news agency AFP, BMW said that it could not comment as "no such claim has yet been served" to them.

The news comes a week after BMW reported soaring profits in the third quarter of 2025, and after years of diesel-related emissions scandals for its fellow German auto manufacturer, Volkswagen.

The office of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Monday that he had asked Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to pardon the imprisoned novelist Boualem Sansal.

Steinmeier said it would be a "humanitarian gesture" and offered to assist Sansal's relocation to Germany.

The writer, who is also famous for his short stories and essays, was given a five-year jail term in March for "damaging national unity." He has been a sharp critic of the Algerian government.

Sansal has won numerous prestigious literary prizes, many of them in France, where he also holds citizenship.

Steinmeier stressed the negative impacts the jail term could have on the health of the author.

New figures from the German association of covered bond banks (vdp) shows that housing prices have continued to climb across the country, and that there doesn't seem to be an end in sight for the country's housing shortage.

Property prices rose 3.8% in the third quarter of 2025 compared to that same time frame a year earlier.

Big cities like Munich, Hamburg, Cologne, and Düsseldorf reported an even bigger increase of 5%.

Rents also rose, particularly in Frankfurt, where they also increased by 5%. 

Vdp chief executive Jens Tolckmitt added that despite government efforts to speed up building permits, the nationwide housing shortage is likely to continue.

"The initiative to speed up housing construction is good and welcome, but more will be needed," he said.

Tolckmitt added that local authorities also need to make more use of new initiatives, such as an 80% state guarantee on real estate loans for large-scale housing construction projects.

According to new data from Germany's Federal Statistical Office, or Destatis, German emigration to the United States decreased by 17.8% from January to September of 2025 in comparison to the same time frame in the previous year.

"Departures to the US in the first nine months of this year were at their lowest level since the pandemic-hit year of 2021," Destatis said.

In total, about 17,100 people have moved from Germany to the US so far in 2025.

At the same time, migration from the US to Germany rose by 3.4% to more than 19,300. 

Although the US remains the top destination for German airports, tourism to the US has also declined in 2025. 

In March, the German government updated its travel advisory for the US following several high-profile detentions of German nationals by Customs and Immigration Enforcement (ICE).

The political fallout from the attack was swift, particularly when it came to light that German security services ignored a warning from Saudi Arabia that Taleb A. had extreme ideas and may be a risk.

They believed that the Saudi government was merely targeting A. because he was a dissident who had turned his back on Islam.

While he had been given notice that he was under investigation as a threat, he was never classified as a right-wing extremist by authorities.

Despite voicing support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party online, it was the AfD who cited the attack as evidence that Germany's immigration system was too lax.

They immediately called for anti-immigration rallies, prompting then-Interior Minister Nancy Faeser to accuse them of exploiting the situation.

In a special security debate in the Bundestag, Faeser stressed the difficulties in pinpointing perpetrators like A., who did not fit the usual molds of far-right, far-left, or religious extremists. She called for deeper cooperation between security agencies.

The attack was seen as hurting former Chancellor Olaf Scholz's reputation in the realm of security and law enforcement ahead of Germany's federal election in February of this year, which he lost.

Taleb A., whose name is withheld for privacy reasons, was in court on Monday in the eastern city of Magdeburg over an attack on a Christmas market last December.

A temporary court building has been set up to accommodate the hundreds of people involved in the trial, including witnesses, plaintiffs, and members of the press. It will be dismantled after the trial is over. 

The suspect will sit in a glass cage during the proceedings for his own protection. 

The car-ramming attack, which killed 5 women and one child, shocked Germany and prompted dozens of similar markets across the country to beef up security measures, including car barriers.

A further 338 people were injured in the attack on the crowded Christmas market.

Originally from Saudi Arabia, 51-year-old Taleb A. had been in Germany since 2006 and was a doctor in the town of Bernburg.

He was detained shortly after the attack and has been in custody since.

He is charged with 6 counts of murder and 338 counts of attempted murder, among other charges.

Some 180 victims and relatives will be co-plaintiffs in the case, making it one of the largest in Germany's post-war history.

The Magdeburg Regional Court has scheduled around 50 trial days up to March 12, 2026. 

Taleb A. was vocally critical of Islam and what he saw as Germany's lax immigration policies.

He also espoused a number of conspiracy theories. Prosecutors say he voiced his anger online, and was then driven to the attack out of a mix of "dissatisfaction and frustration."

He aimed "to kill as many people as possible," they said. He faces life in prison.

Guten Morgen from DW's newsroom in Bonn.

The main story Germany is talking about today is the trial of a 51-year-old doctor accused of killing 6 people and injuring 338 in an attack last December that shocked Germany.

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