Germany news: New group of Afghans to land for resettlement

Outgoing Borussia Dortmund chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke is set to be elected to a different role as president of the Bundesliga club on Sunday.

But the influential German football boss is likely to face questions about historic sexual abuse allegations against a former club employee, as well as issues surrounding his own personal travel expenses.

In October, local Dortmund police confirmed that complaints of sexual abuse had been made against a former BVB employee, allegations which dated back to the mid-1980s and early 1990s. Responding to the allegations, the club confirmed it had received complaints about the alleged abuser in 2010 and again in 2023 before dismissing him from an unspecified but minor position and "ensuring that he left the club."

According to new research by German news magazine Spiegel and public broadcaster Sportschau published on Thursday, CEO Watzke was aware of the 2010 complaint but appeared to want to distance himself from it. In an email regarding the alleged abuser's dismissal, Watzke wrote: "Do what you want but please don't put me in cc anymore."

BVB say that Watzke fully supported the dismissal of the alleged abuser, but fresh allegations made by victims to tabloid BILD last month and the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) this week have again cast light on the issue just days ahead of the club's annual members' meeting on Sunday at which Watzke is set to be elected unopposed as club president.

Meanwhile, Watzke is also facing questions regarding his personal travel expenses. According to Spiegel and Sportschau, the 66-year-old racked up private flight costs of over €62,000 ($71,532) in the space of just three months in 2023 alone — including from Dortmund to Berlin (500 kilometers / 310 miles) for a meeting of European Club Association (ECA) executives and from Dortmund to Hamburg (350 kilometers / 217 miles) for a media awards ceremony.

BVB insist all Watzke's private flights had "work purposes" and had been internally authorized, but such topics will likely be of interest to the 235,000 club members who are entitled to vote for him at Sunday's meeting.

Watzke has pulled the strings at BVB since taking charge in 2005, when he was credited with rescuing the then financially stricken club from an impending insolvency. Dortmund have since won two Bundesliga titles and three German Cups under top coaches such as Jürgen Klopp and Thomas Tuchel, establishing themselves as Germany's second-biggest club behind Bayern Munich.

In that time, Watzke has taken on additional roles at the German Football League (DFL), German Football Federation (DFB) and UEFA, making him one of the most influential figures in European football.

Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) will on Friday publish its latest statistics on violence against women.

The figures on "Domestic Violence 2024" and "Gender-specific crimes committed against women 2024" will be presented in Berlin by BKA President Holger Münch and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU).

According to previous figures, a woman was killed on average almost every single day in Germany in 2023. In that year, a total of 938 women and girls were victims of attempted murder, 360 of which resulted in actual death.

Back in August, the BKA released preliminary figures for the first half of 2024, over 260,000 people reported being victims of domestic violence – more than ever before. More than 187,000 of them were women.

New figures from the German government's statistics agency, Destatis, say that more than 48,700 jobs were lost year-on-year in the German car industry by the end of the third quarter of 2025.

That equates to a dip of roughly 6.3% of the total workforce. The figures are broadly similar to those from a study by EY (or Ernst&Young) earlier this year using data from the end of Q2.

The agency recorded 721,400 employees in the car industry as of the end of September. It said this was its lowest tally on record since the 2nd quarter of 2011, when it had stood at 718,000. 

Nevertheless, the sector remained the second-largest industrial employer in Germany, after machine building (with 934,200 workers).

Industrial jobs figures dipped overall by 2.2% over the past year, but the car sector was well past the trend line. 

The Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg opened on Thursday after a man drove a car into a crowd there last year, killing six and injuring hundreds.

At one entrance, flowers and candles circled a series of plaques honoring those killed. 

Various security measures have been implemented, such as barriers and other obstacles trying to ensure that vehicles cannot access the pedestrianized area. 

There was no grand ceremony at 11:00 a.m., with a quiet chime from a nearby church bell ushering in the "silent opening." The event only received a definitive go-ahead earlier this week. 

The reopening comes as the trial of the 51-year-old Saudi national accused of conducting the attack continues nearby. The defendant, who does not dispute being behind the wheel, is a dentist who was known to authorities as a vehement online critic of both Saudi Arabia's theocratic governance and Germany's recent migration policy and its institutions. 

A similar attack on Berlin's Breitscheidplatz in 2016 where a man drove a truck into a crowd killed 11 people.

In 2018, a man with a gun and a knife killed five people at the Christmas market in the Franco-German border city of Strasbourg. 

Heavy goods vehicle and bus manufacturer MAN plans to cut 2,300 jobs over the next 10 years, without resorting to layoffs, the company announced on Thursday. 

The company aims to achieve the cuts by not replacing people who retire or leave, a spokesman said. 

MAN needed to "adjust to the continually weakening truck market in Germany and further improve its costs position," the company said when announcing the cuts. 

According to the company, MAN's Munich headquarters is set to absorb 1,300 job cuts, with another 600 planned in Salzgitter in Lower Saxony, and 400 in Nuremberg, also in Bavaria.

As compensation, MAN said it also wanted to provide job security guarantees and to pledge to keep all its German manufacturing sites open until 2035.

However, the IG Metall trade union said it predicted more extensive cutbacks than MAN announced on Thursday, anticipating the loss of up to 2,000 jobs in Munich and another 500 in Nuremberg. It attributed these figures in part to plans to relocate some production to Poland, the base of Traton, MAN's parent company since the finalization of a merger in 2021.

The German Weather Service is warning citizens of wet snow showers in various parts of the country, as winter starts to take hold.

Wet snowfall is forecast in low-lying areas, with snow showers expected at the Upper Rhine, the Alps and the Baltic Sea areas.

In the Black Forest, snow is forecast to reach up to 20 centimeters.

The German Weather Service has also warned of slippery conditions, especially in the early hours of the morning.

The majority of femicide cases in Germany take place at the hands of the intimate partners of the women and girl victims, a study has revealed.

The study was presented by the University of Tübingen on Thursday, looking at cases across five German states in 2017.

Of the 292 cases of femicide or attempted femicide the study analysed, 197 would be classified as femicide, which is defined as the killing of women and girls due to their gender.

The most common type of femicide (108 out of 133 murders in total, or 81%) is linked to intimate partners, as per the study findings. Those cases involved killings by men in heterosexual relationships.

The majority of the cases shared similar motives; separation, infidelity, or a fear of either.

A 21-year-old Syrian refugee is now on trial for a knife attack at the German capital's Holocaust Memorial in February which left a Spanish tourist with life-threatening injuries.

The defendant is believed to have travelled all the way from the eastern state of Saxony, where he lived, to carry out the attack. The motive is believed to be radical Islamism and antisemitism in the name of the Islamic State group, according to German authorities. 

The Berlin Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe commemorates the 6 million Jewish people killed during the Holocaust.

The Federal Public Prosecutor's Office has charged the defendant with attempted murder, grievous bodily harm and attempted membership of a foreign terrorist organization.

Germany's top diplomat has stressed that any initiatives for peace negotiations in Ukraine must involve the country itself as well as Europe.

"All negotiations regarding a ceasefire, and indeed any further peaceful development in Ukraine, can only be discussed and negotiated with Ukraine," German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said ahead of a foreign affairs council meeting in Brussels, adding that "Europe will have to be involved."

News reports emerged on Wednesday suggesting that the US was drafting a new peace plan for Ukraine amid consultation with Russia, with NBC News later reporting that US President Donald Trump has already approved the 28-point peace plan.

No details of the plan are formally available, but some media reports suggest it would require Kyiv to give up some land currently controlled by Russian forces and make dramatic cuts to its military.

On November 20, 1945, the Allied Powers put high-ranking Nazis on trial before an international military tribunal in Nuremberg.

Twelve were sentenced to death. In 2020, witnesses told DW what they remembered about the trials.

The family of one of the victims of the 2020 far-right shooting incident in Hanau are filing a constitutional complaint in Karlsruhe, as they attempt to bring to justice those they believe can be held responsible for the tragic incident, according to the Tagesschau.

On February 19, 2020, a gunman motivated by far-right, racist beliefs went on a murderous rampage in Hanau, a German city near Frankfurt. He targeted places associated with immigrant communities, shooting nine people dead and wounding seven more. Afterward, he turned his gun on his mother and himself.

The perpetrator died before he could be criminally tried or even investigated.

Hamza Kurtovic, then 22, was among those killed at the Arena bar in Hanau.

His family argues that despite the death of the shooter, criminal proceedings should be brought against the authorities and the owner of the bar for failing to stop the shooting spree.

Kurtovic's family is mostly focused on the issue that the bar's emergency exit was locked at the time of the shooting, stripping the victims of their chance of escape.

The family, which has been trying to no avail to bring this issue to court for years, argues that the bar owner constantly kept the emergency exit locked on police orders. Hanau police would regularly carry out raids at the bar, and keeping the emergency exit locked, the family argues, prevented escapes amid the raid.

Previous investigation into the issue, including by the Hanau public prosecutor's office and the Hesse attorney general's office, concluded that there was no evidence that the victims would have been able to escape had the emergency door been unlocked.

After World War II, the Allies brought the Nazis to trial.

For the first time, representatives of a state had to answer for their crimes before an international tribunal.  

On the 80th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials, DW looks at how the trials started and how the process of trying Nazis has progressed throughout the years.

Germany has committed to contributing €1 billion ($1.15 billion) over the next decade to Brazil’s new global rainforest fund.

Brazilian Environment Minister Marina Silva announced on Wednesday at the UN Climate Change Conference in Belem.

The substantial support from Berlin will go to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF).

It is a mechanism designed to reward countries for preserving their rainforests and to penalize those that increase deforestation, based on satellite monitoring.

The pledge comes after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz caused controversy in Brazil with what were seen as disparaging comments made after a brief stop in Belem.

After his return from Brazil, Merz attended a trade conference in Berlin, where he compared Germany to Brazil saying he asked some journalists traveling with him whether they wanted to stay in Brazil, to which they said no.

Some observers in Germany believe that with this comparison, he meant to suggest that Germany has first-world problems which pale in comparison to the world's poorest places.

Read our full story on Germany's pledge here.

A group of Afghan nationals have taken off from Islamabad, Pakistan and are due to arrive in Germany on Thursday, Germany's DPA news agency reported.

Some 52 people were on board, sources told DPA. They are due to land in Berlin and Hanover.

This would be the sixth group of such Afghans to arrive in the country since the new government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz came to power in May, DPA said. 

Only Afghans who were approved for resettlement under the federal resettlement program and legally obtained visas are allowed to come into the country.

Under the new conservative government, Berlin suspended in May a resettlement program for particularly vulnerable Afghans.

Those eligible for the suspended program included Afghans fearing persecution by the Taliban government, which returned to power in 2021. Examples include former local staff of German institutions in Afghanistan and their relatives, as well as journalists and lawyers.

Despite the suspension, some Afghan nationals still manage to secure visas after suing the German government.

Reports suggest some German officials are considering bringing in Afghans on chartered flights, a method the previous government also resorted to.

It comes as Pakistan plans to deport Afghan nationals waiting to be resettled in Germany as of next year regardless of the status of their resettlement application.

Some 1,900 Afghans have been stuck in limbo in Islamabad, some for even years, waiting to be resettled to Germany.

Guten Morgen from our newsroom in Bonn where the cold has started to settle in!

We are awaiting the arrival of another group of Afghan nationals ready to be resettled in Germany, arriving at Berlin and Hanover.

And German Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil is in Singapore today for political talks.

Meanwhile in Magdeburg, the Christmas Market that was the site of a deadly attack last year will reopen to the public today.

Stay tuned as we bring you the latest news, videos and analysis on Germany today.