Germany news: Right-wing violence rises in 2025

Around 3,500 people gathered in the southern Bavarian town of Lindenberg on Sunday to protest against an appearance at a local election event by Björn Höcke, a senior figure in the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Höcke, who heads up the AfD in the eastern German state of Thuringia, spoke at a campaign event organized by the party ahead of local elections in the region, which was attended by around 600 people.

Lindenberg town council had initially attempted to ban Höcke from speaking on publicly owned premises on the grounds that the 53-year-old has twice been convicted of using illegal Nazi rhetoric. Indeed, a German court ruled back in 2019 that Höcke may legally be described a "fascist."

Furthermore, the state of Bavaria recently approved new provisions in its municipal code whereby the use of public spaces can be refused if an event is expected to feature "content that approves, glorifies or justifies the National Socialist [Nazi] regime … or antisemitic content."

However, the Bavarian Administrative Court (BayVGH) ruled in a spontaneous injunction that this was not to be expected at the AfD event, even with Höcke as a speaker.

In addition to the anti-AfD protest, a smaller demonstration also took place featuring around 150 people who police described as belonging to the "far-right spectrum."

Police said the event and the demonstrations passed off largely peacefully.

Carsten Linnemann, the Secretary General of theChristian Democratic Union (CDU), is calling for income tax relief, a proposal which would particularly benefit those on higher incomes.

"I advocate that the top tax rate should only apply to gross annual incomes of €80,000 ($95,000), not €68,000 as is currently the case. This would flatten the middle-class bulge and provide relief," he told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

However, a reform package would have to be discussed with the SPD, the CDU's coalition partner.

Meanwhile, the Social Democrats responded with cautious approval. Sebastian Roloff, the economic policy spokesman for the SPD faction in the Bundestag, welcomed the movement within the CDU in an interview with the newspaper Handelsblatt.

However, he called for higher taxes for top earners. "Top earners must contribute more than they currently do — via a higher top tax rate for the highest incomes," Roloff said.

The German center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) is calling for a complete ban on social media platforms for children under the age of 14.

In a policy paper, the party proposes a phased approach in which social platform providers should "technically prevent access" for children under 14. Platforms would face sanctions for violations.

A mandatory youth version should be introduced for 14- to 16-year-olds that does not include algorithmically controlled feeds or recommendation systems, nor any features designed to encourage addiction, such as endless scrolling.

Access should only be possible after verification by legal guardians, the SPD says. For this purpose, the party proposes using the EU Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet), an identification procedure defined by the EU. For individuals 16 and older, algorithmic recommendation systems should be deactivated by default.

In Australia, platforms such as TikTok, X, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitch have been prohibited from allowing children and young people under 16 to have accounts since December. Similar measures are under discussion in European countries such as Spain, France, and the UK.

Two children – a boy in northern Germany and a German girl in Austria – have been killed in bobsled accidents in Europe in recent days.

On Sunday morning, an 11-year-old boy died in the northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after riding on a home-made sled which was being pulled by a car.

When the 37-year-old driver lost control of the vehicle, the plastic sled – upon which another 13-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl were also sat – careered into a pile of wood.

The 11-year-old boy suffered severe injury and died on the spot, while the other two children were lightly injured. The kids were reportedly not related to the driver, who is being investigated on suspicion of manslaughter and grievous bodily harm.

The incident came just three days after a 13-year-old girl from Munich died in a bobsled accident during a school ski trip in Austria.

The girl was reportedly riding on a double bob with a classmate, also 13, when the sled left the track and struck a tree before throwing her down a 16-meter (52-foot) drop through the woods.

The girl was transported by helicopter to a hospital in nearby Salzburg where she died of her injuries. The other girl was flown to a clinic in the nearby town of Schwarzach where, after being treated in intensive care, she was reportedly in a stable condition by Saturday.

Both girls had been wearing helmets, police said, but why the sled careered off the track remains unclear.

According to official statistics, around 280 people are involved in bobsled accidents in Austria every year, with an average of two deaths recorded annually.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is planning to hold its national party congress in the eastern state of Thuringia. It falls on the 100th anniversary of a Nazi party congress in the same state and has provoked outrage from across the mainstream political spectrum.

"This deliberately chosen parallel shows once more what kind of party the AfD is," Christian Democrat (CDU) lawmaker Serap Güler told the daily Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger.

"The AfD knows exactly what it is doing. I find it disgusting how little decency and respect this party has with regard to our history," said Güler, who is minister of state at the Federal Foreign Office.

The former parliamentary group leader of the Social Democrats (SPD), Rolf Mützenich, accused the AfD of carrying out "deliberate provocations to gain attention."

He told the newspaper that anyone choosing such an anniversary "must be aware of the historical implications and know what kind of associations it evokes."

Historian Jörg Ganzenmüller, a research on totalitarianism, spoke of "a deliberately symbolic act that has an impact on several levels."

He said that on the one hand, it sent a signal to the far-right scene, which is familiar with Nazi history and its important dates, while on the other, it aimed to give the public the impression that it was a normal party that was unaware of the historical significance of the date.

Another historian, Stephan Zänker, the chairman of the Weimar Republic Association, also called the AfD's choice of date and location for its congress "a fateful parallel."

A spokesman for the Thuringian chapter of the AfD has rejected the criticism and said there was no connecting line between the party and the Nazi party congress.

The National Socialists' (Nazi) party congress in the then Thuringian capital of Weimar on July 3-4, 1926, was a milestone in the rise of the party, and took place in the same location where the Weimar Republic had been founded seven years earlier.

The AfD is planning its conference for July 4-5 in what is now the Thuringian capital, Erfurt.

 

A number of people have been injured with stab wounds after an altercation in a bus in the western city of Wuppertal, police say.

They said two groups on the bus, who had been celebrating Carnival, began quarelling shortly before midnight on Saturday, with the dispute finally turning violent.

The driver stopped the bus and called the police, who arrested a 19-year-old man on suspicion of wounding three people with a knife.

The injured were taken to hospital.

Media said the suspect, who was reportedly already known to law enforcement, has been taken into psychiatric care after becoming violent in police custody.

Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham said that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz "deserves a very good place in history" for predicting the end of the Iranian regime.

"Merz said, Iran is gonna fall. God bless him," Graham, a loyal ally of US President Donald Trump, told journalists on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.

In mid-January, Merz had said he expected a regime change in Iran amid massive public protests, saying that if the leadership there "can only stay in power through the use of violence, then it is effectively finished."

"I assume that we may now be witnessing the final days and weeks of this regime," he added in remarks made during a trip to India.

Graham also said that both Merz and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, with whom he had held talks, "seem to have figured out Trump pretty well."

The senator, who is a key voice on foreign policy in Congress, is an outspoken advocate of regime change in Iran.
  

Former Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who led a coalition government in Germany from December 2021 to May 2025, has said he intends to write for publication, though it is not clear what form this would take.

"Publishers have come to me asking whether I would like to put together some memories," he told the daily Rhein-Neckar Zeitung.

"In any case, I intend to do some writing," the 67-year-old Social Democrat politician said.

In early 2025, while still chancellor, he said that he was "working intensively to give myself more time before writing memoirs."

His predecessor, Angela Merkel, published her almost 740-page memoirs, entitled "Freedom: Memoirs 1954-2021," in the fall of 2024, a book that became a bestseller in Germany.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has told German Chancellor Friedrich Merz that Beijing hopes to upgrade bilateral ties and boost trade

"China is willing to work with Germany to ... push the China-Germany all-round strategic partnership to a new level," Wang said at a meeting on the sidelines of the MSC on Saturday.

Beijing also wanted to "prepare for the next stage of high-level exchanges," Wang added.

The minister said China's commitment to opening-up would provide "tremendous opportunities" for German companies, according to a readout from the state-run Xinhua news agency.

He also expressed hope that Germany would provide "a more fair and equitable business environment" for Chinese firms.

Bilateral economic ties have come under strain in recent years, with contentious issues ranging from claims of unfair trade practices to protectionism.

The meeting at the MSC comes as Merz is reportedly planning his first official trip to China this month.

If the chancellor does make the trip, he will face a tricky challenge reconciling Europe's desire to lessen its trade reliance on the Asian giant with the economic and diplomatic consequences of reducing commerce.

The Berlin International Film Festival has defended its filmmakers after comments made by its jury aroused a heated debate on the role of politics, if any, in art.

 "As we enter the first 48 hours of this year's festival, a media storm has swept over the Berlinale," the festival said in a statement released on Saturday.

"We feel it is important to speak out — in defense of our filmmakers, and especially our jury and jury president," the statement said.

According to the statement, the media has taken remarks made at press conferences out of context and detached from the artists' work and the values they stand for.

Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle has also defended the festival in an article, saying that there was freedom of expression at the event but that filmmakers were coming under undue pressure to answer questions on political issues.

"They are criticized if they do not answer. They are criticized if they answer and their reply is not liked. And they are criticized if they cannot compress complex thoughts into a brief sound bite when a microphone is placed in front of them," Tuttle wrote.

The defense from the festival comes after famed Indian writer Arundhati Roy canceled her planned attendance, citing comments made by jury president and acclaimed director Wim Wenders that suggested that filmmakers should "stay out of politics."

In justifying her withdrawal, Roy cited what she described as "the unconscionable statements made by members of the jury of the Berlin film festival when they were asked to comment about the genocide in Gaza."

She went on to say, "let me say this clearly: what has happened in Gaza, what continues to happen, is a genocide of the Palestinian people by the State of Israel."

Numerous international rights organizations and a UN commission of inquiry have found Israel's war in Gaza, launched in response to Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023, to be a genocide. The International Court of Justice is also hearing a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention in Gaza.

Israel denies the charge.

Editor's note: This entry was updated to provide context on Roy’s remarks on genocide.

German police registered more right-wing politically motivated violent crimes nationwide in 2025 that the year before, preliminary government figures have shown.

In response to a parliamentary inquiry by the Left Party, the government said 1,521 cases of such violence had been recorded across the country.

In 2024, that number had been put at 1,488 by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), up form 1,270 the year before.

The overall number of crimes motivated by right-wing political ideologies was, however, down by 4% in 2025 compared with the previous year, with 41,072 offenses reported.

The figures are preliminary and could be updated as more information comes in, the government said, as it often takes some time for the motive for an offense to be established.

Violent offenses include attempted murder, bodily harm, serious breaches of peace, dangerous interference with road traffic, unlawful detention and offenses involving resistance to law enforcement.

Defamation of the state and its symbols, incitement to hatred, and insults are all classed as nonviolent forms of politically motivated crimes.

 

More than 980 knife-related offenses and some 2,200 sex crimes were registered at train stations and in trains across Germany in 2025, according to a report from the weekly Bild am Sonntag newspaper that cites federal police figures.

The central station in the eastern city of Leipzig saw the most violent crime, with 859 cases registered.

It was followed by the main stations in Dortmund (735 cases), Berlin (654 cases), Cologne (648) and Hannover (612 cases), the paper said.

Security on Germany's rail network has come under increased scrutiny since a deadly attack by a passenger on a train attendant at the beginning of the month.

State prosecutors say that a 26-year-old Greek national is suspected of carrying out the attack, which occurred in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate. The accused is currently in pre-trial detention. 

Guten Tag! We are resuming our reporting on the top stories coming out of Germany after an overnight break.

One of the country's most prestigious cultural events, the Berlin International Film Festival, is underway amid some debate over its stance on politics in general and the Gaza conflict in particular.

It has come out with a defense of its filmmakers and jury that you can read more about in this blog.

Meanwhile, the government has responded to a parliamentary request for information on right-wing politically motivated violent crimes, with new figures showing a rise in 2025 compared with the previous year.

Violence on Germany's railway network is also in focus after a deadly attack on a train attendant at the start of the month.

According to German police, train stations are seeing high rates of knife crime, as we will be detailing here.

Read on to find out more about what is happening in Europe's largest economy.

A new survey shows most Germans view alleged cronyism inside the far-right Alternative for Germany (AFD) party as a serious concern.

An INSA poll for German newspaper Bild found 57% of respondents consider it problematic that AfD lawmakers hired relatives of fellow party members using taxpayer-funded staff positions.

Only 28% saw no issue, while 15% were undecided. The poll surveyed 1,001 eligible voters this week and was described as representative.

Several German states have reported cases where family members of AfD politicians were employed by other Bundestag lawmakers.

AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla has confirmed hiring the wife of a Saxony state legislator.

Opinion is divided on whether the allegations are damaging the party: 41% say yes, 39% say no.

Thousands took to the streets of Dresden in eastern Germany to protest against a right-wing extremist march in the city.

An estimated 3000 people took part in the counter-protest, according to multiple media sources, while those participating in the far-right march numbered around 1000. Police did not release an official estimate for either gathering.

Officers made use of pepper spray to clear the way after counter-protesters attempted to block the route of the right-wing extremist march, police said.

Police maintained a significant presence on the scene and deployed two water cannons to the area as a precaution.

Dresden, which is the capital and second-largest city of the state of Saxony, was leveled and some 25,000 people were killed during a British and US bombing campaign on February 13, 1945, toward the end of World War II in Europe.

Right-wing extremists regularly gather in the city, using exaggerated claims on the Allied air raids in Dresden to downplay atrocities committed by Germany's Nazi dictatorship, often clashing with counter-demonstrators.