Germany news: Winter storm halts train service in north

Some 20% of Germans have thought about emigrating, according to a new study from the German Center for Migration and Integration Research (Dezim).

The main reasons given were to find a better life and — among those with a migrant background — experiences of discrimination.

Here is the breakdown of the results:

• 21% in total said they were considering leaving Germany
• This was 17% among Germans without a migration background
• For first-generation immigrants, that share reached 34%
• This rose to 37% for second-generation immigrants
• The highest share of 39% was among people with a background connected to Turkey, the Middle East or North Africa
• Among people with backgrounds from post-Soviet countries, it was 31%
• And among those from EU member states, some 28% have thought about leaving

Of the 2,933 people surveyed between summer 2024 and summer 2025, only 2% had made concrete plans to leave.

According to the German Federal Office of Statistics (Destatis), 1.2 million people left Germany in 2024.

The authors of the report noted that the rate had remained steady throughout the survey, apart from the build-up to the 2025 election when there was a 10% jump among people with migrant backgrounds saying they were considering leaving the country.

That election was marked by an increase in anti-migrant rhetoric.

Former Le Mans winner Hans Herrmann has died at the age of 97, Porsche Motorsport said on Friday, citing his family.

"The news of Hans Herrmann's death has deeply affected us all," said Thomas Laudenbach, head of the group.

Herrmann was one of Germany's most successful postwar racing drivers. His greatest triumph came in 1970, when the Stuttgart native won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a Porsche 917 alongside Richard Attwood.

He began his racing career in 1952 at the age of 24 and went on to claim more than 80 overall and class victories, most of them with Porsche.

After surviving several serious crashes, often with little injury, he earned the nickname "Hans im Glück" — a German expression derived from a Brothers Grimm fairy tale meaning roughly "Lucky Hans."

Reflecting on the risks of racing, Herrmann once said: "You kept telling yourself: it won't happen to you."

What mattered most, he said, was "that you really mastered your car."

Herrmann remained closely linked to motorsport into old age, appearing regularly at major historic racing events around the world.

Porsche described him as one of the brand's most important and successful works drivers. He is survived by his wife, Magdalena, and two sons.

Severe weather warnings have been issued as winter storms Goretti and Elli bring hurricane-force winds and heavy snow to northern Europe. Homes have been left without power, and traffic has been disrupted as temperatures have plummeted. 

Deutsche Bahn has delayed the restart of long-distance rail services in northern Germany after disruptions caused by winter storm "Elli."

Spokesperson Achim Stauss said that long-distance services would not resume on Friday, adding it was better to use the evening and night to reposition trains to their operating locations.

The rail operator had fully suspended long-distance services in the north of the country on Friday morning, while regional rail traffic was also heavily disrupted.

Deutsche Bahn said snowdrifts were the main cause, with rail traffic at the key hub of Hanover coming to a complete standstill, calling the situation "one of the most severe winter onsets of recent years."

The company said thousands of employees were working continuously to make tracks passable again.

It warned that nationwide disruptions and cancellations are still expected on Saturday.

For stranded passengers, Deutsche Bahn has provided so-called waiting trains in cities including Hamburg, Hanover, Berlin, and Kassel.

The German FA (DFB) announced on Friday that the men's national team will be staying at the Graylyn Estate Hotel in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as they embark on their quest for a fifth World Cup title. The facility, which looks very much like a castle, was built almost 100 years ago by a tobacco entrepreneur. The DFB have reserved all 85 rooms for the balance of the World Cup.

Germany have long seen the selection of a tournament headquarters as a key to the national team's success. The Campo Bahia, which the DFB had specially built for 2014 in Brazil, was seen as a key factor in Germany winning their last World Cup.

The choices of the venues in Vatutinki near Moscow and in the Qatari desert were strongly criticized after Germany failed to advance past the group stage in the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

Read all about the team's hotel decision here.

A German Bundesliga match between St. Pauli from Hamburg in northern Germany and Leipzig has had to be called off because of heavy snowfall. 

"Due to the current weather conditions with heavy snowfall and snowdrifts, the safety of the venue and the safe execution of the event in compliance with all operating regulations cannot be guaranteed," St. Pauli said in a statement posted on Instagram.

St. Pauli had "done everything possible to ensure the game could be held safely," but the bad weather conditions put paid to those efforts.

"A new date for the game will be announced shortly," the league said. Leipzig is fourth in the 18-team Bundesliga, and St. Pauli is currently 16th.

Werder Bremen's game against Hoffenheim was also canceled on Friday.

Another top-tier game scheduled for Saturday in areas affected by heavy snow is Union Berlin's against Mainz, though that match is still on for now.

It's the first round of games since the football league's winter break.

The trial of the suspected online offender known as "White Tiger" began behind closed doors in Hamburg.

Prosecutors accuse the 21-year-old defendant of murder and five counts of attempted murder.

They say he coerced vulnerable teenagers online into harming themselves; in one case, a 13-year-old is believed to have died by suicide.

The defendant, a German-Iranian national, is believed to have been the head of a group of cybercriminals called "764," which for their own sexual gratification, forced children aged between 11 and 15 to use violence against themselves on the internet.

In total, prosecutors list 204 offenses said to have been committed when the accused was a minor or young adult, involving more than 30 child and teenage victims. 

In one case, prosecutors say the suspect influenced a 13-year-old through another minor until the boy took his own life during a livestream. Additional cases involve attempted suicides.

The alleged offenses took place between January 2021 and September 2023. 

Editor's note: If you are suffering from emotional strain or suicidal thoughts, seek professional help. You can find information on where to find help, no matter where you live in the world, at this website: www.befrienders.org

German exports fell 2.5% month on month in November 2025, while imports rose 0.8%, according to figures released by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).

Germany exported goods worth €128.1 billion ($149.2 billion) and imported goods to the value of €115.1 billion in November.

The foreign trade balance showed a surplus of €13.1 billion in November 2025, having stood at €17.2 billion in October.

Imports increased in particular from China, the United States and the United Kingdom.

The calendar and seasonally adjusted export figure was also 0.8% lower than a year earlier, in November 2024.

Germany lacks thousands of state prosecutors to effectively fight organized crime, the German Association of Judges has warned. But others say the judicial system's problems run much deeper than that.

"State governments are missing out on billions of euros because they are too fixated on the personnel costs of law enforcement," DRB Director Sven Rebehn told the Funke Media Group newspapers in late December.

Rebehn said Germany was 2,000 state prosecutors short, and that there were about 1 million open cases waiting to be investigated, effectively giving mafia organizations and financial embezzlers an easy time.

Read more in this DW article.

There have been calls among Germany's utility providers for emergency planning of people and resources in the event of another major power outage as seen in Berlin this week.

"The aim of a national reserve and crisis intervention measures must be to ensure that the power is provisionally restored within 24 hours if possible," German news agency DPA quoted Ulf Kämpfer — mayor of the city of Kiel and president of the Association of Local Public Utilities (VKU) — as saying.

Kämpfer praised the response from Berlin's electricity grid operator as tens of thousands battled a power cut after a major power cable was targeted by arson.

The mayor warned there was a "changed threat situation" and that "a new intensity of attacks cannot be ruled out in the future."

Kämpfer said the emergency plan would need to go far beyond having backup generators.

He said so-called island grids were one of the only ways of ensuring emergency supply in the short term.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul will head to the United States for talks with US counterpart Marco Rubio.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer said bilateral relations would be discussed along with "relevant foreign and security policy issues."

Wadephul is expected to leave on Sunday afternoon and will make a stopover in Iceland where he will meet Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir.

The trip comes amid a climate of tension relating to US threats to annex Greenland which belongs to NATO ally, Denmark.

On the question of whether Greenland would also be a topic of discussion during Wadephul's meeting with Rubio, Deschauer replied that the German government had already commented on this in recent days.

“We were very clear on this,” said the Foreign Office spokeswoman.

The future of the strategically important island lies "in the hands of the Greenlanders alone," Deschauer said.

German Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil has spoken out against US threats to annex Greenland.

"International law applies. The law that only the strongest survive cannot apply here. And that is why Denmark has our full solidarity and we will make this clear to the US at every point," Klingbeil said on Friday at a meeting of lawmakers of his Social Democrats (SPD).

On Thursday, US Vice President JD Vance accused Denmark and the rest of Europe of failing to protect Greenland from Russia and China.

"I guess my advice to European leaders and anybody else would be to take the president of the United States seriously," Vance told journalists at the White House when asked about Greenland.

Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, but Trump has been eyeing it since his first term in office.

The German Weather Service (DWD) said that initial forecasts of heavy snowfall in large parts of Brandenburg and Berlin did not materialize.

"We do not see any danger to life and limb," said a spokesperson for the DWD.

The severe weather warning for heavy snowfall was lifted for Berlin and Brandenburg because significantly less snow had fallen than earlier predicted.

Berlin is located further to the east from where the heaviest snowfall was recorded in the state of Lower Saxony on Friday morning. 

A warning remained in the the district of Prignitz in the northwest.

However, temperatures in and around the German capital are set to be frigid. Strong wind gusts have been forecast in some parts and the wind chill could plummet to -20 degrees Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit).