Germany updates: Government should be 'center-right' — Spahn

Nadiem Amiri's first international goal helped Germany to a 3-1 win over Northern Ireland in Cologne on Sunday night.

Julian Nagelsmann's side had been humbled 2-0 by Slovakia in their first group game on Thursday, so Sunday's win was much-needed to get their qualification campaign back on track.

Germany started brightly, and their efforts were rewarded after just seven minutes when Serge Gnabry broke through and scored.

Germany's defensive frailties were exposed again in the 34th minute when Isaac Price, unmarked, expertly volleyed the ball into the net.

However, substitute Amiri of Mainz scored in the 69th minute, and Florian Wirtz followed with an unstoppable free kick shortly after.

Read more about the Germany's win over Northern Ireland in Cologne.

An eight-year-old boy was hospitalized near the western German city of Bonn on Friday after reportedly coming into contact with an acid-like liquid.

Local police said on Sunday that the boy had been playing with friends on square in the small town of Meckenheim, just south of Bonn in North Rhine-Westphalia, when a bottle fell off a package pick-up station and smashed.

The boy then came into contact with the contents of the bottle, suffering severe injuries to his hands. He was transported to hospital by helicopter.

The local fire brigade said the liquid was some sort of acid, but confirmation wasn't immediately available.

Police cordoned the square off and secured evidence before emergency services cleaned the area.

Annalena Baerbock, former Green Party politician and foreign minister, has moved to New York to start her new job on September 9. Not everyone is happy that she will be presiding over the UN General Assembly.

Click here to learn more about Baerbock's new job.

A driver in Berlin reportedly bit off his passenger's fingertip mid-journey before going on to injure three pedestrians and a cyclist — the latter fatally.

Berlin police said that the first incident occurred in the south-western district of Lichterfelde on Sunday when the 27-year-old, for unknown reasons, took a bite out of his passenger's finger, before crashing into a barrier by which two pedestrians had been standing.

The pedestrians and the passenger were taken to hospital for treatment while the driver fled the scene, driving southwards out of Berlin and into the surrounding state of Brandenburg.

Here, his car reportedly came off the road again and onto the so-called Mauerweg — a popular walking and cycling path which runs along the former route of the Berlin Wall — hitting a cyclist who sustained fatal injuries. A third pedestrian was also lightly injured while evading the vehicle.

The suspect then attempted to flee on foot before being apprehended near the town of Teltow.

Further details regarding the driver or the background to the series of events were not immediately available.

The incident comes just a few days after a similar occurrence in the northern Berlin suburb of Wedding, when a 20-year-old man drove through a red light and hit a group of children and their teacher. The woman was seriously injured, three children were taken to hospital with light injuries and three others were treated for minor scrapes at the scene.

The new women's football season got underway in Germany this weekend with the start of the 2025/26 Frauen-Bundesliga.

The official opening match took place in Munich on Saturday evening, where champions Bayern Munich beat Bayer Leverkusen 2-0 in front of a record 57,762 fans at the Allianz Arena.

The crowd had to be patient but were finally rewarded in the closing stages when quickfire strikes from Canadian debutant Vanessa Gilles and German international Klara Bühl secured all three points for Bayern.

The previous attendance record for a women's game had been held by Hamburger SV, who were beaten in last season's German Cup semifinal by Werder Bremen in front of 57,000 fans.

Now promoted to the Bundesliga, HSV got their campaign underway with a spectacular 3-3 draw at home to last season's runners-up VfL Wolfsburg. HSV had trailed 0-2 and 1-3 but rescued a surprise point thanks to late goals from Melanie Brunnthaler (81') and Christin Meyer (90+7').

Elsewhere, RB Leipzig beat FC Cologne 2-0 and Eintracht Frankfurt hammered SGS Essen 5-0.

Essen are the only original women's club left in the Bundesliga, with other traditional women's sides having been merged into established men's Bundesliga clubs – the old FFC Frankfurt now playing as Eintracht Frankfurt, for example.

A series of crashes at an amateur cycling race in south-western Germany on Sunday left around 70 participants injured — up to 20 of them seriously.

According to local police, too many riders simultaneously approached a bend towards the end of the "RiderMan" event near the town of Bad Dürrheim in Baden-Württemberg, resulting in a mass pile-up.

"A large number of riders ploughed into each other on the track," read a statement, adding that the resulting traffic jam then caused another crash not far from the first.

Emergency services attended the scene with four rescue helicopters and a large number of ambulances.

The race was abandoned by organizers, as were other race-related events.

Police have ruled out any intentional, external interference in the race.

Guten Abend from the newsroom in Bonn and welcome back to our Germany coverage!

Some 70 people have been injured at a cycling event in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg.

Stay with us for this and more updates from Germany.

This blog is on pause for now, but will resume on Sunday with news and analysis updates from Germany.

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Two people were seriously hurt when a supermarket roof partially collapsed in the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg.

Two others sustained minor injuries when the accident occurred in Lauchringen, close to the Swiss border.

A rescue helicopter was on the scene to assist with the rescue operation.

Late on Saturday, police said they did not expect any other serious injuries.

The supermarket was open at the time of the accident, which occured at around 5.45 p.m. local time (1545 GMT). 

Germany's soccer coach Julian Nagelsmann on Saturday promised to make changes to his lineup ahead of Sunday's World Cup qualifier against Northern Ireland in Cologne.

This is after Germany fell to a shock 2-0 defeat to Slovakia in Bratislava. 

A further disappointment against Northern Ireland, especially in a home game, would leave Germany's direct World Cup qualifying hopes hanging by a thread.

"There will certainly be some changes in terms of personnel. Not all 10 players will be rotated, but we have to put in a better performance than we did on Thursday," Nagelsmann said.

The German coach criticized his players' attitude after the Slovakia defeat, saying they lacked emotion and were "miles" behind their opponents.

"The first five to six minutes of the second half were a bit lighter, but the rest was very dark," he said. 

At full-time, captain Joshua Kimmich said: "If we perform like we did today, we'll definitely not qualify" for the World Cup, due to take place next summer in Mexico, Canada and the United States.

Education authorities in the western German city of Düsseldorf have initiated disciplinary procedures against a teacher who has been on sick leave since 2009.

German news agency DPA cited a spokesperson for the Education Ministry with the information that city authorities had begun proceedings against the teacher.

The case became public when the teacher challenged a court order that the teacher be examined by a medical officer, that she subsequently lost.

According to the teacher's initial sick notes, she suffered from psychological issues. She submitted sick notes over the years without measures being taken to ascertain what the problem was.

The 18-year-old secretary general of the Federal Student Conference, Quentin Gärtner, has decried the mental state of many students in Germany's schools as a new school year begins.

"We are experiencing a crisis in the mental health of children and young people," Gärtner told the RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland media group.

"Millions of students are not doing well. Every day, young people contact me reporting bullying, discrimination, or panic attacks in class," Gärtner said.

He said that more than one in four students described their quality of life as poot.

The student representative said that there was a widespread shortage of school psychologists and social workers and the teachers were not able to provide this.

Gärtner has called for €100 billion ($117 billion) for schools, calling them: "critical infrastructure."

Markus Söder, leader of the CSU — the Bavarian sister-party to Chancellor Friedrich Merz's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) — has questioned the deployment of German troops to Ukraine as part of NATO security guarantees for Kyiv.

The Bavarian leader's interview with the Rheinische Post newspaper came after German chancellor Friedrich Merz stopped just short of promising any further military commitments to Ukraine after the "Coalition of the Willing" meeting in Paris.

"I find it hard to imagine NATO troops being stationed there," Söder told Rheinische Post. "Russia would never accept that. It would be a preliminary step to Ukraine joining NATO."

The 58-year-old also questioned the German army's readiness for such a step, saying it could require a return to conscription for the armed forces.

"They are stretched to the limit, both financially and in terms of personnel. That is why conscription needs to be reintroduced. Ultimately, there will be no way around it," Söder added.

He also muted the possibility of having fighting-age Ukrainian men return to their home country to help secure the country's future while lamenting the welfare system that Germany introudced in 2022.

"Peace is not foreseeable at present," said Söder. "It is therefore legitimate to consider sending Ukrainians who are fit for military service back to their homeland to ensure security in their own country."

He pointed to Germany's welfare and unemployment payments, arguing that they meant that "compared to other European countries, we have a significantly lower proportion of Ukrainians in work."

"This needs to be changed urgently," he said.

Jens Spahn, the parliamentary group leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) believes the coalition government needs to shift more towards the center right. This he said would align with the expectations of the people in the country.

"For ten years, Germany has been voting center-right by a majority, but is then governed by center-left governments," Spahn told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

“This is a dilemma that we in the black-red coalition can resolve if everyone understands it,” Spahn said and went on to call again for massive social cuts.

“We could save even more than ten percent on citizen's income,” said the Union faction leader.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz's center-right CDU/CSU alliance and its coalition partner, the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), make the current coalition a centrist government in practice.

Merz has emphasized that the welfare state is currently no longer financially viable. The coalition government is pushing for reforms, but there is disagreement in the coalition on how best to proceed.

While the SPD is open to reforms, it does not want to cut back on the social system.

The term "welfare state" often refers not only to benefits financed directly by tax revenues — such as the "citizen's benefit" system of basic income support — but also to social insurance systems for pensions, health care, and long-term care.

Guten Tag from the newsroom in Bonn and welcome to our Germany coverage.

The union faction leader in the the Bundestag, Jens Spahn, believes the coalition needs to shift more to the center-right to reflect the will of the people.

Meanwhile a student representative body is calling for €100 billion in additional funds for schools.

Stay with us for news and updates from Germany.