Interior minister downplays coalition spat – DW – 07/12/2025

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt on Saturday said recent parliamentary wrangling within the ruling coalition over the appointment of judges to the Federal Constitutional Court do not weaken the institution.

Dobrindt, of Bavaria’s conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), was reacting to criticism by opposition parties but also from coalition partner Social Democrats (SPD) who accused the CDU/CSU of “deliberately dismantling our highest German court and our democratic institutions.”

Speaking with radio broadcaster Deutschlandfunk (DLF), Dobrindt said, “I don’t see any damage to the Federal Constitutional Court at all.” 

Germany’s Bundestag had been scheduled to vote on three appointments to the bench on Friday but the vote was torpedoed when the conservative CDU/CSU bloc unexpectedly withdrew support for a candidate put forth by the SPD over plagiarism accusations.

Guten Tag from Bonn!

Following the pause, DW resumes its coverage of news and analysis from Germany.

On Saturday, Germany awaits news from Paris, where the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO is expected to decide whether to grant World Heritage status to the castles of Neuschwanstein, Herrenchiemsee, and Linderhof, as well as the royal residence on Schachen Mountain in Upper Bavaria.

Stay tuned for more, and we hope you enjoy reading!

It’s just past midnight here in Germany, so we’re pausing our coverage for now and will resume early in the morning.

Thousands of Bosnians gather at a cemetery near Srebrenica to mark the 30th anniversary of a massacre in which more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniak men and boys were executed by Bosnian Serb forces during a 1992-5 war.

German comedian Sebastian Hotz will have to go to court in relation to social media posts he made about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.

The Berlin public prosecutor’s office charges that Hotz, who is also known as “El Hotzo,” condoned and rewarded criminal offences.

His trial is scheduled to begin on July 23 at the Tiergarten district court in Berlin.

Hotz deleted the posts on X, but screenshots soon began to circulate.

In one comment, he suggested a similarity between a “last bus” and then presidential candidate Trump, writing that “unfortunately” both had been “just missed.” In another, Hotz said: “I think it’s absolutely fantastic when fascists die.”

In the wake of the scandal, regional public broadcaster RBB ended its collaboration with Hotz on a youth program.

Soon after, national public broadcaster ARD Kultur canceled a literary event with him.

Christina Block, heiress to Germany’s Block House steakhouse chain, went on trial in Hamburg on Friday accused of ordering the violent kidnapping of her two youngest children.

Block is standing trial alongside her partner, former television sports presenter Gerhard Delling, and several other alleged accomplices accused of snatching the children from their father in Denmark.

Find out more about the high-profile case.
 

Hasan Hasanovic lost his twin brother and father in the Srebrenica genocide in 1995. Now, he has made it his life’s work to document the deadliest massacre in Europe since World War II.

Today, one of Hasanovic most important projects has to do with building an archive with video footage of survivors of the genocide telling their stories. It is unique and the most important record of what happened 30 years ago.

Read more about his life and work here.

Vivian Spohr, the wife of Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr, said she was “at the complete disposal” of Italian judicial authorities following the death of a 24-year-old woman who was struck by a vehicle in the Italian island of Sardinia.

Local media reported that the 24-year-old died from serious head injuries after she was struck by a vehicle at a crosswalk on Tuesday, with Spohr reportedly at the wheel.

Gaia Costa, the victim, was from from Tempio Pausania, in the Gallura region of northern Sardinia. She died at the scene of accident in in Porto Cervo in northern Sardinia.

In a statement issued by her Italian lawyer on Friday, the 51-year-old German businesswoman expressed “dismay and deep sorrow for this grave accident, which has devastated a family, the town of Tempio, and the entire community of Gallura.”

The statement added that Spohr places herself “at the complete disposal of the Italian judicial authorities for the necessary investigations and, while aware that such a great personal loss cannot be repaired, will take steps to mitigate its consequences.” 

Spohr had been staying at her family’s vacation home when the accident occurred, local media reported. She returned to Germany shortly after the accident. 

Germany does not plan to procure more F-35 fighter jets beyond the 35 already ordered, the defense ministry has said, rejecting a Politico report that claimed Berlin aimed to expand its fleet to 50.

Germany has so far ordered 35 US-made jets to replace a total of 85 ageing Tornado aircraft.

“The defense ministry currently has no plans to procure additional F-35s beyond the 35 F-35s already contractually agreed,” a ministry spokesperson said at a regular news conference.

A military source told the Reuters news agency that the 15 additional jets had been part of earlier considerations.

However, NATO’s new targets for weapons and troop numbers mean that the number may need adjusting. The source did not confirm if more jets will ultimately be ordered.

The report by Politico comes amid tensions between Germany and France over their joint FCAS fighter jet project. An industry source told Reuters that France now wants an 80% workshare, which could scrap the agreed split and block the project’s next phase.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz will make his first official visit to London on Thursday, with a German-British treaty of friendship expected to be signed.

Government spokesman Steffen Meyer said in Berlin on Friday that the visit aims to deepen close ties between the two countries. Merz will be received by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has sought to repair relations with the EU after Brexit.

The draft treaty is set to be approved by the German Cabinet on Wednesday. It will focus on cooperation in foreign and defense policy, economic growth, and more direct contact between citizens.

Once signed, the agreement will go to the Bundestag for approval. An action plan with specific joint projects will also be presented to strengthen bilateral ties.

Independent justices preside over Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court.

How are they chosen? DW looks at the process of picking judges in Germany.

A joint car plant in the Chinese city of Nanjing, run by German car company Volkswagen and its local partner SAIC, will be closed in the coming months.

“Volkswagen Group and its joint venture partners are accelerating the transformation towards electric, intelligent, connected vehicles,” a spokesperson for Volkswagen told AFP news agency.

“Many SAIC Volkswagen sites are currently being converted or have already been converted for electric vehicle production,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesman also confirmed the news first reported by German newspaper, Handelsblatt, about production having already come to a halt there.

One reason for the closure of the plant, which is set to be closed over the second half of the year, was because of its urban location, making the expansion of electric vehicle production difficult.

The plant, which has a capacity to produce 360,000 vehicles per year, first opened in 2008. It made models like Volkswagen Passat and Skoda Superb.

The number of companies that went bankrupt in Germany significantly rose again in April, according to finalized data from the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).

The number of 2,125 companies going bust in April 2025 marks a rise of 11.5% more than in the same month last year.

Volker Treier, the head analyst of the German Industry and Commerce Chamber, warned that “Whoever wants to ensure competitiveness, cannot further postpone relief.”

According to preliminary data from Destatis, the number of businesses filing for bankruptcy in June 2025 is expected to rise by 2.4% in comparison to June 2024.

A Bundestag debate marking the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica genocide on Friday ended with recriminations and outrage when members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party suggested that what happened in Bosnia in 1995 was not in fact genocide.

AfD politician Alexander Wolf caused uproar by questioning whether the events in Srebrenica were worthy of the label of “genocide,” arguing that Bosnian Serbs had only shot men, and had spared women and children. 

The statement does not square with the fact that, beyond the killings of about 8,000 men and boys during the massacre, there have been thousands of reported cases of sexual abuse against Bosniak women and girls.

Verdicts by both the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have already determined the genocidal character of the massacre.

Politicians from the coalition SPD and CDU/CSU accused Wolf of spouting revisionist history that denies genocide and sides the perpetrators of war crimes.

Still, the AfD was not done, with Martin Sichert calling Srebrenica a glaring example of the threat posed by multiculturalism, claiming that Germany was running headlong into a similar fate.

It was then that parliamentarians demonstratively turned their backs, with Klöckner reprimanding Sichert and Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul unexpectedly taking to the speaker’s pulpit to apologize to Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Ambassador to Germany Damir Arnaut for having to listen to Sichert’s words.

On Friday, the German parliament held a special session in memory of the Srebrenica massacre, which took place 30 years ago.

About 8,000 Muslims were murdered by Bosnian Serbs in an act, recognized by several international courts as a genocide, that started on July 11, 1995.

Julia Klöckner, president of the Bundestag, said that “Srebrenica was the worst war crime on European soil since World War II.”

She said that the massacre was the result of UN peacekeeping forces doing nothing to protect those seeking refuge.

“With brutal violence, the attackers separated families and deported women, children and the elderly,” she stated. “They kept men and boys behind in order to systematically murder them in the days that followed.”