Around two weeks after the attempted attack on the Leipzig/Halle cargo airport, Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt hinted at Russia as a possible mastermind, but held back from making a direct accusation. “Russia makes it very, very easy for you to have suspicions at the moment. But it also makes it very, very difficult for you to prove it,” said the CSU politician on the sidelines of his summer trip to the Wartburg near Eisenach. The task of an interior minister is not to express suspicions, but rather to provide evidence. He asked for your understanding that the investigation would take time.
Dobrindt emphasized that if blame is assigned, there must be consequences. “The evidence, the chain, must be conclusive,” explained the minister. "And then the consequences have to be so clear that we don't end up in a situation where the public comes to the conclusion: But we know what's going on, but we're not really doing anything with it." Such decisions about consequences would not be made by him alone, but with the Defense and Foreign Ministries as well as the Federal Chancellor.
We are working hard on clarification. “We are working on this issue with an enormous number of people, including from within the services,” he said. However, ongoing measures should not be jeopardized. He assumes "that we also have results that will help us in the area of measures that we are currently implementing."
The former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, said on Deutschlandfunk that if the AfD took over government in Saxony-Anhalt, Jews would emigrate. She wouldn't support this, but she couldn't discourage people either, said the President of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria.
The 93-year-old Holocaust survivor had previously drawn parallels between the AfD and the NSDAP in Stern. There she said: “In many areas I no longer see any difference to the NSDAP before it came to power.” The NSDAP also “started small and tried out everything that was possible”. That's exactly what the AfD does: its politicians test what is reasonable.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) resolutely opposes statements by Israeli Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir about targeted killings of Palestinians in Gaza. The Chancellor strongly condemns the inhumane appeals that violate international law, said the deputy government spokesman. They are unacceptable. At the EU level, the question of possible sanctions against the politician should now be discussed at an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers at the beginning of September.
Federal Minister of Justice Stefanie Hubig (SPD) is discussing possible changes to tenancy law for better heat protection. “I can imagine, for example, that we make it easier for tenants to equip their apartments with air conditioning or sun visors,” she told the Rheinische Post.
The controls at the German external borders are to be extended for another six months until mid-March. Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) officially reported this to the EU Commission, as a ministry spokeswoman confirmed.
