Chancellor Merz thanked firefighters who tackled recent devastating blazes in western Germany. Meanwhile, a German Cup soccer match ended in a mass brawl with over 100 injuries. DW has more.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz traveled to the Hürtgenwald region, where fires raged for several days. Merz thanked firefighters and rescue workers who battled the fire for several days before extinguishing it. A German Cup match between southwestern rivals Waldhof Mannheim and Kaiserslautern ends in a mass brawl with dozens of injuries and arrests. Germany's antisemitism commissioner, Felix Klein, calls for criminal laws to be strengthened to include penalties for pro-Hamas demonstrators. Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul is in Kyiv as Ukraine prepares to celebrate its independence and Russian missiles rain down on the country.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz thanked local firefighters for their efforts battling last week's dramatic forest fire in western Germany's Eifel region and stressed that such fires are a consequence of climate change. "We have to expect such events more often," he said during a visit to the communities affected by the fires. "This is climate change." "I want to tell all those climate change deniers: Look at what's happening here," he added. Merz said he would do everything possible to combat climate change but stressed that "we also have to live with climate change."
Under the slogan "Vote for Love," around 3,000 people took part in a pride parade in the eastern German city of Magdeburg. The city is the capital of Saxony-Anhalt, which will hold state elections on September 6 that the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is expected to win. The parade's organizers said Saturday’s event was a show of support for democracy, diversity and an open society.
Corinna Jodeit, a candidate from Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in local elections outside Bremen, has caused a stir with her official campaign portrait. Jodeit is running for a seat on the Wildeshausen city council and can be seen wearing a gold necklace prominently featuring the English-language acronym MILF on posters for the September 13 vote. The candidate herself said that although the term is "naturally provocative," the necklace is "just a piece of jewelry" that emphasizes her independence.
German Finance Minister and Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil on Saturday called for a tax on windfall profits currently being racked up by large multinational oil companies. "We must address the problem of high energy prices by discussing an EU-wide framework for taxing windfall profits," Klingbeil wrote in an open letter also signed by several European counterparts. The next meeting of European finance ministers is scheduled to take place in Dublin on September 18 and 19.
Germany's Labor Ministry released data on Saturday showing a 23.6% pay gap between German and foreign full-time workers in 2025. The data was released in response to a parliamentary inquiry posed by far-right opposition Alternative for Germany (AfD). Accordingly, although wage growth grew across the board, median full-time monthly pay for Germans was €4,396 ($5,138), whereas foreign full-time employees pulled in €3,358.
Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) on Saturday slammed a Russian Interior Ministry arrest warrant for the paper's Balkans correspondent Michael Martens, as "an attempt to intimidate a German journalist and the free press." Russia issued the warrant over Martens' phrasing in posing a question to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during an August 8, 2026, press conference in the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Mertens asked Zelenskyy what Europeans could do "to help you kill more Russians," which FAZ management says could have been formulated differently, acknowledging that the phrasing left the issue open to "misinterpretation."
Germany's Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig is calling for an amendment to the country's constitution, known as the German Basic Law, to specifically protect LGBTQ+ people. "I am in favour of amending Article 3(3) of the Basic Law to include a ban on discrimination on the grounds of sexual identity," Hubig told the Rheinische Post newspaper in an interview published on Saturday.
Germany's Federal Antisemitism Commissioner Felix Klein on Saturday called for harsher laws and punishment for those supporting militant Palestinian groups such as Hamas. In an interview published in the Saturday edition of the daily Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper, Klein said he hopes Chancellor Merz and Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig will strengthen existing laws and called for anyone demonstrating in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas — considered a terrorist group by Israel, the US, Germany and many other nations — to face at least six months in jail.
