Industry boss Tanja Gönner says the situation is critical but offers opportunity. Meanwhile, politicians head to the Bayreuth Festival and security services warn of racist fight clubs. Follow DW for the latest.
What you need to know
The head of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) says the country has become less competitive and called on politicians and business leaders to usher in a course correction
The head of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) says the country has become less competitive and called on politicians and business leaders to usher in a course correction
The BDI boss urged innovation in the face of Chinese competition and US tariff burdens
The BDI boss urged innovation in the face of Chinese competition and US tariff burdens
Politicians including Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Bavarian State Premiere Markus Söder are expected to attend the opening of this year's Bayreuth Festival, the 150th installment of the annual music festival featuring works by 19th century German composer Richard Wagner
Politicians including Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Bavarian State Premiere Markus Söder are expected to attend the opening of this year's Bayreuth Festival, the 150th installment of the annual music festival featuring works by 19th century German composer Richard Wagner
Germany's BfV domestic intelligence service has warned of the growing threat posed by so-called 'active clubs' as gateways to racist, right-wing indoctrination
Germany's BfV domestic intelligence service has warned of the growing threat posed by so-called 'active clubs' as gateways to racist, right-wing indoctrination
Below you can read up on developments from Germany from Friday 24, Saturday 25 and Sunday 26 of July:
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Berlin CSD: 1 dead, several injured after vehicle drives into crowd
At least one person was killed and more than a dozen others were injured after a white van drove into people at a CSD even in Berlin on Saturday night.
The world-famous Pride event was closed early and police launched a manhunt.
Police did not say whether the incident was intentional or not, but Berlin's Mayor Kai Wegner described it as "an attack on our free and open society."
Germany's best gather in Bochum for track and field national championships
The country's top athletics stars are gathered in the industrial Ruhr region city of Bochum this weekend for the 2026 German Championships .
The event runs through Sunday evening at the Lohrheide Stadium in the Wattenscheid district in the west of the city.
European champion Julian Weber was back in action in the javelin on Saturday after a lengthy absence with injury. He claimed his sixth German championship with a throw of 82.60 meters, with Nick Thumm his closest challenger on 81.45 meters.
Simon Batz took gold in the men's long jump, 25 centimeters clear of the field with a leap of 8.29 meters.
Later on Saturday, German number 1 Owen Ansah won the 100 meters in a time of 10.00 seconds, just two hundredths shy of his own German record. Ansah claimed the win amid the ongoing scandal over him refusing to submit a sample to the national anti-doping agency earlier this month. Ansah says he has nothing to hide but that the inspector came and demanded a sample outside the agreed hours when he did not have time to comply.
"I wanted to show everyone that I am the fastest German. I wanted to put on a show, and I managed that," he told ZDF public television after the race.
IN PICTURES — Christopher Street Day parade in Berlin
Small plane crashes into house, 2 killed
Two people have died after a light aircraft crashed into the roof of a house in northern Germany on Saturday.
The small plane could be seen embedded in the roof of the small detached house in Ganderkesee, near Bremen .
Police initially said they had identified one dead person in the plane's wreckage but had not yet been able to remove the body. They were still searching for a second person who was in the aircraft at the time of the crash.
The second body was found later.
Emergency services were first called to the scene at around 11 a.m. local time.
The plane had suddenly lost altitude and crashed for reasons that are not yet known.
The residents of the house were not home at the time of the crash, according to the fire services.
Police said they were not aware of any further injuries.
A help station was set up for local residents who might have witnessed the crash and could be traumatized.
Police also cleared out houses in a 100-meter (roughly 110-yard) radius amid the rescue and recovery efforts. But they stressed this was a precautionary measure and not because of continued danger to the public.
CDU's Frei voices sympathy for Merz's slow-motion reshuffle
Thorsten Frei has defended Chancellor Friedrich Merz 's gradual moves to rearrange government personnel.
The Cabinet reshuffle was triggered by Jens Spahn's forced resignation .
Frei, Spahn's replacement as the parliamentary floor leader for the CDU/CSU conservatives, told an industry and trade event that he thought the delay was unavoidable.
"Even in top-level politics there is the danger that you can simply get unlucky," Frei said.
He was talking about the apparent delay in replacing Transport Minister Patrick Schnieder.
We know that Schnieder was set for the chop, because he told several party colleagues this in a text that soon leaked out, saying Merz would announce it at yesterday's press conference in Berlin .
However, seemingly as Schnieder's replacement was not yet lined up, no news of a new transport minister emerged.
More centrist members of the party, like Peter Altmaier — known as a close ally of Angela Merkel, who had a famously poor relationship with her erstwhile rival Merz — had complained online.
Altmaier said he was "upset and angry" about the way Schieder was being treated, describing him as an "experienced professional, hard worker and great person and friend."
Merz is thought to have lined up a 60-year-old replacement for Schnieder, Fritz Güntzler, who at first said he would take the job and then changed his mind shortly before the announcement.
Media reports suggested he felt he lacked the tools to take up the job, with party sources cited as saying "a goalie shouldn't play on the left wing."
Right-wing 'active clubs' spreading in Germany, says domestic intelligence agency
Germany's Federal Agency for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) is warning of the spread of so-called "active clubs" across the country.
The warning was published on Saturday in Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
The BfV's own website says such clubs, which got their start in the US, have spread to Germany and other European countries over the past several years.
According to the BfV, the clubs target young white males, functioning as a path from online isolation to personal contact.
The fight groups are seen as a gateway to indoctrination into right-wing extremist ideology and are designed to prepare members for what organizers say is a "coming race war."
The BfV says it is actively monitoring the scene and has recorded the founding of a number of such groups across Germany since early 2024.
Authorities say that they have "information on persons with relevant ties to the scene," adding that they have also seen clear ties between active clubs and right-wing extremist parties.
According to the BfV in the southern state of Bavaria, Patrick Schröder of the right-wing extremist party "The Homeland" (Die Heimat, formerly the neo-Nazi NPD ) has been instrumental in fashioning a "roadmap" for establishing a broad network of such white supremacist clubs across the country.
Saturday's Süddeutsche article lists 22 such groups in Germany. Although the BfV has warned of the real world threat the groups pose, it is unclear how many actually exist and function as such in real life as opposed to strictly online.
BDI boss says Germany shedding 15,000 jobs a month
Welcome back to our coverage.
Tanja Gönner, director general of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) described the fact that the country is losing 15,000 each month "critical" while at the same time arguing that it is not too late to turn the situation around.
Speaking with Germany's dpa news agency, Gönner said: "I am convinced that if we do our homework, we will have every opportunity again. Innovation has long been a top priority for many companies."
Urging investment in artificial intelligence and other new technologies, Gönner said "Germany has lost ground in terms of competitiveness," and therefore political and business leaders should ask themselves one thing with each decision they make: "Does it contribute to competitiveness? Does it help companies become more competitive again?"
Gönner stressed that structural weaknesses coupled with US tariff burdens and Chinese competitiveness had put Germany — a former industrial export powerhouse — in its current position, arguing, "we really ought to be heading to the gym to work off the excess weight we've put on over recent years."
The roughly 100,000 companies represented by the BDI employ over 8 million workers.
Are AI-powered robots German carmaker BMW's future?
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Bis bald!
IN DEPTH: Highs and lows as Bayreuth Festival turns 150
The Bayreuth Festival 's 150th anniversary, coming up on the last weekend of July, has been clouded by controversy surrounding German-Jewish speaker Michel Friedman. Yet it offers an opportunity to celebrate, including with an AI-enhanced Ring cycle.
Learn more about the celebrations for this year's Bayreuth Festival, which the current chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and his predecessor, Angela Merkel, will both attend, in this report .
Foreign Minister Wadephul draws international law and traffic offense analogy in satire show interview
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has taken the bold but risky move of appearing in a feature interview on public television's premiere weekly satirical comedy the "heute-show," roughly like the US "Daily Show."
Wadephul speaks at some length to young anchor Fabian Köster in an elevator in a playful interview that's nevertheless focused on entirely serious topics. It spans NATO relations and Donald Trump and Greenland, Russia's war against Ukraine , the low popularity of government he serves in, the war in Iran and Nicolas Maduro's abduction from Venezuela.
"We're not conducting some kind of foreign policy interview here," Wadephul said at one point with a chuckle after a trickier question, only for Köster to immediately reply " doch! " or roughly "oh, but we are!"
When the topic turned to the US military operation to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro , Wadephul was asked whether "international law can rub up against the boundaries of Realpolitik."
"Yes, if you're honest, yes, that's the case," Wadephul said. "But to be honest, we're familiar with this in the rule of law. If you think of yourself in road traffic, for instance, have you always kept to everything 100%?"
Köster said he liked the analogy but noted that "a stop sign is something slightly different" than the abduction of a head of state.
"In the law it's written that you can't drive faster than 50 km/h in a built-up area, but nevertheless sometimes people drive faster. And it's the same, fundamentally, in international law. And you have to deal with that. The laws are there to provide an orientation, but they are never dogmatically upheld 100%," Wadephul said.
Asked whether it was "embarrassing" for Germany to only speak up against breaches of international law if "the right countries" are offenders, Wadephul said it was important to note that there were gradations of color.
"There are differences," he said. "If you, like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, have been waging five years of war against Ukraine and killing thousands upon thousands of people — including your own people — or if you took this one step against a person in power in Venezuela, who did not exactly keep to international law himself: There really is a difference."
Chancellor Friedrich Merz had faced criticism amid the US operations in both Venezuela and Iran for comments suggesting the situations were "complex." Wadephul expanded on this saying they were politically complex but perhaps simpler from a purely legal perspective, still without explicitly saying they were breaches of the law.
The show airs on Friday evening .
Police puzzle over Regensburg bank attacker hitting cashless branch
Investigative police officers are trying to nail down the motive of a 20-year-old suspect who was holed up in a Regensburg bank branch for three hours on Thursday and who is suspected of killing an employee.
He is suspected of attacking and fatally wounding a staff member and of attempted robbery.
But Regensburg criminal police investigator Robert Fuchs said the precise motive remained a mystery given the circumstances.
On the one hand, the man was carrying a note suggesting that he was planning a bank robbery and was trying to secure money. On the other, he had targeted a cashless branch, meaning his chances of any meaningful haul were near zero from the outset.
Investigators said in a press conference on Friday that the suspect had used a kitchen knife with a 12-centimeter by 2-centimeter (roughly 4-inch by 3/4-inch) blade.
The 20-year-old was already subject to a weapons ban after a prior incident of him carrying a knife and an electric shock device without authorization.
Police said there were no indications of psychiatric illness but that relevant tests were ongoing. Special units were able to detain him roughly three hours after the first emergency calls. He did not resist.
The man was also in police custody less than 24 hours prior to the crime, investigators said. They said he had turned himself in, saying that he had thrown a beer bottle at a police officer. Police said they investigated the slightly inebriated man's claim and later released him, saying they had no valid reason to detain him.
Fuchs said that the young man had repeatedly come to authorities' attention for minor infractions over the years. He was also repeatedly reported as missing from a facility caring for children and young people.
READ — Merz reshuffles Cabinet in aftermath of Spahn's exit
The other big news of Friday morning, frankly, might not live as long in the memory as Klopp's appointment.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz has shuffled around some more of his Cabinet posts as he tries to fill the gap left by Jens Spahn's forced resignation amid a surrogacy scandal last week .
Health Minister Nina Warken is taking up the vacancy running Merz's chancellery after the previous occupant, Thorsten Frei, took up Spahn's job as the parliamentary floor leader for the CDU/CSU group.
Carsten Linnemann will step in for Warken as health minister, and youngster Philipp Amthor will become the junior minister responsible for coordinating with the state governements on behalf of the federal government.
Amthor, still only 33, is best known for a 2020 lobbying scandal that put the brakes on his rapid rise through the party ranks in his late 20s.
Read the full story here .
IN DEPTH — Jürgen Klopp confirmed as new Germany coach
In case you missed it this morning, Jürgen Klopp is now officially Germany's men's national team football coach .
This ends a period of weeks where the deal seemingly needed little more than some dotted i's and crossed t's.
The "Normal One" Klopp takes over from Julian Nagelsmann, who resigned in the aftermath of Germany's disappointing exit on penalties against Paraguay in the World Cup.
DW Sports' Jon Harding looks at a partnership long in the making — with Klopp's name having been linked to the national team job for years already — in this feature story .
Sharp rise in extremist violent crimes in Baden-Württemberg in 2025
The internal intelligence agency, known as the Verfassungsschutz, for the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg has published its annual report for 2025 .
"We all notice that the challenges remain considerable," the president of the state intelligence agency, Beate Bube, said. "The crises of the world are also having an effect here. On top of that there are worrying developments in almost every working area of the Verfassungsschutz ."
The report showed rapid increases in violent extremist crime from both the far right , 97 crimes compared to 54 in 2024, and the far left, 49 crimes compared to 34 the previous year.
The number of people classified as far-right extremists hit a new high of 3,790, up from 3,140 in 2024. The number of crimes motivated by far-right ideology dropped marginally, to 2,537 cases.
The number of perceived far-left extremists rose slightly to 2,730, 880 of whom were classed as willing to commit violence. The number of crimes attributed to the far-left scene rose by 80% year-on-year, to 608 cases from 342 in 2024.
The report also noted the growing dangers of hybrid threats, acts of sabotage, online disinformation, and Russian "disposable agents," as well as what it termed the "secular pro-Palestinian extremist spectrum" amid protests in support of Gaza in 2025, differentiating this group from German and Turkish leftists or Islamists.
"2025 has shown us: Extremist threats to our security are becoming more varied, complex and digital," state Interior Minister Manuel Hagel said. "The boundaries between internal and external security, between war and peace are disintegrating. The threats are wholly concrete — and reveal themselves in drone flights over critical infrastructure, in disinformation campaigns and in acts of sabotage."
He said the threats were becoming "more dynamic and subversive," and also noted that they were "reaching ever more young people."
VW's Q2 profits dip, boss Blume wants clarity on savings plans by year's end
The Volkswagen Group filed its second quarter results on Friday, with profits continuing to dip for the struggling car giant.
The company logged net profits of €1.54 billion (roughly $1.75 billion) in the second quarter, a 32.9% drop compared to €2.29 billion in the same quarter of 2025.
Although the vagaries of the Trump administration's tariff regime hardly help, most of the company's woes can be traced back to China.
Sales, particularly of high-value and high-margin models, in the world's second-largest car market are stagnating as China's economic growth slows. And VW is also struggling with intense Chinese competition both on the Chinese market, and increasingly in Europe as well, as Chinese carmakers look to tap new markets amid the domestic slowdown.
Some in the company are calling for more drastic job cuts and factory closures.
"In a situation where the overall market in China is shrinking by 20% and Chinese competitors are increasing their exports and therefore the competitive pressure in Europe, the currently planned initiatives do not suffice," board member Arno Antlitz said.
CEO Oliver Blume, meanwhile, said a savings program alone would not suffice. He said the priority should be making VW faster, more resilient, more competitive and more innovative. He said they needed to find a way to stay profitable if only selling 8 million vehicles a year, and said he wanted details to be finalized by the end of 2026.
"VW's business model does indeed face pressure in many areas and needs optimization," Blume said, albeit adding that it was also clear that, "a debate about factory closures and historically unprecedented personnel cuts is not the new business model for the VW Group, because that's not a new source of revenue or profits, it brings no technological advantage, creates no competitive products and taps no new markets for our vehicles."
Some initial measures, like reducing the range of products on offer, seeking to streamline production, should be complete this year, Blume said. Larger steps would take time, he added, saying it was unrealistic to expect full factory closures before 2030.
The Volkswagen Group comprises multiple major automakers in Germany and beyond, also including Audi, Porsche, Seat, Skoda, Lamborghini, Bentley and Ducati.