Germany news: New fuel price law prompts huge midday spike

According to Chancellor Friedrich Merz, 80% of Syrians living in Germany are to return to their home country within the next three years. The chancellor's remark has drawn fierce criticism.

Read DW's full report on the backlash to Merz's comments about Syrians in Germany going back to Syria.

Police have arrested a suspect after a stabbing that left two men injured in the western German city of Solingen on Wednesday evening.

According to the Wuppertal Public Prosecutor's Office, two men were reportedly arguing on the street, when another man intervened to try to mediate. He and one of the two men were then stabbed in the altercation, suffering life-threatening injuries.

The two wounded men have been taken to hospital. Police said the suspect was arrested at the scene.

"We assume that the perpetrator and the first victim knew each other," police spokesperson Alexander Kresta told German broadcaster WDR. 

Investigators said it was not yet clear what caused the dispute. 

The police have completely cordoned off the scene and urged the public to avoid the area.

German media reported a large police deployment in the western city of Solingen early on Wednesday evening, saying it was a response to an apparent knife attack. 

Regional public broadcaster WDR reported a large police presence around the Konrad-Adenauer-Strasse that runs past the main train station in the city. 

It said police had asked drivers to avoid the area and said there appeared to be several people wounded, citing information from a freelance reporter. 

The Solinger Tageblatt city newspaper also reported that several people had been wounded as of roughly 6 p.m. local time, also locating the incident on Konrad-Adenauer-Strasse. 

"An amok exercise at the Humboldtgymnasium [secondary school] in the city center had to be hastily abandoned because of the incident. The forces were needed on site," the paper wrote. 

It reported several roads in the city center being cordoned off, as well as disruptions to bus services. 

The background of the incident was not yet clear. 

According to Germany's ADAC motoring club, petrol stations have responded to the new limit of one price increase per day by hiking the costs for both diesel and petroleum or gasoline by more than 7 cents per liter. 

The ADAC, which constantly monitors average prices at filling stations nationwide, said that prices jumped sharply at midday, the set time for price increases under the new system. 

The cheapest petroleum type, Super E10, jumped by 7.6 cents to €2.175 per liter; diesel climbed by 7.5 cents to €2.376 per liter. That equates to roughly $8.20 and roughly $8.99 per US gallon.

Both Super E10 and diesel cost less than €1.80 per liter on average in Germany at the end of February, prior to the outbreak of war in Iran and the wider Gulf region. 

Petrol stations will not be permitted to increase prices again until noon on Thursday, but there are no limits to how many times they can adjust prices downwards. 

Critics had warned that the new limits would do nothing to limit the scope of fuel price rises, or to tie prices at the pumps to oil prices, instead merely limiting how often the costs could go up.

It will also do nothing to prevent price gouging at certain filling stations, for instance, service stations on the autobahn highway network or in densely populated cities, where prices tend to be above average.

A man who was arrested while intoxicated died in police custody in the Swabia North police precinct headquarters in Augsburg, Bavaria, on Tuesday evening. 

The man was arrested that afternoon "because of his severe alcoholization," police said. A doctor was called in, as is standard practice in such cases, and attested that he was fit to be incarcerated.

"Around 17:45 the deceased was found motionless in his arrest cell," police said. "Immediate attempts to resusciate were not successful. Augsburg's criminal investigation department has taken over investigations into the cause of death." 

Police gave no further details on the man's identity or age. 

German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF will air commercials during the three-minute drinks breaks taking place in each half of World Cup games in the US, Mexico and Canada this summer. 

Nominally because of the scope for high temperatures in places, all 104 games at the World Cup will have a three-minute interruption after 22 and 67 minutes of play to give players a chance to drink. 

US broadcasters likely also revelled at the prospect of not having to broadcast 45 to 50 minutes of uninterrupted action without any commercials, which is unheard of in most major US sports with their frequent time-outs and sometimes even bespoke TV commercial interruptions.

It wasn't clear what the largely license fee-funded ARD and ZDF, which are typically not permitted to air commercials after 8 p.m., would do with these breaks, especially when the time zone shift means that many games will take place well after this fundraising curfew. 

The broadcasters plan to do full-screen advertisement mini-blocks in the region of 80 seconds in length, starting no sooner than 20 seconds after play is halted and ending a minimum of 30 seconds before it restarts. ZDF said that for games not involving the German team, advertisers could secure time "starting from €1,200 (roughly $1,400) per second," with the minimum duration for an ad being 15 seconds.

For only the second time in the modern era, not all of the 2026 World Cup will be broadcast on free TV in Germany. ARD and ZDF will show a total of 60 of 104 games, thanks to a sublicense from Deutsche Telekom subsidiary Magenta TV, a streaming service which will show all the games live.

German government spokesman Stefan Kornelius tried to play down Trump's latest complaints about NATO allies not joining the war against Iran in Berlin on Wednesday. 

Asked in an interview published in British newspaper The Telegraph whether he would later reconsider NATO membership, Trump said "Oh yes, I would say [it's] beyond reconsideration." 

"I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger, and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin knows that too, by the way," he said. 

Asked about Trump's threat, Kornelius reminded reporters that such comments were a "recurring phenomenon." 

"We are not making any preparations" for a potential US NATO exit, Kornelius said when asked, asserting that Trump was cognizant of NATO's value. 

"We all see the situation in Iran and we are in close exchange with the US president, also so as to take his security interests into account," Kornelius said. He said the government in Berlin would seek to restore a more factual basis to the debate, saying "a spiral of agitation does not help NATO." 

Trump's latest criticisms have also been echoed by other senior US officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

Germany's Federal Prosecutor's Office (or Generalbundesanwaltschaft) based in Karlsruhe on Wednesday announced that it had opened a terrorism case against a German-Polish man arrested in November last year. 

It identified the man as Martin S., a 25-year-old with German and Polish citizenship. The charges were first filed with a Düsseldorf court on March 20. 

"The accused is sufficiently suspected of financing terrorism, of incitement to committing a serious state-endangering act of violence, as well as the dangerous dissemination of personal data," prosecutors said. 

At least since May 2025, prosecutors say that the suspect had been calling for "attacks on specific named politicians, officials and people in public life in Germany."

He allegedly used a platform on the so-called dark web anonymously to publish lists of names and death sentences of his own invention, as well as instructions for creating homemade explosives. 

"Furthermore, he demanded cryptocurrency donations, which could then be paid out as a 'bounty' for the killing of the target people," prosecutors alleged. "The platform also contained other information with sensitive personal data of the potential victims."

According to prior media reporting on the case, names on this list included former Chancellors Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz. 

The so-called "Reichsbürger" (or "Citizens of the Empire" in English) movement is a loose alliance of far-right groups and individuals whose precise views and positions vary quite considerably. 

Most share a rejection of the current German state, however, typically arguing that the German Empire's surrender and dissolution after World War I was invalid. Among other things, this tends to involve them claiming that they should not pay taxes.

Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, is celebrating the 70th anniversary of its foundation on April 1, 1956. 

To mark the occasion, it decided to give its roughly 6,500 employees an additional holiday, as a thank you for their weekend and bank holiday overtime over the past few turbulent weeks, not least since the attack on Iran and wider conflict in the Middle East. 

But not all employees believed the happy news, announced as it was by BND President Martin Jäger in a video on the agency's intranet on April Fools' Day.

Speaking at a public event on Wednesday, Vice President Ole Diehl confessed that he'd fielded critical feedback from confused employees that morning, saying they found it "a bit tasteless that the president makes an announcement like that on April 1 when everybody knows it's just an April Fools' joke." 

"Now we'll have to clear up today and tell our colleagues: no, that was meant seriously, it was no joke. You really are getting a bonus day's holiday," Diehl said.

He said the April 1 overlap had not occurred to anyone when they decided to make the gesture to staff. 

Authorities have said a stranded humpback whale in the Baltic Sea is expected to die.

Rescue expert Burkard Baschek said all efforts had now been exhausted and there was no remaining hope for the animal.

Officials said the whale is lying in shallow waters off the island of Poel near Wismar. It has shown very weak and irregular breathing and is barely moving.

Environment Minister Till Backhaus said all options had been reviewed again after further assessment. 

"We have explored all ideas," Backhaus said at the emotional press conference.

All those involved had come to the conclusion that the whale has "found its place" in its current location, he said. "I wish the whale peace," the minister added, with it now clear that the animal "will ultimately pass away."

Active rescue attempts have been halted, though the situation continues to be monitored. Authorities have set up a restricted zone around the animal, enforced by police, and drone flights have been banned.

Officials have urged the public to keep their distance, warning that violations will be prosecuted.

Will German citizens feel safer if more immigrants are deported? 

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke of "an explosion of violence" during a session of the Bundestag, Germany's lower house of parliament, in March, where he was asked about violence against women.

He said there was a need to talk about the causes of this, adding that "a significant portion of this violence comes from immigrant groups."

Read more about why Germans feel unsafe in public spaces.

What did our forebears do during the Nazi era? A subject long shrouded in silence in German families. Now, the US National Archives has made millions of NSDAP membership cards available online. 

Learn more in this report by DW's Suzanne Cords.

Germany has invested in a rare earth mining project in Australia through its raw materials fund.

The Economy Ministry said the fund committed 50 million euros to the project run by Arafura Rare Earths near Alice Springs.

The project is set to produce neodymium and praseodymium — key materials used in high-performance magnets for electric motors and wind turbines. The investment is aimed at securing access to critical raw materials for German industry.

Economy Minister Katherina Reiche said the move is intended to strengthen supply chains and reduce dependency on external sources.

Conservative ministers in the coalition government are interpreting an experts' report on the partial legalization of cannabis for adults in Germany two years ago as evidence that it is not working. 

Health Minister Nina Warken of the center-right CDU called the new law, which was passed by a left-leaning coalition government in 2024, a mistake. 

"Early interventions designed to dissuade children and young people from consumption are falling sharply in numbers," Warken said, also complaining of a "blurry boundary between cannabis for recreational consumption and cannabis for purely medicinal purposes." 

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt from the Bavarian CSU called the legalization law "a complete nonstarter." He said law enforcement's concerns were not adequately considered. "The black market is booming, criminality is on the rise," he alleged. 

Family Minister Karin Prien of the CDU said that the number of children taking part in addiction prevention courses was reducing because it was no longer as simple for authorities to demand that they attend. 

The CDU/CSU, which was in opposition when the law was changed in 2024, opposed the move at the time and has long lobbied for its reversal.

It compromised and delayed a decision when partnering in a new coalition with the Social Democrats, who jointly introduced the legalization and are more open to the new law, agreeing to carry out an impartial evaluation before deciding on how to proceed.

What did the experts' report find? 

The report's findings are arguably somewhat more ambivalent than the conservative ministers' appraisals. 

It found only a moderate increase in usage statistics since legalization, driven by the continuation of pre-existing trends: gradually falling consumption figures among young people, coupled with slowly rising figures among older adults.

"An increase in consumption that can be tied to the reform is not recognizable at this point in time," the report said. 

If anything, it pointed to rising consumption figures because of the older laws to legalize medicinal marijuana, logging a sharp increase in demand via pharmacies with doctors' referrals. 

The report suggested that only sluggish moves to approve so-called "cannabis clubs" permitting the purchase of recreational marijuana could explain this. 

To date, the report said, "only very few [cannabis] cultivation organizations have been approved," and these were unable to service demand. 

"The only gradual reduction of the black market [for cannabis] could be accelerated via the strengthening of cultivation organizations," it said. The law permits anybody to grow their own in limited quantities, but this can be a complicated, time-consuming and expensive endeavor. 

The report was compliled by researchers at Tübingen Univeristy, Düsseldorf's university clinic and the Hamburg-Eppendorf university clinic.

A resident of a homeless shelter in the German city of Bonn has died after a fire in the early hours of Wednesday.

The blaze broke out at about midnight local time (2200 GMT) inside a room at the shelter, where the deceased person was found later, according to police. Five people sustained light injuries, a police spokesman said.

Smoke spread to other rooms, and eyewitnesses reported hearing an explosion.

The fire brigade has since extinguished the blaze, with eight residents transferred to other shelters.

No cause was initially clear, with police saying investigations are ongoing. There are no indications of third-party involvement so far, the spokesman said.