Germany updates: Airdrops to Gaza to start this week — Merz

The Nuremberg Zoo in southern Germany euthanized 12 healthy Guinea baboons on Tuesday, according to an official statement.

Officials said they had no other option after they were unable to transfer animals to other zoos and contraception measures failed to slow the growth of the group.

The zoo said its troop of baboons had grown to 40 but that facilities were originally designed to house only 25 of the primates. 

Conflict between the animals had become more frequent in the area, resulting in injuries to individual baboons.

Animal rights groups harshly criticized the move and threatened to sue the institution's management, saying the problem was one of their own making.

"This culling was avoidable and illegal in our opinion," said the group Pro Wildlife.

Read the whole story on the baboons and the Nuremberg Zoo here. 

Meanwhile, in the western city of Solingen, authorities are seeking information leading to the arrest of a man suspected of beheading two kangaroos at a local zoo.

Officials there say the animals were found decapitated shortly before Easter, and now prosecutors are reviewing video footage that they believe shows a man entering the zoo's kangaroo enclosure outside opening hours. 

Olympic gold medal-winning biathlete Laura Dahlmeier has been reported "at least seriously injured" in a climbing accident in Pakistan.

Rescuers have been unable to "find signs of life" after the 31-year-old retired athlete was "hit by falling rocks" in a remote mountain area on Monday. Search teams were forced to end rescue efforts as night fell on Tuesday and said another attempt would be made at dawn on Wednesday.

Dahlmeier's official social media sites said she was climbing near the 6,000-meter (19,700-foot) Laila Peak in Pakistan's Karakoram mountain range with a partner when the accident occurred.

Dahlmeier, a certified mountain and ski guide retired from professional sports in 2019 at age 25 to become a television commentator and mountaineer.

During her career, she won seven world biathlon championships and in 2018 became the first Olympic biathlete to win gold in both the sprint and pursuit disciplines in the same games.

A Syrian man was charged by the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office for attempted murder at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.

The suspect "shares the ideology of the foreign terrorist organisation Islamic State (IS)" and has "radical Islamist and antisemitic views," prosecutors said in a statement.  

The suspect, identified as Wassim Al M. was in Germany as a refugee, traveled from Leipzig to Berlin on February 21, 2025, to carry out a knife attack on people he reportedly viewed as representatives of the Western form of society he rejected. 

He attacked a tourist from northern Spain with a knife from behind in the field of stelae of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, critically injuring the person. 

Shortly before the attack, prosecutors say the accused sent a photo of himself to members of IS via a messaging service, giving the organization the opportunity to claim responsibility for the crime.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said that two German aircraft could fly aid airdrop missions from Jordan to Gaza as soon as Wednesday.

Speaking alongside Jordan's King Abdullah, Merz said two A400M military transport planes were already headed to Jordan and would be ready to fly aid missions by the weekend at the latest.

"This work may only make a small contribution to humanitarian aid, but it sends an important signal: We are here, we are in the region," Merz said.

Merz also welcomed initial steps taken by Israel to allow some aid into the Palestinian enclave but said more must follow.

Merz told the Berlin press conference that foreign ministers from Germany, France and the UK would possibly travel to Israel next Thursday "to present the position of... the three governments." 

Global food crisis experts have warned that famine conditions are developing in Gaza amid the Israeli offensive against the militant group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory.

For the latest coverage of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza follow our Middle East updates blog.

A helicopter being used by the German military crashed into a river near the town of Grimma in the eastern German state of Saxony, a spokesman for local firefighters said on Tuesday.

The fate of the pilot or pilots was initially unclear, the spokesman for the local fire association said.

The helicopter disappeared between 10:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. (0800 and 0830 UTC/GMT) on Tuesday.

Kerosene has leaked in large quantities at the crash scene. Around 50 emergency workers are on site to clean up the fuel and then begin the recovery operation.

The Bild newspaper reported that the German Armed Forces was missing a helicopter and the pilot. 

+++ UPDATE +++ 

Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said later Tuesday that two people died in the crash and one remained missing. 

 

Correction: An earlier version of this post stated the crashed helicopter belonged to the German military; it was being used for a training flight by the military but did not belong to the Bundeswehr. 

Three men were convicted on Tuesday of stealing hundreds of ancient gold coins from a German museum in 2022. They were handed prison sentences of up to 11 years.

The suspects from the north Germany were arrested months after a November break-in at the Celtic and Roman Museum in the Bavarian town of Manching in 2022.

The stolen coins dated to around 100 B.C.E. Originally, the coins and a lump of unworked gold were discovered during the digging of an ancient settlement in Manching.

Authorities said they are considered the biggest trove of Celtic gold found in the 20th century.

The four defendants carried out or attempted a total of 20 break-ins in Germany and Austria, beginning in 2014. In other cases, they broke into safes or cash machines.

German public debt reached €2.5 trillion ($2.9 trillion) in 2024, a record high for the country, representing a 2.6% increase over the end of 2023, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reported on Tuesday.

That marks an increase of $63.4 billion.

The sum represents a per capita debt of €30,062 as compared with €29,393 in 2023, Destatis said.

The largest increase (10.3%) was seen on the municipal level, where the total rose to €170.5 billion, the fifth consecutive annual increase in this area, the office reported.

On the state level, total debt increased by 2.1%, to €607.3 billion, the first rise since 2021.

On the federal level, there was also an increase of 2.1%, up to €1.73 trillion.

At the same time, the total social security debt decreased by 73.9% to €10 million.

Out of Germany's 16 states, the three city states continued to have the highest per capita debt. Bremen led the pack with €33,900 debt per person, followed by Berlin and Hamburg.

At the other end, the eastern German state of Saxony had the lowest per capita debt of €2,400, with the two southern states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg reporting slightly higher debt rates.

German historian and essayist Karl Schlögel has been awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for 2024.

The plaudit comes in recognition of Schlögel's lifetime of scholarship on Eastern Europe and his early warnings about Russian aggression under President Vladimir Putin.

The jury said Schlögel was one of the first to sound the alarm on Putin's expansionist policy.

"His message to us: Without a free Ukraine, there can be no peace in Europe," it said in its citation.

The €25,000 ($29,000) prize is awarded by the German Publishers and Booksellers Association and will be presented on October 19 at Frankfurt's Paulskirche, traditionally marking the close of the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Schlögel's books, including Terror und Traum (2008) and Das sowjetische Jahrhundert (2017), were lauded for setting "a standard in vivid, accessible historical writing," said association chair Karin Schmidt-Friderichs.

Click or tap here to read more about historian Karl Schlögel winning the German Peace Prize.

Around three-quarters of Germans believe that their country should exert more pressure on Israel to address the humanitarian situation unfolding in the Gaza Strip that has been described by at least one NGO as "engineered starvation."

According to a Forsa survey commissioned by the German weekly magazine Stern and published on Tuesday, 74% of respondents would like to see the federal government take a tougher stance towards Israel over its conflict against Hamas in Gaza.

The survey reveals a clear divide in opinion based on political affiliation: some 94% of Left Party voters and 88% of Green Party voters are in favor of exerting more pressure on Israel.

Among supporters of the ruling center-right CDU/CSU and center-left SPD parties, 77% want the German government to do more to force Israel to ease the humanitarian crisis and end the war.

The strongest rejection of increased diplomatic pressure against Israel comes among supporters of the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany) party, with 37% against applying more pressure.

Still, a majority of 61% of AfD voters are in favor of Germany taking a tougher stance on Israel.

Germany is one of Israel's staunchest international backers, and defending the security and existence of the State of Israel has been called one of Germany's "reasons of state." 

Germany's Chancellor Friedrich Merz is hosting Jordan's King Abdullah II in Berlin on Tuesday.

According to Jordanian authorities, they will focus on strengthening the two countries' bilateral ties, as well on discussing "the most pressing developments in the region."

The meeting is being held the day after Merz said Germany wants to set up an airlift to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza with the support of Jordan. 

"We know that this can only be a very small help for the people in Gaza," Merz said Monday, adding it is "a contribution we are happy to make." 

Jordan has acted as a hub for deliveries of aid and supplies, parachuting food into Gaza over the past two days since Israel announced a "tactical pause" in fighting against Palestinian militant group Hamas, that is also classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and the EU.

Calls from the international community have been growing for Israel to do more to address the worsening humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip. Many civilians there are facing starvation, according to the United Nations, the World Health Organization and aid groups.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated on Sunday that "there is no starvation in Gaza."

But a day later US President Donald Trump contradicted the Israeli leader, saying there is "real starvation" in the besieged enclave and that "we have to get the kids fed."

Today we will bring you the latest as Chancellor Friedrich Merz meets Jordan's King Abdullah II in Berlin, with the pair expected to discuss their plans to airlift aid to Gaza.

As international pressure grows on Israel to allow more humanitarian supplies into the Gaza Strip, the German government is also facing mounting pressure domestically to do more to force Israel to allow more supplies into the Palestinian enclave and end the conflict.

Follow DW for reports, analysis and explainers on these and other stories to keep you up-to-date with all the topics currently making the news in Germany on Tuesday, July 29.