Germany updates: Almost 50% of Germans back AfD ban — poll

The man behind the wheel of the car that drove into a group of people at a tram stop in Stuttgart on Friday has expressed his deep condolences to the family of the woman who died in the tragic accident.

"Her death is also an unbearable loss for him, one that will stay with him for the rest of his life," the driver's attorney told Germany's DPA news agency on Sunday.

"My client is shocked, stunned and deeply affected by this horrific accident and its tragic consequences."

The 42-year-old man, a German national, was detained, following the accident where a total of eight people were injured, with a 46-year-old having died at the hospital from her injuries.

"Knowing that his words cannot alleviate the pain of those affected and their families, my client expresses his sincere sympathy and wishes the injured a speedy and full recovery. My client deeply regrets what happened," the lawyer said.

The man has since been released, a spokesman for the public prosecutor's office said on Saturday.

An investigation into the incident is still ongoing, and the circumstances under which the accident took place are yet to be made clear.

The chief of the German Air Force was in Israel this weekend to officially procure components for the Israeli-manufactured Arrow 3 air defense system.

Lieutenant General Ingo Gerhartz visited Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) in Tel Aviv to receive the central communication element of the weapons system, said a spokesman for the Luftwaffe, the German air force.

"Arrow 3" can shoot down enemy missiles at an altitude of over 100 kilometers (62 miles) – in other words, beyond the Earth's atmosphere – a capability which Germany wants to add to its arsenal as it looks to boost its air defenses in light of a changing security landscape in Europe.

"With Arrow 3, Germany is procuring an Israeli weapons system on my initiative that will help to protect Germany against threats from the air," Gerhartz told the German DPA news agency.

With Russia having significantly ramped up its military industrial complex to support its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, fears are growing in Europe that Moscow may be preparing to attack a NATO member in the near future.

In response, Germany has also launched the so-called "European Sky Shield Initiative," a European air defense system which can act independently of the United States.

After seven years in command, Lieutenant General Gerhartz is set to hand over responsibility for Germany's air force in the coming weeks before taking the the helm at NATO's Allied Joint Force Command in Brunssum in the Netherlands.

Germany is set to tighten its border checks and add several thousand additional police officers as soon as the new coalition government takes office next week, incoming Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said.

"The first decisions will be made on Wednesday, including stricter border checks and an increased number of entry denials," said Dobrindt, a hawkish member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

"The numbers must come down in terms of illegal migration," Dobrindt told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. "Humanity and order require control, clarity and consistency. That's why we are preparing decisions at the national and European level."

Dobrindt received backing from the regional interior minister for the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, Tobias Strobl, also of the CDU, who promised "even tighter border checks by state police."

State police in Baden-Württemberg already carry out checks on the Swiss border, including with the use of surveillance drones.

The coalition agreement signed by the CDU, CSU and the Social Democrats (SPD) states that even asylum seekers are to be turned away from German borders "in coordination with European neighbors" — a policy that could run afoul of EU asylum law.

Almost half of Germans favor banning the Alternative for Germany (AfD) after the far-right party was officially categorized as a right-wing extremist organization by the domestic intelligence service.

According to a representative survey conducted by the polling institute INSA for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper this weekend, 61% of Germans agreed with the categorization of the AfD by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) as "confirmed right-wing extremist endeavor," with 48% supporting a ban.

Thirty-seven percent said they would oppose a ban; 15% said they didn't know.

As for the effects of any potential AfD ban, 35% of respondents said they thought such a measure would bolster democracy, while 39% thought it would damage democracy. Some 16% didn't think there would be any effect, while 10% didn't know.

We are resuming our coverage of the German spy agency's labeling of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as an extremist entity.

This blog will bring you further reactions to the decision and analysis of it.

We will also keep you updated with all the latest in Germany, be it political, social or cultural. 

Outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that Europe should never fall back into war during a speech at the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial in Hamburg.

"One of the very central lessons from the war instigated by Germans, from the National Socialist tyranny, from the murder of millions of innocent women, children and men is our deep conviction that our continent, that we Europeans must leave war between our peoples behind us once and for all," Scholz said at the event to commemorate the liberation of concentration camps and the end of World War II.

"It is all the more tragic that Russian President Vladimir Putin has brought war back to Europe, " Scholz said, adding: "We must not and will not resign ourselves to this." 

Europe celebrates the end of World War II on the continent, Victory in Europe (VE) Day, on June 8, when Allied powers defeated Nazi Germany in 1945, after six years of war that cost millions of lives and turned homes to rubble.

"And so it is no wonder that autocrats, extremists and populists around the world and also in our countries want to attack and destroy this peaceful and united Europe," Scholz said, in possibly his last major public appearance as chancellor. 

Germany in particular must not allow this to happen "because we must be aware of the depths that imperialism, disenfranchisement and racial hatred can lead to," the departing chancellor said.

Scholz is set to be replaced by Friedrich Merz, who is to be sworn in as chancellor next week. 

Sahra Wagenknecht, leader of her self-titled populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), expressed outrage following the Friday judgment that classified the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) as a right-wing extremist organization.

"The fact is that the parties of the self-appointed 'democratic center' have for years pushed an authoritarian restructuring of our society that restricts freedom of speech, combats inconvenient political forces with undemocratic means and exerts massive pressure to conform," Wagenknecht said on Saturday.

Wagenknecht launched the party last year in January, after she grew disaffected with the Left Party that she was part of, arguing that the party focused far too much on identity politics and abandoned issues important to working-class voters.

The BSW, with its anti-immigration and pro-Russia policies, attempted to tap into voter frustration in a manner similar to the AfD. 

Though the party celebrated three successful regional election results in eastern Germany in September 2024, BSW failed to enter parliament in national elections held in February.

Christian Klein, chief executive of German software giant SAP, said that US President Donald Trump knows how to listen in an interview with German media.

In comments published by news magazine Der Spiegel, Klein said he had been part of a group of executives who held a confidential discussion with Trump.

"It was a constructive exchange. And it's definitely the case that he listens and provides feedback," Klein said of his experience with Trump.

Klein said the talks had been a "roundtable of selected, primarily American business leaders." 

"I'm part of it, because SAP plays a critical role in business and public administration in the United States," he said.

"There is a close exchange there that I could wish for more intensively in Europe as well," the SAP boss said.

Klein also expressed concern over the trade conflict initiated by Trump and his administration.

"We see how our customers have to battle with this and that there is great uncertainty," he said.

But, he added, "We are in demand there."

A man driving his car the wrong way up an autobahn caused a fatal accident in western Germanyin the early hours.

The crash happened near the town of Landscheid, between Koblenz and Trier.

Police said the man's car slammed head-on into another car carrying three women.

The 23-year-old female driver was killed and her two 24-year-old passengers suffered serious injuries.

The man driving in the opposite direction was slightly injured.

The accident occurred on the A60, heading toward the Belgian border.

The local newspaper Volksfreund said the man had driven against the direction of travel for 5 kilometers (3 miles).

Police said that a number of people on the motorway had reported the car was traveling the wrong way.

The information had been relayed on the traffic message channel, they said.

The autobahn was closed off for hours.

Germany has used up a year's worth of natural resources in the first four months of the year, according to an environmental calculator.

The Global Footprint Network think tank worked out that if everyone on Earth were to use as much in the way of natural resources and emit as much CO2 as Germans do, the biocapacity of the Earth would have been used up by May 3.

As part of the wider fight against climate change, the think tank has calculated a theoretical date for every country around the world.

The date represents the point in the year when humanity's demand for natural resources exceeds the Earth's capacity to regenerate them.

Germany's BUND environmental organization pointed to high energy consumption, private vehicle use, industrial livestock farming and construction as the culprits for Germany's date being so early in the year.

It called for legislation to conserve resources "to halt the waste and pollution of the basis for life."

Germany's automakers are bracing for higher costs after US President Donald Trump's tariffs on automobile parts took effect at midnight.

The 25% levy on engines, transmissions and electrical components follows a similar tariff on imported vehicles, which took effect on April 3. 

The Trump administration did, however, agree to soften the blow with credits and exemptions from the tariff.

The tariffs are a major blow to German automakers, who rely heavily on imported parts, even for vehicles assembled in the US.

The tariffs are meant to pressure automakers to move more of their production to the US, but the process is expensive and takes many years.

Several German car producers have recently announced profit warnings and job cuts, due to falling demand, skepticism over electric vehicles (EV) and intense competition from China. So they may loathe making those investments right now.

The parts tariffs could also erode margins at major German parts suppliers like Bosch and Continental as their goods are often shipped from Germany or outside the US.

Germany's Foreign Ministry rejected US criticism over the labeling by the domestic spy agency of the AfD as an extremist organization.

The Ministry was reacting to comments by US Secretary of State Mark Rubio who labeled the move undemocratic.

"This is democracy," the German Foreign Office said in an English-language X response to Rubio. "This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law."

"We have learnt from our history that right-wing extremism needs to be stopped," the ministry continued, in reference to the Nazi era.

On Friday, the BfV domestic intelligence agency, which had already designated several local AfD branches as right-wing extremist groups, said it decided to give the entire party the label.

The BfV said the party was attempting to "undermine the free, democratic" order in Germany.

Here's a reminder of the reaction overnight from Washington to Germany's designation of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party as an extremist organization.

"Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition," US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X. "That's not democracy -- it's tyranny in disguise."

"Germany should reverse course," said Rubio, who is also Trump's national security advisor.

"What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD -- which took second in the recent election -- but rather the establishment's deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes," Rubio said.

Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance drew an analogy to the fall of the Berlin Wall, in his remarks:

"The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt -- not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment," Vance wrote on X.

He described the AfD as "the most popular party in Germany," referring to the party recently overtaking the conservatives in the polls.

The AfD came second in February's election.

High-speed trains between Germany's western city of Cologne and the capital Berlin have been canceled for two weeks due to a planned upgrade at Cologne railway station.

Network operator Deutsche Bahn said it is carrying out the installation of a new electronic signal box, which will last until May 19.

It said the disruption meant that trains to Brussels were being diverted via the city of Krefeld.

Six regional express lines, six regional railway lines and several suburban railway routes will also be impacted. 

However, services connecting Hamburg, Bremen and Cologne will run as normal. 

Cologne Central Station, one of Europe's busiest transport hubs, serves around 180,000 passengers daily.

Two people seriously injured when a luxury SUV hit a group waiting at a tram stop in the southwestern German city of  Stuttgart are out of danger, police said

Several children were among the eight people injured, according to hospital officials.

A 46-year-old woman died in hospital due to injury at the incident at the Olgaeck tram stop.

The 42-year-old driver of a dark Mercedes G class luxury SUV was arrested.

Police and the public prosecutor's office issued a joint statement saying there were "currently no indications that this was a deliberate act of violence or an attack."