Germany updates: Most support Palestinian statehood

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that while Berlin's support for Israel remains unchanged, the country could not supply weapons to a conflict where hundreds to thousands of civilians could be killed.

Merz is facing criticism of the move from within his conservative bloc's own ranks.

Read more here

Germany opened its doors to hundreds of thousands of refugees in 2015, many fleeing war in Syria and Afghanistan.

Ten years later, a large share of the women who arrived are still not in work, facing language barriers, childcare shortages and strict qualification rules.

Here, DW takes a look at how those hurdles are shaping their lives — and what's being done to overcome them.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Sunday that he assumes Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend a summit between US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin next Friday.

Putin and Trump will meet in the US state of Alaska on August 15 to try to resolve the three-year conflict between Russia and Ukraine, despite pleas from Ukraine and Europe that Kyiv must be part of negotiations.

"We hope and assume that the government of Ukraine, that President Zelensky will be involved in this meeting," Merz said in an interview with broadcaster ARD.

Merz pushed back against Ukraine ceding territory to Russia

Merz added in his interview with ARD that Berlin was working closely with Washington to try to ensure Zelensky would be in attendance at the talks.

"We cannot accept in any case that territorial questions are discussed or even decided between Russia and America over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians," he said. "I assume that the American government sees it the same way." 

Merz added that he hoped that the talks could make significant progress towards a peace settlement.

"We hope that there will be a breakthrough on Friday," he said. "Above all (we hope) that there will finally be a ceasefire and that there can be peace negotiations in Ukraine."

The previous three rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine this year have failed to bear fruit.

Putin has ruled out holding talks with Zelensky at this stage. The Russian leader insists the invasion was necessary to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine as well as Russia's security.

Ukraine's leader has been pushing for a three-way summit with himself, Zelenskyy and Trump included.

Zelenskyy has urged Russia to withdraw its forces from Ukraine and end its occupation of eastern Ukrainian regions.  

Just after becoming the most expensive German player in history with his move from Bayer Leverkusen to Liverpool, 22-year-old Florian Wirtz has been voted Germany’s footballer of the year.

The attacking midfielder scored 16 goals and made 15 assists in all competitions for Leverkusen last season.

In the Kicker magazine poll of members of the Association of German Sports Journalists, Wirtz finished ahead of Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise.

SC Freiburg's Julian Schuster was named coach of the year, while the women's player award went to two winners — Germany national team footballers Ann-Katrin Berger and Giulia Gwinn.

The western German city of Solingen paused its three-day Festival of Diversity at midday on Sunday to remember the victims of last year's knife attack that left three people dead and one seriously injured.

A commemorative speech will recall the August 23 attack, which forced the 2024 event to be canceled. Bands unable to perform last year will take the stage this time.

Co-organizer Philipp Müller said the tragedy would not prevent this year's festival from going ahead.

Up to 70,000 visitors are expected over the weekend. Security has been tightened, with vehicle barriers in place.

The city will also hold a separate remembrance on the actual anniversary.

A Syrian man, identified as Issa Al H., is on trial in Düsseldorf accused of killing three people and attempting to kill 10 others on behalf of the "Islamic State" militant group. The case has fueled Germany's political debate over migration, deportation, and security.

*Editor's note: DW follows the German press code, which stresses the importance of protecting the privacy of suspected criminals or victims and obliges us to refrain from revealing full names in such cases. 

As Chancellor Friedrich Merz nears 100 days in office, his conservative-led coalition has drawn criticism from top economic adviser Veronika Grimm, who says the government "has yet to deliver" on promises to revive Europe's largest economy.

Grimm, a member of the Council of Economic Experts, told the Funke media group that while some economic sentiment indicators have improved, Berlin has focused on short-term handouts— such as pension hikes, diesel subsidies for farmers, and relief for the hospitality sector — without a clear long-term plan.

She warned that these "electoral gifts" risk creating large budget deficits and urged the government to cut business taxes and reduce bureaucracy.

"German business is being held back by a veritable thicket of regulation," she said, calling for reforms across labor, housing, climate, and data protection rules.

More than half of Germans support formally recognizing a Palestinian state, according to a new poll, although the German government is still not in favor of such a move.

Israel's war in Gaza and plans to continue its campaign have seen public opinion in Germany shift, with German voters increasingly in favor of their government putting more pressure on Israel. 

In the survey by the Forsa Institute for the foreign policy journal Internationale Politik, 1,001 respondents were asked: "Should Germany now recognize Palestine as its own state?"

Fifty-four percent backed the recognition, with 31% opposed.

Support was highest in eastern Germany (59%), among 18 to 29-year-olds (60%), and those aged 60 and above (58%).

Voters for the socialist Left Party ('Die Linke') showed the strongest backing (85%), followed by Green (66%) and Social Democrat (52%) voters.

Supporters of the Conservative CDU/CSU alliance and the far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany) party were less in favor, polling at 48% and 45% respectively.

The German government says recognizing a Palestinian state should come only after a negotiated peace process as part of a two-state solution.

Berlin on Friday imposed a partial ban on military equipment exports to Israel that "could be used in the Gaza Strip," an announcement that has divided the ruling CDU/CSU alliance.

Nearly 150 United Nations members already recognize a Palestinian state, and France, Canada, and Britain have announced plans to follow suit.

Guten morgen from Bonn. We are resuming our coverage of the latest developments from and about Germany.

The war in Gaza, and Berlin's role as a staunch supporter of Israel, continues to make headlines and stir debate in Germany.

Stay tuned for the latest on that and other major talking points in Germany on Sunday, August 10.

The latest survey of satisfaction with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his conservative-led government shows the majority of German citizens are dissatisfied with the new government, just ahead of it marking 100 days in office next week.

The poll was conducted by opinion research institute INSA for the Sunday edition of the mass-market Bild newspaper. Some 1,000 people were surveyed between August 7 and 8.

According to the survey, 60% were dissatisfied with the performance of Merz's coalition government, with a 27% satisfaction level. This is a significant decline from an earlier poll conducted in June, where Merz's government, a coalition of conservative center-right CDU/CSUparties and the Social Democrats (SPD), secured higher satisfaction, at 37%.

The chancellor's own approval ratings have similarly dipped to 30%.

When asked if Merz was doing better than his predecessor, Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats, 26% agreed while 27% said he was doing worse.

The survey results suggest that, if elections were held now, Merz's coalition government would no longer secure a majority.

 

At the "Free Swimming — Together" exhibition, visitors to Stuttgart's House of History museum will be asked to attend nude on at least two evenings.

The museum in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg's capital wants to show the changing attitudes to swimming and the human body.

"Society is reflected in the pool," the museum says on its website. 

It added that "During the Nazi era, the Jewish population and 'foreigners' were excluded. Even before that, war invalids had to stay outside."

Today, freedom and freedom of movement are once again under heated debate. "Do women, queer or disabled people need a 'protected space'? Does topless bathing benefit or harm feminism? Is the acceptance of maximum concealment backward or progressive?" the museum asks.

The opportunity to visit the "Free Swimming — Together" exhibition naked will be on August 30 and September 13. 

Germany's Get Naked association, which is co-organizing the unusual museum visit, says, "It is time that simple nakedness is seen as nothing special and is no longer intuitively associated with sexual acts in society."

The idea is not entirely new. In the past, there have been similar events in Paris, Marseille, Brussels, and Hanover.

In the summer months, Germany's heads of government are known to take a short vacation. Check out the places they went to for their summer breaks.

Why are beer gardens so important in Bavaria, and what can you expect there — aside from beer? A closer look at a typical Bavarian institution. 

Three tiger cubs have been euthanized after being rejected by their mother, the Leipzig Zoo in eastern Germany announced on Saturday.

The three-day-old Amur tiger cubs were put down to prevent suffering, a statement said.

It added that hand-rearing was out of the question, as that would not align with the principles of species-appropriate wildlife management.

The cubs were born on Wednesday evening to Yushka, a first-time mother who rejected her babies a few hours after giving birth. 

Zoo director Jörg Junhold said that Yushka's behavior is "sad from a human perspective, but is part of the behavioral repertoire of inexperienced mothers in the animal kingdom."

Without their mother's care, the three cubs became increasingly weak over the next two days, according to the statement.

"At this point, when the young animals no longer show any active behaviour and thus no stimulus for feeding or milk production is triggered in the mother, we must fulfil our heavy responsibility and spare the young animals the suffering of starvation," said veterinarian Andreas Bernhard.

But the zoo plans to continue its Amur tiger breeding program with Yushka.

"She will be able to contribute to the survival of the species through natural rearing in the future," explained zoo director Junhold.

Several German cities have offered to take in and provide medical treatment for seriously ill or traumatized children from the embattled and devastated Gaza Strip.

However, the cities — Hannover, Dusseldorf, Bonn, Leipzig and Kiel — need the support of the federal government to do so.

Federal authorities would have to take over entry procedures, the selection of the children and all coordination of the relief effort.

Read more to find out why the federal government is putting the brakes on the plan,

Chancellor Friedrich Merz's decision to halt German weapons exports to Israel for use in the Gaza Strip "until further notice" has been met with fierce opposition from some members of his own conservative Christian Democratic Party (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU).

The CSU parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, Alexander Hoffmann, on Saturday told Germany's biggest tabloid newspaper Bild that his party "was not involved in this decision, and we consider it questionable." 

"This would be a departure from decades of foreign policy continuity toward Israel and, as such, requires at least some explanation. We will hold internal discussions on this within the coalition," Hoffmann added.

Some conservatives are criticizing Merz for going against Germany's "Staatsräson" (reason of state). Given the history of the Holocaust, the German state sees a special responsibility for Israel.

CDU security policy expert Roderich Kiesewetter also sharply criticized the decision as a "serious political and strategic mistake by Germany."

Foreign policy experts from the CDU/CSU parliamentary group are meeting via videoconference on Sunday to discuss the issue.

But others from the CDU/CSU alliance have welcomed the decision, including CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen.

"This reaction is correct and, unfortunately, has become inevitable due to the recent decisions of the Israeli government," Röttgen told the regional newspaper Rheinische Post. 

Merz has also received support from his junior coalition partner.

"We offer our full solidarity with the state of Israel, but the wrongs must be called out," said Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil, the co-leader of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), on Friday.