Germany news: Powerful storms turn deadly

After seven days, Belgium’s biggest forest fire in more than a century is contained, according to local authorities. 

“At this stage, the fire is now under control in its entirety and should no longer spread,” barring a major change in weather conditions or other unforeseen factors, said the local governor’s office.

It said that German firefighters who had been assisting with the containment efforts should be able to withdraw by the end of the day. 

However, the efforts to douse the wildfire are still far from over. Authorities said that ground temperatures were still “extremely high” after the prolonged and widespread blaze, particularly on the less easily accessible eastern front nearer the German border. 

Aircraft deployed to assist from across Europe would continue waterbombing flights overhead so long as the weather remained clement. 

The 3,000-hectare blaze in the High Fens nature reserve near the German border also led to a large deployment across the border in the town of Monschau. 

Some 20 to 30 residents on two of the most at-risk streets had also been ordered to leave their homes for several days. This evacuation order was lifted as of late Wednesday.

A man was killed by falling tree branches in the eastern state of Thuringia on Thursday morning, local authorities have confirmed.

The man was walking his child to preschool in Georgenthal near the town of Gotha when the accident occured, a council spokeswoman said, adding that the child was unharmed.

The incident came as stormy weather battered parts of Germany following a prolonged spell of dry weather.

A 58-year-old woman was killed in similar circumstances in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate on Wednesday night (see earlier).

A Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Chicago had to make an unexpected landing in Glasgow in Scotland on Thursday. 

The airline told German news agency dpa that a medical emergency on board forced the plane to touch down before crossing the Atlantic. 

A total of 358 passengers were on board the Boeing 747. 

“Because of an urgent medical case an airborn state of emergency was declared,” a Lufhansa spokeswoman said. 

The aircraft was given priority clearance to land and the passenger was conveyed to emergency medical attention as quickly as possible.

“After assisting the sick patient and refueling the plane, the flight to Chicago will be continued,” she said. 

Charlotte Knobloch, the former president of the Central Council of Jews, has joined other politicians in Germany in condemning comments by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who called for targeted nightly killings in Gaza.

“I think that targeted killings should be carried out in Gaza,” Ben-Gvir said during a podcast interview with a former hostage who was abducted in the Hamas terror attack of October 7, 2023.

“It’s no secret, I disagree with the prime minister,” he said. “I think targeted assassinations should be carried out in Gaza, taking down 30 to 40 every night. Not just those who pose an immediate threat — there are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn’t live. They’re not even people.”

“These sentences do not stand for Israel’s values and they should not go unchallenged,” Knobloch, the longtime chairwoman of the Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, said on Thursday.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil have both strongly condemned Ben-Gvir’s remarks, with Klingbeil having said the government will have a closer look into it.

Klingbeil said in comments this week that Germany should not remain silent in the matter because a line had “truly been crossed” with Ben-Gvir having called for killings in Gaza.

Young people in Germany have little confidence that the state pension system will carry them through when they are older, a study on Thursday showed.

In a Forsa poll that was carried out on behalf of Visa and the ING Bank, only 49% of the 1,003 respondents (aged between 18 to 30) said they expected to count on money from the state when they are older.

Trust in state pensions has declined in the past year, with a previous poll revealing 56% saying they could rely on them.

Gen Z’s in Germany worry about old-age poverty, with that anxiety accounting for one of their top three concerns.

Their top worry is the economic situation in Germany, followed by rising living costs.

The upcoming regional election in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt could be one of the most important postwar elections in the country because there’s a good chance that a far-right party takes over governance of a state for the first time since the end of World War II. Here’s what that means.

German prosecutors have filed charges against four former employees of Commerzbank over alleged tax evasion linked to the Cum-Ex scandal (from the Latin for “with-without”).

The Frankfurt Public Prosecutor’s Office said the four men — two British nationals, a German and an American — were responsible for tax losses amounting to more than €20 million ($23.4 million).

The Cum-Ex scandal seized on a design flaw in the German tax code that made it possible for multiple parties to falsely reclaim refunds or credits for divided tax that had not actually been paid, causing major losses for tax authorities.

Germany was particularly badly hit, with the country estimated to have suffered tax losses running into the tens of billions of euros.

The loophole that allowed the scheme to thrive between 2005 and 2012 is now closed and a number of bankers and lawyers have been sentenced to long jail terms. Several others are in the crosshairs of an investigation into the case.

The latest case concerns share transactions in 2008. The four bankers are alleged to have developed, authorized and implemented the Cum-Ex transactions “in conscious and deliberate collusion.” Two were working in Frankfurt at the time of the offenses and two others were in London.

Germany’s DPA news agency reported that Commerzbank declined to comment on the substance of the case, with a spokesperson saying that the bank wasn’t going to comment on proceedings against third parties, adding, “Commerzbank is not itself a party to the proceedings.” 

A sizeable number of people reported nausea and vomiting at the world-famous Elbphilharmonie concert hall in Hamburg on Thursday morning.

Medical crews and fire services were on site, treating people. There were around 40 personnel on the scene mid-morning local time.

Initial reports indicate that about 20 to 25 people were affected, according to the t-online news website.

A spokesperson for the Elbphilharmonie told t-online that an international film company was filming in the building overnight.

Around 500 people were involved in that production.

The Hamburger Abendblatt reported that there were people filming a part of a movie at the building, but the title of the movie remains strictly under wraps.

Around 14,000 people died as a result of the heat and related impacts in Germany as Europe endured blistering heat waves this summer, official data showed on Thursday.

The death toll was greater than a previous record set in 2018, according to the data.

Around 9,600 deaths took place in one week in late June when Germany baked in temperatures over 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the Robert Koch Institute.

The month of June was the hottest ever recorded in Western Europe and the second warmest globally, scientists said.

Europe is the world’s fastest-warming continent but is not equipped to handle the hot temperatures due to older infrastructure and a lack of air conditioning.

In Germany, the largest group that was affected by extreme temperatures was people aged over 75, authorities said.

“In some cases — such as heatstroke — exposure to heat leads directly to death, whereas in most instances, death results from a combination of heat exposure and pre-existing medical conditions,” the report said.

“Consequently, heat is not usually listed as the underlying cause of death on the death certificate; instead, statistical methods must be employed to estimate the extent of heat-related deaths.” 

A number of people at a hotel in Bavaria were treated for illness by paramedics overnight.

At least 31 people said they were feeling some kind of stomach illness in what officials suspect could have been a norovirus outbreak.

All symptoms were mild and no one was hospitalized.

There were approximately 140 people in the hotel in Weibersbrunn and there’s a possibility that the norovirus infection, if confirmed, might have been brought in by a member of a tour group, according to a senior physician.

Norovirus infections are caused by a group of viruses that spread from person to person, in food or water or on contaminated surfaces.

They’re highly contagious and a handshake or the touch of a contaminated doorknob can be enough to cause illness, experts say.

That’s why outbreaks are so common at hotels or cruise ships, where people are often in close proximity with one another. 

A wave of destructive storms overnight into Thursday toppled trees, damaged homes in several parts of the country and killed a woman in the western German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

The woman, who was 58 years old, was out on a walk with her friend in the village of Waldorf, Rhineland-Palatinate, when the storm moved in.

The two sought shelter in an outdoor seating area that was covered, but a tree fell over that. One died at the scene, and the other woman was taken to hospital.

Elsewhere in the country, storms damaged dozens of homes and brought down trees across parts of western and central Germany.

A village festival in Kronach, Bavaria, was partially evacuated due to severe storms.

About 3,500 guests had to leave the outdoor area of the festival grounds late Wednesday evening, local police said, but they were able to continue celebrating inside the beer halls.

Around 60 homes were damaged in Wetzlar, Hessen, the fire service said. 

Weather-related emergency operations were reported in the states of Thuringia, Brandenburg and Bavaria.

A longtime member of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) wrote an open letter in which he urged voters in Saxony-Anhalt to vote for the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) in the upcoming regional vote on September 6.

Bernd Prange, who serves as mayor of one of the municipalities in Saxony-Anhalt, said he was planning on voting for the AfD too, according to Volksstimme, a major regional daily newspaper.

The paper reported that Prange donated a total of €10,000 ($11,700) to the AfD to support the party.

Prange wrote that the CDU no longer represented his conservative principles like merit, order, economic prudence but was instead moving leftward, according to Volksstimme.

Guten Tag! Welcome to the Thursday edition of our blog on Germany.

We’re keeping an eye out for the news about overnight storms in several parts of the country that uprooted homes and trees and killed a woman.

We’re also covering news that a conservative CDU politician in Saxony-Anhalt has reportedly penned a letter in which he says he’s dissatisfied with the party and he plans on voting for the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD).

Stay tuned.