Skip next section Leadership of Merz’s CDU to discuss AfD strategy
10/19/2025October 19, 2025
Leadership of Merz’s CDU to discuss AfD strategy
The executive board of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU) is to begin a two-day meeting focused on how the party should deal with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of five regional elections next year.
The AfD is by far the strongest party in voter surveys, with ratings of around 40%, in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where new regional parliaments are to be elected next year.
The CDU meeting comes after several politicians from the party called for it to drop its 2018 resolution to reject coalitions and similar forms of cooperation with the AfD or the far-left Left Party.
Ahead of the meeting, Merz has, however, doubled down on that resolution, telling a town hall meeting in the western town of Meschede that “there is no common ground between the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the AfD.”
Merz pointed to wide differences, including the AfD’s opposition to the European Union, the eurozone, NATO and conscription.
“It is against everything that has made the Federal Republic of
Germany great and strong over the past eight decades,” he said, saying that there would be no cooperation “at least not under me as leader of the CDU in Germany.”
Merz and CDU Secretary General Carsten Linnemann are to present the
results of the committee meeting at a press conference on Monday.
https://p.dw.com/p/52EOF
Skip next section Welcome back to our coverage
10/19/2025October 19, 2025
Welcome back to our coverage
DW resumes its reporting on events in Germany as Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) holds a top-echelon meeting to discuss its policy toward the far-right AfD ahead of upcoming regional elections.
Germany’s rail network, plagued by delays and failing infrastructure, is also in the news as the new head of Deutsche Bahn (DB) announces “a fresh start.”
You can read more here about the talk of the day in Germany on Sunday, October 19.
https://p.dw.com/p/52ENq
Skip next section Merz ally backs chancellor’s controversial migration remarks
10/18/2025October 18, 2025
Merz ally backs chancellor’s controversial migration remarks
Spahn (right) said ‘young men mostly with a migrant background from Eastern Europe or Arab-Muslim cultural areas’ were contributing to high crime rates in German cities [FILE]Image: Katharina Kausche/dpa/picture alliance
The parliamentary leader of Friedrich Merz’s CDU/CSU conservative bloc has backed the chancellor’s controversial remarks on migration’s impact on German cities.
“The chancellor actually said something everyone can see when they walk through Duisburg, but also when they walk through some medium-sized German cities,” Jens Spahn told the German mass-circulation Bild newspaper.
“Irregular migration has changed something,” Spahn said.
Earlier this week, Merz said the number of refugees fleeing to Germany had fallen since he took office in May, “but we still have this problem in the cityscape, and that is why the interior minister is working to carry out large-scale deportations.”
In a letter to Merz, politicians from the opposition Green party demanded a public apology for the “racist, discriminatory, hurtful and indecent” remarks.
https://p.dw.com/p/52DiF
Skip next section ‘Das crazy’ is the German Youth Word of the Year 2025
10/18/2025October 18, 2025
‘Das crazy’ is the German Youth Word of the Year 2025
The term originated in meme and internet cultureImage: Marijan Murat/dpa/picture alliance
Previously, when Germans wanted to point out how crazy something is, they would naturally use German and say “Das ist verrückt.” Young Germans, however, now prefer to say, “Das crazy.”
Selected by Germany’s youth as their trendiest slang of the year, the expression “das crazy” beat two other shortlisted favorites, “goonen” and “checkst du.”
Read more about how young Germans are adapting and breaking traditional rules of the language.
https://p.dw.com/p/52DZi
Skip next section Görlitz mayor condemns book burning at memorial for victims of fascism
10/18/2025October 18, 2025
Görlitz mayor condemns book burning at memorial for victims of fascism
The memorial in the city center has stood since 1948 and hosts annual Holocaust remembrance eventsImage: Danilo Dittrich/dpa/picture alliance
Authorities in the German city of Görlitz in Saxony are investigating a suspected book burning at a memorial for the victims of fascism.
Police and state security officials are probing the incident, which came to light on Thursday.
It is unclear exactly when the books were set on fire, what their content was or who was behind the incident.
Görlitz Mayor Octavian Ursu condemned the act, calling for those responsible to be punished. He likened it to the Nazi book burnings of 1933, saying it will not be tolerated in his city.
What’s fueling right-wing extremism in young German men?
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https://p.dw.com/p/52DZH
Skip next section Parents increasingly concerned amid military conscription debate
10/18/2025October 18, 2025
Parents increasingly concerned amid military conscription debate
More and more parents are making inquiries at German counselling centers for conscientious objectors as politicians continue to debate ways of increasing the size of the country’s armed forces.
“We are currently being inundated with inquiries,” Michael Schulze von Glasser, political director of the German Peace Society—United War Resisters (DFGVK), told the RND news network.
He said the number of visits to the society’s website rose to over 125,000 in September, compared with 55,000 in August and 24,151 in May, with a growing number of parents among those making the inquiries.
Membership was also going up, he said.
A spokesperson for the Evangelical Working Group for Conscientious Objection and Peace (EAK) also told the RND that it has seen a recent surge in inquiries.
This comes as the parliament debates the return of a form of military service, which was suspended in 2011, to strengthen Germany’s armed forces to counter a growing threat from Russia.
Will Germany reinstate compulsory military service?
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https://p.dw.com/p/52D9s
Skip next section Pop singer Katy Perry launches Germany tour
10/18/2025October 18, 2025
Pop singer Katy Perry launches Germany tour
Katy Perry’s performances include a spectacular stage show, as seen here recently in LondonImage: Mark Cavill/Avalon/picture alliance
US singer Katy Perry has kicked off a four-concert Germany tour with a performance at the ZAG Arena in the central-northern city of Hannover.
The ensuing concerts in Germany, which are scheduled to take place in Berlin (October 21), Cologne (October 23) and Munich (October 31), form part of the 40-year-old singer’s “The Lifetimes Tour,” which started in April in Mexico and is planned to conclude in the UAF in December.
The tour is to promote Perry’s seventh studio album, “143” — a title representing the phrase “I love you” and the singer’s “angel number” — which has, however, achieved comparatively little success so far in Germany, reaching just number 16 on the album charts.
Perry is expected to perform acrobatic stunts during each concert as she did in Hannover. These include flying through the air on wires and riding a metallic creature.
https://p.dw.com/p/52DAC
Skip next section Syrian refugees should not be forced to return home, says UN
10/18/2025October 18, 2025
Syrian refugees should not be forced to return home, says UN
The head of the Jordanian branch of the UN’s refugee agency, Maria Stavropoulou, has warned against compelling Syrian refugees to go back to their home country despite the fall of dictator Bashar Assad late last year.
“It is better to leave the decision about the right time to return to the refugees themselves,” she told the German Protestant news agency EPD.
She said forcing refugees to return could have a destabilizing effect on Syria.
“The problem is that many people, in Germany as well, think that the refugee problem in Syria is solved. That is very far from the truth,” she said.
According to Stavropoulou, Syria remains in a very fragile state and still lacks the infrastructure to take back so many returning nationals at one time.
“Many people return to their villages and find that their houses have been completely destroyed,” she said, adding that more than a million Syrians had already returned home from neighboring countries.
Exiled Syrians in vulnerable situation
Stavropoulou also warned that new conflicts between different ethnic groups were likely that could force people to flee once more.
She also pointed out that many Syrians were in a vulnerable situation after many years in exile and did not have enough money to start over again.
Several politicians in Germany have called for Syrian refugees to be repatriated to their home country following the fall of Assad and the end of the civil war in the Middle Eastern country.
Some 1.5 million Syrians are living in Germany, many of whom came in 2015 amid their country’s deadly civil conflict under the liberal refugee policy of former Chancellor Angela Merkel.
How well have 2015 refugees integrated in German job market?
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https://p.dw.com/p/52D3R
Skip next section Lufthansa mulling reduction of inner-German flight routes
10/18/2025October 18, 2025
Lufthansa mulling reduction of inner-German flight routes
Germany’s flagship airline, Lufthansa, is considering cutting several flight routes as increasingly unprofitable, its CEO says.
“Without a reduction of locational costs, more cuts will be unavoidable,” Lufthansa’s chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), Carsten Spohr, told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
“There are about 100 inner-German flights per week that could also be dropped in the coming summer,” he said.
Spohr said that a doubling of state-imposed taxes and fees since 2019 had made flight operations within Germany unprofitable.
“Connections like the one from Munich to Münster/Osnabrück or from Munich to Dresden are under review,” he said.
“We fly these routes every day at a loss,” he added.
https://p.dw.com/p/52D3S
Skip next section Merz accused of racism over ‘cityscape’ remark10/18/2025October 18, 2025
Merz accused of racism over ‘cityscape’ remark
Chancellor Merz has come in for a barrage of criticism for a recent remark he made that to some seemed to imply that migrants had disrupted German urban landscapes.
Speaking of a recent reduction in migration to Germany, Merz went on to assert that “we still have this problem in the cityscape, and that is why the interior minister is working to carry out large-scale deportations.”
Read about the furor caused by Merz’s comment in this article by DW’s Jens Thurau: Germany’s Merz under fire for ‘racist’ deportation comment
https://p.dw.com/p/52D4C
Skip next section Merz seeks distance from AfD, vows to uphold ‘firewall’
10/18/2025October 18, 2025
Merz seeks distance from AfD, vows to uphold ‘firewall’
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has rejected growing calls to tear down the so-called firewall between his conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
“We will highlight the differences between us and the AfD even more clearly,” he said in an interview to be published on Sunday in the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
“In public perception, this false narrative is taking hold: ‘They could push everything through with the AfD if only they would tear down this firewall,'” Merz said in the interview.
Referring to remarks by AfD co-leader Alice Weidel, who has emphasized her readiness to cooperate with the CDU, Merz said: “The ‘outstretched hand’ repeatedly invoked by the AfD actually aims to destroy us, as they themselves say.”
“And that is why the AfD is our main opponent in the upcoming electoral battles,” he added.
Where do Europe’s far-right parties differ?
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Merz criticizes former chancellors Merkel and Scholz
Merz also said that the decision by former CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2015 to allow almost 1 million Syrians to enter Germany to escape the civil war in their country had contributed to the AfD’s rise.
This was compounded by decisions taken after 2021 by the center-left coalition of his predecessor, Olaf Scholz, he said, which led to a doubling of the AfD’s popularity ratings.
His remarks come following calls from some in his party and from politicians in several eastern German states to do away with the ban on cooperating with the far-right party in view of its strength in some legislatures, including at federal level.
The AfD is the strongest opposition force in the Bundestag, or German parliament.
https://p.dw.com/p/52D3Q
Skip next section Welcome to our coverage10/18/2025October 18, 2025
Welcome to our coverage
Guten Tag from the DW newsroom in Bonn!
You join us as mainstream parties in Germany continue to debate ways of combating the rise in popularity of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, seen by many as a danger to democracy.
Chancellor Merz has asserted in an interview that his Christian Democrats (CDU) will keep in place its ban on any form of cooperation with the far-right party, despite calls to loosen it.
And flag carrier Lufthansa has said high airport fees in Germany are making some domestic flights unprofitable, leading it to consider canceling several routes.
Read on here to find out what people are talking about in Germany on Saturday, October 18.
https://p.dw.com/p/52D3x
