Katja Hoyer is an Anglo-German historian. Her latest book is Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990.
In a knife attack in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg, a two-year-old boy and a 41-year-old man were killed in a park on Wednesday. Three more people were injured, among them two-year-old girl. A suspect has been arrested and identified as an Afghan national with a history of violence and psychiatric issues. The horrific details
Over 200,000 listeners tuned into Elon Musk’s online conversation with Alice Weidel, the co-leader of Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), on the social media platform X yesterday. Musk has endorsed the anti-immigration party as ‘the last spark of hope’ for Germany. Reactions were expectedly tetchy in Weidel’s home country where the AfD is polling in second place ahead of
47 min listen
This week: what does justice look like for the victims of the grooming gangs?In the cover piece for the magazine, Douglas Murray writes about the conspiracy of silence on the grooming gangs and offers his view on what justice should look like for the perpetrators. He also encourages the government to take a step back
On his first state visit to Germany as monarch last year, King Charles III cracked a joke only Germans would find funny. Speaking in front of President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at a banquet in Berlin, he said in German: ‘It is nice of you that you have all come and didn’t leave me alone with a
More than 200 people were injured and at least five lost their lives after a man ploughed a car into crowds at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg last night. Among those who were indiscriminately murdered was a small child. Like many Germans, I felt a deep, burning anger rising in me
The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote in parliament yesterday. It’s almost certain now that Germans will head to the polls for a snap election on 23 February. What is less certain is whether this will bring about the change so many of them crave. Of 717 Bundestag deputies only 207 expressed their
Three years ago today, Olaf Scholz was sworn in as Germany’s chancellor. He had narrowly won the election by presenting himself as Angela Merkel’s natural successor. Appearing as the continuity candidate was good enough to clinch it in 2021, but Scholz is unlikely to pull that off again in Germany’s snap election, expected to be held
Local authorities in Germany are making more money than ever from dogs – or their owners to be precise. The very idea of charging dog owners an annual tax for keeping their pets may sound archaic to British ears but it carries on fairly unchallenged in Germany. In 2023, Germany’s municipal authorities received a total
‘Now it’s official,’ the German press lamented, ‘the idiot’s apostrophe is correct.’ The Council for German Orthography, the body that regulates German spelling and grammar, has relaxed the rules on when and how apostrophes can be used to show possession. What seems like a matter for grammar pedants has fuelled angst for the very future
The opening of a regional parliament doesn’t usually make for edge-of-the-seat politics. But in the German state of Thuringia, the first session of newly elected MPs descended into such unsavoury chaos that some commentators now fear for German democracy itself. A few weeks ago, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won the Thuringian parliamentary election, making it
In a drastic move to curb illegal immigration, the German government has announced that it will tighten controls on its borders. Long-term measures to reduce the number of asylum seekers entering the country are being discussed in cross-party talks in Berlin. This represents paradigm shift on immigration. Germany opened its borders to over one million
‘We came as adversaries, we stayed as allies, and we leave as friends,’ British prime minister John Major told crowds in Berlin on 8 September 1994, thirty years ago today. The last 200 British, American and French soldiers withdrew from Berlin that day, leaving the city without a foreign military presence for the first time
Shock quickly turned to anger in Germany when a Syrian asylum seeker was arrested for the brutal knife attack in the city of Solingen last weekend. Three people were murdered and eight more injured by a man who had no right to be in Germany. Politicians from the coalition government reacted with a flurry of
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This week: Alt reich. The Spectator’s Lisa Haseldine asks if Germany’s far right is about to go mainstream, ahead of regional elections this weekend. Lisa joined the podcast, alongside the historian Katja Hoyer, to discuss why the AfD are polling so well in parts of Germany, and how comparable this is to other trends across Europe
Germany is Ukraine’s biggest military donor in Europe. On paper, it appears determined to ensure that Vladimir Putin’s act of aggression does not pay off. But now a German newspaper has seen documents suggesting Berlin wants to halt new support for Kyiv. According to the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Finance Minister Christian Lindner sent a letter
It wasn’t so long ago that the German chancellor Olaf Scholz tried to convince fellow European leaders to do more to help Ukraine. Wherever he travelled in the spring, the message was the same: Vladimir Putin will only withdraw Russian troops ‘if he realises that he cannot win the war on the battlefield,’ Scholz told European social
Like many Germans, I remember the summer of 2006 with fondness. We hosted the football World Cup, and for a few glorious weeks the country was transformed. The sun literally didn’t stop shining. Every cafe, bar and park seemed to have the football on TV. The country was in an exceedingly good mood. When it
I’ve been in and out of Germany a lot in recent months, and it’s hard not to gain the impression that its society is falling apart at the seams. Wherever you go, there seem to be angry political rallies and street protests. The news is full of violent attacks on politicians and activists. The fear
Germany is in the grip of one of the most extensively covered courtroom dramas in recent memory. On trial is an alleged terrorist group of nine men and women centred around the 72-year-old aristocrat Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss. They stand accused of having plotted to violently overthrow the state before they were arrested in December
The news that German police have arrested two alleged Russian spies in Bavaria has understandably raised some alarm bells in Berlin. The men stand accused of targeting military infrastructure, aiming to undermine German support for Ukraine; such acute security threats are always bad news. But the response so far has been more defiant than divided.
