Germany

Germany has been in uproar over the events that unfolded this Saturday, when 38,000 protesters gathered in Berlin and clashed with the police. The organisers of the gathering, entitled Umdenken (Rethinking), claimed they wanted to show their frustration at government measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Among the 38,000 were at least 3,000 far-right sympathisers and extremists, according to Berlin’s interior minister. The run-up to Saturday’s protests was already marked by controversy, as Berlin’s local government had initially banned the gathering due to concerns that the event could contribute to the spread of the coronavirus. As is often the case in Germany when governments ban political protests, a

At first glance, the pretty German town of Coburg seems an unlikely arena for the latest skirmish in the culture wars. The birthplace of Prince Albert (and one of Queen Victoria’s favourite holiday spots), it’s a quaint and tranquil place which miraculously came through the last century virtually unscathed. Yet now this historic backwater finds itself at the centre of controversy, on account of its patron saint, St Maurice, aka the Coburg Moor. St Maurice is a ubiquitous presence in Coburg. His profile adorns the town’s coat of arms, and numerous public buildings. It’s even on the manhole covers. Now Alisha Archie and Juliane Reuther (who live in Berlin but

Tensions between Germany and the United States have increased considerably since Donald Trump became president. Trump has repeatedly criticised Berlin for a variety of things, most vocally accusing the German government of failing to pay its way on defence. Trump has said that Europe’s Nato members, including Germany, should no longer rely so heavily on the US to shoulder the costs of maintaining the alliance. The debate has focused on the target agreed by all alliance members that defence spending should reach 2 per cent of each country’s GDP by 2024. Germany’s military expenditure equalled 1.4 per cent of its GDP in 2019. Now, without any advance notice, Trump has

Coronavirus is grim news for all major economies and Germany is no exception. The country’s economic output decreased by 2.2 per cent during the first quarter of the year, the sharpest fall since the 2008 crash and the second biggest since German reunification in 1990. A double-digit dip in the second quarter, when the full impact of the lockdown restrictions introduced in March become more visible, seems likely. But while Germany is not alone in facing up to grim economic statistics, it is using its economic clout – unavailable to poorer countries in Europe – to try and spend its way out of the crisis. Many German employers have been

Germany’s national parliament has made the public burning of the European Union flag and flags of foreign countries punishable by up to three years in jail, classing it as a hate crime. In a vote last Thursday, the German parliament made the act of defiling foreign flags equal to the crime of defiling the German flag. The new law also applies to acts of defilement other than burning, such as publicly ripping a flag up. The initiative for this legislative change dates back to 2017 when protesters in Berlin burned the Israeli flag to emphasise their outrage about the United States’ support of Israel, causing indignation in parts of German

Uppsala Last week, Europe started its liberation from lockdown — and it all feels like a study in national political identity. Belgium took its first step towards ‘deconfinement’ but no one seems exactly sure what that means. France is opting for complexity rather than simplicity. Italy’s national plan for the easing of its lockdown is more convoluted still, but few regions bother to follow it anyway. Spain, goes a national joke, went more slowly and started with a reopening of the siesta. And in Germany, everyone is praising the country’s scientific approach to the pandemic, but as soon as they were allowed to roam freely again, many Germans headed for

We have often heard over the past weeks how Germany’s impressive testing capacity has proven central to combating the coronavirus at such speed. But equally impressive is the speed at which its state and federal governments have reacted financially to save the economy. Like some of the UK’s support schemes, Germany has provided various aid packages or Soforthilfe to businesses large and small. Unlike the UK, however, Germany has already managed to pay out billions of euros to those in need. For the self-employed and small businesses with up to ten workers, this has essentially meant free money arriving in their bank accounts within 24 hours of applying, for which they

Could China have done more to prevent the coronavirus pandemic? One tabloid editor in Germany certainly thinks so and an extraordinary bust-up has broken out between the Chinese government and his newspaper as a result. The row kicked off last week when Bild – the best-selling paper in Germany – published an editorial entitled ‘What China owes us’, calling for China to pay reparations of £130 billion for the damage done by the outbreak of the virus.  Later that day, the Chinese embassy in Berlin then responded with an open letter saying ‘we regard the style in which you ‘campaign’ against China in your current report on page two as infamous… Those

Asked at Tuesday’s evening briefing why Germany appears to have a lower coronavirus death rate than Britain, the Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty said: ‘We all know that Germany got ahead in terms of its ability to do testing for the virus, and there’s a lot to learn from that.’ Germany has the capacity for 500,000 tests a day, while our own government is promising only 100,000 tests a day by the end of April. As has been explained here and elsewhere many times before, the more people you test, the lower your infection mortality rate will be – for the simple reason that you will be dividing your deaths

Over the past few weeks there has been widespread curiosity about the German healthcare system. Since the coronavirus outbreak, the infection curve in Germany has risen just as steeply as in Italy, and the measures it has imposed are quite similar to those elsewhere. Yet, its death rate is noticeably lower. Of 100,132 Germans who have tested positive, only 1,584 have died, as of this morning. Compared to fatality rates above 6 per cent in neighbouring France, Netherlands or Belgium, that seems remarkable. The most important reason for Germany’s rate is intense testing, using the South Korean model where widespread testing and isolation helped flatten the curve of new infections.

Is there something about being Germany which protects the body against coronavirus Covid-19? Probably not, I would guess. In which case why do the latest figures from the Robert Koch Institute show that the country has a case fatality rate (CFR) of 0.3 per cent, while the World Health Organisation (WHO) figures from Italy seem to show a CFR of 9 per cent? To say there is a vast gulf between those figures is an understatement. If nine per cent of people who catch Covid-19 are going to die from it we are facing a calamity beyond parallel in the modern world. If only 0.3 per cent of people who catch