Germany news: Two teens killed in NYE fireworks accidents

Two 18-year-old men have died after suffering fatal facial injuries in separate accidents involving homemade fireworks in the western German city of Bielefeld, police said early Thursday.

Both incidents happened on New Year's Eve at different locations in the city in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Police said one teenager died at the scene in the Baumheide district. The second victim was critically injured in the Brake district and later died in at the hospital despite resuscitation efforts.

The type of fireworks involved has not yet been disclosed.

Police said there were witnesses in both cases and no initial indications of third-party involvement.

Other serious fireworks-related injuries have been reported elsewhere in Germany.

A 23-year-old man lost his left hand near Rostock in northeastern Germany when a firecracker exploded, police said.

In Berlin, five people were admitted to the Berlin Accident Hospital with fireworks injuries by 10:30 pm on Wednesday, according to the hospital, with two seriously injured.

In Leipzig, police said a 16-year-old girl lost her little finger and part of her ring finger after trying to light illegal fireworks.

Two 18-year-old men died after being struck by homemade fireworks on New Year's Eve in the German city of Bielefeld, police said early Thursday.

The incidents occurred at separate locations in the city in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Both teenage victims suffered fatal facial injuries after igniting the homemade fireworks themselves, police said.

Authorities said, while investigations are ongoing, there was no initial indication of foul play or third-party involvement in either case.

After the Berlin state government pulled funding for Germany's traditional New Year's Eve extravaganza at the Brandenburg Gate, the iconic ZDF-Silvestershow has been swiftly moved to Hamburg.

Thousands of revelers braved drizzly skies and chilly 4-degree temperatures to pack into the HafenCity, Europe's largest inner-city urban development project, to welcome 2026.

Musical highlights include songs from the Michael Jackson Musical, UK boyband Blue and Michael Patrick Kelly, among many local artists.

A dazzling fireworks display is set to illuminate the Elbe River at midnight.

For decades, Berlin's Brandenburg Gate hosted Germany's biggest New Year's Eve party — a massive open-air event with live music, countdown and huge fireworks, televised nationally.

Due to budget cuts, the Berlin state government cut public funding, which previously reached up to €1 million ($1.17 million) annually, forcing the show's relocation to the northern port city.

Berlin will see in the New Year with a more intimate DJ party for 20,000 ticketed guests at the Brandenburg Gate and a smaller fireworks display.

Dozens of potential leads have been passed to police in Germany investigating last weekend's brazen €30 million ($35.2 million) bank heist in Gelsenkirchen.

A police spokeswoman said Wednesday that witnesses observed several men with large bags in the stairwell of a multi-storey car park on Saturday night.

The police said investigators were examining video footage from an adjacent car park showing masked persons and two vehicles.

Surveillance cameras, meanwhile, captured a black car and a white van that the perpetrators may have used.

Other footage published by German media outlets showed a masked man standing in front of a car park ticket machine.

The break-in, one of the largest in German history, was discovered by emergency services early on Monday morning when a fire alarm was set off.

The robbers apparently broke into a branch of the Sparkasse bank and then used a special drill to cut a large hole in the wall through to the vault.

From there, the thieves broke into almost all of the 3,250 safe deposit boxes, making off with the contents.

Tesla plans to increase production at its factory in Grünheide near Berlin in 2026, despite declining sales in Germany, plant manager André Thierig said.

In a recent interview with the dpa news agency, Thierig said output has already grown over the past four quarters.

"We are therefore looking forward to the new year with optimism and expect a further increase," he said, describing the current situation as "stable."

Thierig said Tesla's plans contrast with production stoppages and job cuts at German manufacturers like Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes as the domestic auto industry faces intense competition from China.

Elon Musk'selectric vehicle (EV) maker employs 11,000 people at its Gigafactory in the eastern state of Brandenburg, producing around 250,000 cars per year.

Tesla said earlier this month it plans to launch the production of complete battery cells at Grünheide from 2027.

Germany remains a tough market for Musk, with a near 50% drop in new Tesla EVs registered from January to November, compared with the same period in 2024.

Data from the Federal Motor Transport Authority shows that in the first 11 months of the year, 17358 new Tesla cars were registered.

According to dpa, Tesla supplies more than 30 markets from its German plant, including Canada.

Canadians can now order Teslas directly from Grünheide at a significantly lower price, rather than buying from the US and paying Canada's retaliatory 25% import duties on US-made cars in response to President Donald Trump's tariffs.

Just two days after thousands of safe‑deposit boxes were looted at a bank in western Germany, details of another major theft have emerged at a different branch of the same financial institution.

This time, the heist involved a significant quantity of gold stolen from the Sparkasse KölnBonn branch in the center of Bonn.

According to the dpa news agency, a source indicated that an employee is suspected of having gained unauthorized access to safe‑deposit boxes at the Friedensplatz branch, before disappearing with their contents.

A Bonn police spokeswoman confirmed that authorities have been investigating the case for some time, though she declined to share further details.

Sparkasse KölnBonn acknowledged the theft, but neither the bank nor the police disclosed the value of the stolen gold.

How the employee allegedly accessed the boxes also remains unclear.

The case follows a major break‑in discovered on Monday at a Sparkasse branch in Gelsenkirchen, roughly 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Bonn.

In that incident, thieves used a specialized drill to penetrate the vault and subsequently forced open nearly all of the bank’s 3,250 customer safe deposit boxes.

These days, it's not often that German railways and good news are mentioned in the same sentence. However, the country has seen a drop in luggage thefts at train stations and on trains this year.

According to Federal Police figures, nearly 16,891 cases were reported between January and October, down from over 20,000 during the same period last year.

Most of the thefts occurred at stations (8,450 cases), followed by regional trains (2,834 cases), high-speed trains (2,519 cases), and local transport (2,129 cases).

These statistics cover all railway companies and are based on police reports when offenses become known.

Full-year figures for 2025 are not yet available.

The German Police Trade Union (GdP) is warning of possible violence against emergency services during New Year's Eve celebrations.

Union chief Jochen Kopelke said the risk of attacks on police and rescue workers was "very high" and often unpredictable.

"The anonymity and the impression that one would not be held accountable for crimes on New Year's Eve tempt people to commit offenses," GdP federal chairman Jochen Kopelke told the dpa news agency.

In past years, officers have faced fireworks and ambushes in several cities.

Berlin is deploying this year 4,300 police officers, three times the usual number, alongside 1,600 fire brigade staff.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz began his first New Year's TV address to the nation with a callback to February 23 and the early election that led to the conservative becoming German chancellor, unseating Olaf Scholz and a Social Democrat-led government.

"You, the citizens, decided on the political future of our country that day. A new Federal Government was formed that has set out to steer Germany in the right direction with determination and a clear sense of direction," Merz said in excerpts of the speech seen by DW.

Merz acknowledged that this goal is "no small task."

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He said 2025 had presented Germany and the wider world with a series of major challenges.

"A terrible war is raging in Europe, one that poses a direct threat to our freedom and our security. Our economy is coming under pressure from necessary reforms, high costs and global trade conflicts. Moreover, new technologies are revolutionising our world of work and the way we live together," Merz said.

Against this backdrop, Merz said, his government saw its fundamental mandate as "the renewal of the foundations of our freedom, our security and our prosperity."

We'll be back in the morning on December 31 with a new blog on celebrations to ring in the new year in Germany and around the world, relative to Central European Time. Stay tuned!

Düsseldorf police said they suspected a targeted attempted murder after several gunshots were fired at a taxi in the city center on Tuesday afternoon.

Images from the scene showed a fairly small cluster of 10 bullets, all but one piercing the taxi's windshield on the passenger side.

The man was struck by several bullets, and had been taken to hospital with severe wounds, police said. His precise condition was not clear.

Other passengers were in the back of the taxi during the attack, but were not injured.

A large contingent of police officers mobilized to seal off the crime scene, a helicopter was deployed to assist with the search for a suspect.

The vehicle was driving along a major four-lane road near tramlines, headed south, at the time of the attack. Police said that judging by the location of the shell casings recovered, the shooter or shooters must have been standing on or near the tramlines in the center of the road at the time of the attack.

The background or potential motive for the attack were not yet clear, investigators said.

The Bundeswehr on Tuesday said it was working on an action plan for its Fallschirmjägerregiment 26 paratrooper regiment based in Zweibrücken, after more news of longstanding investigations into several soldiers from the regiment came to light this week.

A spokesman for the military at the Defense Ministry told the German epd news agency that the aim was to contribute to a new leadership culture in the regiment and to prevent such misconduct in the future, with focuses including leadership, education, prevention and resilience.

A military spokeswoman meanwhile told the dpa news agency that three soldiers had been dismissed, 19 were suspended as the military sought their dismissal, and a total of 55 had been investigated in recent weeks on suspicion of various types of misconduct.

Public prosecutors in Zweibrücken said they were investigating 19 members of the regiment on suspicion of criminal activity.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported on Monday that at least 30 soldiers had been involved in a total of more than 200 instances of far-right or anti-semitic behavior. It said that Nazi salutes and a Nazi-themed party had taken place in the barracks among what it termed an extreme-right and antisemitic clique in the regiment.

It also reported cases of sexist language and exhibitionism towards female soldiers, as well as narcotics abuse.

News of the scandal first began to emerge earlier in the year, but with limited details amid ongoing investigations.

The regiment as a whole incorporates some 1,700 soldiers at a base near the French border and the city of Strasbourg.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has called reports published this week of rigth-wing extremism, sexism and drug abuse in a paratrooper regiment based in Zweibrücken in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate "shocking."

Speaking to the German DPA news agency, Pistorius said the details first reported by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper were completely incompatible with the military's fundamental values.

Pistorius noted how the military had since fired some soldiers and was seeking to dismiss others, with public prosecutors also investigating 19 suspects on possible criminal charges. But he said the reported behavior should have raised immediate red flags on site as well.

"What's not right is that that misconduct was not immediately recognized as such on site and was not immediately met with the necessary consequences," Pistorius said. "That is not acceptable."

The defense minister said that three steps should now follow: firstly the thorough investigation of the allegations, secondly appropriate consequences if further allegations solidify, and finally the restoration of trust in the military leadership on site in Zweibrücken in western Germany, near the French border and just north of Strasbourg.

Investigators have been piecing together how burglars drilled into a secure area from outside and ransacked thousands of safe-deposit boxes in Gelsenkirchen in western North Rhine-Westphalia state.

We'll continue to bring you the latest news from Germany in this blog as they happen.