Germany news: Police face risk of violence on New Year's Eve

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.

We'll be back with the latest news once again on December 30.

The chairman of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) has defended plans to invite politicians from the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) to the 2026 event, after excluding them for the last two years.

"As large a spectrum of opinions as possible, including contrary ones, should be made clear. That is the very DNA of the Security Conference," returning chairman Wolfgang Ischinger told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, in comments that will be printed in full on Tuesday.

Ischinger is a veteran diplomat and former ambassador to the US.

He was understood to disagree with the more restrictive policies of the man who succeeded him, Angela Merkel's longstanding foreign and security policy adviser Christoph Heusgen.

Heusgen had not invited representatives from either of Germany's populist parties that are most critical of Ukraine, the AfD and the left-wing BSW, citing concerns among other things about a walkout or boycott of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's appearance.

The AfD's absence was criticized explicitly by US Vice President JD Vance in his speech at the event in 2025.

Ischinger argued that it was not for the MSC to preserve the so-called "firewall" excluding the AfD from governance in Germany, a term describing the other major German parties' refusal to form coalitions or confidence and supply agreements with the party.

"We are not tearing down any firewalls, as some assert, by inviting AfD politicians," Ischinger said. "The firewall is supposed to keep the AfD away from participation in government. It is up to the political parties to ensure that the AfD no longer sits in the Bundestag [lower house of parliament]."

Polls vary but the AfD is currently at least the second-strongest party in the country, and is vying with the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) for the top spot in some surveys, albeit only on around one-quarter of public support.

The 2026 MSC runs from February 13-15.

The Berliner Stadmission protestant charity has praised the response after two of its three "cold buses" providing winter assistance to the homeless in the German capital were put out of action by a fire, with arson suspected.

"We are overwhelmed by the people's solidarity," spokeswoman Barbara Breuer told Germany's DPA news agency, a day after the news of the fire first broke in the city. "Other organizations and businesses from Berlin have offered their assistance."

Breuer said initial donations had already come in, though she could not yet provide a precise tally.

"The cold bus trips are assured again, and we are utterly grateful," she said.

The Berliner Stadtmission provides various assistance from more than 70 sites in and around the Berlin diocese, particularly to those in more extreme need or poverty.

One of the minibuses was found totally burned out on Sunday, with another one parked next to it sustaining minor damage that will put it out of service temporarily.

Police said they had launched an investigation on suspicion of arson.

Volunteers use the vehicles on cold winter nights to tour the city, providing hot food and drinks and other assistance like sleeping bags and blankets, as well as transporting some of them to shelters for the night.

Berlin is typically one of the colder cities in northern Germany, and freezing temperatures are currently forecast overnight on Monday and Tuesday, with the possibility of snow in the early hours of Wednesday.

City authorities estimate that just over 53,000 people were in homeless accommodation or other shelters in Berlin as of the start of 2025. The less reliable estimates for the number of people sleeping on the streets have not yet been published. But in 2024, that figure stood at just over 6,000.

Police in northern Germany are investigating vandalism of a local AfD office in the town of Wismar, after damage was reported on Monday, the first working weekday after the Christmas period.

"The incident took place during the course of the Christmas holidays, between December 23 at around 2 p.m. and December 29 and 11 a.m.," the police precinct in nearby Rostock, which is the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's most populous city, said in a statement.

Two windows had been smashed by as yet unidentified suspects, causing damages worth in the region of €2,000 (roughly $2,350), according to police.

Officers had gathered evidence that was being examined, with investigations ongoing, police said.

Rostock police have reported thieves targeting fireworks deliveries to supermarkets in the run-up to New Year in three locations innorthern Germany.

Police said in a statement on Monday that "as yet unknown perpetrators" had "forcibly secured access to a total of three freight containers" — in Sievershagen on the outskirts of Rostock, in Kritzow to the west of Rostock, and in Lübz to the south.

The fireworks were being stored in containers ready for distribution to local supermarkets for the annual New Year's exemption on sales restrictions, police said.

Citing preliminary investigations, police said they believed the materials had been stolen during the Christmas bank holiday period.

They said that details on the costs in terms of stolen materials and damaged property were not yet ready, but cited the affected company in Lübz as saying that the fireworks stolen at that location had been worth at least €12,000 (roughly $14,150) by themselves.

Police appealed for potential witnesses at any of the three locations to come forward.

Police have seized 330 kilograms (about 730 pounds) of fireworks from a man's cellar on Berlin's Landsberger Allee after he bragged about the stash at a Christmas party.

According to a Facebook post by police, the man told guests he kept large quantities of fireworks in his basement and occasionally sold some of them.