VW to step up cost-cutting program

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has kicked off a visit to the Ruhr town of Hattingen as the last of a series of 20 official three-day sojourns he has undertaken during his term in a bid to seek direct contact with the German public.

“We have to get out of Berlin, out of Bellevue Palace [the president’s official residence: Ed.], much more often and go into the region” is how Steinmeier has described his motivation for initiating the Reihe Ortszeit Deutschland project, which started during the coronavirus pandemic.

Steinmeier said he deliberately wanted to go to small and medium-sized towns — such as Hattingen with its 56,000 inhabitants — “where people perhaps have the impression, ‘we aren’t listened to as much as people in Berlin or the state capitals.'” 

The president started his visit to Hattingen with a stroll through the picturesque inner city, where he shook hands and had selfies taken with residents, as well as rummaging through a bookstore.

Steinmeier, who belongs to the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), is in his second and last term as head of state, which will end in March, 2027.

Customs investigators have carried out a large-scale raid on an illegal cigarette factory in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, arresting 21 people at several locations, customs authorities and state prosecutors said.

No details were given on the exact location of the factory. However, the DPA news agency said it had information that it was housed in a hall in the town of Haan, near the state capital, Düsseldorf.

The group of criminals operating the factory have been under investigation since May this year.

Investigators said they were suspected of tax avoidance and dealing in stolen goods.

They are said to have made large quantities of cigarettes and sold them on the black market in packets faking those of established brands. 

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has been forced to reassess his Christian Democratic Union’s (CDU’s) political direction after the party suffered large losses in two recent elections, even failing to gain a seat in one state parliament.

Many in Germany are questioning whether he can remain in power, though he himself has remained defiant.

DW’s Marcel Fürstenau has this analysis of the fallout from Sunday’s elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin: Germany: Chancellor Merz braces for difficult days ahead

A total of €23.5 billion ($26.8 billion) of German electronics goods were exported in July, an increase of 11.9% year-on-year, an industry group said on Tuesday.

That is a slight rise on the already strong growth seen up to the end of June, according to Andreas Gontermann, chief economist at the German Electro and Digital Industry Association (ZVEI).

Over the first seven months of the year, German electronics were exported to the tune of €162.9 billion, a rise of 9.7% compared with the same period last year.

Most of the growth came with exports to EU countries, which made up 90% of the increase and rose 17%  in the first seven months above the level in the same period a year ago.

But German firms also exported electronics worth €2.7 billion to the United States in July, an increase of 23.3% year-on-year despite the new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

However,  exports to China continued to decline, dropping by 10.8% to €1.8 billion.

A worker at Munich’s Oktoberfest has died of serious injuries suffered in an accident at a drop tower, where people are carried high into the air in a gondola that then drops rapidly, police said early on Tuesday.

They said the worker appeared to have been in an area where he was not meant to be and was then struck and possibly crushed.

The 52-year-old man was resuscitated at the scene and taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries, but later died.

No one using the ride was ever in danger, police said.

Witnesses of the accident have received support from a crisis intervention team.

There were almost 90,700 accidents involving pupils on their way to school last year, a rise of 3.8%, according to statistics from the German Social Accident Insurance Institutions (DGUV).

Of those accidents, 25 had a fatal outcome, compared with 15 in 2024, the DGUV said.

Accidents at the schools themselves also rose by 2%, with 1,032,500 cases registered, five of them fatal.

In a survey carried out last year by the Forsa polling institute for the DGUV, a third of the participating parents said their child had experienced at least one dangerous situation on the way to school.

They saw the biggest dangers amid a lack of continuous bike paths and crossing roads with heavy traffic.

The Israeli ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor, says the win by the socialist Left Party at Berlin state elections on Sunday poses a “direct existential danger” for the Jewish community in the German capital.

“The strong performance of the Left at the Berlin elections should worry anyone who cherishes the continued existence of Jewish life in this city,” he told the German DPA news agency.

“The completely unbridled antisemitism that has manifested itself in this party has been given a new political dimension by its rise to the strongest force,” Prosor said.

Elif Eralp, the Left’s top candidate who might become the governing mayor of Berlin, has said that antisemitism was not stronger in her party than in society at large.

“The overwhelming majority of the party is clearly in favor of protecting Jewish life and the strength of Jewish life,” she said at a discussion run by the Jewish Community in Berlin (JGzB).

“Antisemitism is a problem in society in general and exists also within the Left Party,” she said.

German carmaker Volkswagen intends to accelerate the ongoing cost-cutting program at its core brand, Thomas Schäfer, the brand chief of Volkswagen Passenger Cars said on Monday.

“We have absolutely no time to lose and will therefore significantly ramp up our performance program once again,” Schäfer said.

His remarks at a staff meeting at the company’s main plant in Wolfsburg came as automotive workers across Germany held protests, calling on management to secure jobs.

Schäfer said around 16,300 redundancies have been finalized in Germany, with a total of just under 28,800 agreed upon by 2030, close to the target of 35,000.

He called this “good progress,” but warned that it was not enough.

In early September, Volkswagen said it would be cutting a total of 100,000 jobs worldwide by the end of the decade.

Germany’s carmakers are under pressure from increasing Chinese competition, while also having to contend with high energy prices, US tariffs and falling demand at home.

Guten Tag from DW’s newsroom in Bonn!

Fallout from the weekend’s state elections continues to dominate headlines in Germany, and we will be looking at party reactions to the results, which represent a considerable upheaval in the country’s political landscape.

Germany’s automotive industry is also facing great changes in the face of multiple challenges, with key carmaker Volkswagen doubling down on streamlining measures it says are needed to remain competitive.

And, as a reflection of the security challenges currently facing Europe, the Ruhr city of Essen is hosting a new defense industry trade fair, Eudex, featuring 350 exhibitors from 28 countries.

Read on here for more details on these and other stories currently hitting the headlines in Germany.