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Germany news: Hedgehog triggers police alert
Germany news: Hedgehog triggers police alert
Mark Hallam | Richard Connor | Timothy Jones dpa, Reuters, AFP, AP, epd, KNAPublished 08/04/2026Published August 4, 2026last updated 08/04/2026last updated August 4, 2026Police responding to a supermarket burglar alarm in central Germany found it was caused by an unlikely culprit. Germany's flag carrier, Lufthansa, has turned in poor quarterly results. DW has more.
https://p.dw.com/p/5IE6OWhat you need to know
- Police attending to a burglary alert at a supermarket say the cause was four-legged, spiky and lacking 'criminal energy'
- Lufthansa profits have plunged in the second quarter
- Low water levels in the Rhine are causing problems to cargo shipping
Here is a roundup of top stories from and about Germany on Tuesday, August 4, 2026:
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Skip next section Farmer's satirical corn maze in Selm mocks Trump, Putin08/04/2026August 4, 2026Farmer's satirical corn maze in Selm mocks Trump, Putin
A farmer in Selm, north of Dortmund in western Germany, has taken aim at the US and Russian presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in his annual tradition of creating a maze in one of his corn fields, which also forms an image when seen from above.
This year, Benedikt Lünemann's maize maze depicts Trump and Putin as infants wearing diapers and sitting on the grass, as the tiny Trump holds and plays with a ball reminiscent of a globe.
Lünemann has been carving giant mazes into one of his corn fields every year since 2009, often with political motifs.
The maze is also dotted with smaller scale decorations for people who visit in person rather than taking a photograph from above. Various quiz questions await visitors, one of which roughly translates as:
"What guidelines must even the US president follow? a) The rule of law, b) Noise and commotion, c) His momma's rules."
Lünemann recently told regional public broadcaster WDR that he wanted the exhibition to serve as a reminder of "how good we have it and how happy we can be to live in a functioning democracy."
Driverless subway trains collide in Nuremberg
Two driverless subway trains have collided during a shunting maneuver near the city of Nuremberg, derailing several carriages and forcing the closure of a station in the town of Röthenbach.
The city's VAG transport operator said the accident happened on Sunday and that the derailed cars now need to be lifted back onto the tracks.
Röthenbach station is expected to remain closed until Wednesday.
The trains operate on a line that has run without drivers since 2008 and is controlled from a central operations center.
VAG said the system has an extremely strong safety record and that nothing comparable had happened before.
Investigators are now examining whether an error occurred in the control center.
Shunting movements in subway depots have been suspended until the cause is fully established.
An independent expert and the regional government authority for Middle Franconia are also involved in the investigation.
https://p.dw.com/p/5IGVdSkip next section Ex-mayor fined for secretly filming secretary08/04/2026August 4, 2026Ex-mayor fined for secretly filming secretary
A former mayor in Bavaria has been fined €7,200 (nearly $8,300) after secretly monitoring his secretary with a hidden camera for about a year.
The Landsberg district court issued the penalty just below the threshold at which a conviction is normally entered on a criminal record.
Court director Alexander Kessler called the case an "incredible incident" and said the relatively limited sentence was only possible because the former mayor had reached a compensation agreement with the victim shortly before the ruling.
He has agreed to pay his former employee €10,000 in compensation.
The then-mayor of Reichling had installed a camera beneath a desk in his employee's office, allowing him to monitor her, visitors and phone calls.
He could stream both video and audio to his phone and sometimes made recordings.
The surveillance was discovered in October 2025, after which police searched both the town hall and the mayor's home.
The scandal later prompted him not to seek another term in local elections in March.
The former mayor confessed and said he had distrusted the employee because she supported a political rival.
He told the court he had come to see his outer office as a "meeting point for the opposition" and installed the camera for that reason.
"That was wrong," he said.
He added that his conduct had been unworthy of a mayor and apologized both to his former secretary and to residents of the town of around 1,700 people.
https://p.dw.com/p/5IGFiSkip next section Berlin mulling full Franco-German control of tank maker KNDS — report08/04/2026August 4, 2026Berlin mulling full Franco-German control of tank maker KNDS — report
The German government is mulling whether to join with the French state to take complete control of tank maker KNDS, the daily Handelsblatt reported on Tuesday.
The paper cited German government sources in its report.
In July, the Franco-German defense contractor postponed a planned stock market flotation, casting its ownership into uncertainty.
Currently, the family owners and the French state each hold 50% of shares and, under the plan, would have sold 10% each to investors, while the family intended to sell its remaining 40% to the German government.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has previously said that he wanted to secure German influence over KNDS and that Berlin was going to talk to French partners "on an equal footing."
KNDS was created in 2015 when Germany's family-owned Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) and France's state-owned Nexter merged. The company's name stands for KMW Nexter Defence Systems.
The company, which employs more than 11,000 people and generated €4.4 billion ($50 billion) in revenue during the 2025 financial year, produces German Leopard-2 and French Leclerc battle tanks, among other weapons systems.
https://p.dw.com/p/5IFV9Skip next section Rhine sinks to new low levels08/04/2026August 4, 2026Rhine sinks to new low levels
The Rhine River has sunk to new record low levels at some points in its course amid a series of heat waves, forcing cargo vessels to greatly lessen their loads and driving up transport costs.
The inland navigation agency WSV said the gauge point at Kaub, 32 km (20 miles) from Koblenz, measured just 24 cm (9.44 inches) on Tuesday, one centimeter below the previous record low from October 2018, which was again reached on Friday.
The mean values measured at the gauge point between 2010 and 2020 was 208 cm and the highest level since measurements began was 825 cm in January 1883.
The gauge point measurement, which is taken close to the riverbank, is used as an indication of the river's navigable depth, which is currently about a meter more.
Even that means that ships using the key waterway to transport goods are currently able to sail at only around 20% loaded, causing supply delays and surcharges to companies that rely on them.
Traders have told the Reuters news agency that the cost of river transport from Rotterdam in the Netherlands to Karlsruhe rose to around €150-€160 ($173-$184) a ton on Tuesday, up from €45 at the end of June.
The WSV has forecast that the gauge measurement at Kaub will fall to new record lows of around 21 cm on Thursday.
Scientists say the hot and dry weather now increasingly being experienced by Germany and much of Europe is a result partly of human-induced climate change brought about mostly by the use of fossil fuels.
Can shipping adapt as Germany's busiest river runs dry?
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https://p.dw.com/p/5IFSBSkip next section Rescue action launched for somnolent sculler 08/04/2026August 4, 2026Rescue action launched for somnolent sculler
Emergency personnel sprang into action on the Ruhr River on Monday evening after being alerted by passersby who saw a drifting dinghy carrying a motionless man and giving no signs of life despite calls from the bank.
Several boats and divers from the fire service's water rescue unit and the German Livesaving Association (DLRG) all took to the water ready to bring help, the Mülheim fire brigade said.
But their aid proved unnecessary: The man had just fallen asleep in the current warm weather and, awakened by the rescuers' calls, made his own way back to the riverbank. Life is but a dream!
https://p.dw.com/p/5IEgDSkip next section German breweries continue to disappear08/04/2026August 4, 2026German breweries continue to disappear
The number of beer breweries in Germany is continuing to sink, a trend possibly reinforced by the falling numbers of people who consume the beverage, new statistics have shown.
In figures released on Tuesday following Friday's International Day of Beer, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said there were still 1,415 existing breweries in 2025.
That is 53 fewer than in 2024 and a whole 137 fewer than in 2019, the year in which the most breweries in three decades were registered.
Destatis said declining beer sales were a factor in this development.
They said beer sales had gone down by 15.7% in comparison with 2019.
In 2025, some 7.8 billion liters (2.06 billion US gallons) were sold, down from 8.3 billion liters in 2024 and 9.6 billion liters in 2016.
Of the German states, Bavaria had the most breweries (588), followed by Baden-Württemberg (190) and North Rhine-Westphalia (131).
However, with the exception of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony-Anhalt, all states have seen the number of breweries decline.
https://p.dw.com/p/5IEM2Skip next section Lufthansa profits fall amid soaring fuel prices, industrial action08/04/2026August 4, 2026Lufthansa profits fall amid soaring fuel prices, industrial action
Germany's flag carrier, Lufthansa, says its profits have fallen sharply in the second quarter, citing higher fuel costs, geopolitical instability and employee strikes as reasons for the plunge.
Core profit fell almost 56% to €383 million ($440 million) in comparison with the same period last year, Lufthansa said.
The fall came despite sales rising 10% to €11.1 billion in the three months to the end of June.
Lufthansa said higher fuel prices had increased costs by about €750 million.
"The second quarter was characterized by exceptionally high fuel costs and heightened geopolitical uncertainty," Lufthansa chief financial officer Till Streichert said.
The airline group said it now expects its adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) to come in at €1.7 billion and €2.2 billion this year.
It had previously predicted that adjusted EBIT would surpass last year's €1.96 billion in spite of the rising cost of fuel amid the Iran war.
https://p.dw.com/p/5IEEsSkip next section Police get surprise in supermarket callout08/04/2026August 4, 2026Police get surprise in supermarket callout
Officers who deployed to a supermarket in the town of Mühlheim am Main in the central state of Hesse after a burglar alarm went off in the early hours of the morning did not have to deal with a dangerous criminal but a rather confused animal, police said on Tuesday.
"In the entrance area of the supermarket, the police discovered who had set off the alarm: four-legged, small, round and obviously lacking any criminal energy," they wrote in a statement.
"The suspected 'burglar,' caught in the act, turned out to be a hedgehog that had probably already snuck into the supermarket the day before," they said.
They said the animal was shut into the store by accident at closing time and had ended up "triggering the alarm while off exploring the place."
The hedgehog was briefly examined and found to be unharmed before being set free to continue its nocturnal wanderings, they said.
Italian vet fights for Europe's hedgehogs
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https://p.dw.com/p/5IE93Skip next section Welcome to our coverage08/04/2026August 4, 2026
Welcome to our coverage
Timothy Jones | Saim Dušan Inayatullah EditorA schönen guten Tag from the DW newsroom in Bonn!
We are deep into what in Germany is known as the Sommerloch (summer hole), or "silly season," but we will still be doing our best to bring you some interesting and entertaining reading.
At a time when wars and wildfires are dominating the headlines, news of a hedgehog-triggered police deployment in central Germany could, for example, provide some welcome relief.
But is relief in sight for Germany's best-known airline? The latest news on its finances shows that it is facing some major challenges.
Read on for more.
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