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Germany news: Military conscientious objections spike
Germany news: Military conscientious objections spike
Mark Hallam | Kieran Burke with dpa, AFP, Reuters, AP, KNA, epd, SIDPublished 07/14/2026Published July 14, 2026last updated 07/14/2026last updated July 14, 2026The number of people applying for conscientious objection to military service has risen sharply and there were around 5,100 heat-related deaths recorded in June alone.
https://p.dw.com/p/5H38GWhat you need to know
- Number of conscientious objections to military service rises sharply
- New data confirms that deaths spiked during the June heat wave
- Police conduct searches over alleged prison drug smuggling
It was a roundup of the top stories from and about Germany on Tuesday, July 14. This blog is now closed.
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https://p.dw.com/p/5H76jSkip next section Update: 8 Bonn-area prison officials suspected of smuggling in goods for money 07/14/2026July 14, 2026Update: 8 Bonn-area prison officials suspected of smuggling in goods for money
Let's follow up on this morning's big law enforcement story, the police raids on the JVA Rheinbach prison facilities southwest of Bonn and several private residences.
Bonn police and prosecutors have issued a joint statement with more details on the case, saying the searches were the result of ongoing investigations based on concerns first raised by the prison's leadership.
"In the cases, five male and three female judiciary employees (aged 28, 32, 32, 35, 38, 43, 35, 59) stand suspected of taking forbidden items like mobile phones — but also narcotic materials — into the penitentiary and distributing them to prisoners in exchange for payment," they wrote.
They said that former and current inmates also faced investigations in the case.
The goal of the searches was described as "securing mobile phones, written materials and other pieces of evidence."
Around 60 officers were involved in searches on Tuesday morning in Cologne, Euskirchen, Rheinbach, Siegburg, and the Mayen-Koblenz and Neuwied districts.
https://p.dw.com/p/5H6r3Skip next section Boston Bruins and former Germany ice hockey head coach Marco Sturm given top civil honor07/14/2026July 14, 2026Boston Bruins and former Germany ice hockey head coach Marco Sturm given top civil honor
NHL Boston Bruins ice hockey coach Marco Sturm was back home in Bavaria on Tuesday.
The 47-year-old former German national team coach was awarded the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, or the Verdienstkreuz am Bande, by state Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann at a ceremony in Munich.
"It's an incredible honor," Sturm said in an interview on the German site of the official nhl.com website. "It's something totally different, away from the locker room, away from the ice, because it's also about more than that."
Sturm, a native of Dingolfing in Lower Bavaria, had a successful NHL playing career with the San Jose Sharks and the Bruins, among others, before moving into coaching after retirement. He led Germany to an all-time-best silver medal at the 2018 Olympics in South Korea.
Bavaria's Herrmann called Sturm an "exceptional and successful ambassador for German sport" at the ceremony, before turning to address him directly.
"Through your sporting triumph as an ice hockey player and coach, your pioneering work as German national team coach, and — most significantly — your tireless humanitarian efforts, you have rendered outstanding service to the Federal Republic of Germany," Herrmann said, adding that this "warrants thanks, respect and the highest award."
Sturm set up a foundation in 2004 to help children suffering from cancer and their families, after his mother died of the disease.
https://p.dw.com/p/5H6ghSkip next section Storms, hail cause severe damage in Lower Saxony, with more to come07/14/2026July 14, 2026Storms, hail cause severe damage in Lower Saxony, with more to come
Lower Saxony faces more storm warnings on Tuesday evening, after hail and thunderstorms overnight led to 1,000 weather-related emergency service actions in the Hanover area alone.
The DWD German Weather Service warns of heavy rains and strong winds, including gusts of up to 90 kilometers (55 miles) per hour.
The fire department said on Tuesday that it conducted around 1,000 weather-related operations between Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning in the Hanover area, receiving 2,300 emergency calls.
Many people reported flooded cellars, elevator shafts and underground garages, while flash flooding hit several roads, stranding cars.
In some extreme cases, large hailstones even caused severe damage to parked cars, denting them or even smashing windows, as images on regional broadcaster NDR demonstrated.
The fire department in Sarstedt reported hailstones with a diameter of 3-4 centimeters (well over 1 inch), damaging roofs.
Further south, the DWD also has red storm warnings in place on Tuesday evening for a smaller area around Erfurt and for a larger area centered around Bamberg in the northwest of Bavaria.
Lower level heat warnings are also in place for much of the west of the country but none of Germany faces extreme heat alerts.
https://p.dw.com/p/5H6dTSkip next section Half a million sign petition protesting plans to limit freedom of information requests07/14/2026July 14, 2026Half a million sign petition protesting plans to limit freedom of information requests
An online petition seeking to stop the coalition's plans to limit Germany's equivalent of the law on Freedom of Information requests, known by the German abbreviation IFG, has gathered more than half a million signatures.
The law grants every individual the right to access official information held by federal agencies.
The proposal — one of a flurry put forward early this month ahead of the parliamentary summer break — plans to reduce the eligibility qualifications to field such requests. In future, people submitting a request will have to demonstrate a "justified interest" in obtaining the information.
Among other things, the grand coalition cites the "current challenges" on security issues like protecting critical infrastructure and civil service members in its rationale.
"More than half a million people are protesting against the effective abolition of the freedom of information law," Astrid Deilman, chairwoman of the campaign platform Campact in Berlin said. She called this a clear message to the Social Democrats (SPD) in the grand coalition to stop a "frontal assault" on the law.
The petition frames the responsibility to act as the SPD's — arguing that the conservative CDU/CSU had long wanted to suppress the 2006 law given scandals that befell politicians like Jens Spahn, Katherina Reiche and Philipp Amthor as a result of IFG requests.
Last week, a group of more than 100 public organizations — from NGOs to journalists' unions, watchdogs and protest groups — published an open letter opposing the draft law.
Green party co-chair Katherina Dröge referred to the plans as an "attack on press freedom."
https://p.dw.com/p/5H6JLSkip next section Moscow rebukes Merz for Ukraine security guarantee comments07/14/2026July 14, 2026Moscow rebukes Merz for Ukraine security guarantee comments
The Kremlin has criticized Chancellor Friedrich Merz for his comments where he said that, "Ukraine and its partners will decide how we structure the details of our security guarantees, and not Moscow."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was cited by Russian news agencies as saying that if European countries really though this, "then this rules out participation by the European countries in the regulation process."
"Formulating security guarantees for Ukraine without Russian participation is impossible," Peskov asserted.
Merz had made the comments at Monday's "Coalition of the Willing" meeting of Ukrainian backers in Paris, a week after the NATO summit in Turkey.
The chancellor had highlighted recent Ukrainian military successes and said they presented an opportunity for peace.
The Coalition of the Willing has outlined plans for some kind of multinational European-led force with US backing that could help guarantee any potential peace accord between Ukraine and Moscow.
Negotiations seeking such a deal, brokered by the Trump administration in the US, have been underway for more than a year and have made little to no apparent progress in months. Russia has often voiced objections to the idea of stationing Western or NATO troops in Ukraine.
Ukraine calls on allies to help with air defenses
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https://p.dw.com/p/5H6SESkip next section Wadephul visits Norway, calls for more NATO Arctic deterrence07/14/2026July 14, 2026Wadephul visits Norway, calls for more NATO Arctic deterrence
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has called for stronger deterrence and defense efforts on NATO's northern flank as world powers look to the increasing strategic importance of the Arctic.
"Russia is continuing to expand its military presence here in the Arctic, too, and is trying to secure its influence in the region," Wadephul said at a meeting with his Norwegian counterpart Espen Barth Eide in the Arctic Circle city of Bodo.
The CDU foreign minister arrived at Bodo airport in northern Norway on Monday. Fjord-filled Norway has Europe's longest and the world's second-longest coastline and is crucially positioned to secure European access to the High North.
Wadephul said Norway plays a key role as NATO's "early-warning sonar and radar in the North Atlantic," saying that the region must "remain a space of stability and cooperation."
He also noted intensifying Chinese interest in the region.
Eide and Wadephul visited the Norwegian Joint Headquarters (NJHQ) armed forces base in Reitan and its integrated command center deep inside a mountain. They then traveled by speedboat to an Arctic research institute in Bodo.
A NATO air operations center opened in Bodo in October, and was also on the ministers' joint itinerary.
President Steinmeier visits Ahr Valley flood zone 5 years on
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has visited the Ahrweiler district at the heart of the 2021 Ahr Valley floods in Germany, five years to the day after the disaster.
He attended the opening of a new photo exhibition in Altenahr entitled "We Ahr Strong," which features portraits of people from the region.
"An anniversary like this is not an easy day," Steinmeier said. "One would like to look ahead but at the same time you still sense the pain."
Steinmeier has visited the region on July 14 each year since the flood.
"Five years on the pain and suffering is not forgotten," he said, but the region had also become known for the solidarity and strength it showed coping and rebuilding, as showcased in the exhibition.
"If we look back today, this place experienced an awful catastrophe, but it is also a place that stands for solidarity, dignity and I think also pride," Rhineland Palatinate's state premier, Gordon Schnieder, said.
More than 180 people died in the flood, 136 in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and 49 in the northern part of the valley across the border to North Rhine-Westphalia. One person is still classified as missing to this day.
The flooding caused considerable damage to houses, cars and other property, destroying more than 60 bridges and crippling other infrastructure like railway lines, with regular train services only fully restarted on all routes as of a few months ago.
For more on efforts to rebuild better in the region five years later, read Jonas Mayer's feature.
https://p.dw.com/p/5H5Z1Skip next section Police probe missing truckload of Emmental cheese 07/14/2026July 14, 2026Police probe missing truckload of Emmental cheese
Police in Bayreuth in Bavaria are puzzling over an almost 20-ton delivery of Emmental cheese, worth around €80,000 (roughly $91,000), that vanished en route from Germany to France.
Police said that a transit company based in Kempten used an online portal to hire a separate logistics company based in Bulgaria to transport the cheese into France.
That company sent a truck to the loading station in Bayreuth and it departed on July 6.
It's at this point that holes worthy of a certain Swiss delicacy emerge in the story.
The cargo never arrived at its destination across the border and police are trying to establish where the truckload of comestibles ended up.
Swiss Emmental, a cheese with character
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https://p.dw.com/p/5H561Skip next section Berlin prosecutors charge man with sedating, raping 14 women07/14/2026July 14, 2026Berlin prosecutors charge man with sedating, raping 14 women
Prosecutors in Berlin have charged a man with sedating and raping multiple women and filming the crimes.
He's accused of 22 counts of rape and dangerous bodily harm against 14 different women, as well as of crimes pertaining to filming someone without their consent.
The defendant is yet to respond to the charges, prosecutors said in a statement.
Investigators were first put onto the trail of the man, now aged 68, via his online correspondence with another, deceased man accused of similar crimes. His property was first searched in March last year. Investigators ultimately found videos of the apparent crimes on seized data storage devices.
Prosecutors said they found indications of criminality well beyond the charges laid on Tuesday.
"In the course of the evaluation, numerous potential crimes to the detriment of a total of 58 women were identified," they wrote. "The focus of the charges now being issued are 22 crimes to the detriment of 14 women."
Prosecutors said that the scope of the possible offenses was leading to protracted investigations, with 10 of the women still as yet unidentified.
The man is accused of using a combination of sleeping pills and alcohol to drug the women before raping them. He is thought to have met them via online dating platforms.
"The women already questioned could not remember the suspected crimes and only learned of them in the course of the investigations because of the videos of the acts," prosecutors said.
A further 36 suspected cases between 2010 and 2014 had to be dropped by prosecutors, because the statute of limitations had passed. A controversial German law states that rapes can only be prosecuted within a 5-year period, unless separate dangerous bodily harm can also be established, when the period is extended to 20 years.
Prosecutors said that in the abandoned cases, the video evidence did not show the victims being drugged, which was classified as bodily harm.
Survivors: Timeline to punish rape in Germany is too short
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https://p.dw.com/p/5H4u5Skip next section €100-per-liter 'supplement' wins 'Golden Creampuff' dishonest marketing award07/14/2026July 14, 2026€100-per-liter 'supplement' wins 'Golden Creampuff' dishonest marketing award
The results are in in the fifth public vote for consumer watchdog Foodwatch's "Golden Creampuff" award for the "most brazen advertising lie of the year" in the nutritional industry.
LaVita won almost 40% of the vote for its "Fit fürs Leben" ("Fit for Life") nutritional supplement labeled a "magical drink" in its commercials — at least prior to its nomination last month.
The €100 ($114) per liter supplement is made up of fruit and vegetable juice concentrates, along with typically synthetic vitamins and nutrients, some of them overdoses. Taking a multivitamin pill daily for a month would be roughly 10 times cheaper than the recommended 10 milliliter dose, Foodwatch calculated.
The company responded by saying it had removed the "magical drink" claim from its adverts and was seeking legal advice about the Fit fürs Leben product name.
Dr. Oetker's special air fryer baking powder came in second: offering no discernible difference from its ordinary mixture but for roughly double the price.
Anechser Natur's "Matscha Mango" organic yoghurt — boasting a meager 0.5 grams of matcha per 500 grams, but an impressive 60 grams of sugar — was next in line.
Another supplement, this time seemingly aimed at men more likely to heed English language slogans, followed in fourth with nearly 15% of the vote.
"Oh Yeah Bear Libido" gummy bears from Beautybears GmbH promise to "bring an extra spice to your love life" with just three per day. But they're more sugar than spice, let alone all things nice, offering three times more sugar per bear than Haribo at 27 times the price and — contain your disappointment, lads — no added roar for your downstairs paw.
https://p.dw.com/p/5H4GjSkip next section Hapag-Lloyd criticizes Trump's Strait of Hormuz fee plan07/14/2026July 14, 2026Hapag-Lloyd criticizes Trump's Strait of Hormuz fee plan
German international shipping company Hapag-Lloyd has criticized plans announced by US President Donald Trump to charge ships for the transit of the Strait of Hormuz.
It would be "fundamentally wrong" to levy fees through international waters, the company told the Reuters news agency.
The Hamburg-based shipping giant said it could not reliably quantify the financial impact of tensions in the Gulf region on its business.
Trump said on Monday that he would charge 20% on all cargo shipped through the Strait of Hormuz "for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security."
Shipping risks on the rise due to wars and trade crises
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https://p.dw.com/p/5H3x6Skip next section Police search prison and homes as part of misconduct investigation07/14/2026July 14, 2026Police search prison and homes as part of misconduct investigation
Police have been searching the Rheinbach Correctional Facility along with residences in North-Rhine Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate.
Bonn police said the searches formed part of an investigation into several correctional services officers being probed for alleged misconduct.
Inmates and former inmates are understood to be part of the investigation with German news agency DPA, reporting that the case involves, among other things, smuggling drugs into the prison.
DPA reported that officials are alleged to have smuggled cell phones and drugs into the prison in return for money.
A total of nine search warrants were to be executed on Tuesday — six in North Rhine-Westphalia and three in Rhineland-Palatinate.
https://p.dw.com/p/5H3VrSkip next section Significant spike in conscientious objection to German military service07/14/2026July 14, 2026Significant spike in conscientious objection to German military service
There has been a sharp rise in applications for conscientious objection to military service, according to data from the Federal Office for Family Affairs and Civil Society Functions (BAFzA).
A BAFzA spokeswoman told Germany's RND media group that 5,862 applications had been received during the first half of 2026.
In the entirety of 2025, there were 3,867 applications while in 2024 there were 2,998.
The latest figures follow the introduction of a new military service law that took effect in January.
It introduces mandatory screening for young men born in 2008 or later, aimed at boosting voluntary military recruitment. Parliament would be able to activate compulsory service if recruitment targets are missed.
Compulsory military service was suspended in Germany in 2011 but the provision allowing it is still part of national law.
The BAFzA said the right to refuse military service on grounds of conscience is protected under Article 4 of the Basic Law.
New military service rules: Young Germans face tough choice
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https://p.dw.com/p/5H3D8Skip next section Sharp rise in deaths recorded during June heat wave07/14/2026July 14, 2026Sharp rise in deaths recorded during June heat wave
On Tuesday, the Federal Statistics Office announced that 23,900 people died during the week of June 22-28 — around 7,100 more deaths compared to the two weeks prior.
Tuesday's report revised a previous estimate which put the excess death toll at around 6,800.
Meanwhile, Germany's public health body, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), estimated last week that there had been around 5,120 heat-related deaths in June.
According to these figures, more than 4,300 people died in the last week of June alone, that being June 22 to 28.
The heat wave brought new record highs in Germany and with the rising mercury there appears to have been a correlating trend of a rise in deaths during that specific period.
Germany, along with much of western Europe, sweltered in the late June heat wave that saw temperatures climb above 40 C (104 F) in several regions.
Extreme heat: Can Europe adapt to climate change?
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