Mild weather delivers bumper apple harvest – DW – 08/18/2025

A 33-year-old man who went on an armed rampage at his former school in 2009 was on the run on Monday after fleeing from a forensic psychiatric clinic in city of Erlangen in the south-eastern state of Bavaria.

The man, who injured nine pupils and a teacher in 2009 when he burst into the school in nearby Ansbach armed with a hatchet, two knives and three Molotov cocktails, was found guilty on 47 counts of attempted murder in April 2010 and sentenced to indefinite supervision in a psychiatric facility.

On Saturday, during an unsupervised walk, the patient didn’t return to the clinic as agreed.

A spokeswoman for the facility said that such unsupervised exercises are “part of the therapy and had in this specific case been taking place regularly since the start of the year, always without any incident or issues.”

She said the man posed no danger to the public, while a police search fell short of a major emergency deployment.

The apple harvest in Germany is expected to be above average in 2025, according to data presented Monday by Germany’s statistical office citing harvest estimates as of July.

The German apple harvest season lasts between August and November. 

Conditions were significantly more favorable in 2025, owing to mild weather during the flowering period and no frost or hail in most growing regions.

The data shows that German orchards are likely to harvest over 1 million tons of apples for the first time since 2022. The total estimated harvest is currently at 1,009,000 tons.

That would be 3.9% more than the average for the past ten years (970,500 tons) and almost 16% more than the 2024 harvest.

Fruit growers also expect higher yields for plums than the average for the past ten years.

Over 60% of Germany’s apples are grown in two states: the southern Baden-Württemberg at 11,600 hectares (27,000 acres), and the northern Lower Saxony at 8,400 hectares.

The renaming of a Berlin boulevard to Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Strasse, after Germany’s first African-born scholar, highlights a long struggle to erase symbols of a brutal colonial past.

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Germany’s Foreign Ministry said Monday that 211 Afghans who were approved for resettlement in Germany were deported back to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan from Pakistan, where they had been temporarily living.

Around 450 Afghans with German admission permits have been detained in Pakistan in preparation for deportation, according to a Foreign Ministry spokesperson

According to the spokesperson, the German Foreign Ministry is in contact with the Pakistani authorities to enable these 211 people to return to Pakistan. 

Accommodation has been arranged for the deportees in Afghanistan with the help of a service provider.

More 2,000 Afghans who received a promise of admission from Germany after the Taliban takeover in August 2021 are still waiting to leave neighboring Pakistan for Germany.

These include human rights defenders, lawyers, teachers, or journalists, who fear persecution under the radical Islamic Taliban in Afghanistan.

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The German Football Federation (DFB) has launched an investigation after incidents of racist abuse were reported at two German Cup matches on Sunday.

“The supervisory committee is investigating the incidents and initiating investigations against the respective clubs,” a spokesman for the DFB told Germany’s DPA news agency on Monday.

During a match between lower-league Eintracht Stahnsdorf and second-tier Kaiserslautern at Karl Liebknecht Stadium in Potsdam, located just outside of Berlin, a visiting player who was warming up on the sideline appeared to be insulted from the crowd. The person who shouted the insults was quickly identified.

Another match between second-tier Schalke and fourth division Leipzig Lok was briefly suspended after Schalke’s Christopher Antwi-Adjei had a confrontation with fans.

Antwi-Adjei reported the incident to the assistant referee.

“Not everyone said it. I reckon it was an isolated shout. I hope the person thinks twice about those words.” Leipzig said racist abuse could not be confirmed by anyone else.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino said “there is no place for racism” in football, and added that he expected the DFB to clarify what happened and punish those responsible.#

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On Monday, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul met with his Japanese counterpart Takeshi Iwaya in Tokyo.

During a press conference, Wadephul praised democracy and adherence to the rule of law as shared values, something he said was important in “a time of crises and conflict.”

Wadephul singled out China’s “increasingly aggressive” behavior in the Taiwan Strait and the East and South China seas, as the primary threat to order in the Asia Pacific.

“China repeatedly threatens, more or less openly, to unilaterally change the status quo and shift borders in its favor,” Wadephul said.

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Facing a looming gap in the 2027 federal budget, German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil is not ruling out tax increases.

A comprehensive package is needed to fill a €30 billion gap, the Social Democrat leader and vice chancellor told public broadcaster ZDF on Monday.

“I’m not ruling out any options,” Klingbeil said when asked about possible tax increases.

Germany’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) are part of a governing coalition with the conservative Christian Democratic Union and the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, which have generally pushed back against raising taxes. Klingbeil said the SPD has always maintained that people with super-high wealth and high incomes should contribute more.

“I am not abandoning this fundamental conviction by joining a coalition. And that is why we will discuss all issues in the coalition: Where can we cut subsidies? Where can we reform these social security systems? Where can savings be made in the ministries?” Klingbeil said.

The finance minister said an “enormous effort” is being undertaken to find savings in the budget, and that he expects all ministries to submit savings proposals.

“This can only be achieved as a team effort,” he said.

 In the medium-term financial plan that ends in 2029, the planned new debt comes in at €851 billion. Between 2027 and 2029, there will still be a financing gap of around €172 billion.

In 2024, social welfare agencies in Germany spent a net total of €20.2 billion ($23.6 billion) on benefits, amounting to a year-on-year increase of nearly 15%, according to data released Monday by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).

According to a Destatis press release, spending rose significantly in all areas of social welfare benefits covered by the data, which include all benefits for people who are unable to work and earn their own living.

More than 56% of social welfare spending was attributable to basic income support for the elderly and people with reduced earning capacity, according to the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

These benefits, which are financed entirely from federal reimbursements to the states, amounted to €11.4 billion in 2024. This represents an increase of 13.3% over the previous year.

Not included in the data were expenditures related to “Bürgergeld” or the citizen’s income scheme, which is support intended for job seekers that is covered under another welfare category. 

The uptick in welfare spending comes as Germany faces massive holes in the federal budget. This comes along with consecutive years of economic contraction. 

Germany’s governing coalition of the conservative CDU/CSU and the SPD has begun to look at reforming the social security system to combat rising costs. Concrete proposals are currently being drafted.

Guten Tag from the Bonn online news team, and welcome to our coverage of Germany to kick off your week.

Today, we are reporting on German welfare spending, along with comments from the finance minister that he is open to raising taxes on high earners.

Meanwhile, the foreign minister has criticized China’s support for Russia while on a visit to Japan.