Descendant of a Nazi resistance fighter tries to remove AfD’s wreath from a commemorative event, CDU/CSU group to choose a new leader next week, forest fire in Müritz National Park is extinguished and more news from Germany on Tuesday, July 21st.
Tuesday’s top story: Scuffle over an AfD wreath a commemoration event of the failed Hitler assassination
A scuffle broke out at the German government’s commemoration event on the anniversary of the failed Stauffenberg assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler on Tuesday.
A great-nephew of the Protestant theologian and Nazi resistance fighter Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Tobias Korenke, tried to remove a wreath placed at the memorial by the Alternative for germany (AfD) parliamentary group.
Security staff intervened, and the wreath was damaged in the scuffle.
Korenke told DPA: “Many descendants, including me, feel a really great anger when we see that the AfD is laying wreaths here.”
A spokesman for the AfD confirmed that the party had provided a wreath for the commemoration, but did not confirm if any party members had been present.
On July 20th, 1944, Wehrmacht officers led by Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg had tried in vain to kill Adolf Hitler with a bomb, overthrow National Socialist rule and end the Second World War. Stauffenberg and three other participants were shot dead in the evening in the courtyard of the Bendler Block – where the Federal Ministry of Defence is based today.
A commemoration event took place there on Tuesday.
Germany’s Family Affairs Minister, Karin Prien delivered the main speech, saying that she stood there as a “citizen and a descendant of victims and survivors of the Shoah.”
She added that the event on July 20th can be seen as a reminder that democracy does not survive on institutions alone: “It thrives on an ethic of civic responsibility – on people who are willing to take responsibility for the community, even if it is uncomfortable.”
New conservative group leader to be chosen next week
The CDU/CSU parliamentary group will meet next week Wednesday for a special meeting to decide on the successor to Jens Spahn at the head of the parliamentary group.
This was announced by CDU chairman and Chancellor Friedrich Merz in coordination with CSU leader Markus Söder in a meeting of the CDU presidium.
Interim parliamentary group leader Alexander Hoffmann (CSU) and Parliamentary Secretary Steffen Bilger (CDU) invited the 208 members of parliament to the meeting in Berlin by SMS.
The meeting is scheduled to take place on July 29th at 2 pm, with the party’s parliamentarians called back to Berlin from their summer break, which began on July 10th.
It has been decided that Jens Spahn, current CDU/CSU group leader, will step down from his position following his announcement last week that he and his husband had become parents thanks to a surrogate mother in the United States.
Birth via surrogacy is illegal in Germany. While it is not technically illegal for Germans to seek surrogacy services abroad, Spahn’s move to circumvent German law was seen as hypocritical, especially since he had previously spoken out against the practice numerous times.
Just a few months back, in February, Spahn was present at the CDU convention where the party reaffirmed its firm stance against legalising surrogacy in Germany.
Debate on surrogacy in Germany reignited
Spahn’s resignation as Union parliamentary group leader has also reignited the debate about Germany’s surrogacy ban.
READ ALSO: What are Germany’s rules on having a baby through surrogacy?
Green parliamentary group leader Britta Haßelmann called for a new examination of reproductive medicine issues.
Education Minister Karin Prien expressed sympathy for couples who seek help abroad, but said that she does not believe the CDU will change its position in the near future.
German voters are divided on the issue.
In a representative survey conducted by the Insa Institute for Bild, 39 percent said they thought the ban on surrogacy in Germany was right, whereas 41 percent said the ban was wrong.
Twenty-one percent did not answer or stated that they did not know.
Forest fire in the Müritz National Park is extinguished
The wildfire in the Müritz National Park has been extinguished, announced the Schwerin Ministry of the Environment on Tuesday morning.
“However, a permanent all-clear cannot yet be given…” officials said, citing hazards poised by ammunitions left in the affected area.
A Bundeswehr helicopter drops extinguishing water from the 5000-liter tank over the forest fire in the Müritz National Park. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Jens Büttner
The fire was first reported a week ago, with hundreds of emergency personnel, including from other federal states, called in to contain it. The Bundeswehr had helped dump water on the blaze with helicopters.
People were evacuated from nearby villages. Hundreds of hectares were burned, according to the district.
Recently, rain in the area had brought some relief.
New Mideast fighting keeps eurozone rate-setters on edge
Fresh fighting in the Middle East and renewed energy price rises have thrown a curveball at the European Central Bank as policymakers mull whether to hike interest rates again this week.
The ECB lifted borrowing costs in June for the first time since 2023 in response to the jump in eurozone prices triggered by the conflict.
After Washington and Tehran struck a deal towards ending the war and inflation started easing back towards the ECB’s two-percent target, a hold in rates at the central bank’s meeting this Thursday looked like a done deal.
But fighting has flared between the two sides again, with Iran declaring key energy route the Strait of Hormuz closed, and oil prices have risen anew.
Most analysts however still believe the likeliest outcome is that policymakers will keep the benchmark rate on hold at 2.25 percent.
“We don’t expect any change to interest rates at this meeting,” Berenberg bank senior economist Felix Schmidt told AFP.
Oil prices had not jumped too sharply, he said, while there were no major signs of knock-on effects in the eurozone, such as higher inflation seeping through to a wider range of goods and services.
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With reporting by DPA and AFP.