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OFFBEAT

Historic locomotives disappear from museum

Two historic locomotives have disappeared from the German Museum of Technology in Berlin, officials said Tuesday. No one knows where the rail relics are, but police suspect an ownership dispute.

Published: 2 November 2010 15:16 CET
Historic locomotives disappear from museum
Photo: DPA

A spokeswoman for the Deutsches Technikmuseum denied that the two locomotives had been stolen, saying that had been properly picked up “as a favour” for storage in a museum depot.

But then Berlin police reported that two engines and a train car had been swiped from the museum. In a statement they entitled “A train to nowhere,” they said the three museum pieces had been missing since October 27, before which they had been on display outside the building on loan.

A member of a train enthusiast association filed a report after he arrived to pick up the locomotives yesterday evening to have a museum official tell him that another man had claimed them, saying they were to be sold. Police said the man then used nearby tracks to drive them away towards the neighbouring state of Brandenburg with the help of a train conductor.

According to news agency DAPD, there may be a dispute between the two men over who owns the locomotives.

A police spokesman told the agency that officers have yet to locate the engines and they have opened an investigation for theft.

The Local/DAPD/ka

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CRIME

Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

A 17-year-old has turned himself in to police in Germany after an attack on a lawmaker that the country's leaders decried as a threat to democracy.

Published: 5 May 2024 12:52 CEST
Teenager turns self in after attack on German politician

The teenager reported to police in the eastern city of Dresden early Sunday morning and said he was “the perpetrator who had knocked down the SPD politician”, police said in a statement.

Matthias Ecke, 41, European parliament lawmaker for Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), was set upon by four attackers as he put up EU election posters in Dresden on Friday night, according to police.

Ecke was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said.

Scholz on Saturday condemned the attack as a threat to democracy.

“We must never accept such acts of violence,” he said.

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s European election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police said a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had been “punched” and “kicked” earlier in the evening on the same Dresden street.

Last week two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and another was surrounded by dozens of demonstrators in her car in the east of the country.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

A group of activists against the far right has called for demonstrations against the attack on Ecke in Dresden and Berlin on Sunday, Der Spiegel magazine said.

According to the Tagesspiegel newspaper, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is planning to call a special conference with Germany’s regional interior ministers next week to address violence against politicians.

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