Ex-Volkswagen CEO denies charges in ‘dieselgate’ trial

Former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn denied the charges against him as his “dieselgate” trial began, his lawyer said Tuesday, nine years after the scandal first plunged the German auto titan into crisis.

The 77-year-old “rejects the accusations levelled against him”, Felix Doerr told reporters at the court in the city of Braunschweig, close to VW’s historic Wolfsburg headquarters.

The carmaker admitted in 2015 that it had installed software to rig emissions levels in millions of vehicles worldwide, setting off one of Germany’s biggest post-war industrial scandals.

Winterkorn faces charges including fraud over the use of the so-called defeat devices, which made cars appear less polluting in lab tests than they were on the road, and could be jailed for up to 10 years if convicted.

He resigned as head of the VW group shortly after the crisis began.

READ ALSO: Volkswagen mulls plant closures and job cuts in Germany

He was supposed to face court in 2021 alongside four other VW executives but proceedings against him were split off and postponed due to his poor health.

Bavarian Ministry takes back ‘racist’ anti-Salafist video

Bavaria’s interior ministry had posted a video, which purports to warn against the Islamic Salafi movement, but has drawn comparisons to Nazi-era propaganda for its harmful depiction of an ethnic minority.

The cartoon video, which has since been deleted by Bavaria’s interior ministry, shows a Muslim woman watching an explainer video about whether Muslim women are allowed to wear makeup. She then falls into the mouth of a maniacally laughing man, who is shown wearing a skullcap, and is seen being radicalized.

“What unbelievable racist garbage,” former member of the German Bundestag Niema Movassat wrote on X. “Der Stürmer is back and runs the propaganda department of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior,” he added.

“Der Stürmer” was a notorious antisemitic newspaper published in Germany from 1923 to 1945, known for its virulent propaganda against Jews and its role in promoting Nazi ideology. 

Movassat was joined by others who also found a likeness to Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda in the clip.

The Bavarian Interior Ministry has deleted the video, telling dpa “we take the criticism of the video very seriously and have stopped the campaign for now” adding “we deeply regret if the video has caused any irritation or misunderstanding” https://t.co/xZPDATtuu6

— James Jackson (@derJamesJackson) September 3, 2024

After deleting the video the Bavaria Interior Ministry apologised and said that it “takes the criticism of the video very seriously”.

Police investigate potential voter fraud in Saxony

Saxony police are investigating whether some ballots in the eastern state’s latest election on Sunday may have been tampered with.

Dresden police have found that at least 130 postal ballots have been manipulated.

The tampered ballots may have been intercepted in the mail and tampered with to support the extremist Free Saxony party, police say.

READ ALSO: SURVEY – Are you anxious about the future in Germany with the rise of the far right?

German women give cold shoulder to topless bathing

Legal wrangles in Germany have confirmed a woman’s right to topless bathing, but few appear in a hurry to embrace the breakthrough just yet.

“I don’t feel ready for it at the moment, but I am working on it,” said physiotherapist Martina Parsch, 45, relaxing in the sun at a Frankfurt outdoor swimming pool.

Frankfurt is among a host of German cities which have recently announced women can enjoy a dip in their public pools without a top, following a high-profile legal dispute in Berlin.

At the end of it, pool operators declared that, in line with anti-discrimination rules, all genders must be treated equally when it comes to exposing their breasts.

But, like Parsch, many appear reluctant to do so, in a sign of shifting social mores in a country once known as a centre for naturism and nude public bathing.

READ ALSO: Topless swimming fails to take off at Hamburg’s public pools

One topless swimming enthusiast in Frankfurt, who gave her name only as Muriel, was delighted the rules had “at last” been changed. But she conceded she had only seen two other topless bathers at the outdoor pool she frequents.

Berlin residents also say the practice is not widespread there.

The lack of enthusiasm is a sign that naturism — popular among past generations in Germany where it is known as “Freikoerperkultur” (FKK), or free body culture — may be losing its appeal for younger generations.

Membership of the Freikoerperkultur federation has halved from its peak while several opinion polls show that a majority of German women are opposed to topless swimming.

Germany says Putin’s brutality ‘knows no limits’ after Poltava attack

Germany said Tuesday that President Vladimir Putin’s brutality “knows no limits” after dozens of Ukrainians were killed in a Russian missile attack on the central city of Poltava.

“He must be held accountable,” said Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on X, formerly Twitter, after one of the deadliest strikes of the two-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine.

According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, the number of victims rose to 51 dead and 271 injured, as of Tuesday evening. There are more people under the rubble of collapsed buildings and the rescue workers are working under high pressure.

In view of the tragedy in Poltava, Zelenskyy repeated his call on the West to give permission for the use of long-range weapons against military targets on Russian territory.

“Russian strikes wont be possible if we can destroy their launch pads, and the Russian military airfields…” Zelensky said in his daily video address.

READ ALSO: Berlin allows Ukraine to fire German weapons at targets in Russia

German government to reduce stake in Commerzbank

The German government will gradually reduce its stake in Commerzbank which it built up when the country’s second-biggest lender ran into trouble during the global financial crisis, authorities said Tuesday.

“The bank’s economic situation has been steadily improving since 2021,” said Eva Grunwald, head of the federal finance agency, in a statement.

The bank was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy during the financial crisis, prompting Berlin to commit huge sums to prop it up in 2008 and 2009.

The state still holds a 16.5 percent stake in the lender. The finance agency did not give a timetable for the withdrawal.

The bank has gone through several rounds of cost-cutting and restructuring over the years.

But in recent times, like other banks, its results have been boosted by higher eurozone interest rates.

Olaf Scholz’s approval rating sinks to record low

Only 23 percent of Germans polled in a recent survey said they would vote for current Chancellor Olaf Scholz if they had to choose someone directly as Chancellor.

Germans don’t vote directly for their Chancellor, but for parliamentary parties each election. Yet some pollsters still ask the public who they would vote for directly if they could.

Scholz’s latest rating is a record low for him – 27 percent say they would vote directly for his opposition rival, CDU leader Friedrich Merz.

With reporting by Paul Krantz and Aaron Burnett.