The Wim Wenders Foundation announced on Wednesday that the 1975 film “Falsche Bewegung” (“The Wrong Move”), at the center of a headline-grabbing dispute between the German filmmaker and actress Nastassja Kinski, is being withdrawn from circulation for the time being. Kinski has been trying for years to get filmmaker Wim Wenders to remove a scene from the movie. In the brief scene, her co-star Rüdiger Vogler (then over 30 years old) visits the 13-year-old in her bedroom, where she is lying on a bed wearing only panties. The man undresses down to his underwear and lies on top of her; he slaps her and then caresses her face. “Although I didn’t know much at the age of 13, I could already tell that it wasn’t right,” the German actress recently told the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. Nastassja Kinski in the film ‘The Wrong Move’ (1975)Image: Albatros Produktion/Collection Christophel/picture alliance The acclaimed German director...

A hotel in the southern German state of Bavaria came under heavy criticism for a message refusing a reservation to an Israeli guest that included a message reminiscent of the Nazi era. The case came to light when Israel’s consul general to southern Germany, Talya Lador, posted the rejection message on X. “Have we returned to the 1930s?” Lador wrote in German. A screenshot in her post shows an English-language message from the Hotel zum Hirschen in Bavaria telling the recipient that “there are no Jews allowed in our hotel.”  The hotel’s junior director, Andreas Vogl, told the dpa news agency that the message does not reflect the establishment’s “world view at all.” Hotel apologizes for ‘regrettable error’ The hotel, located in the Bavarian Forest near the Czech border, has since sent an apology to the guest and offered him and his family a free one-week stay “to get to...

Germany lost a vote on Wednesday for a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Speaking to the press after the vote, Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul called the outcome “a real disappointment.”  Germany loses out to Austria and Portugal Germany needed a two-thirds majority of votes in the wider UN General Assembly to land a temporary seat on the UNSC for the next two years.  Germany was in competition with Austria and Portugal for two seats in the “Western Europe” and Others” group. Both Austria and Portugal won those seats as they had received more votes than Germany. Portugal received 134 votes, whereas Austria had received 131. Germany, meanwhile, had garnered 104 votes. Zimbabwe and Trinidad and Tobago were each elected unopposed to seats reserved for their respective regions on the UN Security Council. The central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan was also elected to a seat, winning out...

While Germany is trying to make major budget cuts, billions of euros are silently sitting in banks and other financial institutions, unused and unnoticed in so-called forgotten accounts. A 2021 report from the country’s Research Ministry estimated that up to €4.2 billion ($4.9 billion) was in such accounts. Other estimates are much higher, some as high as €9 billion. The banks themselves haven’t released any figures. As people get older, have multiple accounts or die, relatives and heirs have a hard time identifying accounts. Online banking, with no paperwork or printed statements, makes it more difficult because the information is locked up in email accounts or on hard drives. Non-traditional financial assets like cryptocurrencies or NFTs are even harder to keep track of.   What is an abandoned account? Sticking to traditional financial assets, abandoned, forgotten or dormant accounts are simply bank deposits or securities, such as stocks and bonds, that remain untouched for a period...

Germany 4-0 Finland (1-0) Goals: 1-0 Undav (34′), 2-0 Wirtz (48′), 3-0 Undav (57′), 4:0 Musiala (63′) Attendance: 25,122 A day before Germany depart for America, Julian Nagelsmann’s team comprehensively beat Finland in Mainz thanks to an outstanding performance by striker Deniz Undav. The Stuttgart forward scored twice and assisted one to help deliver the expected result. “We can keep going like this,” Nagelsmann said afterwards. “One of our strengths is that we always look like we can score.” There’s not a lot to make of these games. Less than two weeks out from a World Cup is not the time to experiment tactically, and most starters are rested. These games are almost always about players avoiding injury and squad players pushing to start. A confidence-boosting win Jamal Musiala scored, which will be a big boost to his and the team’s confidence after the Bayern Munich man’s long injury layoff....

Poverty in Germany appears to be rising, with one charity group warning of a "crisis-like situation." Meanwhile, Hungary’s new prime minister, Peter Magyar, is visiting Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin. DW has more. Deutsche Welle

Cologne‘s Catholic Cathedral will begin charging tourists €12 (about $14) for entry from July 1. The renowned gothic church and UNESCO world heritage site first announced its plan to introduce entry fees in March, becoming one of comparatively few German places of worship charging for admission.  The figure announced on Wednesday is slightly higher than the €10 ceiling proposed in March by architect Barbara Schock-Werner, who heads the Central Cathedral Construction Association (ZDV). Guido Assmann (left) and Clemens van de Wen laid out the plans to reporters in Cologne on TuesdayImage: Benjamin Westhoff/dpa/picture alliance Why is the church charging for entry?  Church officials said at a press conference on Wednesday that the fee is needed to cover maintenance, security and daily operations of the landmark. The maintenance cost for the building is estimated to be €16 million per year — about €44,000 per day. “The Cathedral costs money; the Cathedral needs a lot...

Germany is in the running for a seat on the Security Council when the UN General Assembly elects new members to the most powerful body within the United Nations on Wednesday. According to the UN Charter, the Security Council bears “the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.” The council’s decisions are binding on all UN member states. It can impose sanctions, deploy peacekeeping missions and authorize the use of military force. The Security Council has five permanent veto-wielding members: the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France.  “I would say the chances are good, but it’s a competition, and it’s democracy,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told DW during a visit to UN headquarters in New York in April. “So we can win. We can lose. Both is possible. We have good arguments. We engage in this world. We are engaged in the UN system. It (Germany) is the...

German actress Nastassja Kinski has been trying for years to get filmmaker Wim Wenders to remove a scene from one of his lesser-known films, “Falsche Bewegung” (“The Wrong Move”), from 1975. In the brief scene, her co-star Rüdiger Vogler (then over 30 years old) visits the 13-year-old in her bedroom, where she is lying on a bed wearing only panties. The man undresses down to his underwear and lies on top of her; he slaps her and then caresses her face. “Although I didn’t know much at the age of 13, I could already tell that it wasn’t right,” Kinski recently told the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper. Nastassja Kinski in the film ‘The Wrong Move’ (1975)Image: Albatros Produktion/Collection Christophel/picture alliance The acclaimed German director first reacted publicly to Kinski’s demands in 2024, stating that he understood her “current perceptions and feelings,” adding that he would not film the scene that way today. Through his...

The majority of people who applied for German citizenship last year retained their original nationality, according to a survey by the Mediendienst Integration research group. It found that the number of newly naturalized citizens with more than one nationality in 2025 ranged from 85% to 98% in cities that collected data. Those who did not keep their original nationality when applying were either stateless or came from countries that prohibit dual citizenship, such as India, Ethiopia and Eritrea. There were around 189,000 new naturalization applications in 2025 — a drop of about 10% compared to the previous year, the research group found. In 2024, the German government changed the citizenship rules to allow people to hold dual citizenship — something that had previously only been possible for a few specific groups, including EU and Swiss citizens. The reform also reduced the residency requirement for people applying for citizenship from eight years...