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      Germany Hopes to Head Off a Trade War With China

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      As the European Union moves to impose tariffs on Chinese cars, Germany, with an auto industry deeply enmeshed with China, is stuck in the middle.With billions of dollars in trade between China and the European Union at stake, Germany’s second-highest cabinet official called on Saturday for the two sides to engage in talks to try to resolve an escalating dispute over tariffs.Robert Habeck, who is Germany’s vice chancellor and minister for economic affairs and climate, said that he expected talks to begin soon between China and European officials. He expressed a hope that tariffs could be avoided.Still, he added that tariffs could be justified if the commission’s concerns about China’s subsidies for its electric car industry were not resolved.This month, the European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, proposed tariffs of up to 38 percent on electric cars from China, on top of an existing 10 percent tariff on imported cars. The commission said it found that China’s electric car sector was heavily subsidized by the government and state-controlled banking system.“These tariffs are not punitive,” Mr. Habeck said, adding that the tariffs are intended to offset subsidies that violate World Trade Organization rules.But Chinese officials strongly criticized the European tariffs after meeting with him. Wang Wentao, the commerce minister, described them as protectionist and called on Germany to help end them. “It is hoped that Germany will play an active role in the E.U. and promote the E.U. and China to move toward each other,” the ministry said in a statement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      1924: Trial Trip Date Set for Zeppelin

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      The giant airship was scheduled to fly across Germany to Denmark, Sweden and back. A flight across the Atlantic to the United States was tentatively planned to follow.BERLIN — The giant Zeppelin ZR-3 probably will make its first big trial trip about July 5, it was announced at Friedrichshafen today. The ship will carry several American naval officers and will fly across Germany to Copenhagen and Stockholm, returning to Friedrichshafen by way of Berlin, but without landing here.This trip will be followed by several others over Germany which, if satisfactory, will make possible the flight to the United States late in July or early in August, weather permitting. The route to America will be across Germany via Hamburg to Scotland and thence across the Atlantic to Lakehurst. The voyage is expected to require eighty hours.— The New York Herald, European Edition, June 21, 1924 More

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      Euro 2024 Shooting: Police in Hamburg Shoot Man With Ax

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      The shooting took place in Hamburg, in an area packed with soccer fans, and hours before the Netherlands and Poland were set to play in the city.A man wielding an ax on a street crowded with soccer fans was shot by the police on Sunday in Hamburg, Germany, only hours before the city was to host a game at the European Championship.The man threatened police officers with “a pickax and an incendiary device,” a police spokesman said on Sunday. When he did not respond to warnings, the police said, he was shot.The man was injured and was being treated, they confirmed. No fans nor police officers were injured.The incident took place in Hamburg’s entertainment district, a section of the city known as the Reeperbahn that is filled with restaurants and bars. At the time, the area was packed with thousands of fans who had arrived to see the Netherlands play Poland on Sunday afternoon.According to a spokeswoman for the Hamburg police and videos of the incident posted online, the man came out of a small restaurant with a small, double-bladed ax and a firebomb and threatened officers nearby.Standing behind a police barrier as fans watched only steps away, the man — dressed all in black — shouted and moved toward a group of about a dozen police officers, several of whom were pointing their weapons at him from either side of the barrier. He held the small ax in one hand and what appeared to be a bottle with a rag in its neck in the other.At the time of the incident, Hamburg’s Reeperbahn area was packed with thousands of fans who had arrived to see the Netherlands play Poland on Sunday afternoon.Lena Mucha for The New York TimesWhen a police officer sprayed pepper spray in the man’s direction, he turned and began running up the street as fans scattered out of his path. Officers moved to surround him a short distance up the narrow street, and soon after, at least four gunshots rang out and the man fell to the ground.The police said that the man had been injured, but they could not give further updates on his condition. He was placed in an ambulance and driven away.The gunshots, captured in several videos that were posted online, were a sudden and jarring intrusion into what had been a festive lunchtime atmosphere. Within minutes, scores of police officers had gathered and set up a cordon around the scene of the shooting, and loudspeaker announcements — and the looming kickoff — cleared the area.The site of the shooting was a 10-minute walk from the city’s official fan zone, which was thronged with many more thousands of fans at the time, and a short train ride from the 57,000-seat Volksparkstadion, where the Netherlands and Poland were to meet in the first of three tournament games set for Sunday.The shooting came on the third day of the monthlong tournament, which brings together the continent’s best 24 teams every four years, and amid a heightened police presence.The German authorities said last week that about 22,000 police officers would be working each day of the tournament, and that they would be supplemented by hundreds more from the participating countries. More

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      Overlooked No More: Lorenza Böttner, Transgender Artist Who Found Beauty in Disability

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      Böttner, whose specialty was self-portraiture, celebrated her armless body in paintings she created with her mouth and feet while dancing in public.This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.It was the weekend of the gay pride parade in New York City in 1984 when Denise Katz heard her doorbell ring. Surprised, she opened her door and was greeted by Lorenza Böttner, a transgender artist, who was wearing a wedding gown that she had customized to fit her armless body.“I’m here for the party!” Böttner said in her hybrid German-Chilean accent. Though Böttner had buzzed the wrong apartment, Katz invited her in anyway. “From that moment on, we didn’t part,” she said.That Katz worked in an art supply store and Böttner was a prolific artist was pure coincidence.Böttner in 1983. After she lost her arms in a childhood accident, her mother encouraged her to create art with her mouth and her feet.via Leslie-Lohman Museum of ArtThroughout her lifetime, Böttner created a multidisciplinary body of work with her feet and mouth that included painting, drawing, photography, dance and performance art. She made hundreds of paintings in Europe and America, dancing in public across large canvases while creating impressionistic brushstrokes with her footprints. In New York, she performed in front of St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, and Katz, who would become her roommate, provided her with large pieces of paper and other supplies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Wake of Election Defeat, Germany’s Olaf Scholz Will Slog On

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      Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his governing coalition emerged battered from the vote for the European Parliament. But a snap election seems unlikely.Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany heads to the Group of 7 summit meeting in Italy on Thursday as a diminished leader after Sunday’s battering in elections for the European Parliament.All three of the parties in his coalition government earned fewer votes than the conservative opposition — combined. The far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, showed itself to be the country’s second-most popular party.While an even worse defeat in France for President Emmanuel Macron at the hands of the far right prompted him to call fresh elections for the National Assembly, no such outcome is expected in Germany, where the results reverberate differently.Here’s a look at why.Snap Elections Are RareSome opposition leaders said the results showed such a lack of confidence in the chancellor and his coalition that he, too, should call new federal elections.The government replied definitively: no.The reason could be as simple as the difference between the French and German systems. Whereas President Macron could call a new election for the French Parliament, a new vote in Germany can only happen at the end of a complicated procedure triggered by a parliamentary majority vote of no confidence in the chancellor. That makes snap elections extremely rare in Germany — happening only three times in the 75-year history of the Federal Republic.While the three parties in the coalition government took a beating on the E.U. level, at home they still have a majority of seats in the German Parliament. As unpopular as the coalition is, then, it is most likely to slog on, and hope that it can turn things around before the next regular federal election in 2025.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jürgen Moltmann, Who Reconciled Religion With Suffering, Dies at 98

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      Considered one of the leading Christian theologians of the 20th century, he insisted that any established set of beliefs had to confront the implications of Auschwitz.Jürgen Moltmann, who drew on his searing experiences as a German soldier during World War II to construct transformative ideas about God, Jesus and salvation in a fallen world, making him one of the leading Protestant theologians of the 20th century, died on Monday at his home in Tübingen, in southwest Germany. He was 98.His daughter Anne-Ruth Moltmann-Willisch confirmed the death.Dr. Moltmann, who spent most of his career as a professor at the University of Tübingen, played a central role in Christianity’s struggle to come to grips with the Nazi era, insisting that any established set of beliefs had to confront the theological implications of Auschwitz.As a teenage conscript in the German Army, he barely escaped death during an Allied bombing raid on Hamburg in 1943. The horrors of the war led him to chart a path between those who insisted that faith was now meaningless and those who wanted a return to the doctrines of the past as if the Nazi era had never occurred.Though his work ranged widely, including ecological and feminist theology, he specialized in the branch of theology known as eschatology, which is concerned with the disposition of the soul after death and the end of the world, when Christians believe that Christ will return to earth.Dr. Moltmann outlined his eschatology, and established his reputation, with a trilogy of books, beginning with “The Theology of Hope” in 1964.“Theology of Hope” (1964), the first book in a trilogy, established Dr. Moltmann’s reputation.Fortress PressDr. Moltmann’s next work, “The Crucified God” (1972), tackled the question: Does God suffer, or, as the all-powerful being, is he incapable of experiencing pain and sorrow?Fortress PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Former Soldier Convicted in Killing of Pregnant Army Private Two Decades Ago

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      A federal jury found the former soldier, Shannon L. Wilkerson, 43, guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Pvt. Amanda Gonzales on Nov. 3, 2001.A former U.S. Army soldier has been convicted of murdering a pregnant 19-year-old fellow soldier on a U.S. base in Germany more than two decades ago, the Justice Department said Tuesday.The former soldier, Shannon L. Wilkerson, 43, was charged last year with one count of first-degree murder in the death of Pvt. Amanda Gonzales. He beat and strangled her to death on Nov. 3, 2001, in her barracks room at Fliegerhorst Kaserne, then a U.S. Army base, in Hanau, Germany, the department said on Tuesday.On Monday, a federal jury found Mr. Wilkerson guilty of second-degree murder, according to court documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.“Many dedicated law enforcement officers and prosecutors persisted for years, pursuing every available lead and never wavering in their search for evidence to hold the victim’s killer to account for his heinous crime,” Nicole M. Argentieri, a principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department, said in a news release on Tuesday. Timothy R. Langan Jr., an executive assistant director with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said that Mr. Wilkerson had believed that Private Gonzales was pregnant with his child.Mr. Wilkerson’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday evening. Details surrounding the murder remained unclear, and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for more information on Tuesday evening.Gloria Bates, the mother of Private Gonzales, said by phone on Tuesday that the conviction felt “like a dream. I still can’t believe it.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Germany Arrests 2 Men Suspected of Spying for Russia

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      The two men, dual citizens of both countries, were accused of being part of a plot to undermine aid to Ukraine by trying to blow up military infrastructure.Two men have been arrested in Germany over suspicions that they spied for Russia and were part of a plot to sabotage aid to Ukraine by trying to blow up military infrastructure on German soil, the authorities announced on Thursday.The two men, both dual citizens of Russia and Germany, were arrested on Wednesday in Bayreuth, a city about 120 miles north of Munich, German federal prosecutors said. The arrests came as worries grow in Germany about the reach of Russian intelligence and disruption operations.One of the men had been in contact with Russian intelligence services and had considered a U.S. military base in Germany as one of several potential targets, according to federal prosecutors based in Karlsruhe, in southwestern Germany, who oversaw the arrests.The two men have not been formally charged. But the federal prosecutors said that the pair were suspected of working for a foreign intelligence service and, in one man’s case, of illegally taking pictures of military infrastructure and of planning explosive attacks and arson.In a statement on Thursday, Nancy Faeser, Germany’s interior minister, condemned a “particularly serious case of suspected agent activity” tied to the “criminal regime” of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, relations between Moscow and Berlin have soured. Last year, Germany closed down four Russian consulates after Moscow limited the number of German diplomatic staff allowed to stay in Russia.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More