Author: DW

Picture the scene on April 24, 1945, as the Battle of Berlin between the Soviets and the Nazis raged: A group of Red Army soldiers arrive at Berlin’s Jewish Hospital to find hundreds of people living and working in the battle-scarred facility. “You are Jews? Not possible. You can’t be Jews, the Jews are all dead,” one Russian soldier reportedly exclaims.    Berlin’s Jewish Hospital, together with the Jewish Cemetery Weissensee, is the only Jewish institution that continued to operate and survive the Nazi era. It still operates to this day. How could an institution designed to preserve Jewish life survive in the heart of the Nazi killing machine — and…

Ferrari presented its first fully electric car to reporters in Rome this week, a four-door, five-seater called the “Luce,” developed with help from former Apple design chief Jony Ive and his collective LoveFrom. The first models of the Luce, which means “light” in Italian, is set to be ready for delivery from the fourth quarter of 2026, with a price tag in the region of €550,000 (roughly $640,000).  The launch comes at a testing time for carmakers and their electric mobility plans. Several manufacturers, Ferrari included, are paring back their targets for electrification — given factors like headwinds in the…

It seems Büsra Sayed has truly taken the saying “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” to heart. After all, she managed to turn a situation that one could only be described as insulting or sad — certainly discriminatory — into a victory, both financially and, above all, for the human spirit.   What happened after Büsra Sayed appeared at Miss Germany? In March, Büsra Sayed entered the Miss Germany pageant and even made it to the final round. For the past few years, the pageant has come to be about more than just physical appearance. Today it’s all about empowerment,…

Elon Musk has a habit of turning science fiction into reality. From reusable rockets to autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots, the billionaire’s ventures often achieve what was once thought impossible. With SpaceX’s initial public offering (IPO), he’s aiming for even bigger milestones. The company, which has stayed fiercely private for 24 years, is now preparing to go public. In an S1 filing to US regulators on Wednesday, which runs to hundreds of pages, SpaceX plans to raise roughly $75 billion (€64.5 billion) from new investors, which would value the company at up to $1.75 trillion. Not bad for a firm that is still loss-making and…

While not a fan of the bloated 48-team World Cup this summer, Andreas Rettig admits anticipation is high as Germany enter the decisive phase of their preparation. Following two consecutive World Cup campaigns that saw Germany fail to get out of their group, the Director of Football at the German Football Association (DFB) knows the goal in 2026 is clear. “The goal would be for us to ultimately rank among the top five nations in the world. If we perform better than our current FIFA World Ranking [ninth], that would be a success,” Rettig told DW. Rettig: ‘Values-based order has…

The 2026 Cannes Film Festival, it seems, has war on its mind. An extraordinary number of movies at this year’s festival, which concludes on May 23, deal with the experience of life in wartime. In Lukas Dhont’s Belgian World War I drama “Coward,” young soldiers in the trenches confront ideas of heroism and masculinity. “Visitation,” the latest film from Volker Schlöndorff (“The Tin Drum”), continues the German director’s obsession with World War II and its aftermath, tracing the fate of three families living on a lake near Berlin through decades of turbulent history, from the rise of Adolf Hitler until the fall of…

Deadlocked, dysfunctional and dangerous: That is how the Strait of Hormuz standoff is increasingly being described. Now approaching its fourth month, the crisis off the coast of Iran is marked by mutual blockades. Tehran has been charging ships up to $2 million (€1.73 million) for safe passage through the strait, while the United States has imposed a naval embargo, turning back vessels carrying Iranian oil exports. These competing blockades have failed to deliver decisive results. Some Iranian ships continue to slip through, while several Asian shipping firms have agreed to pay tolls, despite such fees violating international maritime law. Fragile negotiations between the US and Iran to reopen Hormuz have, meanwhile, stalled several times,…

Where is Elversberg? Elversberg is a small town northeast of Saarbrücken in the small state of Saarland, in southwestern Germany. As part of Spiesen-Elversberg, the town has a population of around 13,000 but Elversberg alone has just 7,000 people living in it. There is no train station and just three bakeries.  What is Elversberg’s back story? The club was formed in 1907, although folded during World War I before reforming in 1918. In 2013, the club reached the third division alongside RB Leipzig, but they were promptly relegated. After two playoff defeats in 2016 and 2017, the club finally returned to…

India is the biggest whiskey-drinking nation in the world. Roughly 230 million cases are consumed here annually, accounting for nearly half of global whiskey sales, according to the International Wine and Spirits Research, the global authority on beverage alcohol data. But US-made bourbon brands, such as Maker’s Mark, have long remained a niche product in India, where whiskey drinkers have traditionally preferred Scotch and domestic brands. In 2024, India imported just $8.8 million (€8.1 million) worth of US-produced whiskey, a relative drop in the barrel for India. But that could finally be changing. For years, a 150% import tariff meant bourbon…

New Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh promised to preserve the Fed’s independence as he was sworn in at the White House on Friday. It was an unusual step, since Fed chairs are not normally sworn in at the White House, and presidents usually don’t attend, given that the Fed is meant to be politically independent. At Warsh’s confirmation hearing, US President Donald Trump insisted the incoming central bank chief would be “totally independent.” But some, particularly Democrats, have questioned how independent Warsh will be as head of the world’s most powerful central bank. Among them is Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, who…