The evening, spearheaded by directors Sam Bardouil and Till Fellrath alongside patrons Monique Burger and Christine Würfel-Strauss, arrived at a fraught moment for Berlin, whose cultural scene faces funding cuts of roughly €130 million.
Merz's trip to China, which became Germany's largest trading partner last year, seeks to deepen decades-old economic ties with the world's second-largest economy in the wake of tariffs imposed by the United States last year. But he has also sought to address challenges in the relationship, most notably tackling the massive imbalance which saw Germany's trade deficit with China hit a record 89 billion euros.
The first year of Donald Trump's second term has been anything but calm amid a flurry of executive orders by the US president targeting alleged "opponents" at home and abroad, and negatively affecting transatlantic trade and business. Trump's so-calledLiberation Day announcement of "reciprocal tariffs" last April shocked governments and companies alike across the world, as did his crackdown on corporate diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
The center-left Social Democrats (SPD), Germany's first political party, are struggling to muster their optimism in a year when five of Germany's 16 federal states are set to elect new parliaments. According to the latest opinion polls, the SPD could be voted out of power in two states that is has governed for decades. In two others, the SPD is polling in the single digits.
The 62nd Munich Security Conference opened on 13 February 2026 in Munich, Germany, and this year's gathering feels different from past editions. For decades, Munich was about jets, troops, and treaties. Today, cyber and AI are no longer peripheral; they are part of the architecture of security itself. Cyber risks, digital infrastructure, and emerging technologies like AI now sit alongside tanks and treaties on the agenda as European leaders try to make sense of a world where digital threats and geopolitical tensions are deeply intertwined.
More than three-quarters of Germans reject the idea of buying an electric car from the US manufacturer Tesla, according to a recent survey by the German Economic Institute (IW). Some 60% of respondents said buying a Tesla was "completely out of the question," while another 16% said they would "probably not" purchase a car from US tech billionaire Elon Musk's company, which saw sales fall by 13% worldwide in the first quarter of 2025, by 45% in Europe, and by 62% in Germany.
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Relations between the US and Germany are increasingly tense. As German and European leaders determine how to respond to Donald Trump's tariff threats over Greenland, we're asking if world events affecting the everyday lives of Americans in Germany? While we'd like to believe that everyone is capable of making the distinction between a citizen of a certain country and the actions of their government, that's not always the case.
House burping is what America's content creators have christened the German practice of Luften, or airing out their homes by opening windows, presumably because it's a bit like burping a baby. TikTok is full of them enthusiastically describing it as a mom hack, or explaining it's supposed to keep sickness away. Does this Luften keep sickness away, then? It's supposed to shift stale air, ensure adequate ventilation and prevent mould buildup, all of which are good for people and places.