Overview

• Solingen held candlelit remembrance events for the three victims as officials recalled the 2024 attack, with the trial of suspect Issa al H. ongoing and a verdict expected in September.
• Since the attack, Berlin has passed faster-deportation rules, expanded monitoring and tougher weapons laws, and under Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt tightened border checks that have included contested returns of some asylum seekers.
• Migration scholars question the impact of the new controls and highlight enforcement gaps from staffing and legal hurdles, noting asylum applications have fallen largely due to external factors such as developments in Syria.
• The governing coalition heads into a contentious autumn reform push with open disputes over taxes and social policy, as SPD figures float higher levies on the very wealthy and CDU/CSU leaders reject tax hikes.
• Public-security pressures continued over the weekend with a knife brawl injuring six near Berlin’s Humboldt Forum, a nationwide manhunt for a shooting suspect from Menden, right-wing activists’ failed disruption of an ARD interview with Markus Söder, and a police-union fundraiser for a slain officer’s family surpassing €130,000.