They are nicknamed “Späti” which sounds like Spaytee and they are radically altering the German capital’s shopping habits. Späti is an abbreviation for Spätkauf or “late shop”. In 2006 – and pretty “late” compared to other European capitals – Berlin liberalised  Draconian laws which once made it impossible to shop after six in the evening and saw to it that Sunday trading remained strictly verboten (forbidden). Nowadays it’s legal to keep small shops open round the clock. The upshot is that a Berlin without its Spätis now seems unimaginable.

Germany may be as renowned for its mega brothels as its  citizens are famous for stripping off in public. But the buck  apparently stops when it comes to “swinger cruising”. 

Kempten, capital of Germany’s idyllic and mountainous Allgaü region in south western Bavaria, is a popular tourist destination also renowned for its high quality Alpine cheese.

The Czech-German industrialist sheltered 1,200 Jewish labourers from the Holocaust in his Brnenec factory for seven months until they were liberated in 1945

Churchgoers in Germany’s cathedral city of Limburg welcomed the abrupt departure of Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst last October when the Vatican suspended him from his duties.

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has announced plans to set up a European communications network as part of a broad counter-espionage offensive designed to curb mass surveillance conducted by the US National Security Agency and its British counterpart, GCHQ.