For many, the ‘Ur-Katastophe’ of 1914-18 only ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989

He is Berlin’s most famous bouncer and his face is a mosaic of tattoos and steel rings which have been punched into his lips, nose and earlobes.

The Love Parade was meant to brighten up depressed and rundown Duisburg, a grimy, industrial city in Germany’s Ruhr district. But disaster struck Germany’s last Love Parade on the afternoon of 24 July 2010. Hundreds of ravers were crushed in a stampede that erupted after panic gripped a huge crowd trapped in a tunnel leading to the Duisburg festival. It left 21 dead and at least 510 injured.

Government responds to a series of spy scandals which began last year with revelations that the NSA had bugged Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone

The retailer is on its knees, thanks to a German war veteran who turned the family grocers into the Aldi chain

The Bal des Pompiers is one of the France’s best-loved traditions

Angela Merkel has let it be known that she is 'not amused' by the continuing allegations of US spying in Germany

Reaction by players and media to the win was markedly restrained

Inside the military museum, New Zealand artist Kingsley Baird is battling to meet a self-imposed deadline which falls this Saturday. By then he plans to have completed Stela – the name of  his highly original memorial to the millions of  men who lost their lives during the Great War. Stela is a vast collection of 18,000 hand-sized WWI soldiers made entirely from “Anzac biscuit”.

'We must focus more strongly on our so-called allies,' says Merkel security spokesperson