Today in Germany: A roundup of the latest news on Monday

Nationwide train strike to start Wednesday

German train drivers will start a nationwide three-day strike from Wednesday after wage talks broke down, the GDL union
said Sunday evening.

The union, which called several strikes in 2023, said the Deutsche Bahn public train company had failed to come up with a "negotiable" offer to head off industrial action.

Drivers will walk off the job from 2 am Wednesday while for freight the stoppage will begin from 6pm on Tuesday, the union said.

Drivers will return to work from 5pm on Friday after what will be the longest stoppage the union has called to date. November and December also saw drivers walk off the job. The strike also affects the S-Bahn system, which in most cases is operated by Deutsche Bahn.

READ MORE: German train drivers to hold three-day strike

Farmers to block traffic in protest against agricultural policies

Farmers are set to cause traffic chaos in parts of Germany on Monday morning as they block road access in protest against the government's agricultural policies.

Commuters could face severe traffic disruption in Berlin and Brandenburg after a German court (OVG) ruled that farmers are allowed to block motorway slip roads and police therefore unable to restrict the blockades.

Following on from a major protest on December 18th that saw hundreds of farmers block roads in Germany's capital with their tractors, the Farmer's Association has pledged more demonstrations against the government's planned cuts to agricultural subsidies. 

From Monday, farmers will launch another round of protests that could last until April, with a further mass demonstration planned in Berlin on January 15th.

Warning the public of things to come, Farmers' Association Joachim Rukwied said that farmers would protest "as the country has never seen before".

Scholz criticised by former German president over Ukrainian missiles 'hesitation'

Germany's former President Joachim Gauck has publicly criticised Chancellor Olaf Scholz over his hesitation in delivering long-range Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.

"The Chancellor must keep asking himself whether he is living up to his stated goal of doing all he can to prevent Russia obtaining a victorious peace," Gauck told the Bild am Sonntag. 

"I don't understand why we are hesitating to deliver these and other weapons," Gauck stated.

"Given the grueling war of attrition and the abhorrent air attacks on the civilian population, I regard our actions with concern and ask myself whether our support is sufficient," he continued.

"A Russian victory would put the medium-term security of further European states at risk," Gauck added, claiming that Germany and Europe more broadly were "not sufficiently armed" to defend against the "truly warlike threat" posed by Russia.

Scholz, along with other Western leaders, has been reluctant to provide Ukraine with long-range weaponry capable of striking Russian cities for fear of it being an escalatory move. 

Gauck, 83, was a former Lutheran pastor and noted anti-communist activist in former East Germany. He served as German head of state between 2012 to 2017.

German flood situation remains tense but relief in sight as rain stops

The worst of the weather seems to be over, for now.

With dryer forecasts ahead, it's good news for Germany's bloated rivers, but the flood situation remains tense in some parts of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, in particular.

READ ALSO: What parts of Germany are hardest hit by flooding?

Thousands of emergency services, including Technical Relief Agency THW, fire departments and the police, are still on duty because of the flooding, a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior in Hanover, said on Saturday.

Although the ground remains saturated from the rain "the weather forecasts are favourable to us because there is no longer such heavy rainfall," he said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (C-l) and Lower Saxony's State Premier Stephan Weil (C) look at the flood waters and damage in Verden, western Germany. Photo: Hornung/AFP.

In the flood area in Saxony-Anhalt, the water levels of the Thyra – which flows into the Helme from Harz – have fallen slightly, a spokesperson for the Mansfeld-Südharz district told DPA on Saturday.

READ ALSO: German flood situation remains tense but relief in sight as rain stops

Experts think that some rivers in Lower Saxony have now reached their peaks, but water levels are expected to stay high for the time being or only fall slowly, a situation report from the flood forecast centre of the State Office for Water Management, Coastal Protection and Nature Conservation (NLWKN) showed.

At the national level, the weather is changing throughout the country: "The exceptionally mild westerly weather that has been going on for weeks, which has brought us lots of rain and floods, is now finally coming to an end," said meteorologist Christian Herold of the German Weather Service (DWD).

“The weather situation is fundamentally changing to winter.”

Temperatures are no longer forecast to exceed zero during the day and snow is expected – especially in the north and the south of the country.

Central German regions, meanwhile, should expect frost.

Machete-wielding German national shot dead by Austrian police

Austrian police shot dead a 55-year old German national armed with a machete in Burgenland, eastern Austria, according to reports from Deutsche Welle.

Police responded to a domestic dispute in the town of Bad Sauerbrunn, where the man was threatening his wife with a machete. After refusing to cooperate with police and attacking a police officer, the man was shot dead.