Today in Germany: A roundup of the latest news on Friday
Far-left terrorist remanded in custody, percentage of women in leadership roles declines, and more news from around Germany on Friday.
Germany remands Baader-Meinhof suspect over 1990s attacks
A former member of the radical anti-capitalist Baader-Meinhof gang arrested in Berlin last week after 30 years on the run was remanded in custody on Thursday over three violent attacks in the 1990s. Police swooped on Daniela Klette, 65, at an apartment in Berlin's Kreuzberg district on February 26th.
Klette was part of a trio from the so-called "third generation" of the group active in the 1980s and 1990s, alongside Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, who remain on the run.
Klette was formally arrested -- the first stage towards being charged -- in Karlsruhe on Thursday over three attacks carried out by the gang, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
In February 1990, she allegedly played a role in an assault on a Deutsche Bank building in Eschborn, near Frankfurt. Gang members parked a car filled with 45 kilograms (99 pounds) of explosives outside the building but the detonator failed to go off, prosecutors said.
Klette is also believed to have been involved in an RAF attack on the US embassy in Bonn, the German capital at the time, in 1991. A third accusation relates to a 1993 explosives attack against a prison still under construction in Germany's Hesse state.
READ ALSO: Fugitive far-left militant wanted for decades arrested in Berlin
Klette's arrest last week was related to her suspected involvement in an attempted murder and various robberies between 1999 and 2016. The accusations are being dealt with by regional prosecutors, while the allegations from the 1990s come under the remit of federal authorities.
Police still searching for Staub, 69, and Garweg, 55, have raided several premises in Berlin over the past week.
Women 'underrepresented' in leadership roles in German firms
The number of women in management positions in Germany has dropped over the past few years, according to data released by credit agency Schufa on Friday.
Women were represented on the board of directors or in leading roles in just 27 percent of companies surveyed.
A person works on a laptop. Image by Bartek Zakrzewski from Pixabay
In another analysis, the KfW Banking Group also came to the conclusion that women are "generally underrepresented" in management positions in small and medium sized companies in Germany, and the share of women in leadership positions has been falling year on year.
In 2023, 602,000 small and medium-sized enterprises were led by a woman. That was around 155,000 fewer than a year earlier. According to KfW, of the approximately 3.8 million small and medium-sized enterprises in Germany, just 15.8 percent were primarily led by women.
A year earlier, the figure was 19.7 percent.
READ ALSO: Women in Germany earn nearly a fifth less than men
German court convicts teen over fatal football brawl
A teenager was handed a two-year suspended sentence on Thursday for causing the death of another footballer at an international youth tournament in Frankfurt last year. The Frankfurt regional court found the 17-year-old Moroccan guilty of intentional bodily harm and bodily harm resulting in death.
The judges held the teenager from French side Metz, who has not been named for legal reasons, injured a 15-year-old from Berlin, known by his first name Paul, so severely in a brawl in May 2023 that he died of a brain injury.
The sentenced teenager had spent nine months in a pre-trial detention facility in Germany but is now free to serve his sentence outside the country.
"He is now free and can go to the country he wants. But he must inform the Frankfurt court every month of what he is doing," court spokesperson Daniel Trosch told AFP. "He admitted the facts and said he regretted what happened."
The accused was 16 at the time of the incident. Due to his age, the trial was conducted behind closed doors.
The public prosecutor said a fight broke out after the final whistle. The convicted teenager punched another player of the opposite team, an under-15-year-old from Berlin.
North Sea Island overwhelmed by 'lighthouse keeper' applications
In the search for a new lighthouse keeper, the small North Sea island of Wangerooge has been inundated with applications. Around 1,100 applications have been received by the island municipality.
"It's really crazy. We didn't expect that," Rieka Beewen, General Representative of the Mayor of Wangerooge, told DPA. After extensive media coverage, applications from all over Germany have reached the island town hall in recent weeks, some from other European countries, such as Poland and the Czech Republic.
Lower Saxony, Wangerooge: A view of the island's old lighthouse. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Mohssen Assanimoghaddam
The 39-metre-high, listed Old Lighthouse is one of the landmarks of the North Sea island. At the beginning of February, the municipality had advertised the unusual job in a job advertisement.
However, the island is not looking for a lighthouse keeper in the traditional sense - there has not been one on the North Sea or Baltic Sea since the end of the 1990s. The lighthouse itself has not been in operation since 1969, and is used by the island for tourism, as a lookout point. According to the job description, the tasks therefore include ticket sales, admission control and the sale of souvenir items.
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Germany remands Baader-Meinhof suspect over 1990s attacks
A former member of the radical anti-capitalist Baader-Meinhof gang arrested in Berlin last week after 30 years on the run was remanded in custody on Thursday over three violent attacks in the 1990s. Police swooped on Daniela Klette, 65, at an apartment in Berlin's Kreuzberg district on February 26th.
Klette was part of a trio from the so-called "third generation" of the group active in the 1980s and 1990s, alongside Ernst-Volker Staub and Burkhard Garweg, who remain on the run.
Klette was formally arrested -- the first stage towards being charged -- in Karlsruhe on Thursday over three attacks carried out by the gang, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
In February 1990, she allegedly played a role in an assault on a Deutsche Bank building in Eschborn, near Frankfurt. Gang members parked a car filled with 45 kilograms (99 pounds) of explosives outside the building but the detonator failed to go off, prosecutors said.
Klette is also believed to have been involved in an RAF attack on the US embassy in Bonn, the German capital at the time, in 1991. A third accusation relates to a 1993 explosives attack against a prison still under construction in Germany's Hesse state.
READ ALSO: Fugitive far-left militant wanted for decades arrested in Berlin
Klette's arrest last week was related to her suspected involvement in an attempted murder and various robberies between 1999 and 2016. The accusations are being dealt with by regional prosecutors, while the allegations from the 1990s come under the remit of federal authorities.
Police still searching for Staub, 69, and Garweg, 55, have raided several premises in Berlin over the past week.
Women 'underrepresented' in leadership roles in German firms
The number of women in management positions in Germany has dropped over the past few years, according to data released by credit agency Schufa on Friday.
Women were represented on the board of directors or in leading roles in just 27 percent of companies surveyed.
In another analysis, the KfW Banking Group also came to the conclusion that women are "generally underrepresented" in management positions in small and medium sized companies in Germany, and the share of women in leadership positions has been falling year on year.
In 2023, 602,000 small and medium-sized enterprises were led by a woman. That was around 155,000 fewer than a year earlier. According to KfW, of the approximately 3.8 million small and medium-sized enterprises in Germany, just 15.8 percent were primarily led by women.
A year earlier, the figure was 19.7 percent.
READ ALSO: Women in Germany earn nearly a fifth less than men
German court convicts teen over fatal football brawl
A teenager was handed a two-year suspended sentence on Thursday for causing the death of another footballer at an international youth tournament in Frankfurt last year. The Frankfurt regional court found the 17-year-old Moroccan guilty of intentional bodily harm and bodily harm resulting in death.
The judges held the teenager from French side Metz, who has not been named for legal reasons, injured a 15-year-old from Berlin, known by his first name Paul, so severely in a brawl in May 2023 that he died of a brain injury.
The sentenced teenager had spent nine months in a pre-trial detention facility in Germany but is now free to serve his sentence outside the country.
"He is now free and can go to the country he wants. But he must inform the Frankfurt court every month of what he is doing," court spokesperson Daniel Trosch told AFP. "He admitted the facts and said he regretted what happened."
The accused was 16 at the time of the incident. Due to his age, the trial was conducted behind closed doors.
The public prosecutor said a fight broke out after the final whistle. The convicted teenager punched another player of the opposite team, an under-15-year-old from Berlin.
North Sea Island overwhelmed by 'lighthouse keeper' applications
In the search for a new lighthouse keeper, the small North Sea island of Wangerooge has been inundated with applications. Around 1,100 applications have been received by the island municipality.
"It's really crazy. We didn't expect that," Rieka Beewen, General Representative of the Mayor of Wangerooge, told DPA. After extensive media coverage, applications from all over Germany have reached the island town hall in recent weeks, some from other European countries, such as Poland and the Czech Republic.
The 39-metre-high, listed Old Lighthouse is one of the landmarks of the North Sea island. At the beginning of February, the municipality had advertised the unusual job in a job advertisement.
However, the island is not looking for a lighthouse keeper in the traditional sense - there has not been one on the North Sea or Baltic Sea since the end of the 1990s. The lighthouse itself has not been in operation since 1969, and is used by the island for tourism, as a lookout point. According to the job description, the tasks therefore include ticket sales, admission control and the sale of souvenir items.
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