A 7-year-old pupil at a school near the northern city of Osnabrück treated his classmates to a very special “show and tell” activity on Wednesday when he invited them to touch and smell the €5,000 ($5,700) in bills he had brought with him in his backpack, police said on Thursday.

The incident made the boy “the most popular pupil of the morning,” police said.

The police said he had found the cash — which his parents had withdrawn to buy a car — in an envelope at home.

A teacher called the police when she noticed what was going on.

The cash has since been returned to the parents, police said.

The average fuel price in Germany went down on Wednesday from a day previously, the first time this has happened since the US and Israel launched their ongoing offensive against Iran on February 28.

E10 gasoline and diesel were respectively 3.4  and 5.4 euro cents (3.946 and 6.2 US cents) cheaper per liter on average across Germany on Wednesday compared with Tuesday, according to the automobile club ADAC

However, E10 —  a mixture of 10% anhydrous ethanol and 90% gasoline — was, at €2,011 per liter ($2.32 per liter, $8.78 per gallon), still around 23 cents more expensive than on the day before the war erupted.

Diesel, which on average cost €2.134 per liter on Wednesday, was a whole 39 cents more expensive than on February 27.

It is not clear whether the reduction in prices, possible caused by a drop in the barrel price for crude on Tuesday and Wednesday after highs of more than $100 a barrel on Monday, will be temporary or not, with prices for crude rising once again on Thursday amid an uncertain conflict situation.

On Wednesday the International Energy Agency anounced that its 32 member states would release 400 million barrels of crude from their emergency reserves in a bid to bring down prices.

The German government is also planning to stop gas stations raising fuel prices more than once daily, but it is unclear whether this will stop the escalation.

Prosecutors in the Bavarian city of Bamberg are carrying out investigations into a 33.year-old man suspected of sexually abusing disabled children and young people in his care at a special facility in 2025 and 2026.

The investigation was launched after a tipoff from the US, where videos showing images of child sexual abuse were reportedly uploaded to a cloud server by the man.

The man, who prosecutors said was currently in pre-trial detention, is also said to have undressed and inappropriately touched several of his victims.

Properties in the districts of Kulmbach and Hof have been searched by police in connection with the case.

Carmaker BMW has reported a drop in net profit of about 3% to just under €7.5 billion ($8.7 billion) for 2025, a smaller decline than analysts had predicted and much less than the fall experienced by major domestic rivals.

The new figures, which come among a broader downturn in Germany’s vital car industry, showed BMW’s revenue declining by 6.3% to €133 billion, while the company issued a negative outlook for 2026.

The results put BMW at the head of the profits table for 2025 among Germany’s major carmakers, with Mercedes-Benz reporting a net profit of €5.3 billion and the much larger Volkswagen Group €6.9 billion — in both cases approaching half that of 2024.

BMW has several advantages over its rivals in the current economic conditions. They include having a large manufacturing plant in the US, which mitigates the effect of the US tariffs currently affecting all European carmakers.

It also possesses flexible production lines capable of assembling electric vehicles, hybrids and combustion-engine cars on the same line.

This means it can cope better with the uncertainty regarding the timeline of the transition from combustion engines to electric motors.

 “We are tackling the challenges in global markets head on, leveraging our strengths and implementing our long-term strategy,” chief executive Oliver Zipse said.

“We have made significant investments and have created the right operating framework to deliver continued success.”

BMW stands before an imminent change of leadership, with Milan Nedeljkovic, the company’s current head of production, set to take over from Zipse on May 14.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is set to travel to northern Norway on Thursday, with talks planned with Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store in the evening.

On Friday, the two leaders are scheduled to visit the Andoya Space Port in Andenes, which has provided facilities, among other things, for German and European space operations.

Merz and Store, together with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, are then to observe the Cold Response military exercise at the Bardufoss military base.

Some 1,600 members of German armed forces are taking part in the exercise in Norway and Finland, alongside tens of thousands of other soldiers from 13 other NATO countries, including the US.

The drill began on March 9 and is to run until March 19.

Merz’s visit is expected to focus on cooperation in the fields of space and arms but also on energy supply — a topic that has taken on added importance amid the Middle East war, which has led to stoppages of oil and gas transports.

Norway accounts for some 48% of Germany’s natural gas imports and 9% of its oil imports, with just 6.1% of crude oil coming from the Middle East last year.

A two-day strike by pilots from the airlines Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo and Lufthansa Cityline began on Thursday morning, with flights to and from Munich and Frankfurt set to be affected the most.

According to Lufthansa, however, at least half of scheduled flights will still run over the two days, with up to 60% of flights on long-haul routes expected to operate.

The pilots’ union behind the strike, Vereinigung Cockpit, has said the strike, which began at midnight, will be on a smaller scale than a walkout a month ago that also included cabin crew.

The head of the union, Andreas Pinheiro, said he expects around 300 flight cancellations per day, compared with what Lufthansa said were 800 flight cancellations during the previous walkout on February 12.

The airline has condemned the strike as an unnecessary escalation, highlighting its particularly negative impact at a time whenthe war in Iran has already affected passengers worldwide.   

Flights to the Middle East have, however, been excluded from the strike action.

The union, for its part, is calling for pay increases at the regional subsidiary CityLine and for  higher company pensions for pilots at Lufthansa Cargo and the core Lufthansa airline.
 

Guten Tag from the DW newsroom in Bonn!

You join us as air passengers in Germany are set for two days of travel disruption amid a strike by Lufthansa pilots, which comes at a time when world aviation is anyway in turmoil amid the war in the Middle East.

That conflict and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine are both likely to overshadow a visit by Chancellor Friedrich Merz to Norway, which is to focus on cooperation between Germany and the Nordic country on space projects, arms and energy.

Norway is particularly vital to Germany in the latter regard, with some 48% of Germany’s natural gas imports and 9% of its oil imports coming from the country.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul is to wrap up a tour of the Middle East prompted by the ongoing conflict there with a visit to NATO partner Turkey, which has also been targeted by Iranian missiles in the past few days.

Read on for more on these and other stories on Thursday, March 12.