The world is full of unexploded bombs – DW – 06/04/2025

DW3 days ago

Three bombs dating back to World War II were defused in Cologne this week. Evacuations to allow ordnance disposal experts to defuse bombs are a frequent occurrence in Germany, as well as all over the world.
Fifteen couples had been looking forward to the special moment when they would say "I do" for weeks. But their weddings at Cologne's historic town hall on June 4 were cancelled, since the building was right in the middle of an evacuation zone.
But they were still able to get married, in a district town hall instead.
Three bombs left over from World War II were responsible for the massive evacuation, the biggest since 1945. They were found during preparations for construction work on the city's Deutz Bridge. The US-made bombs — one 100-pound (45-kilogram) and two 200-pound bombs — both had impact fuses and could not be moved for safety reasons. They had to be defused on site, and thus it was necessary to evacuate several districts of the city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany.
Thousands evacuated
Around 20,500 people had to leave their homes on Wednesday. Hospitals and retirement homes were evacuated, with people being moved to other facilities. Almost 60 hotels shut down, with guests being accommodated elsewhere.
Bomb disposal is a mammoth logistical task, but Germany is very familiar with it. More than 1,600 bombs were defused last year in North Rhine-Westphalia alone. As construction work increases in the city, for example to put in new fiber optic cables, renovate bridges or improve the road network, excavations are bringing to light unexploded aerial ordnance that dates back to the 1930s and '40s.
Major problem in Hamburg, Verdun, Poland
Metropolitan regions such as Hamburg and Berlin were some of the main targets of Allied bombing during World War II. These places also saw civilian infrastructure targeted and so are particularly affected. In addition to the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg is heavily contaminated. In 2024, explosive ordnance clearers found 90 mines, 48,000 grenades, 500 firebombs and 450 bombs weighing more than 11 pounds, as well as around 330,000 shells.
The problem is also omnipresent in many neighboring countries. Unexploded ordnance from the two world wars is often found in France and Belgium, and particularly from World War I in the regions of Verdun and the Somme. Three years ago, the drought in Italy's Po Valley revealed unexploded bombs. In the UK in 2021, a German 2,200-pound aerial bomb was detonated in a controlled explosion in the southwestern city of Exeter and more than 250 buildings were damaged.
The situation in Poland and the Czech Republic, where there are tons of unexploded ordnance from the two world wars in the ground, is also critical. In 2020, a 5-ton British-made Tallboy bomb was defused in the northwestern Polish town of Swinoujscie. Recently, there have even been fatal accidents in the Czech Republic.
And in the Balkans, lives are in danger from unexploded ordnance that dates back to the wars of the 1990s and evacuations are a frequent occurrence.
Deadly hazards in Vietnam, Laos, Gaza
On the world's other continents, the situation is also critical. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, people continue to be killed by US-made cluster bombs that were used in the 1960s and '70s. According to the UN, 80 million unexploded ordnances remain in the ground in Laos, from 500,000 US attacks conducted covertly between 1964 and 1973.
There are also tons of unexploded ordnance in Syria and Iraq, where masses of people are at risk of being killed or wounded. In neither country have ordnance disposal structures been developed sufficiently.
The UN says that unexploded ordnance in the war-torn Palestinian territory of Gaza has already left behind deadly hazards, even as Israel continues to bomb the strip.
Cluster bombs remain a deadly hazard in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia Image: Sebastian Bozada/dpa/picture alliance
A quarter of Ukraine contaminated
The situation in Ukraine is dramatic. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of 2022, about a quarter of the country is thought to be contaminated with mines, cluster bombs and other explosive devices.
Over half a million explosive devices have already been defused, but millions more remain. The humanitarian and economic consequences are enormous: hundreds of civilians have died, large areas of agricultural land are unusable, and crop failures are exacerbating the economic crisis.
When the war ends, demining will be one of the tasks of the coming years.
The munition searchers combing North Sea sands for WWII duds ,
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German federal states bear brunt of costs
In Germany, where most of the bombs that are defused are from World War II and were made by the Allies, it is the federal states that bear the majority of the costs of their disposal. It is the German state that is responsible for German-made bombs going back to the era of the German Reich (1871 – 1945). Attempts to make it responsible for all the unexploded bombs in Germany have so far been unsuccessful. Last year, explosive ordnance disposal cost North Rhine-Westphalia €20 million ($23 million).
While the costs rise, the technology used for bomb disposal has evolved. While in the 1990s, clearers still used their own hands, hammers, chisels and water pump pliers, today abrasive waterjet cutting is used to neutralize explosive devices. A waterjet cutter that is operated at a safe distance can cut through the explosive device and remove its fuse.
Experts believe that there are tens of thousands of unexploded explosive devices, weighing up to 100,000 tons, in Germany alone.
Cologne residents were forced to leave their homes in the biggest evacuation of the city since 1945 Image: Björn Kietzmann/DW
Even though modern probing and detection techniques and digitized aerial photographs can help to minimize the risk, every bomb disposal operation is a race against time. The older a bomb is, the greater the risk of corrosion and explosion. It is also more difficult to defuse an older bomb because of the chemical changes that occur over time inside the bomb itself, between the casing and the fuse.
The defusing of the three bombs in Cologne is not just an operation that has disrupted weddings and people's daily routines but it bears witness once again to the destruction of war, whether in Germany or France, Vietnam or Laos, Syria, Ukraine or Gaza.
This article was translated from German.

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Stymied French politicians turn to sins of the past – DW – 06/07/2025

9 hours ago

Stymied French politicians turn to sins of the past – DW – 06/07/2025

Amid parliamentary deadlock, the politics of remembrance has gained momentum in France. Three new initiatives attempt to recognize and heal historical injustices — at least symbolically. On Thursday, two years after France's controversial retirement age increase, the National Assembly voted to withdraw the reform. While the news was politically explosive because the far-right National Rally helped the left-wing opposition gain a majority in the vote, the decision hasn't yielded any actual legal results. The situation reflects the country's ongoing failure to address structural reforms since the parliamentary elections last summer, which left the government won without an absolute majority. But in the area of remembrance policy there has been significant movement. In the same week as the toothless retirement resolution, parliamentarians adopted three texts that reclassify historical events or offer the prospect of reparations. Alfred Dreyfus, shown here in the 1930s, is considered a national hero by many French people today Image: epa/AFP/dpa/picture alliance Alfred Dreyfus posthumously promoted On June 2, the French parliament voted unanimously to posthumously appoint Alfred Dreyfus to the rank of brigadier general. The Jewish officer was wrongly accused of high treason in 1894, based on falsified evidence that he revealed military secrets to the German embassy in Paris. Dreyfus subsequently spent four years in the notorious Devil's Island penal colony off the coast of French Guiana. The Franco-German dimension of the case had explosive foreign policy implications even then. The suspect's Jewish origins and his family background in the Alsace-Lorraine region, which came under German rule after the Franco-Prussian War, and strained relations with Germany, made him an ideal target for the nationalist mistrust many French people harbored at the time. Writer Émile Zola famously sided with Dreyfus in his essay "J'accuse…!", which played a critical role in the officer's exoneration and military rehabilitation in 1906. Nevertheless, after serving in the First World War as a lieutenant colonel, Dreyfus was only reinstated at a lower rank. This posthumous promotion for Dreyfus still has to pass the Senate. Alsatian MP Charles Sitzenstuhl, a member of French President Emmanuel Macron's center-right Renaissance Party, who introduced the initiative, offered a link to the present as a warning: "The anti-Semitism that plagued Alfred Dreyfus is not a thing of the distant past," he said. In June 1954, Indochinese conscripts hastily erect new fortifications for French colonial forces in Phu Ly, south of Hanoi, Vietnam Image: AP/picture alliance Recognizing returnees from Indochina Just one day after the Dreyfus vote, the National Assembly also passed a law to recognize and compensate former returnees from French Indochina after the colonial rule of territories including Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia ended in 1954. Around 44,000 people were repatriated to France, among them colonial officials, soldiers and their families, the descendants of French colonizers and local women, as well as local collaborators. Between 4,000 to 6,000 returnees ended up in temporary camps, which were often outfitted with wooden barracks that lacked heating and plumbing. Returnees were also subject to degrading policies that included bans on going out and owning cars or other luxury goods. The new law introduced by the left-wing Socialist Party now provides for financial support based on someone's length of stay in the camps. It is estimated that up to 1,600 people could claim compensation. Haiti is one of the world's poorest countries today Image: Java Reparations for Haiti? On June 5, the Assembly adopted a resolution addressing a "double debt" to Haiti that goes back to 1825. That was the year that France forced Haiti, which had declared independence in 1804, to pay compensation of 150 million gold francs. This was intended as a recognition of independence that would also compensate for the loss of French colonial possessions, including income from slaves. Haiti was forced to settle this "independence debt" over decades — a considerable economic burden that contributed to long-term poverty and instability on the island. The resolution, initiated by the Communist Party, calls for recognition, repayment and reparations for Haiti. But the text does not include concrete political steps or financial agreements. Nevertheless, the far-right National Rally voted against it. The "Senegalese riflemen," or "tirailleurs sénégalais," were a colonial infantry recruited by the French army during the First World War Image: The Print Collector/Heritage-Images/picture alliance A history of remembering Remembrance politics have some tradition in France. In 2001, the "Taubira" law, named after the parliamentarian who introduced it, recognized the slave trade and practice of slavery as crimes against humanity. The topic has been a part of school curricula in France ever since. In October 2006, the National Assembly passed a bill to criminalize the denial of the Armenian genocide of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire with a year in prison or fine of €45,000 ($51,300). The bill never came into force after it failed to pass in the Senate, and was followed by a similarly doomed initiative introduced under President Nicolas Sarkozy. That draft law passed both chambers of parliament, but was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Council in February 2012, which said that it amounted to unlawful interference with freedom of expression and research. Another example is the treatment of the so-called "Senegalese riflemen," the colonial soldiers from Africa who fought for France in the two world wars. For decades, many received significantly lower pensions than their French comrades, especially if they lived outside of France after decolonization. It was not until 2009 that President Sarkozy decreed an equalization of pension benefits, a step that held great symbolic significance. Social maturity or empty gestures? The latest spike in such initiatives has been met with mixed interpretations by political scientists. Some experts see the willingness to take historical responsibility as a form of social maturity. But others point out that in a politically paralyzed legislature, symbolic initiatives are easier to pass than structural reforms in areas such as pensions, education or the budget. This article was originally written in German.

German govt to ask EU court to rule on migrant turnbacks – DW – 06/07/2025

10 hours ago

German govt to ask EU court to rule on migrant turnbacks – DW – 06/07/2025

06/07/2025 June 7, 2025 German interior to seek EU verdict on border turnbacks Germany's Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the German government would seek a ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on the legality of migrant turnbacks at the border. Dobrindt's comments to the Funke media group follow a ruling by a court in Berlin on Monday that the refusal to allow three Somali nationals to enter last month was unlawful. The court ruled that on May 9, border guards failed to initiate proper asylum procedures and returned the trio to Poland. According to the court, Germany should have applied the European Union's so-called Dublin Regulation, establishing which country is responsible for the asylum claim of the migrants, before they were sent back. The Dublin rule specifies which EU state should process an asylum application, partly to prevent arrivals from making claims in wealthier countries rather than the first EU nation that they entered. Dobrindt said the government would provide its rationale for invoking Article 72 — a special clause under EU law that permits exceptions to the Dublin rule in emergencies. "We will submit sufficient justification, but the European Court of Justice should decide on the matter," Dobrindt said, adding: "I am convinced that our actions are in line with European law." Dobrindt insisted that Germany had to crack down on illegal migration, which he said would prevent the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party from pushing more radical solutions. German Chancellor Merz rejects criticism of border controls To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Germany introduced tougher border checks on May 7, including new rules allowing asylum seekers to be turned away at the border for the first time. In the first days of the new rule, 19 people who sought asylum in Germany were denied entry, along with nearly 300 other migrants, local media reported. Following this week's court ruling, the cabinet approved even stricter measures.

Germany: Car drives into crowd in Passau – DW – 06/07/2025