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Germany news: Dead humpback whale off Denmark is 'Timmy,' who spent weeks stranded in Baltic Sea

Divers have confirmed that a dead humpback whale spotted off Denmark is the same creature that spent weeks beached off Germany's Baltic coast. Meanwhile, it's relegation decision day in the Bundesliga. DW has more. Read on here for our roundup of the top headlines from and about Germany  on Saturday, May 16, 2026: It's full time around the grounds in the last set of Bundesliga fixtures this season.  And Wolfsburg fans live to fight another day, while Heidenheim and St. Pauli supporters will have to brace themselves for second-division football next season.  Wolfsburg beat St. Pauli 3-1 in Hamburg, meaning that they finish the season 16th and will compete in the relegation playoff against the third-placed team from the 2. Bundesliga.  Heidenheim lost 2-0 at home against Mainz, so they finish last in the league, behind St. Pauli on goal difference.  At the other end of the table, Stuttgart's 2-2 draw in Frankfurt means that they finish the season in fourth and so qualify for the Champions League. Hoffenheim gave Stuttgart a helping hand, going down 4-0 against Borussia Mönchengladbach and so failing to mount a challenge for fourth place. Divers have been able to confirm that the deceased humpback whale spotted off the Danish coast is the creature that came to be nicknamed "Timmy" as it spent more than a month stranded off the northern German coastline in the Baltic sea.  Denmark's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) confirmed the news on Saturday.  The likelihood that the whale was the stricken humpback that was severely ailing by the time it was towed from the German coastline already seemed high. Animal protection groups had warned that the whale's long-term survival chances were slim.  To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video An initial examination on Friday had not been able to spot a tracking device that had been attached to "Timmy" by rescuers because of the dead whale's position in the water. But on Saturday divers were able to take a picture of the animal's dorsal fin.  "Conditions today made it possible for a local employee from the Danish Nature Agency to locate and retrieve an attached tracking device that was still fastened to the whale's back," Jane Hansen, division head at the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, said in a statement to the AFP news agency.  "The position and appearance of the device confirm that this is the same whale that had previously been observed and handled in German waters." The state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 's environment minister, Till Backhaus, thanked Danish authorities for their assistance in identifying the whale. He also again defended his decision, defying the advice of some of his state's expert marine life groups, to attempt the private rescue operation.  He said it was sad that the whale had not been able to "seize its slim chance" at survival.  "I consider it completely human to make use of even the slimmest of chances, when a life is at stake. Whoever wishes to criticize that may do so," Backhaus, who at the time had boasted of how the controversial rescue mission had "saved" the creature, said. "It was always about weighing the balance between which option was the worst: Waiting for the certain death of the animal as it suffered, or giving him a last chance and exposing him to potential stress in the process," Backhaus asserted. It's half time in the Bundesliga action and at least as it stands, it would be Heidenheim and St. Pauli facing automatic relegation after the matches.  Here are the scores from around the grounds:  If the scores stayed the same, Heidenheim would finish bottom, behind St. Pauli, with Wolfsburg 16th and granted the chance to compete in the relegation playoff rather than going straight down to the 2. Bundesliga. Meanwhile, Stuttgart currently have the upper hand in the battle for fourth place and the last Champions League spot, thanks to their lead in Frankfurt and Borussia Mönchengladbach's lead over Hoffenheim.  A senior member of the Social Democrat (SPD) junion coalition partners has warned against confusing the Donald Trump administration with the US as a whole after critical comments from Chancellor Friedrich Merz attracted headlines in German and English on Friday .  "The Trump government is undoubtedly damaging the reputation of the US in the world, there are considerable doubts in the reliability of the US these days," the SPD's Dirk Wiese told the German dpa news agency on Saturday. "But — the US is not just Trump. It is an amazing country."  Wiese was speaking a day after Merz told a Catholic event in Würzburg that "I would not recommend to my children today to travel to the US to be educated and to work there." The chancellor said that while he had great admiration for the US, this had not grown of late. He cited what he termed a changing "social climate" as well as reduced job opportunities, even for highly qualified youngsters.  Wiese said it was important to recall that resistance to and criticism of the Trump administration was also growing in the US, "even from within his own ranks."  "What's more, despite Trump's moods, the US still guarantees our security. In short: relations are currently massively strained, but it's worth sticking by them and continuing to invest in them," Wiese said.  Critical comments from Merz about the US war on Iran and its economic consequences and an apparent lack of strategy in recent weeks seemed to lead or contribute to Trump repeatedly calling out the German leader in his social media tirades. The US also subsequently announced plans to draw down its troop presence in Europe , particularly in Germany. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The biggest endurance race of the year in Germany has begun — and this year it has a very special guest competing.  Four-time Formula 1 world champion Max Verstappen is among the favorites at the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring race in western Germany.  The race is a grueling full day's action around the roughly 25-kilometer (roughly 15-mile) Nürburgring Nordschleife and stadium section circuit. There's more than 150 corners in each lap. There's a high chance of rain on the perilous circuit between now and 3 p.m. local time (1300 GMT) on Sunday.  Verstappen's #3 Mercedes started 4th on the grid and is considered one of the main contenders for overall victory.  The race started on time, just a few seconds after the stroke of 3 p.m. — with the massive field of 161 cars navigating the first few corners without major accidents or incidents. It's the 34th and final round of Bundesliga matches this Saturday afternoon.  With Bayern Munich already crowned champions , and the top 3 places in the standings decided, much of the attention has turned to the relegation battle.  Three teams are still in danger of relegation, and two of them will be automatically relegated this afternoon. The third will get a chance to fight for their survival in the relegation playoff against the third-placed team from the 2. Bundesliga.  Wolfsburg, Heidenheim and St. Pauli are at risk of the drop. All of them have 26 points, but Wolfsburg has the advantage of the best goal difference.  Wolfsburg and St. Pauli will square off head to head. Heidenheim, meanwhile, host 10th-placed Mainz, who are playing for little more than pride at this stage.  At the other end of the table, Stuttgart, Hoffenheim and Bayer Leverkusen are all in with a theoretical shot of clinching the fourth and final spot in next season's Champions League.  The games all kick off in just over half an hour, at 15:30 local time. We'll let you know how it all plays out.  Some 1,000 people are registered to take part in a rally in the German capital on Saturday to mark Nakba Day , which commemorates the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians  in 1948 amid the foundation of the modern-day state of Israel. The rally in Berlin's Kreuzberg district is to take place under the motto "End the Occupation of Palestine — 78 years Al Nakba." An equal number of police are to be deployed. A counterprotest by the group Zionist Alliance Berlin has also been announced under the title "No Space for Antisemitism, No Tolerance for the Glorification of Terrorism" in the same district at the same time. Protests in 2022 and 2023 around Nakba Day, which is normally commemorated on May 15 each year, were banned by police for fear of violence . Such violence was indeed seen at the rally in 2025, during which several police officers were injured and 56 people were arrested. "Nakba" is the Arabic word for "catastrophe." Describing the events of 1948 in terms of a "Nakba" has been described by some Jewish bodies as antisemitic. The CEO of one of Germany's top carmakers, Mercedes-Benz, has said the company would be ready to help with arms production if the situation demanded it. "The world has become a more unpredictable place, and I think it is absolutely clear that Europe needs to increase its defense profile," Ola Källenius told US daily The Wall Street Journal on Friday. "Should we be able to play a positive role in that, we would be willing to do so," he added. He said that the arms sector would only make up a small part of the company's activities in comparison to its vehicle manufacturing operations, but that it could become a growing niche that contributed to the overall business. According to the Reuters news agency, the current boom in military expenditure in Europe could be leading other carmakers to also consider branching out into the defense sector. At the end of April, it reported that German carmaker Volkswagen was currently negotiating with the Israeli arms manufacturer Rafael Advanced Systems on possibly adapting its Osnabrück site to the production of missile-defense systems. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, has urged harsher penalties for antisemitic offenses, including the possible deportation of non-German nationals in the case of violent crimes. His remarks come amid a  rising rate of antisemitic incidents  in the country in recent years. Schuster told the weekly Welt am Sonntag  he believed more severe punishments were appropriate in cases of crimes such as denying Israel's right to exist. He criticized what he sees as excessive leniency toward offenders, saying there was sometimes more understanding for their point of view than for the victims. Schuster also said that it was legitimate "to consider and possibly use" the measure of deportation for  foreign offenders who had physically endangered others. "The state must be in the position to protect its citizens," he said, adding, however, that such measures had to be very carefully weighed up in view of the fact that "the definition of an antisemitic offense is broad." Schuster said, however, that right-wing extremist forms of antisemitism still found more of an echo within the German majority population than antisemitism with an Islamist motivation, but that neither form should be relativized. "For those affected, it makes no difference whether the threat comes from right, left or Islamist circles. It is the simultaneity and the interaction of these different streams that make the situation so difficult today," he said. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The Kremlin's envoy for Russia's business relations with other countries, Kirill Dmitriev, has hailed the results of a survey showing high popularity ratings for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. "The AfD became HOPE for the Germans," he wrote on X as a comment to a posting by AfD co-leader Alice Weidel with the survey results. Dmitriev is a close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has previously voiced his backing for the AfD, which has often come under fire for its friendly attitude to Moscow despite Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. The anti-immigration AfD has received by far the highest popularity ratings of all parties in the eastern states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Saxony-Anhalt , where elections are to be held in September. However, it currently seems unlikely to find any coalition partners to form a government in either state, even if it does win a majority of votes. Most parties in the country have pledged not to work with the AfD, an approach known in Germany as the  Brandmauer , or  "firewall" against the far-right . The party has come under intense scrutiny from Germany's BfV domestic intelligence agency for extremist tendencies, with local chapters in several states already classed as confirmed cases of right-wing extremism. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Some 47% of people in Germany would like to see an end to the current governing coalition of Chancellor Friedrich Merz 's conservative bloc and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), a survey has shown. The YouGov survey conducted for the weekly Welt am Sonntag  showed that 38% would like new elections after the coalition's dissolution, while 9% would want a minority government of Merz's Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) to stay at the helm. Altogether, 30% of respondents are in favor of the coalition continuing, with 24% undecided or responding with "don't know." The survey shows a divide in popularity ratings for the coalition between eastern and western German states, with 46% of people in eastern Germany wanting its end as compared with 35% in western Germany. Just 22% in eastern Germany wanted the coalition, which took office in May last year, to stay on, compared with 31% in western Germany. Merz, who himself has received popularity ratings as low as 16% in recent polls, admitted on Friday that the coalition could do with fewer internal disputes. "Maybe we are currently fighting a bit too much and are not delivering enough results. That may be possible," he told an audience at the 104th German Catholic Day in the southern city of Würzburg. Merz's government have struggled to find common ground  on a number of issues, including on social security and labor reforms, energy policy and, most recently, ways to cushion consumers from spiralling costs due to the Iran war . To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The DW newsroom in Bonn says guten Tag and willkommen  to its readers at the start of this spring weekend. The coalition government is, admittedly, unlikely to be feeling any of the joyous emotions normally associated with the season amid its falling popularity ratings. We look at a survey showing that almost half of people in Germany would, in fact, rather not have it lead the country. The increasingly popular far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) might well be basking in the praise it has just received from a Kremlin envoy, however. And in an interesting reflection of the current global security situation, one of the country's top carmakers has said it might be ready to turn to producing arms rather than luxury limousines if the situation requires it. You can read more about these and other stories making headlines in Germany in this blog.