David Crossland
Journalist and photographer based in Berlin
More than a feline: Bavarian town honours cat
David Crossland
Chicco, a Birman tomcat who became a celebrity in his Bavarian home town sleeping in cafés or roaming alleyways, has been honoured with a sculpture after his sudden death.The …
Thursday October 12 2023 | The Times
Hitler’s mountain lair opens new visitor centre to cope with demand
David Crossland
After the Second World War fast-growing trees were planted in the ruins of Adolf Hitler’s Alpine home to hide the remains of his legacy. The authorities wanted to …
Monday September 25 2023 | The Times
Right-wing views are on the rise in Germany
David Crossland
One in twelve Germans hold extremist right-wing views that include trivialising the Nazis, a poll has found.That proportion has risen sharply since the last survey of its type …
Thursday September 21 2023 | The Times
Germany bans neo-Nazi ‘elite’ group Hammerskins after dawn raids
David Crossland
… the existence of our people and a future for white children”, which was coined by DavidLane, a member of the terrorist group The Order. He died in prison in …
Tuesday September 19 2023 | The Times
Fake costumes plumb the depths at Oktoberfest, Bavarian prince says
David Crossland
Fake folk costumes from China are degrading the Oktoberfest, the great-grandson of the last Bavarian king has said.Traditionalists have often complained that those attending the world’s biggest …
Monday September 18 2023 | The Times
Concentration camp memorials defaced with swastikas and graffiti ‘almost daily’
David Crossland
Concentration camp memorial sites are being defaced with swastikas and other antisemitic graffiti almost daily as the rise of the hard right in Germany emboldens extremists, the director of Buchenwald …
Thursday September 7 2023 | The Times
Sluggish demand at Bayreuth Festival sounds warning for world of opera
David Crossland
For devotees of the works of Richard Wagner, Bayreuth in southern Germany is a place of pilgrimage where audiences can lose themselves for hours in the epic grandeur of his …
Tuesday July 25 2023 | The Times
Skulls exposed by Kakhovka dam explosion may be from Second World War
David Crossland
Germany’s war graves commission has said it is investigating reports that remains of German soldiers from the Second World War have been found on mudflats after the destruction of …
Wednesday June 14 2023 | The Times
World’s only intact Roman body armour to go on display for the first time
David Crossland
The world’s oldest and only intact Roman body armour, believed to have been worn by a legionary sacrificed by triumphant Germanic warriors, is to go on display for the …
Thursday June 8 2023 | The Times
Germany charges AfD politician with using Nazi slogan in speech
David Crossland
A leading member of Germany’s radical right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has been charged with using a banned slogan employed by Nazi stormtroopers.Prosecutors are investigating Björn …
Tuesday June 6 2023 | The Times
I’m no antisemite, tearful Roger Waters tells protesters
David Crossland
Roger Waters, the Pink Floyd co-founder, burst into tears during a concert in Germany after telling the audience he was not an antisemite amid growing controversy surrounding his European …
Tuesday May 30 2023 | The Times
Eurovision 2023: Stars call for contest boycott after Germany’s entry flops
David Crossland
In the aftermath of another poor showing at the Eurovision Song Contest there were mild grumblings in Britain and one commentator even raised the question of whether the United Kingdom …
Monday May 15 2023 | The Times
Mad King Ludwig’s fairytale palace pushes for Unesco recognition
David Crossland
Neuschwanstein Castle, the fairytale palace built by Bavaria’s “Mad” King Ludwig, is to become a Unesco world heritage site under a government plan that has upset the locals.Bavaria …
Thursday May 11 2023 | The Times
Angela Merkel has not earned leadership award, say German historians
David Crossland, Berlin
An award recognising Angela Merkel as one of postwar Germany’s greatest leaders has caused an outcry, with historians claiming she has done little to deserve the country’s highest …
Monday April 17 2023 | The Times
Carlos the Jackal ‘betrayed by CIA informer in his own ranks’
David Crossland
Four years before he vanished on a ferry in the Mediterranean, Bruno Breguet walked into a US embassy offering information on his paymaster, a Venezuelan called Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, but …
Monday March 13 2023 | The Times
All Quiet on the Western Front denounced as war kitsch
David Crossland, Berlin
All Quiet on the Western Front, the Bafta-winning anti-war epic that is tipped to sweep the Oscars, has been decried as “war kitsch” by critics in Germany.The …
Monday February 20 2023 | The Times
Boris Becker: German critics want to crucify me
David Crossland, Berlin
Boris Becker has taken on the German media over coverage of his apparently luxurious lifestyle, accusing his countrymen of trying to “crucify” him.Wearing a pinstriped suit and white rollneck …
Monday February 20 2023 | The Times
German hotel sues couple who stayed for two years without paying
David Crossland, Berlin
The palatial Nassauer Hof hotel in Wiesbaden has described itself as the grande dame of the German luxury hotel industry since 1813, welcoming visitors including the Dalai Lama, Audrey Hepburn …
Monday February 20 2023 | The Times
Winterberg tunnel: Germany will not recover First World War soldiers
David Crossland, Berlin
Germany has decided not to recover the remains of more than 200 German soldiers known to be lying in a recently discovered tunnel in northeastern France, and will instead consecrate …
Thursday February 9 2023 | The Times
‘Terror granny’ accused of plotting German coup
David Crossland, Berlin
Members of a far-right group headed by a 75-year-old woman face charges of high treason for allegedly planning to kidnap the health minister and overthrow the government …
Tuesday January 24 2023 | The Times
Hitler’s horses on display at exhibition of ‘toxic’ monuments at Berlin’s Spandau museum
David Crossland, Berlin
Two majestic bronze horses that once adorned Hitler’s Reich Chancellery went on show in a Berlin museum of “toxic” monuments this week, amid calls for the country to deal …
Friday January 13 2023 | The Times
Barenboim bows out of Berlin State Opera as health declines
David Crossland, Berlin
Daniel Barenboim, the celebrated pianist and conductor, is stepping down as general music director of the Berlin State Opera after more than 30 years.Barenboim, 80, announced in October he …
Friday January 6 2023 | The Times
Nazi top trumps card game featuring Hitler stolen from a German museum
David Crossland
A rare “Führer Quartets” card game featuring Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler and other senior Nazi leaders has been stolen from a palace in eastern Germany, prompting the museum to put …
Friday January 6 2023 | The Times
Fire alarm fetishist thought to be behind German hotel blazes
David Crossland, Berlin
A fire alarm fetishist has been linked to a string of blazes in German hotels, prompting claims about an arsonist on the run who is aroused by blaring sirens and …
Friday January 6 2023 | The Times
Dinner for One: Germans want the same procedure as last New Year’s Eve
David Crossland, Berlin
No one quite knows why the 18-minute sketch Dinner for One by two English actors has attracted millions of television viewers in Germany on New Year’s Eve for …
Friday December 30 2022 | The Times
Iron Chancellor’s family fire back after removal of Bismarck name
David Crossland, Berlin
The descendants of Otto von Bismarck, the “Iron Chancellor” who united Germany under Prussian rule and turned it into a European powerhouse, have protested against a decision to drop his …
Thursday December 29 2022 | The Times
Doner dethrones currywurst in battle of German fast food
David Crossland, Berlin
It has its own 1980s song, a play, a museum dedicated to it, an energy drink and a commemorative coin. Even a former German chancellor campaigned for its survival.But …
Thursday December 29 2022 | The Times
Officials have a mountain to climb to shut down ‘Germany’s highest brewery’
David Crossland, Berlin
A small brewery on top of a Bavarian mountain has taken on German officialdom and could win — because it controls a cable car that inspectors would need to reach it …
Wednesday December 28 2022 | The Times
Germany’s AfD accused of fuelling right-wing coup attempt
David Crossland, Berlin
Germany’s right-wing populists have been accused of fuelling the “fantasies” of conspiracy theorists who plotted to overthrow the government.The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party faces growing condemnation …
Thursday December 8 2022 | The Times
Judge among far-right plotters arrested by German police over Reichstag coup
David Crossland, Berlin
Soldiers, a right-wing judge and an aristocrat with pretensions to become Germany’s new leader were arrested yesterday on suspicion of plotting to storm the Reichstag and overthrow the …
Thursday December 8 2022 | The Times
Nazi typist sorry but doesn’t accept guilt
David Crossland, Berlin
A 97-year-old Nazi secretary accused of having a role in the murder of 11,380 people at the Stutthof concentration camp, broke her silence this week as her …
Wednesday December 7 2022 | The Times
Viktor Orban angers neighbours with ‘Greater Hungary’ football scarf
David Crossland
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, has angered his country’s neighbours by wearing a scarf featuring a map of pre-World War One “Greater Hungary”, including parts of Austria …
Wednesday November 23 2022 | The Times
Kyiv faces ‘worst winter since Second World War’, mayor warns
David Crossland,
The Ukrainian capital faces its “worst winter since the Second World War”, the mayor of Kyiv has warned, as President Zelensky announced the creation of 4,000 centres to provide …
Wednesday November 23 2022 | The Times
Revealed, site of battle that shook Rome in AD9
David Crossland, Berlin
… of this area.”To Germans, the excavation at Kalkriese is more than archaeological detective work (David Crossland writes).The battle is part of their centuries-long quest for a national …
Monday November 21 2022 | The Times
‘Tourist trap’ Checkpoint Charlie, Cold War icon of Berlin, is set for redevelopment
David Crossland, Berlin
The authorities in Berlin have announced plans to redevelop Checkpoint Charlie amid warnings that the Cold War site is deteriorating into a tacky tourist trap.More than three decades after …
Tuesday November 1 2022 | The Times
New battle to put names to unknown soldiers’ faces
David Crossland, Vignacourt
With distant eyes, strained smiles and the mud of the trenches still on their boots, they posed for souvenir photos behind the First World War front lines in the French …
Monday October 31 2022 | The Times
Germany’s plan to legalise cannabis ‘a model for Europe’
David Crossland, Berlin
Germany’s health minister has presented a plan for the “most liberal legalisation of cannabis in Europe” to the cabinet of Olaf Scholz. Karl Lauterbach said Germany could be a …
Wednesday October 26 2022 | The Times
Swedish archaeologists shore up identity of lost warship
David Crossland
Swedish archaeologists have discovered the 17th-century warship Applet (the Apple), the sister ship to the Vasa, which was raised more than 60 years ago.Unlike the top-heavy Vasa …
Tuesday October 25 2022 | The Times
£160,000 to cruise the North Pole in a luxury airship
David Crossland
A Swedish company plans to revive the century-old tradition of luxury airship travel by launching a 36-hour round trip service to the North Pole from Norway.The tickets …
Friday September 23 2022 | The Times
Ban meat-eating men from sex, animal rights group urges
David Crossland, Berlin
Men who eat meat should be banned from having sex, the animal rights group Peta has demanded, claiming that devouring sausages and schnitzel is a symptom of “toxic masculinity” which …
Wednesday September 21 2022 | The Times
German charities investigate claims of racist ambulance crews
David Crossland, Berlin
Two Christian relief agencies in Germany have promised to investigate allegations of racism and extreme right-wing attitudes among their ambulance crews after a newspaper reported that ethnic Germans got …
Tuesday September 20 2022 | The Times
Heating costs ‘could mean exotic snakes and spiders are abandoned’
David Crossland, Berlin
An animal shelter in Germany has warned that surging energy prices could lead to snakes, lizards and tarantulas being abandoned this winter after four baby royal pythons were found outside …
Tuesday September 20 2022 | The Times
Lockdown weight gain forces Oktoberfest tailors to tinker
David Crossland
Tailors in Munich have been inundated with requests to enlarge dirndls for those who put on weight during the pandemic as the country gears up for Oktoberfest.The world’s …
Tuesday September 13 2022 | The Times
Germany twists Unesco’s arm to get pretzels listed
David Crossland, Berlin
Germany wants to enshrine the pretzel as a national treasure by having it added to the United Nations’ “intangible cultural heritage” list, alongside Neapolitan pizza, Belgian beer and French multi …
Monday August 29 2022 | The Times
German prison camp guard charged with war crimes over murder of Soviet soldiers
David Crossland, Berlin
Prosecutors in Germany have broken new ground by indicting a former Wehrmacht soldier who manned watchtowers in a prisoner of war camp in the Second World War in what could …
Tuesday August 16 2022 | The Times
Hour is getting late to save Berlin Wall watchtower
David Crossland, Berlin
It once overlooked the Iron Curtain, with its concrete barriers, spikes and an electric fence to stop anyone trying to escape. Now the last watchtower of its kind along the …
Friday August 12 2022 | The Times
Neuschwanstein Castle crowned with new throne room
David Crossland, Berlin
The gilded Throne Hall of Neuschwanstein Castle, the fairytale palace built by Bavaria’s “Mad” King Ludwig II in the 19th century, has returned to its former splendour following a …
Friday August 5 2022 | The Times
Austrian doctor hounded to death by vicious antivax hate campaign
David Crossland, Berlin
An Austrian doctor who encouraged people to get jabbed has become a tragic martyr in the fight against online hate after committing suicide in her surgery following months of death …
Friday August 5 2022 | The Times
Putin wants an end to Ukraine war, says his old friend Gerhard Schröder
David Crossland, Berlin
The former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, vilified across Germany for his personal friendship with President Putin, has said that Russia is hoping to find a solution to the war in Ukraine …
Wednesday August 3 2022 | The Times
‘Sexist’ party hit Layla gets the elbow from German beer festivals
David Crossland, Berlin
A chart-topping song about a “sexy brothel mama” has triggered a sexism row in Germany after it was banned from summer beer festivals even though drinkers are clamouring to …
Wednesday August 3 2022 | The Times
Seeking justice at last for the blond, blue-eyed babies stolen by the Nazis
David Crossland, Berlin
Now 80 years old, Haymo Heinrich Heyder was a blond, blue-eyed baby called Vili Gorucan when the SS took him from his mother in occupied Yugoslavia in 1942 during …
Saturday June 11 2022 | The Sunday Times
