Germany in January 2026: the most important developments in security
Germany in January 2026 saw police raid Deutsche Bank offices on 28 January as part of a money laundering investigation, the most widely reported security story of the month.
Espionage and sabotage cases linked to Russia ran through the month. Prosecutors charged two men with planning explosive attacks on behalf of Russia, and Ukrainians were reported indicted in an alleged Russian-linked parcel bomb plot. A woman was arrested in Berlin in a Russian spy case, and on 22 January Germany expelled a Russian diplomat over espionage allegations. Reform proposals were presented for the foreign intelligence service, the BND.
At home, a group claimed responsibility for an arson attack on Berlin's power grid in early January, and investigators focused on an online network. A suspect was charged over a knife attack in Berlin involving a Star of David. Police in Frankfurt arrested dozens of suspects in an operation against drug dealers, and police prevented an attack on Chancellor Friedrich Merz's private plane before any damage occurred.
The armed forces were in the news as well. Germany and France announced plans to send troops to Greenland, and German soldiers went there for a training mission; Bild later reported that the servicemen were suddenly ordered to leave. An elite paratrooper unit came under investigation after media reports of drug use, harassment and Nazi salutes, and the army took its first action in response. Germany and India agreed to closer defence industry cooperation, and France was reported to be uneasy about German rearmament. On 29 January, as the EU moved to list Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation, Germany warned of rapid action.
by WorldBrief & Maksim Micheliov | AI-generated summary
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