Latest from Germany

Stories and analysis from The Northern Express Herald.

Germans flock to Hobbit land

Germany has overtaken Japan to become NZ's fifth-biggest source of tourists and the royal visit has increased interest in other key markets.

Tate criticised for painting stolen by Nazis

The Tate has been ordered to return a valuable Constable painting and criticised for failing to adequately research its background after it emerged the work was looted during the Second World War.

War game tests world leaders

David Cameron played a "nukes on the loose" war game with Barack Obama, Angela Merkel and other world leaders to see how they would cope with a terrorist nuclear attack, it has emerged.

Bar/fly: Munich

Jamie Morton learns the definition of super-sizing in Munich's leafy beer gardens.

Cow farts spark explosion in Germany

Flatulence from 90 cows in a German barn sparked a methane gas explosion that damaged the building and left one cow slightly injured with burns, police said.

Claims on German art trove face legal hurdles

When German tax authorities entered the home of a recluse collector and found a trove of art that could include works stolen by the Nazis, they stepped into a legal quagmire - one that may end up being resolved by politics as much as the law.

German stolen art website crashes due to demand

A website featuring artworks from among a massive trove discovered in a Munich apartment crashed because of heavy traffic, officials said, as a handful of potential heirs came forward to claim art possibly looted by the Nazis.

Art hoard held unknown Chagall, Matisse

It started with a routine check by German tax inspectors - and resulted in the discovery of an art hoard so vast and spectacular that no one yet knows how the story truly ends.

German please explain to Obama

The White House was scrambling to head off a major diplomatic incident after the German Government said it had received information that US spies may have tapped Chancellor Angela Merkel's personal mobile phone for years.

What do you do with a dead Nazi?

Former SS captain Erich Priebke participated in one of the worst massacres of German-occupied Italy. Now he's died - and no one wants to bury him.