Despite its dark past, this visitor-friendly city in former East Germany takes its history very seriously, as Mathew Dearnaley finds out.

The Christchurch child diagnosed with measles has passed the infectious period and has been given the green light to return to preschool, with no secondary cases being reported to health authorities.

New measles outbreaks are the result of New Zealand’s historically low vaccination rates, says immunisation expert Dr Nikki Turner.

Hundreds of thousands of German women were raped by British, American and French soldiers after the end of the Second World War, a German historian has claimed.

Passengers on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Auckland last month have been exposed to measles, public health officials have confirmed.

She had spent seven months living and working in New Zealand as an au pair, but German woman Janine Baer lost her life after a crash that killed her mother.

For the dwindling band who still remember the horrors, it was possibly the last time they would gather to remind the world of their story.

Jozef Paczynski recalls the "welcome" speech the deputy commandant of Auschwitz gave on his arrival in 1940, down to the last chilling word.

A Duesseldorf court has ruled in favour of a man's right to urinate while standing up after his landlord demanded money for damage to the bathroom floor.

Europe is on high alert following anti-terror raids and arrests of suspected Islamist militants.

Munich's Oktoberfest is the largest festival in Europe and one Josh Martin enjoyed a little too much.

The controversial anti-Islamic Pegida movement and terror attacks in neighbouring France are polarising Germany.

Chancellor Angela Merkel delivers a stinging attack on Germany’s growing anti-Islamic protest movement, accusing leaders of preaching prejudice and of hijacking positive political slogans.

After nearly three years of tough talking, British Prime Minister David Cameron is facing a crunch moment in his troubled strategy towards the European Union.

World War II's greatest escape, which involved Kiwi officers scaling barbed wire fences instead of the previously favoured method of tunnelling, has been told for the first time.

Germany and a Swiss art museum have signed a landmark agreement returning a priceless hoard of art stolen by the Nazis to their rightful owners.

An intelligent arm brace adding extra muscle by flexing, as we do, will be created in a landmark German-Kiwi collaboration.

A chilling but illuminating legacy of the former East German state is the archives of its Ministry for State Security, the dreaded Stasi.

Imagine growing up not knowing your father because he has been declared an enemy of the people and has to live in another country you are forbidden to visit.

Angela Merkel is delivering a lecture to about 260 people at Auckland University's Maidment Theatre.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she will back a New Zealand push for a free trade agreement with the European Union.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is normally all business, but it didn't take long for a grumpy kiwi to coax a smile out of her - and even a wee coo.

Germany has come to be seen as the miser among major economic powers, saving too much of its enviable income and spending too little. Germans, naturally, do not see it that way.

She might not be Bo Derek but in political terms, John Key rates visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel as high as 10.

This month we receive onto our shores the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, undoubtedly the most dominant political figure in the EU.