The half-naked protester was filmed defacing remnants of the Berlin Wall kept outside the German embassy in Ukraine capital Kyiv on Sunday with a Hitler mustache and swept-over cropped dark hair

A conservative alliance made up of the CDU and CSU is set to lead Germany again, but the new coalition government will have to confront pressing challenges.

Mohammad Azmouz, a Syrian barber living in Berlin, said casting his first ever vote on Sunday at the age of 57 was an indescribable feeling.

Germany’s political system is set up to exclude extremists. Yet the country is waking up to a new political reality that has lurched to the right with the once outcast Alternative for Germany (AfD) party now firmly established in German politics.

Friedrich Merz's CDU party emerged as the largest party in Germany's parliament, the Bundestag, earning 28.6% of the vote.

Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrats took the highest portion of a record number of votes. An ascendant far right, crumbling international order and sluggish German economy face the incoming chancellor.

The next German government faces calls to loosen borrowing rules, slash energy costs and spur innovation. It won’t be easy.

Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany's mainstream conservatives, has said that Europe must become independent from the United States in security matters, after his grouping won the biggest share of the vote in federal elections.