Today in Germany: A roundup of the latest news on Monday

Strike on public transport starts in Berlin

Commuters faced major disruption on Monday as a public transport strike over pay got underway in Berlin. 

The Verdi trade union called for workers from the public transport operator, Berliner Verkehrsbetrieben (BVG), to take part in the 24-hour public transport strike, which is set to last until 3am on Tuesday. 

Trams and U-Bahn services are not operating, along with most buses. 

Public transport users in Berlin will be able to use the S-Bahn and regional trains, which are operated by Deutsche Bahn.

READ MORE: How to get around Berlin during Monday's public transport strike

Faeser slams Merz's openness to AfD votes

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has sharply criticised the Union's candidate for chancellor, Friedrich Merz (CDU), for his willingness to accept AfD votes when pushing through motions on refugee and asylum policy in the Bundestag.

"If Mr Merz goes down the wrong national path, then the CDU has lost all direction," Faeser, of the SPD, told Germany's RND editorial network on Sunday, adding that Merz' plans would only be able to achieve a majority with the AfD. 

Merz reportedly told a meeting of the CDU's top brass on Thursday he would submit motions to the Bundestag in the coming week to tighten migration rules "regardless of who votes for them" – in effect accepting the AfD's backing.

READ ALSO: OPINION - Why there's no way of stopping the rise of the far-right AfD in Germany

This came in the wake of a knife attack in Aschaffenburg that left two dead. The suspect is a 28-year-old Afghan man who slipped through the fingers of authorities.

But if the Union were to make itself "dependent on right-wing populists and Putin friends" at the federal level, this would be "oblivious to history" and the "final break" with the policies of former chancellors Angela Merkel and Helmut Kohl, Faeser said.

Nor would it achieve anything, she added. "Anyone who jeopardises European cooperation by going it alone risks more people being channelled from other countries to Germany without registration. Then more refugees would come to Germany instead of fewer," Faeser explained.

The SPD and the Greens, who reject Merz's plans to turn people away at the borders, sharply criticised his willingness to accept AfD votes.

"There is nothing harmless about this," Green party Vice Chancellor Habeck said on Sunday in his speech at the Greens' party conference in Berlin. 

However, the FDP has welcomed the Union's plans to tighten migration policy, even calling for a tougher line.

"The countries that do not take their citizens back should no longer receive development aid," faction leader Christian Dürr told the newspapers of the Funke media group.

Meanwhile, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats (SPD), vowed to increase deportations of criminals - including to Syria - following the knife attack. 

"Criminals should be returned to every country and we want to enforce this," Scholz told broadcaster ARD on Sunday, adding that there will be a point in time soon when criminals will also be returned to Syria.

READ ALSO: How would a strong AfD election result impact foreigners in Germany?

Germany and the world marks 80th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation

The world marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on Monday, with some of the few remaining survivors set to attend ceremonies at the site of the notorious Nazi death camp.

Auschwitz was the largest of the extermination camps and has become a symbol of Nazi Germany's genocide of six million European Jews, one million of whom died at the site between 1940 and 1945, along with more than 100,000 non-Jews.

On Monday former inmates, along with Polish President Andrzej Duda, are expected to lay flowers at the sprawling camp's Wall of Death in the morning.

Around 50 survivors are then expected at a commemoration from outside the gates of Auschwitz II-Birkenau alongside dozens of leaders, including Britain's King Charles III and French President Emmanuel Macron.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Olaf Scholz are both expected, as well as Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch.

"This year we will focus on the survivors and their message," Auschwitz Museum spokesman Pawel Sawicki told AFP. "There will not be any speeches by politicians."

Ahead of the anniversary Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, of the Greens called for more funds for a new culture of remembrance.

A fresh attempt must be made to "justify the need for remembrance and to declare 'never again'," said Habeck in a guest article in Sunday's Tagesspiegel. 

Eighty years after the systematic murder of Jews, there are hardly any contemporary witnesses left who can report on the actions of the National Socialists, he said, adding that Germany is "again faced with the task of keeping the memory alive".

READ ALSO: Inside Germany: Frankfurt's mammoth citizenship wait times and remembering Auschwitz

"After a phase of serious social confrontation with our past, we are in a situation in which history is being distorted and twisted, terms are being reinterpreted, and this distortion finds its way to citizens without being checked and unchallenged," he wrote.  

Greens launch portal for Germans abroad to apply for postal vote

The Greens on Sunday launched an online portal to help help Germans living abroad to apply for postal voting documents for the federal election.

The website www.gruene-weltweit.de gives all the necessary links and information for each of the approximately 11,000 municipalities in Germany.

Germans living abroad need to contact the relevant municipality to get a postal vote. If they're no longer registered in Germany, they'll first need to apply for an entry in the electoral register at the municipality where they were last registered. The exact process varies between municipalities.

READ ALSO: How people with German citizenship can vote abroad 

Berlin says Belarusians had 'no choice' in election

Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said Sunday that Belarus's voters had "no choice" in elections widely expected to be won by ruling autocrat Alexander Lukashenko.

Sunday's vote was a "bitter day for all those who long for freedom and democracy", Baerbock said in a post on social media.

"The people of Belarus had no choice. Instead of free and fair elections and a life without fear and arbitrariness, they experience oppression, repression and human rights violations on a daily basis," she said.

With the vote, Lukashenko was set to extend his three decades of rule in Moscow-allied Belarus.

The Belarusian leader has presided over a massive crackdown ever since suppressing giant protests following his contested reelection in 2020.

According to the Viasna rights group, Belarus currently has 1,245 political prisoners. Tens of thousands meanwhile fled Belarus in 2020 and 2021, mostly to Poland and Lithuania, as the KGB security service launched the massive crackdown.

With additional reporting from Rachel Loxton and AFP