The legend of Heidi, the storybook character cherished as a national icon in Switzerland, has been shaken in recent weeks after a German scholar questioned her Swiss origins.
Switzerland is still considering whether to take Germany to court over the purchase of stolen bank data the country is using to root out tax dodgers, Swiss President Doris Leuthard said on Wednesday.
Germany is still raking in hundreds of millions of euros from tax dodgers thanks to stolen Liechtenstein bank information purchased in 2008, just as new Swiss data is scaring droves of offenders to turn themselves in.
Financial markets watchdog Bafin is investigating a subsidiary of Swiss bank UBS that German officials suspect may have helped clients avoid paying taxes, Bafin and the bank said Thursday.
A court has ordered the return of more than €230 million which was smuggled out of Eastern Germany during the financial chaos of the early 1990s and laundered in an Austrian bank.
German prosecutors said Friday they were investigating around 1,100 customers and staff of Swiss bank Credit Suisse's local operations on suspicion of hiding money from German tax authorities.
Germany's most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia has purchased stolen information on 1,500 suspected German tax cheats holding bank accounts in Switzerland, a regional government spokesman said on Saturday.
The number of tax dodgers turning themselves in has reportedly risen dramatically in recent days, following the German government’s decision to purchase stolen bank data on secret Swiss accounts.
A German tax dodger has won millions in damages in a suit against his Liechtenstein bank for failing to reveal that his information was stolen along with hundreds of other account holders and sold to Berlin for a criminal investigation.
The scope of a newly uncovered tax evasion scandal reached a new dimension on Thursday, as German officials said far more money was likely squirreled away in Swiss accounts than previously thought.
Germany said Tuesday it would pay for data on some 1,500 suspected tax dodgers with funds stashed in Swiss accounts, waving aside concerns that the allegedly stolen material would not stand up in court.
The German government should have no qualms about buying stolen Swiss information on rich tax dodgers, argues <b>Ludwig Greven</b> from <b>Zeit Online</b>.
Buying stolen Swiss information on rich tax dodgers is wrong and puts Germany on shaky moral ground, argues <b>Kai Biermann</b> from <b>Zeit Online</b>.
Germany and Switzerland clashed openly on Monday over the Alpine state's cherished banking secrecy after Berlin said it might buy the names of suspected tax-dodgers from a whistle-blower.
A secret informant has offered to sell the German taxman the names of 1,500 Germans who have funds hidden in Switzerland, a newspaper reported Saturday.
A German police officer committed suicide on the German-Swiss border at the weekend, shooting himself in the head in front of a checkpoint guard, a Swiss news agency said on Monday.
The Swiss vote to forbid the construction of mosques with minarets has sparked calls for a similar ban in Germany. <b>Robert Rigney</b> samples the mood of the country’s Muslim community.
Prominent Turkish-German director Fatih Akin said has said he will not bring his new film to Switzerland in protest of a referendum vote that banned the construction of minarets in the country last week.
<b>Jost Müller-Neuhof from Der Tagesspiegel wonders how Germans can criticise Switzerland’s vote to ban minarets on mosques as an attack on religious freedom yet they blithely accept being told by Christian churches whether they can shop on Sundays or not.</b>
Following a controversial Swiss referendum to ban mosques with minarets, Christian Democratic state interior ministers in Germany on Thursday recommended Muslims show restraint when building houses of worship.
An official from the German Jewish Council warned on Wednesday that Switzerland’s vote to ban mosques with minarets was an expression of Europe's deep-seated aversion to Islam that was aggravating the integration of Muslims.
The Swiss vote on Sunday to ban mosques with minarets has spurred heated debate in neighbouring Germany, where the Muslim population's plans to build houses of worship has created controversy in the past.
The three Swiss students who went on a violent rampage through Munich nearly two weeks ago are being investigated for attempted murder after it emerged their attack was far more brutal than initially reported.
