Now that the AfD has also put forward a candidate, Ralf Kohl is the fifteenth contender for the post of Lord Mayor of Leipzig for the next seven years. Although that isn’t quite accurate – as will become clear later in the interview – Ralf Kohl wants to become ‘Oberbürger’ (Senior citizen); after all, the […]
It wasn’t, after all, a milestone anniversary of the 1989 Monday demonstrations. That’s why the event was on a slightly smaller scale, without the walk around the Ring, featuring light installations in Leipzig city centre. But the 2026 Festival of Light once again drew thousands to the city centre on Friday, 9 October. Along the […]
Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar: Zum deutschen Artikel. On 30 September and 1 October 2026, the East German Energy Forum (ODEF) took place in Leipzig for the fifteenth time. No, it was not a ‘green’ event; it was organized by the Association of Business Organizations in Eastern Germany and Berlin, under the […]
The city budget for 2027/28 is likely to be a balancing act. On the one hand, savings must be made, as Torsten Bonew, the councillor responsible for finance, emphasized when presenting the budget to the city council. On the other hand, the political groups and the advisory boards entitled to submit proposals must prevent new […]
Starting today, Thursday 8 October, human rights defenders, journalists and civil society activists will be meeting in Leipzig for three days. The International Round Table of Revolutionaries runs from 8 to 10 October. According to the organisers, over 70 representatives will be taking part. Only the opening event on 8 October at 7.00 pm and […]
To date, the Free State of Saxony has enjoyed an active landscape of remembrance and memorial sites, supported by public and civil society institutions and stakeholders: the persecution of people during the Nazi era and under the communist dictatorship after 1945 is commemorated in various ways, and academic research into these events is being carried […]
How can Leipzig secure more social housing? This issue has been on the city council’s agenda for years. There is simply not enough funding from the federal and state governments to build the 1,100 to 1,300 new social housing units required each year. Only 400 to 500 are actually being built. And so the list […]
After several years of intensive preparation, planning and construction, the moment finally arrived on Friday 2 October: the Sellerhäuser Viaduct, between the Liselotte-Herrmann-Straße bridge and the Theodor-Neubauer-Straße bridge, was opened as the first section of the Sellerhäuser Bogen. Where trains once ran, people will now be able to walk, linger and experience the east of […]
Is the glass half full or half empty? It always depends on your perspective. Take, for example, the ban on the conversion of residential property in Leipzig, from which the Left Party group on the Leipzig City Council had expected far more. Such a ban has been in force in Leipzig since 1 September 2024. […]
Leipzig’s city coffers are largely empty; the city has to finance many services through cash-flow loans, and the mayor responsible for finance has presented an austerity budget. Naturally, none of this is a reason for the political groups on the city council to table their amendments to the 2027/28 two-year budget. The deadline for submissions […]
If you want to plan development in a city like Leipzig, you need reasonably reliable figures on population trends. Every three years, therefore, Leipzig’s Office for Statistics and Elections publishes an updated population forecast. And not just as a figure, but as a concise, 70-page analysis. On Friday, 25 September, Mayor Ulrich Hörning presented the […]
Here we go. At the last council meeting, Torsten Bonew, the councillor responsible for finance, presented the draft for the 2027/2028 biennial budget. The City Council intends to approve it in December so that the budget debate does not fall in the middle of the 2027 mayoral election campaign. That is why this week also […]
This makes Prof. Getu Abraham the 13th candidate in the field for the 2027 mayoral election – or perhaps the 14th, should Ralf Kohl, as he has announced, go on to officially declare his candidacy. Assuming there are thirteen candidates, there are still 11 men and only 2 women. Nine of them have already been […]
It is just a few steps away from the hustle and bustle and street noise of the big city: the Old St John’s Cemetery, situated directly behind the Grassi Museum, has led an almost enchanted existence for centuries. Now Leipzig’s oldest municipal cemetery, an important testament to the city’s history, is to undergo extensive refurbishment […]
For years, the Czech Republic has been planning a further barrage on the Elbe near Děčín. This plan repeatedly provokes a strong reaction from conservative ministers in Dresden, as they genuinely believe it could somehow restore the navigability of the Elbe on the Saxon side. Ministers such as Saxony’s Environment Minister, Georg-Ludwig von Breitenbuch, were […]
CDU city councillor Dr Sabine Heymann spoke of a “somewhat shameful memory that tugs at the heartstrings” at the council meeting on 2 September: The topic was the memorial to the victims of tyranny at Leipzig’s Südfriedhof – a special place, yet one that has long been relegated to an undignified existence on the edge […]
Firstly, in this case it really is referred to as ‘excessive workload’; the term ‘overtime’, which is probably what most people have in mind, is defined differently from a legal perspective. The case of Frank Post, a civil servant headteacher at a primary school in Lower Saxony, has implications that affect many teachers across the […]
It’s a quick story. The City of Leipzig wanted to sell 5.7 hectares of land close to the city centre to RB Leipzig so that the club could expand its training centre there. RB’s needs were well known, but the solution was, to say the least, surprising. When RB set up in Leipzig, there were […]
At the July meeting of the City Council, the proposal regarding the possible sale of the small wood on Capastraße had to be postponed. The protest was too vocal. And many councillors in the city council also frowned upon the proposal, as this project, put forward by the Property Office, would see Leipzig undermine several […]
The scorching summer of 2026 showed everyone in Leipzig where global warming is heading. And just how ill-prepared the city of Leipzig actually is for such high temperatures of around 40 degrees. Naturally, the Left Party group on Leipzig City Council wanted to know what the city was now investing in to protect against the […]
Leipzig is growing. Even now, at a time when the Free State of Saxony is once again forecasting a decline in population figures. There are many reasons for this. Young people, in particular, are moving into the city. But this has consequences for the housing market – an issue that has now also caught the […]
Sven Morlok has been a member of Leipzig City Council again since 2014, having previously represented the FDP there from 2004 to 2009. In the intervening years, he was a member of the Saxon State Parliament and a minister in the Free State’s government. He understands the formalities of council work like no other and […]
In fact, it is not necessarily the case that a party has to go along with the U-turns at local level that its party is making in the federal government. Take, for example, the Building Modernisation Act, through which the Merz government is suggesting to the public that it still makes sense to invest money […]
It was to be expected that this would cause trouble once again. It’s only to be expected when a city, under massive pressure from a budget that has spiralled out of control, is forced to cut 500 jobs. And to do so within a very, very short timeframe, in order to have any impact at […]
Thousands of households in Leipzig are looking for an affordable flat and are simply unable to find one at present. One way of alleviating the housing shortage to some extent would, of course, be to put the residential buildings in Leipzig – of which there are by no means a few – that have stood […]
The OECD has published the PISA 2025 study, entitled ‘Ready for the Future?’, and the results for Germany answer this question with a ‘No’. So here we go again with analyses, research, finger-pointing and half-baked reforms. However, it is not as though no one had warned of the problems in the education system. For years, […]
At this final presentation on 2 September, Mayor Burkhard Jung, who was chairing the meeting, was clearly running out of steam too. This proposal concerned Development Plan No. 451.1 ‘Semmelweisstraße/An den Tierkliniken, Northern Section’, i.e. the entire area around Semmelweisstraße and the Kohlrabizirkus. It is, in fact, an area lacking in liveability, which has been […]
On 2 September, late in the evening, the City Council also voted on a proposal in which the Social Affairs Department reported unplanned additional expenditure of around 50 million euros, which the city can now only finance through new cash advances – in other words, debt. And the debate on the matter took a bizarre […]
Although the outcome of the Saxony-Anhalt state election was a recurring theme in all the speeches delivered on Tuesday evening at the Heilandskirche in Plagwitz, the Leipzig Alliance of the Greens do not wish to remain in its shadow. All the speakers made it clear: we want a Green Lord Mayor, and that person will […]
It has actually been closed since 26 March. However, the Leipzig Environmental Library is now reopening for a further three months before closing its doors for good at the end of the year. Residents of Leipzig can make use of this free service until the end of the year, Tuesdays to Thursdays from 12:00 to […]
There’s really no point in arguing about it now: once a construction project like the massive Georg-Schwarz bridges between Leutzsch and Böhlitz-Ehrenberg has got underway, you can’t simply stop it if costs rise along the way. Not everything can be calculated down to the last Heller and Pfennig from the outset. This mega-project, which will […]
Chancellor Friedrich Merz is a heavyweight when it comes to communication – that is how he sees himself. He tries to push his agenda down the people’s throats with his verbal bludgeon and is then surprised that they do not love him wholeheartedly. Now his CDU has suffered a historic defeat in the Saxony-Anhalt election, […]
The headline refers to the time it took for the city council to discuss and vote on a proposal that had been drawn up with broad participation from the city’s community. A section of Georg-Schumann-Straße in Leipzig, between Chausseehaus and Böhmestraße – approximately 600 metres in length – is to be upgraded. As part of […]
It was, in fact, to be expected that this motion would provide an opportunity for an AfD city councillor such as Roland Ulbrich to once again use his speaking time to rail against democracy projects and NGOs. And that a CDU city councillor, too, would feel targeted was also to be expected. For it was […]
Fighting for two trees – is it worth it? Two 80-year-old maple trees on Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz, right next to the Bowlingtreff, in front of the future Natural History Museum. All Leipzig residents experienced just how valuable the city’s natural green spaces are during the heatwave in June and July. The city needs green spaces. Far more […]
It could have been so simple if all the parties represented on Leipzig City Council, as well as the city administration, were to work and debate in a proper manner. Often, however, this does not happen; pointless discussions take place simply to put forward views that have nothing to do with the issue at hand. […]
Anyone wishing to view the full presentation of the draft for Leipzig’s 2027/2028 two-year budget for themselves can now do so. Torsten Bonew, the councillor responsible for finance, Mayor Burkhard Jung and Ulrich Hörning, the mayor responsible for administration, to the presentation of this budget package – which has truly been forged through sweat and […]
It will be a masterstroke if the city and the city council actually manage to pass the new two-year budget for 2027/2028 on 17 December 2026. The city council itself has set this ambitious deadline. For if it doesn’t go to plan, the budget vote will fall right in the middle of the 2027 mayoral […]
Everything is getting more expensive. That’s true. Inflation is part of our lives. The only question is: what is actually driving these rising prices? And which factor is causing the most dramatic fluctuations? The latest publication from the State Statistical Office merely hints at this, reporting that Saxony’s annual inflation rate for August 2026 is […]
Ahead of the forthcoming council meeting on 2 September, Torsten Bonew, the councillor responsible for finance, has tabled a proposal to amend the by-laws governing the accommodation tax. The proposal essentially concerns only the option to submit tax returns electronically. However, the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen parliamentary group felt that, since a decision on amending the […]
Unemployment rose in the Leipzig Employment Agency’s district in August 2026, according to figures released by the Leipzig Employment Agency at the end of the month. 33,272 people were registered as unemployed, 683 more (2 per cent) than in July and 2,344 more (8 per cent) than a year ago. The unemployment rate stood at […]
A special transport project is set to take place between Merkwitz and Seegeritz near Taucha: there are plans to set up a trial involving cycle protection lanes on the main road. This pilot project is the first of its kind in the Free State of Saxony and will be subject to scientific monitoring. A cycle […]
Klett Kinderbuch Verlag is giving away class sets of the award-winning book *Manchmal male ich ein Haus für uns* by Alea Horst and Mehrdad Zaeri. Through this initiative, the Leipzig-based publisher aims to support teachers in engaging children in discussions about the experience of fleeing one’s home – and thereby countering prejudice and stereotyping. The […]
The whole country is facing enormous challenges and really ought to be investing heavily in climate and heat protection to make it sustainable for its people. Yet the very body that could shoulder this investment is being effectively sidelined by a fiscal policy at federal and state level that has gone completely off the rails: […]
To mark the international Bat Night weekend on 29 and 30 August, NABU Saxony is once again organising a series of events this year. Late summer is a particularly good time to spot bats. At dusk, they go hunting for insects and the young are already able to fly. During evening excursions and hands-on activities, […]
Everyone is talking about the feared election victory of the AfD. But hardly anyone is addressing the fact that this growing support for the populists may have very real causes. Namely, policies at federal and state level that completely ignore the interests of the public. This is now even evident in a survey by the […]
The demographic decline in Saxony is now also becoming apparent in the employment statistics. Whilst the number of full-time employees with German citizenship is beginning to dwindle – because the size of the incoming age cohorts has halved – the proportion of foreign employees is growing. And that is only the figure for full-time workers. […]
There is as yet no timetable for the transformation of Wilhelm-Leuschner-Platz into a green oasis. However, the city intends to celebrate what is to come on Wednesday, 26 August. With a day of events on the square: between 2 pm and 6 pm, city departments and the institutions set to be based there in future […]
What opportunities do independent candidates and those put forward by smaller parties have to present their issues to the electorate during the election campaign? This question arises not only in the current mayoral election campaign in Leipzig. Here at the LZ, we’ve made it simple for ourselves. We are conducting interviews with all candidates across […]
Two people, 695 kilometres and a political question: what happens when people who feel powerless on their own realise that, together, there are quite a lot of them? Since 28 July, Oliver Möller and Simon Kieke have been walking from Trier to Berlin with the citizens’ movement Unfuck Germany. They have been travelling on foot […]
A question raised in the city council has consequences. At the last city council meeting in July, the BSW group wanted to know, amongst other things: “What is the current extent of municipal compensation areas within Leipzig’s urban area and outside the city limits?” It is actually an obvious question, because whenever valuable green space […]
Number 12 on the list of candidates so far for the office of mayor of Leipzig is finally a woman once again, bringing the proportion of women among the candidates to 1/6, or around 16.7 per cent. On 22 August, Anne Giulia Giermann was confirmed as a candidate for the mayoral election at the nomination […]
The city’s proposal to clear the Capa-Wäldchen as a compromise to meet the land requirements of the Kleinmesse and RB Leipzig has met with strong opposition and a lack of understanding amongst the people of Leipzig. The Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen group on the Leipzig City Council also firmly rejects these plans. It has […]
It is a never-ending saga that has now been occupying the city administration and the city council for a full twelve years. Back then, the Schauspiel Leipzig theatre wanted to get rid of its venue, the ‘Skala’, on Gottschedstraße. The city wanted to sell the building. And the Cinémathèque Leipzig spoke up, as it had […]
Everyone’s talking about the baby boomers, even blaming them for everything that’s gone wrong in Germany. And at the same time, fears are being stoked about the time when these large cohorts will retire. And what then? The Berlin Institute for Population and Development is also giving serious thought to the baby boomers and their […]
The proportion of women standing in the forthcoming election for the new mayor currently stands at 10 per cent of the candidates; this has not changed even following the announcement of The Greens candidate. With Wolfram Günther, not only is another political heavyweight entering the fray, but also another native of Leipzig. Although this is, […]
The thermometer in Leipzig read up to 42.5 degrees in the shade during that remarkable week at the end of June, when the heat even caused the grout between the tram tracks to melt, bringing tram services to a standstill for days. And such temperatures will become more common in Leipzig in future. That is […]
The municipal housing association LWB is planning around 10,900 rent increases for 2026 – an all-time high. This will affect more than a quarter of all LWB tenant households. In 2025, there were 5,362 rent adjustments, and in 2024 the figure had already risen to 9,523. Tenant communities in the south of Leipzig, where there […]
More fruit, nuts and vegetables, less meat and less sugar: this is precisely what all nutritionists recommend. It has little to do with what Germans currently eat on average. In recent years, central Germany has been missing out on more than a year’s worth of rainfall – that is, more than 600 mm. Germany is […]
In recent days, two ministers from the current government have failed to go down well with affected members of the public – who are having to learn to cope with the heat and drought – due to their flippant remarks about the weather. Due to insufficient rainfall and rising temperatures, the soil is drying out […]
Meanwhile, the fourth major heatwave of 2026 is sweeping across Germany and Europe, with temperatures exceeding 40 °C – levels never before recorded at local weather stations in the past 150 years. What is particularly worrying and critical is the increasing number of consecutive tropical nights with temperatures of over 20, 25 or even 30 […]
At the council meeting on 1 July, Dr Martina Münch, the councillor responsible for social affairs, made some clear statements: just one member of staff at the social services department is handling the cases of rent gouging reported to the city. There are hundreds of them. And even that is only a fraction of the […]
The City of Leipzig is once again planning to increase parental contributions for crèches, nurseries and after-school care. The city administration hopes this will generate additional revenue of around nine million euros over the next two financial years, 2027 and 2028. However, a majority on the city council had already rejected the increase during negotiations […]
For almost 30 years, Germany too has been pursuing financial voodoo economics, loosely based on the trickle-down theory, which – without any statistical basis whatsoever – claims that the economy will flourish if taxes on the rich are cut. And some of the prosperity generated in this way would then ‘trickle down’ to those below. […]
A roof truss fire in Connewitz kept the fire brigade busy for many hours on Tuesday; fighting the blaze proved to be a tough and difficult task. Considering what could have happened, the outcome was relatively mild: one woman required outpatient treatment for smoke inhalation. However, many residents have lost their homes – and two […]
It sounded as though Saxony’s government had finally got the message when the Ministry of Economic Affairs reported on 11 August: “It is getting increasingly hot in Saxony. Days with temperatures well above 30 degrees are on the rise, whilst at the same time water is becoming scarcer. Particularly in densely built-up towns and cities, […]
In August 2026, an Asian hornet was spotted in Leipzig-Grünau. This confirms that this invasive insect species has now reached Saxony. The Asian hornet (Vespa velutina) was first recorded in Germany in 2014. It is thought that the species arrived in France from overseas as early as 2004 via transport routes and spread rapidly across […]
No one will be able to say in future that they didn’t know. That they lacked the facts about the 2026 elections. Because the facts are out there, live and available to anyone who’s even slightly curious about their own reality. And all presented with a touch of humour, too. Because that’s exactly what the […]
It will probably be years before anything happens at Matthäikirchhof. And a number of mistakes will still need to be rectified. Here, the city wanted to develop a vision for a new urban quarter through public participation – but with a whole host of preconditions that forced it into half-hearted compromises from the outset. However, […]
At a time when not only Germany but the whole of Europe is suffering from heat and water shortages – or rather, drought – it would be better if some ministers would simply keep their mouths shut. Light-hearted remarks may sometimes bring a smile to people’s faces, but they are often inappropriate. At the moment, […]
One question remained unanswered after the city announced on 29 July: “From the 2027 financial year onwards, the second-home tax is to be raised from the current 16 per cent to 20 per cent. The senior administration has now set in motion the corresponding amendment to the city’s statutes, which will be submitted to the […]
What happened at Leipzig/Halle Airport on the night of 4 to 5 August 2026 did not come out of the blue. For several years now, critical infrastructure in Germany has been the target of drone overflights. Dozens of such incidents are recorded every year by the security authorities in Saxony. And there has already been […]
The pension reform is casting its shadow – and by that we mean its downsides – and much of the criticism stems from the plan to abolish the ‘full pension for those with particularly long insurance records’, also known as the ‘pension at 63’. The East German CDU minister-presidents, trade unions and, in particular, the […]
It has been primarily the CDU parliamentary group that has repeatedly blocked efforts in recent times to adjust Leipzig’s parental contributions to reflect the rising costs in childcare centres. The city is now making a fresh attempt to secure a moderate adjustment to these contributions. This is because the city itself must cover the shortfall. […]
Working themselves to the bone? Reduced pensions for anyone who retires too early? This is now a concern even for the three CDU Minister-Presidents from Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. Will they be able to see it through? It would be the first time that CDU Minister-Presidents have shown any backbone in the Federal Republic’s completely […]
At the end of July, Leipzig’s city administration submitted a proposal to the city council that is set to cause quite a stir. Not only for political groups that are not particularly keen on environmental protection, but also for departments and agencies for whom the city’s unspoilt natural environment is still a bargaining chip that […]
The current Merz government at federal level did, after all, get off to a start with a 500-billion-euro package that had been approved by the previous Bundestag. A huge sum of money with which the Federal Republic could have really fuelled investment across the country. But the money is being spread thinly over ten years, […]
The Merz government at federal level has proved a major disappointment, particularly for young voters. Minister for Economic Affairs Katherina Reiche, in particular, is systematically working to undermine the laws on the energy transition and to slow down the urgently needed restructuring of Germany’s energy supply. However, this summer’s extreme heatwaves are showing all citizens […]
Torgauer Platz is one of those locations in Leipzig’s road network that has been on the agenda for many years now, with plans to finally redevelop it. Yet this construction project, too, has been repeatedly postponed. Now, at long last, the project is set to go ahead in 2027. This also involves tram services on […]
Years of dithering over grid expansion are now having consequences in Saxony too: More and more applications for grid connections for renewable energy installations are being put on hold and piling up with the grid operators, as if Saxony were still in the year 2016 and could leisurely stroll into a climate-friendly future without fossil […]
LZ MEDIEN GMBH
Bernhard Göring Straße 152
04277 Leipzig
Das Projekt „LZ TV“ (LZ Television) der LZ Medien GmbH wird gefördert durch die Sächsische Landesanstalt für privaten Rundfunk und neue Medien. Diese Maßnahme wird mitfinanziert durch Steuermittel auf Grundlage des vom Sächsischen Landtag beschlossenen Haushaltes.
Aktuelle Kommentare