Approximately 3,000 participants joined Magdeburg’s 30th Pride parade on a central square in front of the state parliament, while 33,000 marched in Bremen the same weekend. Saxony-Anhalt, whose capital is Magdeburg, faces state elections on September 6 with the AfD projected to win. Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the CDU visited the Hürtgenwald-Gey area two days after a forest fire was extinguished and attributed the event to climate change.