Germany Expands Weapon-Free Zones at Major Rail Hubs as Federal Police Report 2,400 Seizures
Published on 06/26/2026 at 15:25 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
Passengers at ten railway stations across North Rhine-Westphalia and Bremen’s central station will face stricter controls starting this afternoon. The Federal Police are imposing temporary bans on carrying knives, firearms, and other dangerous items through the last weekend of June.
The directive, issued by the Federal Police Directorate in Sankt Augustin, takes effect Friday at 3:00 p.m. and runs until 3:00 a.m. on June 28. It covers the main stations in Bonn, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Essen, Hamm, Cologne, Krefeld, Mönchengladbach, Münster, and Wuppertal, along with the S-Bahn line 8 and the rail corridor between Cologne and Bonn.
Within these zones, nobody may carry fire weapons, blades of any kind, blunt or stabbing instruments, or everyday objects that could be used as weapons—baseball bats, iron bars, or tools. Underground and city-tram areas are exempt. Violators risk being ejected from the station, barred from trains, fined, or in serious cases, subjected to criminal investigations.
Separately, the Federal Police Directorate in Hanover has extended an existing weapon-prohibition order at Bremen’s main station through July 31, 2026. The ban covers the entire building and platforms, though public walkways like the Raschplatzhalle and Niki-de-Saint-Phalle-Promenade are explicitly excluded. Officials cite persistently high rates of assault involving weapons or dangerous tools as the rationale; the aim is to raise the threshold for violent confrontations.
A Long-Term Safety Push With Tangible Results
Since 2018, the Federal Police have issued 75 such general decrees nationwide, seizing more than 2,400 dangerous objects. While violent-crime numbers in North Rhine-Westphalia showed a slight decline in 2025, the agency says the state’s roughly 2.7 million daily rail passengers still justify an elevated police presence and intensified spot checks.
Recent incidents underscore the challenge. In Wuppertal, construction workers uncovered what appeared to be a hand grenade, forcing a nearly three-hour closure of the line toward Hagen. Experts later identified it as a training dummy. In Dortmund, police identified a suspect who repeatedly attempted to pry open luggage lockers.
Authorities are also bracing for the Fusion Festival in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where about 4,000 of the expected 65,000 attendees will arrive on special trains. Federal Police have stepped up screening measures for that event as well.
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