Federal Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig (SPD) has announced plans for tougher penalties for attacks on employees of railway companies. “When passengers take out their aggression on train conductors, drivers and other railway staff, we must do something to counter this growing brutality,” Hubig told newspapers of the Funke Media Group. Martin Burkert, head of the railway and transport workers’ union EVG, and Deutsche Bahn CEO Evelyn Palla welcomed Hubig’s plans.
Hubig told the Funke newspapers: “We are giving railway employees special protection under criminal law. The same applies to police officers, bailiffs, firefighters, emergency responders, medical staff and employees of other public passenger transport companies.” The minister said the issue went beyond protecting individuals: “It is about protecting our community as a whole.” She said she would bring the corresponding draft law to the cabinet in the coming weeks.
According to the Funke newspapers, the planned law would place police officers, bailiffs, firefighters, emergency responders, medical staff and employees of public passenger transport companies under special protection. Anyone who attacks them would in future face a prison sentence of at least six months, and in particularly serious cases, at least one year. Under the current rules, attackers face minimum sentences of three or six months respectively.
Burkert, head of the Railway and Transport Union (EVG), said: “Finally, things are moving.” In August, the EVG had threatened to bring regional transport services to a standstill in January if the Bundestag did not consider a law increasing penalties for attacks on train staff before the end of this year. “Our pressure is working,” Burkert said. He was relieved that the union would not have to “go to the extreme and bring operations to a standstill.”
Deutsche Bahn CEO Evelyn Palla praised the planned legislative change, saying it would improve the safety of “our employees and passengers”. She said it was “enormously important” for the state to now set clear limits on the increasing willingness to use violence. “Too often, we have had the experience of proceedings being discontinued because of their minor nature and perpetrators getting away without punishment.”
The German government had already announced a law to strengthen criminal-law protection of the community at the end of 2025. According to the overall works council of DB Regio, statistically, eight colleagues are attacked while on duty every day. “No one knows before their shift whether they will make it home safely,” works council chairman Ralf Damde said in August.
In February, 36-year-old train conductor Serkan C. was attacked during a ticket inspection in Rhineland-Palatinate by a 26-year-old man who did not have a ticket. The man punched him in the head several times. The train conductor suffered a fatal brain haemorrhage. At the beginning of July, the perpetrator was sentenced to ten years in prison for bodily harm resulting in death. On Friday, a memorial plaque for Serkan C. will be unveiled at Mannheim Central Station.
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