The Russian attack on Ukraine triggers a sell-off in international stock markets.
The Dax fell 4.5 percent to a 13-month low of 13,976 points in Lang & Schwarz's pre-market trading on Thursday and was heading for its biggest daily loss since the stock market crash in March 2020.
In Asia, the stock exchanges in Tokyo and Shanghai each slipped about 2 percent.
For the first time since 2014, the price of oil jumped above the $100 per barrel (159 liter) mark.
According to Ukrainian sources, Russia is attacking from several directions.
It's pretty clear that Russia isn't just eyeing the pro-Russian separatist areas in eastern Ukraine, said Chris Weston, chief analyst at brokerage firm Pepperstone.
Now it's a matter of assessing how bad the situation will get and what effects the expected additional sanctions by the West against Russia will have.
Against this background, the Russian currency fell to a record low.
In turn, the dollar and euro rose more than 10 percent to 89.99 and 101.03 rubles, respectively.
At the same time, the price of oil jumped above the psychologically important $100 mark for the first time in seven and a half years.
The Brent variety from the North Sea rose at times by almost six percent to $102.48 per barrel (159 liters).
"Russian oil will disappear from the world market overnight if new sanctions are imposed," warned economist Howie Lee of the OCBC.
"Opec cannot produce enough to fill this hole."
Some investors fled to "safe havens" like gold. The price of the "anti-crisis currency" rose by up to 2.2 percent to a 13-month high of $1,948.77 per troy ounce (31.1 grams).
Analyst Jeffrey Halley from brokerage house Oanda trusts the precious metal to jump above the previous record high of $ 2072.50 from August 2020.
The world's leading currency was also in demand.
The dollar index, which tracks rates against major currencies, rose 0.4 percent.
The Russian central bank intervened after the national currency's ruble fell to a record low in the wake of the attack on Ukraine.
She announced interventions in the foreign exchange market on Thursday to stabilize the rate.
The ruble had previously fallen to a record low of nearly 90 rubles to the dollar after President Vladimir Putin authorized an attack on Ukraine.
Commercial banks should also be provided with liquidity to ensure financial stability.
The share price of the major bank Sberbank had previously fallen by 28 percent.
For fear of delivery failures, investors stock up on industrial metals.
The aluminum used in automobile and aircraft construction gained three percent on Thursday and, at $3,388 a ton, is more expensive than ever.
The price of nickel, used to make steel, rose 3.2 percent to a 10-1/2-year high of $25,170.
According to stockbrokers, the supply bottleneck for these metals will worsen if Russian exports disappear from the world market because of Western sanctions against Russia.