Inflation in Germany rose to 5.1 percent in February.
The Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden announced this on Tuesday after an initial estimate.
In January, the inflation rate was still 4.9 percent.
Energy prices continue to be the most important driver.
But food and services have again risen significantly in price.
Christian Siedenbiedel
Editor in Business.
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Some economists' hopes that inflation would fall significantly as early as the turn of the year have turned out to be wrong.
The European Central Bank also recently admitted that the higher inflation rates lasted longer than originally thought.
"This is mainly due to energy prices and supply bottlenecks," said ECB chief economist Philip Lane.
But the longer the origin of the shock persists, the more the price level will be affected overall: "So we are revising our assessment of the sustainability of inflation in this regard."
Exactly what has become more expensive can be found in the more detailed figures published by the state statistical offices.
North Rhine-Westphalia reports: Compared to the corresponding month of the previous year, heating oil including the levy has become 37.7 percent more expensive, and fuel prices have risen by 23.9 percent.
Compared to the previous month, i.e. January, the price of vegetables, for example, rose by 4.2 percent and women's clothing by 3.9 percent.
The war in Ukraine should now continue to drive up energy prices.
The latest escalation in the conflict is barely included in the February inflation numbers.
In response to the Russian attack, oil prices rose above $100 for the first time in many years and have remained there until now.
"Since the statisticians collect the inflation data around the middle of the month, they could not yet take into account in the February data that energy prices have continued to rise because of the Ukraine war," says Jörg Krämer, Chief Economist at Commerzbank: "Energy prices remained at the current level , the inflation rate in March would clearly exceed the 5.5 percent mark.
There is an incredible amount of price pressure in the pipeline.”
The investment bank Goldman Sachs recently speculated that the price of oil could also rise significantly further. The already high gas price also continued to rise.
According to industry associations, the security of supply in Germany with natural gas, fuel and heating oil is currently not at risk, but prices are continuing to rise.
Further price records for petrol and heating oil
The price of petrol and diesel in Germany is reaching new historic highs every day.
The price for Super E10 in Germany has now risen to more than 1.80 euros per liter.
Last one paid an average of 1.817 euros per liter.
Diesel cost an average of 1.738 euros per liter, which was also more than ever before in history.
Heating oil last cost 112.58 euros per 100 liters in Germany.
This is reported by the internet portal Heizoel24, to which 500 oil traders report their prices.
This is the highest price in history.
The ECB is struggling to find the appropriate response
In addition to the difficulties facing the central bank, there could be countervailing effects of the war on inflation.
In the short term, energy prices are likely to rise further as a result of the war.
That drives inflation.
However, economic growth in the euro area could suffer severely from the war.
This could rather dampen inflation in the somewhat longer term.
In any case, on Wednesday there will be inflation figures for the euro area as a whole.
The economist Cyrus de la Rubia from Hamburg Commercial Bank expects 5.5 to 6 percent.
A big question now is whether the European Central Bank (ECB) is now postponing its planned normalization of monetary policy because of the war.
The Governing Council of the ECB will meet next week for its monetary policy meeting.
ECB President Christine Lagarde expressed reservations on Friday about whether the ECB would postpone tightening.
Greek central bank chief Yannis Stournaras has already called for the central bank to stay on the ultra-loose course and continue buying bonds at least until the end of the year and formally taking interest rate cuts off the table.
But that doesn't seem to be the majority opinion.
On the financial markets, it is expected that the central bank will act more cautiously than originally planned;
that it will not completely abandon the change in monetary policy if the situation does not escalate further.
France's head of the central bank, François Villeroy de Galhau, had said that the central bank was more concerned than ever with "optionality": In view of the uncertainty, the ECB should not commit itself and rely on flexibility.