display
After the violent onset of winter in many regions of Germany on the weekend, extreme weather should continue on Monday: The German Weather Service warned during the night of sometimes heavy snowfall with mostly ten to 25 centimeters of fresh snow in the first half of the day in central Germany - should be affected especially northeast Hesse, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony.
In other federal states, too, people continue to face restrictions due to the onset of winter.
Problems were expected again for road and rail traffic.
"Snow and ice will affect DB's local and long-distance traffic in large parts of the country on Monday, too," Deutsche Bahn announced on Sunday evening.
Travelers were asked "to use the numerous information channels of the DB to find out about their connection before starting their journey".
A heavy snowstorm caused traffic chaos in parts of Germany on Sunday.
In some places more than 30 centimeters of snow fell and there were meter-high drifts.
Police and fire brigade drove countless missions.
There were major restrictions on regional and long-distance rail services.
Bundesliga soccer games have been canceled.
In the early morning snowfall near Dresden, too, many people are stuck in traffic on the snowy Autobahn 4
Source: dpa / Robert Michael
display
The heavy onset of winter brought the clearance services to their limits in North Rhine-Westphalia, for example.
The police had to block highways as smooth as glass, there were hundreds of accidents, and trains were canceled due to iced overhead lines.
Cars got stuck in deep drifts of snow.
In Göttingen, the snowfall brought traffic on the A7 to an almost complete standstill.
On the night of Monday, trucks jammed on other motorways that could not move forward in the snow.
Tram derailed in Braunschweig
In Braunschweig, the fire brigade hid a tram car that had jumped off the rails due to the snow.
The wagon belonged to a special vehicle with a snow plow, with which the transport company was actually on the way to free rails from the masses of snow, as a fire department spokesman said on Sunday.
Rescue workers lifted the car, which weighed tons, back into the track with a truck crane.
According to the fire brigade, snow drifts with a height of up to 70 centimeters piled up in the Braunschweig urban area.
The fire brigade had to move in Duisburg because five had been cut off from the outside world by the snowdrifts directly on the Rhine.
Clearance vehicles got stuck in the snowdrifts, some 1.50 meters high, the police said.
display
Stuck trucks blocked several motorways in the north and east of Hesse.
"The situation is catastrophic," said a police spokesman in Fulda early on Monday morning.
In many areas, the trucks and cars have been stuck in traffic for six hours and there is no forward or backward movement.
The A7 and A4 are particularly affected.
"Everything around the Kirchheim triangle is tight," said the spokesman.
Truck drivers should no longer use the motorways.
It is not yet clear when the lanes will be clear again.
Trucks were parked across in the north of Hesse.
A spokesman for the Kassel police said it was tight on Autobahn 7 between Lutterberg and Homberg.
The clearance vehicles would hardly get through.
Scheuer: Better to stay at home
Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) advised those affected by the snow chaos in Germany to stay at home at the beginning of the week.
Scheuer said after a briefing on Sunday at "Bild live" that one could not guarantee that the rail traffic would be up and running again on Monday.
Low "Tristan" over Central Europe and the Central Mediterranean, in combination with high "Gisela" over Scandinavia, brings more icy air.
"After the snowy and windy weekend, the great cold is coming from the east," said meteorologist Simon Trippler from the DWD on Sunday.
Snow must still be expected, but it does not fall as intensely as on the weekend.
On Tuesday, the snowfall will mostly subside, except on the coast.