AUGSBURG, Germany (AP) — Fabian Hürzeler is the English Premier League's new star manager after going unbeaten in his first four league games at Brighton. His old club St. Pauli is in trouble already.
The 31-year-old Texas-born coach got Hamburg-based St. Pauli promoted back to the Bundesliga last season for the first time since 2011, but left a month later to join Brighton.
Three games into the Bundesliga season and St. Pauli has yet to earn a point. Now coached by Alexander Blessin, Sunday's 3-1 loss at Augsburg left St. Pauli in the relegation zone. At least it shed the unwanted record of being the league's only team yet to score a goal.
New signing Marius Wolf gave Augsburg the lead shortly after halftime with his first Bundesliga goal since August 2022, before Phillip Tietz headed in a second. Carlo Boukhalfa's header got St. Pauli back into the game but Yusuf Kabadayi's added-time goal secured the win for Augsburg.
The only team below St. Pauli in the table is the other promoted club, Holstein Kiel, which has three losses and a goal difference of minus 8 after being routed 6-1 by Bayern Munich on Saturday.
Augsburg's win was its first of the season in the Bundesliga and came three days after coach Jess Thorup was given a contract extension through 2026.
Also Sunday, Werder Bremen held on for a 2-1 win at Mainz despite playing the last half-hour with 10 men.
Marvin Ducksch's early penalty for Bremen was canceled out by Lee Jae-sung's goal for Mainz after Bremen goalkeeper Michael Zetterer misjudged an interception.
Bremen captain Marco Friedl was red-carded in the 60th for fouling Mainz's Jonathan Burkardt when he was through on goal, but Bremen soon followed up with a goal for new signing Derrick Köhn on his Bundesliga debut.
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Bremen's Derrick Köhn celebrates scoring during the German Bundesliga soccer match between FSV Mainz 05 and Werder Bremen, at the Mewa Arena in Mainz, Germany, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (Uwe Anspach/dpa via AP)
Augsburg's Samuel Essende, left, and St. Pauli's Eric Smith vie for the ball during the German Bundesliga soccer match between FC Augsburg and FC St. Pauli in Augsburg, Germany, Sunday, Sept. 15, 2024. (Harry Langer/dpa via AP)
St. Pauli's Robert Wagner, left, and Augsburg's Ruben Vargas in action during the Bundesliga soccer match between FC Augsburg and FC St. Pauli at WWK-Arena, Augsburg, Germany, Sunday Sept. 15, 2024. (Harry Langer/dpa via AP)
BERLIN (AP) — The German government has sharply rejected accusations by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claiming that it has been sidelining patient autonomy, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The statements made by the US Secretary of Health are completely unfounded, factually incorrect, and must be rejected,” German Health Minister Nina Warken said in a statement late Saturday.
Kennedy said in a video post earlier on Saturday that he had sent the German minister a letter based on reports coming out of Germany that the government was “limiting people’s abilities to act on their own convictions when they face medical decisions.”
The American health secretary said that “I've learned that more than a thousand German physicians and thousands of their patients now face prosecution and punishment for issuing exemptions from wearing masks or getting COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic."
Warken rejected Kennedy’s claims, saying that “during the coronavirus pandemic, there was never any obligation on the medical profession to administer COVID-19 vaccinations. Anyone who did not want to offer vaccinations for medical, ethical, or personal reasons was not liable to prosecution, nor did they have to fear sanctions.”
Kennedy did not give provide specific examples or say which reports he was referring to but added that “in my letter, I explained that Germany is targeting physicians who put their patients first and punishing citizens for making their own medical choices.”
He concluded that "the German government is now violating the sacred patient physician relationship, replacing it is a dangerous system that makes physicians enforcers of state policies.”
Kennedy said that in his letter he made clear that “Germany has the opportunity and the responsibility to correct this trajectory, to restore medical autonomy, to end politically motivated prosecutions.”
Warken pointed out that there were no professional bans or fines for not getting vaccinated.
“Criminal prosecution was only pursued in cases of fraud and document forgery, such as the issuance of false vaccination certificates or fake mask certificates," the minister said.
She also clarified that in general in Germany “patients are also free to decide which therapy they wish to undergo.”
Former German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, who was in charge during the pandemic, also replied, addressing Kennedy directly on X saying that he “should take care of health problems in his own country. Short life expectancy, extreme costs, tens of thousands of drug deaths and murder victims."
“In Germany, doctors are not punished by the government for issuing false medical certificates. In our country, the courts are independent,” Lauterbach wrote.
While a majority of Germans were eager to get vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus during the pandemic, there were also protests by a small minority of vaccine skeptics in Germany which were sometimes supported by far-right movements.
FILE - Robert Kennedy Jr., center, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the Health and Human Services Department, walks between meetings with senators on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
