German airline Lufthansa says it has cancelled about half of its flights after pilots went on strike in an ongoing dispute over retirement benefits, the International New York Times reported. The airline, Germany's largest, said Monday that 1,350 of its 2,800 flights scheduled through the strike's end Tuesday at midnight have been cancelled, affecting 150,000 passengers. The strike was primarily focused on Lufthansa's inner-Europe flights on Monday but was to be extended to long-haul flights Tuesday.

Germany’s central bank has warned that corporate debt is becoming overpriced and threatens the financial stability of Europe’s biggest economy, the Financial Times reported. The comments from the Bundesbank come as the European Central Bank considers buying corporate bonds to expand its balance sheet and stave off the threat of economic stagnation in the eurozone.

German television maker Metz has filed for insolvency, a spokesman for the company said on Wednesday, adding that about 600 jobs would be affected, Reuters reported. Joachim Exner, who co-managed the insolvency of German peer Loewe, has been appointed as insolvency administrator, the spokesman said, adding that the company's production and customer services would continue for the time being. Peer Loewe sought protection from creditors in July 2013 and filed for insolvency in October after a strategy to combat the economic downturn by focusing on premium customers failed.

German fish processor and distributor Hagenah has entered the preliminary stage of an insolvency process, after failing to recover from a fire at the end of 2012, undercurrent news reported. The company, which has 145 employees and is the largest of its type in Hamburg, had been profitable for many years, said Tjark Thies, partner of the law firm Reimer Rechtsanwalte, appointed as the provisional insolvency administrator.

To reunite Germany, the West German government would set in motion the beginnings of a massive transfusion of financial and social subsidies and within a year make whole a country divided for some 40 years, The Wall Street Journal reported. It required restructuring Europe’s postwar political order to allow for the annexation of a bankrupt state and a collapsing economy, an audacious undertaking that left economists wondering if it could even be done.

German exports tumbled 5.8 per cent in August compared with July – the biggest drop since the peak of the global financial crisis in January 2009. The economy now risks slipping into recession in the third quarter, and the government has already lowered its growth forecasts for 2014 and 2015, the Financial Times reported. Those developments are unsettling a Germany corporate sector that has been a robust counterweight to the gloom in much of Europe ever since it staged a rapid recovery from the 2009 crisis, thanks to booming emerging market demand for machinery, chemicals and autos.

The European Central Bank’s investigation of the eurozone’s largest lenders is raising further concerns over the future of German publicly owned Landesbank HSH Nordbank, as its bloated shipping portfolio comes under intense scrutiny, the Financial Times reported. Germany’s largest shipping lenders, including HSH Nordbank, NordLB and Commerzbank, will see their shipping assets written down by between 10-20 per cent in the ECB’s stress tests, according to bankers familiar with the investigations.

Pilots of German carrier Deutsche Lufthansa AG will go on strike again Monday and Tuesday in their continuing dispute over retirement benefits, The Wall Street Journal reported. The pilots union, Vereinigung Cockpit, said in a statement the strike will start at 11:00 GMT on Monday and would end at 21:59 GMT on Tuesday, and would affect Lufthansa’s Airbus 320 family, Boeing 737 and Embraer planes. Lufthansa said about 1,450 flights will be canceled on Monday and Tuesday because of the strikes. More than 200,000 customers will be affected by the walkout, the company added.

eeply subordinated debt issued by German Landesbanken lost as much as six points in the past week as investors factored in the possibility that debt issued by banks that fail Europe's coming stress tests will suffer painful haircuts, Reuters reported. HSH Nordbank, Munich Hypo and Nord/LB are just some of the banks investors are nervously watching as they prepare for the worst when the European Central Bank (ECB) releases the results of its bank health check later this month.

Germany and France have tapped a prominent economist from each country for policy advice to counter “the risk of a lost decade in Europe” in an attempt to bridge the growing divide between the two countries over how to revive flagging economic growth in Europe. German Economics Minister Sigmar Gabriel and French Economy and Industry Minister Emmanuel Macron recently solicited help from French economist Jean Pisani-Ferry and Henrik Enderlein, lecturers at the Berlin-based Hertie School of Governance, in separate letters seen by The Wall Street Journal.