German authorities have brought the first sexual assault charge stemming from New Year's Eve mob violence in the western city of Cologne against an Algerian man, prosecutors said Thursday.

The 26-year-old suspect is believed to have groped a woman while he and around 10 other men surrounded her at the city's main train station, a spokesman for the Cologne administrative court told AFP.

German police have arrested a 19-year-old Syrian man accused of having fought with the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria, prosecutors said Thursday.

The man identified only as Shaas E. M. allegedly joined the Islamist group in 2013 and stayed with them until at least August last year, having "taken part in various military operations" and delivered food supplies for the IS, they said in a statement.

A German neo-Nazi politician who crashed his car into a tree was rescued by Syrian refugees who happened to be passing, German media reported on Tuesday.

Stefan Jagsch, 29, a member of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), was badly injured in the crash last week, local newspapers and national news agency DPA said.

Former German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle, one of the country's best-known openly gay politicians, died Friday after a long battle with leukemia. He was 54.

The former head of the liberal, pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) was diagnosed with the disease in June 2014, half a year after he left his post as Germany's top diplomat.

Sitting in his leafy garden on a river that marks the German-Austrian border, Rainer Borchers is enjoying the return of peace and quiet since the massive migrant influx has ceased.

"It's very quiet here. That's why I moved here," said the 38-year-old on an early spring day, weeks after the effective closure of the so-called Balkans refugee route.

Chancellor Angela Merkel signaled Wednesday that the EU will not do a deal with Ankara at all costs to solve the bloc's refugee crisis, as she urged European leaders to stand firm on their push for civil rights in Turkey.

While acknowledging that this week's talks in Brussels could offer the "first real chance" to resolve the refugee crisis, she cautioned that Turkey needed to fulfill EU conditions in order to secure its key demands.

Germany banned a neo-Nazi group called the "White Wolves Terror Crew" on Wednesday after police targeted its members in dawn raids in 10 states.

Police confiscated weapons, propaganda leaflets and data carriers in the raids against the far-right group, said Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, announcing the ban on the group whose German name is "Weisse Woelfe Terrorcrew" or WWT.

The German government on Wednesday agreed to tighten the country's rape law to cover cases in which a victim withheld consent but did not physically fight back.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet signed off on the measure, which still requires parliamentary approval, after a rash of sexual assaults in crowds on New Year's Eve in the western city of Cologne drew intense media coverage.

German police opened a homicide probe on Tuesday after a car bomb killed a driver on a central Berlin street, with authorities saying there was currently no terrorism link.

The blast caused by an explosive device "on or in the vehicle" occurred during morning rush-hour traffic on Bismarckstrasse, within sight of the Victory Column monument.

The right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Monday hailed regional elections in which it achieved breakthrough results as "a good day for democracy".

Its leader Frauke Petry said it was time to reassess Chancellor Angela Merkel's liberal refugee policy, which she slammed as costly and based on false ideas on how well migrants would integrate into the labor market.