Germany’s president said Tuesday that a deadly car-ramming attack on a Christmas market had cast a “dark shadow” over this year’s celebrations but urged the nation not to be driven apart by extremists.
In his traditional Christmas address, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier sought to issue a message of healing four days after the brutal attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg killed five people and left over 200 wounded.
A Saudi doctor, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, was arrested Friday at the scene of the attack in which a rented SUV ploughed at high speed through the crowd of revelers, bringing death and chaos to the festive event.
“A dark shadow hangs over this Christmas,” said the head of state, pointing to the “pain, horror and bewilderment over what happened in Magdeburg just a few days before Christmas.”
He made a call for national unity as a debate about security and immigration is flaring again: “Hatred and violence must not have the final word. Let’s not allow ourselves to be driven apart. Let’s stand together.”
In a post on X, Chancellor Olaf Scholz also recognized that Germany was living through “rough times” but added: “We are a community with a shared future and we are strong.”
The leaders’ words came a day after the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) held what it called a memorial rally for the victims in Magdeburg, where one speaker demanded that Germany “must close the borders.”
Nearby an anti-extremist initiative was held under the motto “Don’t Give Hate a Chance.”
Steinmeier recognized that there was a “great deal of dissatisfaction about politics” in Germany but insisted that “our democracy is and remains strong.”
Motive Unclear
Abdulmohsen’s motive still remains unclear, days after Germany’s deadliest attack in years. He had in many online posts voiced strongly anti-Islam views, anger at German authorities and support for far-right conspiracy narratives on the “Islamization” of Europe.
News outlet Der Spiegel reported he wrote on social media platform X in May that he expected to die “this year” and investigators found his will in the BMW used in the attack in which he stated that everything he owned was to go to the German Red Cross.
Die Welt daily, citing unnamed security sources, said that Abdulmohsen had been treated for a mental illness in the past, though this was not immediately confirmed by authorities.
The attack has fueled an already bitter debate on migration and security in Germany, two months before national elections and with the AfD riding high in opinion polls.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser warned the far-right party, which has enjoyed a string of recent local election successes, against seeking to gain politically from the attack.
“Any attempt to exploit such a terrible act and to abuse the suffering of the victims is repulsive,” she told the Funke media group.
Saudi Warnings
The government is facing mounting questions about possible errors and missed warnings about Abdulmohsen, who was arrested next to the battered BMW sports utility vehicle.
Saudi Arabia said it had repeatedly warned Germany about its citizen, who came to Germany in 2006 and was granted refugee status 10 years later.
A source close to the Saudi government told AFP that the kingdom had sought his extradition.
The Saudi suspect has been remanded in custody in a top-security facility on five counts of murder and 205 of attempted murder, prosecutors said, but not so far on terrorism-related charges.
Security had been strengthened at German Christmas markets since a jihadist attacker rammed a truck through a Berlin Christmas market in 2016, killing 13 people.
The Magdeburg event too had been shielded by barricades, but the attacker managed to exploit a five-meter (16 feet) gap when he steered the car into the site and then raced into the unsuspecting crowd.
Steinmeier offered his condolences for relatives of those injured and killed “in such a terrible way” – when the attack killed a nine-year-old boy and four women aged 45 to 75.
“You are not alone in your pain,” he told the hundreds of affected families. “The people throughout our country feel for you and mourn with you.”
