Far-right rally divides Magdeburg after attack

In the first opinion poll to be released after the Magdeburg attack, Germany’s political landscape looks largely unchanged ahead of February's election.

According to the poll, published by the tabloid Bild newspaper and conducted by German polling institute INSA, the conservative CDU/CSU is still the biggest political force, garnering 31% voter support and losing half a percentage point from the previous INSA survey.   

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) maintained its position as the second most-popular party, with 19.5% support. 

The Social Democratic Party (SPD), would receive 16% of the vote, having lost half a percentage point from the previous INSA poll. Germany’s environmentalist Greens gained one point and now have 12.5% backing.

The left-wing populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) remain at 8%.

The business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) are at 5%, which is the exact threshold to enter the German parliament, or Bundestag. The Left Party, meanwhile, are still under that threshold with 3% support.
 

German investigators found a will left in the car used by the perpetrator of Friday night's attack on the Magdeburg Christmas Market, according to Germany's Der Spiegel news magazine.

In the will, the attacker, who presumably expected to die during the attack, states that his entire fortune should be donated to the German Red Cross.

In May 2024, he had posted on "X" that he expected to die "this year," a warning which he repeated in several private messages to other "X" users, reports Spiegel.

The will and testament reportedly did not contain any political messages.

Hundreds of people formed a human chain around the Alter Markt in Magdeburg on Monday evening in a gesture of remembrance for the victims of Friday night's attack on a Christmas market held on the same square.

The initiative, named "Don't Give Hate a Chance," was also intended to be a stand against right-wing extremists seeking to exploit the attack for political gain.

Organizers said thousands took part, with people of all ages standing together in dense crowds. Holding candles, they applauded and thanked the emergency services — the police officers who had apprehended the perpetrator and the medical teams who had treated the over 200 wounded.

"These are lights for a cosmopolitan city," said Oliver Wiebe, one of the organizers.

The event took place at the same time as a demonstration led by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on the Domplatz just across town, where attendees had chanted for "deportations!"

Local newspapers in Magdeburg and the surrounding areas of eastern Germany have warned against what they consider the "instrumentalization" of Friday night's attack while calling on the authorities to investigate security failures thoroughly.

In Magdeburg itself, the local Volksstimme newspaper wrote: 

"Three days on from the attack, and despite all appeals to the contrary, the political instrumentalization has begun. The right has blamed all migrants for the crime, while the left says it was the result of far-right radicalization. With the federal election coming up [in February], it's a battle for control of the narrative. In the end, it will lead to little — only to a further division of society. After all, the profile of the perpetrator can be interpreted in several ways.

"But that doesn't mean that [the attack] doesn't require investigation. Because, when people lose trust in the state's ability to protect them, the political center and ultimately democracy itself are endangered. We saw what that means on Saturday when groups of far-right demonstrators using sinister language could be observed."

And in Cottbus, a city in the neighboring state of Brandenburg,the Lausitzer Rundschau newspaper wrote:

"One need not only look at the demonstrations by right-wing extremists to see that many more protagonists will be looking to score political points in relation to this attack. The CDU [Christian Democratic Union] wants to start turning [migrants] back at the borders again. But what does that have to do with the terror in Magdeburg? The terrorist arrived here legally, lived here legally, worked here legally  and evidently fell into madness here.

"As correct as it is to investigate the precise circumstances of this terrible crime and the security failures before it, the political instrumentalization is equally disingenuous. Regardless of who is doing it."

Germany's far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party staged a demonstration on Magdeburg's central Domplatz on Monday evening in response to Friday night's deadly Christmas market attack.

Precise attendance figures were not immediately available, but footage appeared showed many people on the square listening to speeches made by AfD politicians, including chancellor candidate Alice Weidel and Jan Wenzel Schmidt, the AfD's leader for the state of Saxony-Anhalt.

"Someone who hates — and kills — the people of the country that gave him asylum, who hates all we stand for and all that we love, does not belong to us," said Weidel, who had traveled to Magdeburg from Berlin.

"We want things to finally change in this country so that we will never again have to mourn with the mother who has lost her son in such a pointless and brutal way," she continued, describing the attack as "an act of an Islamist full of hatred for what constitutes human cohesion ... for us Germans, for us Christians."

The perpetrator of the Christmas market attack is a Saudi man who came to Germany in 2006. In social media posts, he called himself an atheist who renounced Islam and attacked German migration policies as too lenient. He also expressed sympathy for the AfD, saying it pursued the same goals he did. 

Wenzel Schmidt called the attack a "monstrous political failure" on the part of the authorities who had granted the "mass murderer" asylum despite him having publicized his intentions (see entries below). Individual police officers, he said, had had their "hands tied" and been "left alone" by their superiors.

During the demonstration, which was titled "Grief unites — for a secure future," attendees intermittently chanted for "deportations."

After the speeches, the AfD is set to lead a march around the city center.

Simultaneously, several counter-demonstrations took place with slogans such as "We want to mourn — give hate no chance" and "Give fascism no chance."

State police in Saxony-Anhalt received a warning regarding the perpetrator of Friday night's Christmas market attack back in autumn 2023, but they didn't respond, local public broadcaster MDR reports.

On September 27, 2023, a member of the public contacted the police via direct message on Instagram, writing in English: "There's a guy [who] said he's going to kill random German citizens, please do something and arrest him as soon as possible. Please answer, it's very urgent."

The warning also featured screenshots of posts made by the eventual perpetrator on "X."

According to MDR, the tipster had also contacted Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and police in Berlin, both of which had directed them to police in Saxony-Anhalt.

Acknowledging the warning, BAMF said on Monday: "This tip, like many others, was taken seriously. But since we are not an investigative authority, the person giving the warning was, as is always the case, referred directly to the responsible authorities."

Saxony-Anhalt state police told MDR that they were unable to comment due to the ongoing investigation.

German police contacted the perpetrator of Friday night's deadly attack in Magdeburg several times in the past year in order to conduct so-called preventative appeals. 

According to Saxony-Anhalt Interior Minister Tamara Zieschang, a first appeal took place in September 2023 and another in October 2024.

Police also attempted to conduct a preventative appeal in December 2023 regarding comments the perpetrator had made on social media. However, they were unable to confront him in person, a written appeal went unanswered and the investigation was dropped.

Prosecutors said the number of injured in the Magdeburg Christmas market attack has risen to as many as 235 as more people have reported to hospitals and doctors.

It is, however, possible there was some double-counting of the figures.

 

Germany's leading opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has called for the country's intelligence services to be strengthened after the attack in Magdeburg.

"We can no longer be satisfied with the fact that information about violent criminals and terrorists often only comes from foreign services," CDU lawmaker Günter Krings the Handelsblatt newspaper. "That is why our German security authorities need more powers of their own in order to gain more of their own knowledge, especially in the digital area."

Saudi Arabia has previously requested the extradition of the attacker from Germany, a government source told the AFP news agency on Monday.

"There was [an extradition] request," said the source, without giving the reason for the request, adding that Riyadh had warned he "could be dangerous."

The CDU's Krings said security services must be able to remove dangerous people from society using information from their digital activities.

The German state of Saxony-Anhalt, of which Magdeburg is the capital, is offering psychological counseling to schoolchildren and educational staff who were caught up in the attack.

Hotlines are being set up on which the state's Education Ministry said "those affected can use the hotlines to talk confidentially about their own feelings and fears."

State Education Minister Eva Feussner said the attack had deeply affected the community.

"In addition to compassion for the victims and their families, it is also very important to support those seeking help and to support them in their healing process," said Feussner.

"We want to ensure that no one has to deal with the emotional stress of this tragedy alone. We stand together in this difficult time and will do everything we can to offer our children and the state's school staff the support they need."

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and the heads of Germany's domestic and foreign intelligence services are due to answer questions about the Magdeburg Christmas market attack at a parliamentary committee next week, a senior lawmaker said.

Dirk Wiese, a member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats, told the AFP news agency that officials from Germany's domestic and foreign intelligence agencies and the Office for Migration and Refugees had been called to a hearing on December 30.

There are unanswered questions about what the authorities knew about the perpetrator before Friday's attack. 

Germany's Federal Criminal Police (BKA) President Holger Münch told public broadcaster ZDF the man had various contacts with authorities, during which he made insults and sometimes threats, but he was not known to be violent.

Münch described him as an "atypical perpetrator."

Germany's Federal Office for Migration and Refugees also acknowledged Sunday it had received a warning about the suspect last year.

A man who threatened severe criminal acts at Bremerhaven's Christmas market in a TikTok video was detained on Sunday night, police said.

Police in the German port city "very quickly"  identified the suspect after the video was posted and took him into custody. 

There are no details about the suspect or the specific threats made.

Police said there was no danger to the public.

Read more about it here.

Germany's far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is set to hold a rally in Magdeburg on Monday evening.

The party's chancellor candidate, Alice Weidel, and several state AfD politicians are expected to attend the gathering at the city's Domplatz, followed by a march.

In an invitation to the event, the AfD claimed that the recent attack highlights the dangers of Germany's immigration policy. 

On Saturday, scuffles broke out at a far-right rally in the city, billed as a "demonstration against terror" and attended by more than 2,000 people.

Protesters held up a large banner bearing the word "immigration," a term popular with anti-immigration extremists seeking the mass deportation of migrants.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has urged the swift adoption of draft laws to bolster internal security.

The deadly attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg has raised questions about public safety and intelligence gaps in Germany.

"We must do everything in our power to protect the people of Germany from such horrific acts of violence. Our security authorities need all the necessary powers and additional personnel to achieve this," Faeser told Der Spiegel news magazine.

Following the Solingen knife attack earlier this year, lawmakers tightened gun laws and strengthened security authorities' powers.

Faeser, however, said further legislative changes were blocked by her Social Democratic Party (SPD) party's former governing coalition partner, the Free Democrats (FDP), the opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) and the CDU's Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). 

"All of these bills could be passed immediately if the [CDU and CSU] and FDP did not refuse to do so," she said.

The measures include a new Federal Police Act, designed to strengthen the federal police, and the introduction of biometric surveillance.

FDP General Secretary Marco Buschmann cautioned against hasty actions.

"Our task is to support the victims and their families. Competing for symbolic measures would not do justice to the terrible situation," he told Der Spiegel.
Germany will hold a federal election in February. Domestic security is likely to be an important issue in the campaign.

Bernd Baumann, the parliamentary head of the far-right AfD, called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz to convene a special session of the Bundestag regarding the "desolate" security situation, stating that "this is the least we owe to the victims."

Meanwhile, the head of the far-left BSW party, Sahra Wagenknecht, demanded Faeser explain "why so many tips and warnings were ignored beforehand."

The CDU and FDP called for enhancements to Germany's security apparatus, including improved coordination between federal and state authorities.

• Five people, including a 9-year-old boy, were killed on Friday night when a car plowed into a crowd at the Magdeburg Christmas market.
• More than 200 people were injured; 41 are in critical condition and 90 are seriously injured.
• Police arrested the perpetrator shortly after the attack but haven't publicly named him. He is said to be a Saudi doctor and resident in Germany since 2006, who had reportedly previously made online death threats.
• The perpetrator was remanded into custody after appearing in court on Saturday. He faces five counts of murder, multiple attempted murders, and dangerous bodily harm, police said.
• The motive behind the attack remains unclear. 
• Security has been tightened at all of Germany's Christmas markets.
• Investigators are looking into how authorities responded to earlier warnings about the perpetrator.
• Saudi authorities warned their German counterparts about the perpetrator last year, and had requested his extradition.
• Germany's Federal Criminal Police (BKA) President Holger Münch told the German public broadcaster ZDF the man had various contacts with authorities in the past during which he made insults and sometimes threats, "but he was not known for acts of violence."

lo/rm (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)