Berlin — Germany searched for answers on Monday on possible security lapses after a man drove his car into a Christmas market, killing at least five people and casting a renewed spotlight on security and immigration ahead of a snap election.
The possible motive of the arrested suspect, a 50-year-old psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia with a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric and a sympathy for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, remains unknown.
As a nation mourned, with citizens leaving flowers and lighting candles in Magdeburg where the incident took place on Friday, questions swirled about whether more could have been done and whether the authorities could have acted on warnings.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called for tougher internal security laws to be adopted, including a new act to strengthen police forces as well as the introduction of biometric surveillance.
“It is clear that we must do everything to protect the people of Germany from such horrific acts of violence. To do this, our security authorities need all the necessary powers and more personnel,” Faeser told Spiegel newsmagazine.
The deputy head of a security committee in the Bundestag (parliament) announced he would convene a special session asking why previous warnings about the danger posed by the suspect, identified only as Taleb A., were not acted on. The arrested man has lived in Germany since 2006.
The main opposition Christian Democratic Union, which is on course to form the next government after an election in February, called for the strengthening of intelligence services.
“We can no longer be satisfied with the fact that information about violent criminals and terrorists often only comes from foreign services,” Guenter Krings, justice spokesperson for the CDU, told 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.”
The security services also must be able to remove dangerous people from circulation based on such knowledge, he said.
“The authority and obligation for official cooperation and data exchange must also be improved,” he said.
Germany’s data protection rules are among the strictest in the European Union, which federal police say has prevented them from resorting to biometric surveillance to date.
Police in the northwestern city of Bremerhaven said on Monday they had arrested a man who had threatened in a TikTok video to commit “serious crimes” at the local Christmas market. In the video, the man said he would target people who looked Arab or Mediterranean on Christmas Day.
AfD LEADERS IN MAGDEBURG
A committee in the local parliament of Saxony-Anhalt, the state where Magdeburg is located, will also convene to discuss the possible causes of the attack and its consequences, a state interior ministry spokesperson said.
Holger Muench, president of the federal criminal police office (BKA), told public broadcaster ZDF over the weekend that Germany was reviewing security measures at Christmas markets and addressing any vulnerabilities.
Muench said Germany had received a warning from Saudi Arabia as far back as 2023 about the suspect, which German authorities investigated but found vague.
“The man also published a huge number of posts on the Internet. He also had various contacts with the authorities, made insults and even threats. But he was not known for acts of violence,” Muench said.
Leaders of the AfD, which has surged in support on an anti-immigration platform and is polling in second place ahead of the election, plan to stage an event in Magdeburg on Monday evening.
“The discussion about new security laws must not distract from the fact that #Magdeburg would not have been possible without uncontrolled immigration,” AfD leader Alice Weidel said on social media. “The state must protect citizens through a restrictive migration policy and consistent deportations!”
Also on Monday evening, an initiative organized under the motto “Don’t give hate a chance” is calling for a human chain to be formed in Magdeburg.