Police patrol an empty and cordoned off Christmas market, where a car crashed into a crowd, early on December 21, 2024, in Magdeburg, eastern Germany. At least one person was killed and 68 others injured on December 20, 2024 in what is suspected to be an attack on a Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg, according to local authorities. (Photo by John MACDOUGALL / AFP)
AFP
“Scholz, do politics for the people. Sit down at the table with the AfD,” the German far-right party, shouts Kevin Bäcker, a 36-year-old entrepreneur. In front of the square in front of the Protestant temple, covered with bouquets of flowers and red candles, a few dozen citizens gather silently.
Only Mr. Bäcker let his anger explode when the social democratic leader Olaf Scholz and the leader of the conservative opposition Friedrich Merz arrived to support the residents after this attack which left at least 5 dead and more than 200 injured.
Four days before Christmas, Magdeburg, a city in eastern Germany of around 250,000 inhabitants, is in mourning: near the scene of the tragedy, passers-by walk, with closed faces, on sidewalks where nurses' gloves sky blue still litter the ground.
But two months before the early German legislative elections, some are raising the question of political responsibility for this carnage and the reception of foreigners whose alleged author is Saudi.
As across Europe, the far right is on the rise in Germany, and in the eastern part of the country, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) recorded record scores in regional elections in September. In the polls, she is given second place for the general elections in February, behind the conservatives.
“I had a very bad night,” says Fred Köhler, a 63-year-old janitor from Magdeburg, “because it’s Germans who are being crushed again.”
The attack in Magdeburg occurred eight years after that in Berlin where a truck ram killed 13 people, so far the deadliest in Germany, committed by a Tunisian Islamist.
Even if the reasons for the Magdeburg attack remain unclear and the alleged perpetrator is described as Islamophobic by the government, the fever is rising.
“All this is happening with the authorization of our regime in Berlin, which tolerates this,” adds Mr. Köhler, very angry against all the traditional parties, the conservatives of ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel, who practiced a generous policy immigration, the social democrats of Scholz, the Greens and the liberals.
“All these important people are going to celebrate Christmas in peace,” he gets angry. Like his friend, Andreas Hecht, a 74-year-old retiree, who came to lay flowers with him, he suggests that the AfD could provide the solution to the country's security problems.
Others are much more measured. “We are overwhelmed, speechless and we tell ourselves that we could have been there at that moment,” confides Harm Boems, a young 19-year-old student, with tears in his eyes. For him, it is important “to concentrate for a few hours, for a few days (…) on the victims, the people who suffered”. “Maybe policies at the federal level are somehow responsible,” he conceives. But he emphasizes that security measures had been taken to protect this very popular market during the holidays, where families came to taste gingerbread, sausages, and drink mulled wine in the middle of small illuminated chalets selling artisanal products.
“It is very important not to let politicians exploit this attack,” warns German-American Knut Panknin, who laid a wreath with his African-American companion. “Politicians must be concerned about security and order but at the same time, they must not abandon the field to populists,” adds this fifty-year-old, who lives in Washington and came to spend the end of year holidays in his family in Germany. And he recalls: “the majority of crimes in Germany are committed by German citizens”.
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