The Christmas market in central Magdeburg was full of people on Friday evening. At least five people were killed and over 200 were injured when the perpetrator drove a car straight through the crowd.
Warming blankets, mugs of mulled wine, a glove. On Saturday morning, traces of how chaos broke out a few hours earlier are visible among the stalls.
– We have seen a surveillance video of how this act took place, it is terrible to see, says SVT’s European correspondent Christoffer Wendick, on location in Magdeburg.
Christmas markets highlight for the Germans
In 2016, there was a terrorist attack against a large Christmas market in Berlin where 12 people were killed.
Even this year, German police had identified Christmas markets as possible locations for attacks. Concrete bollards had been placed around the Christmas market in Magdeburg.
– But somehow this man has managed to get past between these bollards and ram the people along the street, says Christoffer Wendick.
Magdeburg is the regional capital of Saxony-Anhalt, in old East Germany.
Here, as in the rest of the country, people gathered on Friday evening to celebrate that the last working day before Christmas was over for many. A child was killed in the attack.
– The Christmas markets, which look something like this in all German cities, are the highlight for people before Christmas. This is how you meet and how the Christmas holidays begin. And there have been a lot of kids in this market, too.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the attack as brutal and horrific.
– It is important that nothing should be left unturned, that you turn over every stone, he said at a press conference.
Christoffer Wendick tells about a policeman’s testimony. He ran between dead bodies in pursuit of the perpetrator.
– This was a terrible night and those were exactly the words that Olaf Scholtz used just now.
A motive for the crime is still not known. The perpetrator is a 50-year-old doctor who came to Germany from Saudi Arabia in 2006.
On an X account that several German media link to the suspect, he expresses how “Germany wants to Islamize Europe”.
– He criticizes Germany very harshly for accepting so many Muslim immigrants and believes that this German government is carrying out an Islamization of society, says Christoffer Wendick.