Magdeburg’s mayor remembers the victims at a Christmas concert. Nancy Faeser makes an appeal to the AfD. All previous developments in the news blog.
This news blog has been ended. t-online will continue to keep you up to date on the latest developments regarding the attack in Magdeburg.
3:38 p.m.: Almost a week after the attack on the Magdeburg Christmas market, several hundred people remembered the victims at the traditional Christmas concert in the opera house. “This attack has left a big wound in our city. A wound that bleeds,” said Mayor Simone Borris (independent) shortly before the concert.
It is now up to the people of Magdeburg to stop this bleeding. However, the great wound will leave a scar that will change the appearance of the city. “We have to try to stand by one another in our grief and then look forward,” emphasizes Borris.
At the beginning of the concert, the guests stood for a minute’s silence. Among them were relatives of the victims, those affected, rescue workers and first responders. 200 free cards were provided especially for them.
12:57 p.m.: After the Christmas market attack in Magdeburg with five deaths, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) warned the AfD against exploiting the crime in the election campaign. “All I can say about the AfD is: Any attempt to exploit such a terrible act and abuse the suffering of the victims is disgusting,” Faeser told the Funke newspapers in an interview published in advance on Wednesday. “It just shows the character of those who do something like that.”
AfD leader Alice Weidel called for “real clarification” after the Magdeburg attack. “We want something to finally change in this country and that we never again have to mourn a mother who lost her son in such a senseless and brutal way,” she said on Monday at a rally in the capital of Saxony-Anhalt.
In the Funke newspapers, Faeser also addressed statements made by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who had called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to resign after the attack. “We should pay less attention to this billionaire’s crude views,” she said.
3:15 a.m.: After the car attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg, SPD leader Saskia Esken calls for unity. “In addition to possible political consequences, which must be examined closely and chosen with care, one message must not be ignored: What unites us as a society is always greater than what divides us,” Esken told the German Press Agency. “Especially in times of distress and sadness, we can trust that our “being human” and our cohesion are stronger than hate and violence.”
10:10 p.m.: After the attack on the Christmas market, charges of complicity in murder and bodily harm were filed against the city of Magdeburg and the police. The Jena Criminalistic Institute, an association that helps with court reports, among other things, has submitted them to the public prosecutor’s office in Naumburg, reports the “Volksstimme”. The club chairman Dieter Siegel confirmed this upon request. The reason given is that the authorities “did not initiate, organize or implement any technical barriers”. In the opinion of the association, this constituted a criminal offense for aiding and abetting through omission. According to information from “Bild”, a police car should actually have stood as a barrier in the gap through which the perpetrator Taleb al-Abdulmohsen drove his car.