Roses and candles at the crime scene. "The brutality of this crime is disturbing, it leaves us speechless," said German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier there.
He toured Munich together with Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder and Mayor Dieter Reiter.
A day after the attack, more details are known than on Thursday. Investigators have hacked the attacker's phone and the messages indicate a certain Islamist connotation, it was said at a press conference in Munich.
"We can't give definitive answers yet," said prosecutor Gabriele Tillman. Although she has repeatedly defended herself that the investigation has only just begun. And she added: "Based on everything we know, I already dare to speak of an Islamist motive."
As she explained, this follows from the perpetrator's first interrogation. During his arrest, he shouted "Allahu akbar" and prayed. He said that he "knowingly" drove his car into the crowd.
The suspect describes himself as religious, regularly attending mosque, and writing about it on Instagram. On that network, he presented himself as a sporty guy and fitness model.
There is, Tilman added, no indication that he was a member of any terrorist organization.
What happened?
The 24-year-old Afghan man drove his car into a union protest in central Munich on Thursday (February 13th). At least 36 people were injured, police said - eight of them seriously and two in critical condition.
A baby stroller was also left under the car. One child's life is in danger.
At first, officials were quick to spread false news - that he was an asylum seeker who was required to leave Germany, that he had committed petty theft.
It soon turned out that the young man had a residence permit and work permit issued in Munich, and that he worked as a security guard in stores.
The perpetrator came to Germany as an unaccompanied minor in 2016. He was rejected in the asylum process, but attended school and received a residence permit in 2021.
There are no indications that the crime is connected to the Munich Security Conference, which begins this Friday in the Bavarian capital and traditionally brings together world leaders, but also numerous protests.
Another one in a row
The new attack comes at the end of the election campaign for the parliamentary elections on February 23. Even before this, security and migration were imposed as key issues.
As many as 68 percent of citizens want fewer immigrants, according to polls.
The Munich attack – carried out in a small Mini Cooper – adds to a long line of attacks in Germany carried out by individuals without much planning or direct links to terrorist groups, often with rudimentary tools such as cars and knives.
In late January, an Afghan man stabbed a group of kindergarten children in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria, killing a boy and a man who ran to help. In December, a Saudi man – a mentally ill critic of Islam – drove his car into a Christmas market in Magdeburg, killing six people and injuring around three hundred others.
The election campaign is also being conducted under these impressions. Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz has promised all the severity of the rule of law against the perpetrators from Munich.
"He will certainly be convicted in court and will be repatriated before he leaves prison," the chancellor said.
He recalled that Germany already deports perpetrators of serious crimes to Afghanistan, although it is not easy to organize this with the Taliban government in Kabul.
The quarrels between Šolc and Merc
Opposition leader Friedrich Merz, who has the best chance of becoming the next chancellor, reiterated that the safety of citizens would be his top priority. "Something has to change in Germany."
It is Merz who has been making headlines in recent weeks after he presented several radical proposals to curb migration in the Bundestag – including closing borders, turning away anyone without papers, and deporting those who need to leave the country.
Merz submitted the proposals knowing that they could only pass with the votes of the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), part of an extremist party that has been gaining strength on the issue of migration for years.
Since then, Chancellor Scholz has warned that a vote for Merz's Christian Democrats could be a vote for a Christian Democratic-AfD government. Merz rejects this, claiming that he would never enter into a coalition with the right and that the current government is not doing enough to change things.
Protests are taking place across the country against the "country's shift to the right", and the largest rally was held in Munich last weekend, with 250.000 people.
The new attack will certainly give the topic of migration and security additional importance before the elections, the German press is convinced.
"The attack is once again putting society's tolerance to a severe test," writes the left-liberal Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung notes that it is not enough for everyone to talk about how devastated they are and express condolences, stating that politicians are faced with big decisions. "Humanitarian obligations reach the limits of endurance if their victims become those who wanted to act humanely."
Polls stable
The latest attacks and the escalation of the debate have not changed the mood of voters, at least according to polls published daily in Germany.
The Christian Democrats can count on around 31 percent of the vote, while the AfD should expect around 20 percent. This is followed by the struggling ruling parties, the Social Democrats (around 15 percent) and the Greens (14 percent), and around the threshold of the threshold, the Left, the Alliance of Sarah Wagenknecht and the Liberals.
It is these little ones who could decisively change the anatomy of the next Bundestag.
But, if the polls translate into votes, there is every chance that Friedrich Merz, as prime minister, will have to talk to one or both of the parties he is now fiercely criticizing – the Social Democrats and the Greens.
He has announced decisive action and radical moves to curb migration, but before that, he faces arduous coalition negotiations and compromises.
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