Germany in shock at yet another knife massacre

Germany is in shock over the "attack" by an assailant who last night around 9.45pm stabbed participants in the neck in the street at the 'Diversity Festival' organised to celebrate 650 years of the city of Solingen in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state and one of the richest states in western Germany. The attack, so far not classified by the police as a 'terrorist attack', left three people dead - possibly a woman and two men - and eight injured, five of them seriously: and the bomber, of whom nothing is officially known as yet, is on the run.

The shock caused by this deadly attack has deep roots because it is the latest in a long series of fatal and non-fatal knife attacks in Germany. Last June, a young policeman, aged 29, died after suffering injuries from a knife attack in Mannheim. At the beginning of August, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser initiated a reform aimed at tightening gun laws, especially on the possession of knives in public places, which are now allowed with a blade of up to 12 centimetres.

As reported by Tagesschau, according to police statistics in 2023 there were 8,951 cases of grievous bodily harm due to the use of knives in Germany, an increase of 5.6 per cent compared to 2022. The federal police, responsible for railway stations, recorded a sharp increase in knife attacks in areas around railway stations. In 2023, the authority recorded a total of 777 knife attacks at stations, and in the first six months of this year, 430 such cases have already been recorded.

But there is another concern creeping in among German citizens. This umpteenth tragic street attack with the stabbing of passers-by, if it turns out to be terrorist in nature or if the attacker turns out to be a refugee or a foreigner, could have a strong impact on the political life of the country: on 1 September, elections will be held in Thuringia and Saxony, on 22 September in Brandenburg, where the far-right party AfD is leading the polls or second after the Cdu. This aggression, which frightens the entire nation, could throw fuel on the fire and fuel the growing aversion to immigrants, especially in East Germany but not only.