Sorrow and Fury in Germany

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These sort of crimes are horrific and very hard to understand. Why?

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"The German city of Magdeburg was in mourning Saturday over a car-ramming attack that brought death and carnage to its Christmas market, but the sorrow gave way to anger when the politicians showed up.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz led a group of black-clad ministers who condemned the violence and laid flowers to pay their respects and offer condolences for the five dead and more than 200 wounded, many children among the casualties.

But the sombre silence outside the city's cathedral, where candles, flowers and toys had been laid out for victims and survivors, was broken when a man shouted out: "Scholz, do politics for the people!"


https://www.yahoo.com/news/sorrow-fury-german-town-christmas-154949040.html

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More from the BBC.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y4q4eny2do

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And from Deutsche Welle. They talk about security plans. The best security plan is to forcibly evict all Muslims back to where they came from. 

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"The most immediate question pertained to concrete safety plans. The Berlin Christmas market attack of December 2016, when 13 people were killed by a Tunisian asylum-seeker who drove a truck into a crowd, resulted in two parliamentary inquiries and immediate safety upgrades: Heavy concrete blocks, road blocks, and increased police presences were introduced at markets throughout Germany and Austria.

But it appears that the markets, which attract thousands of people and appear in almost every available space in German cities in the 5-6 weeks leading up to Christmas, can never be totally secured from vehicles — partly because emergency vehicles also need to be able to access the market, and because there need to be multiple emergency exits for people to escape.

"The places that the perpetrator used were the emergency access routes and the emergency exits," Ronni Krug, a Magdeburg city official, told reporters on Saturday, before referring to the Duisburg Love Parade incident of 2010, when 21 were killed in a crush partly because there weren't enough emergency exits. He added that the security plan at all of Magdeburg's Christmas markets had been "created according to the best knowledge," and that security plans for such markets were continually updated."

https://www.dw.com/en/security-questions-over-christmas-market-attack-in-magdeburg/a-71138203

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Auf Deutsch von Die Zeit.

https://www.zeit.de/thema/magdeburg

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Will the crime committed in Magdeburg change the German election? Elon Musk expresses support for AfD. What they call "extreme-right" used to be middle of the road.

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The AfD is currently polling at around 19% ahead of the German federal election in February, second only to the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at around 33%.

But all the other parties currently in the German parliament have ruled out forming a coalition with them.

The AfD is officially suspected of being an extreme-right organization by Germany's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesverfassungsschutz or BfV).


https://www.dw.com/en/german-politicians-criticize-musk-backing-for-far-right-afd/a-71117414

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AfD on Russia.

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December 15, 2024, 1:30 p.m. Source: ZEIT ONLINE, AFP, maw

Source: https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2024-12/deutschland-afd-tino-chrupalla-nato

AfD party leader Tino Chrupalla has called on the federal government to recognize Russia as the victor in the Ukraine war. Russia won this war, he told the newspaper Die Welt. “Reality has caught up with those who claim to want to enable Ukraine [with more arms and money] to win the war,” he continued. The German federal government must “finally get to the point of wanting to end the war.” Chrupalla also questioned the usefulness of Germany’s membership in NATO. “So far, Europe has been forced to implement America’s interests, and we reject that,” he said. A defense community must “accept and respect the interests of all European countries – including also Russia’s vital interests,” he continued. “If NATO cannot ensure this, Germany must consider to what extent this alliance is still useful for us,” said Chrupalla.