The president of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz were among those to attend the service at Magdeburg Cathedral, which city officials estimate was attended by around a thousand people, including firefighters and first responders, and the families of the victims and the injured.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, foreground, and Chancellor Olaf Scholz, next to him, attend the memorial service for victims of Friday’s Christmas Market attack (Photo credit: AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)People outside Magdeburg Cathedral follow a memorial service for victims of Friday’s Christmas Market attack (Photo credit: AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Earlier on Saturday, a spontaneous memorial was created by grieving families and local residents at a church overlooking Magdeburg’s Christmas market but during the day it evolved into something more politically charged.
Authorities arrested a Saudi man with a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric but said the motives for the attack were not yet known.
At first, as people laid flowers outside the church in the early morning, there were just expressions of sorrow and grief.
It was only because her daughter wanted them to keep walking round the market rather than stop to eat that they were not in the path of the car that ploughed through the market, she said.
People laid flowers and candles in front of the Johannis church close to the Magdeburg Christmas market (Photo credit: AP Photo/Michael Probst)
Another young woman sobbed, bent double with grief as an older couple embraced her.
Timeline of horror: How the Magdeburg Christmas market car attack unfolded
Read MoreLater it emerged that the suspect, a psychiatrist who had lived in Germany for 18 years, had criticised Islam and expressed sympathy for the far right in past social media posts. This prompted damage control by the far right.
As the day passed, politicians, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz, came to lay flowers at the spontaneous memorial.
The party, particularly strong in eastern Germany, came first or second in three regional votes this autumn, and hopes for more success in a national election in February.
Far-right demonstrators take part in a protest after the car attack (Photo credit: REUTERS/Christian Mang)One young man, who said he was from the AfD’s youth wing, wore an amulet depicting the hammer of the Norse god Thor.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser expressed concern that the attack could be exploited by the far right, but said little could be done to prevent seemingly coordinated gatherings.
“We have freedom of assembly in this country,” she said, touring the scene of the attack. “We have to do everything possible to make sure the attack isn’t misused by either side.”
Here is what we know so far about the man who was arrested as the suspected driver in the attack on Friday.
Life in Germany
The suspect is a 50-year-old from Saudi Arabia with permanent residence status in Germany, where he has been living for almost two decades.
The suspect has not been named by authorities. Multiple German media reports refer to him as Taleb A.
The suspect had worked as a psychiatrist at a specialist rehabilitation clinic for criminals with addictions in Bernburg since March 2020. “Since the end of October 2024, he has been absent due to holiday and illness,” the facility said in a statement.
He lived on a quiet street near the centre of Bernburg, a town of 30,000, south of Magdeburg, in a three-storey apartment block.
Possible motive
German authorities said early on that the suspect was not known to authorities as an Islamist.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser declined to comment on the suspect’s motives for the attack or political affiliations but said his Islamophobia was “clear to see”.
The local prosecutor in Magdeburg, Horst Nopens, said a possible factor in the attack may have been the suspect’s “dissatisfaction with the treatment of Saudi refugees in Germany” but added that the motive remained unclear.
Far-right sympathies
Taleb A. appeared in a number of media interviews in 2019 reporting on his activist work helping Saudi Arabians who had turned their back on Islam to flee to Europe.
In a BBC documentary from July 2019, the man speaks about founding the platform wearesaudis.net after he became an atheist and claimed asylum in Germany.
He is a fierce critic of Islam in these interviews, telling Germany’s FAZ newspaper in June that year: “There is no good Islam.”
His account on social media platform X, verified by Reuters, indicated support for the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD), as well as for the American billionaire Elon Musk, who has criticised German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and expressed support for the AfD.
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