Following the brutal attack that cost two people their lives yesterday, including a 2-year-old child, in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg, Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel is calling for mass deportations.
“In Bavaria, which is governed by the CSU, an Afghan in Aschaffenburg kills a toddler (2) and a good Samaritan (41) who rushed to help the child. The Afghan had previously followed the child’s daycare group. My thoughts are with the relatives and the injured. Remigration now!” wrote Weidel on X.
Yesterday, as Remix News reported, a 28-year-old Afghan man killed two people in a knife attack on a kindergarten group in a park in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria. The victims were a two-year-old boy and a 41-year-old passerby, said Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) in Aschaffenburg. Three people were injured, including a two-year-old girl.
According to Herrmann’s statements, as cited by Die Welt, initial findings indicate that the Afghan suspect stabbed a child from the kindergarten group “suddenly and deliberately” with a kitchen knife. The 41-year-old man was allegedly trying to prevent further attacks on the children and was killed in the process. Police say other passers-by pursued the perpetrator fled on foot. A few minutes after the attack, the man was caught by police officers. The kitchen knife used in the attack was also confiscated.
“A passer-by and two colleagues tried to resuscitate (the child),” a police officer stated. Another child still in the group’s handcart, used to transport the toddlers, was stabbed but conscious and received immediate medical assistance on-site.
“I find this situation completely incomprehensible,” said Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann after a moment of silence.
An initial investigation has revealed that the suspect was undergoing psychiatric treatment and was supposed to leave Germany. He had been caught at least three times in the past for violent crimes, and had been given psychiatric treatment and released each time, said the minister. In December, the district court in Aschaffenburg ordered him to be placed under supervision.
According to the state health minister, Judith Gerlach (CSU), the three injured people were treated in an Aschaffenburg hospital. The two-year-old girl suffered stab wounds to the neck, the injured adult suffered stab wounds to the upper body, and the kindergarten teacher broke her forearm in a fall.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) described the events as an “unbelievable act of terror” and assured the victims and their families of the German government’s sympathy. The authorities must now “work hard to clarify” why “the attacker” is still in the country, he said in Berlin. “I am sick of seeing such acts of violence every few weeks by perpetrators who came to us to find protection,” said the Scholz.
However, Scholz is already being slammed for allowing yet another heinous attack involving foreigners in just a matter of months. The left-wing head of the BSW, Sahra Wagenknecht, is calling the knife attack a clear signal that the government’s refugee policy has failed.
“The fact that nothing happened after Mannheim and Solingen is primarily the failure of the chancellor and his interior minister,” Wagenknecht told Politico magazine. “That makes them politically responsible for every further terrible act.”
The chancellor summoned the heads of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the Federal Criminal Police Office, and the Federal Police to the Chancellery yesterday evening. According to government sources, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) will also attend the meeting. Scholz returned to Berlin from a trip to Paris shortly before 7 p.m.
Other ministers and politicians have also expressed their shock and sympathies.
Faeser said she was “deeply shocked” by the crime, however, as Remix News has pointed out, this has become a sad refrain from her in recent months.
CDU chairman and Union top candidate Friedrich Merz was also “deeply shocked.”
“Things cannot go on like this,” Merz said, adding, “We must and will restore law and order.”
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder expressed his condolences on X to the relatives and those affected. Söder called the act “cowardly and despicable” and demanded a “complete investigation.”
Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) was also appalled by the act and spoke about the knife attack on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos. The Greens’ candidate for chancellor called the attack a “terrible assassination attempt,” calling out its “brutality and perversity” and expressing his condolences to the relatives.
FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr called for a special conference of federal and state interior ministers as soon as possible. “Politicians must react to this,” Dürr told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND). It must be ensured that potential violent offenders and psychologically conspicuous people like the perpetrator from Aschaffenburg are identified and deported. “We have learned from a series of terrible events that those who have already attracted attention pose a danger,” said Dürr.
The police are also asking any witnesses to upload video recordings to a website or report relevant observations to 0800 0060322.
