EPAThe Magdeburg Christmas market is a sad sight. It should have been the busiest weekend of the season, but the entire site has been cordoned off and all the stands are closed.
The police are the only people who walk past the boarded-up mulled wine and gingerbread stands.
Red candles flicker on the sidewalk and tributes are laid for the victims.
Lukas, a truck driver, told me that he felt compelled to come to pay his respects. “I wasn’t there when it happened,” he told me.
“But I work here in Magdeburg. I’m here every day. I’ve driven past here a thousand times.”
“It is a tragedy for everyone here in Magdeburg. The perpetrator must be punished.”
“We can only hope that the victims and their families find the strength to deal with this.”
There is sadness here – but also anger.
Many people here view this attack as a terrible security flaw. This claim has been rejected by authorities, although they have admitted that the attacker entered the market via a route planned for rescue workers.
Michael, who also came to remember the victims, said “there should have been more security.”
“We should have been better prepared, but it wasn’t done right.”
As I stood at the security line, I heard a group of locals complaining loudly about German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and regional politicians.
“They’re wasting our tax dollars, they only care about themselves. They don’t care about us. We only hear empty promises,” said one man.
“They are reversing what happened here and want to shift the blame to the opposition and use it for their election campaign,” he said.
On Saturday evening, around the same time as the square in front of the Gothic Magdeburg Cathedral filled with mourners attending a funeral service, a demonstration broke out nearby.
The demonstrators held up a banner that read “Remigration now!” – a concept popular with right-wing extremists – and shouted: “If you don’t love Germany, you should leave Germany.”
It is not yet clear what impact this attack could have on the upcoming election in Germany.
Germany has been hit by several deadly Islamist attacks in the past, but investigators say the evidence collected so far in this case suggests a different picture.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the suspect appeared to be “Islamophobic.”
The suspect, Taleb Al-Abdulmohsen, is from Saudi Arabia and his social media posts suggest he has been critical of Islam.
He also expressed sympathy for Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on social media, retweeting posts from the party leader and a far-right activist.
