Gun Saves the Day—And Some Lives—in German Knife Attack

A harrowing video is making the rounds online after German police said they shot and wounded a man armed with a knife who attacked a right-wing demonstration in the southwestern city of Mannheim on Friday.

Social media footage showed a bearded man in glasses attacking people in the city’s central Marktplatz square with a knife. One person appears to be stabbed in the leg and a policeman who tries to intervene appears to be cut in the neck. That policeman, a 29-year-old officer, later succumbed to his injuries. In all, six people were stabbed. Another policeman ultimately shot the attacker, ending the violence.

“A firearm was used against the attacker,” Mannheim police said in a statement.

Man goes on stabbing rampage in Mannheim, Germany
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No information was initially available on the identity or motives of the attacker, though it was later learned he was a 25-year-old immigrant from Afghanistan.

A livestream broadcast from central Mannheim showed anti-Islam activist Michael Stuerzenberger preparing to address a small crowd at an event put on by the anti-Islam Pax Europa Movement.

A colleague of Stuerzenberger told Bild newspaper the activist had been stabbed in the face and leg.

The injured policeman had undergone an emergency operation and was placed in an artificial coma before passing from his injuries yesterday.

The violence comes in the final stretch of a European parliament campaign in which the far-right Alternative for Germany party has campaigned partially on what the party says is the danger posed by migration from Muslim countries, Reuters reported. And then of course, the attacker, then went out and proved it.

“If investigations show an Islamist motive behind the attack, that would be yet another confirmation of the great danger posed by Islamist violence, which we have been warning about,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement released prior to the attackers nationality was available.

“The attacker must be punished severely,” added Chancellor Olaf Scholz on X.

Stuerzenberger, 59, who describes himself as an Islam-critical journalist, has been a member of several far-right anti-Islam organizations, including the PEGIDA movement that holds regular marches in cities especially in eastern Germany.