MAGDEBURG, GERMANY (AFP)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other politicians will Saturday visit the scene of a bloody car-ramming that targeted visitors to a Christmas fair in an old market city.
Police arrested a 50-year-old medical doctor at the site of the assault in which two people were killed and 68 injured when an SUV ploughed through the festive crowd in Magdeburg on Friday night.
So far police were uncertain whether the attack may have been Islamist-inspired or linked to psychological problems.
"The motives remain mysterious," wrote the weekly Der Spiegel.
The attack came almost eight years to the day after Germany suffered its deadliest ever jihadist attack when a Tunisian man drove a truck through a Berlin Christmas market, killing 13.
No extremist group has claimed the latest vehicle-ramming attack to target one of Germany's most beloved religious and cultural festivals.
Some German media pointed to the suspect's past social media posts in which he has expressed views critical of Islam and had even warned of the "dangers" of an Islamisation of Germany.
The sorrow and anger sparked by the attack, where one of those killed was a young child, was sure to inflame a heated debate on immigration and security as Germany heads for February 23 elections.
One woman summed up the stunned mood when she told Die Welt daily: "I don't know in what world we're living in, where someone would use such a peaceful event to spread terror."
The leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, which has focused on jihadist attacks in its campaign against immigrants, wrote on X "when will this madness stop?"
'Terrible Deed'
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote that "the anticipation of a peaceful Christmas was suddenly interrupted" but cautioned that "the background to the terrible deed has yet been clarified".
"What happened today affects a lot of people. It affects us a lot," Fael Kelion, a 27-year-old Cameroonian living in the city, told AFP.
"I think that since (the suspect) is a foreigner, the population will be unhappy, less welcoming," he said.
The black BMW left a trail of devastation when it tore through the traditional festive market in the centre of Magdeburg, southwest of Berlin in the formerly communist east Germany.
The local Volksstimme newspaper said reports from the scene indicated the attacker clearly tried "to hit as many people as possible".
Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser will on Saturday visit the market, where well-wishers had already left flowers of condolences.
Regional premier Reiner Haseloff said he would discuss the "necessary measures" to be taken with Scholz: "We now need to work through this and draw long-term consequences."
Police said the vehicle drove "at least 400 metres across the Christmas market" leaving behind a trail of destruction, debris and broken glass on the city's central town hall square.
The suspect, named by German media as Taleb A., was a psychiatric doctor who had lived in Germany since 2006 and held a permanent residence permit.