Berlin (AFP)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government on Sunday pledged to investigate whether security services could have prevented the Christmas market car-ramming attack that killed five people and injured over 200.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and the heads of the domestic and foreign intelligence services will face questioning by two parliamentary committees on December 30, after opposition parties had demanded quick answers.
The 50-year-old man arrested at the scene of the attack had made online threats and had a history of court appearances and quarrels with state authorities.
News magazine Der Spiegel, citing unnamed security sources, said Germany's spy agency BND had been warned a year ago.
Faeser promised the Bild newspaper that "the investigative authorities will clarify all the background. They will also examine in detail what information was available in the past and how it was followed up."
'Blood and screams'
The city of Magdeburg has been in deep mourning over the mass carnage on Friday evening, when an SUV smashed through a crowd at its Christmas market, killing four women and a nine-year-old child and injuring 205 people.
Of those hospitalised, around 40 were in critical condition. Surgeons have been working around the clock.
Scholz on Saturday condemned the "terrible, insane" attack and made a call for national unity, at a time Germany is headed for early elections on February 23.
Senior MP Dirk Wiese of the ruling Social Democrats confirmed the December 30 hearings.
They will summon the heads of the BND, the domestic intelligence service BfV and the Office for Migration and Refugees as well as Tamara Zieschang, state interior minister of Saxony-Anhalt.