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A 28-year-old Afghan man has been arrested after a knife attack in a park in the German city of Aschaffenburg that killed two people, including a toddler, in what the country’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, condemned as an “act of terror”.
With a month left in a campaign for snap elections dominated by debate on immigration and asylum policy, Scholz demanded authorities “explain immediately why the assailant was even still in Germany”.
Police said a two-year-old boy and a 41-year-old man who reportedly attempted to help the child were killed. Two other victims were severely injured in the stabbing whose motive was not immediately clear, police said, noting the investigation was still at an early stage.
Local media reports said the attacker targeted a group of children from a daycare centre who were in the park. The suspect lived in an asylum centre in the area, news outlet Der Spiegel reported. Other media reported the man had been treated for psychological problems.
Election frontrunner Friedrich Merz, head of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said he was deeply shocked by the violence. “This can’t go on,” he said in a statement. “We must and we will re-establish law and order.”
Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, running second in the polls, posted on X: “Remigration now!” referring to her party’s highly controversial call for mass deportation of migrants and asylum seekers.
Train service in Aschaffenburg was briefly suspended as the suspect attempted to flee along the tracks, but police quickly detained him.
Scholz described the violent assault as an “inexplicable act of terror” that required “immediate consequences – it’s not enough just to talk”.
“I am sick of such acts of violence occurring every few weeks,” he said in a statement. “Of attackers who came to us seeking protection. Misplaced tolerance is completely inappropriate.”
Markus Söder, the conservative premier of Bavaria, where the attack occurred, called it a terrible day for his state and denounced a “cowardly and despicable act” in a post on X.
A second person who was detained was being treated as a witness, and there were no immediate indications that the assailant had accomplices.
It was the latest in a series of violent attacks in Germany, fuelling calls ahead of the 23 February election for tougher security measures.
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One month ago, a Saudi doctor with reported far-right, anti-Muslim sympathies was arrested after a car-ramming rampage at a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg in which six people were killed and about 200 injured.
In June, a policeman died after he intervened in a knife attack allegedly by an Afghan man at an anti-Islam rally in Mannheim in the south-west.
And in August, three people were killed and eight injured in a mass stabbing at a street festival in the western city of Solingen. The attack was claimed by Islamic State, and the police arrested a Syrian suspect.
After that attack just weeks before three key state elections, Scholz’s government responded by tightening rules on knives in public places, limiting benefits for asylum seekers and moving to allow swifter deportation of those whose claims for asylum have been rejected.
Merz’s CDU has vowed to implement a harder line on immigration, including a de facto ban on new asylum requests at the border.
