Mannheim knife attack: the papers' reactions

Monday, 3rd June

Good morning.

The German papers are reacting to the terrible news that a policeman who was stabbed by a ‘suspected Islamist’ in Mannheim, South-West Germany on Friday has died as a result of his injuries.

The perpetrator, a 25-year-old Afghan migrant who was shot and injured at the scene, had initially attacked an anti-Islam activist, Michael Stürzenberger, who was among six others to be injured.

The coverage given by BILD, Germany’s equivalent of the Sun, dominates its website, and is deeply distressing. It shows a photo taken at the moment of the attack on the policeman, the knife clearly visible.

One of the accompanying articles asks ominously: “Will this photo blow up the European elections?”, and suggests that it will put ‘migration, integration and Islamism back in focus’ ahead of next week’s EU parliamentary vote.

More concerning is the that fact that the conclusion BILD seems to encourage readers to reach is that the anti-Islam far-right might have a point, suggesting how such groups will interpret the attack (and highlighting this interpretation to readers in bold):

"They see the photo as a symbol of German and Western societies. The line is: Instead of fighting the attacker, the German policeman pounces on a German critic of Islam - and ultimately becomes a victim of the knife man himself."

BILD also puts Stürzenberger front-and-centre with a photo of him in hospital recovering from his own injuries, and quotes from him praising the police officer who was killed.

The broadsheet papers, such as the Süddeutsche and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung focus on the reactions of the major political leaders, the police officer’s union, and Mannheim residents to the attack, who yesterday organised a demonstration against ‘violence, hate and agitation’ in the market square where the attack took place.

The left-wing Tageszeitung, or ‘taz’, offers its view in a piece by its editor, Daniel Bax:

On the one hand, you have to ask yourself who or what incited the 25-year-old attacker to commit his offence. The fact that another man published a video on Tiktok in which he glorified the knife attack shows that there is an environment that condones such acts. […] But you also have to ask yourself why an extremist like Michael Stürzenberger, who was attacked, has been allowed to spread his hateful propaganda against Muslims in marketplaces across the country for years. Nothing justifies the brutal attack on him. Nevertheless, it falls short of the mark to characterise him as a mere "critic of Islam", as some are now doing.