In addition to dismay at the large number of victims of the terrorist act in Magdeburg, there is confusion about the background and motive of the suspect. That confusion was expressed on X by the German terrorism expert Peter R. Neumann, a scientist at King’s College London. “After 25 years in this ‘business’ you think nothing can surprise you anymore. But a fifty-year-old Saudi ex-Muslim who lives in East Germany, loves the AfD and wants to punish Germany for its tolerance of Islamists – I really didn’t see that coming.”
Confusing or not, the brutal attack on visitors to the Christmas market in Magdeburg – five dead, more than two hundred injured, 41 of whom were seriously injured – has political consequences. There are questions about security: how could the suspect use the passage for emergency services? There are questions about the security services: is it true that Saudi Arabia has warned about Taleb A.? Two months before the early elections in Germany, however, the question is mainly about another question: does this mean even more losses for the social-democratic SPD and even more gains for the far-right AfD?
‘Magdeburg’ places migration high on the election agenda again. Recent opinion survey shows that German voters now point to the stagnant economy – with associated mass layoffs – as the biggest problem. There is a good chance that the theme of migration will take over that leading position.
Also read
this report from Magdeburg
Migration at the top
The country is on edge. An attack on a Christmas market is an attack on a German tradition, on the German way of life. And no matter how twisted he may be, the suspect is, above all, a foreigner. At the same time as the memorial meeting in the Magdeburg Cathedral on Saturday evening, demonstrators elsewhere in the city advocated ‘Remigration’.
The more social debate about migration, the more electoral advantage for the Alternative for Germany (AfD). The anti-migration party has announced that it will hold a meeting in Magdeburg on Monday, in the presence of party chairman Alice Weidel. “The failure of the authorities made the horrors in Magdeburg possible,” she said.
For Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his SPD, attention to the negative sides of migration actually has a bad outcome. And they weren’t doing well either. After Scholz pulled the plug on his ‘traffic light coalition’ in early November by dismissing Liberal Minister Christian Lindner, his government came to a formal end last week. At the commemoration in Magdeburg, Scholz made a lackluster impression, but that is rarely different. In the polls the SPD is in third place with 15 percent, after the Christian-democratic CDU/CSU with 31 percent and the AfD with 19 percent.
Islamic State
Election victory for the far right after an act of terror by a foreign perpetrator would not be a first for Germany. At the end of August, three people were killed in a stabbing by a rejected Syrian asylum seeker in Solingen. The attack was claimed by Islamic State. A few days later, the AfD became the largest party in the state of Thuringia and number two in Saxony, both times with more than 30 percent of the vote. Thuringia was the first state victory for an extreme right-wing party in post-war Germany.
Immediately after ‘Solingen’, the Scholz government announced a tightening of the asylum and security policy, an attempt to take the wind out of the AfD’s sails. That seems pointless; the AfD, openly supported by Elon Musk since Friday, is sticking to the message that the government has admitted too many migrants and that Germany is therefore no longer safe. Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage and Marine le Pen also used the attack to argue for less migration. Wilders on XFriday evening: “I have been saying it for more than 20 years: end those open borders.”
This was also the message of the Saudi psychiatrist Taleb A.. On social media and in interviews he opposed German tolerance towards Muslim refugees. He supported the AfD. When Geert Wilders expressed his respect for an Iranian student who opposed Islamic dress codes, Taleb called A. Wilders a “real hero.” Right-wing politicians and opinion makers abhor the attack, but the suspect shares their aversion to Islam and the ‘Islamization’ of Europe.
Also read
this profile of the suspect Taleb A.
Why not a mosque?
Denying this uncomfortable relationship requires some mental flexibility. Like this quotes Elon Musk with approval someone who claims that lying and cheating is part of the Islamic concept of taqqiya and that Taleb A. is in reality a radical Muslim. That has to be the case, says the far-right corner, because why else would he choose a Christmas market as his target and not a mosque?
Shortly before the attack, Elon Musk posted one on his own platform X statement of support for the AfD (“Only the AfD can save Germany”), which has now been seen some fifty million times. His involvement in German politics has gone even further since the attack: the “incompetent idiot” Scholz must resign immediately (which he has already done), Musk said on Friday evening. Mainstream German media lie about the attackMusk said.
Experts indicate that the suspect, and therefore the attack, does not fit into an existing pattern. CDU party leader Friedrich Merz therefore calls for calm: “This obliges us politicians to first pause and assess what happened on the basis of reliable evidence.” That message is not for extreme right-wing politicians and their trailblazers such as Musk. For them, ‘Magdeburg’ is within 48 hours a political instrument for the benefit of the AfD.