One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Marcus saw so many injured (56) lying on the street with his own eyes, seconds after a car rammed into a group of pedestrians in the heart of Berlin on Wednesday morning. And he continues to see them. Again and again his trembling forefinger goes in an arc along the Gedächtniskirche, about fifty meters from the terrace on which Marcus is resting: one to eight, tap, tap, tap, the car drove up the curb, tap tap tick, he drove off again, tick tick, and there he came to a stop in the window of the Douglas perfumery.
Berlin is gripped on Wednesday morning by the same yes/no question as an ever-growing series of other European cities in recent years, after a sudden act of violence with a vehicle: attack or not? At about 10:30 am, a 29-year-old man with a Renault Clio rammed into a group of pedestrians at a traffic light on Kurfürstendamm. One victim died shortly afterwards. Six injured fight for their lives. Three others are seriously injured but out of danger. An unknown number of people suffered minor injuries.
Attack or not?
‘Assault’, says Marcus, who does not want his last name in the newspaper. “The car was traveling forty, fifty miles an hour, suddenly swerved onto the sidewalk, then deliberately back off again. That doesn’t seem like the behavior of a driver who is unconscious.’
‘Assault’, also says another witness, the manager of a restaurant on the corner of Rankestrasse and Kurfürstendamm, where the driver drove onto the sidewalk from the road. ‘I heard a very crazy thump, screaming behind me, turned around and was just able to jump away’, says Ferri (48), who also does not want his last name in the newspaper. “The driver gave full throttle with people on his hood. Then he scooped two more.’
The Berlin police could not confirm this on Wednesday morning: “It is still unclear whether it is an accident or an attack,” said police spokesman Thilo Cablitz. After the driver crashed into a shop window, bystanders stopped him – it’s not entirely clear if he was trying to get away – until a rushing police officer was able to handcuff him. The man was injured, but manageable. He was questioned on Wednesday. Police later tweeted that it was a “29-year-old German Armenian living in Berlin†
Christmas market attack 2016
Around half past ten, an hour after the debacle, a barrel that had been knocked over is still on the closed-off street. Firefighters bend over a young woman wrapped in a silver blanket sitting on the sidewalk. The top floor of Saturn electronics store offers a view of the Douglas facility where the deadly ride ended† On the sidewalk in front of the door is a smudge of brown earth from a knocked over planter. Police officers in white overalls search for tracks next to an abandoned red double-decker bus with ‘City Sightseeing Berlin’ on the side.
That investigation may take some time, warns police spokesman Chablitz. “We need to map out the exact route, see if he has accelerated or braked anywhere, speak to witnesses, view images.” It can also go faster, Chablitz says, ‘if the driver says ‘I did a, b, and c and this is why’. But it doesn’t look like he does.’
German media report that the driver left “a confession” in the car, but a government official contradicts this. However, ‘pamphlets’ have been found in the car relating to Turkey, said Iris Spranker, interior minister in the state government of Berlin.
Dode was a teacher on a school trip to Berlin
Halfway through the afternoon, a white research tent is set up on the spot where, according to restaurant manager Ferri, the last two victims were shoveled. The fatal victim is a 51-year-old secondary school teacher in the western state of Hesse, the state government announced. She was on a school trip in Berlin with her students. According to police, fourteen students from the school were among the injured, another teacher was seriously injured.
Behind the white tent, on the Breitscheid square around the Gedächtniskirche, thick fences recall the previous trauma of Berlin: more than five years ago, in almost exactly the same place. In December 2016, rejected Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri drove a stolen truck into a Christmas market here. 12 people died, 56 others were injured. Amri was shot dead by police in Milan a few days later while on the run. Since then, thick concrete piles of one meter high have been placed around the square, hidden under colorful cloths. But those poles can’t be everywhere.
Marcus can’t quite get his head around it yet, but he was there then, too, at the Christmas market as the truck raced through it. “Not fifty yards away,” he says, shaking his head. “Like there’s a curse in this place.” Asked what it was like for him at the time, as a witness to the attack on the Christmas market, he briefly shakes his head. ‘I don’t know. Right now the dead of then are mixing in my head with the dead of now.’
The surnames of Marcus and restaurant manager Ferri are known to the editors. They do not want their last name in the newspaper.