Germany must crack down on hate crimes, says Merkel
Jewish leader claims police failed to adequately protect synagogue in Halle
Germany must crack down on hate, violence and hostility, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday, a day after a gunman attacked a synagogue and killed two people nearby in a livestreamed rampage.
There could have been many more victims had the suspected perpetrator, German national Stephan B., breached the gates to the synagogue in the eastern city of Halle, Merkel said.
The gunman failed to get into the synagogue in Wednesday’s attack, but went on to kill two bystanders in his live-streamed rampage. “I am, like millions of people in Germany, shocked and dejected by
‘DAY OF SHAME’
the crime that was perpetrated in Halle yesterday,” Merkel said in an address to a trade union congress in Nuremberg.
“We all know, we only just avoided a terrible attack on the people in the synagogue,” she added. “There could have been many more victims.”
In a video of more than 30 minutes that the attacker livestreamed from a helmet camera, he was heard cursing his failure to enter the synagogue before shooting dead a woman passer-by in the street and a man in a nearby kebab restaurant.
Two other people were injured but regional broadcaster MDR said their condition was not critical. “We are happy about every synagogue, every Jewish community and all Jewish life in our country,” Merkel said. “That means ... the representatives of the state must use all the means of the state to crack down on hate, violence and hostility towards people.” A military source said Stephan B. had done military service, but received no special training.
German media said investigators had searched the attacker’s home. MDR reported that he lived with his mother in Benndorf, west of Halle. “He planned to kill people,” MDR quoted one investigator as saying.
Earlier, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited the synagogue and told reporters: “Today is a day of shame and disgrace ... It fills us all with horror that an attack took place in our country, a country with this history.”
“I’m very sure the overwhelming majority of this society in Germany wants Jewish life to be part of this country,” Steinmeier said. Most Jewish institutions in Germany’s large cities have a near-permanent police guard.
Josef Schuster, president of the council of Germany’s Jewish community, criticized police for not being stationed outside the synagogue that was attacked as dozens prayed inside.