German is given life in two killings, synagogue attack

MAGDEBURG, Germany — A white supremacist who livestreamed his efforts to blast his way into a synagogue in this country last year on the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, failing to cause widespread bloodshed only because he could not breach a heavy wooden door, was sentenced Monday to life in prison.

Two people were killed outside the synagogue in Halle during the attack Oct. 9, 2019. In convicting the assailant of murder and attempted murder, the presiding judge, Ursula Mertens, said the attempt to kill the 51 people inside as they observed Yom Kippur had been “despicable, cowardly and inhuman.”

The attacker, Stephan Balliet, a 28-year-old German nationalist, stood motionless as the judge read the sentence. He had confessed to the attack, some of which he had filmed and streamed live over the internet.

Although the streamed assault attracted little attention at the time, downloads of it have since been widely shared among like-minded individuals on the far right, an expert witness told the court.

That was the ultimate goal of the defendant, who had also hoped to use the trial as an opportunity to expound on his hatred for Jews, Muslims, women and others whom he viewed as a threat to himself and to white, German society, the judge said.

In the video, which was presented as evidence to the court, the attacker could be seen killing a 40year-old woman who had spoken to him while he tried to storm the synagogue. After failing to achieve his initial target, he went to a nearby kebab shop, where he killed a 20year-old German man, whom he believed to be a Muslim.

“None of the hate-filled conspiracies that this man has voiced are new,” Talya Feldman, who survived the attack on the synagogue, said in her closing statement this month. “We’ve heard them all before.”