Grief, anger, calls for action after shooting

HANAU, GERMANY >> Gokhan Gultekin’s juggling act was in many ways typical of Hanau’s Turkish community: taking care of frail parents, hustling to work at a late-night cafe, making some cash on the side at a second job and attending Friday prayers at the mosque across town.

On Friday, Gultekin’s friends mourned him at his house of worship, two days after “Gogo” was killed in a racially motivated shooting rampage that shook Germany and prompted fresh calls for a crackdown on far-right extremism and anti-immigrant scapegoating.

“We grew up in here in these streets, ran through the playgrounds, laughed together,” said Omer Demir, who described his recently engaged, 37-year-old friend as hardworking. “He had to be. He had to take care of his parents. If he had 50 euros, he would give 30 to his mother.”

On Wednesday, a 43-year-old German, Tobias Rathjen, shot to death nine people with immigrant backgrounds in this Frankfurt suburb before apparently killing his mother and himself.

Five of the victims were reported to be Turkish citizens. Rathjen left rambling texts and videos in which he espoused racist views, called for genocide and claimed to have been under surveillance since birth.

Germany’s top security official, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, said protection would be stepped up across the country at mosques and other “sensitive sites” in the wake of the attack.

On Thursday evening, thousands of people gathered in cities across Germany to hold vigils for the victims but also to express anger that authorities haven’t done more to prevent attacks despite a string of violent episodes in recent years.

Some have also called for a crackdown on the extremist and anti-migrant ideology that has crept into mainstream political debate with the rise of the Alternative for Germany party, or AfD.