Anti-Islam activist Michael Sturzenberger was injured in a knife attack in the German city of Mannheim on Friday.
Police said the gunman injured several people before being shot dead by responding officers, according to the Associated Press.
The attack was caught on camera by the group Buergerbewegung Pax Europa, and one of the injured was a member of the group, German far-right activist and anti-Islam critic Michael Sturzenberger, Euronews reported.
Pax Europa, the German anti-Islam and anti-Muslim movement, has been a vocal opponent of Islam and Muslims in Germany, including pushing for a ban on mosques. Euronews added.
On Friday, May 31, 2024, a man with a knife was seen on video stabbing multiple people in Mannheim, Germany. (Pax Europe citizens’ movement)
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Civil society group Pax Europe said in a statement later that Mr Stürzenberger had suffered “severe stab wounds to the face and legs” and had been taken to a local hospital for treatment.
“A police officer who tried to stop the attacker was also stabbed in the back and neck by the assassin and was taken to hospital. [a] “The gunman was taken to hospital,” the paper added, noting that he had been shot by police but “appears to have survived.”
A banner was displayed at the scene reading “Stop Political Islam!”
Police said in a statement that there was no longer any danger to the public. No official motive has been released. One of the people injured in the stabbing was a police officer.
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Police and firefighters were called to a knife attack in Mannheim, Germany on Friday, May 31st. (Rene Priebe/dpa via The Associated Press)
Interior Minister Nancy Fazer said the motive would depend on the investigation. “If the investigation reveals an Islamist motive, it will further confirm the enormous danger of Islamist violence that we have been warning about,” she said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz posted on X that the “pictures from Mannheim are horrible” and that “violence has no place in our democracy.”
Investigators stand behind a destroyed food stall in the market square in Mannheim, Germany, following a stabbing incident on Friday, May 31. (Uwe Anspach/dpa via The Associated Press)
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The stabbing happened on the Market Square in downtown Mannheim, a city of about 300,000 people south of Frankfurt.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
