Spezialeinsatzkommando are police tactical units of each of the 16 German State Police forces. Along with the Mobiles Einsatzkommando (MEK), Personenschutzkommando (bodyguards), and the Verhandlungsgruppe, they are part of the police Spezialeinheiten of each state.
Schleswig-Holstein Police is a state law-enforcement agency in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is subordinated to the Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of the Interior, Municipal Affairs, Housing and Sports.
The Neumünster Flensburg Railway is part of the Jutland line, the main north–south rail link through Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. Together with the line to Husum, which diverges in Jübek, and the line to Kiel, which diverges in Rendsburg, it also serves as an important east–west axis between Kiel and the Marsh Railway on the west coast. It consists of several sections that were parts of the first railways in the current territory of Germany.
The 2016 Munich knife attack took place on 10 May 2016 when a 27-year-old mentally disturbed man stabbed four men, one of them fatally at Grafing station in the Upper Bavarian town of Grafing, some 32 kilometres (20 mi) from Munich, southern Germany. As the knifer reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" while stabbing the random victims, first reactions of the German and international media as well as the general public suspected an Islamist attack. On his arrest shortly after the attack, the perpetrator proved to be a mentally disturbed, unemployed carpenter with drug problems and no known ties to Islamist organizations. In August 2017, the Landgericht München II ruled the man to not be criminally liable of the crime and committed him to a closed psychiatric ward.
Simone Lange is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as Mayor of Flensburg from 2017 to 2023.
On 18 July 2016, Riaz Khan Ahmadzai, a 17-year-old refugee from Afghanistan, stabbed and injured five people on and outside a train near Würzburg, Germany. He was shot dead by police soon afterwards, after attacking a police tactical unit with an axe. Investigations revealed he was in contact with members of the Islamic State.
On 19 December 2016, a truck was deliberately driven into the Christmas market next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, leaving 12 people dead and 56 others injured. One of the victims was the truck's original driver, Łukasz Urban, who was found shot dead in the passenger seat. The truck was eventually stopped by its automatic brakes. The perpetrator was Anis Amri, an unsuccessful asylum seeker from Tunisia. Four days after the attack, he was killed in a shootout with police near Milan in Italy. An initial suspect was arrested and later released due to lack of evidence. Nearly five years after the attack, a man who was critically injured during the attack died from complications related to his wounds, becoming the 13th victim. As of December 2023, this attack remains the worst Islamist terrorist attack by number of casualties in German history.
The Hanover stabbing that occurred on 26 February 2016 was a terrorist stabbing of a police officer in Hanover, Germany, by a 15-year-old girl born to a Moroccan mother and a German father. She had been raised under the influence of salafist preachings, as early as 7 years. She had been investigated by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution for preparing a serious crime already in 2014 and had traveled to meet ISIS members in Istanbul in November 2015. It was the first reported attack by an ISIS sympathiser in Germany.
The Murder of Mia Valentin was a fatal stabbing on 27 December 2017 in the town of Kandel in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. An Afghan asylum seeker, who had been denied refugee status, was charged with the murder of his 15-year-old German former girlfriend, allegedly after she ended the relationship. The case was reported in the national and international press and sparked a political debate about the German refugee policies, especially how to deal with underage unaccompanied refugees.
On 7 March 2018, two stabbings occurred in Vienna, Austria during the evening. A man has been arrested for both attacks. On 11 March 2018, there was a separate stabbing attack at the Embassy of Iran in the city. The Austrian government hardened its asylum policy after the attacks.
On 25 March 2018, 24-year-old Vivien K. was stabbed by a Syrian migrant in Burgwedel, Germany. She received life-threatening injuries and was put into an induced coma. She woke up three days later, with broken ribs and part of her pancreas as well as her spleen removed.
The 2018 Hamburg stabbing attack was an attack on 12 April 2018 in the city of Hamburg, Germany. A man from Niger stabbed his ex-wife and his one-year-old daughter on a station platform. Both victims died. The perpetrator had arrived in 2013 via Lampedusa, seeking asylum in Germany and was granted a residence permit. He lost a custody dispute days before the incident. If he had won, authorities might have permitted him to remain in Germany.
The 2018 Amsterdam stabbing attack was an attack on 31 August 2018, in Amsterdam Centraal station. A 19-year-old man from Afghanistan stabbed and injured two American tourists. The attacker was shot and injured by the police. Amsterdam Police confirmed that they believe he had a terrorist motive.
On 4 October 2020, a man was killed and another injured during a knife attack in Dresden, Germany. After two weeks, the 20-years-old perpetrator was arrested, Abdullah al-H. H. - a Syrian national who had arrived in Germany in 2015 to seek asylum. He had been sentenced in November 2018 to two years and nine months imprisonment for supporting a terrorist organization and planning an attack with contacts with a militant in Yemen and working on the construction of suicide belts. He had been released from prison in September 2020. Europol classified the attack as jihadist terrorism.
The 2021 Würzburg stabbing occurred on 25 June 2021 in Würzburg, Germany. Abdirahman Jibril, a 24-year-old homeless man of Somalian nationality killed three civilians with a kitchen knife in a Woolworth store and wounded seven others. Minutes later, the police shot the suspect in his leg and arrested him. He had a history of several violent altercations since his 2015 arrival as an asylum seeker in Germany and a one day involuntary commitment into a psychiatric hospital a month before the attack. Islamist motives were suspected; he himself said the attack was 'his jihad'. Another refugee accused him to be an al-Shabaab member, who had killed civilians, journalists and police officers in Somalia, which German authorities could not confirm.
Michael Stürzenberger is a German counter-jihad activist, blogger and critic of Islam. He was the leader of the German Freedom Party from 2013 to 2016, and has been active for many years with his public speaking and protests against Islam with groups such as the Citizens' Movement Pax Europa and Pegida. He has been convicted of several criminal offences, including incitement to hatred. He is an active YouTuber and contributor to the blog Politically Incorrect, and was observed by the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution for anti-constitutional extremism from 2013 until 2022.
On 25 January 2023 a mass stabbing occurred on a train in Brokstedt, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. A 33-year-old stateless man from the Palestinian territories stabbed nine people on a moving passenger train, killing two. He came to Germany in 2014 and was granted subsidiary protection in 2016, even though he was known to police for sexual and violent offenses with 24 preliminary and criminal proceedings. He had been in police custody until one week before the attack. The public prosecutor saw the motive for the crime as anger and frustration at his personal situation. In February 2023, "considerable shortcomings in the communication and administration of the authorities involved in immigration" were found.
On 31 May 2024 at 11:34 am, a man ambushed and stabbed several people at a rally hosted by the counter-jihad and anti-Islam group Citizens' Movement Pax Europa (BPE) in the market square in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He mortally wounded a police officer, who died two days later, and wounded five other people. The victims included the controversial activist Michael Stürzenberger, the main speaker at the rally. Six people were injured, including Stürzenberger and a police officer who was stabbed in the neck and died from his injuries two days later. The attack was stopped when the suspect was shot and injured by another police officer. Investigators suspect that the suspect's motive was Islamist in nature.
On the evening of 23 August 2024, a mass stabbing took place during a festival celebrating the 650th anniversary of Solingen, Germany, when a Syrian man armed with a knife killed three people and injured eight others. The public prosecutor accused the suspect of being motivated by "radical Islamist convictions". The attacker is also suspected of being a member of Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attack.