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After an attack on a 26-year-old student in front of a synagogue in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel, the police and the prosecution are investigating a 29-year-old for attempted murder with dangerous bodily injury. They assume an anti-Semitic motive on the part of the suspect.
In the pocket of the man caught after the attack, there was a note with a hand-painted swastika. The data carriers were confiscated from an apartment where the man is said to have been. According to initial findings, the alleged perpetrator had stayed there without warning, investigators said. He hasn’t lived in his Berlin apartment since 2019.
Attack during the Feast of Tabernacles
The 29-year-old will be brought before a judge on Monday, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor said. The suspect is said to have seriously injured the 26-year-old’s head with a folding shovel as he was about to enter the grounds of the Hohe Weide synagogue in the Eimsbüttel district of Hamburg during the Jewish tabernacle festival. After his arrest, the suspect appeared “extremely confused,” according to police. It is very difficult to hear it.
According to the Hamburg Interior Authority, Jewish institutions receive special protection on public holidays. A spokesperson said that the police presence in front of the synagogue was also increased for the Feast of Tabernacles. According to a spokesperson, police security forces initially spoke with the man immediately after the attack and only minutes later, police officers took the man to the ground and arrested him. The security forces are police officers on duty equipped with submachine guns, but not police officers. The synagogue’s own security guards did not participate.
Central Council Warns Against Hate
In view of the attack, the Central Council of Jews urges people to oppose anti-Semitism. “The situation that Jews are increasingly becoming the target of hatred should not leave anyone indifferent in a democratic constitutional state like Germany,” said President Josef Schuster. “We hope that society as a whole will decisively oppose hatred against Jews, in the interests of our democracy, our freedom, and therefore Jewish life is unrestricted in Germany.”
Schuster thanked the Hamburg police for their intervention, but also asked for an examination of how security measures could be improved. Furthermore, regardless of the current incident, Hamburg, like other federal states, must quickly appoint an anti-Semitism officer.
