What you need to know
- 1 person was killed and 3 people suffered life-threatening injuries after a car drove into a crowd at one of Europe’s biggest LGBTQ+ Pride events
- Police have identified a suspect associated with ‘the Islamist scene in Berlin’
- No arrests have been made, but a manhunt has been launched and more than 2,200 personnel have been deployed as part of the police operation
- The area around the Tiergarten park in central Berlin has been closed off
At least one person has died and 16 people were injured, “some seriously”, police said, after a vehicle was driven into a crowd near Berlin’s annual Pride event, Christopher Street Day (CSD) on Saturday night.
“We believe that a vehicle entered the Tiergarten park and hit several people,” police said on social media.
Berlin’s CSD is one of Europe’s biggest Pride events celebrating the LGBTQ+ community. It attracts tens of thousands of visitors from around the world each year.
What do we know about the incident at the Berlin CSD event?
Police spokesperson Florian Nath said a suspect has been identified who was known to police and “is believed to be associated with the Islamist scene in Berlin.”
It was unclear whether there were other perpetrators. No arrests have been made yet.
Nath said a woman had died at the scene, without providing further details.
Three of the 16 injured had suffered “life-threatening injuries,” Nath told reporters.
The city’s fire department said eight people were seriously injured, with five sustaining minor injuries.
Nath added that more than 2,200 personnel were involved in the police response, including officers from Hamburg and other federal states.
The vehicle in question is a white minivan or compact SUV, he said.
DW reporters on the scene in Berlin said police officers armed with machine guns were patrolling the streets of the German capital.
Police said early on Sunday morning that the Tiergarten remained closed off.
“We are now piecing together the facts based on the evidence found at the scene. The search radius covers the entire city,” Nath said. “We need to use daylight tomorrow to meticulously examine the evidence.”
Berlin mayor, Chancellor Merz condemn ‘horrific’ act
Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner, who visited the scene, described the incident as “an attack on our free and open society.”
“After a peaceful and colorful CSD, the assembly for a tolerant and peaceful Berlin was attacked in the most brutal way. Berlin is the city of freedom, and our freedom has been attacked in the most horrific way today,” he said on X.
In remarks to reporters at the scene, Wegner said, “We will not allow our way of life and our way of living together to be taken from us.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also condemned what he called a “horrific act.”
In a statement, Merz said he and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt would ensure “this horrific act is fully investigated and punished.”
Pride parade participants told to ‘go home, please’
Hundreds of thousands of people had taken to the streets of Berlin on Saturday to advocate for tolerance and diversity, culminating in concerts at the Brandenburg Gate.
The event was called off around 10:15 p.m., and a band’s performance was interrupted. Authorities urged people to “go home, please,” and avoid routes through Tiergarten.
The CSD parade ended on 17 June Street, which crosses Berlin’s Tiergarten to the Brandenburg Gate. The Gate has been the venue for concerts since Friday.
Berlin’s CSD was first held in 1979, making it Germany’s oldest Pride event. Its name comes from Christopher Street — the site of the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City.
CSD has since evolved from a small protest into a major fixture of the city’s cultural and political calendar.
Germany’s history of car rammings
Germany has seen a number of car rammings at major public events in recent years.
In 2016, a Tunisian-born man drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people, in the deadliest Islamist attack in Germany’s postwar history.
In 2024, a man plowed his car into a busy Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg, killing at least two people and injuring more than 60. The perpetrator was a Saudi-born atheist who held anti-Islamic and far-right beliefs.
Earlier this year, two people were killed after a man drove a car through a crowd in the eastern German city of Leipzig. Investigators treated the incident as a rampage and the suspect, a German national, was remanded to a psychiatric hospital.
Edited by: Zac Crellin
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