MP Magdalena Filiks from KO wrote that “in recent years, such situations have occurred in Szczecin, Gdańsk and many other places” as on Friday in Magdeburg, where five people were killed and over 200 injured as a result of an attack and a car driving into the crowd. However, the events in Szczecin and Gdańsk were of a completely different nature.
On December 20, 2024, the driver of a passenger car drove into a crowd of people at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, the German capital of the state of Saxony-Anhalt with a population of 240,000. How informed the next day, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, five people were killed and over 200 injured in the attack. They also appeared on Sundays information on fatalities – a 9-year-old boy and four women aged 45, 52, 67 and 75 died.
The suspect was arrested immediately after the attack. According to Tamara Zieschang, Minister of the Interior of Saxony-Anhalt, it is a 50-year-old man who works as a doctor. The suspect comes from Saudi Arabia, but has been living in Germany since 2006 and has a residence permit. The website of the German weekly ''Der Spiegel'' reported that the man was a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and that he worked legally in Germany and had an indefinite work permit. The Prime Minister of Saxony-Anhalt said that the suspect acted alone.
The man's origins became a pretext for discussion among Polish politicians about the migration policy of European Union countries. ''The attack in Magdeburg is not a crisis. This is the result of a mindless policy of open borders and multi-culti. How many more people have to die before governments come to their senses and see the danger of the current migration policy?'' – she wrote in a post on X, December 21, 2024, MEP of the Confederation, Ewa Zajączkowska-Hernik. However, Prime Minister Donald Tusk in entry on December 21, he appealed to the president and Law and Justice politicians: ''After the attack in Magdeburg, I am already expecting a clear declaration from President Duda and PiS in support of the government package tightening visa and asylum law. The state is just regaining control over borders and migration after years of chaos and corruption, so at least don't interfere.''
Marcin Możdżonek, councilor of Olsztyn, president of the Supreme Hunting Council and former Polish volleyball representative, also commented on the matter. ''Another fair, another car, another tragedy. People who were enjoying this magical, pre-Christmas time senselessly died at the hands of an attacker,' he wrote in a post on X on December 20. ''How many more tragedies must there be to stop this madness?'' he added. Entry by a local government official she commented Magdalena Filiks, MP from the Civic Coalition. ''Such situations have occurred in Szczecin, Gdańsk and many other places in recent years,'' she said late in the evening on Friday, December 20. And then she added: ''Poles were driving into Poles, so there is nothing worse than making history of such events. …''. Filix's comment was viewed over 240,000 times and aroused great emotions among Internet users. ''Are you drunk?''; ''in Gdańsk?''; ''Is it possible to report such nonsense somewhere?'' – they replied to the MP (original spelling of the posts). ''Yes, there are road accidents in Poland, but there are hit-and-runs by a car “although they look similar, they are two different situations,” said one of the commenters.
Magdalena Filiks' entry about the events in Magdeburg.X.com
The MP's entry is widely commented on and shared by other politicians and Internet users. It was also marked with a community note, which reads: ''There has not been a single case of a terrorist attack during a Christmas market in Poland. In Germany, there were two attacks that were classified as terrorist attacks during a Christmas market.
This concerns the 2016 attacks in Berlin and Ludwigshafen. “On December 19, Islamist Anis Amri drives a stolen truck into a crowded Christmas market at Berlin's Breitscheidplatz. He kills twelve people. The first aider dies many years later of serious injuries. Amri is shot a few days later while fleeing to Italy” – describes Deutsche Welle (via AFP). In turn, a few days earlier, “a twelve-year-old boy is arrested for suspicious plans to attack the Christmas market in Ludwigshafen. On Friday, December 17, a boy with German-Iraqi roots was supposed to plant a homemade nail bomb near the town hall, but there was no explosion.” Terrorist attacks during Christmas markets also occurred in France.
Events that cannot be compared
No similar terrorist attack took place in Poland.
Some Internet users recall situations from Polish cities in which a car driver hit people. IN Szczecin at the beginning of March 2024, when a 33-year-old man drove a passenger car into a group of people and then started running away. After driving about a kilometer, it collided with three other cars and injured other people. As a result of the attack, one person was killed and 21 were injured. The District Prosecutor's Office in Szczecin assumed that the event was intentional and deliberate. The suspect, Grzegorz Ł., pleaded guilty to the “cumulative legal qualification” charge against him of attempting to murder many people, causing a land traffic disaster, escaping from the scene and causing injuries to a large group of people. On December 18, 2024, the Szczecin prosecutor's office announced that a request had been submitted to the court to discontinue the proceedings and apply a protective measure in the form of placing Grzegorz Ł. in a psychiatric facility.
To another eventsmentioned by Internet users, took place in Gdańsk in June 2022. 30-year-old Maciej P. drove a rented car onto the promenade in Gdańsk at ul. Długa, which is closed to car traffic. He hit two people, and before the incident, he allegedly threatened the customers of the restaurant and shot one of them with a dummy bullet gun. In July 2024, the prosecutor's office charged him with causing a land traffic disaster, endangering the health of six people and attempting to murder a pedestrian whom he intentionally tried to run over.
We asked the municipal police headquarters in Szczecin and Gdańsk whether incidents similar to the one in Magdeburg had been registered over the last five years. We have not received a response until the text is published.
It is likely that these were the events the MP's entry was about. We asked MP Filiks what events she had in mind that could be compared to the situation in Magdeburg – we sent questions by text message and e-mail. The MP called back and announced that she would issue a statement on this matter, but until the publication of this article, there was no entry on her social media.
The Germans were warned about the perpetrator of the attack
The Reuters agency, citing a Saudi source, reported that Saudi Arabia was to warn the German authorities about the attacker who – according to the source – published extremist entries on his private account on the X platform. The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the attack. Deutsche Welle reported that the perpetrator “was an active critic of Islam and praised the AfD. His motive is unclear, but on social media he repeatedly criticized the police and Germany for – according to him – sympathies towards Islamists and apparently felt persecuted. The German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees said that received warning about a man from Saudi Arabia at the end of summer 2023 via social media.
Main photo source: PAP/DPA