The stabbing suspect of the Berlin Holocaust memorial wanted to kill Jewish people, prosecutors say

The suspect in a stabbing in the Berlin Holocaust memorial two days before Germany’s elections was a Syrian refugee who apparently wanted to kill the Jews, according to prosecutors.

The 19 -year -old was arrested almost three hours after the attack with a knife against a Spanish tourist.

The 30 -year -old victim suffered injuries that threaten life in the incident on Friday night, but survived, authorities said. He underwent an emergency operation and was put in artificial coma, however, his life is no longer in danger.

Police and prosecutors said the suspect, who approached the officers with blood in the hands and clothes, arrived in Germany in 2023 as an unaccompanied minor and successfully requested asylum. Live in Leipzig.

Evidence so far suggests that the attack was linked to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. It is believed that he chose to set up the attack on the monument after deciding to attack the Jews, prosecutors said.

Police officers at the scene cordoned off in the Berlin Holocaust Memorial (AFP through Getty Images)

They are working to establish whether the suspect, who is under investigation into suspicion of attempted murder and body damage, suffers from some mental illness. They said he was not previously known to the police or the judicial authorities in Berlin.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser described the attack as “an abhorrent and brutal crime” and said that “we will use all the means at our disposal to deport violent criminals to Syria again.”

At the time of his arrest, he carried a backpack containing a prayer carpet, a Quran, a leaf with verses of the Qur’an, as well as the date of Friday, and the knife supposedly used in the attack.

An ocular witness told the RBB24 local station that two men seemed to approach before the victim was suddenly stabbed around 6 pm local time (5 pm time from the United Kingdom).

The monument to the murdered Jews of Europe commemorates the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

The video of the city center, near the Brandenburg door, showed emergency vehicles and strongly armored police aligned along one side of the 1.9 hectares commemorative site (4.7 acres), which had been sealed while the investigators combed the scene.

The monument to the murdered Jews of Europe, one of the most sacred sites in the German capital, commemorates the six million Jews killed by the Nazis of Adolf Hitler during World War II.

The stabbing occurred only two days before the Germans vote in a national election on Sunday, with the campaign tarnished by a series of high profile attacks.

Surveys suggest that a far -right party could arrive second for the first time in nine decades.

One of the recent attacks was a stabbing in which two were killed, including a small child, who was blamed for an Afghan immigrant. That caused an uncle debate about immigration and the demands of the conservatives of the first slide to close the border.

Police said they were collecting forensic material on the site in Berlin on Friday (Reuters)

In December, a Saudi man who had lived in Germany for years and whose publication history showed that it sympathized with the extreme right, rammed a Christmas market with a car, killing six, including a child and hurting hundreds.

Earlier on Friday, a 18 -year -old Chehen was arrested on suspicion of planning an attack against the Israeli embassy in Berlin, Bild newspaper reported.

The German news agency DPA, who cited unidentified security sources, said the suspect planned to leave Germany to join the Islamic State group.

On Saturday, a suspicious object was found that resembles the explosives during a related search for an apartment in Potsdam and took to be outdated elsewhere, police said.