German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his wife Charlotte arrive at a memorial in Magdeburg on December 20, 2025, one year after the deadly Christmas market attack.
Ronny HARTMANN / AFP
Mourners turned on the chancellor, blaming his continued support for mass migration for the security failures that led to the deadly attack.
Friedrich Merz’s attendance over the weekend at a memorial service commemorating last year’s attack on the Magdeburg Christmas market was not greatly welcomed by attendees. Instead, the chancellor was met with loud protests—some telling him “we don’t want you here,” crying “shame on you,” and urging him to “get lost.”
Six people were killed and hundreds of others injured—some critically—when a Saudi psychiatrist and refugee named Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, who was known to German police, drove a car into a crowded Magdeburg Christmas market during the city’s 2024 festivities.
Writer Julian Adrat said on Saturday that Merz’s presence was “unbelievable” given that he “continues to push mass migration,” and celebrated that “the city chased him away. Rightly so.”
Unfassbar: wie kann er es wagen? Merz, der die Massenmigration weiter forciert, taucht in Magdeburg auf – dort, wo Menschen starben, darunter Kinder und hunderte Menschen gebrochen wurden. Die Stadt hat ihn verjagt. Zu Recht.
Austrian journalist Gerald Grosz added that the chancellor was “jeered” and “rejected” for “announcements without consequences, concern without action, rituals without results.”
For the terror that [Angela] Merkel brought to Germany, and that Merz merely manages.
And AfD politician Georg Pazderski jibed that Merz had to “escape the unpleasant scene” by getting away “quickly.”
The commemoration came just a week after a 21-year-old Central Asian man was arrested in Magdeburg to prevent him from carrying out attacks against large crowds.
Reports said he arrived in Germany last summer and has military training. He had also reportedly planned to carry out an attack using a vehicle.
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
