The Bureaucratic Failures that Lead to the Attack on a German Christmas Market

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The 19th of December, 2016 was for Germany, a bit like 9/11 was for the USA. Before that date, they were mostly in an “It can’t happen here,” state of denial. Berlin Attack: “An Attack is Expected” | ZEIT ONLINE

Zeit produces long articles, and this no exception, but it is an interesting look at how the German federal system works – or in this case didn’t work.

The German authorities knew a lot about the Tunisian Anis Amri. Actually, almost everything. Nevertheless, shortly before Christmas he was able to commandeer a truck in Berlin and kill twelve people.

A total of 56 people were injured in that attack, and some of them are still in hospitals.

How the police in various states (Lands in the German parlance) knew about Amri, and yet didn’t manage to stop him, in the face of crimes committed, false statements made to authorities and more. He was identified as a threat, at least by one police department, and yet nothing was done.

As for that denial…

With the Berlin attack, a phase of relative comfort came to an end in the Federal Republic. While bombs exploded in the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and Belgium, and terrorists shot or ran down people down with trucks, Germany was until then spared major Islamist attacks.

2 thoughts on “The Bureaucratic Failures that Lead to the Attack on a German Christmas Market”

  1. Pingback: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup » Pirate's Cove

  2. I was in Berlin seeing the Christmas markets when this happened, it was just down the street. As a result, I was able to see English language TV in Germany covering the incident and talk with the citizens. It seems that the government knew full well that the guy was going to do something and was very dangerous, but PC and bureaucracy are so bad in Germany that they could not get the paper work together to put the creep in jail or at least out of the country. Bureaucracy is killing Germany. I thought that Berlin was an international city, wrong. To get there you have to fly into Frankfurt as Berlin does not have an international airport, this is because they can not get the paper work together and have been trying since the wall came down. The people in Germany are visibly depressed and act as such, really gets you down. They also carry an enormous amount of guilt that they constantly express about WWII. Yet none of them were alive at the time. There is something in the air in Europe and you get the feeling that they would just as soon cease to exist.

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