Several people were injured in the suspected knife attack in Mannheim. According to the anti-Islam movement Pax Europa, its board member Michael Stürzenberger was injured. That is the group.
According to the anti-Islam movement Pax Europa, the knife attack on the Mannheim market square on Friday occurred in the context of an event organized by the organization. “The attack happened before the event even started, it must have been planned well in advance,” said Pax Europa treasurer Stefanie Kizina to the “Bild” newspaper. A spokeswoman for the city of Mannheim confirmed that the organization had registered a rally on the market square for Friday morning.
Shortly after the incident on Friday afternoon, a video circulated on the Internet. It shows a man stabbing several people – presumably participants in the event. People shout: “Put the knife away.” The attacker also injured a police officer, as the video shows. According to security sources, his life is in critical condition and he needs surgery. The video also shows an officer shooting the attacker. He is then pinned to the ground by several police officers. He was also injured, according to police.
Michael Stürzenberger seriously injured according to Pax Europa
According to Kizina, Pax Europa board member Michael Stürzenberger was also injured in the attack. “He was hit in the leg and face and is undergoing emergency surgery. His life is apparently not in danger,” the treasurer told the “Bild” newspaper. A total of six people and the attacker were injured. As the public prosecutor’s office, police and state criminal police office announced in Mannheim on Friday, five members of the movement were injured, and the attacker also stabbed a police officer several times from behind in the head area. Another police officer shot the attacker, who was also injured.
The motive for the crime is also unclear. Whether the knife attack had a political background is the subject of investigations. These are being conducted by the Baden-Württemberg State Office of Criminal Investigation, the spokesman continued. The police were initially unable to confirm a connection between the attack and the Pax Europa event.
The group Pax Europa, which abbreviates itself BPE, reported on its website on Friday that one of its rallies in Mannheim had been attacked.
BPE and Stürzenberger observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution in Bavaria
The 59-year-old Stürzenberger and his circle around the Pax Europa movement are classified by the authorities in Bavaria, for example, as being under the category of Islamophobia, which is relevant to the protection of the constitution. Stürzenberger has acted as a meeting leader for Pax Europa on several occasions in the past.
He also appeared as an author on the right-wing extremist website Political Incorrect. He spreads “anti-Islamic statements,” according to the website of the Bavarian Information Center against Extremism.
Reporter reports on knife attack: Police shot suspect “incapacitated”
03:25mins
After own information BPE explains the “nature and goals of political Islam”. The movement informs the public about the alleged human rights violations caused by “political Islam” as well as the alleged “existential threats that arise from the increasing spread and influence of political Islam for free democratic societies in Germany and Europe”.
The Bavarian Information Centre against Extremism of the Bavarian State Government writes on its website that Stürzenberger and the Bavarian regional association of Pax Europa are classified as Islamophobic, which is relevant to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. However, the federal association BPE is not monitored by the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
In its report for 2022, the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution wrote about Stürzenberger and the Bavarian regional association of the BPE that there were “actual indications” that they were pursuing “anti-Islamic efforts relevant to the protection of the constitution” “that are aimed at abolishing religious freedom for Muslims”.
In the latest report Stürzenberger and the BPE no longer appear in the authority’s 2023 report. According to the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, this is only because they are less active. Both Stürzenberger and the BPE Bavarian regional association are still being monitored.
According to the information centre, Stürzenberger made anti-Islamic statements
Stürzenberger spreads his theories at BPE events and on the Internet. He is an author on the website “PI-News,” according to the information center. The abbreviation PI stands for “Politically Incorrect.” “These activities give him the opportunity to reach a broad audience with his anti-Islam agitation.” The Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifies the people behind “PI-News” as “extremist efforts in the area of right-wing extremism.”
Stürzenberger’s statements are characterized by a fundamental rejection of the Islamic religion, according to the Observatory. He does not differentiate between Islam as a religion and Islamism as an extremist endeavor. Rather, Stürzenberger uses the term “political Islam” to link Islam with terrorism. He classifies almost all people of the Muslim faith as “political Islam.”
Stürzenberger, born in 1964 in Bad Kissingen, Bavaria, was a television journalist before working for BPE and “PI-News” and from 2003 to 2004 he was press spokesperson for the Munich CSU under current MEP Monika Hohlmeier. In 2011 he joined the Die Freiheit party, which was soon listed by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as an anti-Islamic group. In February 2012 he took over the Bavarian state chairmanship, later becoming its federal chairman until the party was dissolved at the end of 2016. Stürzenberger has appeared several times at demonstrations by the anti-Islamic Pegida movement in Dresden.
A key experience in Stürzenberger’s political career was the death of a CSU colleague during the bloody series of terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November 2008, when Islamists attacked luxury hotels and a Jewish center.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) said the investigations would clarify the background of the crime, especially the background and motives of the perpetrator. “If the investigations reveal an Islamist motive, then that would be a further confirmation of the great danger posed by Islamist acts of violence, which we have warned about.”
Sources: News agencies AFP and DPA, Bavarian Information Center against Extremism, Constitutional Protection Report Bavaria 2023, Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution, “Southgerman newspaper”, “taz”, Pax Europe
Note: This article has been updated with additional information.