Status: 12/14/2022 3:49 p.m
After the violent death of a girl in Illerkirchberg, the community is in shock. The atmosphere is tense. Hatred and agitation also reach the town hall.
It’s white in Illerkirchberg. There is a thin layer of snow on roofs and in front gardens. The branches of the Christmas tree in front of the Catholic Church are also white that evening. It could be a peaceful evening in the lead up to Christmas. But the approximately 5,000-inhabitant community in the Alb-Donau district near Ulm is in shock after the fatal knife attack on a 14-year-old more than a week ago. The light of peace, which is the subject of this evening’s ecumenical service, stands “for the Christmas peace and for the peace of this world,” says Pastor Jochen Boos, and doesn’t just mean that in a figurative sense. Light in the darkness of what is happening is what parishioners are longing for these days.
It has become quiet in Illerkirchberg, the two pastors of the Protestant and Catholic communities tell the SWR. “People don’t talk that much anymore. There’s a veil hanging over the place,” says Boos from the Catholic Church. At the same time, the desire for an exchange was approached. The day after the crime, the churches invited people to mourn together. Since then there have been repeated commemorative events. “As soon as we were able to stand together and talk about it, we noticed that it was good for the people,” remembers the Protestant pastor Andreas Wündisch.
The question of “why”
It shines brightest these days in Illerkirchberg at the scene of the crime. There are hundreds of grave candles that line the path in red and white. The crime scene – it is now primarily a memorial. “Why?” is written on a sign in the middle of the sea of lights. There is no answer to this question more than a week after the fact. The alleged perpetrator, a 27-year-old refugee from Eritrea, has been in a prison hospital since the crime. According to the investigating public prosecutor’s office in Ulm, he has not yet commented on the crime.
The mayor of the municipality of Illerkirchberg is deeply affected. “We are shocked that this act happened here with us,” says Markus Häußler (independent). Since the deadly knife attack, life in Illerkirchberg and in the town hall has been different. Häußler and his team receive media inquiries from all over Germany: “We are in the mode of functioning.”
In two open letters, the mayor addressed the public shortly after the crime and warned against placing refugees under general suspicion. “We are against this act being politically appropriated.” However, individual, smaller gatherings of right-wing and right-wing extremists have tried to do just that in the past few days. Häußler has no understanding for this: “Personally, I think it is highly inappropriate to hold this rally in a community that is mourning as a whole.”
Anonymous letters and personal threats
In the meantime, Häußler and his team have been massively attacked. Mostly they are anonymous letters, which deal with the refugee accommodation in the village and the alleged lack of security: “I was and am really appalled by the choice of words that some senders adopt here and how they then treat us here,” says Häussler.
Personal threats are also increasing and are directed against the mayor personally. They are said to be in contact with the police. You would like to talk to him more closely SWR don’t go into it.
The district administrator of the Alb-Donau district, Heiner Scheffold, also draws attention to the brutalization of the debate: “The administration of the municipality of Illerkirchberg, Mayor Häußler and his team, as well as the local circle of helpers, have been massively attacked since the crime, insulted and threatened,” reports Scheffold. The subjective sense of security of the citizens is severely impaired, that is completely clear to him. “But the fact that the discussions about this are almost exclusively highly emotional and without any objectivity is a big problem.” The police do not see a dangerous situation.
Back to normal?
It is now important to quickly return to normality after the shock, says Jörg Fegert, trauma expert and medical director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University Hospital in Ulm. “Everyday routines give us strength and support,” says Fegert. “If, for example, parents take their older children to bed after such an event and make further exceptions, then the parents’ great concern also becomes clear to the children. That’s why I appeal to the children, as far as possible, for a normal framework to be restored admit.”
In the Baden-Württemberg state parliament today, Interior Minister Thomas Strobl emphasized that security in the state is guaranteed. “In Baden-Württemberg, our children can go to school safely,” said the CDU politician in a debate requested by the AfD.
It will be a long time before the municipality of Illerkirchberg has processed the crime, says Mayor Häußler. Will there be normality again? “I can only say that we still have a path ahead of us that we have to walk together.”