Suspect pleads guilty to deadly knife rampage at German festival in Solingen
In a statement read out by his lawyer, Hasan, sitting under police guard behind a protective glass screen, admitted having "committed a grave crime".
"Three people died at my hands. I seriously injured others," Hasan said of the attack in August in the western city of Solingen.
"Some of them survived only by luck. They could have died, too," he said in the statement.
"I deserve and expect a life sentence."
The
stabbing spree at the mid-summer street festival
was one of a string of attacks that shocked Germany and stoked security fears.
Hasan was an asylum seeker from Syria who had been slated for deportation.
German authorities' failure to remove him from the country
fired a bitter debate over immigration
in the run-up to national elections in February this year.
Hasan faces charges including three counts of murder, ten counts of attempted murder and membership of a foreign terror organisation.
'Revenge'
Prosecutors say he set out to harm "nonbelievers" at the "festival for diversity" in the centre of the western city of Solingen.
Hasan allegedly saw his targets "as representatives of Western society" and sought "to take revenge against them for the military actions of Western states".
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A member of IS whom Hasan had contacted that month allegedly encouraged him to go ahead with the plan and promised him that the group would claim it and use it for propaganda purposes.
The group later said via its Amaq outlet on the Telegram messaging app that an IS "soldier" had carried out the attack in "revenge" for Muslims.
Prosecutors say Hasan had filmed videos in which he pledged allegiance to IS and forwarded them on to his IS contact just before he committed the attack.
German federal and state leaders stand at a memorial for the victims of the knife attack in Solingen. Photo by INA FASSBENDER / AFP
In the statement read out by his lawyer, Hasan recanted his alleged motivation for carrying out the attack.
"I killed and injured innocent people, not unbelievers," he said.
"Christians, Jews and Muslims, we all are cousins, not enemies."
Immigration debate
The Solingen stabbing spree was one in a series of attacks attributed to asylum seekers and migrants that pushed immigration to the top of the political agenda in Germany.
In May 2024, a man with a knife attacked people at an anti-Islam rally in Mannheim, mortally wounding a police officer who intervened. The Afghan suspect in the stabbing went on trial in February and is also alleged to be sympathetic to the IS group.
In December, a Saudi man was arrested after a car rammed into a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg, killing six people and wounding hundreds.
And in January, a man with a kitchen knife attacked a group of kindergarten children in Aschaffenburg, killing a two-year-old boy and a man who tried to intervene. A 28-year-old Afghan man was arrested at the scene of the attack, which came during campaigning for elections on February 23rd.
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Just ten days before the vote, an Afghan man was arrested on suspicion of ploughing a car through a street rally in Munich, killing a two-year-old girl and her mother and injuring dozens.
READ ALSO:
How German media reveals its bias when foreigners commit crimes
The centre-right CDU/CSU, which demanded tough curbs on immigration in the wake of the attacks, came first in the election with 28.5 percent of the vote.
The biggest gains however were made by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which saw its share of the vote more than double to over 20 percent.
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DW
3 hours ago
- DW
Will Germany raise retirement age beyond 67? – DW – 08/01/2025
Germany's old-age pension system faces collapse under the weight of an aging population. The country's new Economy Minister Katherina Reiche wants Germans to work longer to make up for it. For German Economy Minister Katherina Reiche, there's a simple way to fix Germany's pension system: "We need to work more and longer," she flatly told the newspaper in late July, instantly triggering a new debate along familiar lines. Reiche argued that the pledges her government had made in the coalition contract earlier this year were just not going to be enough. Germany's aging population has long been recognized as a problem. The population's median age — 46.7 — is the eighth-highest in the world and the third-highest among major economies, after Japan and Italy. By 2040, fully a quarter of the population is expected to be 67 or older. This year, birth rate fell to its lowest point in 20 years. 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Johannes Geyer, public economics researcher at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), pointed out that the reason why the retirement age issue is so contentious is because it affects workers differently. "There are lot of people who can't imagine working beyond the age of 67," he said. "But those in perhaps better paid jobs can do that." To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video But many experts say the narrow focus on the retirement age is unhelpful, as there are many different ways of increasing contributions to the pension system. One measure, for example, would be to provide better child care facilities, so that more single parents are able to work full-time and therefore pay higher pension contributions. Another solution might be to make migrating to Germany to work easier and more attractive. There are also proposals to increase the number of people paying into the public system by including the self-employed and civil servants, a proposal made recently by Labor Minister Bärbel Bas from the SPD. Meanwhile, on the expense side of the ledger, some more painful measures might be put in place to balance the books. Apart from raising the retirement age, that might mean extending the "waiting time" (the number of years one must pay into the system before one can begin to draw a pension), or reducing the rate at which pensions increase every year. The pension increase is calculated based on the development of gross wages and salaries in Germany and is 3.74% for 2025. In the coalition agreement, the SPD was able to secure the pension level at 48% of the standard pension to the average income (before taxes) until 2031. Critics have labeled this as untenable. According to Scharpenberg, a mix of measures needs to be implemented. But instead, he said, the perennial political debate revolves around doing one measure or another, as if it were impossible to combine them. The German pension system is structured very differently to other European countries. In Denmark, for example, the retirement age is linked to the country's life expectancy, so that it rises automatically as people live longer. And in Sweden, an individual's contributions are invested in various financial markets and then the profits are paid out when that person reaches old age. "That helps to diversify the risk," said Geyer. "They're not so dependent on the aging of their own population." In the German system, on the other hand, contributions from workers are put into a single pot, which is used to finance current pensions. Geyer argues that, unlike other European countries, Germany has failed to develop private insurance options to complement state pensions so that they help the whole population, rather than just the rich. "Other countries have done that significantly better," he said. "The UK, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden — they all have systems of obligatory insurance with relatively low costs and good profits. That's missing here."While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.
DW
5 hours ago
- DW
Ukraine updates: Trump deploys nuclear subs near Russia – DW – 08/01/2025
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US President Donald Trump criticized the latest Russian missile and drone attack on Ukraine, suggesting that new sanctions against Moscow were coming. "Russia, I think it's disgusting what they're doing," Trump told journalists as he took questions after an executive order signing at the White House. Trump, who initially gave Russia 50 days to reach a ceasefire with Ukraine or face tariffs, shortened the deadline to "10 or 12 days" on Monday and said Tuesday the countdown was now at 10 days. On Thursday, he said, "I don't know that sanctions bother him," referring his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. White House envoy Steve Witkoff was expected to travel to Russia, but it was not clear if he would meet with Putin. The death toll from Russian missile and drone strikes on Kyiv on Thursday has risen to 31, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday. The toll was revised upward after rescuers recovered more bodies, including a two-year-old child from a residential building in the Sviatoshynsky district. "Once again, this vile strike by Russia demonstrates the need for increased pressure on Moscow and additional sanctions," Zelenskyy wrote on social media. "No matter how much the Kremlin denies their effectiveness, sanctions do work – and they must be strengthened. They must target everything that enables such attacks to continue." The mayor of the Ukrainian capital, Vitali Klitschko, said more than 150 people had been injured, including 16 children. Klitschko said it was the highest number of children wounded in a single night since Russia's full-scale invasion began. Russia's Defense Ministry said it had targeted Ukrainian military airfields and ammunition depots linked to Kyiv's military-industrial complex. However, officials reported that schools and hospitals were damaged in 27 locations across the city. City authorities have declared Friday a day of mourning. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Kyiv is observing a day of mourning following Thursday's deadly bombardment, one of the worst attacks since Russia launched its full-scale offensive in February 2022. In this blog, we'll take a closer look at the geopolitical fallout. US President Donald Trump's patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be wearing thin. Over the past few days, Trump has repeatedly shortened the deadline to impose sanctions on Russia over its actions in Ukraine. His envoy, Steve Witkoff, is expected to travel to Russia after his current stop in Israel. The outcome of the trip could be telling.
Local Germany
9 hours ago
- Local Germany
OPINION: Why Germany's pensions problems will soon be your problem
Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil presented his budget for 2026 this week. And now that the debt brake has been taken very firmly off, he's splashing the cash. So much so that it's easy to lose track of where the money is coming from – and where it's going: billions for the Bundeswehr here, billions for Deutsche Bahn there; even the consolation prizes for out-of-fashion green initiatives have nine-figure price-tags… But the real story here is not the €126 billion in off-plan spending on defence, infrastructure, and net zero. It's the near-identical sum which will be spent on pensions: €127,8 billion. That's almost a quarter of the regular budget, which stands at €520 billion. And given the lower-than-projected tax take in year six of economic stagnation, this level of spending will require a record €170 billion of government debt. So yes, we are, in essence, topping up the pension fund on credit. How the German pensions system works If you are employed in Germany, you make monthly contributions of 9.3 percent of your salary to an arms-length body, Rentenversicherung , which is matched one-to-one by your employer. Similarly to systems such National Insurance in the UK, the idea is for those in the workforce to finance pensions while they themselves acquire entitlements for their own retirement. So in theory, the government shouldn't need to allocate any budget to the system at all. Yet in practice – in another similarity to the UK's National Insurance – the system stopped working a long time ago and now requires annual injections of cash from the state exchequer to stay afloat. Unfavourable demographics The principal cause is that Germany now has far more retirees living much longer set against a rapidly-declining working population. Advertisement When the current pensions architecture was put in place in the 1950s, there were around six people in work for every one person claiming a pension. Average life expectancy was still below 70, and as Chancellor Adenauer famously remarked: ' Kinder kriegen die Leute immer ' (People always have kids). It didn't turn out that way. Instead, as life expectancy heads past 80, there are now only three workers for every pensioner; soon, this ratio will be closer to two to one. READ ALSO: 'Multiple crises' - Why fewer babies are being born in Germany While Germany is not alone here, our 1950-1970 boomers proved both particularly numerous and particularly shy of having children, so we have worse statistics than neighbouring countries – and more trouble paying pensions. Poor design Moreover, Germany's pensions system is, by design, more expensive than most other variants: instead of setting a minimum number of years' contributions as a threshold for a basic entitlement (as in UK, Denmark, or Sweden, for example), our system awards earnings-based points throughout working lives and then sets an individual pension level accordingly. Advertisement Check your annual statement to find out your projected monthly sum, and you'll see that this is good for high-earners and bad for the low-paid. What is more, it makes life difficult for actuaries at the pensions body, who have no idea how contributions from those still in work will develop. Germany has plenty to offer retirees. Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay If the current labour force earns less, workers pay in less, too. Yet life expectancy rises inexorably (especially for high earners, who tend to be healthier in old age), and so the government has to step in to satisfy pensioners' legal entitlements. Bad politics Worse, government has continually tweaked the system in ways which make it ever costlier. In the late 2010s, for example, Merkel's coalitions expanded early retirement programmes, enticing anyone with 45 years' employment history to leave the workforce at 63 rather than 68, cutting five years of potential contributions out of the system – and adding five years of pay-outs. They also introduced the basic minimum state pension ( Grundrente ) and an additional mothers' allowance ( Mütterrente ) – over and above the points-based calculation. READ ALSO: Tax cuts and pensions - How Germany's budget changes could impact you The justification for this was that people who don't earn well or leave work to look after their families accrue fewer points, and so are left with low pensions. Advertisement Some say it's only fair that everyone has a decent income in old age, regardless of what they contributed. Others say: hard cheese, that's how it works. Wherever you stand on the politics, though, one thing is clear: the system was not designed to simultaneously reward high earners and be generous to all. Why the German pension systems won't stop working – for pensioners Yet that is precisely what, out of political expediency, it is being bent to do. The result is an already huge demographic deficit being made worse, swallowing up ever larger amounts of government spending. And it's about to get worse: a new, expanded Mütterrente is being planned as part of a bill guaranteeing that pay-outs will average 48 percent of wages for the remainder of this parliament. All workers in Germany contribute to the country's pension system. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Axel Heimken Yet there will be no reduction in entitlements for higher earners, so the money will have to come from… That's right, future budgets! By 2027/2028, we can expect subsidies to the system to be approaching one third of regular spending. This means that, once the €500-billion off-plan bonanza ends in 2029/2030, there'll be direct competition for resources between the Army and the army of pensioners. Whoever the Finance Minister is by then, they'll be weighing up whether to spend on upgrading railways or uprating pensions. OPINION: If Germany is to thrive it must help foreigners feel they belong here What is already obvious: they'll opt for the latter. As everybody knows, turkeys don't vote for Christmas – and any politician looking to please turkeys doesn't put them on the menu. As pensioners make up an ever-growing proportion of the electorate, no major party will campaign to make them even marginally worse-off. Recent policy initiatives from well-meaning economists – e.g. a ' Boomer-Soli ' whereby wealthier pensioners pay a tax surcharge to finance the system, or doing it like the Danes and coupling pension age to life-expectancy – are total non-starters. As is the idea of getting civil servants and state functionaries to pay contributions. (Yes: Beamte get off scot-free…) How will the pension challenge affect today's workers? Instead, the ever-growing pensions bill will have to be financed by penny-pinching elsewhere – and by increasing insurance contributions for those currently in the workforce. So expect taxes to stay high, public infrastructure to get worse, and that 9.3 percent on your pay-packet to turn double-digit before the decade's out. READ ALSO: '€10 a month' - Germany to set up pension accounts for all children from age 6 Of course, no-one is going to say that out loud, which is why this thorny issue has been delegated to a commission which will report on the matter in the coming… *Yawn*. As anyone who has worked in a German company knows: Wenn man nicht weiter weiß, bildet man einen Arbeitskreis! (If you don't know the answer, set up a committee!) So if you're in work in Germany, there are two ways of looking at: Pessimistically, you're being sucked dry by a Ponzi scheme which will have collapsed by the time you're of pension age. Or, optimistically, politicians' consistent refusals to change anything mean that, when you hit retirement age, you'll be having the cash splashed on you – and may see the whole issue quite differently. Advertisement One thing's for sure: if Germany retains its system in anything like the present form, it will remain generous by comparison to many other countries – who will also be facing demographic pressures to varying degrees and seeking to keep spending under control. And a country without any pension provision at all is almost inconceivable. Indeed, as one of German politics' most enduring soundbites has it: " Die Rente ist sicherI " (Your pension is safe).
