Magdeburg’s main Christmas market remained deserted all weekend, filled with only the memory of cheer turned to tragedy.
Red and white tape flattered in the wind, a belated decorative addition that clashed with the candy-stripe awnings of the shuttered wooden huts near city hall.
It was here that people gathered on Friday night, enjoying glühwein, bratwurst and good company before the final Advent weekend.
Hours later those people had fled, replaced by passersby staring in at what resembled the set of a horror film. Abandoned objects told the tale: an overturned wheelie bin; a pink triangular roasted nut bag; crumpled grey army blankets; a blue medical glove; a single gold-and-silver foil sheet.
No marathon took place here, instead a 400m long ordeal of injury, destruction and death.
On Friday just after 7pm a rented black SUV entered the market’s open main avenue – where a police van was supposed to be standing as a barrier – and cut down people left and right.
Three minutes was all it took to kill four women aged 45 to 75 and nine year-old André Gleißner, visiting the market with his mother. Of more than 200 people hurt, over 40 remain in a critical condition in 14 different hospitals, some with reportedly horrific injuries.
The main suspect, a 50 year-old Saudi citizen resident in Germany, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, is being held on remand facing multiple murder and attempted murder charges.
German authorities described him as a “completely atypical” suspect: an anti-Islamist self-described “atheist Muslim” who, on social media, demanded the execution of ex-chancellor Angela Merkel for her liberal migration policies.
As questions pile up about the market’s security measures, and whether police ignored warnings, local mayor Simone Borris insisted Magdeburg “had always managed to pull ourselves up and look forward”.
Before the city’s Johannes Church, a carpet of flowers and candles spread on Sunday while, at the nearby deserted market, small groups kept vigil.
Philip, a 23 year-old off-duty paramedic, was at the market with friends on Friday. He felt the SUV race by less than two metres from the stand just as he was thinking about getting something to eat.
“If I’d decided 10 seconds earlier, I would have been hit,” he said. “The people flew through the air.” After the attack, “a deathly silence”.
