The security threat linked to the far right is "very high in Germany," said Interior Minister Horst Seehofer on Friday (February 21st) after the racist attack in Hanau which left nine people dead on Wednesday evening.
"We will strengthen our surveillance of sensitive places, in particular mosques", as well as at airports, stations and at borders, the minister announced at a press conference in Berlin.
Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht, for her part, promised that the government would "carefully examine" how "extremists" can find themselves legally in possession of weapons, as was the case with the assailant in Hanau.
>> Read: Attack in Hanau: the expression of an increasingly violent German far right
For the official, far-right violence currently represents "the main danger" for German democracy, not only because of the "number" of suspects but also of the "intensity" of their determination.
Difficult to detect suspects
Horst Seehofer refused to "put into perspective" the racist motivation of the suspect from Hanau, who committed suicide, on the grounds that the 24-page text he left behind testifies to an old feeling of persecution and develops conspiracy theories.
But while Tobias R. in all likelihood acted alone, like the man who had killed two people last October in Halle after trying to attack a synagogue, the two ministers stressed the difficulty of detecting these suspects.
"About half" of the people who act "were not known to the police," said chief of the criminal police, Holger Münch.
Germany has just tightened its gun control, and also adopted this Wednesday in the Council of Ministers a new arsenal aimed at detecting threats from the far right on the Internet and punishing them more harshly.
With AFP
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