display
Berlin (dpa) - The former Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizière (CDU) has always feared since 2011 that Islamist terrorists could attack a Christmas market.
In the Bundestag committee of inquiry into the terrorist attack on a Berlin Christmas market in 2016, he said on Thursday evening that he always had an “uneasy feeling” during Advent.
The FDP MP Benjamin Strasser wanted to know from him whether he had really said at a staff meeting a week before the attack, "if the Christmas markets close and there was no attack, I'll make three crosses".
De Maizière replied that he had put it that way.
At that time, however, he had no indication of a possibly planned attack during the Christmas season, "let alone with a truck".
Rather, he was concerned with the threat of terrorism in general and the fear of an attack on a Christmas market as a "soft target" with Christian symbolism.
On December 19, 2016 - almost exactly four years ago - the rejected asylum seeker Anis Amri shot and killed a truck driver in Berlin.
Then he raced with the truck across Breitscheidplatz, where eleven other people died and more than 70 were injured.
After the attack, the Tunisian was able to flee to Italy, where he was shot dead during a police check.
display
The police had already noticed Amri as an Islamist threat.
The investigation committee wants to find out why the attack was still not prevented and what might have gone wrong in the subsequent investigation.
Agenda of the taking of evidence