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The chairman of the Jewish community in Hamburg spoke of a “terrorist attack” last October.
In front of the Hamburg synagogue, a 29-year-old had attacked a Jewish student wearing a kippah with a folding spade and seriously injured his head.
Now Hamburg’s public prosecutor’s office has announced that a sufficient suspicion of attempted murder has been confirmed.
However, there was "no evidence of a political motive," said a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office for the "taz".
Instead, the motive lies in the suspect's mental illness.
Because the accused Grigoriy K. suffers from a serious mental illness, the public prosecutor's office assumes that he is not responsible.
There can be good reasons for this.
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An act in which the perpetrator carries a note with a swastika in his pocket and explicitly attacks a man who can be identified as a Jew in front of a synagogue is of course also politically motivated.
Paranoid schizophrenia can be an explanation for an act of violence.
However, this does not make the attack less anti-Semitic and thus less politically relevant.
Even a delusional offender acts in a social environment.
Such a targeted attack doesn't happen out of nowhere.
It is based on ideologies and enemy images that are widespread among the population and must not be ignored.
When assessing a motive for a crime, it makes a difference whether a passer-by is hit randomly or a recognizable Jew.
Every anti-Semitic act also has a political dimension - regardless of the psychological state of the perpetrator.
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After every anti-Semitic attack, it is discussed how hatred of Jews can be effectively combated.
Again and again, reference is made to the judiciary in the first place - to harsh penalties, but also to clearly naming anti-Semitism.
The fact that the Hamburg public prosecutor's office does not want to see a political motive in an attack on a Kippa bearer damages the trust of Jews living in Germany in the judiciary.