Germany must continue to respect the right to asylum but also take measures to curb illegal migration, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Sunday during a memorial service for the victims of a suspected Islamist attack last week in Solingen.
Germany has provided refuge and security to people fleeing war and oppression “for good reason.” Many Germans were able to survive the Nazi regime only because other countries opened their borders, Steinmeier said.
“We want to remain that country. And we can only remain that country ultimately if we are not overwhelmed by the number of people who (come) without the right to this special protection,” Steinmeier told about 450 mourners in attendance.
A 26-year-old Syrian man living in a nearby refugee camp was arrested after the stabbing attack that left three people dead and eight others injured at a local festival in the western German city.
He is being held on suspicion of murder, suspected membership of the terrorist group Islamic State and other charges.
Islamic State claims responsibility for the attack, but German authorities are still investigating the claim.
The suspect is believed to have evaded a deportation order in Germany, sparking a heated debate in the country over asylum and migration policies.
“And we will only remain this country if those seeking protection abide by the laws of our country. Only then can we maintain acceptance among the population,” Steinmeier said Sunday.
The president called on the government and the political opposition to work together to complete the “huge task” of enforcing immigration laws and creating workable rules for managing migration and asylum applications.
Attack hits ‘core of our national identity’
Steinmeier said the bloodshed strikes at the heart of “a friendly, open and diverse country.”
“It touches the core of our national identity, where people live together peacefully despite all differences and want to live together. People who have lived here for generations, but also people who came later,” Steinmeier said during the service at the city’s performing arts theater.
In his eulogy, the German president said that the perpetrator, like others before him, targeted this way of life with his hatred.
In his eulogy, Steinmeier acknowledged that the German state had failed to fulfill “its promise of protection and security” in Solingen and that any mistakes or shortcomings that could not prevent the attack had to be comprehensively addressed.
Steinmeier, who spoke privately with relatives of the dead and injured, said he could hardly imagine what the families and friends “are going through, what you are suffering, what hell you are going through.”
He accused “fanatical Islamists want to destroy what we love,” including an open society. While he acknowledged that people “feel fear and uncertainty,” residents should not be paralyzed by fear.
Scholz: Germany must ‘learn lessons’
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who also attended the memorial service, said afterwards in a message on X that the crime “touches us to the heart, it makes us angry.”
“We owe it to them (the victims) and their families to learn from this,” Scholz wrote. “We mourn the dead of Solingen. We mourn with their families, with everyone in this city, with everyone in Germany.”
Scholz’s government proposed stricter gun rules, tighter limits on benefits for some asylum seekers and greater powers for police to tackle suspected Islamist threats after the attack.
On Friday, for the first time since the Taliban regained power, a deportation flight to Afghanistan took off from Germany’s Leipzig/Halle airport with 28 convicted Afghan criminals on board.
Also present at the memorial service were the President of the German Parliament, the Bundestag, Bärbel Bas, the Prime Minister of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst, and the State Minister of the Interior Herbert Reul.
