A white van swerved into a crowd on the outskirts of Berlin’s Gay Pride celebrations shortly before 10pm on Saturday, killing at least one person and wounding 16 others – several with life-threatening injuries – before crashing into a tree and being abandoned by the driver.
The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, vowed to punish those responsible, describing the attack as a “horrific act”. Berlin’s mayor, Kai Wegner, called it “an attack on our free and open society” and said security authorities would investigate “with the utmost urgency”.
“One died and 16 injured after white van drove into crowd at Berlin Pride; police hunt suspect.”
The van drove into Tiergarten park near Brandenburg Gate, close to the route of the Christopher Street Day march, which earlier in the day had drawn hundreds of thousands of people in warm summer sunshine. Police said the vehicle came to a standstill after hitting a tree and was found empty, triggering an intensive manhunt for one or more suspects.
“We are conducting an intensive search for possible suspects,” a police officer said in a video released on the Berlin police X account. Witnesses gave differing accounts of the number of people involved in the attack, and police said they had no information on a motive.
Berlin police spokesperson Florian Nath warned the death toll could rise overnight. “Several people are severely injured, and we don’t know if all will survive the night,” he said. Nath also revealed that some witnesses had reported people with stab wounds lying on the ground, though investigators were working to corroborate those claims.
Parade organisers used social media to urge attendees to evacuate the site “calmly and orderly”. A message on their Instagram story read: “Event cancelled”. One reveller, Julian Miethig, who had attended an LGBTQ+ party at the Brandenburg Gate earlier, said he went to Tiergarten and was shocked: “It’s a dark day for the community.”
Emergency services set up a helicopter landing pad near the Reichstag building to transport the injured to hospitals. A Berlin fire department spokesperson, Dominik Pretz, confirmed one person had died and 16 were injured.
The attack forced organisers to cut short one of Europe’s largest Pride events, known in Germany as Christopher Street Day, first held in West Berlin in 1979. Police called on everyone to leave the area immediately, and sirens rang out across the city as the search for the assailant or assailants continued.