German political leaders called for joint action against racism on Saturday as they marked the second anniversary of a terrorist attack in the city of Hanau that left nine dead.
On February 19, 2020, a 43-year-old right-wing extremist murdered nine people in a racially motivated shooting spree in Hanau, which lies near Frankfurt. Afterwards, the man killed his own mother before taking his own life.
"This attack did not come out of nowhere. And it was anything but random," said German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser at a memorial service in Hanau's main cemetery. She added that the breeding ground was "a climate of contempt for humanity that incites violent extremists and, in the worst case, leads them to act."
Alongside national and local politicians and religious leaders, Faeser paid tribute to the victims of the attack and assured the bereaved families of her support.
The state premier of Hesse, Volker Bouffier, called racism a poison. "We must therefore be vigilant, we must not remain indifferent. We must stand up to racists and certainly not show understanding."
Chancellor Olaf Scholz named each of the victims in a tweet: "Fatih, Ferhat, Gökhan, Hamza, Kaloyan, Mercedes, Sedat, Said Nesar, Vili Viorel. You were a part of our country, a part of us," Scholz said in a video message posted on Twitter on Saturday.
A parliamentary committee of enquiry in the state parliament is currently investigating the handling of the attack, attempting to determine whether it represented a failure of the part of the authorities before, during or after the event.
In addition to the commemoration at Hanau's main cemetery, numerous other memorial events, rallies and demonstrations were staged in Hanau, Frankfurt and other cities throughout Germany on Saturday.
