The party, with the colorful Christopher Street Day procession, turns into tragedy: a van plows into the crowd in the Tiergarten. The suspect was identified as a 21-year-old, Abdul B., linked to Islamist circles.
At 10pm on July 25th, on the most awaited evening of the German LGBTQIA+ community, while hundreds of thousands of people crowded the streets of Berlin, a white vehicle – described as a van or a small SUV – entered the Großer Tiergarten, the large public park in the heart of the capitaland struck at high speed a group of people who were leaving the parade. According to witnesses, the driver got out of the vehicle after the impact and fled on foot. The van, empty and badly damaged, was found against a tree.
One woman lost her life and at least 16 people were injured, three of them in critical condition. About 30 people also received treatment for shock.
The parade for Christopher Street Day 2026, one of the largest events in Europe, started at midday from Leipziger Straße and reached the Brandenburg Gate area without a hitch.
Then, the nightmare. The police immediately isolated the area and deployed a massive device, also using helicopters with thermal cameras to search the park. The hunt for the person responsible has begun throughout the city. The organizers interrupted the demonstration early, asking those present to leave calmly.
Berlin police spokesman Florian Nath confirmed they had identified a suspect. The young man, Abdul B., who has relatives in the German capital, had been released from a reformatory only two months earlier, in May 2026. The authorities believe that the attack may be linked to Islamic extremist circles. According to some testimonies, the attacker was seen with a cutting weapon and the police are still checking for the presence of any accomplices.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz promised that those responsible will be punished with all the rigor of the law, ensuring that he and the Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt will do everything possible to ensure that «this atrocious act is fully clarified».
The mayor of Berlin, the conservative Kai Wegner, called the incident “an attack on our free and cosmopolitan society”. And, on X, he wrote: «After a peaceful and colorful CSD, the rally for a tolerant and peaceful Berlin was attacked in the most brutal way.”
The attack comes at a time of growing concern in Germany over theincrease in homotransphobic and far-right attacks. According to monitoring by the Amadeu Antonio foundation, in 2024 alone there were 55 attacks against Pride events, with already 30 cases in the first months of 2025. The foundation had raised an alarm precisely in view of Pride which was supposed to end on 26 July, highlighting a growing threat from far-right groups.
Germany had already been rocked by other vehicle attacks in recent years, including the most serious, the truck attack on the Magdeburg Christmas market in December 2024 that left six dead and 309 injured.
