This is an incomplete list of mass stabbings in Germany. The casualty figures of mass stabbings below include violence-related deaths and injuries with knife, hatchet and spear respectively, casualty inflicted by legal intervention (i.e., deaths caused by law enforcement and other persons with legal authority to use deadly force acting in the line of duty), as well as suicide.
The list is incomplete, because as of 2023, there are no federal statistics on stabbings in Germany available (unlike in the United States, for example). However, data from the police crime statistics of individual German states show that in several states the number of stabbings increased from 2013 to 2018 by over 30%.[1] In 2020 alone, there were at least 100 deaths from nearly 20,000 knife attacks. A large proportion of the crimes are related to domestic violence.[2]
| Date | Location | data-sort-type=number | Dead | data-sort-type=number | Injured | data-sort-type=number | Total | class=unsortable | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 June 1925 | Hassenberg and Lindenberg, German Reich | 11 | 0 | 11 | See main article: Wilhelm Brückner (murderer). 30 year old Wilhelm Brückner killed 10 family members with an axe and a kitchen knife and afterwards himself. He suffered a lightning injury in childhood and was thought to have had mental retardation and mental illness given auditory hallucinations.[3] | ||||
| 4 September 1913 | Degerloch and Mühlhausen an der Enz, German Reich | 5 | 0 | 5 | 39 year old Ernst August Wagner killed his wife and 4 children by cutting their throat and chest with a blackjack and dagger. He was a teacher with severe endogenous depression and suicidal ideation, later diagnosed with paranoia. Hours later he shot 20 people, killing nine.[4] |
| Date | Location | data-sort-type=number | Dead | data-sort-type=number | Injured | data-sort-type=number | Total | class=unsortable | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 June 1964 | Volkhoven in Cologne | 11 | 22 | 33 | See main article: Cologne school massacre. 57 year old Walter Seifert attacked a Catholic elementary school with a home-made flamethrower and a spear, killing eight pupils and two teachers, afterwards himself. Was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1954.[5] | ||||
| 14 December 1968 | Stuttgart | 3 | 5 | 8 | A Yugoslav guest worker stabbed seven people, killing two, at his guest home. He was killed by police gunfire.[6] |
| Date | Location | data-sort-type=number | Dead | data-sort-type=number | Injured | data-sort-type=number | Total | class=unsortable | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 August 1989 | Stuttgart | 2 | 3 | 6 | A man stabbed five police officers with a bayonet, killing two, before being shot dead by officers.[7] |
| Date | Location | data-sort-type=number | Dead | data-sort-type=number | Injured | data-sort-type=number | Total | class=unsortable | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 October 2015 | Cologne | 0 | 4 | 4 | A 44-year-old man stabbed mayoral candidate Henriette Reker into the neck at a political information stand in the city, injuring three others. The motive was thought in protest of the CDU's pro immigration policies on refugees.[8] | ||||
| 10 May 2016 | Grafing station, near Munich | 1 | 3 | 4 | See main article: 2016 Munich knife attack. A 27-year-old mentally disturbed man stabbed four men, one of them fatally at Grafing station, some 32km (20miles) from Munich. As he reportedly shouted "Allahu Akbar" while stabbing the random victims, first reactions of the German and international media as well as the general public suspected an Islamist attack. On his arrest shortly after the attack, he proved to be a mentally disturbed, unemployed carpenter with drug problems and no known ties to Islamist organizations.[9] | ||||
| 24 July 2016 | Reutlingen | 1 | 3 | 4 | See main article: 2016 Reutlingen knife attack. A 21-year-old refugee of the Syrian civil war attacked his girlfriend and co-worker at his Doner kebab workplace with a knife killing her, wounding two other people, before being struck accidentally by a car and arrested by police. An asylum seeker who had arrived in 2015, he had been previously arrested for causing bodily harm.[10] | ||||
| 18 July 2016 | between Treuchtlingen and Würzburg | 1 (perpetrator) | 5 | 6 | See main article: Würzburg train attack. A 17-year-old former unaccompanied child refugee from Afghanistan wanted to avenge death of a friend in Afghanistan; He had been in contact with the Islamic State.[11] | ||||
| 26 February 2016 | Hanover Central Station | 0 | 1 | 1 | See main article: 2016 Hanover stabbing. A 15-year-old German teen born to a Moroccan mother and a German father, raised under the influence of salafist preachings as early as 7 years, had traveled to meet ISIS members in Istanbul in November 2015, and stabbed a police officer when he asked for her ID card.[12] | ||||
| 9 March 2017 | 0 | 10 | 10 | 36-year-old asylum seeker from Kosovo, who arrived in Germany in 2009 and was considered mentally ill attacked 9 fellow passengers with an axe aboard a train. He jumped from a nearby bridge while attempting to escape capture, injuring himself severely. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.[13] | |||||
| 28 July 2017 | Barmbek area of Hamburg | 1 | 6 | 7 | 26-year-old Ahmad Alhaw, a Palestinian failed asylum seeker took a 20 cm-long kitchen knife from a supermarket shelf to attack several people, killing one. He was known to have had contacts with Salafists, and had psychological and drug problems.[14] |
| Date | Location | data-sort-type=number | Dead | data-sort-type=number | Injured | data-sort-type=number | Total | class=unsortable | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 June 2021 | Würzburg | 3 women | 8 | 11 | See main article: 2021 Würzburg stabbing. 24-year-old homeless Abdirahman Jibril of Somalia killed three civilians with a kitchen knife in a Woolworth store and wounded seven others. The police shot him into his leg. Arrived in 2015 as asylum seeker and had a history of violent altercations. Lived in a homeless shelter since 2019. He admitted to Islamist motives. Another refugee accused him to be an al-Shabaab member. He had a questionable history of mental illness.[15] | ||||
| 25 January 2023 | Brokstedt, Schleswig-Holstein | 2 | 10 | 12 | See main article: Brokstedt stabbing. 33-year-old Ibrahim A. of Palestinian origin stabbed nine people on a moving passenger train, killing two. He came to Germany in 2014 and by 2018 he had been convicted for dangerous bodily harm, two fines for theft and one drug offence.[16] | ||||
| 22 February 2024 | Wuppertal | 0 | 5 (Including the perpetrator) | 5 | See main article: Wuppertal stabbing. A 17-year-old student at the Wilhelm-Dörpfeld secondary school went into the school armed with a knife and a pair of scissors and stabbed multiple pupils and one teacher.[17] | ||||
| 31 May 2024 | Mannheim | 1 | 7 (including the perpetrator) | 7 | Main Article: 2024 Mannheim stabbingAn Afghan refugee stabbed and injured 6 people at an anti-Islam rally, including Michael Stürzenberger.[18] |