- author, Sarah Fowler
- role, BBC News
Police said a man attacked several people with a knife in a market square in the southwestern German city of Mannheim.
The incident was captured on a YouTube live stream and showed the gunman stabbing the man and then a police officer who tried to help him. The man remains in a critical condition.
The gunman was shot and wounded by another police officer.
Unconfirmed reports said one of the injured was a far-right, anti-Islam activist who had been rallying in the square.
Mannheim police tweeted that a “major police operation” was taking place in the city’s market square, and a rescue helicopter had been dispatched to the scene.
Police said in a later statement that at 11.35am (10.35am BST) a man attacked several people with a knife, injuring them.
He added that firearms were then used against the assailants.
The attack appears to have taken place at the same time as a rally in the market square organised by far-right anti-Islam activist Michael Sturzenberger.
Stürzenberger’s organisation, the civil movement Pax Europe (BPE), confirmed to Bild that he had been injured in the attack.
Police have not released further details about those injured in the attack.
Live-streamed video of the incident shows the man attacking people with a knife, with at least one person seen with a wound to the leg.
Several bystanders can be seen struggling with the assailant, who then runs away and stabs the officer in the back.
He was then surrounded by several police officers with guns drawn, causing him to fall to the ground.
Image source, Getty Images
According to Bild, Michael Sturzenberger is the author of an Islamophobic blog and a member of the BPE, an organisation that claims to oppose the “Islamisation” of Germany.
The 58-year-old is one of the authors of the anti-Islam platform PI-News and is monitored by the Bavarian domestic intelligence service.
A former politician, Stürzenberger previously led a small right-wing populist party called Freiheit, which was dissolved in 2016.
Previously, he was a member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), but left before being expelled.
