Divided Berlin remembers Christmas market dead

Day two in Berlin after Monday evening’s Christmas market massacre was a day of light and darkness.

After the freezing fog of shock on Tuesday, the sun came out on Wednesday over Breitscheidplatz as the German capital held its nerve.

The Bild tabloid, which prides itself on having its finger on the pulse, missed a trick with its Wednesday edition headline: "Angst!"

There was no sense of angst in the air of the German capital even though the perpetrator was still at large. Berlin mayor Michael Müller urged Berliners not to panic – and they didn’t.

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Instead they parked their trademark Berliner Schnauze: a directness that, for some Irish tastes, often tips into ignorance. Instead Berliners, for a while at least, are a different, considerate, smiling people.

Before the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial church, the carpet of flowers candles and messages continued to grow. One reads: “Hate is incredible. Love is incredibler.”

Under the winter sun a choir of 200 – Germans and refugees – gathers to sing We are the World.

“We are not here today as Syrians, Germans or refugees,” says Saleh, a Syrian asylum seeker. “We are here because we are all people.”

Ibrahim from Aleppo said everyone he knew in his refugee home was deeply upset by the attacks, and fearful it would trigger a general air of suspicion towards asylum seekers.

“Of course there are bad people among refugees but I hope most Berliners realise that the most are just normal people,” he says.

Darkness falls

Among the discussions on the square are, however, the first pangs of doubt. Why was the Christmas market so poorly protected? And how could the chief suspect, an Islamic State sympathiser facing deportation, remain in Germany until he vanished? When darkness fell on Berlin, another Berlin emerged.

Near Angela Merkel's chancellery, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) organise a "solemn vigil" – political demonstrations are banned here. Around 150 people gathered in a half-filled enclosure and, as Adagio for Strings in C plays over the sound system, demonstrators wave placards reading "Defend Berlin" and "Defend German minority against globalfascists and rainbow racists".

A priest, who doesn’t introduce himself, says he had accepted an invitation to speak in a private capacity after “wrestling with his conscience”.

“When the innocent are attacked there’s a right to defend oneself,” he says. In a nod to Germany’s refugee policy, he adds: “Political mistakes have been made and can be reversed.”

Among those gathered here is Sebastian, a Berliner and constitutional lawyer. Why is he here?

“Because I find our loss of control in Germany, over our borders, almost worse than the terrorist threat it has caused,” he says. “We urgently need a political change and, while there are some black sheep in the AfD, I don’t see any political alternative to the AfD.”

Back on Breitscheidplatz, the calm of recent days is broken in the evening when 50 neo-Nazis hold a demonstration under the motto “Merkel has blood on her hands.”

But they are outnumbered, and out-shouted, by around 700 counter demonstrators who hold red hearts and chant “Heart not Hate.”