Munich authorities have cancelled upcoming traditional carnival celebrations following a suspected terror attack on a demonstration in the city that left two dead and 39 injured.
Officials in the Bavarian capital announced on February 19 that both the “Nonsense Thursday” event on February 27 and the Shrove Tuesday celebration on March 4 will not take place this year. A third carnival event in the city’s central pedestrian zone has also been cancelled.
The decision came after an Afghan immigrant allegedly crashed his car into a trade union demonstration in Munich’s centre on February 13.
A 37-year-old woman and her two-year-old daughter died in the incident, with at least 37 people injured, many of them seriously.
Investigators said the act may have been motivated by Islamist ideology, with the driver allegedly having radicalised himself on TikTok and pledged allegiance to Islamic State.
The woman who died was of Algerian descent and had come to Germany as a child. She was working for the city government as an engineer.
The Munich carnival celebrations have a long tradition.
In a statement on the cancellations, city officials said they had not taken the decision lightly but “as a city family it is unimaginable for us to light-heartedly celebrate carnival after the attack and especially after the deaths of our colleague and her daughter”.
Critics have said they suspected that security concerns were the true reason for the cancellations, as city officials had maintained that a parade would be “theoretically possible”.
Germany has seen an unprecedented spate of terrorist attacks by immigrants in recent months.
On August 23, 2024, a Syrian immigrant allegedly killed three people and injured eight in a stabbing attack on a “Festival for Diversity” in Solingen for which Islamic State claimed responsibility.
On December 20, 2024, a ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg allegedly by a Saudi immigrant left six people dead and 300 injured injured 300.
On January 22, an Afghan asylum seeker allegedly stabbed a two-year-old child and a 41-year-old man to death in Aschaffenburg, where carnival parades have also been put on hold.
Julian Reichelt, a right-wing publicist, commented on the Munich decision by ironically quoting a standard phrase of German politicians often heard in the past few years: “We will not let Islamists change our way of life.”
