A newly elected German town mayor has been left fighting for her life after a stabbing attack that Chancellor Friedrich Merz condemned as a “heinous act”.
AFP reported that Iris Stalzer was found yesterday in Herdecke in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany after an “abhorrent attack”, just days after her election, police said.
She was discovered by her 15-year-old son at around 12:40 pm (10:40 GMT) with life-threatening injuries in her apartment in the town near Dortmund, according to The Independent.
Stalzer’s son was led away in handcuffs and in an evidence-preserving overall “purely to protect evidence”, police told the German newspaper Bild. Her daughter, 17, was also reportedly in the house at the time.
“She was immediately treated in intensive care and taken to a hospital by helicopter,” police said in a statement, adding that a homicide investigation had been launched.
“Investigations are underway in all directions, and a family connection cannot currently be ruled out,” police said, according to AFP.
“We fear for her life,” Merz wrote on X soon after reports of the stabbing emerged, demanding that the crime and its background “be swiftly clarified”.
News outlet Der Spiegel said Stalzer suffered more than 10 stab wounds, citing unnamed investigators.
According to Bild, she was found with stab wounds to her stomach and back in her home.
The boy told police that his mother had been attacked by several men on the street, Bild reported.
“We have received news of a terrible deed in Herdecke,” Merz wrote on social media. “It must be swiftly investigated. We fear for the life of the mayor-designate and hope for her full recovery.”
The leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) parliamentary group in Berlin, Matthias Miersch, told reporters: “We heard a few minutes ago that newly elected mayor Iris Stalzer was stabbed in Herdecke,” according to The Independent.
“We hope that she survives this terrible act. We can’t say anything at the moment about the background,” he added.
Der Spiegel reported that there had been a previous case of domestic violence in the Stalzer household in the summer.
The politician’s daughter had allegedly used a knife against her, the report said.
Prosecutors and police said in a statement later that there was “no sign that this was a politically motivated deed … On the contrary, we suspect it was a family dispute”.
They added that the politician’s children were at a police station as investigators “try to clarify the circumstances” of the attack.
Stalzer, of the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), had been elected mayor of the town in the industrial Ruhr area on September 28, AFP reported.
The town administration yesterday voiced its “shock and dismay” at the attack.
Miersch, told reporters: “Our thoughts are with her … we are more than deeply saddened.”
Stalzer beat a candidate from Merz’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union in a run-off vote to win the mayoral election in Herdecke, which lies in Germany’s Ruhr region. The ballot came after a regional campaign that politicians in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s largest State, said was distinguished by a particularly vicious tone, The Independent reported.
Stalzer’s website says she is married with two teenage children and has spent almost her whole life in Herdecke. She has worked as a lawyer specialising in labour law.
In Germany, a recent study found that 60 per cent of politicians had experienced violence at least once. One in five said it had made them more reluctant to appear in public.
