December 23, 2024
Since the attack in Magdeburg on Friday evening, much has been said about hostile vehicle attacks (HVA), site protection and about the attacker’s atypical profile. But I want to address the broader context in which the attack took place, context I’ve also discussed in multiple interviews since Friday evening.
First, the main discussion should not primarily be on how to prevent such attacks but about making sure that the victims and all those affected get all the help they need without bureaucratic hassles or financial concerns. As someone who spent time volunteering with victims of terrorism over the last eight years, I cannot underline enough just how abysmal the support provided to the victims is in Germany. Most of those affected will tell you that the dehumanizing process to obtain the help they need has led to additional trauma, increased their plight and done very little to heal their emotional and physical wounds. The absolute priority should be to ensure that all those affected receive all the help and support they need in the coming weeks, years and decades, without disrespect or disdain.
Second, regarding queries about site protection, I can only recommend the excellent work of my colleague and friend Christian Schneider. I’ve worked with him on the topic of hostile vehicle mitigation (HVM) for five years now, during which time we’ve also conducted seminars on Zufahrtsschutz for the Verband für Sicherheitstechnik (VfS) as well as contributed chapters to a book on the issue, published by VfS in January 2024. In Germany, there’s simply not a better reference for HVM than Christian Schneider.
Third, much is being made about the attacker’s profile. Yes, it is quite peculiar, but what I find more relevant than the specific profile is what I’ve come to describe as the “normalization” of HVA. Over the last five years, the weaponization of vehicles has become a regular occurrence, with a huge surge beginning in 2020, catalyzed by the attacks against the Black Lives Matter protests and the pandemic. HVA are now perpetrated for a wide variety of motives, most notably for domestic violence, and are triggered – which means highly emotional and with very limited preparation time – as compared to planned HVA like those seen in Nice or Berlin. Hence, while the terrorist profile of the attacker seems chaotic within the context of terrorism, the volatile, contradictory, highly emotional and confusing profile of the attacker in Magdeburg isn’t an outlier when it comes to HVA profiles.
Many factors, such as emulation, contribute to this phenomenon but most of all it is the ease of use and the high levels of damage that a vehicle can cause that leads to the increase in HVA. Hence, while profiles of potential attackers can help, the high variety of motives and perpetrators make developing such profiles extremely difficult and likely unreliable.
As we are confronted with this “normalcy” – which in its non-lethal form can also be extended to the use of vehicles as battering rams for robberies – it is clear we can no longer consider such attacks as exceptional, and we must adjust our protective measures and our capacity for resilience accordingly. We can work on the first one by making sure that the Zufahrtsschutz concepts are developed and implemented seriously; and because there’s no such thing as 100% security, we must strengthen our resilience by making sure that all victims and those affected by such attacks receive all the support they need, for as long as they need it. This is something we should be able to do at 100%.