Witnesses said that at 7.04pm German time (5.04am AEDT), the driver, in a dark-coloured BMW, had headed directly and apparently deliberately towards a throng of people near the city hall, driving in a zigzag course for about 400 metres, forcing many to run away in panic.

Footage broadcast of the aftermath taken by a nearby security camera showed a car mowing down pedestrians as it sped through a narrow alleyway with stalls on each side. People could be seen fleeing in panic as some attended to bodies left strewn on the ground.

A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said Australia sent its condolences to the victims, and that the Australian embassy in Berlin was making urgent inquiries with local authorities. “At this stage, there is no information to suggest any Australians were affected.”

The suspected attack in Magdeburg, a city of about 240,000 people on the Elbe river, 130 kilometres west of Berlin, comes eight years after an Islamic extremist drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring many others. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.

Florian Flade, national security reporter for WDR Investigativ and SZ Investigativ, posted on X that the suspect was not previously known to security authorities as an Islamist.

“On the contrary, he was recognised as a political refugee who had renounced Islam and turned his back on the Saudi Arabian royal family,” he wrote.

A Saudi source told Reuters the kingdom had warned German authorities about the attacker, who the source said had posted extremist views on his personal X account. The source identified the suspect as Taleb Abdul Jawad. Germany’s Der Spiegel identified the attacker as Taleb A., a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy who sympathised with Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. The magazine did not say where it got the information.

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attack.

Christmas markets are a German holiday tradition cherished since the Middle Ages and successfully exported to much of the Western world. In Berlin alone, more than 100 markets opened late last month and brought the smells of mulled wine, roasted almonds and bratwurst to the capital. Other markets abound across the country.

One woman told the local Magdeburger Volksstimme newspaper that the driver had ploughed into the “fairytale” area of the market where many young families with children were walking and that she and her child had been able to save themselves only by jumping to one side at the last second.

One restaurateur who runs stands at the market said the car demolished a booth, and the aftermath resembled a war zone.

Security agencies have been on high alert for the possibility of Islamist terror attacks on Christmas markets, and several plots have been foiled in recent weeks.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, in late November, said there were no concrete indications of a danger to Christmas markets this year but that it was wise to be vigilant.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz posted on X: “My thoughts are with the victims and their relatives. We stand beside them and beside the people of Magdeburg.”

The incident could shape the course of campaigning ahead of a German federal election on February 23, throwing the emphasis back onto questions of security. The anti-immigrant hard-right AfD is now polling in second place.

The party sought almost immediately to capitalise on the carnage. “The pictures from Magdeburg are horrifying,” Alice Weidel, the AfD’s candidate for the chancellorship, wrote on X.

Loading

“In my thoughts, I am with the survivors and the wounded. When will this madness stop?”

Christian Democratic leader Friedrich Merz, the frontrunner in the election, said: “This is very depressing news from Magdeburg. My thoughts are with the victims and their families. I thank all the emergency services who are caring for the injured on site.”

With AP, Reuters

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.