Image Credit: Douglas Sacha / Getty 
In the German capital of Berlin, a massive knife battle broke out on the Karl Liebknecht Bridge at the Humboldt Forum over the weekend, resulting in six men being injured.
Currently, a 24-year-old is in critical condition. A 14-year-old girl was arrested but later released. All of those involved are from Afghanistan.
At around 9:45 p.m., witnesses began reporting a major battle taking place between two groups of men in the area near the bridge and the cathedral at the Humboldt Forum, according to RBB.
Police officers arriving at the location were greeted with a shocking scene, including four men, aged 20, 20, 23, and 24, lying injured with stab wounds on the bridge. Some of them were bleeding heavily.
Then, officers found two more injured people, aged 24 and 26, at the Town Hall Bridge, which is in the immediate vicinity.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene where paramedics were racing to stabilize the victims.
A 24-year-old man suffered life-threatening injuries to his back, according to police spokesman Martin Halweg.
He was transported to a nearby hospital and underwent emergency surgery.
The other victims suffered a range of stab and cut wounds across their bodies, including hands, legs, chest, and pelvis.
A large number of police arrived on scene and sealed off the bridge area.
A 14-year-old girl was arrested, along with two men, both 19, and all Afghan. However, these three were released shortly afterward and are considered witnesses. The 14-year-old was transferred to child emergency services.
So far, police have not provided any motive or background for the knife battle.
Knife crime has steadily increased in Germany.
“We have imported knife violence. In other cultures, the knife is a kind of status symbol. This is changing the social climate here in the country,” stated criminal attorney Udo Vetter. He further notes that “knives have become an everyday companion for many people. And the barrier to using them is low.”
Notably, he warns that due to the rise of knives and knife crimes, it is creating a problem that is expected to only grow exponentially, with more and more people arming themselves with knives out of fear.
“Because if some people deliberately pack a knife as a murder weapon, more and more people will also resort to knives, supposedly to defend themselves,” stated Vetter. “Young people in particular have knives in their pockets just like their cell phones.”
“We have imported knife violence. In other cultures, the knife is a kind of status symbol. This is changing the social climate here in the country,” stated criminal attorney Udo Vetter. He further notes that “knives have become an everyday companion for many people. And the barrier to using them is low.”
Notably, he warns that due to the rise of knives and knife crimes, it is creating a problem that is expected to only grow exponentially, with more and more people arming themselves with knives out of fear.
“Because if some people deliberately pack a knife as a murder weapon, more and more people will also resort to knives, supposedly to defend themselves,” stated Vetter. “Young people in particular have knives in their pockets just like their cell phones.”
Just last week, an American was brutally stabbed in his face for trying to protect a woman in Dresden from being sexually harassed on a tram by two Syrians, with the incident even leading to criticism from American diplomats.
The leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Baden-Württemberg state parliament, Anton Baron MdL, has accused Christian Socialist Union (CDU) parliamentary group leader Manuel Hagel of hypocrisy regarding knife crimes in Germany.
“Although the proportion of people without German passports is significantly lower in the population, there is a significantly higher crime rate here,” he told SWR. He said he considered the increased number of knife attacks by foreigners “alarming.”
“Such ‘unpleasant truths’ must be spoken. It couldn’t be more hypocritical: The CDU, above all, has caused this situation since 2015. Has the party distanced itself from it to this day? On the contrary: Hegel has rejected all our draft laws and motions to limit migration and defamed us as more right-wing than right-wing. Hagel can point his bigoted finger at others as much as he wants: His party, under Interior Minister Strobl, believes it can tackle the rampant problem of migrant knife-wielding men with pseudo-solutions like gun-free zones. But this problem no longer needs to be ‘debated in our country’ – it must finally be solved. But apart from the AfD, no one wants or can do that.”
