In three horrifying minutes, a 50-year-old Saudi resident of Germany exploited emergency exit routes and gunned an S.U.V. through a Christmas market packed with revelers, German officials said on Saturday, as they grappled to piece together a motive for the attack on Friday evening that rattled the country.
At least five people, including a 9-year-old child, were killed in the attack, which took place in the eastern city of Magdeburg. More than 200 others were injured, and of those, 41 were severely hurt, the authorities have said.
Local Magdeburg authorities, speaking at a news conference on Saturday at City Hall, identified the attacker only as Taleb A., in keeping with Germany’s privacy laws, and said his motive was being investigated.
Ronni Krug, a member of the Magdeburg City Council, defended the security at the market as sufficient, saying that the emergency routes exploited by the attacker were necessary to allow ambulances through and were guarded by the police.
German officials said that they believed the attack was deliberate, and that the driver, who was arrested shortly after the attack, acted alone. They had also said the driver had lived in Germany for decades on a visa that granted him permanent residency.
Germans had started the weekend eager to celebrate the start of the holiday season after a year marked by concerns over the stagnant economy, increasing job cuts and political paralysis that culminated in the collapse of the German government.
Henriette Winkler, 36, was one of many Magdeburg residents who had been looking forward to a quiet and peaceful Christmas, visiting the market hours before the attack. “Now I almost don’t feel like Christmas anymore,” she said.
Once entering the market through one emergency exit, the attacker drove through the crowds packing alleyways lined with stands, before leaving the market through another emergency exit, Tom-Oliver Langhans, the director of the police in Magdeburg, said at the news conference.
Shortly afterward, the driver was arrested, and he is under investigation on suspicion of five counts of murder and more than 200 counts of attempted murder.
After the attack, video broadcast on German television showed a man with a trim beard and round, wire-rimmed glasses lying prone on the ground beside a BMW with a crumpled front fender and grill, as officers pointing pistols at him shouted at him not to move.
The authorities said the suspect lived in Bernburg, about 25 miles south of Magdeburg. Heavily armed police searched an apartment in the town late Friday. The Salus Clinic confirmed to local news media that the doctor worked as a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy at their hospital, the media reported. He first came to Germany in 2006, the authorities said.
The doctor had an active social media presence that included postings criticizing Germany for what he called the authorities’ tolerance of radical Islam, German news media reported. A security official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that those reports were accurate.
In his social media, the man also expressed support for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party and reposted comments by party leaders warning of the threat of Islamic law being imposed in Germany.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, accompanied by several of his ministers, on Saturday visited the site of the attack, and laid flowers at a memorial across from the market.
In 2016, an Islamic extremist rammed a semi truck into a crowd in at a Christmas market in central Berlin, killing 13. Since then, bollards blocking the entrances to street festivals and holiday markets in Germany have become standard, as have security cameras and increased police presence, including plainclothes officers circulating among the crowds.
This year, knives were banned at holiday markets across the country and security at the Magdeburg market had been increased, after an armed man killed three people at a street festival in western Germany in August.
In Magdeburg, a line of large concrete blocks painted red and green had been placed at the perimeter of the Christmas market, which was set up in narrow streets holding wooden stalls decorated with twinkling lights and selling hot mulled wine, sausages and gifts.
“It is not 100 percent possible to protect such events,” said Andreas Rosskopf, the head of the federal police union.
After Friday’s attack, cities across Germany sent extra patrols to the thousands of Christmas markets that remained open on Saturday. In Cologne, the authorities banned suitcases and larger bags at the market around the city’s cathedral. In Leipzig, the police set up extra barriers at the entrances to the market.
“We will need to speak about security, but not today,” Reiner Haseloff, the governor of Saxony-Anhalt state, told reporters on Saturday. “Today we are mourning.”
Germany needed to have an “intense discussion” about what it would take to “give citizens the feeling that in Germany, we not only have secure Christmas markets, but that we are able to live our lives how we want to,” Mr. Haseloff said.
Magdeburg, which is the capital of Saxony-Anhalt and has a population of about 240,000, was part of Communist East Germany. The annual market is set up in the center of the city, in front of City Hall. On Saturday, people came to lay flowers at a memorial set up on the steps of the Johanniskirche, or St. John’s Church, near the attack site.
The pile of flowers at the steps of the church grew throughout the day on Saturday as visibly shaken people stopped by to pay their respects and to mourn.
Marko Heyer, 49, of Magdeburg, came with his wife to the church, both of them fighting back tears. Mr. Heyer recalled visiting the market — with its fairy-tale section with figures that recounted stories to children, as well as with the usual stands selling food and gifts — when he was a boy.
“In my opinion, it was the nicest Christmas market in Germany,” he said. “It will never be the same again.”
Surveillance footage circulating on social media and verified by The New York Times on Friday shows a car plowing into a large crowd at the market shortly after 7 p.m. The car then turns right onto another crowded street. Video of the aftermath shows people helping the wounded as cries are heard.
A couple who were at the market during the attack told a German television station that a black S.U.V. suddenly careened into an alley packed with people who had come to celebrate the start of the last weekend before Christmas. The car drove some 1,200 feet before it stopped, officials said.
“It all happened so quickly,” the couple said.
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