Panic caused by a 10,000-strong march chanting 'Allahu Akbar' through a Christmas market - and why many Germans now feel generosity towards Syrian refugees must end: ROBERT HARDMAN
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They are still confused and, understandably, a little angry in the centre of Essen, though the mood is very much calmer than it was a few days ago. Back then, many people were scared witless, grabbing their children and running for the exits. As I stand here, amid the oom-pah music, the fairy lights and the little stalls selling hot chocolate, hefty sausages, toys, candles and all the ephemera you would expect at a traditional German Christmas market, I can see why.
![[On and on they came for more than an hour, chanting unfamiliar slogans and waving flags and banners. Reports say that there were upwards of 10,000 marchers]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/20/17/93359619-14214497-On_and_on_they_came_for_more_than_an_hour_chanting_unfamiliar_sl-a-35_1734714162085.jpg)
For in mid-afternoon on Sunday December 8, this snug ambiance – what the Germans like to call 'gemutlichkeit' - was suddenly disrupted by chants of 'Allahu Akbar'. Out of nowhere came a large, boisterous crowd – mostly Arabic, almost entirely young men – who barged past the fairground rides and on down the narrow pathways between the market traders with their jewellery displays, gingerbread houses and puppet shows.
![[Out of nowhere came a large, boisterous crowd who barged down the narrow pathways between the market traders with their jewellery displays, gingerbread houses and puppet shows. Pictured: Hardman at Essen's Christmas market]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/20/15/93358331-14214497-image-a-7_1734710016363.jpg)
On and on they came for more than an hour, chanting unfamiliar slogans and waving flags and banners. Reports say that there were upwards of 10,000 marchers. Though the event turned out to be entirely peaceful, it was woefully ill-judged. Germans have not forgotten that it was at a Christmas market in Berlin where a failed asylum-seeker from Tunisia drove a stolen truck into the crowds in 2016. He left 13 dead and 56 injured.
![[Chiara Piccoli, who runs the Christmas taberna in Essen, described the marchers as 'intimidating']](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/20/15/93358333-14214497-image-a-6_1734710005108.jpg)
In the Essen area, memories are especially raw of what happened just up the road in Solingen less than four months ago. The town was celebrating a late-summer 'festival of diversity' when a 26-year-old Syrian man – already in breach of a deportation order having lost his asylum appeal – went berserk with a knife.
![[Beatrix von Storch, the far-Right AfD party's deputy leader, says that 'every Syrian asylum seeker, especially those celebrating the fall of Assad, should go home']](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/20/15/93358461-14214497-image-a-12_1734710136061.jpg)
