Bombs Before Unity Day - Augustusbrücke
One week before Germany's national Unity Day celebrations were planned in Dresden, two pipe bombs tore through the night, one at a mosque in the west of the city and one on the terrace of the congress centre visible downstream from this bridge.
Su questo luogo
The Augustusbrücke has carried travellers across the Elbe in some form since 1119, and its broad sandstone arches remain one of the great walking views in eastern Germany. At its southern end the modest Pegelhaus river-gauge building sits flush against the water, quietly measuring the river's rise and fall. On the evening of 26 September 2016, exactly one week before Germany's Unity Day celebrations were scheduled to fill these streets with tens of thousands of visitors, a 30-year-old Dresden man who had spoken at a Pegida rally planted two homemade pipe bombs at targets across the city. The first device tore through the outer wall of the Fatih mosque in the district of Cotta at 21:15; the second went off on the terrace of the International Congress Centre, visible downstream from this bridgehead, at 22:19. Nobody was hurt in either attack. Arrested through DNA evidence on 8 December 2016, the bomber was convicted on 31 August 2018 of attempted murder and particularly serious arson and sentenced to 9 years and 8 months in prison.
Fatti principali
- 9 years 8 months — The prison sentence handed down by the Dresden regional court on 31 August 2018 for attempted murder and particularly serious arson.
- 7 days before Unity Day — The twin bombings struck Dresden exactly one week before Germany's national reunification celebrations were planned in the city on 3 October 2016.
- 2 bomb sites — The attacks hit the Fatih mosque in Cotta at 21:15 and the ICC congress centre terrace downstream at 22:19, one hour apart, with nobody hurt at either location.