About this place
On the night of 4 October 2020, at 21:26, this quiet stretch of Rosmaringasse beside the Kulturpalast became a crime scene. A couple from North Rhine-Westphalia, a 55-year-old man from Krefeld and his 53-year-old partner from Cologne, were walking here as tourists when a 20-year-old Islamist known to the authorities as a Gefährder struck from behind without warning. The 55-year-old was rushed to hospital but died at 22:40. His partner survived with severe injuries. What deepened the shock was what investigators uncovered almost immediately: the attacker had been released from youth prison just five days earlier and was already on the police terror-risk register. Arrested on 20 October 2020, still carrying a knife, he was tried at the Higher Regional Court in Dresden. On 21 May 2021, the court handed down a life sentence with a finding of particular severity of guilt, reserving preventive detention. The Federal Court of Justice rejected his appeal on 12 January 2022. Five years after the attack, on 2 October 2025, a memorial plaque was set into the pavement here, inscribed with the court's own finding: the motive was terrorist Islamism.
Key facts
- 5 days — The attacker had been released from youth prison just five days before carrying out the knife attack.
- 20 years old — The attacker's age: a 20-year-old Islamist already known to police as a Gefährder, a person formally assessed as a concrete terror risk.
- 2025 year — A memorial plaque was set into the pavement at the exact spot of the attack on 2 October 2025, five years after the crime.