Federal Interior Minister Faeser (SPD) is calling for “weapons-free zones in certain places” and “a general knife ban on trains”. A top lawyer has exposed the move as pure symbolic politics – because the sensible-sounding plans are not at all feasible.
Germany has become a place where bloody knife attacks are apparently commonplace.
Almost every day, police authorities have to report attacks in which people are seriously or critically injured – or even die, as was the case recently with 29-year-old police officer Rouven L. in Mannheim. Knife crimes have recently occurred again in Frankfurt am Main, Saarbrücken, Leverkusen, Berlin, Bremen and Dortmund.
Until a few years ago, knife crime in pedestrian zones, parks and trains played at most a minor role, but since 2015, when the largely uncontrolled influx of immigrants began, it has developed into a phenomenon that threatens internal security – and not just “perceived”.
According to official crime statistics, there were almost 9,000 knife attacks in Germany in 2023 involving dangerous and serious bodily harm – around 10 percent more than in the previous year. In addition, there were 4,900 in the area of robbery, an increase of 17 percent.
An evaluation of the nationwide figures by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) was carried out for the first time in 2021 – an indication that such crimes have only gained relevance in the recent past. At that time, 7,071 knife attacks were classified as dangerous and serious bodily harm, almost 2,000 fewer than in 2023.
For a long time, the interior ministers of the federal and state governments gave the impression that knife crimes were the notorious “isolated cases”. They failed to issue a clear declaration of war on the perpetrators or even to develop a strategy to curb this type of crime.
A discussion about “gun-free zones” in inner cities and public transport began relatively late. At the forefront: Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD).
In April 2023, she called for “weapons-free zones in certain places.” A few months later, Faeser considered “a general ban on knives on trains and in all public transport” to be urgently needed. “I am in favor of a ban so that stricter controls can be implemented and serious acts of violence can be prevented.”
It is well known that Faeser is a master at putting himself in the spotlight with tough demands and headline-grabbing announcements.
But how realistic are their seemingly sensible plans to ban people from carrying knives in certain areas? Who should enforce a far-reaching knife ban? How will it be enforced? Would it even be effective in preventing knife crime?
Or is it – once again – pure symbolic politics?
Former federal judge Thomas Fischer has dealt intensively with these questions and subjected them to a legal examination. He has now published his exciting analysis on the portal “Legal Tribune Online” (LTO) – and exposes Faeser’s proposal as pure wishful thinking.
Although the availability of “tools for killing ready to hand in everyday life in Germany … is an unmistakable sign of permanently latent violence,” the enforcement of general knife bans is completely unrealistic.
Fischer on LTO: “A general ‘ban on knives’ would be silly.” He points out that even with ordinary cooking, bread, steak or sausage cutting knives, “people can be seriously injured or killed.” In this respect, “the effectiveness of such bans in everyday life would have to be put into perspective.”
The lawyer emphasizes that knives of any kind are “dangerous by their nature” – regardless of whether they fall under the current weapons law or not. “The prohibitions on carrying knives in the weapons law are intended to reduce an abstract danger that emanates from certain technical designs of the object ‘knife’.” However, most knife attacks are “not committed with such objects.”
Regarding the specific bloodbath in Mannheim, Fischer writes that the length of the blade of the knife used by the attacker has not yet been made public. “It is not known whether the victims’ injuries would have been less severe if the blade had been six centimetres long instead of ten centimetres.”
And Fischer continues on LTO: “Whether the attacker in Mannheim fetched an axe, a kitchen knife, a screwdriver or a ‘survival tool’ from home before attacking people, at least with the intention of causing injury, is ultimately irrelevant.” What is certain is that someone who plans such a crime “does not choose his tool based on driving bans.”
It is also questionable whether a general knife ban “could have prevented this crime or other crimes or made future crimes less likely.” He is certain that regulatory bans can at best reduce the number of spontaneous crimes. “They do not deter attackers who plan ahead.”
In his analysis, the former presiding judge of the 2nd Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice points to another weak point: the control of a knife ban.
Such a measure would only be effective “if it could be enforced almost without gaps”. That would be “obviously impossible”. It would not be possible to “constantly check everyone in public spaces to see if they have a knife in their pocket”.
Fischer: “And as long as all household goods stores and department stores do not display their range of household knives behind bulletproof glass, anyone can pick up a super-sharp ‘Heute kocht Papa’ knife as they walk past and use it to commit crimes.”
Fischer’s conclusion: “It is hardly possible to differentiate between abstractly dangerous and abstractly harmless knives.” Although a general ban on carrying knives of any kind in public areas is “useful in principle,” it could “not be effectively enforced.” In addition, an extension of the existing ban areas “to all potentially dangerous areas” is unrealistic.
The expert concludes with an assessment that Interior Minister Faeser and her colleagues will probably not like to hear and will probably ignore: “Legal changes that only have a symbolic effect should be avoided.”
