A new nationwide survey by the Federal Association of City and Town Marketing (BCSD) found that security expenses for public events — including Christmas markets — have jumped 44 percent in just three years. Organizers say the spike is directly tied to Islamic extremist attacks that have targeted markets across Germany since 2016.
Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt, one of the country’s biggest and most visited Christmas markets, now has concrete barriers, controlled entry points, and real-time crowd monitoring. “The requirements have become increasingly stringent,” said David Russ, head of production at the Gendarmenmarkt. The extra measures, he added, are meant to reassure visitors: “People can say, ‘OK, I feel safe here.’”
Some towns say they can’t afford to meet the new mandates. Overath and Kerpen, both in North Rhine-Westphalia, canceled their 2024 Christmas markets entirely, saying they couldn’t pay for the security needed to prevent car-ramming or stabbing attacks. Organizers in Kerpen even floated the idea of holding a smaller, non-religious market to avoid being targeted by extremists, a suggestion the AfD slammed as capitulation. “The CDU has long since capitulated to the Islamists,” said AfD leader Jörg Urban.
The Interior Ministry has acknowledged the growing threat. Christmas markets, it said, pose a “particular risk” because of their central locations, open access, and heavy foot traffic. Magdeburg’s 2023 attack, where the suspect used emergency exits to drive into a crowd, injuring more than 200 people, and car-ramming attacks in Munich and Mannheim this year have only heightened alarm.
Local politician say the cost burden needs to shift. “We need nationwide, reliable rules … otherwise we will soon find ourselves without anyone willing to take on the ever-increasing responsibility,” said BCSD chief Gerold Leppa to Reuters. Chancellor Friedrich Merz, however, said federal support isn’t coming, leaving the responsibility with state police forces.
Markets are now charging entrance fees to cover security costs. At Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt, it’s two euros. “Those 2 euros are also used to run the market but also, of course, for the security issues,” Russ said.
The increasing security comes amid an notable, clear pattern of extremist plot by typically Islamic migrants or radicalized people. In 2024, a Saudi asylum seeker murdered five people, including a 9-year-old child, at a Christmas market, sparking mass protests calling for deportations and tighter border controls. In 2023, two teenagers, a German-Afghan and a Russian, were arrested for planning to blow up a Christmas market in Leverkusen.
