Ten Years of Islamist Terror in Germany
20th February 2025
Over the past decade, Germany has experienced a series of Islamist attacks that have exposed the deficiencies of both the country’s and the European Union’s immigration policies, at a high human cost. According to reports from the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), the number of individuals classified as dangerous Islamists has increased drastically, rising from 550 in 2015 to over 2,000 in 2025, representing an almost fourfold increase in just ten years.
This sharp growth has led to a tightening of security policies, with increased surveillance and preventive detentions of terrorism suspects. However, some of these measures have sparked criticism, as they have involved restrictions on individual freedoms, including home raids for social media posts deemed “offensive,” a trend that has also been observed in the United Kingdom, especially for non-Islamists posting.
Between 2015 and 2025, Germany has been the scene of numerous Islamist attacks. According to reports from the BfV and the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), these follow a recurring pattern: radicalized individuals, mostly linked to ISIS, targeting public and symbolic places to inflict the highest number of casualties. The deadliest attack occurred at the Berlin Christmas market in 2016, with 12 fatalities. That same year, the country suffered three attacks in total, making it the most violent year of the decade.
The methods used by attackers included knives, vehicles, and explosives to maximize impact. Authorities dismantled cells and foiled attacks in 2017, 2022, and 2023. In 2017, an ISIS sympathizer was arrested in Berlin before he could detonate explosives in Alexanderplatz. In 2022, police prevented an attack planned against a Christmas market in Essen, arresting the suspects before they could act. In 2023, an intelligence operation successfully thwarted an attack on a synagogue in Düsseldorf, leading to the arrest of those responsible.
Imagine how peaceful the world would be if the Religion of Peace didn’t exist.