On December 19,2017, Germany commemorates the one-year anniversary of the Berlin Christmas market attack, which claimed the lives of 12 people.
Heiko Maas, the federal minister of justice, apologized to the victims and their relatives for the shortcomings in the fight against terrorism and the failure to prevent a terrorist attack on German soil in his publication for the Tagesspiegel newspaper.
« We were not sufficiently prepared to deal with the consequences of such a terror attack. For that, we can only apologize to the victims and their surviving relatives, » Maas wrote. « It remains a never-ending task of politics in a democratic constitutional state to learn from mistakes and to assume our responsibility towards the victims of terror, » he added.
He also suggested introducing changes to the country’s legislation so that all victims of terrorist attacks could receive equal treatment and corresponding compensation regardless of their nationality or the weapons used during the attack.
