Journalism of Courage
A freshly elected mayor was found injured in western Germany with multiple stab wounds and her life is in danger, a security source told Reuters on Tuesday.
Bild newspaper reported that Iris Stalzer, a Social Democrat who is due to take office in November after being elected mayor of Herdecke in the Ruhr region a week ago, had been found by her son.
A 57-year-old mother of two teenagers, Stalzer is a labour lawyer who has worked for many years in the local politics of Herdecke, an ancient town of some 20,000.
“We have received news of a terrible deed in Herdecke,” conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz wrote on social media. “It must be swiftly investigated. We fear for the life of the mayor-designate and hope for her full recovery.”
The attack comes after a region-wide campaign that politicians in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s largest state, said was distinguished by the viciousness and rawness of its tone.
The motive was unclear but the case raises memories of the 2019 murder of conservative local government president Walter Luebcke, a support of then Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policy, who was shot dead by a far-right activist as he smoked a late-night cigarette on his terrace at home.
Local and regional authorities were not immediately available to comment.
