An analysis of medical records has shown an “alarming” rise in knife crime in Germany, with serious stabbing incidents rising by fifty per cent over four years.
For the first time, a group of emergency physicians has examined the German Society for Trauma Surgery database of significant injuries to extrapolate the number of intentional stabbings.
According to surgeon Paula Beck of the University Hospital of Zurich, there have been a total of 3,325 stab wounds recorded as violent attacks over the past ten years, Der Spiegel reports.
The analysis further found that there were approximately 250 violent stabbings in 2019 to 375 in 2023, a jump of fifty per cent. This trend was also seen at the Virchow Clinic emergency room in Berlin, which revealed that it treated 37 cases of stab wounds in 2019 compared to 106 in 2024, a three-fold rise.
Secretary General of the German Society for Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery (DGOU) Dietmar Pennig noted that in addition to stabbings becoming more numerous, they are also becoming more brutal in nature.
“We have the impression that the attacks are being carried out more deliberately,” he said. “We are definitely seeing an increase in stab wounds to the neck or chest, i.e., where it is particularly dangerous.”
Indeed, the upcoming analysis found that of those admitted for stabbings, 70 per cent required emergency treatment, while eight per cent ultimately died from their wounds.
“I view the increasing willingness to use violence with concern,” Pennig said. “The image of society has definitely changed.”
Former senior trauma surgeon at the University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein (UKSH), Andreas Seekamp, added: “It is alarming to see that knives are being used as weapons more and more frequently in Germany.”
The physicians noted that while the figures presented in their report clearly demonstrate an increasing trend of knife crime in Germany, the actual numbers are likely much higher, given that those who die at the scene of a stabbing do not appear in emergency room statistics.
Furthermore, as a result of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), anyone admitted to an emergency room must give their consent to be included in the data set. Yet this is often not possible when people are admitted in an unconscious state.
The dataset also does not record the motive of the perpetrators, and hospitals do not always note the ethnicity of those injured or the ethnicity of their assailants.
The rise does appear to correlate with the massive influx of migrants from Africa and the Middle East over the past ten years after former Chancellor Angela Merkel unilaterally decided to open the borders, sparking the European Migrant Crisis in 2015.
Recent police statistics published as a result of Freedom of Information requests from the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party showed that migrants were overrepresented in criminal activity and had been involved in at least 2,802,915 criminal cases between 2015 and 2024.
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