German mayor-elect gravely wounded in stabbing attack

A newly elected mayor in western Germany has been critically injured in a stabbing attack, according to German media reports.

Iris Stalzer, the 57-year-old mayor-elect of the North Rhine-Westphalia town of Herdecke, was stabbed in front of her home about noon (10:00 GMT) on Tuesday, leaving her with life-threatening injuries, Germany’s WDR broadcaster reported, quoting local police.

Prosecutors and police said in a joint statement their inquiry was looking into every possibility.

“Close family involvement cannot be ruled out at the present time,” they said.

DPA news agency reported that her son and daughter, aged 15 and 17, had been taken in for questioning. Stalzer was airlifted to hospital and was still in intensive care, the authorities’ statement said.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz condemned the “heinous attack” and called for a swift investigation.

“We fear for the life of the designated mayor, Iris Stalzer, and hope for her full recovery,” he wrote in a post on X.

Stalzer’s teenage son told authorities his mother had been attacked by several men, Germany’s Bild newspaper reported.

The police and prosecution statement did not address the content of the media reports.

Stalzer, a member of the centre-left Social Democratic Party, was elected mayor of the town of 22,000 people in the eastern Ruhr area on September 28.

The attack came after a regionwide campaign that politicians in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s largest state, described as unusually hostile.

A recent study found 60 percent of politicians in Germany had experienced violence at least once, with one in five saying it had made them more reluctant to appear in public.

In 2019, a conservative district government president in the state of Hesse, Walter Luebcke, a supporter of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refugee policy, was shot dead by a far-right activist on his home terrace.