The leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Alice Weidel, which has focused on jihadist attacks in its campaign against immigrants, wrote on X: “When will this madness stop?”
“What happened today affects a lot of people. It affects us a lot,” Fael Kelion, a 27-year-old Cameroonian living in the city, told AFP.
“I think that since (the suspect) is a foreigner, the population will be unhappy, less welcoming”.
Michael Raarig, 67 and an engineer, feared the attack “will play into the hands of the AfD” which has had its strongest support in the formerly communist eastern Germany.
Security was stepped up Saturday at Christmas markets elsewhere in Germany with more police out in Hamburg, Leipzig and other cities.
Church bells rang in Magdeburg and across the region at 7:03 pm (1803 GMT) the time of Friday’s attack.
