The American president’s foreign policy, and a divisive speech by his vice president, drew attention away from an attack by a refugee that some expected would fan political tensions over migration.
On Thursday morning, an Afghan refugee deliberately plowed a car into a crowd in Munich, motivated by what the police called an “Islamist orientation.” A 2-year-old girl and her mother were killed, and nearly 40 others were injured.
A day later — in a country where migration has been a major election issue — that attack was no longer the biggest news story in town.
German news media, and much of the country’s political leadership, immersed themselves to a larger degree in a blizzard of foreign-policy pronouncements from the Trump administration as Western leaders gathered at the Munich Security Conference.
The annual gathering, which ended on Sunday, left many Germans who attended fuming that the Trump team was trying to influence the vote in coming parliamentary elections by publicly lecturing German politicians about blocking a far-right party from government.
German leaders left Munich profoundly worried about the country’s relationship with the United States as the Trump administration appeared to be icing Europe out of substantive discussions on a peace plan for Ukraine, at least for now.
