The area around the Berlin Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church is cordoned off with a red and white ribbon.

Police officers ensure that nobody enters the area.

Ambulances from the fire brigade drive away with flashing lights and sirens.

Dozens of police vehicles are parked on Tauentzienstrasse, a popular shopping street in western Berlin where Kurfürstendamm flows.

The Zoo train station and the KaDeWe department store are very close by.

It's twelve o'clock in the afternoon.

An hour and a half ago, at 10:26 a.m., a car drove into a group of pedestrians on the sidewalk.

It is said to have been a group of schoolchildren visiting Berlin.

Markus Wehner

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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According to the police, six people were critically injured, another three seriously - all were taken to hospitals in the city.

But for a woman any help came too late, she died at the scene.

According to several media, it is a 51-year-old teacher from Hesse.

The severely and life-threateningly injured are said to be their students from Bad Arolsen in northern Hesse in the Waldeck-Frankenberg district, as the "Fuldaer Zeitung" reported.

According to the fire department, there were also several minor injuries.

Passersby held the driver

According to the police, the driver of the car is a 29-year-old German-Armenian who lives in Berlin.

He drove into the group on the sidewalk in a small car, a silver-colored Renault Clio – apparently at high speed, eyewitnesses report.

This happened on the corner of Tauentzienstrasse and Rankestrasse, directly opposite the Memorial Church.

Then the man drove almost 200 meters further to Marburger Straße, steered the vehicle onto the sidewalk again, touched another car until he crashed his car into the window of a perfumery shop, where he came to a halt.

The car was then partly in the branch of the Douglas chain, partly on the sidewalk.

There were no other injuries in the store.

The man, according to police spokesman Thilo Calbitz at the Memorial Church, was initially held by passers-by.

A policeman who was nearby was able to arrest him.

The suspect was taken away in handcuffs.

He received medical treatment but could be questioned.

After the incident, he made a confused impression, eyewitnesses reported.

According to the "Tagesspiegel" the man is called Gor H., he lives with his sister in the Berlin district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.

Because the driver had no papers with him, he was identified by the federal police at the zoo.

The police suspected a rampage

Several people who experienced the incident directly and are in shock are being treated by emergency paramedics and cared for by pastors in the Memorial Church.

The police are also interviewing witnesses there.

It is deployed with 130 forces, the fire brigade with around 60 people.

White tents have been erected at the place where the car hit the people.

There, experts from the criminal police and the traffic accident service secure traces in order to reconstruct the course of events.

The police initially considered an act of terrorism to be unlikely, they suspected a rampage.

The thoughts of a terrorist attack are initially obvious.

A few years ago, one of the most serious acts of terrorism in Germany took place here.

The memorial for the victims of the attack on December 19, 2016 is located just a few meters from the site of the event – ​​on the opposite side of the Memorial Church. At that time, an Islamist assassin drove a truck into the Christmas market by the church.

13 people lost their lives and more than 70 were injured, some seriously.

The photos of the victims are also on the steps of the memorial this Wednesday.

Berlin's Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) was deeply affected on Wednesday morning and expressed her condolences to the relatives of the dead and injured.

When asked the question,

What she thought about the location of the event, she told the broadcaster RBB: "For God's sake, not again!" Giffey set off together with Interior Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) in the afternoon to get an idea of ​​​​themselves .

Police President Barbara Slowik had already visited the scene around noon.

But Berlin also experienced a terrible accident that had a medical cause three years ago.

In September 2019, a man with his heavy car left the road on Invalidenstrasse in the Mitte district.

The car rolled over, killing four people, a three-year-old and his grandmother, and two young men, on the sidewalk.

The driver had suffered an epileptic seizure.

Despite his illness and brain surgery, he had been driving just a month before the accident.

He was given a two-year suspended sentence in February 2022.