Stephan Kramer, the president of the Thuringia state security office, has stated that comprehensive surveillance of all individuals designated as “persons of threat” across Germany is unattainable. He made this point in an op-ed piece for “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland,” prompted by the attack on Christopher Street Day in Berlin carried out by the Islamist Abdul B., who had been classified as a threat.
Kramer clarified that the term “person of threat” does not equate to a criminal conviction. Instead, he explained, “It signifies a police assessment that an individual is likely to commit politically motivated crimes of considerable significance.” Given this prognosis alone, Kramer argued, a person cannot be indefinitely detained or otherwise sanctioned within a legal state. This creates a real dilemma: security agencies may deem someone dangerous, but for permanent incarceration, concrete crimes must still be proven and the legal prerequisites must be met. Following the serving of a sentence or the lifting of pre-trial detention, the individual may be released.
He added that constant, gapless observation ties up significant operational staff and can only be maintained for a limited number of individuals. Furthermore, even with surveillance, a sudden, short-term act of violence involving a vehicle or a knife cannot be reliably prevented. Kramer also emphasized that German citizens cannot be deported like foreign persons of threat; consequently, the state must manage the associated risk internally.
Currently, Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has categorized 410 Islamists as threats, in addition to 65 right-wing and 17 left-wing extremist individuals.
Instead of relying on total surveillance, Kramer advocated for several alternative measures. These include proactively pursuing criminal charges against suspects with a demonstrated criminal history, rigorously analyzing digital and financial footprints, improving radicalization prevention within the penal system, ensuring close monitoring post-release, enforcing weapons and contact bans where legally permissible, utilizing electronic monitoring such as ankle shackles, and implementing more frequent and professionally competent long-term deradicalization programs. He concluded, “There is still room for improvement in all these areas.”
The security official further underlined that a perpetrator’s origin is not a useful indicator of potential danger. Instead, a substantial portion of today’s threat stems from individuals who were born or raised in Germany. He stated that age is a more significant factor. “We are generally dealing with very young and digitally radicalized individuals-and a constantly dropping age threshold,” Kramer observed. Citing Europol data, he noted that out of nearly 350 EU-wide arrests related to jihadist terrorism, approximately 100 of those individuals were under the age of 18 in 2025.
