Vehicle Ramming Attacks in Public Spaces: Isn't Anyone Serious About Defense?

I don't wish to be too hard on the authorities in Magdeburg, Germany, and their costly durcheinanderbringen that left their Christmas market vulnerable to a vehicle ramming attack last month. Our own authorities in New Orleans did exactly the same stupid thing, and that one cost ten lives. The photo above is of the aftermath on Bourbon Street.  

There is quite the cultural difference between central Germany and New Orleans, of course. For instance, what German city would ever adopt the motto "Let the Good Times Roll?" It's easier for me to understand a huge security screw-up in New Orleans. 

"New Orleans resembles Genoa or Marseilles, or Beirut or the Egyptian Alexandria more than it does New York, although all seaports resemble one another more than they can resemble any place in the interior. Like Havana and Port-au-Prince, New Orleans is within the orbit of a Hellenistic world that never touched the North Atlantic. The Mediterranean, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico form a homogeneous, though interrupted, sea." A. J. Liebling, THE EARL OF LOUISIANA

Did you ever read Confederacy of Dunces? That above quote is from the foreword. Totally true. New Orleans is the only place in North America - which includes Mexico, don't forget - where I've ever felt I needed a visa. 

A news report on yesterday's New Orleans attack is here: 

A set of security barriers that were installed in 2017 to prevent terrorist attacks along Bourbon Street were being replaced when a driver barreled down the city’s most famous thoroughfare hours into the New Year on Wednesday, killing 10 and injuring dozens. 

The removable stainless-steel bollards are designed to be securely locked at each crosswalk along Bourbon Street between Canal and St. Ann streets, according to Mayor LaToya Cantrell's administration. The attack occurred near the intersection of Bourbon and Iberville streets. 

New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said the suspect drove “at a very fast pace” down Bourbon Street about 3:15 a.m., striking dozens, and then shot at first responders after crashing. Two officers were struck and are in stable condition. The suspect, too, was shot and has died. The FBI is investigating the incident as a terrorist attack. 

The bollard project began in November and was scheduled to last three months. It involves removing and replacing sections of road to take out the existing bollards. A city press release on Tuesday night noted the project was ongoing, but did not provide details of work done thus far.

The old barriers never worked too well, said Bob Simms, who until recently oversaw security initiatives for the French Quarter Management District. 

'They were very ineffective. The track was always full of crap; beads and doubloons and God knows what else. Not the best idea,” Simms said. “Eventually everybody realized the need to replace them. They’re in the process of doing that, but the new ones are not yet operational.” 

Simms said the old barrier at the crosswalk of Canal and Bourbon streets was removed a few weeks ago. Equipment for a replacement is in place, he said. 

"They're doing it in time for the Super Bowl," Simms said. "It's ironic in a way." 

-- snip -- 

Simms said preventing the kind of carnage that took place early Wednesday was "exactly what [the bollards were] built for." 

The bollards were put in place before NBA All-Star Game in 2017. The plan was partly a reaction to the July 2016 mass murder in Nice, France, when a terrorist used a truck as a weapon to plow into a Bastille Day crowd, killing 86 and injuring hundreds more. A few months later a copycat killed 12 shoppers in a Berlin Christmas market. 

That's a major screw-up in any language. 

The still-fairly-serious press is now paying attention, and today the NYT has an article about the rising threat of vehicle ramming attacks, and it's NOT barricaded behind a paywall, so they must really want you to read it. 

You'll find there links to an FBI handout and also a British academic journal article from 2019, both about the spectacularly obvious tactic of vehicle ramming. In short, ramming attacks have left a death toll that exceeds that of almost any vehicle bomb attack. 

The NYT article ends with these two last paragraphs:

“The problem in the most recent case [in Germany] is that the perpetrator used a lane reserved for ambulances,” said Nicolas Stockhammer, a professor of security studies at Danube University in Krems, Austria. “He approached the area through a side where there was no protection.”

The city of New Orleans was upgrading security bollards along a section of Bourbon Street in the area where the attack occurred, according to its website. The city’s police superintendent said at a news conference that the perpetrator “went around our barricades” to conduct the attack.

So, it appears that our best intellectual talent in security studies and our foremost municipal police leaderships are capable of appreciating the threat of vehicle ramming attacks. 

That's good. But the NYT ends the matter there. It doesn't take the next step and ask our responsible officials why those attacks have been succeeding. 

The answer to that question is BECAUSE YOU DID'NT BLOCK VEHICLE ACCESS TO YOUR CITIES' MOST ATTRACTIVE TARGETS, that's why. You left gaps open and unprotected which the attackers could exploit. 

Are you not as serious about defense as your attackers are about offense? 

It's all the more aggravating that our responsible officials already know how to counter those attacks, since they know our federal government has done just that for decades around its domestic and overseas buildings. They know better but they did a half-assed job anyway. 

Maybe we citizens and voters might now ask those responsible officials why they have been derelict in their basic duty of public safety. 

German Chancellor Vows to Leave No Merkelstein Unturned

It’s beginning to look a lot like elections 

Voters a bit subnormal, 

Saying Olaf, Was zum Teufel?, it’s hard to be real joyful

When vehicle barriers aren’t so uniformal 

It’s beginning to look a lot like elections 

Politics are all amoral, 

But the prettiest sight to see is the scapegoat that might be

Nailed to your own front door 

A bit of news today on that Christmas market attack and the inevitable search for the officials who dropped the ball by allowing a big, obvious, vulnerable gap in the market's anti-ram perimeter. Read it here: 

German security and intelligence chiefs faced questioning Monday about the car-ramming attack that killed five people and wounded more than 200 at a Christmas market 10 days ago. 

They were to be quizzed about possible missed clues and security failures before the December 20 attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg, where police arrested a Saudi psychiatrist, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, at the scene. 

-- snip -- 

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who faces a general election in February, has declared that Germany needs to "investigate whether this terrible act could have been prevented".

"No stone must be left unturned," he told news portal T-online on Friday. 

No stone? As in no Merklestein? Precisely, Herr Chancellor! 

A gap left in an otherwise continuous perimeter of anti-ram barriers was exactly what allowed that ramming attack to happen at the Magdelburg Christmas market. 

Someone was careless, and I suspect you have already expended some typical German efficiency in lining up a few likely suspects, probably low-ranking and expendable ones. 

All’s that left is to hang him or them out to dry before those general elections. 

Magdeburg Christmas Market Mass Killing: Where Were the Merklesteins?

“Bollards [vehicle barriers] had been put up to protect the area but one local politician noted that they did not extend all the way around the perimeter, with a gap left for a tram line.” https://t.co/TbylitLURl

— TSB (@TweetingTSB) December 21, 2024

"Merklesteins," or Merkle stones, is the name the German press gave to the vehicle barriers that appeared around Christmas markets after a vehicle attack was committed at the Berlin market in 2016.

For a couple years after that I did annual posts on the increasingly efficient and often aesthetic Merklesteins that went up in German cities and elsewhere. See this one, for instance, or click on the Merklestein tab below. 

Those barriers had gotten pretty good, and they ought to have precluded more vehicle attacks. So I was highly interested in how the attacker yesterday was able to drive into the Magdeburg market seemingly with no problem.

The answer is in today's UK and German news: it was because the Magdeburg city authorities left a gap in the market's anti-ram barrier perimeter that the attacker could exploit. 

From today's:The Telegraph:

Local authorities in Magdeburg are giving a press conference. The main theme has been how the killer was able to drive his car past a security perimeter.

A police official said that the killer exploited the fact that gaps had been left in the perimeter to allow for ambulances to get in and out.

City officials have said that gaps between bollards were there as an escape route for emergency services but that they were guarded by the police.

“I think our security concept is good because it was coordinated,” said Ronni Krug, a spokesperson for the city hall.

“The case we are now discussing here is one that we could not have anticipated in terms of its dimensions and that perhaps could not have been prevented.”

Questions had been raised after the attack about why there were such big gaps between bollards at entrances to the Christmas market.

That the gaps "were guarded by police" presumably means that one or two officers stood next to them and maybe waived high visibility 'stop' signs. Evidently it does not mean that the gaps were covered by active anti-ram barriers that police could lower in the event that an emergency vehicle needed access but which would otherwise remain up. 

I find it appalling that city hall spokesman Ronni Krug would say that yesterday's attack could not have been anticipated or prevented. All European nations have security and anti-terrorism professionals who could have seen that perimeter vulnerability and would indeed have anticipated that attack. After all, the attacker saw and did just that.  

Not to be too hard on spokesman Krug, but he exemplifies the naïve mindset of the instinctively law-abiding citizen and Bürgermeister. The mindset of yesterday's attacker will perpetually be a mystery to them. 

That's a problem because someone who does not share at least some of the mindset of his adversaries is simply out of place doing vulnerability assessments. Yesterday's attacker could have told spokesman Krug and the rest of the crowd at city hall that their security concept was really no good at all if they wanted to stop vehicle ramming attacks. 

City hall - and not just the one in Magdeburg - is paying the price for not employing someone who will look at potential targets from their would-be attacker's point of view. 

   

'Tis the Season for Bollards and Barricades in Berlin and Beyond

The seasonally secure Breitscheidplatz Christmas market Berlin 

It’s beginning to be a great big fortress
Sandbags everywhere
Take a look at the new steel fence, a tried and true defense
‘Gainst truck attacks within the public square

It’s beginning to be a great big fortress
Threats are evermore
But the scariest thing you see is the carnage that might be
On your own front door

It's Christmas time once more, and that means Berlin and 70-plus other cities and towns in Germany are setting up Christmas markets. Ever since the 2016 truck attack on crowds at the Berlin market, the seasonal decorations of those markets have included anti-ram vehicle barriers. Yes, steel baskets filled with sand bins are now as traditional as hot mulled wine.

Here's a German press report on how the hanging of the bollards is proceeding this year - Extra security measures in place for terror-hit Berlin Christmas market:

It's been almost two years since a lorry ploughed into a Christmas market in Berlin, claiming 12 lives, including the Polish driver of the truck, and injuring dozens of others.

Now, as the market at Breitscheidplatz, western Berlin, gets set to open on Monday November 26th, workers have been securing the area with huge steel baskets, reported local newspaper B.Z.

It’s just one of the new measures being put in place to make the area more safe.

Since Monday, workers have been building more than a hundred square lattice baskets on the sides of the square and screwing them together to form a row.

The baskets will form a protective ring made of steel, sand and concrete around the site that was hit by tragedy just days before Christmas 2016.

The steel baskets, called Terrablocks by experts, are part of a pilot project by the Berlin Senate, reported the Berliner Zeitung.

The Senate is investing €2.6 million in the new blocking elements, which will later become the property of the police.

In addition to the 160 wire baskets, which are connected together and when finished will stand along the side of the Christmas market, 13 heavy steel pedestals will be erected at another part of the square near Hardenbergstraße.

Meanwhile, 70 mobile bollards, so-called truck blocks, will be installed at the pedestrian entrances, leaving space for pedestrians - but none for vehicles.

The steel baskets are prefabricated and linked together 

Sand has the mass necessary to stop a truck

Those perimeter security arrangements look a lot better thought-out and more professionally executed than the rather haphazard ones we saw last year. Also, note that the German Federal government is funding the barriers this time, and that they will become the property of local police after the market closes, obviously for reuse in future years. The German authorities have evidently accepted the permanence of the security threat to public gathering places.

Merkelstein Monday: In Chicago They Like the Blue Lights

Chicago does a Christmas market, too, in cooperation with the German American Chamber of Commerce of the Midwest. And, just like the markets in Germany, Britain, and Canada, it installed perimeter vehicle barriers and put up a larger police presence in response to last last's truck ramming attack on the market in Berlin which killed 12 and wounded 56.

How does Chicago compare to the others in terms of the effectiveness and subtle streetscapery of its barriers? It compares poorly.

Down go the concrete blocks across the entrance of the market in Daley Plaza. Just plain blocks, with little to no anti-ram value and no trimming to attempt to conceal their purpose.

Up goes fencing around the perimeter of the market space. Fencing that weak would serve to channel law-abiding people, but not much more.

 

Mounted on the surface of the sidewalk with no anchoring, and even less aesthetics. Hey, Chicago, you could at least have made them look like benches.

What's more, from the looks of it the market organizers and the police didn't even try to maximize the setback distance they could possibly have gotten by placing those blocks on the outer edge of the sidewalk. Either they don't understand the purpose of the anti-ram exercise or they're just going through the motions.

This is a step up from last year, when Chicago parked salt trucks as barricades around the Plaza. But still, all Chicago did was scatter some blocks and pedestrian barricades around, plus flood the zone with police patrols. Clearly not enough to actually preclude a Berlin-style truck ramming attack,

Visitors interviewed by local TV news sounded pleased with it all. They feel “safer, I guess, there's a lot of stuff going on lately ... more blue lights, that’s what I want to see.”

That might be the city's only goal here. Make people feel better, but don't take the truck ramming threat seriously enough to put up serious, tested and certified, anti-ram barriers.

Merklestein Monday: Toronto's Christmas Market is "Safer Than Last Year"

Canada, our fine neighbor to the north, has Christmas markets modeled on those in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. This year, they have an added measure of Euro-authenticity in their vehicle barriers and heightened police presence.

For example, the market in Toronto's Distillery District is keeping it real, Euro style, with concrete barriers and police: the new norm at Distillery Christmas market:

The Distillery District Christmas Market opened Thursday and visitors will notice more than just a European feel to this popular holiday destination.

Security measures have been tweaked in the wake of recent attacks where vehicles have been used as weapons and driven through pedestrian areas.

Dozens of people have been killed in recent years in terrorist attacks where the assailants drove vehicles into crowds. [TSB note: Not dozens, bu hundreds of people have been killed in vehicle ramming attacks in recent years.] In the most recent attack, eight people were killed on a New York City bike path.

The market’s creator says the extra precautions won’t impact the user experience.

“The safety installations that we’ve put in place are really not that visible,” said Matthew Rosenblatt. “So, we hope that they certainly do act as a deterrent, but they’re not going to take away any of the market’s magic.”

Rosenblatt wouldn’t go into too many details but added that the concrete barricades at the entrances should prevent or at least slow down any vehicle.

“We think it’s a safe place. Toronto and Canada is one of the safest places in the world. We’ve done what we think is appropriate to protect the people here,” said Rosenblatt. http://www.rcmp.gc.ca/physec-secmat/ Toronto police would only say they have met with market officials and developed a site safety plan.

Mr. Rosenblatt is correct in his assumption that those simple concrete barriers - mere highway dividers, really - should slow down a vehicle, and probably do nothing more. Real tested and certified anti-ram bollards would actually stop a threat vehicle, not merely slow it down.

Why use an ineffective countermeasure when fully effective ones are available, and could even be blended into the market streetscape? I know the RCMP has a national center of excellence for physical security and those good people could have given Toronto's market organizers and city planners some professional advice. Are we serious about protection against vehicle attacks, or just putting on a show for public consumption? 

Toronto's Christmas market last year (above), right after the Berlin market truck attack. They hauled a couple old and shopworn Jersey barriers across the main pedestrian entrance to the shopping street.

This year (above), the markets at least sprung for new Jerseys, but placed them in the same weak surface-mounted configuration. They didn't even stagger the barriers to make a zig-zag chicane approach, much less try to lower their visual impact.

Pedestrian controls are evident, along with a police presence. All well and good, but then, nothing stops a ramming vehicle except a physical barrier that will absorb the requisite amount of kinetic energy.

It all makes me wonder whether the responsible parties just want to seem to be protecting the crowds rather than to really protect them. Judging from the comments by market visitors, the public appears to be happy with merely the appearance of security.

“I guess it does give you more sense of security that there are people kind of looking out for you“ ... “the visibility makes you feel a bit better”

In any case, perimeter barriers at large venue public events are now the new normal in the Great White North, as they are in Europe.

And so, in conclusion, I recommend trying the poutine if you are ever in Canada. See this New Yorker article for lots of background on the "surprisingly inoffensive" Canadian dish of french fries, cheese curd, and gravy.

York Catherdral Installs Vehicle Barriers The Right Way

The Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Saint Peter in York, commonly known as York Minster, is the cathedral of York, England. Architecturally, it is a Gothic structure comparable to Canterbury Cathedral.

Now, the York Minster has installed new anti-terror blocks along its street-facing side in what seems to be a resigned acceptance that the threat of terrorism in Britain may not decrease for a generation or longer.

A SECURITY barrier of concrete blocks has now been installed in front of York Minster - as a retrospective planning application was submitted to planners.

The 12 blocks have been placed in a line outside the west end of the cathedral in an attempt to tackle the terrorist threat.

-- snip --

A council spokeswoman said she understood it was likely the application would be considered by officers under delegated powers, rather than by councillors on a planning committee. A Minster spokeswoman said last week the decision to strengthen security was taken following recommendations from the Counter Terrorism Unit. The Dean of York, the Very Reverend Dr Vivienne Faull, inset, said Chapter had been concerned about the potential vulnerability of the area around the Minster’s West End for some time.

She said the national terror threat level had been at “severe” for many months and was likely to remain so for some time to come, with some experts believing we are facing a generational problem which may last for 20 or 30 years.

She said the appalling attacks in Manchester and London earlier this year had required everyone responsible for the security of nationally important buildings, monuments and public spaces to reassess, review and constantly refine their arrangements for keeping people safe.

-- snip --

Steve Brown, managing director of Make It York, said it was reassuring that York Minster had acted upon the recommendations and advice it had been given.

Mr Brown added: "It is vitally important that York continues to be a safe place to live, work and visit.”

Those barriers, unlike the temporary ones that were place around most British Christmas markets recently, are professionally planned and executed. A security industry news site reported that the blocks were "approved by the Home Office and tested by the official (CPNI), Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure." That's good, because the CPNI is an extremely well-regarded organization that is available to provide advice to the owners of national-level assets in the UK.

Here's a page from the CPNI's publicly available advice on streetscaping:

While I'm admiring things British, here's something else I like - the news story commenters who left intelligent remarks about the Minster's security measures. Here are a few choice examples:

Eek - whilst I agree they are a deterrent, I think more thought could have gone into what street furniture they could have used, there are a lot better anti-vehicle systems that would have been less obtrusive than a square edged stone block, just saying thats all.

The press could run a competition for what they could be used for to soften the harshness in the future. Make them a feature as they are ideal plinths. Perhaps for artwork, sculptures, I could see them being more than a block of concrete and more aesthetically pleasing in the future.

Great idea, at the very least they can be used as benches.

People have commented on the bollards which are most likely cast iron and therefore would just snap if a truck drove into them. However it would have been possible to replace them with steel bollards with a decent length underground and the above ground bit encased in a decorative mould plastic covering.

These just look like something from the Normandy beaches.

Those citizens get the point of the exercise, and they have actually good constructive suggestions. Hell, they even know the vocabulary, like "street furniture" and "plinth." The later, by the way, is a heavy base that commonly supports a column or sculpture.

Britons, be proud.

Merkelstein Monday: Not Much Subtlety In UK Christmas Markets

Britain has lots of Christmas markets. It also has a recent history of vehicle ramming attacks in public venues. So, how do the British do perimeter anti-ram barriers this holiday season?

My bottom line: they do them with no subtlety at all, and little actual anti-ram effectiveness. The new German fashion of gift-wrapped vehicle barricades has - with one exception - not spread to Britain. But they do present lots of guns, which surprises me. The recent spate of terrorist attacks seems to be making the British more accustomed to and accepting of armed police.

Are there really rings of steel surrounding the markets?

Heavy police presences could be seen in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and Bath with armed cops patrolling the perimeters of festive attractions. Plain clothed officers will also mingle amongst the crowds of revellers in a bid to keep the nation safe from further terror attacks. The moves come after the Local Government Association warned councils to be vigilant this year with the terror threat level to the UK currently at "severe".

This means that an attack "is highly likely."

In response to those atrocities barriers separating traffic from pedestrians were erected on three of the capital's bridges. Similar measures are now be in place at major Christmas markets - including Manchester, Birmingham and London's Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park.

I think not. They look more like linked-together small traffic barriers, probably in normal use as mobile highway lane dividers, plus a manually-operated drop bar barrier. While I hate to judge based on just a few photos that don’t show the larger physical context, the configuration of surrounding streets, etc., that is one very weak ring of steel. Or concrete.

The UK police have announced plans for greatly heightened security measures:

Extra measures including armed police patrols, large concrete barriers and stop-and-search checks have been introduced at venues across the country.

Pedestrianised areas are blocked off to prevent vehicles ramming into crowds after ISIS fanatic Anis Amri, a Tunisian failed asylum seeker, killed 12 people and injured more than 50 when he ploughed a lorry through Berlin's Breitscheidplatz last year.

Heavy police presences could be seen in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh and Bath over the weekend with armed officers patrolling the festive attractions.

Plain clothed officers will also mingle among crowds of revellers as part of the heightened security situation.

I see the checkpoints and bag searches, etc., but I'm still looking for "large concrete barriers." Those small concrete blocks do not have the anti-ram resistance to stop a Berlin-type truck attack, believe me.

And then we come to Bath, where either they ran low on little concrete blocks and had to space them out, or else they expect some very wide trucks.

I mean, you could drive a bus through those openings. Why even bother putting the blocks up?

Only two British markets made an attempt to blend the barricades in with seasonal decorations, the way some German cities did this year. Leeds showed a flare for aesthetic physical security by rejecting concrete and using large soil-filled planters with actual plants in them.

Congratulations, Leeds. But the first place award goes to Hull, which really out-did even the gift-wrapped German barricades we looked at last week.

Well done, indeed. Genuine anti-ram bollards, and they're inside an innocuous disguise. Hull really knows how to hide anti-ram bollards.

In conclusion, Hull's perimeter security has a level of artistic and anti-ram legitimacy that even the Germans would be hard-pressed to match. The rest of the UK's Christmas markets seriously need to up their game.

Do They Ever Get Dizzy? German Police 'Mobile Terrorsperren' at the Leipzig Christmas Market

#Germany#ChristmasMarket in #Leipzig pic.twitter.com/Gp0Suh1LIy

—December 1, 2017

Via the Leipzig Volkszeitung

 

Merkelstein Monday: Hot Mulled Wine and Gift-Wrapped Security

So Germany’s Christmas Markets have opened, one year after a truck ramming attack on Berlin’s largest such market. You can read about the history and culture of the markets here. “All of these markets offer Glühwein (hot mulled wine) and other warming drinks, gingerbread hearts, decorative craftworks.” Well, this year, the decorative craftworks include perimeter anti-ram barriers installed around the sites.

Berlin's Breitscheidplatz market, the scene of last year's attack, opened this week. What the city authorities did for perimeter security was underwhelming, to say the least.

They put up nothing but precast concrete highway dividers, and didn't even connect them together or attach them to the street or sidewalk surface to make them more resistant to the impact of a truck or car.

I'm astonished that Berlin would use such weak barriers, especially after recent testing carried out by news media in Germany showed how they are nearly useless against the kind of attack that happened last year.

“Researchers drove a 10-tonne truck into the barriers at 30mph and found the 2.5 tonne concrete blocks were simply pushed aside by the power of the vehicle, which only came to a halt when it hit a wall.”

Very strange.

Well, if they won’t use more effective barriers, can’t they at least make them decorative? On that score the city of Bochum outclassed everyone with its gift-wrapped car barricades.

Bochum authorities placed a string of 1.2 ton pellet bags in the downtown area to avert potential terror attacks ahead of the seasonal opening of the local Christmas market.

On Thursday morning, however, the bags took on a holiday look, with the city's official marketing service turning them into novelty Christmas presents.

"For us it was very important to fit in those ugly barriers into the beautiful overall atmosphere," said the head of Bochum Marketing Mario Schiefelbein.

The move surprised both local residents and the police, as the service reportedly giftwrapped up all of the 20 bags overnight without forewarning.

Bochum is not the only city to put a bow on new security measures. In the Bavarian city of Augsburg, for example, authorities will use decorated trucks belonging to Christmas market stall owners as car barriers. Munich officials plan to block the streets with planters containing season-appropriate evergreen plants.

Visitors to Bochum's market who were interviewed last Friday seemed to like gift-wrapped security. Typical comments: “We think it’s a pity that it must be done across the entire [Christmas market] area, but it is good that it is done” and the barriers convey "a feeling of safety, and if there are some [barriers] packed like presents, [when] there is no police presence, then that seems good to me.”

The city authorities must be pleased with that reaction. However, of course, we can't see what kind of barricade they have inside the wrapping so it could be as weak as Berlin's, for all we know.

Not all German cities are as interested as Bochum in the aesthetics of security. Dresden used extremely non-decorative concrete blocks.

Those concrete blocks are just flat-out ugly, while also being as weak as Berlin's highway dividers.

Essen also used plain grey raw concrete blocks, only ones a bit larger than Dresden's.

In Essen's case the city leased the barriers for 30 days, so I guess they didn't want to pay more to put lipstick on those pigs.

Vienna went with gift-wrapped barricades.

Those are nice like Bochum's Christmas presents. But guess what we see if we peek under the wrapping?

The exact same grey raw concrete blocks that Essen used! In fact, it seems to be a double stack of them, based on the height of the wrapped packages.

Hey, Essen, see what you could have had with just a little bit of DIY?



Next Monday we'll look at Christmas market security in the United Kingdom.

Merkelstein Mondays

Those are, without a doubt, the most decorative anti-ram bollards or planters I've ever seen. Put up in a German Christmas market (news article here), they form an über-aesthetic terrorsperren that ought to preclude a truck ramming attack this holiday season like the one that happened last year in Berlin, when an ISIS-influenced failed asylum seeker from Tunis killed 12 persons and injured 56.

Since such security measures in public gathering places have evidently become a new holiday tradition in Europe, I plan to feature them in a series of posts this December which I'll call "Merkelstein Mondays," after a new hashtag I saw today in German Twitter. Merkelstein = Merkel stones.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas (Markets),
Ev'rywhere you go;
Take a look in the Merkelstein, saying to terror “Nein!”
High-visibility stripes aglow.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas (Markets),
Police in ev'ry street,
But the prettiest sight to see is the bollard that will be
On your own front door.

Christmas markets are pretty much exclusively a European thing, I believe, with some exceptions for a couple of Canadian cities and maybe the American upper mid-west. But Merkelsteins of one sort or another are being introduced to high-traffic public venues of all kinds today. Pay attention when you go to large gatherings and special events and you'll see them.

Bollards aren't just for government buildings or U.S.-interest targets anymore. Bit by bit, one vehicle attack after another, everyplace is starting to look like the Blast-Proof City of Washington DC.