Statement on the Terror Attack at Berlin CSD
On the evening of 25 July 2026, an attacker drove a van into the crowd during Berlin’s Christopher Street Day celebrations in the Tiergarten, close to the Brandenburg Gate. One woman was killed. Sixteen people were injured, several of them critically. Hundreds of thousands of people had come together that day to celebrate love, freedom, and the right to live openly. That celebration was turned into a scene of horror.
The European Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs (ECMC) mourns with the city of Berlin and with our whole community. Our thoughts are with the woman who lost her life, with her family and friends, and with everyone who was injured or who witnessed this violence. We wish the wounded strength and a full recovery, and we hold close all those who are grieving and afraid today. For a confederation built on pride, brotherhood, and openness, this loss is deep and personal.
We are grateful to the emergency services, medics, police, and the countless ordinary people who ran toward danger to help others in the moments after the attack. Their courage saved lives.
We condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms. It was an act of terror aimed at people gathered in peace. It struck at the edge of the celebrations, where no barriers stood between us and the everyday life of the city. None ever should. Openness is not weakness. Our strength does not hide behind barriers. It stands wherever we do. An attack on a Pride celebration is an attack on all of us who do not fit a heteronormative worldview. It is an attack on our fundamental right to exist visibly and without fear. Our community fought for that right over generations. We will never surrender it.
In the days ahead, there will be pressure to respond to hatred with more hatred, and to let fear divide us. We reject that. This attack must not become a reason to turn on any community, nor an excuse to retreat from public life. The answer to an attack on our visibility is more visibility, more solidarity, and more courage. Not less.
In recent years, some have asked whether Prides are still needed, whether they might quietly become festivals like any other, and whether our community’s work is essentially done. Saturday night gave the answer. Christopher Street Day was born as a demonstration: for our rights, for tolerance, and for the freedom to live just as we are. As long as people gathered under our colors can become a target, that demonstration remains as necessary as it was on the first day. Pride is not merely an event. It is, and remains, a statement.
To our member clubs and to every friend of our community across Europe: look after one another. Reach out to those in Berlin. Grieve together, and stand together. We will continue to gather and to celebrate who we are: out, proud, and loud, in the open and without apology. Our fight has always been against the need to hide and against the fear of repression. We will not be forced back into either. That is how we honor those we have lost, and that is how we refuse to let fear have the final word.
We stand with Berlin. We stand with Pride. We stand together.
Andrea, Miguel, and Sebastian
ECMC Secretariat