Germany Rethinks Cologne Cathedral Security Following Barcelona Attack
German police have placed concrete barriers around the cathedral in order to boost security.
In an effort to boost security around soft targets, police in Germany have placed concrete barriers in front of Cologne's world famous gothic cathedral after reports that Islamist terrorists sought to target Barcelona's La Sagrada Familia last week.
The move comes after several attacks throughout Europe drove cities to begin rethinking their security plans. Many did not make a move to bolster security due to high costs and belief that the security measures would become obsolete one day, but since the terror attack in Barcelona that killed 13 and injured dozens more, major cities are making moves to protect critical infrastructure and their citizens.
"We took the decision to act as quickly as possible after looking at attacks in Europe," a police spokesperson told Reuters. "Our job is to protect sensitive points, and the cathedral is a symbol of Cologne, known around the world."
Cologne boosted the presence of police in the time after the Paris Attack in 2015, but were reluctant to place any permanent security measures because city officials did not want to disrupt the flow of every day life. Since that attack in Paris that killed 130 people, many more terror cells have targeted crowded spaces and used vehicles as weapons of mass destruction. It has become glaringly apparent that something has to be done to protect these historic cities.
In the country's capital, Berlin, barriers still remain in place around the site of a Christmas market where a militant drove a stolen truck into crowds and killed 12 people last year, but very few other visible measures have been implemented.
"We don't want to wall up the city," Andreas Geisel, Berlin's senator for interior affairs said in an interview with a local newspaper. "That would achieve the opposite of what we want to do: to send out an image of calm and relaxedness."