Winding my way towards west Berlin on the S-Bahn the morning after an articulated lorry ploughed through an annual Christmas market, slaughtering 12 innocent people and injuring dozens of others, felt surreally like any other weekday morning. A typically diverse array of locals occupied the seats around me, most dressed in warm, dark-coloured clothing designed to do battle with the chilly temperatures, staring bleakly out at the city’s dull metallic skies or into the wan glow of their mobile phones.
Unlike in Paris and Brussels following recent attacks, there was no immediate sign of any increased security presence, though the site of the incident (Breitscheidplatz, close to the Berlin Zoo) was cordoned-off and busy with a mixture of armed police and clusters of onlookers who grimly surveyed the scene, took photos and added a flower or candle to one of the makeshift memorials.
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