The mayor of a town in western Germany has been found with serious stab wounds just days after her election.
Iris Stalzer, 57, was found with life-threatening injuries and several stab wounds to her front and back in her apartment in the North Rhine-Westphalia town, according to reports in Germany.
Ms Stalzer’s 15-year-old adopted son was led away in handcuffs and an evidence-preserving overall. Her daughter, 17, was also in the house at the time.
Investigators said the son’s treatment was “purely to protect evidence”, Bild reported. The son told police that his mother had been attacked by several men, the German outlet said.
Ms Stalzer had dragged herself back into her house after being stabbed around midday, broadcaster WDR reported.
A major police operation has now begun in Herdecke, a town of 23,000 people which Ms Stalzer was due to lead from 1 November.
She was elected as mayor on 28 September. She is a member of the centre-left Social Democrats, the junior party in Germany’s conservative-led national government.
“We have received news of a terrible deed in Herdecke,” conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz wrote on social media. “It must be swiftly investigated. We fear for the life of the mayor-designate and hope for her full recovery.”
The leader of the Social Democrats’ parliamentary group in Berlin, Matthias Miersch, told reporters that “we heard a few minutes ago that newly elected mayor Iris Stalzer was stabbed in Herdecke”.
“We hope that she survives this terrible act. We can’t say anything at the moment about the background,” he added.
Ms Stalzer beat a candidate from Merz’s center-right Christian Democrats in a runoff vote to win election.
It came after a region-wide campaign that politicians in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s largest state, said was distinguished by the viciousness and rawness of its
Herdecke lies in western Germany’s Ruhr region, between the cities of Hagen and Dortmund.
Ms Stalzer’s website says that she is married with two teenage children, and has spent almost her whole life in Herdecke and has worked as a lawyer specialising in labour law.
