An American whose face was slashed on a tram in Germany has claimed Europe has an “immigration problem,” echoing rhetoric used by President Donald Trump after police identified a suspect in the attack as a Syrian man.
Two men were harassing a group of women on the tram in Dresden early Sunday morning when John Rudat, a paramedic and model from New York state, intervened, German police said. The 20-year-old was then stabbed, and the perpetrators fled.
The attack left him with a “deep facial wound” that required “immediate and extensive surgery,” according to a GoFundMe launched to pay his medical expenses.
Rudat told right-wing German media outlet Nius he intervened after he saw one of the men on the tram strike a woman. Rudat told the man to stop and pushed him, and the man later hit him, he recalled. Rudat said he was trying to de-escalate the situation when another man approached and slashed him across his face. The 20-year-old, described on the GoFundMe page as “a kind, selfless soul,” has since been hailed as a hero for his actions.
Officers briefly arrested one suspect on Sunday, identified as a 21-year-old Syrian, but later released him because prosecutors didn’t have grounds to keep him detained, the Associated Press reports. On Tuesday, officers re-arrested the 21-year-old on suspicion that he was involved in the attack, local prosecutors and police said. He is now in pre-trial detention.
Rudat has since used anti-immigration rhetoric that echoes statements made by Trump, who has previously railed against European immigration policies. German police have not released any identifying details about the suspected attacker, including his immigration status.
The Independent has contacted Rudat and local police for comment.
In an Instagram video shared from his hospital bed, Rudat – his face still covered in bandages – argued there is an “immigration problem” in Europe as he recounted the attack.
“If you all didn’t think that Europe had an immigration problem, especially Germany, let me drop some knowledge on you,” Rudat said in the video.
He went on to claim that police had arrested a suspect but were going to release him “because he’s not a citizen of Germany … he doesn’t even belong in here,” appearing to suggest there were different levels of justice for German citizens and foreign nationals.
He also told the U.K.-based news outlet GB News that “hundreds” of people have reached out to him in recent days expressing “claims and stresses about, over the last 10 years, the immigration problem and the violence problem has been really rising and becoming a legitimate threat to everyday safety.”
GB News asked Rudat if he thinks Europe should adopt immigration policies similar to those implemented by Trump, who has vowed to create the “largest deportation program in American history.”
He replied: “I think the German people would really appreciate some policies like that. I think the German people would really appreciate being able to feel safe on their own transportation systems. And I hope that Germany and the government of Germany and the people of Germany push for exactly that: more policy for more safety.”
Rudat, who had spent a year living in Dresden and was returning to visit his host family, said he would never have expected to be involved in a knife-related incident in Europe. He said: “I never thought I’d get into a knife altercation because I’m in Europe, people don’t do that here, or at least Europeans don’t.”
Foreigners are not increasing Germany’s crime rate, according to a study published in February by the Ifo Institute. The institute, using crime data from 2018 to 2023, found “no correlation between an increasing share of foreigners in a district and the local crime rate,” researcher Jean-Victor Alipour said in a statement.
Trump has often criticized immigration policies in Europe, even claiming last month that immigration is “killing Europe.” Trump also targeted Germany in his first term, writing in 2018 that crime in the nation was “way up” as immigration was on the rise. Trump made this claim despite federal data showing that German crime levels hit a 25-year low in 2017, The New York Times reports.
Trump still doubled-down on the statement, claiming without evidence that German officials had not accurately reported crime data.
“Crime in Germany is up 10% plus (officials do not want to report these crimes) since migrants were accepted,” he wrote on June 19, 2018. “Others countries are even worse.”
After the onset of the Syrian civil war in 2011, Germany accepted about a million refugees from the Middle Eastern country.
Trump’s allies have also defended Germany’s far-right, anti-immigrant AfD party, which is rising in popularity. Some of the party’s leaders have also echoed Nazi ideology, including one leader who has been fined for using a banned Nazi slogan.
Elon Musk, who was once a close ally of Trump’s, wrote on X in December that “only the AfD can save Germany,” and has appeared remotely at AfD events. Musk appeared to do two Nazi-style salutes at one of Trump’s inauguration events on January 20, although he later denied they were intended as such. Amid the uproar he tweeted: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is so tired.”
Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio also criticized the German government after intelligence officials classified the party as a “proven right-wing extremist organization” in May, NBC News reports. The classification, which the AfD sued the German intelligence agency over, means intelligence officials can now use informants and other tools to monitor the party’s activities, the Associated Press reports.
Shortly after German officials announced the new classification, Rubio wrote on X: “Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise.”
“What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes,” Rubio added.
The German Foreign Office issued a direct reply to Rubio’s criticism: “This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law.”
Vance echoed Rubio’s point in an interview later that month.
“I think that it is very, very dangerous to use the neutral institutions of state — the military, the police forces … the intel services — to try to delegitimize another competing political party,” Vance said, according to NBC News. “I think that’s especially true when that political party just got second in an election and is, depending on which poll you believe, either the [most] popular or the second-most popular party.”
