Commemoration of 1st anniv of Christmas market attack held in Berlin

A 17-meter golden crack in the ground has been created to symbolize the deep rupture in the lives of victims and their relatives, while the names of the 12 people left dead have been engraved on the steps of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Memorial Church overlooking the Christmas market.

In a stark reminder of the persistent threat of terrorism, memorial services throughout Berlin are being safeguarded by a large contingent of special forces armed with machine guns.

A vigil is being held in the Kaiser Wilhelm church which all citizens are invited to attend. The church bells will ring twelve times at 8:02 pm local time (1902 GMT), the exact time of the attack.

A year on, it appears, Amri's lethal rampage has inspired both fear and defiance in Germany.

On the one hand, the streets of Berlin are bustling with Christmas shoppers again and the re-opening of the Breitscheidplatz Christmas market may itself be seen as a powerful symbol that terrorists have failed to scare inhabitants of the German capital into submission.

On the other hand, however, the successful entry into Federal parliament of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in September has sometimes been attributed to growing unease among voters over the arrival of more than one million predominantly Muslim refugees since 2015.