It feels like a well-rehearsed script. First come the flowers, then the pious statements. One after another, mainstream German politicians have lined up to claim that the attack on Berlin Pride last weekend was an attack on “all of us”, “our values” and “our society”.

Except it was not. This atrocity in which a van was rammed into the crowd was, first and foremost, an attack on queer people. A vulnerable community that has been fighting for its rights for many decades; that, in recent years and all over the world, has increasingly been targeted by conservative forces.

But, of course, the script is comfortable, because it requires nothing, least of all memory. In Germany, under the centre-right coalition led by the conservative chancellor, Friedrich Merz, the queer community has lost more and more resources, spaces and protection, due to decisions made by the very same people who are now expressing solidarity in public.

When Merz made the statement on Sunday that Pride-goers should not be intimidated, and that this attack was intended to divide our society, many queer people and allies wondered: is this the same Friedrich Merz who rejected the suggestion to fly a rainbow flag from the Bundestag during last year’s Pride, with the remark, “The Bundestag is not a circus tent”?

Then there is Karin Prien, the federal minister for education and family affairs, who sees the brutal assault as an attack on diversity and therefore, on “the........

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