BERLIN — Berlin senator and former city mayor Franziska Giffey became the latest victim in a string of attacks on German politicians when a man struck her from behind with a heavy object in a local library, according to a police statement on Wednesday (May 8).

Giffey, local minister for the economy and a member of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD), was slightly injured in the attack, police and the local prosecutor's office said.

A man hit her on the head and neck with a bag containing something hard before running off, the statement said, adding that Giffey went to hospital for a short time to treat the pain.

The attack follows calls for greater police protection of politicians in Germany after a number of high-profile verbal and physical attacks against them.

Four teenagers are under investigation after a German member of the European Parliament was beaten and hospitalised while putting up SPD election posters in the eastern city of Dresden.

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