At 19:02 local time (18:02 GMT), the first call to emergency services was received.
The caller reported that a car had driven into a crowd at a downtown Christmas market.
Police said the caller thought it was an accident, but it soon turned out not to be the case.
According to police, the driver used a traffic signal to veer off the road into a crosswalk, driving him through the market’s entry point, which was reserved for emergency vehicles, injuring several people along the way.
Unverified footage on social media shows the driver speeding along the footpath between the Christmas stalls.
Eyewitnesses describe how cars jumped out of the way, ran away or hid.
The police said that the driver then returned to the road the same way he was forced to stop in traffic. Officers were able to detain and arrest the driver at the market.
Footage shows armed police confronting and arresting a man lying on the ground next to a parked car – a black BMW with extensive damage to the front bumper and windscreen.
The entire incident was over in three minutes, police said.
