Hours after the attack on Saturday night many details remained unclear, but police said the vehicle struck multiple people after charging into the city's central Tiergarten park close to the Brandenburg Gate.
They later said they had identified an Islamist as a suspect and were seeking his arrest.
"According to our latest information, the vehicle drove ... into the Tiergarten around 10pm (6am Sunday AEST), injuring several people in the process, and then came to a standstill after hitting a tree here in the Tiergarten," a police spokesperson at the scene said.
"It was empty, which is why we are currently working intensively to track down the perpetrator or perpetrators.
"Seventeen people have been injured, including one deceased person and several with life-threatening injuries," Polizei Berlin wrote on X.
Among the injured, eight had serious injuries and of those, three were in life-threatening condition, a fire brigade spokesperson said.
"We have now identified a suspected perpetrator. Measures against this suspected perpetrator, who has not yet been arrested, are underway. However, this suspected perpetrator is known to the police as a member of the Islamist scene here in Berlin," the police spokesperson told reporters.
The police said the vehicle was white, describing it as possibly a car or minivan or minibus.
Tabloid newspaper Bild cited a witness as saying it was a van and that a man emerged from it and fled on foot.
Emergency services remained at the scene, while visitors were asked to leave and avoid the wider area. Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner described the incident as "an attack on our free and open society".
"After a peaceful and colourful CSD, this gathering for a tolerant and peaceful Berlin was attacked in the most brutal way," he said in a statement.
Hundreds of thousands of people had gathered peacefully in the German capital for the annual Christopher Street Day celebrations, one of Europe's largest LGBTQ events, before the apparent attack brought it to an abrupt end.
"It's one of the worst days for the queer community and a day I personally hoped I'd never have to experience... I'm shocked," said Julian Miethig, who attended the event.
Christopher Street Day draws hundreds of thousands of people to the German capital each year.
The event commemorates the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York and combines a parade with political demands for equality, inclusion and protection against discrimination.
First held in West Berlin in 1979, the CSD has grown from a small demonstration into a major fixture of the city's cultural and political calendar. The parade is the centrepiece of the CSD, but it is accompanied by a range of political, cultural and party events held across the city.
Germany has in recent years suffered a series of incidents in which a car has charged into a crowd, causing deaths.
In May, a man believed to have mental health issues drove his car into a central pedestrian zone of the eastern German city of Leipzig, killing two people and seriously injuring three.
In 2025, two people were killed in the western city of Mannheim when a 40-year-old man whom authorities described as psychologically unwell drove a car into a group of pedestrians.
Weeks before that, an Afghan national suspected by prosecutors of having carried out a similar attack on a trade union demonstration in Munich, killing two and injuring more than 40, including children.
In December 2024, several people were killed in a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg.
The suspected perpetrator was a psychiatrist from Saudi Arabia with a history of anti-Islamic rhetoric who had lived in Germany for almost two decades.
with dpa
