Mourners pay tribute with candlelit vigil to victims at scene of the Berlin truck atrocity

HUNDREDS of heartbroken Berliners have held a touching candlelit vigil paying tribute to those who lost their lives in last night's barbaric Christmas market terror attack.

The German city is in shock after a truck smashed into the festive attraction, killing 12 and injuring 50 - 14 of whom are in a serious condition.

Throughout today, locals have been visiting the scene and passing flowers and candles to officers over a security barrier.

The police officers have then been placing the tributes at a makeshift memorial as the city continues to reel from the tragedy.

Initially it was thought that the driver of the truck had been arrested, however today a police officer said they were "uncertain whether that really was the driver".

The only confirmed victim has been named as Lukasz Urban, a Polish lorry driver who was shot dead during the attack.

Fabrizia Lorenzo, an Italian woman living in Berlin, has been named as a woman believed to have been at the scene but is now missing.

Rattled but determined tourists have also continued to visit Berlin's landmark attractions today, saying that to keep away after the Christmas market rampage would hand victory to the attackers.

At the Brandenburg Gate, the city's famous east-west divide and favoured tourist hangout, visitors snapped selfies even as flags hung at half-mast in mourning on nearby embassies.

Londoner David While, a tourist in the city, said: "No one is safe anymore. You can't stop going to places, because otherwise they've won."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel accepted the rampage was a terror attack as she addressed the nation this morning.

She said she had been "shocked, shaken and deeply saddened by the massacre".

The touching vigils are a sign of solidarity between locals, despite Germany's premier being likely to face intense criticism following her open-door immigration policy that has seen more than a million refugees enter the country over the past two years.

Firebrand member of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party Klaus Bouillon raged Germany is in a "state of war".

Since the attack, a German Muslim group is condemning the truck attack.

The Muslim Coordination Council said in a statement that terror "does not stop in the face of innocent people and what is sacred to people."

It added that "we are deeply shocked and condemn the cowardly attack in the strongest terms."

Since the tragedy, social media users have been sending messages of condolences and support using the hashtag #IchBinEinBerliner, which means “I am a Berliner” in German.

The same phrase “I am a Berliner” was used in John F Kennedy’s famous 1963 speech offering solidarity to West Germans before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Many users also posted images of German's national flag colours to pay their respect and used the hashtag #PrayForBerlin.

Germany's world-famous Christmas markets attract tens of millions of visitors each year, and tourism officials are at a loss to estimate the impact Monday's attack will have.

Burkhard Kieker, the head of the visitBerlin tourist office, said the city's hotels are still nearly full and have not yet experienced a rash of cancellations.

"This is a first for Germany, both in terms of the scale and the type of event, and for the moment were are unable to fully measure the impact,"; said a spokeswoman for the German tourism federation, DTV.

Berlin, for now, is still planning to stage showy New Year celebrations with a fireworks extravaganza at the Brandenburg Gate.