Ahmad Alhaw was given a life term for the attack in Hamburg last July which he said was his "contribution to a worldwide jihad", the dpa news agency reported.
The rejected asylum-seeker, who was born in the United Arab Emirates and arrived in Germany in 2015, was not found to have any links to extremist groups such as Islamic State.
Alhaw, who confessed to the crimes during his trial, told authorities that he decided on the day of the attack to kill Christian Germans indiscriminately, citing tensions at the time over a contested Jerusalem holy site as his motivation.
His lawyer Christoph Burchard told judges in a high-security courtroom that Alhaw said he 'takes responsibility for the very serious crimes he committed and explicitly recognises his guilt regarding all the charges'.
Prosecutors told the court in Hamburg that it was 'important' to Alhaw to 'kill as many German nationals of the Christian faith as possible'.
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