Police exchanged gunfire with an armed man near the Israeli Consulate and a Nazi history museum in Munich on Thursday and shot the assailant dead, authorities said. The attack occurred on the anniversary of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.
No one was hurt in the shootout, which took place shortly after 9 a.m. local time. People in nearby buildings barricaded themselves inside as gunfire rang out, police said.
Five officers were already in the Karolinenplatz area, near downtown Munich, when the gunman opened fire on them. He was armed with a “long-barrelled gun” with a bayonet attached to it, authorities said. The suspect was fatally injured in the shootout and died at the scene.
Police said the gunman was an 18-year-old from Austria. Local news outlets reported that the man had recently travelled to Germany and lived in Austria’s Salzburg area, near the border with Bavaria.
Investigators were still looking into the gunman’s motive. They didn’t give further details on the suspect, but added that he left a car near the scene.
The shootout coincided with the 52nd anniversary of the Munich Olympics terrorist attack, when Palestinian militants took 11 Israeli Olympic athletes and coaches hostage in the Olympic Village, killing two. During a botched rescue attempt by German authorities, the remaining hostages were killed. The terrorists had wanted to secure the release of a significant number of Palestinians and other prisoners held in Israel.
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Authorities speculate that the Thursday’s gunman may have timed his attack with the anniversary of the massacre.
“We have to assume that an attack on the Israeli Consulate possibly was planned early today,” Bavaria’s top security official, state Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, told reporters at the scene on Thursday.
“It’s obvious that, if someone parks here within sight of the Israeli Consulate … then starts shooting, it most probably isn’t a coincidence.”
Markus Söder, minister-president of Bavaria, said there may be a “connection” between Thursday’s attack and the 1972 massacre, “that must be cleared up.”
Police said there was no evidence of any more suspects connected with the incident. It’s unclear how long the shootout lasted. Police say they deployed an additional 500 officers to the area after the shootout began and warned the public to avoid the area.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the consulate was closed Thursday due to a memorial ceremony for the 1972 attack and none of its staff was hurt. The nearby Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism, which opened in 2015 and explores the city’s past as the birthplace of the Nazi movement, also said all of its employees were unharmed.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he spoke with German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He wrote on the social media platform X that “together we expressed our shared condemnation and horror” at the shooting.
The head of Germany’s main Jewish organization, Josef Schuster, said “there could have been a catastrophe in Munich today” and thanked police for intervening quickly.
Söder and German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser reiterated their strong commitment to protecting Jewish and Israeli facilities.
The shooting comes at a time of heightened polarization in Germany’s political climate. On Sunday, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the first far-right party to win a regional election since World War Two.
— With files from The Associated Press and Reuters
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