Police killed a suspect in a shootout near the Israeli consulate and a Nazi crimes documentation center in central Munich on Thursday, Bavaria’s interior minister said.
“Due to police intervention, the perpetrator was arrested and is believed to have died at the scene,” Hermann told reporters.
A Bavarian police spokesman said the man was carrying a “long-barreled pistol” that proved to be an old handgun.
The incident came on the anniversary of a 1972 attack during the Munich Olympics in which Palestinian gunmen killed 11 Israeli athletes.
The motives of the gunman in Thursday’s incident are not yet known, but Herman said police will try to establish whether the incident was related to the anniversary of the attack.
The Standard newspaper and Der Spiegel magazine reported in their online edition that the suspect is a young Austrian citizen who recently traveled to Germany and lived in the Austrian region of Salzburg near the border with Bavaria.
The newspaper and magazine added that he was known to the security authorities to have Islamic tendencies.
Munich police declined to comment and said they were not currently providing any information about the suspect.
The center, which documents the history of Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945, is located near the Israeli consulate in Munich’s Maxvorstadt district.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser described the incident as serious, saying, “Protecting Israeli facilities is a top priority.”
The shooting comes at a time of increasing polarization in Germany’s political climate. The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party on Sunday became the first far-right party to win a regional election since World War II.
Source: Reuters
