Munich: On Thursday, German police fatally shot a man during an exchange of gunfire near the Israeli consulate and a Nazi history museum in Munich, according to Bavaria’s Interior Minister, Joachim Herrmann.
“Due to the intervention of the police, the perpetrator was stopped,” Herrmann stated at a press briefing. A police spokesperson revealed that the suspect was armed with a “long-barrelled gun,” which was later identified as an old rifle.
The shooting occurred on the anniversary of the 1972 Munich Olympics attack, during which Palestinian militants killed 11 Israeli athletes. While the motive behind Thursday’s incident remains unclear, Herrmann noted that authorities are investigating whether there is any connection to the historic attack’s anniversary.
Reports from the Standard newspaper and Spiegel news outlet identified the suspect as a teenage Austrian national, who had recently arrived in Germany and was residing in the Salzburg area near the Bavarian border. The outlets further indicated that the suspect was known to security services for his Islamist affiliations. However, Munich police declined to confirm these reports or provide additional details on the suspect.
The Israeli foreign ministry confirmed that the consulate was closed on Thursday in observance of the 1972 massacre’s anniversary, and none of the consulate’s staff members were harmed in the incident.
The nearby Nazi history museum and research institute, which delves into Germany’s 1933-45 Nazi regime, is located close to the Israeli consulate in Munich’s Maxvorstadt district.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser described the shooting as a serious event, emphasizing that “the protection of Israeli facilities has top priority.”
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This incident also comes amid a tense political climate in Germany. Recently, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party made headlines by winning a regional election, the first such victory for a far-right party in Germany since World War Two.
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Israeli President Isaac Herzog addressed the incident, sharing that he had spoken to his German counterpart. “We expressed our shared condemnation and horror at the terror attack this morning,” Herzog posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. He added that, on the day marking the 1972 Olympics massacre, “a hate-fueled terrorist came and once again sought to murder innocent people.”
