After the exchange of fire near the Israeli Consulate General in Munich, investigators believe that the dead shooter attempted a terrorist attack. According to current information, the attack by the 18-year-old Austrian armed with a rifle has a “connection to the Consulate General of the State of Israel,” the Munich police and public prosecutor’s office said.
Police discovered the man armed with an older carbine and bayonet in Maxvorstadt on Thursday morning at around 9 a.m. According to Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, he deliberately shot at the police officers, who returned fire. According to a police spokesman, five officers were involved in the exchange of fire.
The investigations, led by the Central Office for Combating Extremism and Terrorism, are therefore focusing on the young man’s exact motive. He was seriously injured in the shootout with the police and died at the scene. As a result of the incident, around 500 police officers were deployed in Munich city center, including special forces. Apart from the shooter, no one was injured, according to the police.
Police vehicles in front of the NS Documentation Centerdpa
“The background to the crime still needs to be clarified,” said Herrmann. However, “if someone parks here within sight of the Israeli Consulate General, then walks around the Consulate General with a gun and starts shooting,” that is “certainly or with high probability not a coincidence.”
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder spoke of a serious suspicion in view of the simultaneous anniversary of the Olympic attack in Munich. “There may be a connection. It still needs to be clarified,” said the CSU politician near the crime scene.
The Bavarian anti-Semitism commissioner Ludwig Spaenle (CSU), the mayor of Munich Dieter Reiter (SPD), the state justice minister Georg Eisenreich (CSU), the prime minister Markus Söder (CSU) and the attorney general Reinhard Röttle on the sidelines of a press conference in front of the Israeli consulate general on Thursday in Munichdpa
In the terrorist attack at the Olympic Games in Munich on September 5, 1972, Palestinian terrorists shot two men and took nine hostages in the Olympic Village. Around 18 hours later, a rescue attempt ended with the deaths of the nine Israeli hostages, a police officer and five of the attackers.
IS propaganda on mobile phones
According to the Austrian police, the young man from Salzburg was investigated last year on suspicion that he had become religiously radicalized and was interested in explosives and weapons. A weapons ban was imposed on the man with Bosnian roots.
The then 17-year-old had come to the attention of the authorities after threatening classmates and causing bodily harm. In this context, he was accused of involvement in a terrorist organization, it was said. According to information from the Austrian news agency APA, propaganda from the terrorist organization “Islamic State” was found on his cell phone. However, the Salzburg public prosecutor’s office closed the investigation in April 2023, police said. Since then, the 18-year-old has not come to the attention of the police again.
After the alleged attempted attack, his home in the Salzburg region was searched. Numerous officers went to Neumarkt am Wallersee to secure evidence and traces. A Salzburg police spokesman told the German Press Agency.
Search in Neumarkt, Austria on Thursday after the attempted attack in Munichdpa
The 18-year-old had lived in Neumarkt with his parents. The house and the neighboring buildings were evacuated for safety reasons, said the police spokesman. In retrospect, however, it turned out that there was no danger.
Austria increased its own security measures following the incident. The state security agency DSN has already contacted the Israeli embassy and the Israeli religious community, said Interior Minister Gerhard Karner. “The Austrian security authorities are in intensive contact with their German colleagues.”
Scholz thanks police
Thanks came from all sides for the Munich police forces, including from Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD). “The quick and decisive reaction of the Munich police today stopped an attacker and possibly prevented a terrorist act of violence. We have great thanks and respect for the forces,” said Faeser.
Israel’s President Yitzhak Herzog spoke of a “terrorist attack this morning near the Israeli consulate in Munich” and condemned the act. He thanked the German security services for their quick intervention, Herzog wrote on the X platform after a telephone conversation with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) wrote on Platform X that the rapid reaction of the emergency services in Munich may have prevented something atrocitable from happening today. He said very clearly: “Anti-Semitism and Islamism have no place here.”
The President of the Israelite Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, Charlotte Knobloch, said: “The feeling of insecurity, not only in the Jewish community, will become even more entrenched after this incident. The task for those politically responsible is therefore very clear: violent extremism must be pushed back out of public spaces; anything else would be the end of our open society.”
The Consulate General in Munich was closed at the time of the incident due to the commemoration of the anniversary of the Olympic attack, wrote the Consul General of the State of Israel for Southern Germany, Talya Lador-Fresher, on the X platform. “This event shows how dangerous the rise of anti-Semitism is. It is important that the general public raises its voice against it.”
