BERLIN – Police in Munich exchanged fire with a gunman near the Israeli Consulate in Munich on Thursday, fatally wounding him. Authorities said they believe he was planning to attack the consulate on the anniversary of the attack on the 1972 Munich Olympics.
No one else was hurt in the shootout shortly after 9 a.m. in an area near the consulate and a museum on the city's Nazi-era history. Officers had been alerted to a person carrying a gun in the Karolinenplatz area, near downtown Munich, and returned fire when he shot at them. The suspect, who was carrying an old long gun with a bayonet attached to it, died at the scene.
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Five officers were at the scene at the time the gunfire erupted. Police quickly deployed about 500 officers to the area.
Police said the gunman was an 18-year-old from Austria, but investigators were still looking into his motive. They didn't give further details on the suspect, who left a car near the scene, except to say that he lived in Austria.
“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. “It's obvious that, if someone parks here within sight of the Israeli Consulate ... then starts shooting, it most probably isn't a coincidence.”
Prosecutors and police said in a statement later Thursday they currently believe the plan was for “a terrorist attack, also with respect to the consulate of the state of Israel,” and that they are still investigating the man's motive.
Thursday was the 52nd anniversary of the attack by Palestinian militants on the Israeli delegation at the 1972 Munich Olympics, which ended with the death of 11 Israeli team members, a West German police officer and five of the assailants.
“There may be a connection — that must be cleared up,” Bavarian governor Markus Söder said.
Munich police said there was no evidence of any more suspects connected to the shooting.
In neighboring Austria's Salzburg province, police said the suspected assailant, an Austrian with Bosnian roots, had come to authorities' attention in February 2023. They said that, following a “dangerous threat” against fellow students coupled with bodily harm, he had also been accused of involvement in a terror organization.
There was a suspicion that he had become religiously radicalized, was active online in that context and was interested in explosives and weapons, a police statement said, but prosecutors closed an investigation in April 2023.
However, authorities did issue a ban on him owning weapons until at least the beginning of 2028. Police said he had not come to their attention since.
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.
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Geir Moulson reported from Berlin. Stefanie Dazio contributed to this report from Berlin.