One person was shot dead and three others were injured when an 18-year-old man opened fire on his fellow students in a packed lecture hall in the German university town of Heidelberg, according to police.
The gunman, who was enrolled in the same course in life sciences as the students he attacked, entered the university hall shortly before 12.25pm, while a lecture was in progress, carrying a rifle and a double-barrelled shotgun.
After firing at least three shots into the group of 30 students, the man fled the building and turned one of his weapons on himself. At 12.51pm police discovered his body. His name has not yet been disclosed.
Police said two German woman aged 19 and 21 and a 20-year-old German-Italian citizen variously sustained injuries to the legs, back and face. A 23-year-old woman who received a head wound died from her injuries in hospital two hours later.
Andreas Herrgen, the head of the Heidelberg public prosecutor’s office, described it as a “horrific deed” that had shaken the city. He said the attack would leave psychological scars on the injured and also other students in the lecture hall, many of whom had feared for their lives.
Investigators were not attributing religious or political motives to the attack at this stage, police said. The tabloid Bild reported that investigators were working on the assumption that the attack was motivated by the perpetrator’s psychological problems or that he and some of the victims knew each other.
The perpetrator, a German citizen registered as living in the nearby city of Mannheim, announced his plan to another person in a WhatsApp message directly before the attack, said Siegfried Kollmar, Heidelberg’s chief of police.
In the message, the perpetrator said people “needed to be punished” and that he wanted to be buried at sea rather than at a cemetery.
Police said the attacker was believed to have bought his weapons outside Germany, and he and his family were not licensed to carry arms.
Germany’s gun control system, one of the most stringent in Europe, restricts the acquisition, possession and carrying of firearms to those with a credible need for a weapon.
Heidelberg police arrived on the scene of the attack at 12.30pm, having received seven emergency calls within less than a minute shortly beforehand.
People were advised via social media to stay away from the Neuenheimer Feld area, where the science faculties of the city’s university, the university clinic and the botanical gardens are located. Students were told by email to avoid the area.
Heidelberg, a picturesque city nestled around the River Neckar, is located south of Frankfurt and has about 160,000 inhabitants. Its university is the oldest and one of the best known in Germany.
News of the attack was met with shock among the student community. “It is with great distress and a heavy heart that I have received news of the events on our campus on Neuenheimer Feld,” said Tanja Modrow, the director of Studierendenwerks Heidelberg, a care organisation for the 49,000 students at the university. “Our thoughts are with the injured and families.”
Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, expressed his condolences for the victims and other students, saying hearing the news had “broken his heart”.
Winfried Kretschmann, the Green state premier of Baden-Württemberg, said he had been “deeply affected” by the events in the university city. “My thoughts are with the families and relatives,” he said. “We are on their side.”
• This article was amended on 25 January 2022 to clarify the detail about what investigators thought might have motivated the perpetrator.
