There is “no place” in Germany for antisemitism or Islamist extremism, the German chancellor has said after police in Munich shot dead a man carrying a “long-barrelled gun” following an exchange of fire near the Israeli consulate.
In a joint statement, the Bavarian state police and prosecutors said they believed the man had been planning a terrorist attack “involving the consulate general of the state of Israel”.
Ronen Steinke, a journalist from the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung, posted mobile phone footage of the shooting on X that he had apparently recorded from his office. A flurry of gunshots was reported at just after 9am local time.
A police spokesperson said the man had a “long-barrelled gun” that proved to be an old rifle.
The Israeli consulate and the nearby Nazi documentation centre are under constant police watch, but have been under increased surveillance since conflict has escalated in the Middle East.
The suspect was reportedly a teenage Austrian national who had recently travelled to Germany and lived in the Salzburg area, according to the Standard and Spiegel news outlets, which also reported that he was known to security officials as an Islamist. Police in Munich declined to comment on the report and said they were not sharing information about the suspect.
In a post on X, Olaf Scholz praised the emergency services’ “quick reaction” for having perhaps “prevented something terrible from happening”. The chancellor added: “Antisemitism and Islamism have no place here.”
Local media outlets were quick to point out that the incident took place on the 52nd anniversary of the 1972 Munich Olympic attack in which Palestinian terrorists killed two Israeli athletes and took as hostages another nine, who were subsequently killed in a botched rescue attempt. The terrorists had wanted the release of 200 prisoners in Israel, as well as the Red Army Faction terrorists Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof.
No immediate connection between the incident and the anniversary was made by police, although the Bavarian state premier, Markus Söder, said there was “a terrible suspicion” the attack had been planned for that day.
There was no indication of further suspects or of any injured persons.
In a statement, the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, expressed his “horror” at what he described as a terror attack.
“I spoke now with the president of Germany, my dear friend Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Together we expressed our shared condemnation and horror at the terror attack this morning near the Israeli consulate in Munich,” Herzog said.
Police told the public to avoid the area around Karolinenplatz and urged those in residential and office buildings to stay put as the location was sealed off and a police helicopter patrolled overhead.
Benedikt Frank, the deputy director and chief executive of the annual Munich Security Conference (MSC), whose office is located in the area, said he and colleagues had been trapped in the building during the police operation.
“Our office, which is right next to the Nazi documentation centre in Munich’s city centre has been sealed off by the police. Our employees all find themselves in lockdown right now,” he told the tabloid Bild.
He added: “At 9.10am there was suddenly a loud bang. We heard at least a dozen shots. We don’t know anything else at this stage. There is currently a large number of emergency personnel on the street.”
The area in which the incident occurred is considered to be historically sensitive. The Nazi documentation centre, which was opened in 2015, was built on the ruins of the “Brown House”, the former party headquarters of the Nazis. The Israeli consulate moved into the former Nazi party quarter at about the same time. Both buildings are afforded special protection on the grounds that they are considered at high risk of attack.
According to Israeli media, the consulate was closed at the time of the incident and no staff were present, as a memorial ceremony to mark the Munich Olympics massacre was taking place at the time.
