According to many German media outlets, at least six people have died. A seventh individual found dead at the scene, according to authorities, might be an assailant.
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| Several dead in a shooting in a Church of Jehovah's Witnesses in Hamburg |
Four people were murdered and several others were critically injured in a shooting in Hamburg, Germany, on Thursday evening, March 9.
According to Bild, the shooting would have resulted in seven deaths and at least eight injuries, with some of them in critical condition. The police in this northern German port city have yet to provide a precise evaluation of the attack.
"At this point, we presume there was just one shooter," stated police, who believe the shooter was among those killed on the site. "We located a deceased individual (...) who we assume may be the culprit of the attack," she tweeted overnight.
The Federal Office for Civil Protection canceled the official danger notice issued in the case of an assault to discourage inhabitants from leaving their homes overnight, soon after 3 a.m.
The events occurred in a Jehovah's Witness church in the north of Germany's second largest city. A police official told NTV that officers were "called at 9.15 p.m. to report shots fired in the three-story building" in the Gross Borstel area. According to the Hamburger Abendblatt daily, Jehovah's Witnesses had gathered there since 7 p.m. for a weekly Bible study gathering.
The intervention troops "went very swiftly into the building and found dead and critically injured persons there" , according to this official. Inside, authorities heard a gunshot "coming from the top section of the structure" and discovered another individual, the spokeswoman added, emphasizing that they were "not yet able to offer information" on mobile.
"The news from Alsterdorf/Gross Borstel is devastating," said Alsterdorf mayor Peter Tschentscher, a Social Democrat. "The intervention forces are working hard to seek the offenders and to elucidate the background" .
Jehovah's Witnesses, who were founded in the nineteenth century in the United States, consider themselves the heirs of early Christianity and constantly and exclusively refer to the Bible. The organization's position varies by country: they are regarded as "major" faiths in Austria and Germany, where it has roughly 175,000 members, including 3,800 in Hamburg, according to the website. Several of their local branches in France have the status of "cultual association," and this strict movement is frequently accused of sectarianism.
Although the motivation for the shooting is unknown at this time, German police have been on high alert in recent years due to a dual terrorism threat of jihadism and right-wing extremism.
In December 2016, Germany was the target of a jihadist attack with a ram truck claimed by the Islamic State organization, which murdered twelve people. This is the bloodiest Islamist attack ever carried out on German territory.
The other threat comes from the far right, as seen by multiple violent attacks on communal or religious sites in recent years. At the racist incident in Hanau, outside Frankfurt (west), in February 2020, a German member of the conspiracy movement killed nine young people, all of whom were of foreign ancestry.