Munich police kill armed man in shootout near Israeli consulate

MUNICH (AP) — A gunman was fatally wounded in a shootout near the Israeli consulate in Munich on Thursday, authorities believe, possibly planning an attack on the consulate on the anniversary of the bombing of the 1972 Munich Olympics.

No one was injured in the shooting shortly after 9 a.m. near the consulate and a museum on Munich’s Nazi history. The officers had noticed an armed man at Karolinenplatz near Munich’s city center and returned fire when he shot at them. The suspect, who was carrying an old long gun with a bayonet attached, died at the scene.

There were five officers on the scene when the shots were fired. The police immediately dispatched about 500 officers to the area.

Police said the shooter was an 18-year-old from Austria, but his motive was still under investigation. No further details were given about the suspect, who had parked a car near the crime scene.

“We have to assume that an attack on the Israeli consulate may have been planned early this morning,” Bavaria’s top security official, Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, told reporters at the scene. “It is obvious that if someone parks here within sight of the Israeli consulate … and then starts shooting, that is most likely not a coincidence.”

Police officers patrol near a crime scene after police shot a suspect near the Israeli consulate and a museum on the city’s Nazi history in Munich, Germany, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS/Matthias Schrader

Thursday marked the 52nd anniversary of the attack by Palestinian militants on the Israeli delegation at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. The attack killed 11 members of the Israeli team, a West German police officer and five of the attackers.

“There may be a connection, that needs to be clarified,” said Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder.

According to police, there are no indications of other suspects in connection with Thursday’s shooting.

The Austria Press Agency reported that the attacker, an Austrian citizen with Bosnian roots, had already come to the attention of the authorities there last year, but was not considered a high-risk offender. Without naming sources, it said that data and a game were found on his cell phone that indicated a proximity to Islamist ideology. However, investigations against him for possible membership in the terrorist militia “Islamic State” were discontinued. The public prosecutor’s office in Salzburg initially declined to comment.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the consulate was closed on Thursday for a memorial ceremony for the 1972 attack and that none of its staff were injured. The nearby Munich Documentation Center on the History of National Socialism, which opened in 2015 and researches the city’s past as the birthplace of the Nazi movement, also said all its staff were unharmed.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he had spoken with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He wrote on the social media platform X that “we expressed our joint condemnation and horror” at the shooting.

The chairman of Germany’s largest Jewish organization, Josef Schuster, said: “Today there could have been a catastrophe in Munich” and thanked the police for their quick intervention.

Söder and Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser reaffirmed their strong commitment to protecting Jewish and Israeli institutions.

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Geir Moulson reported from Berlin. Stefanie Dazio contributed to this report from Berlin.

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