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Agence France-Presse

German police shot and killed a man who opened fire on them with a vintage rifle near the Israeli consulate in Munich on Thursday in what they treated as a foiled attack on the diplomatic mission.
Authorities identified the gunman, who was killed in a hail of police bullets, as an 18-year-old Austrian man but did not immediately comment on media reports that he was a known Islamist extremist.
German news site Spiegel Online and Austrian media said he had been investigated last year for allegedly spreading Islamic State group propaganda, but that the case had been dropped.
While the motive was not yet known, Bavarian state premier Markus Soeder said there was a “terrible suspicion” the case was linked to Thursday’s anniversary of the deadly 1972 attack on Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich by Palestinian militants.

The shootout around 9am (0700 GMT) sparked a mass mobilisation of about 500 police officers in downtown Munich, where residents and office workers huddled indoors as sirens wailed and a helicopter flew above.
Video footage published by German media showed dramatic scenes in which police commandos in body armour and helmets took cover from gunshots, then unleashed a barrage of bullets.
Police said five police officers fired at the man, who died on the spot with his weapon beside him – a rifle that pictures showed was fitted with a bayonet.
German authorities were treating the incident as a “possible attack on an Israeli institution”, Bavarian state interior minister Joachim Herrmann said.
Herrmann also noted that Thursday marked the 52nd anniversary of the “terrible attack on the Israeli team” during the 1972 Olympic Games.
Eleven Israeli athletes and a German police officer were killed at the Games after gunmen from the Palestinian Black September group broke into the Olympic village and took them hostage.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog wrote on X that he had spoken with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
“Together we expressed our shared condemnation and horror at the terror attack this morning near the Israeli consulate in Munich,” he said.
“On the day our brothers and sisters in Munich were set to stand in remembrance of our brave athletes murdered by terrorists 52 years ago, a hate-fuelled terrorist came and once again sought to murder innocent people.”
Herzog thanked the German security services for their “swift action” and said that “together we stand strong in the face of terror”.
A memorial service for the victims of the hostage-taking in Fuerstenfeldbruck, where the Israeli athletes were shot, was cancelled, according to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
After securing the scene, Munich police wrote on X that there were “no indications of any other suspects” and that no one else had been wounded.
Soeder, the state premier, thanked police and voiced relief.
“Munich held its breath for a time, there were moments of great fear about what could happen,” he said at a press conference.
“Luckily it turned out well in the end, no one was hurt and only the perpetrator was eliminated.”
He also said that “the protection of Jewish institutions is of central importance to us”.

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser had earlier called it a “serious incident” and said the location was a “bitter pill to swallow”, also noting that “the protection of Jewish and Israeli institutions is of the highest priority”.
Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza after the October 7 attack, many Jewish communities worldwide have been targeted in attacks and hate crimes.
This is a special cause of concern in Germany, which in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust has committed itself to steadfast support for Israel and Jewish life.
A record number of 5,164 antisemitism crimes were recorded in 2023, compared to 2,641 in 2022, according to German internal intelligence.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany estimates that there are around 100,000 practising Jews in the country and around 100 synagogues.


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Germany

Munich police kill gunman suspected of targeting Israel consulate

Police secure the area after opening fire on a suspect near the Israeli consulate and a Nazi history museum in central Munich. Photo: Reuters

Police officers on duty in Munich. Photo: dpa

Police officers secure the area around the Koenigsplatz square. Photo: AFP

An Israeli flag flutters in front of the Israeli consulate in Munich after the shooting. Photo: EPA-EFE

Outrage after Hong Kong cosplayers dress as Hitler, Nazi soldiers at anime event

A screenshot of the live stream showing a group of cosplayers dressed as Adolf Hitler and German soldiers, who join the host in making a Nazi salute at the event. Photo: Handout

Ani-com and Games Hong Kong 2024 is the city’s largest annual anime and games event. Photo: Edmond So

A cosplayer dressed up as a Red Guard queues alongside exhibition-goers outside the anime expo on Saturday. Photo: Eugene Lee

German ‘Nazi grandma’ Ursula Haverbeck, 95, convicted again for Holocaust denial

Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck waits for the start of proceedings at the district court in Hamburg, Germany, on June 7. Photo: AFP

Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck sits on a bench in a court hallway in Berlin in November 2020. Photo: dpa

German far-right politician back in court over banned Nazi slogan

Protesters hold placards reading ‘Bjoern Hoecke is a Nazi’ in front of the court. Photo: EPA-EFE

Bjoern Hoecke in court on Monday. Photo: dpa

Barbed wire fences at the former concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz. File photo: AP

World leaders, veterans, commemorate D-Day’s 80th anniversary in Normandy, France

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Queen Camilla, King Charles III, President of France Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte Macron during the wreath laying at the UK national commemorative event for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. Photo: Pool/AP

British actor Martin Freeman at the UK’s national commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day at the British Normandy Memorial in Normandy, France on Thursday. Photo: PA Wire / dpa

Red Arrows fly-past during a ceremony to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day at the British Normandy Memorial of Ver-sur-Mer, France on Thursday. Photo: Reuters

US President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden speak to an American WWII veteran in Colleville-sur-Mer, which overlooks Omaha Beach, in northwestern France on Thursday. Photo: AFP

World War II Veteran Bob Gibson commemorates the 80th anniversary of the 1944 D-Day landings in Normandy, France. Photo: Reuters

Nazis’ looting of Jewish families’ possessions recalled in Dutch exhibition

The pair of shoes Holocaust survivor Roosje Steenhart-Drukker was wearing as a two-year-old when her Jewish parents left her, hoping she would be found, on display at the Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam as part of an exhibition about Nazi Germany’s occupation of the Netherlands. Photo: AFP

Visitors view a display at the newly opened National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, which is co-hosting an exhibition about the impact of Nazi German occupiers’ looting of Jewish family possessions. Photo: AFP

The pair of shoes Holocaust survivor Roosje Steenhart-Drukker was wearing as a two-year-old when her Jewish parents left her, hoping she would be found, on display at the National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam. Photo: AFP

The National Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam is the first in the Netherlands devoted to Nazi Germany’s persecution of Jews. Photo: AFP

Dutch National Socialists perform the Nazi salute in 1932. Many Dutch citizens and institutions helped German occupiers round up Jews and send them to the concentration camps in the second world war. Photo: Getty Images

News

World

Europe

The incident took place on the anniversary of the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games by Palestinian militants


The incident took place on the anniversary of the 1972 massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games by Palestinian militants.


Crime

Israel