German gunman kills 6 at Jehovah’s Witness hall

HAMBURG, Germany — A gunman stormed a service at his former Jehovah’s Witness hall in Germany, killing six people before taking his own life after police arrived, authorities in the port city of Hamburg said Friday.

Police gave no motive for Thursday night’s attack. But they acknowledged recently receiving an anonymous tip that claimed the man identified as the shooter showed anger toward Jehovah’s Witnesses and might be psychologically unfit to own a gun.

Eight people were wounded, including a woman who was 28 weeks pregnant and lost the baby. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the death toll could rise.

Officers apparently arrived at the hall while the attack was ongoing and heard one more shot, according to witnesses and authorities. They did not fire their weapons, but officials said their intervention likely prevented further loss of life at the boxy building next to an auto repair shop a few kilometers from downtown.

Scholz, a former Hamburg mayor, said the city was “speechless in view of this violence” and “mourning those whose lives were taken so brutally.”

All of the victims were German citizens apart from two wounded women, one with Ugandan citizenship and one with Ukrainian.

Officials said the suspected assailant was a 35-yearold German man identified only as Philipp F., in line with the country’s privacy rules. Police said he had left the congregation “voluntarily, but apparently not on good terms,” about a year and a half ago.

A website registered in the name of someone who fits the police description says that he grew up in the Bavarian town of Kempten in “a strict religious evangelical household.”

Philipp F. legally owned a semi-automatic Heckler & Koch Pistole P30 handgun, according to police. He fired more than 100 shots during the attack, and the head of the Hamburg prosecutors office, Ralf Peter Anders, said hundreds more rounds were found in a search of the man’s apartment.

Germany’s gun laws are more restrictive than those in the United States but permissive compared with some European neighbors, and shootings are not unheard of.

Last year, an 18-year-old man opened fire in a packed lecture at Heidelberg University, killing one person and wounding three others before killing himself. In 2020, the nation saw two high-profile shootings, one that killed six people and another that took nine lives.

In the most recent shooting involving a site of worship, a far-right extremist attempted to force his way into a synagogue in Halle on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur in 2019. After failing to gain entry, he shot two people to death nearby.