Germany is in shock. A church of Jehovah's Witnesses was the target of a shooting on Thursday evening, March 9, in the center of Hamburg. Several people were killed and others seriously injured. No exact assessment of the attack has been given at this stage by the police, the securing of the building is still in progress.
Several media, including the daily Bild, however, refer to a "bloodbath" and claim that the shooting left seven people dead and eight seriously injured. The shooter was among those who died at the scene, police said, indicating that they have "no indication of any fugitives at this stage".
The police announced on Twitter overnight that they had discovered a body "in a parish house in Gross Borstel and we believe that it could be a perpetrator" of the shootings. "At this point it is assumed there was only one shooter," they said.
"A large number of law enforcement agencies are on site," Hamburg police tweeted. The Federal Office for Civil Protection lifted overnight, shortly after 3 a.m. local time, the official danger alert triggered in the event of an attack to dissuade residents from leaving their homes.
Jehovah's Witnesses had been meeting for 7 p.m. for a weekly Bible study, according to the Hamburger Abendblatt daily. Law enforcement "were called at around 9:15 p.m. to report shots fired at the" three-storey building, located in the Gross Borstel district, north of Germany's second-largest city, reported a police spokesman on the NTV channel.
The intervention forces "entered the building very quickly and found dead and seriously injured people there", according to this spokesperson. Inside, officers also heard a gunshot "from the top of the building" and found another person, the spokesperson continued, noting "cannot give any directions yet." on mobile.
"In the evening, there was a demonstration of Jehovah's Witnesses in the building," he added.
"The news from Alsterdorf/Gross Borstel is heartbreaking," the city's mayor, Social Democrat Peter Tschentscher, tweeted. "The intervention forces are working hard to pursue the perpetrators and to clarify the context."
Founded in the 19th century in the United States, Jehovah's Witnesses consider themselves the heirs of primitive Christianity and constantly and only refer to the Bible. The organization's status varies from country to country: they are considered the same as "big" religions in Austria and Germany, which has about 175,000 members, including 3,800 in Hamburg, according to the site. witnesses.
In France, many of their local branches have the status of "association cultuelle", and this rigorous movement is regularly accused of sectarian aberrations.
If the motive for the shooting remains unknown at this stage, the German authorities have remained on the alert in recent years in the face of a double terrorist threat, jihadism and right-wing extremism. Germany has been the victim of jihadist attacks, in particular a ram truck attack claimed by the Islamic State group which killed 12 people in December 2016 in Berlin. This jihadist attack is the deadliest ever committed on German soil.
Since 2013 and until the end of 2021, the number of Islamists considered dangerous in Germany has increased fivefold to currently stand at 615, according to the Interior Ministry. That of the Salafists is estimated at around 11,000, twice as many as in 2013.
Another threat hangs over Germany, embodied by the far right, after several deadly attacks in recent years targeting community or religious places. In the racist attack in Hanau, near Frankfurt (west), perpetrated in February 2020, a German involved in the conspiracy movement had killed nine young people, all of foreign origin.
In 2019, an extremist attempted to carry out carnage at a synagogue in Halle on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur. He had not been able to enter the place of worship but had killed two passers-by before being arrested.
