The gunman at Heidelberg University comes from Berlin. This was the result of research by the daily mirror. The “Mannheimer Morgen” and the German Press Agency first reported on Tuesday, citing police circles.
The 18-year-old shooter apparently grew up in Wilmersdorf. However, the attempt by the Tagesspiegel to contact the alleged perpetrator’s relatives was quickly over. When I got a call, a woman hung up immediately. At the place of residence, a larger apartment building in Wilmersdorf, the door remained closed.
The neighbors of the family do not seem to know that the perpetrator from Heidelberg is a young man who lived just a few steps away. A woman only told the Tagesspiegel on Tuesday evening, “He was okay,” she didn’t know him or her parents any further. Another neighbor said she knew that the young man was studying in Switzerland. That’s not true, but it could be an indirect indication of the perpetrator’s connections abroad.
The police reported on Monday that the gunman had recently bought the two guns he had with him abroad. The Tagesspiegel refrained from telling the two women that their former neighbor was the gunman in Heidelberg, in order to avoid stigmatizing his relatives. The father reported himself to the police on Monday.
The biology student shot fellow students in a lecture hall at Heidelberg University on Monday afternoon. A 23-year-old student died from a shot in the head. A 19- and a 20-year-old woman and a 20-year-old man were slightly injured by the gunshots.
Police believe the German gunman, who was staying in Mannheim, killed himself in front of the building.
After the rampage, the police have set up a 32-strong investigative team called “Botany”. Under the direction of the Heidelberg public prosecutor’s office, they are primarily investigating the origin of the weapons and the suspect’s motive, said Baden-Württemberg Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) on Tuesday after a cabinet meeting in Stuttgart. Strobl also gave further details about the course of events on Tuesday.
The gunman’s father received a message from him shortly before the crime
The first emergency calls were received at 12:24 p.m. on Monday, Strobl said. Six minutes later, the first patrol cars arrived on campus in Neuenheimer Feld. At 12:32 p.m., the father called the police in Heidelberg and reported a Whatsapp message from his son, in which he announced the crime. It was already known that the 18-year-old should have sent a Whatsapp message immediately before the crime that “people have to be punished”.
According to previous knowledge, the student entered a lecture hall where a tutorial was taking place with a side-by-side shotgun and a repeating weapon. He fired at students. He then fled to the outside area of the university in the Neuenheimer Feld district and killed himself.
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The police had rushed to the scene with more than 400 officers, including a special task force. A helicopter circled over the university campus. It was initially suspected that there was a second perpetrator. However, the students who had to experience the shots in the lecture hall reported that the perpetrator had two weapons.
According to the police, the gunman had more than 100 rounds of ammunition with him. It is not yet known why he stopped shooting. That is speculative, but it cannot be ruled out that a specific person should be hit. The 18-year-old could have reloaded.
Because there was a backpack with unknown contents with the young man’s corpse, the police were not able to reach the dead man for a long time. It could have been explosives, said the President of the Mannheim Police Headquarters, Siegfried Kollmar. The Baden-Württemberg State Criminal Police Office therefore also sent defusers to examine the backpack.
Kollmar said it was a double-barreled shotgun and a bolt-action rifle. The perpetrator, who comes from Mannheim, recently bought the weapons abroad. There are purchase receipts, said Kollmar on Monday evening.
It must now be clarified who is selling a gun to someone without a gun license. In order not to forewarn the seller, investigators did not name the country where the guns were purchased. The 18-year-old gunman has not yet been recorded by the police. He also didn’t have a driver’s license. “It’s very unusual, this situation,” said the chief of police.
Security circles said there was no suspected political or religious background to the crime. According to the public prosecutor’s office, the perpetrator should have no previous convictions. “We will now examine his surroundings in the next few days, with high pressure.” The investigators want to check all whereabouts and interlocutors of the young man in the past few days.
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Students were stunned after the fact. “We are incredibly shocked. This is a catastrophe that eludes everything conceivable between lectures, exams and university life,” said Peter Abelmann, chairman of the student body, on Monday.
The news of the killing spree spread like wildfire among the students, said Abelmann. Some would have reported directly about the crime via messenger services. The student body’s thoughts are with those affected.
Students and lecturers “in shock mode”
After the killing spree, the affected faculty temporarily suspended its face-to-face courses for students in the first semester. This initially applies until the planned central funeral service on Monday, said the Dean of the Faculty of Biosciences, Jochen Wittbrodt, of the German Press Agency. “As a lecturer, I would also feel very strange if I had to go into a closed lecture hall now.”
Students and lecturers are “in shock mode” after the events. Nevertheless, a digital meeting of the faculty with more than 170 participants took place on Tuesday, and university rector Bernhard Eitel was also there. “Above all, we tried to inform the students and make them offers,” emphasized Wittbrodt. When it comes to psychological care, “nobody should fall through the cracks”.
After a certain time, students at the faculty want to be encouraged to “closer to face-to-face operations” again, emphasized Wittbrodt. “Biosciences is a very practical subject, more than 50 percent of the course is internships.” In addition, a certain amount of routine is also useful when dealing with what has been experienced.
He does not think that additional security checks are the right way to go, said Wittbrodt. “It’s a completely natural reaction, but I can’t imagine that at a university as free as Heidelberg.” Many students argued similarly at the digital meeting on Tuesday. “The broad answer was: I wouldn’t feel comfortable on campus if I was x-rayed like at the airport,” said Wittbrodt. (with agencies)