Germany | A shooting in a center of Jehovah’s Witnesses leaves “several” dead

(Berlin) Several people were killed and others seriously injured in a shooting Thursday night at a center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Hamburg, police said.

The shooter would be among those who died on the spot, said the police, indicating that they have at this stage “no indication of the fugitives”.

The killing would have left seven dead and eight seriously injured, according to the daily Picture, which evokes a “bloodbath”. “A large number of law enforcement agencies are on site,” Hamburg police added on Twitter.

“Avoid the danger zone. In the danger zone, stay where you are and do not go outside for the time being,” the Federal Office for Civil Protection asked in a statement.

Intervention forces

Law enforcement “were called around 9:15 p.m. to report shots fired in the” three-storey building, located in the Gross Borstel district, north of Germany’s second-largest city, said 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 “coming from the upper part of the building” and found another person, the spokesperson continued, stressing “not yet able to give any indications” 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 shocking,” the city’s mayor, Social Democrat Peter Tschentscher, reacted on Twitter. “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 status of the organization varies from one country to another: they are considered in the same way as the “major” religions in Austria and Germany, as a “recognized cult” in Denmark, as a “religious denomination” in Italy .

In France, many of their local branches have the status of “cult association”, and this rigorous movement is regularly accused of sectarian aberrations.

If the motive for the killing 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.

Double Threat

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.