The shooting that took place on Thursday night at a Jehovah’s Witness temple in Hamburg left at least eight people dead – one of them the author of the shots – and at least eight seriously injured, an event that the German police are fully investigating. speed and whose circumstances have not yet emerged. A large number of police cars and agents came to the place, after, after nine at night, the security forces received notice of the shooting.
In the temple, which is located in the Groß Borstel neighborhood of the Hanseatic city, the faithful participated from seven in the evening in a weekly meeting dedicated to the study of the Bible, according to the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper. This Hall of the Kingdom – as the temples of this religious denomination are called – is a three-story building, which the assailant entered through a window on the ground floor, judging by a video made by an outside witness that the newspaper Bild published this morning in its digital edition. According to Der Spiegel, he could be a former member of the community.
When the policemen broke into the building, they found dead and seriously injured inside, some already on the ground floor, and heard a shot “coming from the top of the building,” a police spokesman, Holger Vehren, told NTV. Going up, they found a mortally wounded man who could be the attacker. The police did not have to use weapons at any time.
“Our measurements and investigations are proceeding at full speed. As soon as there is reliable information about the operation in Groß Borstel, we will inform you here immediately,” the Hamburg police tweeted after midnight, more than three hours after the events occurred. The figures of deaths and injuries that are known come from local media. The police speak at the moment of “numerous people injured, some of them very serious, who were taken to hospitals during the night.”
“The news from Alsterdorf/Gross Borstel is heartbreaking; the intervention forces are working intensively to prosecute the perpetrators and clarify what happened,” the Governing Mayor of Hamburg, the Social Democrat Peter Tschentscher, tweeted. “Bad news from Hamburg,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on Twitter early Friday, calling the attack “a brutal act of violence.”
Founded in the 19th century in the United States, Jehovah’s Witnesses consider themselves heirs of primitive Christianity, and their only and constant reference is the Bible. Its members are known for knocking on doors to explain their doctrine and for distributing leaflets in the streets and squares. Among its distinctive regulations is the refusal to bear arms, receive blood transfusions, salute a national flag, or participate in government.
There are about 8.7 million Jehovah’s Witnesses in the world. In Germany there are about 175,000 faithful, 3,800 of them in Hamburg, according to the website of this religious confession.