Since the summer, shootings on the streets of Hamburg have repeatedly caused a stir and uncertainty. Two people were killed and at least eight others were injured, some seriously. The first warning sign of the perpetrators' unscrupulousness was probably the arrest of a child on Balduinstrasse in St. Pauli in June. The 13-year-old from the Netherlands was armed when he was arrested, as the Senate announced in response to a small question from AfD MP Dirk Nockemann.
“Based on previous investigations, it is assumed that the child had previously been ordered to kill a person in Hamburg,” says the Senate response. The 13-year-old, who is not of criminal responsibility in Germany, was handed over to the Dutch police.
Supposedly targeting rockers
According to a report in the “Bild” newspaper, the boy was supposed to shoot a 33-year-old Hells Angels rocker. A spokeswoman for the Hamburg public prosecutor's office explained: "We have indications as to who the victim should have been, but to protect the ongoing investigation we cannot provide any information." The authorities are investigating unknown persons on suspicion of attempted incitement to commit homicide.
According to “Bild”, another attempt was made to attack the rocker in August. The property in Geesthacht (Duchy of Lauenburg district) was shot at on August 16th. The next day, the Hells Angels hunted down the assassins. The police received an emergency call, whereupon officers arrested the 33-year-old rocker.
The State Criminal Police Office in Kiel confirms that witnesses reported shots fired in Geesthacht on the night of August 16th. The police found bullet casings. The next day, officers arrested four men in the small town on the Elbe after an aborted emergency call. Special forces were also deployed. An arrest warrant has been issued against a 33-year-old Turk from Geesthacht for violations of weapons law, the police said. The three others were released.
Two men die
On the evening of September 1st, fatal shots were fired near the Hamburg exhibition halls. Two men aged 33 and 47 die in a commercial yard on Lagerstrasse. A 48-year-old is seriously injured. The investigators assume that the perpetrator and victim knew each other. The public prosecutor's office explained that there were indications of a possible dispute in the milieu, without giving any further details. It was only on June 26th that unknown people threw a hand grenade at the commercial yard, which detonated there and caused property damage.
Almost two weeks after the crime on Lagerstrasse, two masked men shot a 14-year-old in a Turkish cultural club in the Ottensen district and injured him in the thigh. A 20-year-old suffered multiple stab wounds, police said. After the crime, the perpetrators fled. A search remains inconclusive.
Shots in front of a drug aid facility in Harburg
Shots in front of a drug help facility on September 15th caused great uncertainty in Harburg. They hit a 55-year-old in the leg and critically injured him. On June 15, a 21-year-old allegedly shot a 45-year-old man and injured his leg in front of the Abrigado drug aid facility in Schwarzenbergpark.
In connection with this earlier crime, the police arrested a person suspected of being behind the crime on August 18th. Special forces took him away in the Neugraben district. It was said that the Turk was suspected of having ordered the crime in Harburg. On September 1st, the police in Hamburg-Heimfeld arrested the suspected shooter, a 21-year-old Turkish man. He was taken into custody.
In order to protect a nearby school, the Harburg district office commissioned a security service at the beginning of the current school year. The police are also on site at the start and end of classes, as the Senate announced in response to a small question from the AfD parliamentary group. The school should also have video surveillance. A neighboring education center already protects itself in this way. In addition, the fence or wall around the school grounds should be raised.
Two injured in Billstedt
Shots were fired several times in other parts of the city. According to police, on the night of October 3rd, a 28-year-old Turkish man injured a man of the same age in an argument in Billstedt. During the ensuing scuffle between several men, another shot was fired, injuring the shooter himself.
On the night of October 4th, unknown people shot at a shisha bar on Grindelallee in the Rotherbaum district and at a food wholesaler in the Barmbek-Nord district, which, according to media reports, is a wholesaler of vegan kebab. On the night of October 5th, shots hit an Iranian bank in the city center.
Injured in Steilshoop and Lohbrügge
In August, further crimes involving the use of firearms were committed. According to police, a man was shot in the Steilshoop district on August 8th. On August 27th, shots hit a 36-year-old in the Lohbrügge district. He suffers serious injuries. On September 1st, a 35-year-old was found with gunshot wounds in Seevetal, just south of Hamburg. He is taken to a hospital and undergoes emergency surgery.
Apparently there were no serious consequences when shots were fired at a bus in the Neugraben-Fischbek district on the night of September 12th. The police found several bullet holes in the windows of the HVV bus. Officers are investigating a 17-year-old as the suspected perpetrator. He is said to have had an argument with a 16-year-old who then fled onto the bus. The police found an air gun with ammunition in the 17-year-old's basement.
AfD speaks of Wild West conditions
Violent crime officially fell by 5.4 percent in Hamburg last year. When the crime statistics were presented in February, the head of the State Criminal Police Office, Jan Hieber, spoke of a “reversal of the trend”.
The police recorded 262 crimes in which a firearm was used. That was 12 percent less than the previous year. In only 16 cases - 8 fewer than in 2024 - a person or object was actually shot at with a live firearm, it is said. This has happened at least 10 times in Hamburg in the past four months.
The opposition CDU parliamentary group recently called on the red-green Senate to stop turning a blind eye to gun crime. “Reports about the use of firearms in organized crime clans have become a frightening normality in Hamburg under the SPD and the Greens,” explains the CDU parliamentary group’s domestic policy spokesman, Dennis Gladiator.
AfD parliamentary group leader Dirk Nockemann says: “Shots at people and businesses on the street: These are intolerable Wild West conditions in the middle of Hamburg that we can no longer accept.”
Police: Danger to bystanders very low
In a joint statement, the police and the interior authorities explained that there were enormous fluctuations between individual annual figures in the number of crimes involving the use of firearms. Illegal firearms are more available today than they were a few years ago. In all recent cases, the police assume that the weapons were used within criminal circles. “The risk of becoming a victim of firearm use as a bystander is very low,” explains police spokesman Florian Abbenseth.
