“For your information” – Elbphilharmonie shooter is said to have left a letter with neighbors

The Hamburg homicide squad is investigating the motive of the 68-year-old suspected shooter, who was found dead in a hotel room at the Elbphilharmonie after the shots in Hafencity. The police assume that the motive could be family-related; The authorities have not yet commented in detail on the background.

The “Hamburger Abendblatt” reported on Tuesday evening about a kind of letter of confession from the man that was put in his neighbors’ mailboxes. Under the heading “For your information,” he justified his act with his son’s takeover of his company, which was unfavorable for the rest of the family, and with his low pension. The police have not yet confirmed that the letter exists.

According to the police, the German is said to have first killed his wife and father-in-law at their home in Eningen unter Achalm, south of Stuttgart. He is then said to have shot two people in Hamburg and ultimately killed himself.

Two injured in Hafencity

In Hamburg, the police were alerted on Tuesday around 9 a.m.: A man called the officers after an unknown perpetrator shot him. The emergency services found the 40-year-old employee of a security company on a sidewalk in Hafencity near the Elbphilharmonie.

Shortly afterwards they discovered a 39-year-old woman with life-threatening injuries in an underground car park. Paramedics took both to the hospital. The woman's life is no longer in danger, and the man's condition is stable, according to police.

The police have not yet revealed what relationship the alleged perpetrator had to the victims in Hamburg. According to the “Abendblatt”, the injured woman is the perpetrator’s daughter-in-law.

The search eventually revealed evidence that the suspect was staying in a hotel room at the Elbphilharmonie. A few minutes before the emergency services found his body there, the bodies of his wife and father-in-law were discovered in Eningen unter Achalm near Reutlingen.

The Elbphilharmonie was partially evacuated and largely cordoned off at midday. Emergency services escorted guests from the observation deck and out of the building's hotel. There was a school concert going on in the small hall at that time.

“The Hamburg police policed ​​a medium double-digit number of children who were in the Elbphilharmonie in the building,” said a police spokesman. Only after the end of the police operation did the concert hall resume normal operations.

Homicide squad investigates

The police largely ended the large-scale operation in the afternoon. Now the murder squad's work begins, said the spokesman. That afternoon, a small car with a Reutlingen license plate was towed from the Elbphilharmonie underground car park. In the underground car park of the house where the injured were found, there was also a dark vehicle cordoned off with tape, also with a Reutlingen license plate.

dpa/eck