DECODE – A former member of the congregation emptied nine magazines at a prayer hall in the city, killing eight people.
A smashed window, seals on the door, and a small corridor leading to the prayer room on the ground floor, a few chairs and a ficus in a corner: here are the only visible elements of the crime scene, Friday, fifteen hours later, the slaughter at which seven people were mowed down in a Hamburg congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The manifest work of a lone killer, Philipp F, 35, who committed suicide after shooting his former classmates.
“The worst crime in our city’s recent history,” said Interior Minister Andy Grote. Emmanuel Macron sent a message of condolences in both languages ”to the victims and to our German friends”. Hamburg is the political stronghold of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. City of which he was mayor from 2011 to 2018.
“The Kingdom Hall” on Deelbögestraße is one of three community locations in the Alsterdorf district (North). In front of the building, recognizable by the English-language JW logo, next to a gas station and a windshield repair shop, passers-by begin to lay flowers and candles.
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Opposite is a block of flats known for its “quietness”. “Never thought something so terrible could happen here. It’s a total shock,” repeats Dagmar Kampfer, who was born in the district more than 60 years ago.
In its scale, the act is more reminiscent of the mass killings of the United States than the ordinary assassinations that occasionally characterize German life. In 2020, nine young immigrants from Hanau, a suburb of Frankfurt, were shot dead by a far-right fanatic. Last year, a synagogue in Halle was attacked on the Yom Kippur holiday. Two passers-by died.
Since December, the Hamburg murderer had had a weapons storehouse and a Heckler & Koch 9-millimeter caliber, model P30. A month later, his erratic behavior due to an “unidentified mental illness” had earned him a report to security officials and a routine check without his gun being taken away.
This former member of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who according to investigators had not left the congregation “on good terms,” presented himself at the door of the “Kingdom Hall” around 9 p.m. Thursday evening. Twenty full magazines in his backpack, plus two that he was holding in his hands.
“The recordings lasted a good five minutes, broken up by several silent intervals. I immediately thought it was a shootout between rival gangs, even though it’s not the neighborhood type at all,” explains Sabine, who lives on the first floor of a building overlooking the building. According to the police, Philipp F. is said to have emptied nine of his chargers, each equipped with fifteen balls.
important community
If the special units hadn’t intervened quickly, the massacre would have increased tenfold, emphasized the Minister of the Interior. Of the fifty members present in the room, two women and four men died. A seven-month-old fetus died unharmed in the womb.
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Four injured, two of them seriously, were counted. The killer turned his gun on him after taking refuge on the second floor of the building at the time of the police operation.
In a photo, Philipp F. looks like the ideal son-in-law, elegant, brown hair cut short. On his website consulted by Der Spiegel, the former economist presented himself as a consultant who offers his advice in both auditing and “theology” at astronomical prices: 250,000 euros a day without VAT, but with the promise of “generating two million euros “from his customers. The reasons for his action remain nebulous, although the character was animated by anti-religious feelings.
With 200,000 members, including 3,800 in Hamburg, the German congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses is one of the largest in Europe, and the congregation said it was “deeply saddened”. Its followers live in anticipation of the coming of the “new world”, adhere to a primitive reading of the Bible, deny the dogma of the Trinity, do not celebrate traditional religious festivals, and regard Jesus Christ as the fruit of divine creation. Across the Rhine, the presence of Jehovah’s Witnesses is better tolerated than in France, where they are accused of sectarian aberrations.
“I don’t share their beliefs, especially that they refuse blood transfusions, but that doesn’t matter,” laments Margherita, a Protestant pensioner from Hamburg who came to try “to understand what might have happened in that guy’s head .She left with no answers.