Deadly family drama shuts Oktoberfest for a day
A German man went on a deadly gun, explosives and arson rampage against his family and then killed himself on Wednesday, sparking security fears in Munich that shuttered the Oktoberfest for seven hours.
A note he had dropped in a nearby letterbox included a vague threat to the world-famous beer festival, leading authorities to close the event while police with sniffer dogs searched the site.
Munich mayor Dieter Reiter then gave the all-clear in the afternoon and the event reopened in the evening.
The day of drama started before dawn when the 57-year-old man opened fire on his parents with a self-made weapon. He then set their house on fire, having earlier booby-trapped the building.
Police said he likely killed his 90-year-old father, whose body was seen but could not be recovered from the still-burning house in the city's leafy northern Lerchenau district.
The man also shot his 81-year-old mother, who was later taken to hospital with wounds not considered life-threatening.
His 21-year-old daughter, a German-Brazilian dual national, was also injured but could be rescued by firefighters from the first floor, having threatened to jump to escape the flames, police said.
The unnamed man ran off after a police helicopter spotted him in the garden. After a short pursuit, he stopped in a lakeside park and shot himself in the head, police said.
He was still alive when pursuing officers reached him on foot but soon succumbed to his wound, they said.
Bomb squads were called in because the man had rigged up the building with explosives -- reportedly grenades attached to trip wires -- and was also carrying an explosives-laden backpack.
- 'Incomprehensible' -
During his rampage, he had also set three vehicles ablaze outside the house, including his own red van.
The fiery drama sparked a major police mobilisation shortly before 5:00 am local time (0300 GMT) and then the evacuation of nearby residents and a local school.
Some 500 police, firefighters and other first responders were deployed during the day's emergency response operations.
Around noon, police commandos also raided the dead man's home in the town of Starnberg, southwest of Munich.
Bavaria state's Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said there was no sign of a political or religious motive.
"It appears, incomprehensible as it may be, that this was solely a family matter," he added.
He said the man had previously been involved in a paternity dispute around the 21-year-old woman.
Hermann added that the man had denied being the father and accused an institute that had confirmed his paternity of accepting bribes, in a petition to the Bavarian state parliament.
City authorities responded to the alarm by announcing the temporary closure of the Oktoberfest, considered the world's largest such folk gathering.
The festivities, held from September 20 to October 5 this year, welcomed 6.7 million visitors in 2024.
It was previously hit by a 1980 attack when a far-right group detonated a pipe bomb, killing 13 people and wounding more than 200.
Y.Schmitz--RTC
