Hamburg shooting news – live: Gunman killed himself after shooting in Jehovah’s Witness hall

The gunman was believed to be a former member of the Jehovah’s Witness community, Spiegel magazine reported.

The man was aged between 30 and 40 and was not known to authorities as an extremist, the report said, citing unnamed sources.

A spokesperson for Hamburg police could not confirm the details, referring to a press conference planned for 1100 GMT.

An unborn baby has been identified among the victims of a shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness church centre in Germany, the state interior minister has confirmed.

Police said seven people were killed – which officials said includes an unborn baby – inside a Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses while eight were hurt, including four seriously.

The gunman, a 35-year-old German citizen and believed to be a former Jehovah’s Witness member, acted alone

German officials say the suspected perpetrator of a mass shooting in Hamburg was a former member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Thomas Radszuweit, a Hamburg security official, said the man was a 35-year-old German national whom he identified only as Philipp F. in line with German privacy rules.

He said that it’s not possible yet to pinpoint why the man went on the shooting rampage but there is no indication of a political motive.

Police say the perpetrator shot himself inside the Jehovah’s Witnesses hall after officers forced their way into the building.

German chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday he was left “speechless” by the shooting at a Jehovah’s Witness place of worship in his hometown of Hamburg and his thoughts went out to the victims and their relatives.

“We fear that further victims may die from their severe wounds,” he said, thanking security forces for their work.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses are an international Christian denomination founded in the United States around 150 years ago, which now claims to have some 8.7 million active followers in 239 countries.

According to Reuters, the first German branch was founded in 1902 in Elberfeld in west Germany, before the “Watch Tower Society” was renamed Jehovah’s Witnesses. The denomination was not granted legal recognition until 2005, in Berlin. Since 2017, they have been recognised as a public corporation everywhere in Germany.

The denomination claims that there are more than 175,000 members in Germany, which would mean that roughly one in 500 Germans are Jehovah’s Witnesses. In total there are 2,003 congregations and 884 places of worship, called Kingdom Halls of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Jehovah’s Witnesses were persecuted in Nazi Germany for their refusal to swear allegiance to the Nazi regime or join the military, with thousands sent to prisons or concentration camps. The denomination was also banned in former communist East Germany in 1950, which was hostile to religion.

There have been several attempted attacks against Jehovah’s Witnesses in various countries in recent years. In 2009, an 82-year-old man tried and failed to shoot Jehovah’s Witnesses in a Kingdom Hall in Bielefeld, Germany, in revenge for his daughter joining them in 1967.

German police received an anonymous tip-off about the gunman prior to the fatal attack at the Kingdom Hall, officials have told a press conference in Hamburg.

However, the force did not have enough grounds to take action at the time, the officials said.

Hamburg’s state prosecutor said the motive for the attack was still unknown.