German neo-Nazi suspected of deadly 1970 fire at Jewish retirement home

Image source, Imago via Alamy Image caption, The arson attack has long been seen as one of the worst attacks targeting Germany's post-war Jewish community

German investigators believe they have now identified an arsonist who set fire to a Jewish community centre in Munich in 1970, killing seven people.

For decades the man's identity remained a mystery. But Munich prosecutors now believe he was a 25-year-old lone neo-Nazi with known antisemitic opinions.

The seven killed were all Holocaust survivors aged 59 to 71. Another 15 people were injured.

The prosecutors' revelations come too late to secure justice for the victims. The suspect, identified by Der Spiegel magazine as Bernd V, died in 2020.

At about 20:40 on 13 February 1970, prosecutors say the killer poured petrol into the wooden stairwell at a retirement home housed inside the Jewish community building on Reichenbachstrasse, and then set it alight. The fire spread quickly to the top floor of the building.

While many managed to escape to the roof or were rescued by firefighters, four of the victims died in the stairwell and another died after jumping from a window.

Prosecutors now believe they have "compelling grounds pointing to the (deceased) suspect being the perpetrator", based on "credible information" from a woman, who came forward last year after the death of a close relative who had known the man well.

According to prosecutors, the suspected killer was heard to claim within the immediate vicinity of the community building that "the Jews had everything" and he wanted to "set them on fire". Fifteen minutes later, the building was engulfed in flames.

Authorities say those remarks have been corroborated by other members of the witness's family. They say other witnesses described the man as having a "Hitler-fixation" - and how he had listened to records of speeches by the Nazi dictator in his youth.

One head teacher told them the suspect had apparently used a Hitler-youth dagger, given to him by his father, during a confrontation. He was later given a juvenile conviction for blowing up two phone kiosks.

Spiegel reports that the female witness's relative had once been a member of a gang of burglars and that on the night of the arson attack on the retirement home they had taken part in a failed raid on a jewellery store in nearby Gärtnerplatz.

The relative said the botched burglary had infuriated Bernd V and stirred him into an antisemitic rage.

The investigation into the arson attack was closed in 2017 because of a lack of conclusive evidence, before being re-opened last year.

Prosecutors say the presumption of innocence still applies, even after a suspect's death, and they have also said there is no reliable evidence to suggest anyone else was involved in the attack.

Fifty-six years later, German authorities are now confident they have cracked a notorious antisemitic crime.

However, the case will quite likely be seen as a historic failure by police.

Bernd V's name had been brought to the attention of investigators in the early 1970s, according to Spiegel by a man who shared a prison cell with him. But they had insufficient evidence and dropped the case against him some time afterwards.

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