The Munich Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has closed the case involving a previously unsolved antisemitic arson attack on a Jewish community center after 56 years, the Munich Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Munich Police Headquarters (MPD) confirmed on Monday to The Jerusalem Post.
On the evening of February 13, 1970, the building of the Jewish Community of Munich at 27 Reichenbachstrasse in Munich, which is also a retirement home, was set alight using a petrol mixture. Seven Jewish residents who were Holocaust survivors died as a result of the arson attack. A further 15 people were wounded, four of them seriously.
Following a new tip-off from the public, the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office reopened the investigation in April 2025 after the case was closed by the Federal Public Prosecutor in 2017.
A witness provided the prosecutor with credible information about the suspect. According to this information, the suspect had been in close contact with one of her relatives in the 1970s. The suspect then died in 2020.
Shortly after this relative’s death, the informant revealed what she knew about the matter. In order to verify the suspicion, investigators from the Munich Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and the State Security Division of the MPD examined the archived files of the Munich I Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, and interviewed witnesses from the suspect’s circle.
According to the findings of the new investigations, the prosecutor said there were compelling grounds for believing that the deceased suspect was the perpetrator.
Investigators link deceased suspect to far-right circles
At the time, the suspect, a German man, was 25 years old.
On the evening of February 13, 1970, he is said to have remarked, in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene and with a view of the Jewish retirement home, that “the Jews have everything” and that he wanted to “set them on fire.”
About 15 minutes later, the building was engulfed in flames. This information is based on the credible statement of the informant, who in turn was repeating the remarks made by her deceased relative. Other family members confirmed the remarks.
The prosecutor subsequently found that the suspect had been linked to far-right circles. Witnesses described him as an antisemite with a “Hitler obsession.” In his youth, he is said to have listened to Hitler’s speeches on records and practiced shooting in the former “Führer’s restricted area at Obersalzberg.”
A former schoolmate described the suspect’s hostility toward Jews as a defining characteristic.
A headteacher highlighted that the suspect had “a coldly calculating, attention-seeking manner” and reported a physical altercation during which the suspect was alleged to have used a dagger given to him by his father, which had belonged to the Hitler Youth.
Death of suspect leaves case without prosecution
Furthermore, the offender profile drawn up by the Bavarian Operational Case Analysis Unit on behalf of the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office matched the deceased suspect.
Overall, the prosecutor said the new investigations strongly suggest that the suspect was responsible.
However, it is not possible to reach a definitive legal conclusion because dead defendants cannot be legally prosecuted in Germany.
Since the investigation did not reveal any reliable evidence of the involvement of other individuals, the Munich Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office closed the renewed investigation.