The news of a killing spree at the University of Heidelberg shook the whole of Germany a week ago. The city and university want to commemorate the victims with a central funeral service.
Heidelberg – One week after the killing spree, the University of Heidelberg commemorated the victims on Monday (12:00 p.m.) with a funeral service in St. Peter’s Church.
To commemorate the 23-year-old student who was killed and her three injured fellow students, everyone is asked to pause for a minute at 12:24 p.m. At this point last Monday, the first emergency calls came from the room in which the perpetrator shot several times at the 30 first-year students of the life sciences.
Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) and Science Minister Theresia Bauer (Greens) will take part in the event in the university church as representatives of the state of Baden-Württemberg. In addition to the Minister of the Interior and the University Rector Bernhard Eitel, the Mayor of Heidelberg, Eckart Würzner (independent), and the Chairman of the student body, Peter Abelmann, will speak. The Archbishop of Freiburg, Stephan Burger, and the Regional Bishop of the Evangelical Church in Baden, Jochen Cornelius-Bundschuh, also have their say.
The speakers, students and rescue workers will commemorate the victims with candles and flowers. The city on the Neckar is dominated by students. Around 39,000 young people study at the five universities in Heidelberg, which corresponds to a quarter of the population. 31,000 students are enrolled at the oldest German university alone.
The perpetrators did not know their victims
These included the 18-year-old perpetrator, who, like his victims, studied life sciences but, according to investigators, did not know them. He broke into a running tutorial last Monday in which an older student was supposed to teach the newcomers organic chemistry with a gun. He shot several times and hit the 23-year-old from Landau in the head with the shotgun. Three other fellow students were shot but escaped with minor injuries. The young woman died a few hours later in hospital. The perpetrator exited the building and killed himself.
The motive for the crime remains unclear. The police are also investigating whether the man’s mental illness was the background to the crime. dpa
