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

What the report says

German prosecutors say they have identified the suspected arsonist behind a 1970 fire at a Jewish community building in Munich that killed seven Holocaust survivors and injured 15 others. The case had remained unsolved for decades, and the suspected attacker, identified by Der Spiegel as Bernd V, died in 2020.

According to investigators cited by BBC World News, the fire broke out on 13 February 1970 after petrol was poured into a wooden stairwell in a retirement home housed inside the community centre on Reichenbachstrasse. Prosecutors believe the suspect, then 25, acted alone and held antisemitic views. They say witness statements and later corroboration from family members point to comments made near the building before the blaze, as well as a pattern of Nazi sympathy in his youth.

The victims were all aged 59 to 71. Several residents escaped to the roof or were rescued, but others died in the stairwell or after jumping from windows. Prosecutors say there is no reliable evidence that anyone else took part. The investigation had been closed in 2017 for lack of conclusive evidence and reopened last year after new information emerged.

The development matters because the attack is regarded as one of the worst acts of violence against Germany’s post-war Jewish community. Even so, authorities say the presumption of innocence still applies in a legal sense, and they cannot bring the suspect to court because he is dead.