German police shot dead a man in an exchange of fire near the Israeli consulate and a Nazi history museum in Munich on Thursday, state Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said.

“It was a male person and we know that he acted here with a long-barrelled gun,” a Munich police spokesperson said.

“Due to the intervention of the police, the perpetrator was stopped and probably died at the scene,” Herrmann told reporters.

There were no indications of other suspects or incidents in the Bavarian state capital, Munich police said on X.

The incident occurred on the anniversary of the 1972 attack at the Olympic Games in Munich in which Palestinian Black September gunmen murdered 11 Israeli athletes.

The Israeli foreign ministry said the consulate was closed on Thursday for a commemoration of the Munich Olympics massacre and no one from the consulate staff was injured in the incident.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser described it as a serious incident but declined to speculate on the circumstances and background to it. “The protection of Israeli facilities has top priority,” she said.

The museum and research institute, which focuses on the history of Germany’s 1933-45 Nazi regime, is located near the Israeli consulate in Munich’s Maxvorstadt neighbourhood.

Police had said earlier a large operation was underway in response to an incident and asked the public to avoid the area in a post on social media platform X. A helicopter had been deployed to provide a better overview of the situation.

Source: Reuters
--Agencies