Suspect identified after fifty-six years

On 20 August 2026, the Munich Public Prosecutor's Office and Munich police announced that they had identified the suspect in the 13 February 1970 arson attack on a Jewish community centre and retirement home. The suspect, identified by Der Spiegel as Bernd V., was 25 years old at the time of the fire and died in 2020. The original investigation into the killings had been shelved in 2017 due to a lack of conclusive evidence. Authorities reopened the case in April 2025 after a female witness came forward following the death of a close relative who had maintained close contact with the suspect during the 1970s.

The arson attack on Reichenbachstrasse

The fire broke out at approximately 20:40 on 13 February 1970 inside the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde building on Reichenbachstrasse in Munich. Investigators determined that the perpetrator poured a gasoline mixture across several points of the wooden stairwell, which served as the sole access route to the upper residential floors. The structure produced a chimney effect that quickly pushed smoke and flames through all four storeys to the roof. Seven residents, all Holocaust survivors aged 59 to 71, died in the attack: Max Blum leaped from a window, Leopold Gimpel was found dead near hallway toilets, Siegfried Offenbacher failed to notice the fire in time due to hearing impairment, and Georg Pfau, Rosa Drucker, David Jakubowicz, and Regina Becher died in the stairwell while attempting to flee. Another 15 people sustained injuries, four of them severe, while others escaped to the roof or were rescued via ladders.

Radicalisation and witness accounts

Witness interviews and historical records reviewed by Munich state security police revealed that the suspect held extreme antisemitic views and an obsession with Adolf Hitler. Raised primarily by an uncle who had served in the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, he received a pistol and a Hitler Youth dagger for his twelfth birthday. A former headteacher reported that he later drew the dagger during an altercation at boarding school, describing him as calculating and attention-seeking. In his youth, he listened to Hitler speeches on vinyl records, conducted shooting practice at Obersalzberg, and received a juvenile sentence for detonating explosives in two telephone booths. Der Spiegel reported that the suspect and a relative of the witness had taken part in a botched burglary at a jewellery store on nearby Gaertnerplatz earlier that evening. Approximately 15 minutes before the fire, the suspect stood near the retirement home and stated to the associate that Jewish people had everything and that he intended to set them on fire.

Reactions and definitive closure

Because the suspect died in 2020, German authorities cannot conduct posthumous criminal proceedings, and the presumption of innocence applies. Bavarian justice commissioner against antisemitism Andreas Franck addressed the significance of the findings during the announcement.

“We are speaking here of one of the worst attacks against Jewish life since the Second World War.”

Former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany Charlotte Knobloch expressed grief over the lack of a formal trial for the surviving community.

“It hurts me deeply that the suspect can no longer be brought to justice.”

With no indications of surviving accomplices, prosecutors confirmed that the case file is now officially closed.