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Elderly man ‘kills brother’ in cellar hostage drama

Police in Bremen were on Sunday evening picking apart a family tragedy in which it seems a 63-year-old mentally ill man killed his brother, after holding him hostage in the cellar of his home.

Published: 15 July 2012 21:07 CEST

Elderly man 'kills brother' in cellar hostage drama

Photo: DPA

The man’s 52-year-old wife called the police at 5:30 on Sunday morning asking for help with her husband. Yet the officers who attended decided there was “no acute threat” and left the house in the Huchting district of the northern German city.

Two hours later the police received a second call – this time from the man’s sister-in-law saying the two men were fighting. Both women had been at the house but had fled as the argument between their husbands escalated.

It was later revealed that the man was registered as a gun owner and was known to the police for physically harming his wife, and was under suspicion of illegally hoarding ammunition.

By the time the police arrived, the two men were in the cellar, and officers tried to make contact with them, fearing a hostage situation.

They send in special commandos though, after a gas detector went off, sparking fears the 63-year-old may have deliberately interfered with the gas supply.

His 70-year-old brother was already dead, seemingly of head and chest injuries, although the authorities had not on Sunday evening said how these were inflicted.

Psychologists have been called in to offer counselling to the men’s wives.

DAPD/The Local/hc

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Scholz says attacks on deputies 'threaten' democracy

Scholz denounced the attack as a “threat” to democracy and the European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also sounded the alarm.

Police said four unknown attackers beat up Matthias Ecke, an MEP for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), as he put up EU election posters in the eastern city of Dresden on Friday night.

Ecke, 41, was “seriously injured” and required an operation after the attack, his party said. Police confirmed he needed hospital treatment.

“Democracy is threatened by this kind of act,” Scholz told a congress of European socialist parties in Berlin, saying such attacks result from “discourse, the atmosphere created from pitting people against each other”.

“We must never accept such acts of violence… we must oppose it together.”

Borrell, posting on X, formerly Twitter, also condemned the attack.

“We’re witnessing unacceptable episodes of harassment against political representatives and growing far-right extremism that reminds us of dark times of the past,” he wrote.

“It cannot be tolerated nor underestimated. We must all defend democracy.”

The investigation is being led by the state protection services, highlighting the political link suspected by police.

“If an attack with a political motive… is confirmed just a few weeks from the European elections, this serious act of violence would also be a serious act against democracy,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said in a statement.

This would be “a new dimension of anti-democratic violence”, she added.

Series of attacks

Ecke, who is head of the SPD’s EU election list in the Saxony region, was just the latest political target to be attacked in Germany.

Police added that a 28-year-old man putting up posters for the Greens had earlier been “punched” and “kicked” in the same Dresden street. The same attackers were suspected.

Faeser said “extremists and populists are stirring up a climate of increasing violence”.

The SPD highlighted the role of the far-right “AfD party and other right-wing extremists” in increased tensions.

“Their supporters are now completely uninhibited and clearly view us democrats as game,” said Henning Homann and Kathrin Michel, regional SPD leaders.

Armin Schuster, interior minister in Saxony, where an important regional vote is due to be held in September, said 112 acts of political violence linked to the elections have been recorded there since the beginning of the year.

Of that number, 30 were directed against people holding political office of one kind or another.

“What is really worrying is the intensity with which these attacks are currently increasing,” he said on Saturday.

On Thursday two Greens deputies were abused while campaigning in Essen in western Germany and one was hit in the face, police said.

Last Saturday, dozens of demonstrators surrounded parliament deputy speaker Katrin Goering-Eckardt, also a Greens lawmaker, in her car in eastern Germany. Police reinforcements had to clear a route for her to get away.

According to provisional police figures, 2,790 crimes were committed against politicians in Germany in 2023, up from 1,806 the previous year, but less than the 2,840 recorded in 2021, when legislative elections took place.

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