An 18-year-old man from Weinheim in Baden-Württemberg was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. He is said to have exchanged ideas with another man about a knife attack on visitors to a synagogue in Heidelberg, as the public prosecutor’s offices in Stuttgart and Karlsruhe and the State Criminal Police Office announced on Friday.
“The intended goal was to kill one or more visitors during the attack on the synagogue, followed by a martyr’s death, in which both people wanted to be shot by the police,” the authorities said. The young man is an 18-year-old German-Turk.
The background is a police operation in Bad Friedrichshall on May 3rd. The apartment of a 24-year-old was searched that day on suspicion of preparing a serious act of violence that would endanger the state. According to the police, the 24-year-old German suddenly took several kitchen knives during the search and fled outside through a window. The officers caught him there. Instead of putting down the knives, he deliberately threw a knife at an officer and ran towards him. He shot the 24-year-old. The man is already in custody. He is also accused of attempted manslaughter and a particularly serious case of assaulting emergency services.
When the evidence was evaluated, a connection to the 18-year-old man from Weinheim emerged, with whom, according to investigators, the 24-year-old was said to have exchanged ideas in April 2024 about a possible knife attack on visitors to a synagogue in Heidelberg. The 18-year-old’s apartment was searched on May 18, the man was arrested and is now in custody. There were no indications of any imminent danger to visitors to the synagogue.