Winnenden school shooting | |
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"Albertville" Secondary School in Winnenden on 12 March 2009
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Location | Winnenden, Baden-Württemberg, Germany |
Coordinates | 48°52′07″N 9°23′56″E / 48.86861°N 9.39889°E |
Date | 11 March 2009 09:30 – 13:08 (UTC+01:00) |
Attack type
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School shooting, mass murder, murder-suicide, shooting spree |
Weapons | Beretta 92FS INOX |
Deaths |
Winnenden: 13 (including 12 at the Albertville-Realschule) |
Non-fatal injuries
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Winnenden: 7 |
Perpetrator | Tim Kretschmer |
Motive | Various (bullying, personal stress, depression) |
Tim Kretschmer | |
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Born | 26 July 1991 |
Died | 11 March 2009 (aged 17) Wendlingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany |
Occupation | Student |
Winnenden: 13 (including 12 at the Albertville-Realschule)
Wendlingen: 3 (including the perpetrator)
Winnenden: 7
Wendlingen: 2
The Winnenden school shooting occurred on the morning of 11 March 2009 at a secondary school in Winnenden, Baden-Württemberg, in southwestern Germany, followed by a shootout at a car dealership in nearby Wendlingen. The shooting spree resulted in 16 deaths, including the suicide of the perpetrator, 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer, who had graduated from the school one year earlier. He also injured nine people during the incident.
In the Albertville-Realschule at approximately 9:30 am (CET), Kretschmer first began shooting with a 9 mm Beretta 92FS semi-automatic pistol, which he had taken from his parents' bedroom. Eyewitness reports state that Kretschmer started on the first upstairs floor, where he made a beeline for two top-floor classrooms and a chemistry laboratory. In the first classroom, Kretschmer fatally shot five students in the head at close range without warning. He then entered the next classroom, killed two more students, and wounded nine more, two of whom would die of their wounds en route to the hospital. As Kretschmer left the room to reload his weapon, the teacher reportedly closed the door and locked it. After unsuccessfully trying to shoot off the lock, Kretschmer then moved on to the chemistry laboratory, where he shot and killed the teacher. Students escaped Kretschmer by jumping out of windows. In the three targeted classrooms, he killed nine students (eight female and one male, 14–16 years old) and a female teacher. He shot most of his victims in the head. Kretschmer fired more than 60 rounds at the school. Because the majority of the victims were female, some speculated that Kretschmer specifically targeted females.
The school headmaster broadcast a coded announcement ("Mrs Koma is coming", which is amok spelled backwards) alerting the teachers of the situation; they locked classroom doors. This coded alert had been used by German educators after the Erfurt school massacre in April 2002.