Investigators likely solve 1970 Munich antisemitic arson attack

Investigators have likely identified the man who carried out the 1970 arson attack on a Jewish care home in Munich, BR reports. Seven people died in the fire, including several Holocaust survivors. The Munich General Prosecutor’s Office has now closed the investigation because the suspect died in 2020 and can no longer be charged.

The fire was set at the Jewish care home on Reichenbachstraße on 13 February 1970. The suspected perpetrator, Bernd V., was a career criminal and neo-Nazi who had repeatedly been identified as a committed Nazi and antisemite from an early age.

He was later convicted, among other offences, of bomb attacks on telephone boxes in Munich and the theft of the Blutenburg Madonna. Investigators considered him a possible suspect shortly after the attack, but there was not enough evidence at the time.

About a year and a half ago, a relative of one of his alleged accomplices contacted Munich prosecutors with new information. Bernd V. is said to have announced the attack to the accomplice just minutes before it happened. On the evening of 13 February 1970, he allegedly passed the care home at Reichenbachstraße 27 and said, in essence: “The Jews have everything, we have nothing. I’ll set them on fire.” According to Chief Prosecutor Andreas Franck, the home was in flames about 15 minutes later.

Franck said there was no absolute certainty that Bernd V. was the perpetrator, but that the evidence indicated a “clear probability” that at least one of the attackers had been identified. As no other accomplices could be found, prosecutors have now ended the investigation, probably permanently. The deaths of the seven Jewish Munich residents remain unsolved in legal terms.