After fifty-five years, German authorities have a "plausible" lead as to the identity of the arsonist behind an attack on a Jewish retirement home in Munich on February 13, 1970, the German newspaper Bild reported last week, citing public officials.
The male individual is believed to have been a right-wing extremist, known to German authorities for his criminal activities in the 1970s and overt antisemitism.
The Munich Public Prosecutor's Office reopened an investigation into the arson attack last week, after a witness came forward to the antisemitism commissioner for the Bavarian judiciary.
The suspect has since died, however, the investigation will seek to identify the motive behind the attack and whether any witnesses or accomplices are currently living.
A fatal attack
Seven people - including two Holocaust survivors - died in the attack after gasoline was spread throughout the hallway of the Israelite Religious Community's nursing home, and the escape routes were blocked off.
Those killed include Regina Rivka Becher, 59; David Jakubowicz, 59; Rosa Drucker, 59; Georg Eljakim Pfau, 63; Leopold Arie Leib Gimpel, 69; Siegfried Offenbacher, 71; and Meir Max Blum, 71.
Two of the victims, Jakubowicz and Pfau, were Holocaust survivors. While Jakukbowicz was originally from Czechoslovakia, Pfau held both German and Israeli citizenship, according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency. Offenbacher also had Israeli citizenship.
An additional 13 people were wounded, and a synagogue was damaged.
Previous witnesses were not credible
In 2012, a witness reportedly came forward, but it was later determined that the belief that an anti-Zionist anarchist group carried out the attack was not credible.
An anonymous source claimed in an article for the German magazine Focus in 2013 that the far-left extremist group Tupamaros West-Berlin was responsible for the attack - a claim that was investigated by authorities until 2017, when the investigation closed. The group was not thought to be responsible.
The arson attack came only three days after Palestinian terrorists attacked Munich airport and attempted to hijack an El Al flight. German-Israeli passenger Arie Katzenstein was killed during the attack when he threw himself onto a grenade launched by the terrorists, saving the lives of his fellow travelers.
Dr. Charlotte Knobloch, Vice President of the European Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress, told Stiftung last year that “This attack was not only the deadliest antisemitic attack in German post-war history, it also destroyed a place of Jewish life in Munich.”
Danielle Greyman-Kennard contributed to this report.