Shooting in Germany's Stade: man killed six social workers…

Shooting in Germany's Stade: man killed six social workers over dispute about his daughter. Investigators ruled out terrorism and clan connection

01.07.2026 12:56 HotInfo

On Monday, June 29, shortly after noon, a 45-year-old man burst into a facility for mothers with children in the center of the northern German city of Stade and shot dead six people — four women and two men. All of them were social welfare workers: three were employees of the facility, and three others were officials from the Jugendamt, Germany's youth welfare office. The perpetrator had come to a scheduled meeting about custody of his three-month-old daughter, who lived with her mother at the facility. According to police chief Kathrin Schuol, he had the appointment "together with many of the victims." Neither the mother nor the child was injured. The man fled the scene by car after the attack, but police stopped him on route B73 after shooting out his tire. Al Jazeera ↗ CNN ↗

According to investigators, the motive was personal. The Jugendamt wanted to restrict the father's parental rights, because according to an assessment by the Hannover Medical School, the infant showed signs of injury. Police had had the man on their radar since April over threats, but did not consider him to be particularly violent. He did not hold a firearms license, and the origin of his weapon is still under investigation. The day after the attack, a court in Stade issued an arrest warrant against him for murder. Investigators also explicitly ruled out organized crime, political extremism, and a clan connection that had initially been considered. Two detained women — the driver of the getaway car, who had a close relationship with the family, and the perpetrator's wife — were released after questioning. NDR ↗

The case has stirred up debate about the protection of social workers. Both the Ver.di trade union and the German Civil Service Federation have called for better security for people who deal with high-tension family conflicts on a daily basis. "Parents come in with a knife in their pocket," an official from one of the Jugendamt offices described the everyday risk in an interview with NDR. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke of shock "at the scale of violence at a place that is supposed to provide protection." Lower Saxony's premier Olaf Lies declared during a memorial service in Stade that "evil must never win." Slovak and Czech media, meanwhile, barely covered the event. NDR ↗ NDR ↗