Special forces in the bank robbery in Regensburg: A man attacked people in a bank on Thursday.Image: Vifogra media/x
Two knife attacks shocked Germany on Thursday. Now new details about the two cases are coming to light.
July 24, 2026, 5:15 p.mJuly 24, 2026, 5:20 p.m
Stuttgart: Perpetrator was banned from approaching his wife
First there was an act of violence in a shopping center in Stuttgart. A man attacked his wife with a knife and set her on fire. As is now known, the man should not have approached his wife because there had already been violence in the relationship.
There was already violence in the relationship in June, which resulted in a court-imposed ban on contact and approach, the police and public prosecutor’s office said. The man should not have come near his wife or her place of work. There was no evidence that the man was not complying with the ban.
According to the police, the 54-year-old German had already been conspicuous for minor crimes before the partner violence. A police spokesman did not want to say what exactly it was about.
The man is said to have attacked the 47-year-old with a knife and set her on fire on Thursday shortly after the shopping center in the southern German city opened. According to police, the woman suffered life-threatening injuries and was operated on in a hospital. She remains in critical condition, the police spokesman said. According to the information, the woman worked in a store in the shopping center.
Regensburg: Bank attacker was in custody hours earlier
Later on Thursday, an attack at a bank in Regensburg, Bavaria, also caused a stir. There, a 20-year-old attacked people in a branch. A bank employee was seriously injured. He was able to be taken to hospital, but later died from his injuries.
The alleged perpetrator is in custody. He is being investigated for murder out of greed and attempted robbery. The man’s exact motive is not yet clear. According to the head of the Regensburg criminal investigation department, Robert Fuchs, the man in the bank had a knife and a piece of paper in his hand that said that he was planning to rob a bank and wanted to steal money. However, it was a cashless branch and there was no prospect of looting from the outset.
The 20-year-old had been banned from owning weapons for some time because he had been found illegally carrying a knife and a stun gun in the past.
No evidence of mental illness
The public prosecutor’s office applied for an arrest warrant, and an investigating judge approved this request, said public prosecutor Thomas Schug. There is currently no evidence of the suspect’s mental illness. However, he will be investigated accordingly.
After the knife attack, the 20-year-old initially barricaded himself in an office at the bank branch. Meanwhile, the police, together with customers and bank employees, managed to bring the victim through a window onto the sidewalk next to the building for further care.
Two other bank employees were freed. At the beginning of the crime, there were also customers in the bank, including a young couple and a small child, investigators said.
Arrest in toilet
According to investigations, the perpetrator used a kitchen knife in the fatal attack. The blade was twelve centimeters long and two centimeters wide, the investigators said at a press conference. Special forces were able to arrest the 20-year-old in the bank – three hours after the crime became known.
The man did not offer any resistance. He was in the toilet, said police chief Fuchs. The murder weapon was also found nearby. “From what it looks like to us, it has also been cleaned,” Fuchs continued.
372 emergency services were involved in the police operation, said Fuchs. The first emergency services were at the bank just four minutes after two emergency calls were received almost simultaneously.
In police custody a few hours earlier
The young attacker was known to the police and was in police custody less than 24 hours before the bloody act. He wanted to turn himself in to the police because he had allegedly thrown a beer bottle onto police property. After checking what had happened, the man, who was slightly drunk at the time, was released. There were no grounds for detention.
In the past, he had been noticed several times for minor crimes such as property damage, said Fuchs. Among other things, he was reported missing several times because he had not returned to a child and youth welfare facility.
It was not initially known whether he was drunk or under the influence of other drugs on the day of the crime. The police found no drugs during a search of his apartment. (con/sda/dpa)