Gundolf Köhler

Gundolf Köhler
Born	Gundolf Köhler August 27, 1959 Schwenningen am Neckar, West Germany
Died	September 26, 1980 (aged 21) Munich, West Germany
Cause of death	Bomb explosion
Criminal penalty	n/a
Killings
Date	September 26, 1980 10:19 p.m.
Location(s)	Munich, West Germany
Target(s)	Oktoberfest
Killed	12
Injured	211
Weapons	Pipe bomb

Gundolf Köhler (August 27, 1959 – September 26, 1980) was a German right-wing extremist who planted a bomb at the 1980 Oktoberfest in Munich causing what is known as the 1980 Oktoberfest terror attack.

Köhler was born in Schwenningen, and was studying geology in the University of Tübingen at the time of the attack. While at Tübingen, he was a member of the Tübingen University Students Circle (Hochschulring Tübinger Studenten), a right-wing student group, and was described as a loner and gun nut. By the time of his death, he had moved to Donaueschingen. He also took part in the neo-Nazi Hoffmann Military Sports Group (Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann).^[1]

Köhler planted a pipe bomb in a trash can on September 26, 1980, near one of the entrances to the Munich Oktoberfest; it exploded at 10:19 PM (GMT+1), killing 13 and injuring over 200. He did not get away fast enough and was killed in the attack himself. It is officially believed that he was the sole perpetrator of the attack, but doubts remain as to whether he acted alone (see Criticism of the official investigation).

Literature

• Chaussy, Ulrich: Oktoberfest – Das Attentat. Wie die Verdrängung des Rechtsterrors begann. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86153-757-1.
• Heymann, Tobias von: Die Oktoberfest-Bombe: München, 26. September 1980 – die Tat eines Einzelnen oder ein Terror-Anschlag mit politischem Hintergrund?. NoRa, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-86557-171-7.
• Unterkapitel Die WSG und das Oktoberfestattentat. In: Rainer Fromm: Die „Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann“: Darstellung, Analyse und Einordnung. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des deutschen und europäischen Rechtsextremismus. Peter Lang Verlag, Frankfurt/Main u. a. 1998, ISBN 3-631-32922-9, S. 336–342. (Zugleich: Frankfurt (Main), Universität, Dissertation, 1997).

References

1. Lee, Martin A. (September 10, 2000). "Strange Ties: The Stasi and the Neo-Fascists". The Los Angeles Times.

Sources

• Michael Backmund (2003). "Der Kandidat, die Bombe und der Einzeltäter (The candidate, the bomb, and the single perpetrator)". Antifaschistisches Infoblatt #60.
• Karl Meyer (September 26, 2005). "Zweifel an der Theorie vom verwirrten Einzeltäter (Doubt about the theory of a single perpetrator)". Telepolis.