Bomb threats cause town hall closures across Germany

Widespread evacuations and a major police investigation were underway this morning after town halls in various German cities received anonymous bomb threats.

Multiple threats investigated by German police

According to initial reports from the German police, multiple public buildings received similar threatening letters some time during the night on Monday, March 25.

In Kaiserslautern in Rhineland-Palatinate, one of these letters was delivered to the town hall at around 1.30am and then was picked up by an employee when they arrived for work. Once the alarm was raised, the surrounding area was cordoned off while police with explosive detection dogs searched the building as a precautionary measure.

Letters and emails were also received in the early hours of Tuesday morning by city halls in Augsburg, Chemnitz, Göttingen in Lower Saxony, Neunkirchen in Saarland and Rendsburg in Schleswig-Holstein (near Hamburg). A threatening letter was also received by the city of Heilbronn, near Stuttgart, but after deliberation it was not taken to pose any serious risk. All of the correspondence contained the same message - that there were explosives in the building.

Disruption in German cities

Despite the apparently phoney nature of the threats, they have caused a significant amount of disruption, as the town halls and surrounding areas had to be evacuated while the buildings were searched by the police. In Augsburg, the city’s civic buildings were also evacuated and public transport in the area was diverted or even suspended.

However, after several hours of searches, no real threat has been discovered and the all-clear has been given in all of the locations affected.

Threatening letters sent to German public institutions

These latest incidents come as part of a wave of anonymous threats currently being investigated by the German police. Multiple threatening letters have been sent to various private and public institutions in Germany, including tax offices, law firms and publishers as well as town halls.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office, based in Berlin, has confirmed that more than 100 cases across Germany are currently under consideration. It is not clear at this stage whether this morning’s threats are related to these other cases.