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Police officers at one of the crime scenes in Hanau after the attack on February 19, 2020
Photo: Nicolas Armer / dpa
A year ago around 50 people met on Helmholtzstrasse in the Kesselstadt district of Hanau.
A tidy working-class district in which narrow houses with small gardens are lined up.
It is the last scene of the Hanau attack, in which the assassin killed nine people with Turkish, Kurdish, Bulgarian, Romanian and Afghan roots as well as a German Roma and injured five others.
He lived with his parents on Helmholtzstrasse, where he shot his 72-year-old mother in need of care and then himself in the basement where he had his room.
He left his father alive.
The pensioner still lives there today.
The demonstrators held up cardboard boxes that read: “When will the authorities finally take action?” Many belonged to the “February 19 Initiative,” an association of bereaved families and survivors that organized vigils, rallies and memorial services, but most of all calls for a complete investigation of the crime.
What role did the father play?
Now the Federal Prosecutor's Office has closed the investigation against unknown persons in connection with the Hanau attack.
There is therefore no evidence of accomplices, instigators, assistants or confidants of the assassin.
Relatives and survivors filed criminal charges against the assassin's father on February 11 this year, accusing the 74-year-old of aiding and abetting the murder or failure to report planned crimes.
The role of the father had been examined "comprehensively".
In particular, the results of the investigation did not justify the assumption that he was involved in the attack "in any way that is criminally relevant" or that he knew about his son's plans, the Federal Prosecutor said.
Despite "partly contradicting and partly refuted" statements by the father.
Common worldview
The authority sees no "dominance and dependency relationship" between the son and his father.
Rather, the investigations had shown that the assassin - regardless of psychological impairments - "led a self-determined life".
The father only advised and influenced the son in legal and official matters.
Their worldview "with extremist and conspiracy-theoretical tendencies" largely agreed, but does not justify participation in the act or complicity.
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What is certain is that the assassin shot a total of nine people and injured numerous other people, some seriously, “for racist motivation”.
The Federal Prosecutor's Office and the Federal Criminal Police Office had investigated around 300 pieces of information and clues to clarify the background to the attack, in particular suggestions from the victim attorneys involved in the proceedings.
Alone and independently
Objects seized from father and son were examined and evaluated, numerous contact persons were checked.
According to the Federal Prosecutor's Office, more than 400 witnesses were heard and several hundred evidence were examined by forensic technology.
The firearms were legally in the bomber's possession, the circumstances of the acquisition did not allow any conclusions to be drawn about possible confidants.
The same applies to the organizers of shooting training courses abroad that the assassin attended, as well as to members of shooting clubs in which he was a member.
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The 43-year-old prepared the act alone and on his own responsibility.
He also created his homepage, through which he had published a racist manifesto and his conspiracy ideology, on his own.
The style was astonishingly similar to that of his father, but the 43-year-old still led a self-determined life.
Lawyers examine enforcement proceedings
A relationship of dependency on the father, as it was suspected in the criminal complaint, is not sufficiently supported by the results of the investigation, according to the Federal Prosecutor's Office.
A largely congruent worldview of father and son "with extremist and conspiracy-theoretical tendencies" does not justify complicity.
The father tried unsuccessfully to have the searches of his home and cars declared illegal by the Federal Court of Justice shortly after the crime.
For the relatives of the murdered Gökhan Gültekin, Sedat Gürbüz, Said Nesar Hashemi, Mercedes Kierpacz, Hamza Kurtović, Vili-Viorel Păun, Fatih Saraçoğlu, Ferhat Unvar and Kaloyan Velkov, questions remain unanswered.
The federal prosecutor's office does not make it easy for those affected, says lawyer Björn Elberling, who represents the family of the shot Vili-Viorel Păun.
"We will check whether we can initiate legal action proceedings," said Elberling.
In the Hessian state parliament, an investigative committee is currently examining whether and to what extent the authorities have failed.