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Flowers and candles: place of mourning at the building where the crime happened
Photo: Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images
After the bloody deed in a lecture hall at Heidelberg University, the affected faculty is temporarily suspending its face-to-face events for students in the first semester.
This initially applies until the planned central funeral service on Monday.
"As a lecturer, I would also feel very strange if I had to go into a closed lecture hall now," said the Dean of the Faculty of Biosciences, Jochen Wittbrodt.
In higher semesters, minutes of silence and times for exchange are planned for courses.
On Monday, an 18-year-old student from the faculty shot a 19-year-old and a 20-year-old woman and a 20-year-old man in a lecture hall during a tutorial, mainly for freshmen.
A 23-year-old student later died as a result of a shot in the head.
The shooter killed himself after the fact. The building with the lecture hall where the shots were fired will remain closed for the time being, said Wittbrodt, head of the faculty.
A sense of proportion in exams
Students and lecturers are "in shock mode" after the events.
Nevertheless, a digital meeting of the faculty with more than 170 participants took place on Tuesday, and university rector Bernhard Eitel was also there.
“Above all, we tried to inform the students and make them offers,” said Wittbrodt.
When it comes to psychological care, »no one should fall through the cracks«.
A sense of proportion is now required for the upcoming tests, said Wittbrodt.
An exam this Wednesday was suspended, and there will be alternative dates for others.
"We also give the students the opportunity to take part in the exams," says Wittbrodt.
“But if they notice in the meantime that it's not working, a short signal is enough.
Then this test doesn't count.«
After a certain time, students at the faculty want to be encouraged to "closer to face-to-face operations" again, said Wittbrodt.
"Biosciences is a very practical subject, more than 50 percent of the course is internships." In addition, a certain amount of routine is also useful when dealing with what has been experienced.
He doesn't think additional security checks are the right way to go, said Wittbrodt.
"It's a completely natural reaction, but I can't imagine that at a university as free as Heidelberg." Many students argued similarly at the digital meeting on Tuesday.
"The broad answer was: 'I wouldn't feel comfortable on campus if I was x-rayed like at the airport,'" said Wittbrodt.
The chairman of the State Rectors' Conference of the Universities and Rector of the University of Hohenheim, Stephan Dabbert, said: »The universities see themselves as cosmopolitan educational institutions where exchange and communication take place even in these difficult times;
they are therefore part of an open society.
Restrictions on access with security-oriented control measures run counter to this self-image.«
However, that does not mean that the universities are helpless in emergency situations.
"All state universities have emergency and crisis plans - in the case of Heidelberg, these also took effect, so that the emergency services could be on site within a few minutes," said Dabbert.
Investigators are looking for a motive
It is still unclear what caused the perpetrator to shoot around in the lecture hall.
The investigators are concentrating primarily on the motive, examining the student's environment.
The police are also evaluating digital devices that the special task force (SEK) seized during the search of his apartment.
The question of how the biology student got hold of the two long guns, one of which he used for the crime, is still unanswered.
The 18-year-old is said to have bought the guns abroad a few days ago.
He still had a hundred rounds of ammunition in his backpack.
The Baden-Württemberg state head of the German police union, Ralf Kusterer, said that a bolt-action rifle and a shotgun are not easy-to-handle weapons that are mostly used by hunters and are difficult to legally acquire for others in Germany.
wit/dpa