A gunman opened fire Thursday, at a Kingdom Hall, next to a car repair shop in the Gross Borstel district, a few miles from Hamburg city center. He reportedly shot through the window first, before storming the building. Jehovah's Witnesses had gathered at 7pm for a weekly Bible study meeting -- two hours before the shooting.
Police spokesman Holger Vehren said officers were alerted to the shooting about 9.15pm and were on the scene quickly. On arrival, they found people with apparent gunshot wounds on the ground floor; and heard a shot from an upper floor. They found a fatally wounded person upstairs who may have been the gunman, Vehren said.
"We have found a lifeless person in a community center in [Gross Borstel] which we assume could be a perpetrator," Hamburg police tweeted early Friday morning. "According to the current state of affairs, we assume that there is one perpetrator," the force said in a separate tweet.
A motive for the shooting has still not been declared.
Eight people including women and the gunman are dead. Injured people were initially cared for by paramedics in large-capacity ambulances on the scene.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz -- a former Hamburg mayor -- said Friday his thoughts were with the victims. "Several members of a Jehovah community fell victim to a brutal act of violence last night," he tweeted. "My thoughts are with them and their loved ones."
Germany has been rocked by several attacks in recent years. Among the deadliest was a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 12 people. The Tunisian attacker, a failed asylum seeker, was a supporter of the Islamic State jihadist group.
WATCH the moment police rushed the Jehovah's Witness Church after gunman attacked the people gathered