Authorities are conducting an autopsy on the son of a known neo-Nazi after his body was found with a gunshot wound to the head – next to his father who shot himself as the police approached the scene.
Anton Pfahler, 65, one of Germany’s best-known neo-Nazis, shot himself in the stomach as officers approached the scene near Ried in Bavaria on Wednesday afternoon, but did not kill himself.
He was operated upon in hospital and is recovering, although he is not yet in a fit condition to be questioned, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported on Thursday. The body of his 23-year-old son, who has not been named by the media, was found next to him with at a gunshot wound to the head.
Officers found Pfahler sitting outside a hut in the woods after an acquaintance called for help, saying something strange was happening, according to public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk.
As they approached Pfahler, he aimed a gun against his own stomach and pulled the trigger, badly injuring himself, they said.
Now an investigation has been launched to determine under what circumstances Pfahler’s son died.
Anton Pfahler was involved with Gundolf Köhler, the neo-Nazi who carried out the 1980 bomb attack on the Munich Oktoberfest, which killed 13 people including Köhler.
Pfahler and Köhler were members of the banned neo-Nazi organization Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann. Also during that period, Pfahler belonged to the far-right Viking Youth group.
His property in Oberhausen-Sinning was for years used as a meeting place for German neo-Nazis and a publishing centre for the extremist Deutsche Stimme newspaper. He had said he wanted to establish a community of similarly thinking Germans in the area, who would lead ‘species-specific’ lives.
In 1999, the Bayerischer Rundfunk reported, he was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison for breaking weapons laws after he was discovered trading with hand grenades and machine guns.
