Karel Charva Karel Charva, a native from Prague, Czechoslovakia and follower of Alexander Dubček, fled to West Germany in 1968 when the Soviet-led intervention ended the Prague Spring. After living in a camp at Zirndorf for a while he was finally granted the status of a political refugee in 1971. Stating he was a psychologist and wanted to become a teacher Charva moved to Mörfelden-Walldorf and later to Darmstadt, where he began working as taxicab driver for a Frankfurt cab company. In 1976 he was arrested and convicted for loosening the nuts on the front wheels of two cars.
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Charva retreated into a classroom opposite the English class where the attack began and committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth. The autopsy of his body later showed that he had acted under the influence of alcohol.Das Blutbad in der Schulklasse, Hamburger Abendblatt (June 4, 1983)Von Schüssen verletzt, riefen Kinder nach ihrer Mutter, Hamburger Abendblatt (June 4, 1983)Tödlicher Aufschub, Focus (11/1994)Schoolhouse killer knew teacher he shot, Ludington Daily News (June 4, 1983)Karel Charva war ein Einzelgänger, Hamburger Abendblatt (June 6, 1983)Gedenken an Amoklauf mit sechs Toten , Hessischer Rundfunk (June 3, 2008)Eppstein nahm Abschied, Hamburger Abendblatt (June 9, 1983) In all Charva had fired about forty shots, killed 5 people and injured another 14.
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Additionally, 30 children suffered from shock.Gunman kills 5 in school, The Spokesman-Review (June 4, 1983) Initially, there was some confusion that Charva might have known the wounded teacher, as shortly before the shooting started someone had asked for Gehlhaar, though it was later found that the person was not the gunman.
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Alarmed by the gunshots teacher Hans-Peter Schmitt rushed into the classroom, trying to help, but was also shot and killed, as was Gisbert Beck, an unarmed police officer who was at the school instructing students in traffic safety. When police arrived at the scene they tried to calm Charva down, but the gunman simply yelled at them and continued shooting. At about 11:15 a.m.
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Though the motives behind this deed are unknown, it was suggested that it might have been politically motivated. Living in Frankfurt since 1981, where he found a job as security guard, Charva was known by his neighbours as a loner and very reserved person, who spent whole nights typing on his typewriter and studying chemistry and mathematics, apparently to become a teacher. He was also a member of a local gun club and legally purchased the two weapons used in the shooting in 1981. In the last weeks of his life he was described as increasingly aggressive.
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The Eppstein school shooting was a school shooting that occurred on 3 June 1983 at the Freiherr-vom-Stein Gesamtschule in Eppstein-Vockenhausen, West Germany. The gunman, 34-year-old Czech refugee Karel Charva, fatally shot three students, a teacher and a police officer and injured another 14 people using two semi-automatic pistols, before committing suicide.Classroom Gun Rampage Leaves 6 Germans Dead, The New York Times (June 4, 1983) The shooting remains the eighth-deadliest of its kind in post-war Germany, after the Erfurt massacre in 2002, the Winnenden school shooting in 2009, the Cologne school massacre in 1964, the 2020 Hanau shootings, the 2016 Munich shooting, the Fahrdorf massacre in 1970 and the 2020 Rot am See shooting.
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