An 18-year-old kills nine people in Munich and then himself. The horror of the rampage is just one of the reasons why July 22, 2016 has a place in the collective memory. Thousands of people are gripped by an unprecedented fear of terrorism.

On July 22, 2016, an 18-year-old killed nine people at the Olympia shopping center in Munich. The evening burned itself into the collective consciousness not only because of this terrible act, but also because of the wave of panic that gripped downtown Munich an hour after the act. 32 people were injured, some seriously, as a result. About 2,600 police officers, drawn together from all over Bavaria, other federal states and Austria, swarmed out to 73 crime scenes where shots were reported – but which were never fired.

Why is there a state of siege in downtown Munich for over six hours, even though the actual crime scene is miles away? How can it be that a city as self-confident as Munich loses its composure so much?

Witnesses to the panic, police officers, representatives of other institutions and journalists tell what they experienced that evening and reflect on what happened. Carl-Christian Schneider was standing near the Hofbräuhaus when suddenly a roaring wall of people rolled towards him. That evening, Susanne Solau and her boyfriend Tom learned what fear of death is. The Munich clinics had prepared to treat 300 seriously injured people – one was admitted. The police didn’t know what they were looking for until midnight.

In his documentary, Stefan Eberlein explores the question of what attitude we take towards such catastrophes and how we decide to deal with our own fears in the future.

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