Tobias Rathjen was born on 17 February 1977 in Hanau, Hesse, Germany. He was identified by authorities and major outlets as a far-right extremist after the February 2020 killings.

Prior to the attacks, Rathjen operated a personal website where he published a manifesto and uploaded videos containing racist and conspiracy-driven claims. Public summaries of the material described him as promoting racist ideology and expressing conspiratorial beliefs, including claims that he was being guided by voices and followed by secret agents.

A timeline factsheet compiled by Mediendienst Integration (drawing on official responses and major reporting) states that Rathjen first received a firearms licence in 2013 and was active in a shooting club from March 2014, where he received shooting training. The same factsheet reports that he had been briefly taken to a psychiatric hospital in 2002 due to schizophrenic psychosis.

In November 2019, Rathjen contacted prosecutorial authorities with a long letter centered on conspiracy claims involving a “secret service” that he said was manipulating people. Reporting noted that parts of this letter resembled content later published in his manifesto, and that no action was taken in response to the contact.

Investigators later stated that Rathjen legally owned firearms. Reporting described that he possessed three firearms legally and that one weapon used in the attacks was reported as borrowed from a gun trader shortly before the shooting.

On 19 February 2020, Tobias Rathjen carried out a shooting spree in Hanau, near Frankfurt, in the German state of Hesse. German officials described the killings as an act of terrorism, and federal prosecutors treated the case as terrorism with evidence of far-right extremist and xenophobic motivation.

The shootings began in central Hanau at 21:55:43 CET. Rathjen entered the La Votre Bar at Heumarkt and fired multiple shots with a CZ 75 pistol, killing a bartender. He then shot a man outside on the sidewalk, and fired into the neighboring Midnight Bar, killing the owner. Witness accounts summarized in published reconstructions reported multiple shots fired during this first sequence.

After the first shootings, Rathjen switched weapons to a SIG Sauer P226 and confronted a man outside a kiosk, repeatedly pointing the handgun while asking, “Are you a foreigner?” He then fired at the car of Vili Viorel Păun. Păun attempted to follow and stop him, leading to a pursuit as Rathjen left the area by car. Three people were killed in the central Hanau attacks.

Rathjen then drove to the Arena Bar & Café area in Kesselstadt. According to a timeline summary, he first shot and killed Păun in the car park, then entered an adjacent kiosk and the bar area, killing additional victims and wounding others. A total of six people were killed at the second location (including Păun), and three others were reported wounded there. Later investigative work highlighted that some patrons attempted to flee but encountered locked doors, including a locked emergency exit.

In total, nine people were killed during the attacks and five others were wounded. One of the victims died in hospital the next day, according to published summaries.

After leaving the second scene, Rathjen drove to his home. There, he shot and killed his mother, Gabriele Rathjen (72), and then killed himself. Police later entered the residence and found both bodies.

The nine people killed during the attacks were Gökhan Gültekin (37), Ferhat Unvar (23), Mercedes Kierpacz (35), Said Nesar Hashemi (21), Sedat Gürbüz (29), Fatih Saraçoğlu (34), Hamza Kurtović (22), Kaloyan Velkov (33), and Vili Viorel Păun (22).