Summary
Name:
Bernd Walter WeimannYears Active:
2020Status:
ImprisonedClass:
Mass MurdererVictims:
6Method:
Vehicle rammingNationality:
GermanySummary: Mass Murderer
Name:
Bernd Walter WeimannStatus:
ImprisonedVictims:
6Method:
Vehicle rammingNationality:
GermanyYears Active:
2020Date Convicted:
August 16, 2022Bernd Walter Weimann was born in Trier in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. He held German nationality. Public reports give his age as 51 years old in December 2020.
Available sources do not provide detailed, verified information about his childhood, family, or schooling. Records and news reports focus on his later life and health.
Reports say he struggled with alcohol abuse and with mental health problems. A psychiatric expert later described him as having paranoid schizophrenia. By late 2020, sources described him as homeless and living in his car in Trier.
On 1 December 2020 at 13:45, Bernd Walter Weimann drove an SUV into a pedestrian zone in Trier, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Six people were killed: a 45-year-old man and his infant daughter, a 77-year-old man, and three women aged 25, 52, and 73. Twenty-three other people were wounded. The driver was alone in the car and was arrested at the scene with a blood alcohol content of 0.14%.
Police identified him as a 51-year-old local homeless man of German nationality, born in Trier and living in his car at the time. Investigators said they did not believe he acted for political, religious, or ideological motives. They said mental health problems mixed with alcohol abuse were factors. Investigators also stated he wanted to kill and injure as many people as possible.
The main hearing began on 19 August 2021 and ended on 16 August 2022. The court sentenced him to life imprisonment for murder in four cases and fourteen counts of attempted murder, each with intentional dangerous interference with road traffic. The defendant was also ordered to be placed in a psychiatric hospital. The Federal Court of Justice later partially overturned the first judgment and a new trial focused on his condition around the time of the rampage. A psychiatric expert said he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia but that he did not commit the rampage in a delusion and acted consciously. Witnesses said he had planned the killings and had taken care of last things immediately beforehand. In 2024 the Landgericht Trier confirmed the verdict, and his lawyer’s appeal ultimately failed, making the verdict official.
