A 30-year-old man was fatally shot on a busy street in Berlin's Charlottenburg district shortly before midnight on Sunday. The attack took place on Hardenbergplatz, a square directly in front of the Zoologischer Garten railway station near the Kurfürstendamm shopping boulevard. Emergency responders attempted to resuscitate the victim, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
The suspects fled the area and remain at large. The homicide division has opened an investigation into the killing.
The shooting caps a violent stretch in the German capital. Police registered 1,119 incidents of firearms use in 2025, a 68 percent increase over the previous year. Recent days alone saw shots fired at a restaurant in Neukölln, a 22-year-old wounded in Kreuzberg, and a 38-year-old shot in Schöneberg the prior weekend. Berlin's state criminal police office established a special firearms unit called 'Ferrum' last autumn in response to the trend.