A TEENAGER who "hated the world" murdered 15 people in Germany yesterday with the one weapon his gun-collector father had left unsecured.
Tim Kretschmer, 17, shot dead pupils, teachers and bystanders before turning the gun on himself yesterday in a "bloodbath" that has shocked Germany.
The teenage gunman laid siege to Albertville secondary school, north of Stuttgart, targeting women and teenage girls, before apparently killing himself following a dramatic shoot-out with armed police.
The massacre left the classrooms and corridors "running with blood", police said.
All but one of the nine pupils killed were female, and most were shot in the head. Some were found with pens still grasped in their hands.
Kretschmer's father, who owns a packaging firm, was a member of a gun club and legally owns 15 weapons. All but one were secured in the home in Leutenbach, bar one gun which had been left in a bedroom. It was the one used by his son.
Described as an "unremarkable student" who "hated the world", Kretschmer murdered the pupils, three teachers – two of them female – and a gardener in a nearby psychiatric hospital, who died as the killer hijacked a car and fled the scene.
Seven other female pupils were injured in the three-hour rampage.
Witnesses reported students jumping from windows on the top floor of the two-storey school building after he opened fire in three classrooms.
Armed police were at the school within two minutes of an emergency call, but, despite a brief firefight, the teenager eluded them.
More than 1,000 police officers launched a land and air hunt for Kretschmer, who hijacked a vehicle before fleeing to a car dealership about 25 miles away. There, he shot dead the dealership owner and a customer before, being confronted by police. Two officers were injured before Kretschmer took his own life.
Heribert Rech, interior minister of Baden-Württemberg state, said it was "striking" females and girls who appeared to be the targets. He added: "We don't have any clear indications that this rampage could have been foreseen or prevented."
Erwin Hetger, the regional police chief, said: "He went into the school with a weapon and carried out a bloodbath. I've never seen anything like this."
One girl pupil said: "He was an angry guy, a loner. He hated the world. No-one was sorry to see the back of him when he left."
The death toll brings the killing on a par with Germany's worst school shooting ever, when a 19-year-old killed 16 people seven years ago.
The latest killings, carried out two days before the 13th anniversary of the Dunblane massacre, will also reignite the debate surrounding gun control in Germany, legislation that was tightened in the wake of the 2002 attacks.
Kretschmer, who had graduated from the Albertville Realschule last year with "mediocre" exam results, embarked on his killing spree at about 9:30am yesterday in the market town of Winnenden. He moved without a word through the school, clad in a black SEK (special forces) police uniform.
Shooting at anyone in his path, he made his way to the top floor, before moving between three classrooms. Some reports suggested he was also carrying a belt strapped with explosives.
In one classroom, five pupils alone were killed. Two students were killed in another classroom. Pupils have said one of the teachers who died tried to shield pupils from the fire, with reports suggesting she stood in front of Kretschmer with a "defiant look on her face". The student teacher was subsequently "gunned down with ice-cold efficiency", police said.
In one classroom, 10D, Kretschmer, repeatedly reloading, went in and out of the room three times, and spoke the only words he uttered throughout, reportedly asking the occupants: "Are you all dead yet?"
Some youngsters threw themselves through top-floor windows, screaming: "He's killing everyone, he's killing everyone."
Seven pupils died immediately. Two died from injuries on their way to hospital. They were aged between 14 and 16.
Three armed officers from a rapid response unit heard shots when they arrived at the school two minutes after an emergency call made by a pupil at 9:33am from a mobile phone, in which people could be heard screaming. They exchanged fire with Kretschmer on a flight of stairs.
He escaped, killing two other teachers and a gardener in grounds opposite the school.
For the next hour, he evaded police, who warned residents not to pick up any hitchhikers.
The teenager hijacked a black VW Sharan at around 11:15am and ordered the male driver to "get me out of town".
The pair eluded armed checkpoints and travelled along an autobahn for about 12 miles, before the vehicle came off the road at a sharp corner and became stuck. The driver fled and called police, while Kretschmer ran off into the town of Wendlingen, where he was confronted by plainclothes police.
He died at about 12:31pm. He was shot by police in the leg, but is believed to have turned his gun on himself.
The chancellor, Angela Merkel, described the shootings an "appalling crime." She said: "It is unimaginable that in just seconds pupils and teachers were killed. This is a day of mourning for the whole of Germany."
Classmates draw picture of a sullen boy with hate for world
MARTYN McLAUGHLIN 
Tim Kretschmer: described as a withdrawn character
RAISED in a privileged, middle-class home in a scenic village, Tim Kretschmer's early years were devoted to healthy pursuits.
An avid sports enthusiast, he took a special interest in table tennis. Photographs emerged last night of the young gunman holding aloft a trophy he had won in competition aged 12.
Kretschmer's high-school years, however, were troubled. Although he remained physically active, former classmates said he was a sullen, withdrawn character, who occasionally expressed his hate for the world. He had reportedly been reprimanded for bullying other pupils at Albertville.
Former teachers of the teenager said he was "not a very academic student" who had left school with "mediocre" grades equivalent to Standard Grades and was undertaking a sales apprenticeship.
One female student told a German television station that Kretschmer, was "always a weirdo".
She added: "(He was] obsessed with death metal music and guns. He never had a girlfriend. There was some trouble at the school one time over his bullying.
"He was an angry guy, a loner. He hated the world. No-one was sorry to see the back of him when he left."
Helmut Rau, culture minister from the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, quoted the head of Albertville as saying the youth had been an unremarkable student. Mr Rau said he was "never conspicuous" and "never in any way stood out".
Another former classmate said of him: "Tim was always very withdrawn. He never just came up and talked to you. He just used to play ball games."
A neighbour of the Kretschmers, a 19-year-old, said he had played with the mass murderer as a child, but had not seen him much in recent years. He had become "quite peculiar", he said, adding that Kretschmer had a number of air rifles in his bedroom.
Michael V, another 19-year-old who lived nearby, said Kretschmer had "thousands" of horror videos.
Jürgen Kiesl, the mayor of Leutenbach, where Kretschmer grew up, twice awarded the young man prizes for his sporting achievements, and said his father was a well respected businessman.
Tight gun control, but still Germany is not immuneIN GERMANY'S worst school attack in 2002, Robert Steinhäuser, 19, shot and killed 12 teachers, a secretary, two students and a police officer before turning his gun on himself in the Gutenberg high school in Erfurt, central Germany.
Steinhäuser, who had been expelled for forging a doctor's note, was a gun-club member licensed to own weapons.
The shootings took place on the day the German parliament approved new legislation tightening its already strict gun controls, raising the age for owning recreational firearms from 18 to 21 (although handguns can be bought by those aged 18 and over).
Those laws were revised further later in the year in the wake of the killings.
Debate over gun control in the country remained a contentious issue, and was made even more controversial in November 2006, when Sebastian Bosse went on the rampage at his former school in Emsdetten, North Rhine-Westphalia, near the Dutch border.
The 18-year-old, armed with guns and smoke grenades, shot and injured four pupils and the janitor. Police commandos later found him dead.
The country's gun laws were framed against a backdrop of the Second World War. After 1945, with allied forces charged with disarming the nation, not even police officers were permitted to carry firearms.
Not until 1956 were private firearms allowed, when the pre-Nazi gun-control law of 1928 was effectively reinstated. The law was revised in 1972, when the new Federal Weapons Act came into effect.
The act states that purchase and possession of each individual firearm requires a valid licence.
It is understood that hunters and gun-club members must answer about 4,000 questions before being granted a licence. Whenever a gun linked to a licence is sold, the authorities are made aware. Ammunition can be bought only with a licence card.
In April 2008, a new amendment to Germany's Waffengesetz, or gun regulation law, banned Tasers and dummy guns, as well as several other weapons. Anyone deemed to be aggressive, unreliable or with criminal convictions cannot legally buy a gun in Germany.
Ten million guns are owned legally in Germany, although police believe there are twice as many held illegally in a population of 82 million.
Many such weapons can be traced to eastern Europe from stocks left over from the collapse of the former Soviet bloc and from conflicts in the Balkans.
Germany's military conscription system also means that many people are trained to use firearms.
