Gundolf Köhler was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 right-wing extremist

Far right

Far-right, extreme right, hard right, radical right, and ultra-right are terms used to discuss the qualitative or quantitative position a group or person occupies within right-wing politics. Far-right politics may involve anti-immigration and anti-integration stances towards groups that are...

 who planted a bomb at the 1980 Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest

Oktoberfest, or Wiesn, is a 16–18 day beer festival held annually in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, running from late September to the first weekend in October. It is one of the most famous events in Germany and is the world's largest fair, with more than 5 million people attending every year. The...

 in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

.

Köhler was born in Schwenningen

Villingen-Schwenningen

Villingen-Schwenningen is a city in the Schwarzwald-Baar district in southern Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It has 80,941 inhabitants .-History:...

, and studied geology

Geology

Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...

 in Tübingen

Tübingen

Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...

. While at Tübingen, he was a member of Hochschulring Tübinger Studenten, a right-wing student group, and was described as a loner and gun aficionado. By the time of his death, he had moved to Donaueschingen

Donaueschingen

Donaueschingen is a German town in the Black Forest in the southwest of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg in the Schwarzwald-Baar Kreis. It stands near the confluence of the two sources of the river Danube ....

. He was also a member of the neo-Nazi Wehrsportgruppe Hoffman (Hoffman Military Sports Group).

Köhler planted a pipe bomb

Pipe bomb

A pipe bomb is an improvised explosive device, a tightly sealed section of pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe means that simple low explosives can be used to produce a relatively large explosion, and the fragmentation of the pipe itself creates potentially...

 in a trash can on September 26, 1980 near one of the entrances to the Munich Oktoberfest; it exploded at 10:19 PM, killing 13 and injuring over 200. He did not get away fast enough and was killed in the attack himself. He was determined to have been the sole perpetrator of the attack. Some authors however argue for a larger conspiracy with connections to Operation Gladio

Operation Gladio

Operation Gladio is the codename for a clandestine NATO "stay-behind" operation in Italy after World War II. Its purpose was to continue anti-communist actions in the event of a shift to a Communist party led government...

; see Attack on Oktoberfest.