Erfurt unites Germany in grief

The service started at the exact time the killings began

Germany's leaders are attending an open-air memorial service in the city of Erfurt to mourn the 16 victims of last Friday's school massacre.

We are eternally sorry that our son and brother inflicted such sorrow on... the people of Erfurt

Family of killer

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and President Johannes Rau joined families and friends of the victims and thousands of sympathisers at the ecumenical service outside the city's cathedral.

Thirteen teachers, two students and a police officer were killed in the country's worst post-war massacre, when an expelled student went on a killing spree at the Gutenberg High School armed with a pistol and a pump-action gun.

The remembrance ceremony - broadcast live on German television - is taking place amid very tight security.

President Rau read out all the victims' names. He said that "death has left a dreadful mark on the whole of Erfurt" and the massacre had "aroused rage, grief and sympathy worldwide".

Robert Steinhaeuser had acquired his guns legally

He said schoolchildren "need more than connection to the internet... They need living networks of common humanity".

In a veiled reference to the 19-year-old killer, Robert Steinhaeuser, he said children "must learn to cope with competition... No person is a hopeless case".

Steinhaeuser had failed his Abitur - the school leaving certificate exam - and had been expelled for truancy and falsifying doctor's notes.

President Rau said teachers "must not be left alone in the fight against violence and hatred".

The Thuringia state prime minister, Bernhard Vogel, said "let us turn our outrage into strength, our suffering into recognition, our pain into love".

Letter

In an open letter to the victims' families, Steinhaeuser's relatives begged for forgiveness.

Schubert's Unfinished Symphony echoed around the packed square

The killer's father Guenther, mother Christel and brother Peter said simply "we think only of the victims and our thoughts are with their families".

"We are eternally sorry that our son and brother inflicted such sorrow on their relatives and the people of Erfurt," the letter said.

"Since this terrible act we've asked again and again where the hate and the desperation in Robert came from. Questions which continue to echo across the land.

"Before this brutal and insane act we were a totally normal family," it said.

Back to school

On Monday pupils return to their studies in another school while the building where the bloodbath took place is renovated.

As one teacher put it, nothing will ever be the same again.

On Thursday, Chancellor Schroeder met representatives of Germany's television industry to discuss ways of limiting violence in the media. He said they preferred self-regulation, but would legislate if that failed.

The murders have triggered a nationwide debate about the impact of television and video game violence.

After the massacre it emerged that Steinhaeuser enjoyed violent video and computer games.

Correspondents say that with the country reeling from the incident law and order is now likely to feature prominently in the run-up to the September general elections.

Edmund Stoiber, who hopes to take the chancellery from Gerhard Schroeder in September, called for an immediate ban on violent video games shortly after the attack.