‘This can’t be real’: Teacher recounts harrowing escape as Austria mourns school shooting that claimed 10 lives

GRAZ, June 12 — A teacher has recounted his chilling escape from an Austrian school shooting that left 10 people dead, as the country grapples with one of its worst acts of violence in recent memory.

Paul Nitsche, a 51-year-old religion teacher, was alone in his upstairs classroom at Dreierschuetzengasse secondary school in Graz when he first heard the gunfire.

“I heard a bang, but I brushed it off,” he told reporters. His students were away at the time, sitting for final-year exams elsewhere in the building.

Moments later, he heard bullet casings hitting the floor just outside in the corridor. “Something snapped inside me — I realised this was real,” he said.

Alone and vulnerable, Nitsche knew he had to act fast. “I jumped up and thought: I’m a teacher, alone in a classroom, possibly facing an attacker. This is very bad,” he recalled. “So I ran.”

As he sprinted down the hallway and descended the stairs, he caught sight of the gunman on the floor below. “He was trying to shoot open a classroom door with a rifle,” Nitsche said. “He was distracted… and I didn’t stop to look. I just kept going.”

“As I ran, I kept thinking, ‘This isn’t real, it feels like a movie.’”

Reaching the lower floor, Nitsche saw a chilling sight — a student lying motionless on the ground and a teacher nearby. That was when the full weight of the situation hit him.

“You try to process what’s going on, but at the same time, your mind tries to block it all out,” he said. Emergency services arrived minutes later, he added. “Thank God.”

What haunted him most was the eerie stillness. “There was complete silence — no screaming, nothing. That’s not what a school sounds like.”

Nitsche later returned to the scene to console students gathered outside.

A city in mourning

Nearby, a large banner reading “Graz stands together” hung from a fence as the city struggled to come to terms with the tragedy. Outside the shuttered school, students dressed in black, many in tears, lit candles and laid flowers.

The shooting — an unprecedented act of gun violence in Austria — was carried out by a 21-year-old former student, according to police. He later took his own life in a school restroom after killing 10 people and injuring 11 others, including two Romanians and an Iranian.

Athorities found a homemade, non-functional pipe bomb at his home in Kalsdorf, a quiet village near Graz. A farewell letter and a video message to his mother were also discovered, but offered no explanation for his actions.

“He always wore a cap and headphones, and never said hello,” recalled Thomas Gasser, a local supermarket worker. “Now, nothing feels the same.”

Gasser described seeing Austria’s elite Cobra police unit raid the suspect’s apartment on Tuesday, with around 15 to 20 officers involved.

Local councillor Anna Slama said, “Everyone knows everyone here — it’s going to be hard to move on.”

Architect Thomas Klietmann was reminded of a past tragedy in the city, when a man drove into a crowd a decade ago, killing three people.

“You can see it — not just the city, but the whole country is in shock,” said Michael Saad, a 22-year-old student at a candlelight vigil held Tuesday night.

Hundreds of people stood silently in Graz’s main square, placing candles at the base of a monument as they tried to make sense of the horror. — AFP