Customers wearing face masks walk out of a store in Berlin, capital of Germany, on Aug. 5, 2021.(Photo: Xinhua)

Germany reacted with shock and outrage on Tuesday as a 20-year-old gasoline station worker was shot dead by a customer who was angry about being asked to wear a mask while buying beer.

The killing on Saturday in the western town of Idar-Oberstein is believed to be the first in Germany linked to the government's COVID-19 rules.

With the country five days away from a general election, politicians from across the spectrum condemned the killing and voiced concern about the radicalization of the anti-mask movement.

Finance Minister Olaf Scholz from the center-left Social Democrats, the frontrunner to succeed outgoing Chancellor Angel Merkel, said he was "shocked" by the murder of someone who only wanted "to protect himself and others." "As a society, we must stand up to hatred," he tweeted.

The row started when the cashier told the customer to put on a face mask, as required in all German shops. After a brief argument, the man left.

The suspect returned about an hour and a half later, this time wearing a mask. But as he brought his six-pack of beer to the till, he took off his mask and another discussion ensued. 

"The perpetrator then pulled out a revolver and shot him straight in the head," prosecutor Kai Fuhrmann told reporters on Monday.

The unnamed suspect, a 49-year-old German man, walked to a police station the following day to turn himself in. He was arrested and has confessed to the murder.

He told police he felt "cornered" by the coronavirus measures, which he perceived as an "ever-growing infringement on his rights" and he had seen "no other way out," Fuhrmann said.

Idar-Oberstein mayor Frank Fruehauf called it "an unfathomable, terrible act" and residents have laid flowers outside the gasoline station.

The suspect was unknown to police and didn't have a permit for the weapons and ammunition found in a search of his home, the prosecutor added.

Armin Laschet, chancellor candidate from Merkel's conservative CDU-CSU bloc, said it was a "horrible" crime. 

"Violence is not the way," he said in a direct appeal "to those who have other opinions, including the Querdenker." 

"The growing aggressiveness is palpable in our everyday life."

Germany's "Querdenker" (Lateral Thinkers) movement has emerged as the loudest voice against the government's coronavirus curbs. 

AFP