A 15-year-old boy has been seized by police after shooting dead one of his schoolmates with a handgun in a classroom in Germany.

The shooter, not named by police in Offenburg, walked into the room and fired a round into the victim’s head with what police describe as a “large caliber” pistol.

The 15-year-old victim died hours later on 9th November in hospital, say police.

The terrifying drama unfolded as the teen gunman walked into a classroom during a lesson at the Waldbach special needs school at Vogesen Street and opened fire with a handgun.

Local media reports that the shooter was held by a witness until police arrived and arrested him.

A photograph taken inside the school grounds shows four heavily armoured and helmeted officers carrying the gunman out of the building.

It has not emerged how the schoolboy got the weapon.

Anxious parents had to wait in a school hall for hours while police searched the entire school building before they could be reunited with their terrified children.

Prosecutors revealed that the suspect had a “personal motive” and said early findings showed a previous relationship between the shooter and the victim.

A police spokesperson said: “The perpetrator and victim obviously knew each other.”

Prosecutors charged the shooter with manslaughter later the same day, it’s understood because he will allegedly be tried in a juvenile court and not as an adult.

Offenburg Police and the Public Prosecutor’s Office said in a joint statement obtained by CEN: “An injured teenager was taken out of the building by the police and handed over to the rescue workers for emergency first aid.”

The shooting sparked a massive police operation with at least 300 officers mobilised, reports local media.

A police spokesperson said: “For their own safety, the students remained in their classrooms until the building was completely searched.

“The students were then handed over, class by class, to the many concerned parents who arrived on site in a neighboring sports hall.”

Both the students and their parents received psychological help after the attack.

The suspect is being held in custody

Baden-Wuerttemberg State’s Interior Minister Thomas Strobl, 63, said: “Our thoughts are with the family of the killed young person and his friends as well as all affected students and their families.

“My sincere condolences go out to the relatives of the person killed.”

The incident followed a day after two children threatened a teacher with a gun at a school in the northern port city of Hamburg.