The tragedy was witnessed by bystanders who happened to be on the platform at the time. Police have opened an investigation and are treating the incident as an accident.
What Happened at Therese-Giehse-Allee Station
According to police, at around 5:40 a.m. the elderly man was standing at the very start of the platform, peering into the tunnel, as a U5 train pulled into the station. The train struck him in the head and threw his body back onto the platform.
The man was left lying motionless. He suffered fatal injuries and died at the scene.
Key facts of the incident:
- Time: around 5:40 a.m., Saturday
- Location: Therese-Giehse-Allee U-Bahn station, Munich
- Line: U5
- Victim: a man over 80
- Outcome: died at the scene
A Station Near the End of the U5 Line
Therese-Giehse-Allee is the second-to-last station on the U5 line before its terminus at Neuperlach Süd. It opened on October 18, 1980, together with the stretch of track leading to Neuperlach Süd, and was named after the Munich actress Therese Giehse, who performed at the Kammerspiele theatre for almost a quarter of a century.
The station was renovated in 2022: the old grey fiber-cement panel cladding was replaced, and stylized portraits of the actress now line the walls along the tracks.
Police Are Treating It as an Accident
At this point, police are classifying the incident as an accident. Investigators have so far found no evidence of third-party involvement or any other cause behind the tragedy.
The investigation has been handed over to Munich’s transit police. Train service on this section was suspended for nearly two hours, causing noticeable disruptions to U-Bahn operations that morning and affecting the subway’s schedule for the rest of the day.
A Long Road to Safer Platforms
Incidents like this happen in Munich on a regular basis. This grim statistic has been pushing MVG, the city’s transit operator, to develop new platform safety protocols. As far back as 2016, the company began considering the installation of automatic platform screen doors that would fully separate the platform from the tracks – a practice already in use for decades in Dubai, Japan, and China.
In 2022, MVG representatives announced that Munich would become the first city in Germany to install such a passenger safety system across every U-Bahn line. A pilot section was to be built at Olympiazentrum station, with the retrofitting of all platforms expected to take more than twenty years and cost hundreds of millions of euros. Ten years have now passed since 2016, and MVG is still occupied with lofty announcements and discussions.
Until this promised program is actually carried out, nearly a hundred stations on the Munich U-Bahn remain potentially unsafe – since all that separates the platform from the tracks is a yellow line painted on the floor. Then again, given the pace of station renovations, decades-old stripped wall panelling, leaking ceilings, and so on, it seems unlikely that, with officials like these, we’ll ever live to see any meaningful results in the reconstruction of the city’s subway system.
