A masked, black-clad student returned to the German high school which had expelled him today and proceeded to shoot dead 14 staff members, two women pupils and a policeman before turning his gun on himself.
Thirteen teachers, including the school vice director, as well as two female students, a policeman and the 19-year-old gunman were among those who died in the bloodbath at the Gutenberg high school in the eastern city of Erfurt, police chief Mr Manfred Grube said.
A secretary was also killed in the attack, which came as hundreds of students were sitting for end-of-the-year examinations.
Police said the gunman, masked and clad in black, stormed the school at about 11 a.m., armed with at least one pistol and a pump-action shotgun.
He charged into a room where students were taking a mathematics test and said: "I'm not going to write anything," before beginning to shoot, students said.
Mr Grube described the scene police discovered as a "picture of horror."
He said there were bodies lying in hallways, classrooms and a toilet and that the gunman had killed himself as police approached.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said he was "stunned and horrified" by the massacre.
Flags at the two houses of the German parliament in Berlin were flying at half mast to mark the killings and at government offices in Erfurt, the capital of the state of Thuringia.
"This act surpasses anything that the state of Thuringia has ever experienced," Thuringia deputy interior minister Mr Manfred Scherer said.
He said the attack was the "act of a madman."
Ms Isabelle Hartung, a former classmate of the killer, said she was shocked, describing him as someone who had disturbed classes while a student and had troubled relations with teachers but who was just the same "joyful, very intelligent and esteemed by his friends."
She said that as far as she had known he was not involved in either drugs or weapons.
It was the worst such incident of violence in Germany since the war and the worst in Europe since the March 1996 rampage in Dunblane, Scotland, when a mentally-ill man shot dead 16 children and their teacher before turning his gun on himself.
It raised questions about limiting access to weapons, said Interior Minister Mr Otto Schily, who pointed out that the German parliament had earlier today passed a law strengthening gun controls.
Police had searched the whole building and had not found a second assailant, despite initial reports that there were two attackers.
The school's caretaker had called police at 11.05 a.m. (9.05 a.m. Irish time) to report the shooting. Officers who rushed to the scene were then caught in an exchange of fire, police said.
Students caught in a classroom had taped a sign saying, "Help" to the window.
Elite police troops entering the building found two teachers lying dead at the entrance.
AFP