An Internet warning ascribed to a German teenage gunman who killed 15 people in a mass shooting in Germany was a fake, police and a state minister said.
Heribert Rech, interior minister in the southern German state where Wednesday's shooting took place, said late yesterday that he had been taken in.
'Some crazy person obviously put out this dreadful false message,' Mr Rech was quoted as saying by the Sueedeutsche Zeitung daily.
'It must have been made up afterwards.'
The minister earlier publicised a chat room message in which 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer supposedly said he was going to his old school to 'whip up a storm,' naming the town, Winnenden, where it would take place.
'I have weapons here and tomorrow morning I will go to my old school,' he was believed to have said.
'I have had enough of this crummy life... Always the same. People are laughing at me, no-one recognises my potential... You will hear about me tomorrow. Make note of the name of the place: Winnenden.'
The supposed remarks were thought to have been part of a conversation with another 17-year-old, from Bavaria, who told his father about it after the shootings which left Germany in shock and made headlines around the world.
'I always made clear that I was referring to preliminary findings of the investigation. It must now be cleared up how the father of a 17-year-old could claim to have seen the entry,' Mr Rech said.
But after analysing Mr Kretschmer's computer, police said no trace had been found of the message, a spokesman for local police said.
The website in question, Krautchand.net, said that the press had been 'unfortunately fooled... by a forgery.'
'No killing spree was announced here,' it said.
'Maybe he visited the site, but he definitely didn't write the post that went through the news, because that one never existed.'
On Wednesday morning Mr Kretschmer went to the school armed with a handgun taken from his father's bedroom and more than 200 rounds of ammunition.
There he shot dead eight girls, one boy and three female teachers.
He then killed a passer-by outside a psychiatric clinic where he had been due to receive treatment, hijacked a car and shot two others at a car dealership.
By this time hundreds of armed commandos were on his trail, some in helicopters, and Mr Kretschmer died in a shootout with police around 30km from the school.
Police believed he shot himself.
Meanwhile a school at Ilsfed, not far from Winnnenden, was evacuated today after an Internet threat, local police spokesman Roberto Monaci said.
German police have reportedly received more than half a dozen threats of violence at schools since the attack.
