La Belle NightclubBombing
A standalone source-led summary of the 5 April 1986 bombing at La Belle discotheque in West Berlin, including casualties, later legal findings, disputed injury totals and unresolved details.
Incident Overview
Bombing inside a West Berlin nightclub
Incident name: Germany, Berlin, La Belle Nightclub bombing; also known as the West Berlin discotheque bombing or La Belle discotheque bombing.
Location: La Belle discotheque / nightclub, West Berlin, West Germany. Later summaries identify the building as the Roxy-Palast at Hauptstraße 78, Schöneberg / Friedenau.
Shortly before 2 a.m., a bomb exploded inside La Belle, a nightclub frequented by U.S. service personnel. The blast killed two U.S. soldiers and one Turkish woman, and injured more than 200 people in many later accounts.
Working Summary
Casualties and legal attribution
The best-supported fatality wording is three deaths: two U.S. soldiers and one Turkish woman. Sources differ on whether two died immediately and one later, but those accounts are compatible.
German legal proceedings later found Libyan state/security-service involvement. The supplied research also notes that one cited report says personal ordering by Muammar Gaddafi was not proved.
Review Sources →Key Data
Reported incident figures
Chronology
Sequence described in sources
Key Details
What is most supported
Disputed Details
Conflicting source points
The source set is broadly consistent on the date, venue and fatalities. The main conflicts concern injury totals, immediate versus later death count, and how legal attribution should be phrased.
Sources report 104, 229, 230 or “more than 200” injured. This should not be flattened into a single figure without a note.
Britannica, CBS/AP and Guardian/AP report 229 injured. The supplied 230 appears to be a rounded version, while other summaries use “more than 200.”
Bundesarchiv states 104 injured, some seriously. The supplied material does not explain whether this is a narrower official subset.
Safest wording: three killed and more than 200 injured, with 229/230 and 104 listed as conflicting reported figures.
Some wording distinguishes immediate deaths from the later death of an injured U.S. soldier.
EBSCO reports one U.S. soldier and one Turkish woman killed outright.
Later summaries give three fatalities after a second U.S. soldier died from injuries.
These accounts are compatible: two immediate deaths plus one later death equals three fatalities.
Sources need careful wording on who was found responsible.
The Guardian reports that the Berlin court ruled the Libyan secret service was behind the attack.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the court found Libyan involvement but did not prove that Muammar Gaddafi personally ordered the bombing.
Best wording: German proceedings found Libyan state/security-service involvement; personal ordering by Gaddafi was not proved in the cited report.
Not Verified
Unverified Details
These items should not be presented as settled fact without stronger evidence.
Source Material
References
Key sources from the supplied research document, grouped as cards for quick review.
All Document URLs
Source Links
Direct URLs listed in the source document where a usable public URL was provided or could be represented.
