ONE, two, three, four — so many killing scenes in Bavaria in little over a week. And that against a backdrop of terrible, even worse killings in so many towns and cities elsewhere.

My main reaction is sorrow. Sorrow for the innocent people who only took the train, went shopping or went to a concert and then never came home. And even more sorrow for the families and friends for whom they were irreplaceable.

Among the many, many flowers, candles and toys placed at the sites of the killings one word is often repeated: “Warum?” — “Why?”

In the hunt for answers we must look first at the perpetrators of these killings. Almost all were young men whose feelings had been twisted into hatred. Some had been diagnosed as mentally ill but the others must surely have suffered too to do such terrible things.

We need not look all too far to find possible causes of such hatred or, frequently, of distorted despair. I think of what hundreds of thousands of people have gone through. War-torn home towns, shootings, explosions and bombings in their native Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, a terrifying flight to get away, to find some haven, some place where they can escape and perhaps even realise their hopes and wishes but a hellish journey to get there.

For those who reached the Promised Land, Germany, some were lucky and found some of the many warm-hearted people who welcomed and helped them.

But all too many were met with callousness, rejection, neglect and greed, even violence, and the constant threat of being sent back to ruins and poverty.

In even the best cases there were the problems of finding oneself in a strange land, with a strange language and very different customs.

This is enough to twist the minds of many people, but not least of all those of young males barred from work and dignity, from family, from women.

Yes, my sorrow extends to all of them too — and to the tragedy of young lives distorted by such experience, lacking guidance or a chance to fight back properly, often so very much alone.

I cannot absolve them of guilt. But I can find guilt elsewhere as well. How many of the good, peaceful people in Bavarian towns and cities — or in other peaceful places — know or care about the killing in the homelands of these people and who has been responsible for them?

What was the punishment for the German colonel who in 2009 ordered the bombing in Kunduz which killed up to 100 civilians? Or was it 150? Who cares, really — except their families? And they, after all, received a full $5,000 for each death. Colonel Klein, who ordered the raid, was promoted to general a few years later.

Who still cares that in 2015, also in Kunduz, 30 or 40 medical personnel or patients, some of them children, were killed by a US war plane in repeated “mistaken” bombing attacks despite immediate pleas to desist? This time relatives were paid $6,000 for each family member killed. After all, one must not disregard inflation!

How many hundreds of thousands were killed in Iraq after a war based on conscious lies? The counting has not been so accurate as in the sad Bavarian massacre. How long have US weapons and German weapons been used to kill civilians in Yemen, in Syria, in Somalia? How long have US weapons and military assistance been used in the destruction of Gaza and repression in Palestine?

Most Arab people certainly know of all these things — and do not easily forget them. How many in Bavaria are aware of them? Or in Germany? Or the US?

The “unfortunate mistakes” at wedding parties and the like are not easily forgotten by sons or brothers. Is it surprising that some seek retribution, even blind retribution? Sadly, very tragically, the ones to suffer and die from such retribution are sometimes peaceful citizens of Arnsbach, Munich or other cities, who are just as innocent of any wrongdoing as those in Kunduz or Kirkuk. And, until the shots or blasts can be heard and felt, just as uninvolved.

This means that everything must be done, wherever we are, to get as many involved as possible. Not only must we oppose the bloody attacks from the sea, ground or air, but also the shipment of the utensils of death to those areas, indeed, to any areas.

We must let the people of other countries solve their own problems — without our pressures, our interference, above all without our weapons.

My sorrow extends even further, to much of what I see in the world which leads to death thoughts, large and small scale.

I firmly believe that we must oppose the cult of killing which pervades our entire culture, the war films, the video games and the media heroics which idolise Western snipers, torturers and killers of all kinds while detailing over and over the misdeeds of a tiny number of immigrants.

But the arms industry brings in billions. Its crooked influence is related, in no small measure, to killings of all kinds, whether by a mentally ill youngster on a peaceful street in Bavaria — inspired or not inspired by Isis leaders — or committed by a handsomely uniformed and decorated general and his men, praised by their embedded journalists as heroic saviours of our civilisation.

Indeed, they and the men behind them in their skyscraper boardrooms are, directly or indirectly, the truly guilty ones, for the wars, the waves of refugees, the misery and countless personal tragedies.

Can they be removed before we all kill each other off in some final hungry desert — or in a sudden final atomic blast?