BERLIN (AFP) - A 77-year-old man in a German retirement home on Wednesday shot dead a fellow resident five years his junior and wounded three others before turning the gun on himself.

The shooter had started arguing with another woman his age, then pulled a handgun and opened fire at several people in the common room, said police and prosecutors.

He killed a 72-year-old man, badly wounded the woman he was arguing with and a 55-year-old church worker, and also injured a female resident, 79, before shooting himself dead.

The rampage took place in in the city of Hamm in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia.