Three people were killed and six wounded in a stabbing attack in the German town of Wurzburg, according to reports.

Police identified the suspect as a 24-year-old Somali man living in Wurzburg. His life was not in danger from his gunshot wound, a spokeswoman said.

Videos posted on social media showed pedestrians surrounding the attacker and holding him at bay with chairs and sticks in the centre of the Bavarian city.

A woman who said she had witnessed the incident told German RTL television that the police then stepped in.

"He had a really big knife with him and was attacking people," Julia Runze said. "And then many people tried to throw chairs or umbrellas or cellphones at him and stop him."

"The police then approached him and I think a shot was fired, you could hear that clearly."
Police spokeswoman Kerstin Kunick said officers were alerted at around 5pm to a knife attack in Barbarossa Square in the centre of the city.

Bavaria's governor Markus Soeder expressed shock at the news of the attack. "We grieve with the victims and their families," he wrote on Twitter.

Police said on Twitter that there was no danger to the population.

Bavaria's top security official Joachim Herrmann was on his way to Wurzburg, a city of about 130,000 people located between Munich and Frankfurt.