As German autumn the complex of the events becomes around the kidnapping Hanns Martin Schleyers and the Lufthansa airplane "land hat" by terrorists of the Red Army parliamentary group (RAF) and the PFLP (people front for the release of Palestine) in the autumn 1977 designates.

From the Schleyer kidnapping to the death of the hard core of the RAF in the prison

On 5 September 1977 the employer president Hanns Martin Schleyer was attacked in Cologne on the travel by the command "Siegfried Hausner" the RAF. Its Chauffeur Heinz Marcisz and the police officers Reinhold Roland Pieler and Helmut Ulmer used to its protection of individuals were shot immediately. Schleyer was kept imprisoned first in a multistoried building in Erftstadt Liblar (with Cologne). It was forced to appeal by video to the social liberal German government under Helmut Schmidt to exchange the arrested first generation of the RAF against it.

There the government - differently than with the kidnapping of Peter Lorenz two years before - not for a prisoner exchange was ready and thus the social consent followed, tried allied terrorists of the RAF, the PFLP (command Martyr Halimeh), to increase the pressure by the kidnapping of the Lufthansa airplane "land hat". After an odyssey of the airplane by the Arab world and the murder of the captain Schumann landed the terrorists on the airport Mogadischus, the capital East Africa niches Somalia.

After political negotiations under the direction of Hans wiping new ski with the Somali ruling power Siad was permitted to the Federal Republic to storm the kidnapped airplane. On 18 October this as operation fire charm happened with the GSG 9, one particularly for such purposes created special-purpose force of the federal police, at that time still Federal Border Police. All hostages on board were freed intactly, from the four terrorists (Zohair Youssif Akache alias captain Mahmud, Souhaila Andrawes, Riza Abbasi, Nadia Duaibes alias Shanaz Holun) survived only Souhaila Andrawes.

When reaction to it became Hanns Martin Schleyer, which had been brought in the meantime over the Netherlands to Belgium, from its kidnappers shot. Its corpse was found in the evening 19 October in the trunk one in the Rue Charles Peguy AUDI 100 turned off in Mulhouse (Elsass/France). At the same time the RAF terrorists Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and January Carl Raspe arrested in Stuttgart master home died. Officially Suizid was determined as cause of death. Its Mitgefangene Irmgard survived with four measurer passes in the chest. It stated from now on and represents into the present that it had concerned a Exekution on the part of the state. The same opinion represented at that time also the attorney and later SPD Federals Minister of the Interior Otto Schily. All further investigations came to a contrary conclusion, whereby due to numerous contradictions and determination errors doubts remain existing.

With the German autumn the government guideline of the Federal Republic of Germany developed, to be extorted not to be able ("with terrorists is not to negotiate").

Social atmosphere during the German autumn

Apart from the described and with them events in connection the term "German autumn" stands also for one of many media (all in front the "picture newspaper" and other publications of the Axel Springer publishing house) with released kind of political hysteria in the society of the German Federal Republic, for which the fear of further link-erroristic notices was the basis.

Many also not of terror politically left and partly also liberally oriented groups and individuals, which reminded to a more reasonable attitude and asked for instance for the causes of the terrorism, whereby also responsibilities of the policy, which economics and the mass media were analyzed critically, became as alleged sympathizers of the terrorists reviled and often socially expenditure-bordered. Isolated according to denunzierte persons were also included into national pursuit and had under different Repressionen to suffer.

Occasionally also link and as for example the writer and Romancier Heinrich Boell counted left liberal intellectual one to the "sympathizer sump so mentioned". Thus Franz Josef bunch in view to Heinrich Boell and Grass spoke of "rats and schmeissfliegen". Boell had already brought up for discussion the lost honour of the Katharina Blum" in his novel "1974 the appropriate spirit of the time and the role of the boulevard press as Vorreiterin of a kind of modern witch hunt against alleged terror sympathizers. The novel was filmed later by Volker Schlndorff belonged beside directors of the "new German film" like Alexander intelligent one or Rainer Werner barrel binder and further film "Germany placed finished to the Machern of the 1978 in the autumn", which likewise artistic-critically brought up for discussion the terrorism hysteria at the end of the 1970er years in different Kurzfilmen and reports.

Further information

• Literature:

"A German autumn. Conditions 1977." By Tatjana Botzat, Elizabeth Kiderlen and franc Wolff. ISBN 3801503151

"The Baader Meinhofcomplex." By Stefan Aust. ISBN 3442129532

• Video/TV: Two-piece documentation "death play" (part of 1: "People prison", part of 2: "The kidnapping the land hat") of Heinrich Breloer
• Film: "Germany in the autumn"; differently Kurzfilme and short reports of several directors of the new German film, Federal Republic of Germany 1978, direction: Rainer Werner barrel binder, Volker Alexander intelligent one and other one
• Doku: "The German autumn", BR-alpha, 2005
• Literary processing: Thomas Hoeps: Work on the contradiction. "Terrorism" in German novels and narrations (1837-1992). , Dresden 2001. ISBN 3933592240

Articles in category "German autumn"

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