Kidnapping and murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer

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Kidnapping and murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer
Part of German Autumn
Location Cologne, Germany (kidnapping)
France (murder)
Date5 September 1977 (1977-09-05)–
18 October 1977 (1977-10-18)
Attack type
 Kidnapping, murder
Deaths5
Victim Hanns Martin Schleyer
Perpetrators Red Army Faction (RAF)
Memorial in Cologne Schleyer gedenkstelle.jpg
Memorial in Cologne

The kidnapping and murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer marked the end of the German Autumn in 1977.

Contents

German industrial leader and former SS officer Hanns Martin Schleyer was kidnapped on 5 September 1977, by the Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as Baader-Meinhof Gang, in Cologne, West Germany. It was intended to force the West German government to release Andreas Baader and three other RAF members being held at the Stammheim Prison near the city of Stuttgart. On 18 October 1977, on learning that three of their members had died in prison, the RAF killed Martin Schleyer. [1]

Events

Kidnapping

Schleyer's abduction was planned by Siegfried Haag, but he was arrested in 1976, so his replacement, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, carried out the abduction.[ citation needed ]

On 5 September 1977, an RAF “commando unit” attacked the chauffeured car carrying Schleyer, then president of the German employers' association, in Cologne, just after the car had turned right from Friedrich Schmidt Strasse into Vincenz-Statz Strasse. His driver, Heinz Marcisz, 41, was forced to brake when a baby carriage suddenly appeared in the street in front of them. The police escort vehicle behind them was unable to stop in time, and crashed into Schleyer's car. Four (or possibly five) masked RAF members then jumped out and sprayed machine gun and machine pistol bullets into the two vehicles, killing Marcisz and a police officer, Roland Pieler, 20, who was seated in the backseat of Marcisz's car. The driver of the police escort vehicle, Reinhold Brändle, 41 and a third police officer, Helmut Ulmer, 24, who was in the second vehicle were also killed. [2] The hail of bullets riddled over twenty bullet wounds into the bodies of Brändle and Pieler. Schleyer was then pulled out of the car and forced into the RAF assailants' own getaway van.

Imprisonment and killing

Schleyer was hidden in a highrise in Erftstadt (Liblar) near Cologne. The police came very close to finding him, but due to lack of internal communication could not rescue him.[ citation needed ] Several local police officers were convinced that Schleyer was held in the aforementioned highrise close to the autobahn.[ citation needed ] One investigator had rung the doorbell of the apartment in question, but nobody had conveyed this information to the crisis center of the federal police. [3]

The RAF demanded that the government release imprisoned members of their group.[ citation needed ] The government refused to give into RAF's demands or negotiate.[ citation needed ] The RAF sent the government a picture of Schleyer alive, in captivity, on 8 October 1977. [4]

After 43 days, the government had not given in to the demands of the kidnappers.[ citation needed ] Hours after the German counterterrorism unit GSG 9 ended the Palestinian hijack of Lufthansa Flight 181,[ relevant? ] the imprisoned RAF members Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe were found dead in their prison cells.[ further explanation needed ][ improper synthesis? ]

After Schleyer's kidnappers received the news of the death of their imprisoned comrades, Schleyer was taken from Brussels, Belgium on 18 October 1977, and shot dead en route to Mulhouse, France, where his body was left in the trunk of a green Audi 100 on the rue Charles Péguy.[ citation needed ]

Investigation

On 9 September 2007, former RAF member Peter-Jürgen Boock mentioned that the RAF members Rolf Heissler and Stefan Wisniewski were responsible for Schleyer's death. [5]

Schleyer's widow, Waltrude Schleyer, campaigned against clemency for his kidnappers and other members of the RAF. She died on 21 March 2008, in Stuttgart. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red Army Faction</span> Far-left wing militant organization from West Germany

The Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang, was a West German far-left militant group founded in 1970 and active until 1998. The RAF described itself as a communist and anti-imperialist urban guerrilla group. It was engaged in armed resistance against what it considered a fascist state. Members of the RAF generally used the Marxist–Leninist term faction when they wrote in English. Early leadership included Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, and Horst Mahler. The West German government considered the RAF a terrorist organization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andreas Baader</span> German far left-wing militant Leader (1943–1977)

Berndt Andreas Baader, was a West German communist and leader of the left-wing militant organization Red Army Faction (RAF) also commonly known as the Baader-Meinhof Group.

The German Autumn was a series of events in Germany in 1977 associated with the kidnapping and murder of industrialist, businessman, and former Schutzstaffel member Hanns Martin Schleyer, president of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA) and the Federation of German Industries (BDI), by the Red Army Faction (RAF), a far-left militant organisation, and the hijacking of Lufthansa Flight 181 by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The hijackers demanded the release of ten RAF members detained at the Stammheim Prison plus two Palestinian compatriots held in Turkey and US$15 million in exchange for the hostages. The assassination on 7 April 1977 of Siegfried Buback, the attorney-general of West Germany, and the failed kidnapping and then murder of the banker Jürgen Ponto on 30 July 1977, marked the beginning of the German Autumn. It ended on 18 October, with the liberation of the Landshut, the deaths of the leading figures of the first generation of the RAF in their prison cells, and Schleyer's death.

Irmgard Möller is a German former militant. She joined the Red Army Faction (RAF) in 1971. After participating in two bombings she was arrested the following year. During the German Autumn of 1977, she was one of the prisoners demanded by the RAF to be freed and was part of an alleged suicide pact in Stammheim Prison with Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe. The other three died and she survived, claiming it was an assassination attempt. She was released from prison in 1994.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hanns Martin Schleyer</span> German business magnate and SS officer (1915–1977)

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References

  1. ↑ Katz, Samuel M (2004). Raging Within : Ideological Terrorism. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications. p. 14. ISBN   978-0-8225-4032-8.
  2. ↑ Clutterbuck, Richard L (2010). Terrorism, Drugs & Crime in Europe After 1992. London: Routledge. pp. 48, 49. ISBN   978-0-415-61620-1.
  3. ↑ Büchel, Helmar; Aust, Stefan (2007-09-17). "Dann gibt es Tote [Then there are dead]" (in German). Der Spiegel.
  4. ↑ "Obituaries in the news: Waltrude Schleyer". Denver Post. Associated Press. 2008-03-25. Retrieved 2008-04-05.[ dead link ]
  5. ↑ "WorldwideLexicon.Marx: Ex-Terrorist Reveals Names Of The Schleyer Murderers". Archived from the original on 2012-02-11. Retrieved 2015-01-22.
  6. ↑ "Obituaries in the news: Waltrude Schleyer". International Herald Tribune. Associated Press. 2008-03-26. Retrieved 2008-04-05.
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