The true story of the hostage drama "Gladbeck"
Zaudernde police, greedy press: The hostage drama by Gladbeck is one of the darkest chapters of the German post-war period, in which all of Germany for 54 hours the total failure of authorities and media watched ratelessly and idly. On the 7th and 8th of March (at 20:15 in the first one) the filming of one of the most incredible crimes will be broadcast, with the following documentation: "Das Geeldeldrama von Gladbeck - After that everything was different" on 8.3. at 21:45. We explain what actually happened then.
The failure of the police
Hans-Jürgen Rösner and Dieter Degowski were neither cunning nor very organized. That their assault on a branch of Deutsche Bank degenerated in such a way, was also due to a never-ending series of errors in the police operation. Starting with the first emergency vehicles, which stopped right in front of the window of the bank branch, clearly visible to the perpetrators, who then decided to take hostages.
In order not to endanger the hostages, the police chose the strategy of "seemingly persecution-free withdrawal": the perpetrators were able to set off unmolested with two people, past flocks of cameras and reporters. On the way, they could even get Rösner's girlfriend Marion Löblich on board without being stopped by officials. The prelude to a day long odyssey about Bremen, Wuppertal, Cologne - in short, the perpetrators at Oldenzaal even make it across the Dutch border. The trip ended in a hail of bullets on the A3 near Bad Honnef, where a hostage died - the last of three victims of the hostage drama.
Police error not only in Gladbeck
By the time this happened, around 40 hours passed, during which the police made further serious mistakes. When Rösner and Degowski hijacked a bus, the officials learned about the situation - like the rest of the nation - via live recordings on TV. Instead of contacting the perpetrators, they overwhelmed Rösner's girlfriend Löblich, which made the situation escalate completely: Because the deadline for their release - also communicated through the press - passed, Degowski shot the 15-year-old Emanuele de Giorgi. Since no ambulance was ready, the teenager succumbed to his injuries. At the same time, police officer Ingo Hagen was killed in a traffic accident on the way to the scene.
In the end, after more than two days, persecution-free withdrawal became accessible at all costs - an emergency vehicle rammed the escape car, but the Special Command's operation was chaotic: more than 60 shots hit the escape car, several people were injured, including the perpetrators, but it is another hostage who died in a hail of bullets.
The fall of the press
From today's perspective, it is not just the behavior of the police that is astonishing, but also that of the press. Reporters of a criminal history should never come so close again: In the intoxication of contemporary history, they collectively lost all view of their borders and were ultimately not witnesses of the crime, but its instruments.
Large parts of the 54-hour drama were shown live on television. Occasionally, the crime seemed like a bizarre press conference, such as when a bunch of journalists interviewed Hans-Jürgen Rösner, who held a gun in his hand. One of the hostages was interviewed, while Dieter Degowski held a gun to her neck. At the time, they wanted to know about Silke Bischoff. "Good," was the answer, she was just afraid that someone would be killed. A photographer, who had not pressed on the release at the crucial moment, asked Degowski, Bischoff but please hold the gun again to the head. The 18-year-old died later in the final exchange of fire by a ball from Rösner's weapon.
Intervene instead of watching
The entire industry complained at the time. Apart from the fact that the mass of reporters, always striving for the best image, the police officer was enormously in the way, journalists actively intervened. Their demands dictated not only the police, but also reporters who had called for an interview in the bank, the hostage-takers entrenched in the bank.
Also prominent names were involved at that time. As a reporter for the radio station SWF3, Frank Plasberg was one of those whom Rösner had put a microphone in front of his nose. Hans Meiser called RTL at the bank branch to speak with the hostage-takers. The later "picture" chief editor Udo Röbel got into the getaway car to navigate Rösner and Degowski to the highway.
Degowski is free again
That the hostage drama by Gladbeck was now filmed, Hans-Jürgen Rösner had tried to prevent. During the shooting, he wanted to obtain a restraining order against Kilian Riedhof's film - without success.Now he is working on a premature release, as has already happened with Dieter Degowski: The 61-year-old is since February at large, he is considered "mature" and "psychologically stable", as it was called in the area of the Legal Committee. The fact that Rösner, in whose conviction a special severity of guilt had been established, this also succeeds, is considered questionable. A therapy - the minimum requirement for a release from prison - he should have begun anyway.
Both the police and the press, which made a change to the Press Code prohibiting interviews with perpetrators during the crime, learned from their glitches. But in times in which every smartphone owner can make a documentary of the current affairs and in which a gaffer mentality makes it more difficult for rescuers to work, it is always worth recalling a 30-year-old crime.
