Gladbeck hostage crisis

16 August

In the early morning two armed and hooded offenders broke into a branch of the Deutsche Bank in the district of Rentford-Nord in Gladbeck before opening hours.^[1]

At 8:04 am an emergency call was made by a witness to the police. A parked police car was seen by the offenders as they left the branch. They went back into the bank and took two clerks hostage, demanding a car and ransom money, firing their guns into the air several times.^[1]

A radio station was the first to conduct an interview with them as the hostage crisis was happening. After several hours of negotiations, the abductors were given 300,000 DM and a white Audi 100 as a getaway car. At 9:45pm the getaway started. Marion Löblich, the girlfriend of Hans-Jürgen Rösner (who was one of the robbers), boarded the car in Gladbeck.

17 August

After driving on the autobahn to Bremen, the abductors stopped in the district of Huckelriede and hijacked a public-transit bus with 32 passengers at 7:00 pm on 17 August. The media interviewed the abductors and the hostages without any interference from the police. Some hostages even had a pistol pressed against their throats.^[1]

After the release of five hostages, the bus was driven to the autobahn service area of Grundbergsee. The two bank clerks were released there.

Two police officers arrested Löblich, who was using the toilet. Demanding an exchange, Degowski and Rösner threatened to kill a hostage every five minutes. After the expiration of the ultimatum they shot a 15-year-old Italian boy, Emanuele De Giorgi, in the head; he was said to be protecting his sister. ^{[3] [4]} Löblich was about to be released by the police on demand of the abductors but arrived too late because of a broken handcuff key and poor police communication. An ambulance arrived 20 minutes later, but the shot teenager died two hours later in hospital.

After this incident the bus was driven to the Netherlands. During the chase a police car collided with a truck, leaving one police officer dead and another injured.

18 August

At 2:30am on 18 August 1988, the bus entered the Netherlands. At 5:15am two women and three children were released, after the Dutch police refused to negotiate as long as children were being held hostage. At 6:30am Rösner and Degowski got a BMW 735i. The getaway car had been prepared by the police so that the engine could be stopped by remote control.^[5] While attempting to escape, Löblich and the bus driver were injured.

During a stop in Wuppertal the abductors went shopping in a pharmacy.

After having stopped in a pedestrian area in Cologne at 10:30am, the car was surrounded by media and shoppers. Some reporters offered to guide the abductors on their way or to hand them pictures of police officers to prevent trickery if hostages were exchanged. A reporter - Udo Röbel - guided the abductors to a nearby rest area on the autobahn and accompanied them for several kilometres.^[1]

On the A3 close to Bad Honnef, a few kilometres before the state border between North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate, a police car rammed the getaway car at 1:40pm and rendered it immobile, triggering a gunfight. One of the hostages was able to exit the car, the other one suffered a lethal shot. After that the abductors were arrested.^[1]

The remote control to stop the car engine was not used since the police officers had forgotten to take it with them. Across the state border, a special task force (GSG9) was in position waiting to take action.

Trial

On 22 March, 1991 Rösner and Degowski were pronounced guilty by the regional superior court of Essen and received life sentences. Löblich was sentenced to nine years. In 2002 the Higher Court in Hamm ascertained "guilt of a very serious nature" and Degowski's sentence was increased to 24 years. In 2004 the same Higher Court refused an application for parole and a request by Rösner to shorten his sentence. The court also declared a state of "preventive detention" ("Sicherungsverwahrung") and therefore Rösner is unlikely to be freed after the end of his sentence.

Conduct of the media

This was the first incident in Germany with direct interference by representatives of the media. The media were severely criticised for their handling of this situation and for conducting interviews with hostages (one of the journalists acting this way was Frank Plasberg).^[6]

As a result, the German Press Council (Deutscher Presserat) banned any future interviews with hostage-takers during hostage situations. ^[2][6] The head of Germany's largest journalists' union (DJV) Michael Konken, has referred to the incident as "the darkest hour of German Journalism since the end of WWII".^[2] The judge who sentenced Rösner and Degowski to life in prison spoke to Udo Röbel a reporter who climbed into the vehicle with the hostage takers years after the incident. He praised him for preventing a potential bloodbath in Cologne by getting in the car and driving away. This was not a view seen in the official report into the incident by a parliamentary enquiry in the state of the North Rhine Westphalia, which commented negatively towards the journalists' ethics.^[1]