A hostage crisis which gripped the German nation 30 years ago is being recounted in a TV thriller, sparking debate about the roles the police, media and a voyeuristic public had to play in the disastrous outcome of the event.
The Gladbeck hostage situation unfolded over 54 hours in the summer of 1988, after Dieter Degowski and Hans-Jürgen Rösner, both already convicts and armed, robbed a branch of Deutsche Bank in the Ruhr valley town and took hostages away in cars and a hijacked bus. Three people, including two teenage hostages, and a policeman whose vehicle crashed, were killed.
The gangsters’ odyssey, from 16 to 18 August 1988, involved a road chase from the Ruhr, northwards to Bremen, and into the Netherlands before they were intercepted by special forces on a motorway near Bonn.
The makers of the two-part dramatisation, called Gladbeck, broadcast this week by ARD, said the film was an attempt to dissect the dramatic events which continued to traumatise those involved.
The apparently coincidental timing of the broadcast with the release of the ringleader, Degowski, has prompted an angry response from hostage survivors as well as the relatives of those who died.
Condensing the calamitous events into just three hours the TV thriller captures the chaotic state of the police operation, which was hampered by indecision, faulty radio equipment and a string of mishaps, including the breaking of a key in the handcuffs of a female accomplice, Degowski’s girlfriend, Marion Löblich.
The thriller depicts the media, on the gangsters’ tail from the start, as being in closer pursuit of the criminals than the police, but also portrays their incessant hunt for the best pictures and soundbites. The general public is never far behind, glued to their TV screens and radios as they follow the unfolding events, caught between feelings of fascination and horror.
Source:
theguardian
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