“A day as beautiful as today” was the motto

The "People's Prison" had been ready for months. The terrorists of the left-wing extremist "2 June Movement", named after the day of the death of the student Benno Ohnesorg in 1967, had actually wanted to kidnap West Berlin's highest-ranking judge Günter von Drenkmann there. But because the lawyer had resisted his kidnapping on November 10, 1974, he was summarily killed with two bullets in the chest. So the basement room, lined with soundproof polystyrene panels under a specially rented supposed second-hand shop in Berlin-Kreuzberg, remained unused for the time being.

Three to four weeks after this murder, the perpetrators chose the victim they wanted to take hostage instead of the shot judge: the West Berlin CDU chairman and leading candidate in the upcoming election to the House of Representatives, Peter Lorenz . The 52-year-old father of two was spied on for weeks, then the perpetrators struck.

On February 27, 1975, a Thursday, at around 8:50 a.m., seven (according to other sources, even nine) terrorists staged a rear-end collision at an intersection near Lorenz's private home in the Berlin district of Zehlendorf. One perpetrator, disguised as a street sweeper, beat Lorenz's driver with a lead pipe; another kept passers-by and residents at bay by pointing his gun at them. But Lorenz vehemently resisted being kidnapped and kicked in the car's windshield. The terrorists tried to stun their victim, but were unsuccessful. Only when one of the perpetrators threatened: "Think of Drenkmann!" did the victim give up resistance, allow himself to be given an injection and tied up.

The left-wing extremists drove Lorenz into an underground car park, changed their getaway car there and stuffed the kidnap victim into a large chest of drawers. Then they went on to the prepared "people's prison", where they maneuvered their prisoner into the soundproof room. The taking of a politician hostage by terrorists - a new type of crime in the history of the Federal Republic.

The manhunt was launched immediately after the kidnapping, but it yielded no results. Instead, the kidnappers called the Federal Criminal Police Office in Wiesbaden and announced that they would be writing a letter with demands. It arrived the following morning as an express letter at the dpa office in Berlin and contained two Polaroid photos of the kidnapped man and extensive demands: Six imprisoned left-wing terrorists were to be flown out on a long-haul plane to a destination of their choice, each with 20,000 marks.

As a sign of "solidarity", these were three members of the "2nd June Movement", two members of the rival terrorist group Red Army Faction - and Horst Mahler . The former star defender of the West Berlin left had co-founded the RAF in 1970, but was arrested after only a few months in hiding. Mahler refused to be released by force because in the spring of 1974 he had made at least the fifth of his many ideological about-faces while in prison: he distanced himself from the activist-chaotic group around Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin , only to soon declare his allegiance to the orthodox-Maoist KPD-AO.

The Lorenz kidnappers' ultimatum ran until the evening of March 2, 1975, the day of the parliamentary elections. In the second hostage crisis in German politics after the attack on the Israeli team at the Olympic Games in Munich on September 5, 1972, the decision was made at the last moment. Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who was suffering from flu that Sunday, was absent for a long time from the crucial meeting of the crisis team in the Chancellor's Bungalow in Bonn. He only joined them towards the end and accepted the vote that the participants had reached in his absence: an exchange on the perpetrators' terms.

On the morning of March 3, 1975, Lufthansa's Boeing 707 "Africa" ​​took off with five terrorists on board; the guarantor was the pastor Heinrich Albertz, former mayor of West Berlin. It was only during the flight that the crew learned that the destination was Aden in South Yemen. After landing, Albertz was given the code word for Peter Lorenz's release: "A day as beautiful as today." Lawyers had evidently arranged communication between the terrorists in prison and those in hiding in illegality. On the night of March 5, the kidnappers abandoned their hostage on a street.

The members of the June 2nd Movement felt like winners because they had forced the federal government to give in. However, none of the terrorists who had been released had been convicted of murder or even charged. In addition, Helmut Schmidt, who had recovered his health, stated unequivocally in the Bundestag that nothing could be concluded from the concession in the Lorenz case: "There will always be terrorist acts, and in every specific situation we will have to decide again and again how we want to deal with them and how we must deal with them."

One of Peter Lorenz's kidnappers, Till Meyer, understood when he heard this speech: "The state will not give in again." This is what happened, first at the end of April 1975 during the hostage-taking in the German embassy in Stockholm and then in September and October 1977, during the "German Autumn".

By 1981, a total of five of Lorenz's kidnappers had been sentenced to 15 years in prison each, one to more than 13 years and one to more than eleven years; one received the maximum sentence provided for under juvenile law: ten years, because he was not yet 21 years old at the time of the crime. All were released early and on probation.

The last of the nine identified kidnappers, Inge Viett, went into hiding in the GDR until 1990. She then only had to serve seven of the 13 years she was sentenced to for attempted murder of a police officer. None of the nine credibly distanced themselves from terrorism.

The murder of Günter von Drenkmann could not be legally proven against any of them, which is why the court did not sentence anyone to the maximum sentence of “life imprisonment” – although there was no doubt that the crime had been committed by someone from this circle.

Four of the five terrorists who were released continued their rampage against the rule of law: Verena Becker was involved in at least two attempted murders of police officers in 1977 and served a total of around 13 years for this and for her support in the murder of Federal Prosecutor General Siegfried Buback and his two companions. Rolf Heißler murdered two Dutch customs officers in 1978 and critically injured two others; he spent 22 years behind bars before being released "on parole". Ingrid Siepmann (like Viett and other terrorists of the "2nd June Movement") switched to the RAF and was presumably involved in various terrorist attacks; she died in Lebanon in 1982. Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann shot two Swiss border guards at the end of 1977 and had probably already committed a double murder during the hostage-taking in the Vienna OPEC building , although this could not be proven beyond doubt. Of the total 23 years of imprisonment imposed, she served only 14 and was released “on probation.”

Sven Felix Kellerhoff is senior editor at WELTGeschichte and has been working on the subject of the RAF for a quarter of a century. His fourth book on German left-wing terrorism has just been published: " The Stammheim Trial. The RAF and the Baader-Meinhof Trial 1975 to 1977 ".