Word: schleyer
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Over the past seven months alone, Bureau Chief William Mader and Correspondent Barrett Seaman have reported nine stories involving West Germany's continuing struggle with radical violence, including the kidnaping of the since murdered industrial leader, Hanns-Martin Schleyer. Following the Schleyer abduction, terrorism became what Mader describes as a "prime preoccupation" of the bureau as it prepared to cover further developments that were sure to come-and did, with great drama, last week. Says Mader: "Tragically, the likelihood is that we will face more such stories...
After Flight 181 was skyjacked, Schleyer's captors-who call themselves the Commando Siegfried Hausner unit of the Red Army Faction-sent one ultimatum to the West German government and a second to the Paris mass-circulation daily France-Soir. In the messages, the group boasted of its ties to the skyjackers and set out its demands. Among them: the release from West German prisons of eleven convicted urban guerrillas (including Andreas Baader, co-founder of the notorious Baader-Meinhof gang); the freeing of two Palestinian guerrillas from Turkish jails; the transporting of the prisoners to Viet Nam, Somalia...
...these demands were not met, read the statement received by Bonn, "Hanns-Martin Schleyer will be shot. There will be no more extensions." In the ultimatum to the Paris daily, the terrorists warned West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt: "Any attempt on your part to delay or deceive us will mean immediate execution of Hanns-Martin Schleyer and all the passengers and crew of the plane...
...demanding freedom for the same prisoners whose release was being sought by Schleyer's abductors, the skyjackers have-in the words of a German official-"enormously complicated an already difficult situation." In the six weeks since the seizing of the 62-year-old industrialist, West German authorities have been deftly buying time in hopes that they could find a way to obtain Schleyer's release without giving in to the kidnapers. One deadline after another has expired as Bonn kept negotiating with the kidnapers through Denis Payot, a Swiss human rights activist who is not a terrorist sympathizer...
...attitude of Schleyer's kidnapers hardened in early October, shortly after Tokyo capitulated to terrorists who had skyjacked a Japan Air Lines jet to Bangladesh and demanded freedom for nine imprisoned "comrades" and $6 million in ransom. After the skyjacking last week, Schmidt began meeting around the clock with the Cabinet and two crisis groups that he had formed to handle the Schleyer kidnaping. As of early this week, his government was still refusing to buckle to the terrorists' demands. Although he has taken a hard line on terrorists, the Christian Democratic opposition has been accusing Schmidt...