West German Embassy Siege - The Siege

The Siege

The group consisted of six members: Karl-Heinz Dellwo, Siegfried Hausner, Hanna-Elise Krabbe, Bernhard Rössner, Lutz Taufer and Ulrich Wessel. They entered the embassy, took thirteen embassy officials, including ambassador Dietrich Stoecher, hostage (or twelve officials, according to some sources), and then proceeded to occupy the upper floors of the building.

They warned Swedish police to back off or some hostages would be killed, but the police did not comply and one of the hostages, Baron von Mirbach, a German military attaché was marched out on to the landing and murdered.

The group was then told that Chancellor Helmut Schmidt was not prepared to negotiate with them; in response, economic attaché Hillegaart was made to stand at a window and was then shot three times. With the murder of Hillegaart, the attackers announced that they would execute one hostage every hour until their demands were met.

Swedish police prepared to storm the building, but before they had the chance to, the embassy was rocked by a series of violent explosions; the TNT had been detonated. Ulrich Wessel dropped a grenade, which detonated and killed him. The remaining hostages, as well as the SPK/RAF terrorists, all suffered severe burns. Siegfried Hausner was flown back to West Germany, but died later of his wounds.

The explosion of the embassy was caught on tape. Swedish news reporter Bo Holmström was standing outside the embassy ready to broadcast when the explosions took off. After taking cover Holmström starts yelling "Lägg ut, lägg ut!" ("Start broadcast, start broadcast!") to make sure that he was out in the air. When he knew he was live he began to report from the events.