Silke Bischoff

Silke Bischoff

The Gladbeck hostage crisis or Gladbeck hostage drama was a bank robbery and hostage-taking that took place in West Germany from 16 to 18 August 1988. Two men with prior criminal records – Hans-Jürgen Rösner and Dieter Degowski – robbed a branch of the Deutsche Bank in Gladbeck, North Rhine-Westphalia, taking two employees as hostages. During their flight, they were joined by Rösner's girlfriend Marion Löblich, with whom they hijacked a public transport bus in Bremen. With twenty-seven hostages aboard, they drove towards the Netherlands, where all but two hostages were released and the bus was exchanged for a getaway car. The hostage-taking was finally ended when the police rammed the getaway car on the A3 motorway near Bad Honnef, North Rhine-Westphalia.During the hostage crisis, a 15-year-old boy and an 18-year-old woman were killed. A third victim, a 31-year-old police officer, died in a traffic accident while chasing the hostage-takers. At the time, the unfolding of events was extensively covered by West German media, which quickly spiraled into a media circus. In the aftermath of the hostage crisis, journalists have been criticised for conducting interviews with the hostage-takers, asking them to pose for photographs, and aiding them by giving them, among other things, coffee and road directions. This resulted in the German Press Council banning any future interviews with hostage-takers during hostage situations.

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