Showdown Against RAF Terror : Helmut Schmidt’s Crisis Management in the German Autumn

"The killing of individuals must be accepted."Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, Bonn, in a telephone conversation with Minister of State Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, Dubai, October 1977The year of terror in 1977, which included the kidnapping of German industrial leader Hanns Martin Schleyer and later the hijacking of the Lufthansa plane "Landshut" with 86 passengers and five crew members on board, presented the Federal Republic of Germany with its greatest test to date.Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt had to engage in crisis management like no other incumbent before him.Hanns Martin Schleyer was ultimately murdered by his abductors, also the Captain of the “Landshut” Jürgen Schumann.The other "Landshut" hostages were freed by members of Border Guard Force 9 under Commander Ulrich Wegener. In this book, political scientist and historian Martin Rupps, who was responsible for bringing the "Landshut" wreckage back to Germany from Brazil, retells the story of these fateful weeks, drawing on