Bruce Allen Scharlau PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText

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policy must be to foster identification with the free democratic state,
which can only occur when it is protected and defended. 23
The murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer's driver and bodyguards in the
course of his abduction by the Red Army Faction called for the
government's allegiance to its previous policy statements about the
relationship between terrorism and the liberal democratic state. The
government initially viewed this as a provocation that required a hard
response and a cool head. Anyone who sought to excuse or lessen the
serious danger of the situation, isolated thanselves from the others who
identified with the rule of law and social order of the state.24
On 6 September the government decided-
-in consultation with the
opposition parties- -to follow three simultaneous aims as policy
orientation guides. These were to free Schleyer alive, to apprehend and
to try the abductors, and to maintain the state's freedom of action,
which
included non-release of the prisoners, and not to endanger
domestic and foreign confidence in the state. Only when one of these
goals forced a decision between it and another, would a decision over
the prevalence of one over the other be taken. 25 These goals were not
communicated to the public and the Schleyer family, who did not realise
the conflict between the first and third goals. The conflict between not
releasing the prisoners and the rescue of Schleyer alive would only be
resolved if the authorities could locate and free him.26 Realisation of
these goals was facilitated through a news embargo on the events21 (see
chapter seven).
These made public identification with Schleyer more
difficult and eased an identification with the government because little
information was available about the hostage I s condition, and more was
known about the government efforts.
Paragraph 34 (Justified Emergency) of the Criminal Code was used
this time to justify the government IS' contact ban' on suspected and
convicted terrorists to prevent them passing and receiving information
about the events via their lawyers and to inhibit the release of the
23 Schmidt, Bulletin 40/1977, 363, 365-6.
24 Helmut Schmidt, "Erschuetterung und Empoerung ueber den
Mordanschlag in Koeln und die Entfuehrung von Dr. Schleyer" Bulletin 84
(7 September) 1977, 789-90.
25 Press and Information Office of the Federal Government,
Dokumentation zu den Ereignissen tmd Entscheidtmgen im Zusarnnenhang mit
der Entfuehrung von Hanns Martin Schleyer tmd der Lufthansa Machine
'Landshut' (Bonn: Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung,
1977), 17-9. Hereafter referred to as Schleyer Dokurnentation.
26 Thomas Wittke, Terrorismusbekaempftmg als rationale politische
Entscheidtmg: Die Fallstudie Btmdesrepublik (Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang,
1983), 216.
21 II' Die Deutschen sind irrsinnig geworden' 11 Der Spiegel 36 ( 31
August) 1987, 106-11, 108.