Caption
West German Embassy siege in Stockholm 1975. On April 24, 1975, Kommando Holger Meins of the armed left-wing extremist organization Red Army Faction RAF, occupied the West German Embassy on Skarpögatan in Gärdet, Stockholm. The RAF group carried out the attack with the goal of forcing the release of RAF members and others from prison in West Germany. The occupiers took a number of people hostage, including the ambassador Dietrich Stoecker. Swedish police prepared to storm the building, but before they had the chance to do so, the embassy was rocked by a series of violent explosions, the TNT had somehow been detonated. It turned out that one of the terrorists, Ulrich Wessel, had dropped a grenade, which killed him and detonated the TNT. The remaining hostages, as well as the other RAF members, all suffered severe burns. The extradition of the captured and surviving RAF militants was ordered by the Swedish then-Minister of Employment, Anna-Greta Leijon. Siegfried Hausner was flown back to West Germany, where he soon died of his wounds in Stammheim prison. Pictured policemen with weapons behind a police car in the embassy area
Date
Apr 24, 1975
Credit line
Photo12/imageBROKER/Sjoberg
Reference
BRK25F51_375
Model release
No
Property release
No
License type
Rights managed
Available size
27,8Mb (994,7Kb) / 12,2in x 8,9in / 3657 x 2656 (300dpi)