Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis is a true-crime documentary released on Netflix on 8 June 2022. The hostage crisis actually happened in 1988, in West Germany and the documentary is entirely made from real footage from media and CCTV cameras. It is directed by Volker Heise and shows how two criminals rob a bank, take two hostages and embark on an odyssey across Germany.
The documentary has a runtime of about 1 hour and 31 minutes and is available in German and English languages with subtitles.
-Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis Review Contains Some Spoilers-
Real Life Imitating Reel Life
The events that unfold in this true-crime documentary are nothing less than a film. Like someone has brought a crime film to life and nobody knows how two deal with it. On 16 August 1988, in the morning, two armed men tried to rob the Deutsche Bank in Gladbeck and put two employees hostage. A 34-year old Reinhold Alles and a 23-year old female account manager were trapped inside the bank by the armed robbers.
Through negotiation with the police, the armed men asked for a vehicle and bags full of money. Their demand was met and the robbers fled away in the car with the hostages at night. Now you would think that they must have gone far away to hide but rather they drove to Bremen in North Germany and took a bus and its passengers hostages.
In Bremen, after several failed attempts to hire a car, the two men stormed a bus with more than 30 passengers. Likewise, the journalists swarmed to the bus station to get a closer look. This is the point where the media crossed the line. One of the journalists, Peter Meyer, walked up to the robbers and casually started talking and got invited to take some pictures on board the bus itself. One of the robbers even gave an impromptu press conference on the street with a pistol in hand directly pointing toward them.
Who Were The Robbers?
The main robber who mostly interacted with the media named, Hans-Jürgen Rösner was a 31-year old man who escaped from prison two years ago while on furlough. His partner in crime was a 32-year old man named Dieter Degowski and later on, they were joined by a female armed member, who turned out to be Hans’s girlfriend. While giving the interview to the press, Hans-Jürgen Rösner mentioned that he and his partners don’t have any will to live. They just want their demand for money to be fulfilled without any problems.
He said that they don’t want to hurt anyone deliberately but if their demands are not met then there would be an absolute bang-bang, ie they will kill anyone in sight. He even mentioned that they are criminals by nature and even thought of joining a terrorist group because that’s their way of life and what they prefer. If they come to a dead point then they will kill the hostages and then themselves with no regrets.
Who Was At Fault? Media or Police?
In Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis, the most jarring element is how there are no boundaries. The media seems like a friend to the criminals, offering them a cigarette, phones, their own cars and even themselves as a hostage. Meanwhile, the police seem to be nowhere in sight or even trying to seal the location of the crime from the public. This could be one of the reasons that this hour-long documentary could be made entirely from the media footage that they recorded on the scene.
Not knowing the conclusion of the real incident, in the middle of the documentary when Hans was cosying up with the reporters and even letting some of the old passengers go freely, I thought maybe it might not end up in a bad place. But soon after, when police arrested Hans’s girlfriend while she was in the washroom, it led the robbers to injure a police officer and shoot a 15-year old boy. It can be seen as a careless attempt by police as they should have arrested the trio together and not when the other two had hostage at hand.
However, after numerous car chases and following around Germany, the criminals were arrested on a highway in Siegburg after almost 54 hours. Unfortunately, in the direct encounter, one of the hostages was shot dead while others were gravely injured. I believe the tired and sleepless condition of the robbers might have made the chasing encounter successful otherwise it could have ended with many dead bodies.
Final Thoughts: Stream It Or Skip It?
Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis on Netflix is a definite stream that will make you realise that real life can be even more bizarre than a fictional film. It is a well made documentary film which gives you a detailed overview of the incident and showcases what really happened in real life. One of the jarring moments is when the reporter asks the hostage with a gun pressed against her neck if she is afraid. But the hostage, an 18-year old girl named Silke Bischoff, answers no with a smile as it feels surreal to her and doesn’t think that he will pull the trigger.
This interview is definitely something out of a film but if it was a film, then she would fall in love with her abductor, but her fate in real life had other plans as she was the hostage who was shot dead in the encounter. This incident left a big scar in Germany’s history and from then on the reporters were not allowed to interview perpetrators while they are committing a crime.
Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis is streaming on Netflix.
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That was a wild documentary. I kept shouting where was the police? I was so sad to see all the glum hostages and the press laughing with the robbers and taking pictures. just utter incompetence all around and media before cable news.
I was really affected by this. That poor girl hostage so scared and the braziness of the hostage takers doing interviews even after killing a young teenager. The media were terrible …scrambling for their stories while lives were ar risk. The police so ineffective. The shock is the outcome. I said a prayer for that girl and boy tonight. Even in the eighties the world could be fairly messed up.