Deadly Game, Parts I and II

Very few events have influenced the post-war history of West-German society as greatly as dramatic weeks during the “German Auttum of 1977”. The RAF (Red Army Faction) kidnapping of the Employer´s Association president Hanns Martin Schleyner on september 5 in Cologne, and a Palestinian terror commando´s hijacking of the Lufthansa plan “LANDSHUT” ON October 13 kept the Federal Republic of Germany in suspense for six weeks. Using dramatics scenes and supported by historical films documents and the accounts of people involved, Heinrich Breloer recollects the events of those 45 days in a new two-part movie. The conflict, with the adversaries essentially experienced as a civil war, theatrened to plunge Germany´s seemingly stable post-war democracy into a grave crisis. Part I “People Prison” The first part describes the kidnapping of Schleyer, the initial decisions made and the first counter measures taken in Bonn, the search for the kidnappers and the psychological drama that develops between Scheyler and the terrorists guarding him. It ends with an escalation of the crisis, the bulletin that the “Landshut” has been hijacked. Part II “Hijack the Landshut” The second part depicts the inferno in the hijacked airplane, The Federal Criminal Investigation Agency´s negotiations with the prisoners in Stammheim Prison regarding their apparently imminent release and flight to a foreing country. The end comes with the collective suicide in Stammheim´s high security wing and the shooting of Schleyer, who had hoped that the airplane hijacking could after his fate once more. [Part II available, Part I in process]