Forty years ago next month, German anti-terror commandos stormed a Lufthansa jet in Somalia, shot its Palestinian hijackers and freed 90 hostages, a climax to a bloody era of far-left militancy.
The 1977 Mogadishu raid became a symbol of the “German Autumn,” when the state was at war with “urban guerrillas” of the Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang, and their international allies.
The storied old Boeing 737 Landshut, having quietly rusted away in Brazil for almost a decade, was yesterday scheduled to finally return home, destined to serve as a memorial to that turbulent era.
“It’s a living symbol of a free society that refuses to give in to fear and terror,” said German Minister for Foreign Affairs Sigmar Gabriel, whose ministry bought the gutted airplane for the bargain price of 20,000 euros (US$23,902).
Broken up into its fuselage and wings, it was scheduled to be transported aboard two giant Russian transport planes from Fortaleza, Brazil, via Cape Verde to the southern German city of Friedrichshafen.
In the years since that dramatic night, the aircraft kept flying — first for Lufthansa, then for French, Indonesian and finally a Brazilian airline, which in 2008 retired it on the jungle’s edge.
The airplane, weathered by tropical sun and rain, is now to find a new home in Germany’s Dornier Museum Friedrichshafen as an exhibition space on Germany’s era of homegrown terrorism.
On Oct. 13, 1977, four militants of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked Lufthansa Flight LH-181, demanding the release of 11 RAF members.
In a five-day odyssey, the plane made seven refueling stops in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The Lufthansa jet landed in Mogadishu on Oct. 17, where the cell’s leader issued an ultimatum, threatening to set off plastic explosives and dousing passengers in alcohol to accelerate the fire.
The operation, codenamed Feuerzauber (“Fire Magic”), was the first mission of GSG9, founded after the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of Jewish athletes.
While German officials played for time, commandos approached the airplane’s rear blind spot, then climbed blackened ladders to its doors and escape hatches.
The commandos stormed in, one yelling: “Heads down, where are the pigs!?” and riddled all four hijackers with bullets, killing three and badly wounding the fourth.
The 82 passengers, four surviving crew and the commandos were unharmed.
Hours later in Germany, prison guards reported finding the bodies of three RAF leaders. Their deaths were declared suicides.
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