Occupation of the Polish Embassy in Bern

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 Info about the audio file
Original sound of the hostage taker Florian Kruszyk: Telephone notification of the hostage takers to found espionage files
Today's consulate building of the Polish embassy in Bern (2014)

The occupation of the Polish embassy in Bern in 1982 was a politically and financially motivated hostage-taking .

procedure

On September 6, 1982, a group of four Poles in exile occupied the embassy of the People's Republic of Poland in Switzerland and took several of the embassy staff in the diplomatic service hostage . The group called for the lifting of martial law in Poland and the release of political prisoners and threatened to hand over secret files to the Swiss authorities and to blow up the embassy building. The four hostage-takers described themselves as members of the "Insurgent Home Army" (Polish Powstańcza Armia Krajowa ), which was held responsible for a fatal attack on Zdzisława Karosa, a member of the Polish citizens' militia , on February 18, 1982 . The ringleader of the group called terrorists in Poland was Florian Kruszyk, a former employee of the Polish State Security Service who was wanted for criminal offenses .

The Dominican Father Joseph Maria Bocheński was also involved in the negotiations under the leadership of Federal Councilor Kurt Furgler . The Polish authorities initially intended to storm the embassy with the help of their own special unit. When the situation for the hostage-takers became more and more hopeless, towards the end they only demanded a ransom and the possibility of fleeing abroad, preferably to Albania, instead of political measures . The hostage-taking was finally ended by the special unit "Stern" of the Bern City Police on September 9, 1982 without a shot being fired. As it became known in 2013, the Swiss authorities copied espionage files of the embassy in an illegal act after the liberation .

By the end of the occupation, the majority of the original 14 hostages had been released. The hostage-takers were sentenced to several years in prison, including Kruszyk to six years. An extradition to Poland was refused by the Swiss authorities.

filming

In 1984 the Polish director Janusz Kidawa filmed the hostage situation under the title «Ultimatum».

See also

literature

  • Ost-Europa, Volume 33, 1983, p. 737.
  • Swiss Federal Archives, holdings E4001E and E4320C.
  • Erich Aschwaden: Hostages, secret files , counter-espionage: the drama in the Polish embassy . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 198 , August 28, 2017, p. 11 ( nzz.ch ).
  • Switzerland - stay tough . In: Der Spiegel . No. 37 , 1982 ( online ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Die Zeit, September 10, 1982
  2. ↑ Art. 24 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations
  3. ↑ Julian Schmidli, Martin Stoll, Balz Spörri: The Embassy Files , in: SonntagsZeitung .
  4. ↑ Erich Aschwaden: hostages, secret files , counter-espionage: the drama in the Polish embassy . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 198 , August 28, 2017, p. 11 ( nzz.ch [accessed on August 28, 2017]).

Coordinates: 46 ° 56 '17.3 "  N , 7 ° 27' 44.9"  E ; CH1903:  601814  /  198563