GSG 9 of the Federal Police

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GSG 9 of the Federal Police
- GSG 9 -

Badge of the GSG 9
Activity badge of the GSG 9
State level Federation
position Special association in the federal police
Business area BMI
Supervisory authority Federal Police Directorate 11
founding Sept. 26, 1972 as Border Guard Group 9, since July 1, 2005 as GSG 9 of the Federal Police
Headquarters Saint Augustine
commander Jérôme Fox
Servants 250-450
Web presence www.bundespolizei.de
Abseiling process of the special unit GSG 9 (2005)

The GSG 9 of the Federal Police ( GSG 9 BPOL or GSG 9 for short ) is the special unit of the German Federal Police for the fight against serious and violent crime and terrorism with locations in Sankt Augustin - Hangelar and Berlin. Since August 1, 2017, it has been subordinate to Federal Police Directorate 11 .

The GSG 9 is trained as an anti-terrorist unit , hostage rescue and bomb disposal and was founded as Border Guard Group 9 on September 26, 1972 after the hostage-taking in Munich , during which the police overburdened the murder of eleven Israeli participants in the Olympic Games in Munich by the Black September terror squad could not prevent it. After the renaming of the Federal Border Guard , the GSG 9 continues to bear its name, but now with the addition of "the Federal Police".

The GSG 9 became famous after the hostage release of the Lufthansa plane “Landshut”, which was hijacked by Palestinian terrorists , in the German autumn of 1977.

Name and order

The designation GSG 9 is explained by the structure of the Federal Border Guard, which, when this unit was founded, consisted of four border guard commands with a total of eight border guard groups (GSG 1 to 7 and the sea). Since the GSG 9 was not incorporated into any of the existing structures, it was given the designation Grenzschutzgruppe 9. This designation and the status of a border guard group was retained during the reorganization of the Federal Border Guard, even after the border guard groups were dissolved in favor of the border guard departments in 1981 and the Reclassification of the Border Guard Commands to Border Guard Presidia in 1993. After the Federal Border Guard was renamed the Federal Police , the abbreviation was retained because of its familiarity, but the addition of the Federal Police was added.

As an anti- terrorist unit , the GSG 9 specializes in combating terrorism , freeing hostages and defusing bombs. The unit of the Federal Police is used today primarily to fight serious crime, which would often be too dangerous for police officers on patrol duty. In 2000 the unit completed 26 successful missions. This includes both the mission tasks originally intended for the GSG 9 as well as missions in which it supported other security authorities. In December 2018, commander Jerome Fuchs put the number of missions the unit had had since it was set up at almost two thousand, an average of around fifty missions a year and around thirty in 2018.

Unlike the special operations commandos (SEK) of the state police , which are formed for similar tasks, the GSG 9 is a federal unit. If a national police force is responsible for the area, it can only be used with the consent of the respective country. In federal matters, it can also be deployed outside of the Federal Republic with the consent of the host country. In contrast to foreign deployments of the Bundeswehr , this does not require the approval of the German Bundestag under the Parliamentary Participation Act. Decisions about the deployment of the unit are incumbent on the Federal Ministry of the Interior . The Federal Minister of the Interior has been deciding on the deployment of GSG 9 to rescue German hostages abroad since 2009. The Federal Police Headquarters has only had advisory tasks since then.

The GSG 9 and their relatives cannot carry out any war or military operations because the Federal Police does not have combatant status . Until the Federal Border Guard Act 1994 came into force - also at the instigation of the German Police Union - the members of the Federal Border Guard had combatant status; In 1996 the Special Forces Command (KSK) was set up as a special military unit of the Bundeswehr. The previous task of protecting German embassy staff abroad was transferred in 2009 to the responsibility of the Police Protection Tasks Abroad of the Federal Police (PSA BPOL) set up in April 2008 .

organization

Training of GSG-9 members, 1978 in Hangelar

Personnel and locations

The exact number of staff at GSG 9 is kept secret. In 1980 it was divided into a command group, four operational units with 32 men each, three technical groups and a supply unit.

In 2007 there were the following operational units:

  1. Precision shooters
  2. (Sea boarding) - Diver in the maritime group
  3. (Air) boarding specialists in the airborne unit (specialists for storming hijacked aircraft after Military Freefall )
  4. Explosives and ordnance experts
  5. Observation and IT technicians in the documentation unit.

On March 1, 2013, the Personnel Protection Abroad (PSA) department was organizationally affiliated to GSG 9 in order to use synergy effects. The office was set up in 2008 to relieve GSG 9 of the personal and property protection tasks at German diplomatic missions in crisis areas. In 2014, a total of 145 forces were deployed at five locations (Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Libya).

According to the former commander Ulrich Wegener , the unit as of 2017 comprised around 400 men. At the beginning of 2018 it became known that GSG 9 is planning a second location in Berlin in addition to its headquarters in Sankt Augustin-Hangelar and would like to increase its workforce by a third. One of the four existing units is to be stationed permanently in the capital. The Berlin part of the association is to be housed in the Schmidt-Knobelsdorf barracks in Berlin-Spandau from 2026 . Until then, the officers will be stationed in a makeshift facility in the Julius Leber barracks in the Wedding district.

The second location should in particular serve to protect the federal capital.

service

All units can complete missions. The police officers of the GSG 9, like all members of the public service, are obliged to maintain secrecy with regard to the content of their activities. Their rosters are as classified information classified. By using the GSG 9, civil servants are entitled to an allowance for special assignments ( Section 22 Paragraph 1 No. 1 Hardship Allowance Ordinance , 500 euros per month since January 1, 2017, previously 400 euros from 2008).

The GSG 9 also practices abroad if there are more suitable training opportunities there (e.g. desert or pack ice).

Commanders

Only the commanders appear in public by name, who until now (as of 2017) were without exception previously in active service of the GSG 9:

  • 1972–1980 Ulrich Wegener
  • 1980–1982 Klaus Blätte
  • 1982–1991 Uwe Dee
  • 1991–1997 Jürgen Bischoff
  • 1997-2005 Friedrich Eichele
  • 2005–2014 Olaf Lindner
  • since 2014 Jérôme Fuchs

Former

The GSG-9-Kameradschaft e. V. is a registered association of former officials of the GSG 9, which was founded on October 31, 1982 in Sankt Augustin-Hangelar.

Recruitment and training

Abseiling process on a building facade

For transfer to GSG 9, trained law enforcement officers of the Federal Police , other federal and state police forces can apply and undergo an aptitude selection process. The maximum age at the beginning of basic and special training is 34 years.

Selection of applicants

The four-day aptitude selection process (EAV) takes place in the spring of each year, just before the start of training in May (as of 2016). Applicants are checked for their health by the medical service responsible for them. An exclusion criterion for the use is u. a. wearing any visual aids.

The EAV includes selection training in which applicants are tested for their physical performance , motor skills and endurance , among other things . The conditions are:

In addition, the mental performance, concentration , ability to work in a team and the personality profile of the applicants are determined by means of psychological tests . They must also demonstrate their shooting performance and the ability to safely handle firearms. The EAV ends with a personal concluding discussion in the form of a multimodal interview . Typically 10 to 15% of applicants pass.

Basic and special training

Parachutists of the GSG9 in Essen

The successful participants start the ten-month basic and special training every year in May (as of 2016) . This includes the basic training (four months), a hardship week , the special training (according to the planned tactical use of the respective officer) and the final training career test . If the aspirant has successfully completed all of these stations, he is awarded the association's badge and is assigned to one of the operational units as a police officer for special use .

Precision shooting , diving and parachuting in Military Freefall as well as the observation service are additional qualifications for special situations. The operational divers of the GSG 9 are regularly in Eckernförde to exchange experiences about training procedures and equipment with the combat swimmers of the Bundeswehr. The parachutists of the GSG 9 are qualified in the jumping techniques HAHO and HALO .

The hand-to-hand combat / self-defense techniques focus on the martial arts of boxing , kickboxing , judo , Wingtsun and Eskrima . The techniques of arrest or detention have their roots mainly in the martial arts Jūjutsu (Jiu Jitsu) or Wingtsun.

Individual GSG-9 officers also took part in training courses from the Bundeswehr's Special Forces Command - for example, special training courses on parachuting and blasting from 2007 to 2012.

Armament and equipment

Examples of the armament of the GSG 9:

Default:

additionally:

The GSG 9 also has a wide range of special equipment.

history

Line-up after the 1972 Olympic Games

Unlike in most other countries, the GSG 9 was not created from existing military special forces, which is historical. The GSG 9 was set up after the bloody hostage-taking of Munich at the Olympic Games (attack on September 5, 1972) on September 26, 1972. During the Games, the Black September Palestinian terrorist squad took 11 Israeli athletes hostage. Access to the Fürstenfeldbruck airfield was carried out by regular police forces, as there was no SEK / MEK in Germany at that time . In the failed attempt to free the hostages, all hostages, five of the eight terrorists and one police officer were killed. Ulrich Wegener, Lieutenant Colonel in the Federal Border Police, who previously worked as a liaison officer for the BGS at the Federal Ministry of the Interior, was then commissioned by Interior Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher to set up a powerful anti-terrorist unit. In April 1973, Wegener reported the readiness of two units of the GSG 9.

Liberation of the aircraft "Landshut"

Return of the special aircraft at Cologne / Bonn Airport with Minister of State Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski and the GSG 9

One of the largest and most famous missions of the GSG 9 was the termination of the hijacking of the aircraft "Landshut" . On the night of October 18, 1977, the hostages of the Lufthansa plane hijacked by Palestinian PFLP terrorists were freed in Mogadishu (Operation Magic Fire). Storming aircraft is considered the most difficult of the possible deployment scenarios.

This mission made the GSG 9 internationally known and established its high reputation among the special forces worldwide. In addition to congratulations, the federal government also received inquiries from other countries about police training by this unit. The liberation was criticized by the governments of the Eastern Bloc : Bulgarian state television saw the Federal Republic because of the special operation on the way to dictatorship, while Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler in his propaganda program The Black Channel saw the “elite troop” as “aggressive outwardly, anti -democratic and terrorist inward ”,“ entirely in the sense of the earlier Leibstandarte [Hitler's] ”. The Foreign Office had this reaction analyzed and came to the conclusion that it was a conspiracy-based denunciation. This can be explained by the fact that the great emotional participation in the kidnapping among GDR citizens unsettled their leadership.

Celler Hole

The GSG 9 was the executive unit in the covert Operation Celler Loch , the blasting of a hole in the outer wall of the Celle correctional facility in July 1978. This demolition served a - unsuccessful - action under a false flag and was intended to attempt to break out of the unsuspecting, allegedly imprisoned RAF- Terrorist initiate Sigurd Debus in order to play a V-person of the constitution protection on him . This background was uncovered through research by investigative journalists in 1986.

Use in bathroom little ones

Confidence in the GSG 9 was shaken in the summer of 1993. On June 27, 1993, 37 GSG-9 officers and 60 other police officers tried to arrest the RAF terrorists Wolfgang Grams and Birgit Hogefeld in Bad Kleinen . While Hogefeld was being taken into custody, Grams fled and shot at the GSG-9 forces who were chasing him. In the following exchange of fire, Grams shot and killed the 26-year-old officer Michael Newrzella, who was the first GSG-9 officer to be killed on duty. Grams himself committed suicide by being shot in the head.

Because of the chaotic circumstances of the unsuccessful operation, the inadequate crime scene security and contradicting statements by GSG-9 officials about the course of the event, doubts arose about the special unit. When journalists presented testimony a few days later, according to which Grams had been "executed" by GSG-9 officials, the public experienced a crisis of confidence not only in the security organs as a whole, but also in the elite unit, which had previously been considered faultless; In the weeks after the deployment, the co-ruling FDP parliamentary group even considered dissolving the GSG 9, and the media speculated that the special unit, which fed on the “myth of Mogadishu”, was so detached that it no longer recognized its own mistakes or fix it. That is why Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl demonstratively visited GSG 9 in their headquarters in Sankt Augustin in July 1993 and assured them of his trust. The investigations of the Schwerin Public Prosecutor's Office established Grams' suicide a few months later and withstood multiple judicial reviews.

Officials killed and missing in Iraq

After the Iraq war , because of the unsafe situation, GSG-9 officers were stationed in Iraq , two of whom were chief police officers , Thomas Hafenecker and Tobias Retterath, who went missing on April 7, 2004. The two officers were property and body guards at the German embassy in Baghdad . According to ARD information, they were attacked in a vehicle convoy from Amman in Jordan to Baghdad. The attack took place near Fallujah .

Rebels had pursued the convoy, which consisted of six protected off-road vehicles and unprotected transport vehicles, after it broke through their checkpoint. The two Germans' car was the last; the Iraqis shot him with rockets and rifles until he ran off the road with blown tires and hit a house. The Germans no longer had a chance and were dead. Spokesmen for the Iraqi rebels apologized for this "accident", especially to the relatives of the officials. A US special unit convoy was assumed, although German flags were affixed to the vehicles. On May 1, 2004, Retterath's body was found. Hafenecker's remains are still missing today.

Arrest of the Sauerland group

On September 4, 2007, a GSG 9 commando was supposed to arrest the Islamist terrorist group Sauerland Group in a holiday home in Oberschledorn in the Sauerland . The access took place unscheduled after a patrol officer accidentally revealed the surveillance during a traffic control. While two suspects were arrested in the kitchen, a third suspect jumped out of the toilet window and escaped; a GSG-9 officer couldn't follow him quickly enough because of his heavy protective clothing. The pursuit was carried out by two BKA police officers who managed to bring the fugitive down. He was able to snatch the service weapon from a BKA police officer and shoot it without hitting anyone.

Operation Desert Fox

In September 2008, GSG 9 played a key role in the planned operation "Desert Fox" for the liberation of five German, five Italian and one Romanian vacationers and their eight Egyptian companions. The eleven tourists and their eight Egyptian companions were kidnapped in the Upper Egyptian desert and then deported to the border area between Egypt, Sudan, Libya and Chad. According to agency reports, the kidnappers had demanded a ransom of 6 million euros. With the help of the Bundeswehr, Lufthansa and another airline, around 150 emergency services from GSG 9 as well as material and personnel from THW were brought to Shark-el-Uweimat in southern Egypt . There were also employees of the Federal Police Air Service , the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Special Forces Command (KSK) of the Bundeswehr. The GSG 9 was not used because the kidnappers released their hostages beforehand.

Planned liberation of the freighter Hansa Stavanger

For a planned liberation of the German container cargo ship Hansa Stavanger , which was hijacked off the Somali coast on April 4, 2009 , a larger task force of the GSG 9 was ready on site. More than two hundred men from the special forces unit and six helicopters were transported to Mombasa, Kenya, at the beginning of April 2009, and a command on the American helicopter carrier USS Boxer was transferred to the coast on May 1, 2009 in preparation for an action to free the freighter. The execution of this action was stopped because of the high risk for the lives of the hostages and the officials by an inter-ministerial crisis team of the federal government from the interior, foreign and defense ministries. Hansa Stavanger was released on August 3rd after paying a ransom.

Training aid

After the successful liberation of the hostages in Somalia in 1977 (Operation Feuerzauber), GSG 9 received requests from various countries to help with their training. The GSG 9 made a significant contribution to the establishment of the US SFOD Delta force from the end of 1977.

The GSG 9 was criticized for later help with training security forces abroad. Former GSG-9 officials are said to have been involved in the Libya affair that became known in 2008 , the private training commitment of members of German security forces in Libya . From 2008 to 2011, the GSG trained 9 Belarusian security forces for the autocratic President Aljaksandr Lukashenka .

In 2015, special police forces, the BFE + of the federal police, were set up to relieve GSG 9. GSG 9 is responsible for the eight-week supplementary training BFE + for the federal police officers recruited from the group of existing evidence preservation and arrest units.

International connections

The GSG 9 is a member of the Atlas Association of European Police Special Forces. In an international comparison competition, the Original SWAT World Challenge (OSWC) in the USA, the GSG 9 won in 2005 and 2006 against similar special police forces from the United States, Japan and Canada. Since 1983 the GSG 9 has organized the Combat Team Conference competition , the "unofficial world championship of police and military special forces", which takes place every four years .

Comparable units of the GDR

The main department XXII (HA XXII) of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) maintained a battalion as an anti-terror and special reconnaissance unit with five decentralized units spread over the national territory.

In the People's Police there was Service Unit IX and the 9th People's Police Company of the barracked units of the Ministry of the Interior in Potsdam / Eiche (barracks of the 3rd and 20th VP readiness) with a similar operational profile. These units were set up from 1973 in the run-up to the World Festival of Youth and Students . The frequency of use is considered considerable. Between 1974 and 1989, the unit stationed in Potsdam was shown a total of 83 times on different occasions. a. Used in deserting armed Russian deserters, but also with those of the NVA or border troops.

In district authorities of the People's Police (BDVP) there were smaller anti-terror units comparable to the SEK from members of the branches of the People's Police / Service Unit IX.

Documentaries

  • Uli Weidenbach: Myth GSG 9 - 40 years of fighting terror. In: ZDF-History , Germany 2012 (45 min.).
  • GSG9 - Terror in the sights. In: Die Story im Ersten , Germany 2019 (44 min.)

literature

Web links

Commons : GSG 9  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: GSG 9  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Josef Hufelschulte: Elite unit: Spezialtaucher becomes the new head of GSG 9 ( Memento of October 7, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). In: Focus . October 7, 2014.
  2. ↑ GSG 9 is the special and elite unit of the Federal Police: Commander Jerome Fuchs. In: SWR1 people, December 26, 2018.
  3. ↑ Interior Minister will command GSG 9 in future . In: Der Spiegel . No. 24 , 2009 ( online - June 8, 2009 ). .
  4. ↑ See Reinhard Scholzen : KSK. Special Forces Command. Motor book, Stuttgart 2009.
  5. ↑ GSG 9 of the Federal Police: Information sheet The GSG 9 of the Federal Police is looking for offspring! June 28, 2007.
  6. ↑ Annual report 2014 (PDF; 7.0 MB) ( Memento from December 29, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Federal Police, July 13, 2015, p. 35.
  7. ↑ Ulrich Wegener : GSG 9 - Stronger than terror. Edited by Ulrike Zander and Harald Biermann . Lit, Münster 2017, ISBN 978-3-643-13762-3 , p. 129.
  8. ↑ tagesschau.de: Elite association GSG9 now also stationed in Berlin. Retrieved July 10, 2019 .
  9. ↑ GSG 9 is to be enlarged by a third. In: Welt Online , January 15, 2018.
  10. ↑ Holger Schmidt : How safe are we? Counter-terrorism in Germany. A critical balance. Orell Füssli, Zurich 2017, ISBN 978-3-280-03988-5 (e-book), chapter 6 (2nd section: Who owns the GSG 9? ).
  11. ^ Siegburg District Court , VR 1289; Articles of Association of GSG 9 Kameradschaft e. V. ( Memento from February 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ Step 1: Training to become a police officer. Retrieved February 25, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Step 2: The application for GSG 9. Accessed on February 25, 2020 .
  14. ↑ Federal Police - The aptitude selection process. Retrieved February 7, 2019 .
  15. ↑ https://www.bundespolizei.de/Web/DE/05Die-Bundespolizei/04Einsatzkraefte/GSG9-neu/03-Training/Ausb_Vorbereitung/vornahm_node.html;jsessionid=D4FD4748155A826691429E05EAB252AF.2_cid324
  16. ^ German Bundestag, 17th electoral term - BT-Drs. 17/10006 : Answer of the Federal Government of June 14, 2012 to the minor question from the Members Jelpke, Gehrcke, van Aken u. a. and the parliamentary group DIE LINKE regarding equipment of the GSG9 and their cooperation with military forces (Drs. 17/9822).
  17. ↑ Leigh Neville: European Counter-Terrorist Units 1972-2017 . Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017, ISBN 978-1-4728-2528-5 , pp. 58 ( preview in Google Book Search [accessed September 14, 2019]).
  18. ↑ a b c Federal Police - Training. Retrieved December 9, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Federal Police GSG9. In: bundespolizei.de. Retrieved September 13, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Christoph Rojahn: Military anti-terrorist units as an answer to the threat of international terrorism and an instrument of national security policy - the example of America. Herbert Utz, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-89675-841-1 , chap. Historical and organizational precursors of American anti-terrorist units , pp. 70–88 (also dissertation, University of Munich, 2000; preview in Google book search).
  21. ↑ Tim Geiger: The “Landshut” in Mogadishu reports this assessment (with evidence of the quotations) without its own assessment . The foreign policy crisis management of the federal government in view of the terrorist challenge 1977. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte . Volume 57, 2009, Issue 3, pp. 413–456, here p. 447 ( ifz-muenchen.de [PDF; 587 kB]). He evaluated the political files of the Foreign Office on Operation Magic Fire for the first time after their approval.
  22. ↑ Jürgen Dahlkamp, ​​Holger Stark: Police: Lost in Fallujah . In: Der Spiegel . No. 9 , 2010 ( online - March 1, 2010 ). .
  23. ↑ Marianne Quoirin: Police comedy with terrorists. Hunting scenes in the Sauerland. In: Frankfurter Rundschau , November 11, 2009; Irene Geuer, Paul Elmar Jöris : Homemade Terror - The Trial of the “Sauerland Group”. In: Deutschlandfunk , “ Background ” from April 21, 2009.
  24. ↑ Liberation operation: Elite troop GSG 9 planned deployment in Egypt. In: Welt Online , September 30, 2008.
  25. ↑ "Operation Desert Fox" planned: German hostages are back. In: n-tv .de , September 30, 2008.
  26. ↑ GSG9 mission stopped off Somalia. In: Handelsblatt . May 2, 2009; Reinhard Scholzen : Who should free German hostages abroad? In: European Security. Vol. 59, No. 7, July 2010, ISSN  0940-4171 , pp. 82-85.
  27. ↑ Christoph Rojahn: Military anti-terrorist units as an answer to the threat of international terrorism and an instrument of national security policy - the example of America. Herbert Utz, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-89675-841-1 , chap. 1st Special Forces Operations Detachment - Delta I Combat Applications G. History and Structure, pp. 89–94, here p. 93 (also dissertation, University of Munich, 2000; preview in Google book search).
  28. ^ Cooperation with dictator Lukashenko: GSG 9 trained Belarusian police officers. In: Spiegel Online . November 1, 2012.
  29. ↑ Combat Team Conference 2015 (CTC) at GSG 9. In: SEK Einsatz , July 10, 2015.
  30. ↑ Reinhard Scholzen : SEK: Special task forces of the German police. 5th edition. Motorbuch, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-613-02016-0 , pp. 168–170.
  31. ↑ Video: The story in the first: GSG9 - Terror in the sights. In: daserste.de. ARD, accessed on December 8, 2019 (available until December 2020).
  32. ↑ Recommended book by the Federal Ministry of the Interior 2011, PDF ( Memento from April 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), p. 18.

Coordinates: 50 ° 45 ′ 48 ″  N , 7 ° 9 ′ 4 ″  E