Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis

[Dolallytats]

I've just finished watching this on Netflix and I can't believe what I saw. This is a real footage documentary on a hostage situation on Germany in 1988.
A news anchor called the hostage takers DURING the original Bank robbery, there were photos and interviews all while these events were taking place.
They shot a 14 year old boy in the head and, even after this horrific event, journalists were buying them coffee, fags, offering to swap places with the hostages....and the police had no idea what they were doing.
It was shocking to watch, has anyone else seen it?

Yes I watched it the other night and really enjoyed it.
I was gobsmacked that it went on for days though, with what looked like, the police doing very little.

It seems all the onlookers they interviewed couldn't believe how it unfolded either.

The way nobody intervened and even interviewed the hostages and filmed them. The police would have had multiple attempts to have 'picked them off' as they seemed to be out doing press walkabouts every few hours. Honestly one of the most shocking things ive seen

cantgetausername
I agree.

Then capturing the female kidnapper, and letting her go again

I just couldn't believe what I was watching, it was like a Pink Panther movie.
I love watching real crime docs, they are as fascinating as they are gruesome, but the behaviour of the reporters and bystanders really shocked me.

I watched it. Truly awful what the hostages endured while the world around them treated it like some sort of spectacle.
And the police? Utterly useless.

I've not watched it yet, but remember extended news coverage at the time. My parents usually sent me out of the room, but I still saw enough.
The sister of the killed boy was my age, so it really hit home.

It was more or less where I lived at the time and it showed that journalists (well one type) would do anything under the pretext of doing their jobs and 'informing' the public - catering to 'Gaffers' (gaffen = to gape): people who get their kicks out of the suffering of others (car crashes, house fires, visiting sights of catastrophies like floods etc., and today upload to social media).

I watched it last night, and quite honestly the seeming incompetence of the police and the behaviour of the press made my blood boil.

However, what I found equally appalling was the behaviour of the general public who treated it as an event.