Hanns-Martin Schleyer

Hanns-Martin Schleyer (May 1 1915 – October 18 1977) was a German manager and employer and industry representative, being the head of the two influential organizations Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA) and Federation of German Industries (BDI). While serving both functions, he was kidnapped on 5 September, 1977 by the extreme-left terrorist organisation Red Army Faction (RAF) and murdered one and a half months later after the German government did not give in to RAF's demands. The abduction and murder are commonly seen as the climax of the RAF insurgency in Germany (German Autumn).

In the Third Reich, Schleyer had been a mid-ranking SS officer. In World War II, he had first served at the Western Front and, after an accident, been deployed as an adviser to a German economist in one of the territories occupied by Nazi Germany. In post-war Germany, Schleyer joined the conservative party CDU.

Youth

Born in Offenburg, Germany, Schleyer came from a national-conservative family. His father was a judge and his great-great uncle was Johann Martin Schleyer, a renowned Catholic priest. Hanns-Martin Schleyer started studying law at the University of Heidelberg in 1933. He joined the "Corps Suevia", a fraternity. In 1939 he obtained a doctorate at the University of Innsbruck.

Nazi involvement

Very early in his life he became a follower of National Socialism. After a stint in the Hitler Youth, the youth organization of the National Socialist Party, he joined the SS in 1933 and was an Untersturmführer. During his studies, he was engaged in the Nazi student movement. An early, important mentor of this time was the student leader Gustav Adolf Scheel. In the summer of 1935, Schleyer accused his fraternity of lacking "national socialist spirit". He left the fraternity when the "Kösener SC", an umbrella organization, refused to exclude Jewish members. Schleyer started a career as a leader in the national socialist student movement and, in 1937, he joined the NSDAP. At first he was the president of the student body of the University of Heidelberg. Later, "Reichsstudentenführer" Scheel sent him to post-Anschluss Austria, where he occupied the same position at the University of Innsbruck. In 1939 Schleyer married Waltrude Ketterer (1916-2008), daughter of the physician, city councillor of Munich and SA-Obergruppenführer Emil Ketterer. They had four sons.

During World War II, Schleyer was drafted and spent time on the Western Front. After an accident, he was discharged and appointed president of the student body in Prague. In this position he met Bernhard Adolf, one of the German economic leaders in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, who brought Schleyer to the industrial association of Bohemia and Moravia in 1943. Schleyer became an important deputy and adviser to Bernhard Adolf. On May 5 1945, Schleyer escaped from the city shortly after the start of the Prague uprising.

After the war

After World War II, Schleyer was a prisoner of war for three years, because he had held the rank of an officer (Untersturmführer) in the SS. In 1948 he was repatriated.

In 1949 he became secretary of the chamber of commerce of Baden-Baden. In 1951, Schleyer joined Daimler-Benz, where he climbed the ladder, with the help of his mentor Fritz Könecke, to be a member of the board of directors. At the end of the 1960s, he was almost appointed chairman of the board, but lost the position to Joachim Zahn. Successively, Schleyer got more involved in employers' associations, and was a leader in employer and industry associations. He was simultaneously president of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA) and the Federation of German Industries (BDI).

His uncompromising acts during industrial protests in the 1960s (such as lockouts), his history with the Nazi party, and his aggressive appearance, especially on TV (the New York Times described him as a "caricature of an ugly capitalist"), made Schleyer the ideal enemy for the 1968 student movement. A pocket book novel by Bernt Engelmann, "Großes Bundesverdienstkreuz" from 1974, also created a public image of Schleyer being the key figure of a conservative network with the aim of bringing Helmut Kohl and Kurt Biedenkopf to power in the German federal government in Bonn.

Abduction and murder

Schleyer was kidnapped on September 5 1977 by the Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as "Baader-Meinhof Gang", in Cologne. The RAF tried to blackmail the German government into releasing imprisoned members of their group. Two police officers and Schleyer's driver Heinz Marcicz as well as his body guard were killed in the kidnapping.

Schleyer was hidden in a highrise in Erftstadt (Liblar) near Cologne. Later, he was taken across the border into the Netherlands, and subsequently moved to Brussels, where he spent the majority of his time in captivity. The German police came very close to finding Schleyer, but due to lack of internal communication could not rescue him. Several local police officers were convinced that Schleyer was held in the aforementioned highrise close to the Autobahn. One investigator had even rung the doorbell of the apartment in question, but nobody had conveyed this information to the crisis center of the federal police.

After 43 days, the German government had not given in to the demands of the kidnappers. Hours after the German anti-terror unit GSG 9 ended the Palestinian hijack of Lufthansa Flight 181, the imprisoned RAF members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe were found dead in their prison cells. Irmgard Möller was found seriously injured.

After Schleyer's kidnappers received the news of the deaths of their imprisoned comrades, Schleyer was taken from Brussels on October 18, 1977, and shot dead en route to Mulhouse, France, where his body was left in the trunk of a green Audi 100 on the rue Charles Péguy. After the kidnappers phoned the location of the Audi to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur office in Stuttgart, Schleyer's body was recovered on October 19.

On September 9, 2007 former RAF member Peter-Jürgen Boock mentioned that the RAF members Rolf Heissler and Stefan Wisniewski were responsible for Schleyer's death. [ [http://www.worldwidelexicon.org/translation/1790.html WorldwideLexicon.Marx: Ex-Terrorist Reveals Names Of The Schleyer Murderers ] ]

Schleyer's widow, Waltrude Schleyer, actively campaigned against clemency for his kidnappers and other members of the RAF. cite news |first=|last=|title=Obituaries in the news: Waltrude Schleyer |url=http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/26/america/Deaths.php|work= Associated Press |publisher=International Herald Tribune |date=2008-03-26 |accessdate=2008-04-05] She died on March 21, 2008, in Stuttgart.

See also

* German Autumn

References

External links

* [http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=57596 Axis History Forum]