1982 seizure of the Polish embassy in Bern

The 1982 seizure of the Polish embassy in Bern, Switzerland was a politically as well as financially motivated hostage situation.

Events

On September 6, 1982, a group of four exiled Poles armed with four Remington 870 repeating rifles, multiple knives and gas masks stormed the Polish embassy in Bern in Switzerland and took 14 of the embassy workers hostage. The group was headed by Florian Kruszyk, a former employee of the Security Service (Służba Bezpieczeństwa, SB). Communicating by tossing a message written in Polish from a window, the group demanded the abolishment of martial law in Poland, the release of all political prisoners, the dismantlement of what they described as prison camps, and the end of "all repression of the Polish people". They threatened to hand over confidential documents (supposedly detailing secret senders and receivers, photos of military facilities in Switzerland, plans, lists of secret agents in Germany and France, and lists of hidden money) to Swiss authorities and to blow up the embassy building should their demands not be met within 48 hours. The four gunmen self-identified as members of the "Polish insurgent home army" (Powstańcza Armia Krajowa), a group designated a terrorist organization by Poland, which was believed to also be responsible for a deadly attack on February 18, 1982 on Zdzisława Karosa, a member of the Citizens' Militia.

Negotiations, headed by the then Bundesrat Kurt Furgler and also aided by Dominican Józef Maria Bocheński, took place over the course of 35 (recorded) phone calls. Attempts to convince the gunmen to surrender proved unsuccessful. Around 36 hours after the start of the hostage situation, the gunmen surprisingly found a military attaché in the embassy. He had previously hidden in a secret room in the embassy. The gunmen used this to their advantage, enticing the negotiators with the newly found intelligence that would be of interest to different nations. In the meantime, the task force already started to make plans for how to process all these highly important documents.

At first, the Polish authorities intended to storm the embassy with one of their own special forces groups, though these offers were shunned by Swiss authorities. However, as the situation became increasingly grim for the gunmen, they lowered their demands to ransom (3 million Swiss francs) and the possibility to flee to a foreign country, preferably Albania or China.

On September 8, 10:15 p.m., the Federal Council convenes as a whole and agrees to give Furgler a carte blanche, allowing him to unilaterally decide on whether to raid the embassy premises with special forces.

On September 9, 0:30 a.m., Furgler orders to conduct the rescue operation, "Operation Essen", as soon as possible.

On September 9, 10:39 a.m., a policeman in plain clothes drops off multiple boxes (or in other sources, a food basket) on the embassy doorstep, purportedly to bring breakfast for the occupants of the house. It contains a petard with tear gas and flash. As the policeman spots all four hostage takers in the entrance hall, he gives a hidden signal to his crew: sweeping through his hair and turning away. Seconds later, after an initial failed detonation, the bomb explodes and units of the elite antiterrorist squad "Stern" (German for "star") raid the embassy. The raid successfully concludes 12 minutes later without a single shot being fired and without any resistance from the hostage takers. Later, police forces also rescue an attaché who was trapped on the compound during the siege and who was not found by the gunmen.

By the time special forces raided the premises, only 5 of the originally 14 hostages had still been held captive; eight, a student, an ill diplomat and six women, were released prior; one, the diplomatic attaché, escaped through the roof. Some of the hostages would later reveal to Polish journalists that the gunmen had beaten and threatened them with execution.

It was later learned that the gunmen did, in fact, not possess the 55 pounds of dynamite they threatened to blow up the embassy building with. A Škorpion they carried was also later revealed to only be a mockup.

The fact that the group leader Kruszyk served a 9-year sentence in Austria for the 1969 armed holdup of a Viennese jewelry shop during which he held the jeweller's family hostage made some experts believe that the seizure had been financial rather than political in motivation from the beginning.

Perpetrators

• Florian Kruszyk, 42, former employee of the Security Service, ex-military
• Marek Michalski, 20
• Miroslaw Plewinski, 23
• Krysztof Wasilewski, 33

Aftermath

The gunmen were sentenced to imprisonment on October 10, 1983; their leader, Kruszyk, to 6 years of prison (Zuchthaus) and 15 years of banishment. The three other perpetrators were sentenced to 2.5 to 3 years of prison and 5 years of banishment. Extradition to Poland was rejected by Swiss authorities, noting that Poland was not part of a Western European agreement on the prosecution of terrorists.

Secret documents

Revealed only in 2013, almost simultaneously as the liberation, members of the Federal Intelligence Service illegally (by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations) entered the embassy, seized diplomatic documents, brought them to the nearby federal prosecutor's office, where they were photocopied, before they were returned to the embassy. When Swiss authorities returned documents to the Polish military attaché, among them a dossier labeled "Nato", the attaché said that he has never seen the documents before. The police has not taken any pictures of the secret archive and the work place of the military attaché for unknown reasons.

Benno Schneider, head of the task force for hostage situations (Sonderstab Geiselnahmen) explicitly ordered that the documents be copied and then returned unscathed («Ich erteilte den Auftrag, wies die Beteiligten an, die Akten zu kopieren und nachher unversehrt in die Botschaft zurückzustellen.»). Despite consistent denial of secret seizure of the documents when talking to the press, Furgler has approved copying the documents. The official report states that some of the documents were accidentally taken from the embassy in midst of the general disorder and heat of the moment.

The espionage documents contained reconnaissance reports about Swiss military airports, secret agents, Germany and the NATO.

Film adaptation

Polish film director Janusz Kidawa cinematized the incident in his film "Ultimatum".

See also

• 1955 seizure of the Romanian embassy in Bern

Further reading

• Ost-Europa, Band 33, 1983, S. 737.
• Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv, items E4001E und E4320C.
• "Schweiz – Hart bleiben", Der Spiegel, 19 May, no. 37, 1982