User:GeschichteJ11/Singen shooting in 1977

The Singen shooting in 1977 indicates an incident in the German city Singen (Hohentwiel), in which two members of the Red Army Faction (RAF), Verena Becker and Günter Sonnenberg shot at two police officers during a Control, fled the scene and were arrested at a later point. Both the officers and the terrorists were critically wounded.

Search for Verena Becker and Günter Sonnenberg
Verena Becker has been a member of RAF since 1971. She was arrested and sentenced to six years of Jail because of her participation in a bomb attack on the Berlin British Yacht Club in 1972. After the kidnap of CDU-Chairmen Peter Lorenz in 1975, she and vor other RAF-terrorists were obtained to be set free by the 2nd June Movement. Because of her alleged involvement in the Murder of Attorney generalSiegfried Buback and his two accompanying persons on 7th of April 1977 she was wanted.

Günter Sonnenberg has also been a member of RAF. The at the time 22-years old man was also wanted because of his alleged involvement in the Murders on 7th of April 1977. On the evening of May 2, 1977, Becker and Sonnenberg took the train from Bonn to Singen. They planned to use the Green border near the Hegau region to get into Switzerland. Members of the RAF used Switzerland as their Hideout after the Buback-Assasination. They rented a car there and received money through mail.

Shooting after Identity control
The Pensioner Renate K. visited the Café Hanser in the morning of the 8th of May 1977 around 8:30a.m. There, she noticed a couple, which she believed to have seen on a Wanted poster. She immediately visited a nearby Police station and told about her Observations. After seeing some Wanted photos, she identified the couple as [[Knut Folkerts and Juliane Plambeck, both wanted members of RAF. Plambeck was suspected to be involved in the kidnap of Peter Lorenz in 1975 and fled from the Frauenhaftanstalt Lehrter Straße in Berlin. Folkerts was wanted because of the Murder of Buback. When the police officers tried to identify the two Suspect, they immediately realized, that the couple was not whom the Pensioner had identified.

When asked about the whereabouts of their IDs, the terrorists claimed to have left them in their nearby car. The officers accompanied them to their car. Becker and Sonneberg at first claimed to be unable to find the IDs but later led the officers to their car. An officer noticed that the Car plate was one of the Landkreis Konstanz, even though the man meant to be from Stuttgart earlier. Einer der Polizisten legte deshalb seine Hand bereits auf die Dienstwaffe, als sich die Frau umdrehte und dreimal mit ihrem Revolver, den sie verdeckt gezogen hatte, auf ihn schoss. Dabei ging ein Schuss in seinen Unterarm und zwei Schüsse streiften ihn leicht. Er ließ sich fallen und stellte sich tot. Kurz darauf richtete der Mann eine Waffe auf den anderen Polizisten und traf ihn in den Unterschenkel. Als der Verletzte Deckung hinter einem anderen Auto suchte, setzte ihm der Mann nach und schoss neunmal gezielt auf ihn. Insgesamt sechs Kugeln trafen den Beamten und verletzten ihn lebensgefährlich, drei weitere Schüsse verfehlten ihn.

Literature

 * Butz Peters: 1977. RAF gegen Bundesrepublik. Droemer Knaur Verlag, München 2017, ISBN 978-3-426-27678-5, S. 81–87.

Weblinks

 * Tagesschau vom 3. Mai 1977