I went to school in Bremen before departing for the United States later that year; this happened shortly after summer break. The Italian boy who was shot at the service area was a year younger and from a different district, but many people in my class were badly shaken. Some pupils came up with the idea of a vigil, a novelty at the time, and only then the school realized they had to discuss what happened. We asked the teachers why the police apprehended the criminal's girlfriend without thinking how they might react, and of course they had no answer.
Of course, the media's behavior was the most shocking aspect. Peter Meyer, the AP photographer who asked Rösner for an interview and offered the hostage takers to use his phone, is shown here criticizing the police for not addressing the criminals' demands. Udo Röbel, who guided the criminals out of Cologne later became chief editor of Bild, Germany's largest daily. And Frank Plasberg (not shown), who conducted an interview which was not aired, became one of Germany's main talk show hosts.
Given that dozens of journalists surrounded the criminals in Bremen and Cologne, they had many opportunities to overwhelm or disarm them, but chose to click away instead. And to be fair to the police, what could they do in a situation when the journalists were acting like a human shield? There was an ethics inquest, as a result of which interviews in a live hostage situation were forbidden, but no one expressed remorse at the time. Bremen's Senator of the Interior (responsible for the police) resigned, that was it. In the film, one journalist asks Degowski (who had not slept for three days) to press his gun against Silke Bischoff's neck, the striking 18yo who died during the botched rescue attempt. There were no criminal charges, and the resulting photo is still being used.
So yes, this is painful to watch and a testament to the degradation of news media, which was only beginning. However, the lack of commentary comes across as cheap. Why did they not ask the journalists for comment given how well-known they became through this event?
