The Reemtsma Case:The Victim and His Kidnappers

On March 25, 1996, kidnappers abducted the Hamburg patron Jan Philipp Reemtsma. He was released after 33 days for a ransom of millions. When two of the kidnappers were sentenced 25 years ago today, main culprit Thomas Drach has not yet been caught.

by Irene Altenmüller

Midnight; there was the forest where I had been abandoned, then there was the village, the first house in which the light was still on, and the one who lived in it let me come in without any ifs or buts, although I treated him like a strange rascal must have happened. I called my wife, said, 'It's me. I'm free.'Jan Philipp Reemtsma, "In the basement"

With these words, Jan Philipp Reemtsma described the first minutes of freedom after his kidnapping. The then 43-year-old had spent 33 days and nights in a basement dungeon. On April 26, 1996, the kidnappers finally released him in exchange for payment of 30 million Deutschmarks.

Most of the ransom wasted and disappeared

The kidnapping of the Hamburg literary scholar, patron and multi-millionaire is considered one of the most spectacular criminal cases in the history of the Federal Republic. Rarely has a kidnapping victim been in the hands of his kidnappers for so long, and never has so much ransom been paid - 15 million German marks and 12.5 million Swiss francs. To date, only around 1.5 million marks of the loot have been secured. However, a large part may have been used up during money laundering and on the run.

Abducted and chained:33 days in the basement dungeon

The kidnapping begins on the evening of March 25, 1996. Reemtsma leaves his home in the Hamburg district of Blankenese to get a book from his workhouse, 50 meters away. On the way there, the perpetrators intercept him. They knock him out, blindfold him with tape and take him to a house rented especially for the kidnapping in Garlstedt in the Osterholz district north of Bremen. There they put their victim in chains. In the room there is only a table, a chair, a mattress and a camping toilet. Before the perpetrators come in to Reemtsma, they knock. Then he has to press his face onto the mattress. In order not to be recognized later, the head of the kidnappers, Thomas Drach, only speaks to Reemtsma in English.

Ransom note complained about with hand grenade

On the evening of the kidnapping, Reemtsma's wife Ann Kathrin Scheerer found a blackmail letter. It is placed on a wall in front of her house - and weighed down with a hand grenade. In it, the kidnappers demand a ransom of 20 million marks and threaten to murder their hostage if the press or the police get involved.

However, Reemtsma's wife informed the police that same night.

Two money transfers fail

Two days later, the kidnappers sent the first sign of life:a Polaroid photo of their injured victim and a letter with instructions. They soon suspect that the police have been informed and threaten in another letter:"Should the (ransom) handover fail for tactical reasons, (...) we will cut off Mr. Reemtsma's finger. He already has a broken nose. "

At 2:45 a.m. on April 3, one of the kidnappers calls, the voice distorted by a distortion device. But the agreed handover of the money by Reemtsma's wife and the lawyer Johann Schwenn who was appointed to deliver the money fails. The kidnappers only contacted me again a week later. On April 13, they steer Schwenn to Luxembourg, then to a parking lot near Trier, where Schwenn, as the kidnappers demanded, throws the bag of money over a fence. But Schwenn was late because a police officer who was traveling with her forgot her passport. Nobody picks up the millions. Camouflaged police officers collect the money again the next morning. Fear for the victim begins again.

Ransom handover without police

The kidnappers are now treading a new path. In consultation with Jan Philipp Reemtsma, they contacted the Hamburg pastor Christian Arndt and the Kiel sociology professor Lars Clausen. Both are private confidants of the abductee. They should take over the negotiations and hand over the money on their own. This time the police are left out. The blackmailers increase the ransom demand to 30 million.

On the evening of April 24, Arndt and Clausen leave with two travel bags. Your content:30 million marks, part of it in Swiss francs. The two leave the car on a dirt road near Krefeld. The kidnappers report a little later:They have received the money. Hours later, the kidnappers take Reemtsma to a forest near Harburg in southern Hamburg. There they release him. It's April 26, 1996, just before midnight.

The media is silent

What only became known to the public later:Shortly after the kidnapping, rumors about the kidnapping had leaked out to journalists. However, the police and family are appealing to them not to report it so as not to endanger Reemtsma's life. The cooperation is successful:all media are holding back, although more and more journalists are learning about the crime. Only after Reemtsma's release do they jump into the case, reporting in great detail for days.

Encrypted contact in the "Hamburger Morgenpost"

A Hamburg daily newspaper was involved in the kidnapping in a special way from the start:in one of their first blackmail letters, the kidnappers asked Reemtsma's wife Ann Kathrin Scheerer to place a classified ad in the "Hamburger Morgenpost". Title of the greeting message:"All the best Ann Kathrin", plus a fax number. In the days and weeks that followed, the police used the classified ads almost every day to contact the kidnappers, for example to signal a willingness to negotiate or to request a sign of life. For outsiders, the texts seem puzzling. They contain messages like:"Tell me, why didn't you send me a picture?", "The wait is becoming unbearable" and again and again:"Get in touch."

Koszic's accomplices and judges are convicted in 1997

A month after the end of the kidnapping, the police in Spain caught two accomplices of the main perpetrator, Thomas Drach. The police had located the house in Garlstedt in which the perpetrators were holding their victim and had come across the two through the rental agreement. On February 14, 1997, Wolfgang Koszics and Peter Richter were sentenced to ten and a half and five years in prison. Koszics was involved in planning the kidnapping and monitoring the victim. Richter had obtained the necessary equipment and made the extortion calls to the family.

Koszics was released from prison in 2011 and said he felt threatened afterwards. In February 2012, his body was discovered on the coast of southern Portugal - the circumstances of how and why the then 72-year-old fell off a cliff cannot be fully explained. There has long been speculation about suicide, since part of his loot had accidentally been burned, as well as murder, since Koszics could have had access to other parts of the loot. It remains unclear whether there is an actual connection to the ransom.

A third accomplice turned himself in in 1998 and was sentenced to six years in prison.

Main perpetrator Thomas Drach is not caught until 1998

The search for Thomas Drach, whom several witnesses had identified as a resident of the house in Garlstedt, was initially unsuccessful. In 1998 he was arrested in Argentina. Two years later he was extradited to Germany and sentenced to fourteen and a half years in prison in 2001.

Actually, Drach should be released from prison in July 2012, but the Reemtsma kidnapper was sentenced in November 2011 to another year and three months in prison for extortion. In 2009, Drach is said to have tried to incite an acquaintance to blackmail his younger brother Lutz with two letters from prison. In October 2013 the time had come:Thomas Drach was released from prison under strict conditions after more than 15 years.

Years of chasing ransom millions

However, the question of the missing ransom remains. In addition to the state investigators, a security company commissioned by Reemtsma has been searching for the millions for years. Drach's brother Lutz, who was caught in Madrid in 2002, confessed in 2004 to having laundered almost four million euros from the Reemtsma ransom and was sentenced to six and a half years in prison. Another accomplice was sentenced to six years in prison in 2008 for money laundering. But a large part of the ransom is still considered lost or squandered. The search has officially ended in 2016.

Reemtsma kidnapper Drach in court again

Eight years after his release from prison in the Reemtsma case, kidnapper Thomas Drach was arrested again in February 2021 - in Amsterdam. Police and prosecutors accuse him of participating in robberies on money transporters in Cologne, Frankfurt am Main and Limburg in 2018 and 2019. Sum of the loot:more than 230,000 euros. In two of the crimes, Drach is said to have shot a security guard. The charges at the start of the trial on February 1, 2022 include not only particularly aggravated robbery but also attempted murder.