Hier dokumentieren wir den Beitrag des Psychologen Dr. Nils Bejerot zu seinem Einsatz bei der Geiselnahme am Norrmalmstorg in Stockholm vom 23. bis 28. August 1973. In der Folge gab der Psychiater Nils Bejerot einer Überlebensstrategie der Geiseln den Namen „Stockholm-Syndrom“.
The six day war in Stockholm
by Dr Nils Bejerot, professor of social medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm
The use of gas in the Swedish bank drama last August was widely criticised. Here a consultant psychiatrist to the police, who was in the bank throughout the affair, gives his explanation of the strategy adopted.
The bank robbery in Stockholm in August 1973 held all Swedes, from the government and police to the mass media and the public, in horrified suspense for six days. I spent the whole of that week at the bank as psychiatric consultant to the police. I consider it instructive to answer the criticism of our strategy expressed during and after the operation.
During the drama I was rung up by some uninitiated psychiatrists and psychologists who declared that all signs pointed to a bloody outcome.
In their opinion, the bank robber, when cornered and desperate, would probably shoot the hostages and perhaps himself, too. I was told that it was my duty to persuade the police to stop the action and also to induce the government to change its instructions forbidding the robbers to leave the bank with the hostages. In several newspapers journalists supported this theory, on television a similar opinion was expressed by a well-known child psychiatrist, and nine lecturers in criminology at the University of Stockholm broadcast an appeal along the same lines.
In spite of all this pressure we followed the opposite line. Here I can only give a short account of some of the most important considerations on which our strategy was based.
1. Right at the beginning the robber very nearly killed a policeman with shots from his submachine gun.
Conclusion: The man would be a serious danger to the police in a confrontation in the bank, or in a later chase.
A few days afterwards another policeman was shot, and here again it was only by chance that this did not end in the murder of a policeman. Or, the other hand in the early stages two policemen, after agreement with the bank robber, were able to go into the bank unharmed and negotiate without being shot at. As a physician I was able to move freely in the bank and speak to the robber at close quarters.
It was clear that the man was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs, nor was he psychotic (“insane”). He was a resolute man of normal intelligence, and he functioned in a rational way from the standpoint of his criminal ambitions. Had he been psychotic, it would have been very difficult to predict his behaviour.
2. The robber demanded three million crowns and insisted that Clark Olofsson, a prisoner who had a further six years to serve, and who, two weeks previously, had made an unsuccessful attempt to escape by blowing up a prison door, should be brought to the bank. He also demanded two pistols and safe conduct for himself and Olofsson together with the hostages.
Conclusion: ‘We were faced with a shrewd, daring and ambitious professional criminal. He would not be expected to do anything unless he would gain something by it, directly or indirectly.
It must be remembered that among professional criminals shooting at the police in a threatening situation gives high status. It is, however, beneath the dignity of these criminals to injure hostages.
With political terrorists the whole situation is different, but this subject will not be discussed here.
3. The Swedish government quickly took two decisions:
(a) It agreed to the police using Olofsson, with his own consent, in negotiations with the bank robber;
(b) the bank robber was not to be permitted to leave the bank with the hostages. Otherwise the police had a free hand.
The decision not to let the bank robber take the hostages with him established a vitally important principle. If the government had accepted that the robbers had disappeared with three million crowns and the hostages, we would probably have been faced with a series of similar crimes in many countries, just as with hijacking. We would have been at a great psychological disadvantage in relation to professional criminals and gangsterism.
4. My conversations with Olofsson confirmed the opinion of the police. that he would not commit any desperate act or do anything which would hazard his own life. He was therefore allowed to join the bank robber, although at that stage we were unable to release the hostages in exchange for Olofssonas the government had intended.
Conclusion: Apart from the fact that the bank robber seemed to act logically in relation to his aims, we now had in the bank also an intelligent man with a strong will to live and a rational way of thinking.
5. In this situation the outcome of the drama was given, and only a tactical blunder from one side or the other could have caused bloodshed. At an early stage the police had asked for a psychological assessment of the risk to the hostages. I judged this to be about 2 to 3 per cent in unfavourable circumstances, for instance, if we forced the operations too quickly and did not give the robber
enough time to realise that the fight was lost. With a drawn-out course and the right amount of pressure, I considered that the action was practically free from risk for the hostages. It was clear to all initiated persons that the hazards would be far greater if the
hostages had been allowed to accompany the robber, regardless of where the journey might lead or howlong it might take.
6. Throughout the drama the bank robber acted in a way we had predicted at an early stage. He shot at
the police when he had a chance, and in order to emphasise his demands he demonstratively detonated explosive paste in the bank hall and in the ventilation system. He kept his promise not to shoot people who came with food and drink,
realising that otherwise he would not have received any necessities. As expected, also, he put up a long and determined resistance.
Only two unexpected events occurred:
(a) In connection with the first attempt to use gas, the robber made the hostages stand up with a noose round their necks. The police and hostages were given to understand that if gas was let in the hostages would be strangled when they were no longer able to stand up. This scheme took us completely by surprise. We heard through the microphones in the vault that the hostages experienced this as a direct threat to their lives, and the action was therefore immediately discontinued for a time. Nobody outside or inside the bank vault had slept properly for three days, and there was a certain risk that one side or the other might make a tactical mistake unless everyone had an opportunity of resting. As with the robber’s previous behaviour, the hanging arrangement was a serious threat, but in my interpretation, not really intended to injure the hostages. The bank robber here proved a little more cunning than we were. A much needed 12-hour truce followed.
(b) The other psychological misjudgement was that we expected the robber, during the final break through into the bank vault, to shoot off all his ammunition through the inner door to the vault before he capitulated. Obviously the tear gas and the determination of the final assault had such an effect on him that he considered it best to give up a few seconds earlier than we predicted.
Criminals are rational
It is astonishing that those critics who consider they have a great understardirg of criminals and their reaction patterns, and who declared throughout that we should let the robbers escape with the hostages and the money, is fact did not believe that criminals think in a rational manner. Afterwards the critics argued that it was mere luck that everything went well. We who have worked with criminals for decades and are now accused of regarding them as madmen and monsters, know that they function rationally in the situation in which they have placed themselves. They are like players or gamblers, and they are very good at their game, otherwise they would never have become professional criminals.
As a piquant political addendum I would like to point out that the government would have been in an almost hopeless situation if I had collected some of these so-called “progressive” critics, almost all of whom were strong government supporters, and consulted them on the situation. The Prime Minister would then have been confronted with a demand for the release of the robbers with the hostages. Even
if I had put in a reservation, the government could hardly have stood out against this massive “expert opinion’”. The release of the bank robbers on these premises, two weeks before a general election, would have been political suicide.