1977: Palmers Kidnapping

On November 9, 1977, members of the Bewegung 2. Juni  (2 June Movement) with support of three Austrian sympathisers kidnapped the senior manager of the Palmers lingerie company . The kidnappers held Walter Palmers for four days in a hidden apartment in the Webgasse in Vienna-Mariahilf. After a ransom payment of approx. 30.5 million schillings (today approx. 6 million euros), he was released uninjured on November 14, 1977. Only later did the police determine the left-wing terrorist motivation behind the kidnapping. The Austrian participants were arrested several weeks later and were subsequently sentenced to longer prison terms. Only a part of the ransom money was recovered.

The Palmers kidnapping is considered one of the most successful fundraising activites of left-wing terrorism, and financed the Bewegung 2. Juni and the Red Army Fraktion (RAF) until the 1980s.

Together with the 1976 arrest and imprisonment of the RAF activist Waltraud Boock in Vienna, the Palmers kidnapping sparked broader discussions in Austria on the topic of left-wing terrorism. Until then, these were mainly conducted in connection with the OPEC hostage taking. More dominant, however, was the confrontation with PLO terrorism in the context of the Marchegg kidnapping. In contrast to the Federal Republic of Germany, the events of left-wing terrorism during the 1970s hardly found their way into Austria’s collective memory.

External Resources (in German only):

Dokumentarfilm (2006):  Keine Insel - Die Palmers-Entführung 1977
https://www.filmfonds-wien.at/filme/keine-insel---die-palmers-entfuehrung-1977

Kino macht Schule - Unterrichtsmaterialien zum Film Keine Insel
http://www.kinomachtschule.at/data/keineinsel.pdf