Wir sind dann wohl die Angehörigen (2022)

An extortion letter demanding a ransom, left at the scene, and a live hand grenade leave no doubt: late in the evening of March 25, 1996, Jan Philipp Reemtsma was overpowered and abducted. There are signs that he has been injured. The shock experienced by his 13-year-old son Johann and his wife, Ann Kathrin, does not show immediately. They stoically accept that their home has become an operations center and that two police family liaison officers will now remain by their side. “The boy’s and his mother’s lives are to carry on as normally as possible,” they are told. No one around them is to learn of the crime. A lawyer and a paternal friend from the family’s circle come to the house to support Ann Kathrin and Johann. They hope the hostage-taking will end quickly. Communication with the kidnappers and the ransom drop are planned down to the last detail; every detail matters. But when the first attempt to hand over the money fails under mysterious circumstances, the family realizes there is a conflict between their goal of getting rid of the money as quickly as possible and the police’s principle of tracking down the perpetrators. The kidnapping will not end quickly. Johann and Ann Kathrin witness a weeks-long battle of nerves, with strategic planning, traps, and unexpected maneuvers. Johann promises his mother he will be brave, but it becomes increasingly difficult for him to bear the uncertainty and the days of waiting without anything to do. Cut off from school, his band, and his friends, who have no idea about the state of emergency at his family home, he withdraws more and more. From captivity, Jan Philipp makes an impassioned appeal to his wife to ensure that the next handover takes place without a covert police operation. But once again, mistakes in dealing with the kidnappers and police tactics mean that the abductors do not collect the ransom. In dire straits, Ann Kathrin decides, at Reemtsma’s initiative, to arrange a handover attempt without the police. It succeeds. Reemtsma is freed.