The first commander of anti-terrorist GSG 9, Ulrich Wegener, is dead. This is reported by German press Agency and Bild newspaper. Thus, former brigadier general of Federal Guard died on 28 December at age of 88 years.

Under direction of pirated, Special unit of Federal Police in October 1977 had stormed Lufthansa machine Landshut in Somali Mogadishu, which was attacked by Palestinian terrorists, and freed more 90 hostages intact. Since n Wegener was also known as "Hero of Mogadishu".

With action at height of German autumn, kidnappers wanted to force release of eleven detained terrorists from Red Army Faction (RAF). At storming of machine, three of four Palestinian terrorists were shot. No cop and none of hostages died in operation. The RAF detainees Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe took life after hostage liberation in Stuttgart-home.

"One hundred percent convinced of success"

"I was glad we were able to show what we can do," Wegener said a few years ago about this assignment. "We had been practicing such a bet on German airports for years before, at night we stormed off machines. Sometimes se machines could not fly again after that. "

Wegener 2014 also spoke with Time magazine about application. At that time he said: "I was 100% convinced of success, I also assured Chancellor Schmidt when he told me that government depended on it."

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Five years earlier, n Federal minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher (FDP) had commissioned Wegener to build up elite unit GSG9. The occasion was an attack by Palestinian terrorists on Israel's team during 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

In 1988, founding commander moved to service of Saudi government to train a special unit. In this way, Wegener became an internationally sought-after expert in fight against terrorism.

Date Of Update: 04 January 2018, 12:03