December 10, 1989. It's the second Sunday in Advent, shortly before 8 a.m., when Gisela Schilberg's nightmare begins. In the bedroom of her house in Bad Salzdetfurth (Hildesheim district), a loud rumble jolts her out of sleep. Shortly thereafter, a criminal stands in front of her, holds a gun in front of her and yells at her. "It was terrible," Gisela Schilberg remembers 30 years after the events that made the Groß Düngen district of Bad Salzdetfurth nationally known.
Deadly shots in Hanover
The hostage-taking in her house lasted around nine hours. In addition to Gisela Schilberg, the perpetrator had her husband Siegfried and her then 95-year-old mother under control. They suspected that this was a dangerous man - but nothing more. That the hostage-taker had killed a young man with three shots from a gun the night before in Hanover after an argument, that he was in prison for rape and burglary, that he was only released on leave and that he had already taken four hostages during his previous escape had taken - none of this was known to the Schilbergs.
"It was already hard"
"It's a good thing we didn't know that beforehand," Gisela Schilberg recalls today. It was therefore "a little easier" to deal with the situation and the perpetrator. "I think otherwise I would have trembled more. It was already hard," she told the NDR regional magazine Hallo Niedersachsen.
The fear is coming again
The police quickly tracked down the then 41-year-old perpetrator. Bad Salzdethfurth should only be an intermediate destination of his escape. He wanted to take the train south. Because there was no train early on Sunday morning, the criminal had to change his plan - which led him to the Schilbergs' house. The consequences of the hostage-taking both still feel 30 years later. If unusual noises can be heard - even if it's just from a marten that is active on the roof - the fear is back, Siegfried Schilberg tells the NDR. He was the last hostage in the man's power.
In the early afternoon of December 10, 1989, the perpetrator released the two women. Two hours later, Siegfried Schilberg managed to escape through a window. After that, the hostage-taker gave up. He died years later behind bars.