The serious effort to lose weigh and get fit 2010 has commenced in earnest. I have acquired step counter with added gizmos but it still has the problem of falling off and messing up the accumulated step count.
My first venture took me through North Marine Park where there are still clumps of blue bells. I then walked about half way along the ramparts of the South Pier until just before the gates which are closed when the seas and winds make walking further unsafe. From this vantage point one can look across the South Shields Bay along the coast towards Marsden with its Grotto and alone to the headland before bay of Seaburn and Roker at Sunderland.
Looking back I could see the houses above the banking on the Lawe Top before crossing along the pathway between the beach and the amusement and the accommodations for the amusement Park employees and then through the almost deserted amusement park offering £12 pounds of ride tokens for £10 and where three tokens appeared required for the simplest and smallest of rides. The fish and chip restaurants were doing some trade as was the kiosk before crossing the road to the pier with people enjoying their meals on the seats overlooking the Little Haven Bay.
I walked back through South Marine Park noting that the number of swans seems to have dropped by one third before crossing back into North Marine and climbing the hill that way making this part of the journey easier because of the environment.
On Wednesday I was uncertain where to go walking. There was little sun but it was much warmer, warmer than so far this year because there was no cooling breeze and the atmosphere was close. I had enquired at two newsagents for note books and the checked the position at Smith before going to Wilkinson’s which had Reporter size books for 20 pence, yes 20 pence about a fifth of the price of those elsewhere. On my way I saw some garden furniture and then a breakfast table set with a narrow bar time table and two chairs which was ideal for the patio at the amazing price of £26. I could have arranged for home delivery for £5 but decided on collection as there is a loading Bay just outside the store. I then made my way to the supermarket to see if there was any cheap fish without success but 100 plastic pockets were on offer at £1 so I bought eight. This meant a heavy load on my back on the way home and my shirt was wringing wet and had to be changed. On Wednesday I enjoyed a piece of smoked haddock like fish for lunch, may have been smoked haddock, for the amazing price of 70p and in the evening a thick and juicy piece of steak with salad.
On Thursday I decided on crossing the river Tyne by ferry and then taking the bus into North Shields. There was a very pleasant singer guitarist playing in the High Street so I found a seat and listened for a couple of song. On leaving home I noticed that there was a plague of small flies and this was evident on both sides of the Tyne. I had noted the absence of flies until the day, caused first by the cold and then by the close warmth with 17th degrees well after 9pm. On my last trip across the river I commented on the saga of the call centre which was to have provided 200 jobs in an extraordinary modern building, which caused outrage when part of the roof appeared over the steep banking overlooking the river from the Top. The local paper announced that the firm had gone i to administration with the loss of job and an appeal from local residents to have the offending building demolished. Had I won the £86 million in the lottery last week I would have tried to purchase and lower the roof by one floor and turned into a home for my project. Another possibility to dream about, alas only dreams.
North Shields is a very similar community to South Shields in terms of its High Street and general atmosphere. At Wilkinson’s I purchased five display albums for my work and was tempted to stop for a cup of tea. There were also lots of plants for which I wished I had the space .I enjoyed three lamb chops with veg for lunch and a soup followed by a prawns from shell salad in the evening.
I had delayed going out on Thursday until Durham had won their game against Kent at Canterbury, a ground I have visited in the past and would have visited again had the match not followed on immediately after Leeds and Nottingham. Before the game came the news that captain Will Smith had been replaced by Phil Mustard, the wicket keeper, who once looked like becoming an England players with his aggressive battings style. I was not surprised at this development after reading his words in the annual report that he had found it difficult to build a long innings because of the responsibilities as team captain. Given that matches were lost and his own form had slumped it was difficult to see how he would continue as captain and retain his place in the side.
Later I discovered that Durham has had a cash injection from two Indian media moguls and that the county is working with other Test sides on a new 20 20 competition which is to feature the eight test grounds of Yorkshire, Middlesex, Surrey, Cardiff, Warwickshire and Manchester and Nottingham, but drawing on players from the whole of English Cricket and from India with the money to come from Indian TV rights I wonder how much pressure was exerted to change the captain because of the slump in form.
This had its impact on the first day of the match at Canterbury with some bad bowling and fielding to the extent that commentators could not understand the drop in form compared to the past two years. Kent Captain Key who had not a good season before scored 264 runs but his average at the end of the game was still in the 30’s Contrast this with 18 year old Ben Stokes who is the youngest first class player to score two centuries in successive matches ion their first season. He was unbeaten on 161 runs which enabled Durham to come within 6 runs of the Kent first innings total of 424. Benkenstein also scored his first century of the championship season. Kent then collapsed in their second innings, all out for 162 leaving Durham to score 169 for their second win of the season and their first away from home. It was not a clever start with wickets falling at 7, 19 and 37. Benkenstein and Blackwell then gradually took the total to 144 before Benkenstein who has found his form was out for 49. Shortly after Stokes came to the crease, Blackwell was injured and had to have a runner. I imagine he will not be playing in the home game against Kent or the 40 over game on Sunday. Stokes then hit six boundaries in succession to win the match and this included a six. He was the talk of the commentators who like his style and believe he has a great future. He has jumped in the championship averages into fourth position with over 70 runs per innings in his five matches to date, helped by being not out on the last two scores.
American Idol, the last featuring Simon Cowell before he begins a series similar to that in the UK to include groups and those over 25 as well as separate groups of young women and men as now. The last three were all singer musicians and it was pleasing that my favourite the successor to Janis Joplin in terms of style and appearance reached next week’s final together with a likeable and talented young man who has improved substantially throughout the competition, having worked in a paint store only playing in small time gigs in his free time, so the story is present. The third goldilocks young man came from Texas and should have good career in the state and perhaps further affield. Some 45 million votes were cast and all three went home where their communities went bonkers compared to what happens in the UK.
Occasionally I came across an unexpected and brilliant film on one of the Sky free channels which I cannot remember seeing before. Judgement in Berlin is what it says, a Legal Judgement in the City of Berlin but based on a true story.
On 30th August 1979 two East Germans used a starting pistol, not an actual gun, to hijack a Polish passenger aircraft bound for East Berlin and instead diverted it to the USAF base, Tempelhof airport in West Berlin and requested political asylum. A number of the other passenger on the plan joined them and were granted the asylum. In the film the gun is presented as a toy gun smuggled on to the plane by the daughter of one of the hijackers.
In addition to the film my sources is a Wikipedia note on the book written by the presiding judge USA Federal Herbert Jay Stern, who with his wife had lost relatives through German genocide and who was appointed on the assumption that with confessions he would regard the case as open and shut and an provide sentences as required by the State and Justice Departments. The part is played by West Wing Michael Sheen in the film. This was supplanted by an detailed analysis of the actual case by Professor Andreas Teuber, in a work on the Philosophy of Law.
Until this incident anyone making it across the border was granted asylum but the USA government had only recently negotiated a treaty with the Russians over hijacking and wanted to cooperate not only by prosecuting but then allowing the extradition of those convicted back to the Soviets. According to his book and the film the Judge resisted State department and Russian pressure several instances, over holding a Jury Trial, over insisting that USA legal rights applied to the female defendant and then using his discretion over the sentences when the Jury agreed that the make defendant had taken a hostage but was not guilty of all the other charges,
The woman was Ingrid Ruske, a waitress in East Berlin, divorced with a small daughter, and in love with a West German engineer. They had planned to escape to West Berlin by boarding a Polish cruise ship in Gdansk with fake Western ID's. Ingrid, somewhat fearful, wanted someone else to try the strategy first. She remembered her former boyfriend, Hans Tiede, who was agreed to play guinea pig.
“Hans and Ingrid flew to Gdansk to wait for the engineer to bring them their ID's. He never came. East German agents had gotten wind of his efforts through their underground network in West Berlin and arrested him when he re-entered East Berlin. The would-be fugitives guessed what had happened. What to do now? Their own arrests could not be too far off, since the photographs on the engineer's fake ID's would clearly give them away. They couldn't stay in Poland much longer, since they had no money left. In fact, their only assets were the return tickets to East Berlin, which they had bought merely to avoid arousing suspicion.
Hans suggested hijacking the plane to West Berlin. Unfortunately, he had no weapon. As they aimlessly wandered through the streets of Gdansk. Ingrid's daughter drew their attention to a toy gun in a shop window. It looked real enough, Hans thought. He sold some of his clothing and bought the gun.
They got on the plane, LOT flight 65, quite easily, by putting the gun into the child's luggage. Airport security in fact searched their bags and found it, but thought nothing of it when they saw it was a toy. The moment of truth came when the pilot announced the plane's imminent landing at East Berlin's Schoenfeld Airport. Ingrid began to have second thoughts. Wouldn't the Gdansk control tower have told the pilot the gun was a toy? Hans brushed aside her reservations, ordered a stewardess at "gunpoint" to take him into the cockpit, stormed into the cockpit, keeping the stewardess with him as a "hostage," and ordered the crew to take the plane to West Berlin. There were 68 passengers on board the airplane. Everyone reacted calmly. The pilot checked with the East Berlin airport, then with the West Berlin airport and within a few minutes the plane had landed in West Berlin. By this time, Hans' relationship with the crew was almost cordial. He had told them why he did what he did, had passed around pictures of his wife and children, and by the time the police led him away the captain even flashed a thumbs-up sign. Before the plane took off again, eight other East Germans had decided to stay in West Berlin as well.
West Germany, East Germany, Poland, and the United States were all parties to an international agreement to prosecute hijackers. But West German authorities did not welcome the idea of prosecuting the case. The West German Constitution at the time made all Germans, including East Germans, West German citizens and gave them a "protected right" to enter West Germany. West Germany did not at the time recognize the validity of East German travel restrictions either. In fact, an East German body guard who shot and killed a fleeing East German was regarded under West German law at the time as having committed murder. Since the Americans continued to exercise the power of an occupying force in West Berlin, the West German authorities asked them to convene an American court to try the hijackers. The Americans obliged, setting up a special United States District Court of Berlin, Judge Herbert Stein of the United States District Court of New Jersey presiding.
Ingrid Ruske was never brought to trial. Her part in the hijacking was evidently minor. The only proof of her involvement was a statement she made to an interrogator. The judge ruled that the statement had been improperly obtained and ordered it suppressed. Stripped of its evidence, the prosecution withdrew the charges against her.
The case against Hans Tiede, however, went forward. He was charged with hijacking, taking a hostage, depriving other persons of their liberty, and doing bodily injury to a stewardess. Hans Tiede pleaded not guilty on grounds of necessity.
Tiede claimed that he was simply asserting his rights under the West German Constitution. At this time, prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the merger of East and West Germany into a single nation, the West German Constitution did not recognize the border between the two countries nor did it recognize the distinction between "East" and "West" Germans. An East German who successfully escaped from East to West was simply regarded by the West German constitution as a German citizen travelling within his or her own country. Tiede pointed out at his trial that he and Ingrid Ruske were threatened with imminent arrest by East German agents and that the only way for them to avoid arrest was to hijack the plane. Tiede also argued that he had secured not only his own and Ingrid Ruske's freedom but the freedom of eight other East Germans who seized the opportunity to defect. The USA Penal; code states: "The harm or evil sought to be avoided by [one's] conduct [must be] greater than that sought to be prevented by the law defining the offence charged."
The prosecution argued that Tiede's conduct had indeed caused harm. By hijacking the plane he had "endangered the lives and safety of 68 innocent people" aboard Lot flight 165. The pilot had to land on an unfamiliar airport that was not designed for planes of the size of flight 165. He had also caused mortal anguish to the stewardess.
However at the trial the issue was raised if in fact he was a hijacker. When he left the plane and was led away across the tarmac the pilot gave him "a thumbs up sign." By the time the plane landed in West Berlin, Tiede's relationship with the crew had been cordial after he had told them why he did what he did and had passed around pictures of his wife and children. There was also evidence that he captain had known all along that he was carrying only a toy gun. He was not in fact a terrorist but a man desperate to join his Polish wife and two sons already in the West
The West Germans did not wish to try the case. They reminded the Americans that they were still an occupying force and therefore requested the USA to convene an American court to try Hans Tiede and Ingrid Ruske. A special United States District Court was set up in West Berlin where the trial was held. In the film the Judge insists in a jury trial which was drawn for West German citizens and had to be advised about the relationships of the charges and USA law. Steiner instructed the jury in the relevant rules of law. Given their decision to find Tiede not guilty of the hijacking charge it could be argued they were inconsistent to find him guilty of taking the air hostess hostage. I suspect they were influenced that at first she did not know the gun was fake would have been terrified and this was used to gain access to the pilot. Judge Steiner then decided that he would not grant the maximum sentence demanded by the prosecution but ordered time served, nine months to the date thus immediately releasing him to join his family. In the film Ingrid boyfriend is seen one side of a crossing point while she is on the other. It is not cleat if he was free to join her and if so if he had been imprisoned.
I was able to find this out from the German Paper Speigel who followed the story in terms of passengers who decided to return to East
“Some 32 years later, Ruske, who now uses her married name Maron, is sitting in a pub in the western part of Berlin. After the hijacking, she was charged with disrupting air traffic, but then the charges were dropped. Her lover, who had been captured by the Stasi, was sentenced to eight years in an East German prison for engaging in organized crime and for forgery of personal and border crossing documents. It wasn't until years later that he decided to marry Ruske. They separated after 11 years, and he died in 2006.”
Today Ruske says: "I had no expectations of the West, and it didn't even live up to those." She had had a happier life in East Berlin. Once she was in West Berlin, she trained to become a practitioner of alternative medicine and now provides acupuncture massage and hypnosis in her West Berlin apartment.
When Tiede was released from prison after a few months, he refused to talk about the hijacking unless he was paid to do so. His account eventually led to two novels, a film and a play about Aug. 30 and the period after that. Tiede has made a living from his story, which is the subject of a TV movie to be broadcast on the German broadcaster RTL this year. So I have gained some knowledge about what then happened to the two accused.
My first venture took me through North Marine Park where there are still clumps of blue bells. I then walked about half way along the ramparts of the South Pier until just before the gates which are closed when the seas and winds make walking further unsafe. From this vantage point one can look across the South Shields Bay along the coast towards Marsden with its Grotto and alone to the headland before bay of Seaburn and Roker at Sunderland.
Looking back I could see the houses above the banking on the Lawe Top before crossing along the pathway between the beach and the amusement and the accommodations for the amusement Park employees and then through the almost deserted amusement park offering £12 pounds of ride tokens for £10 and where three tokens appeared required for the simplest and smallest of rides. The fish and chip restaurants were doing some trade as was the kiosk before crossing the road to the pier with people enjoying their meals on the seats overlooking the Little Haven Bay.
I walked back through South Marine Park noting that the number of swans seems to have dropped by one third before crossing back into North Marine and climbing the hill that way making this part of the journey easier because of the environment.
On Wednesday I was uncertain where to go walking. There was little sun but it was much warmer, warmer than so far this year because there was no cooling breeze and the atmosphere was close. I had enquired at two newsagents for note books and the checked the position at Smith before going to Wilkinson’s which had Reporter size books for 20 pence, yes 20 pence about a fifth of the price of those elsewhere. On my way I saw some garden furniture and then a breakfast table set with a narrow bar time table and two chairs which was ideal for the patio at the amazing price of £26. I could have arranged for home delivery for £5 but decided on collection as there is a loading Bay just outside the store. I then made my way to the supermarket to see if there was any cheap fish without success but 100 plastic pockets were on offer at £1 so I bought eight. This meant a heavy load on my back on the way home and my shirt was wringing wet and had to be changed. On Wednesday I enjoyed a piece of smoked haddock like fish for lunch, may have been smoked haddock, for the amazing price of 70p and in the evening a thick and juicy piece of steak with salad.
On Thursday I decided on crossing the river Tyne by ferry and then taking the bus into North Shields. There was a very pleasant singer guitarist playing in the High Street so I found a seat and listened for a couple of song. On leaving home I noticed that there was a plague of small flies and this was evident on both sides of the Tyne. I had noted the absence of flies until the day, caused first by the cold and then by the close warmth with 17th degrees well after 9pm. On my last trip across the river I commented on the saga of the call centre which was to have provided 200 jobs in an extraordinary modern building, which caused outrage when part of the roof appeared over the steep banking overlooking the river from the Top. The local paper announced that the firm had gone i to administration with the loss of job and an appeal from local residents to have the offending building demolished. Had I won the £86 million in the lottery last week I would have tried to purchase and lower the roof by one floor and turned into a home for my project. Another possibility to dream about, alas only dreams.
North Shields is a very similar community to South Shields in terms of its High Street and general atmosphere. At Wilkinson’s I purchased five display albums for my work and was tempted to stop for a cup of tea. There were also lots of plants for which I wished I had the space .I enjoyed three lamb chops with veg for lunch and a soup followed by a prawns from shell salad in the evening.
I had delayed going out on Thursday until Durham had won their game against Kent at Canterbury, a ground I have visited in the past and would have visited again had the match not followed on immediately after Leeds and Nottingham. Before the game came the news that captain Will Smith had been replaced by Phil Mustard, the wicket keeper, who once looked like becoming an England players with his aggressive battings style. I was not surprised at this development after reading his words in the annual report that he had found it difficult to build a long innings because of the responsibilities as team captain. Given that matches were lost and his own form had slumped it was difficult to see how he would continue as captain and retain his place in the side.
Later I discovered that Durham has had a cash injection from two Indian media moguls and that the county is working with other Test sides on a new 20 20 competition which is to feature the eight test grounds of Yorkshire, Middlesex, Surrey, Cardiff, Warwickshire and Manchester and Nottingham, but drawing on players from the whole of English Cricket and from India with the money to come from Indian TV rights I wonder how much pressure was exerted to change the captain because of the slump in form.
This had its impact on the first day of the match at Canterbury with some bad bowling and fielding to the extent that commentators could not understand the drop in form compared to the past two years. Kent Captain Key who had not a good season before scored 264 runs but his average at the end of the game was still in the 30’s Contrast this with 18 year old Ben Stokes who is the youngest first class player to score two centuries in successive matches ion their first season. He was unbeaten on 161 runs which enabled Durham to come within 6 runs of the Kent first innings total of 424. Benkenstein also scored his first century of the championship season. Kent then collapsed in their second innings, all out for 162 leaving Durham to score 169 for their second win of the season and their first away from home. It was not a clever start with wickets falling at 7, 19 and 37. Benkenstein and Blackwell then gradually took the total to 144 before Benkenstein who has found his form was out for 49. Shortly after Stokes came to the crease, Blackwell was injured and had to have a runner. I imagine he will not be playing in the home game against Kent or the 40 over game on Sunday. Stokes then hit six boundaries in succession to win the match and this included a six. He was the talk of the commentators who like his style and believe he has a great future. He has jumped in the championship averages into fourth position with over 70 runs per innings in his five matches to date, helped by being not out on the last two scores.
American Idol, the last featuring Simon Cowell before he begins a series similar to that in the UK to include groups and those over 25 as well as separate groups of young women and men as now. The last three were all singer musicians and it was pleasing that my favourite the successor to Janis Joplin in terms of style and appearance reached next week’s final together with a likeable and talented young man who has improved substantially throughout the competition, having worked in a paint store only playing in small time gigs in his free time, so the story is present. The third goldilocks young man came from Texas and should have good career in the state and perhaps further affield. Some 45 million votes were cast and all three went home where their communities went bonkers compared to what happens in the UK.
Occasionally I came across an unexpected and brilliant film on one of the Sky free channels which I cannot remember seeing before. Judgement in Berlin is what it says, a Legal Judgement in the City of Berlin but based on a true story.
On 30th August 1979 two East Germans used a starting pistol, not an actual gun, to hijack a Polish passenger aircraft bound for East Berlin and instead diverted it to the USAF base, Tempelhof airport in West Berlin and requested political asylum. A number of the other passenger on the plan joined them and were granted the asylum. In the film the gun is presented as a toy gun smuggled on to the plane by the daughter of one of the hijackers.
In addition to the film my sources is a Wikipedia note on the book written by the presiding judge USA Federal Herbert Jay Stern, who with his wife had lost relatives through German genocide and who was appointed on the assumption that with confessions he would regard the case as open and shut and an provide sentences as required by the State and Justice Departments. The part is played by West Wing Michael Sheen in the film. This was supplanted by an detailed analysis of the actual case by Professor Andreas Teuber, in a work on the Philosophy of Law.
Until this incident anyone making it across the border was granted asylum but the USA government had only recently negotiated a treaty with the Russians over hijacking and wanted to cooperate not only by prosecuting but then allowing the extradition of those convicted back to the Soviets. According to his book and the film the Judge resisted State department and Russian pressure several instances, over holding a Jury Trial, over insisting that USA legal rights applied to the female defendant and then using his discretion over the sentences when the Jury agreed that the make defendant had taken a hostage but was not guilty of all the other charges,
The woman was Ingrid Ruske, a waitress in East Berlin, divorced with a small daughter, and in love with a West German engineer. They had planned to escape to West Berlin by boarding a Polish cruise ship in Gdansk with fake Western ID's. Ingrid, somewhat fearful, wanted someone else to try the strategy first. She remembered her former boyfriend, Hans Tiede, who was agreed to play guinea pig.
“Hans and Ingrid flew to Gdansk to wait for the engineer to bring them their ID's. He never came. East German agents had gotten wind of his efforts through their underground network in West Berlin and arrested him when he re-entered East Berlin. The would-be fugitives guessed what had happened. What to do now? Their own arrests could not be too far off, since the photographs on the engineer's fake ID's would clearly give them away. They couldn't stay in Poland much longer, since they had no money left. In fact, their only assets were the return tickets to East Berlin, which they had bought merely to avoid arousing suspicion.
Hans suggested hijacking the plane to West Berlin. Unfortunately, he had no weapon. As they aimlessly wandered through the streets of Gdansk. Ingrid's daughter drew their attention to a toy gun in a shop window. It looked real enough, Hans thought. He sold some of his clothing and bought the gun.
They got on the plane, LOT flight 65, quite easily, by putting the gun into the child's luggage. Airport security in fact searched their bags and found it, but thought nothing of it when they saw it was a toy. The moment of truth came when the pilot announced the plane's imminent landing at East Berlin's Schoenfeld Airport. Ingrid began to have second thoughts. Wouldn't the Gdansk control tower have told the pilot the gun was a toy? Hans brushed aside her reservations, ordered a stewardess at "gunpoint" to take him into the cockpit, stormed into the cockpit, keeping the stewardess with him as a "hostage," and ordered the crew to take the plane to West Berlin. There were 68 passengers on board the airplane. Everyone reacted calmly. The pilot checked with the East Berlin airport, then with the West Berlin airport and within a few minutes the plane had landed in West Berlin. By this time, Hans' relationship with the crew was almost cordial. He had told them why he did what he did, had passed around pictures of his wife and children, and by the time the police led him away the captain even flashed a thumbs-up sign. Before the plane took off again, eight other East Germans had decided to stay in West Berlin as well.
West Germany, East Germany, Poland, and the United States were all parties to an international agreement to prosecute hijackers. But West German authorities did not welcome the idea of prosecuting the case. The West German Constitution at the time made all Germans, including East Germans, West German citizens and gave them a "protected right" to enter West Germany. West Germany did not at the time recognize the validity of East German travel restrictions either. In fact, an East German body guard who shot and killed a fleeing East German was regarded under West German law at the time as having committed murder. Since the Americans continued to exercise the power of an occupying force in West Berlin, the West German authorities asked them to convene an American court to try the hijackers. The Americans obliged, setting up a special United States District Court of Berlin, Judge Herbert Stein of the United States District Court of New Jersey presiding.
Ingrid Ruske was never brought to trial. Her part in the hijacking was evidently minor. The only proof of her involvement was a statement she made to an interrogator. The judge ruled that the statement had been improperly obtained and ordered it suppressed. Stripped of its evidence, the prosecution withdrew the charges against her.
The case against Hans Tiede, however, went forward. He was charged with hijacking, taking a hostage, depriving other persons of their liberty, and doing bodily injury to a stewardess. Hans Tiede pleaded not guilty on grounds of necessity.
Tiede claimed that he was simply asserting his rights under the West German Constitution. At this time, prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the merger of East and West Germany into a single nation, the West German Constitution did not recognize the border between the two countries nor did it recognize the distinction between "East" and "West" Germans. An East German who successfully escaped from East to West was simply regarded by the West German constitution as a German citizen travelling within his or her own country. Tiede pointed out at his trial that he and Ingrid Ruske were threatened with imminent arrest by East German agents and that the only way for them to avoid arrest was to hijack the plane. Tiede also argued that he had secured not only his own and Ingrid Ruske's freedom but the freedom of eight other East Germans who seized the opportunity to defect. The USA Penal; code states: "The harm or evil sought to be avoided by [one's] conduct [must be] greater than that sought to be prevented by the law defining the offence charged."
The prosecution argued that Tiede's conduct had indeed caused harm. By hijacking the plane he had "endangered the lives and safety of 68 innocent people" aboard Lot flight 165. The pilot had to land on an unfamiliar airport that was not designed for planes of the size of flight 165. He had also caused mortal anguish to the stewardess.
However at the trial the issue was raised if in fact he was a hijacker. When he left the plane and was led away across the tarmac the pilot gave him "a thumbs up sign." By the time the plane landed in West Berlin, Tiede's relationship with the crew had been cordial after he had told them why he did what he did and had passed around pictures of his wife and children. There was also evidence that he captain had known all along that he was carrying only a toy gun. He was not in fact a terrorist but a man desperate to join his Polish wife and two sons already in the West
The West Germans did not wish to try the case. They reminded the Americans that they were still an occupying force and therefore requested the USA to convene an American court to try Hans Tiede and Ingrid Ruske. A special United States District Court was set up in West Berlin where the trial was held. In the film the Judge insists in a jury trial which was drawn for West German citizens and had to be advised about the relationships of the charges and USA law. Steiner instructed the jury in the relevant rules of law. Given their decision to find Tiede not guilty of the hijacking charge it could be argued they were inconsistent to find him guilty of taking the air hostess hostage. I suspect they were influenced that at first she did not know the gun was fake would have been terrified and this was used to gain access to the pilot. Judge Steiner then decided that he would not grant the maximum sentence demanded by the prosecution but ordered time served, nine months to the date thus immediately releasing him to join his family. In the film Ingrid boyfriend is seen one side of a crossing point while she is on the other. It is not cleat if he was free to join her and if so if he had been imprisoned.
I was able to find this out from the German Paper Speigel who followed the story in terms of passengers who decided to return to East
“Some 32 years later, Ruske, who now uses her married name Maron, is sitting in a pub in the western part of Berlin. After the hijacking, she was charged with disrupting air traffic, but then the charges were dropped. Her lover, who had been captured by the Stasi, was sentenced to eight years in an East German prison for engaging in organized crime and for forgery of personal and border crossing documents. It wasn't until years later that he decided to marry Ruske. They separated after 11 years, and he died in 2006.”
Today Ruske says: "I had no expectations of the West, and it didn't even live up to those." She had had a happier life in East Berlin. Once she was in West Berlin, she trained to become a practitioner of alternative medicine and now provides acupuncture massage and hypnosis in her West Berlin apartment.
When Tiede was released from prison after a few months, he refused to talk about the hijacking unless he was paid to do so. His account eventually led to two novels, a film and a play about Aug. 30 and the period after that. Tiede has made a living from his story, which is the subject of a TV movie to be broadcast on the German broadcaster RTL this year. So I have gained some knowledge about what then happened to the two accused.
Thank you I hope
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