psychological phenomenon
50 years ago: A hostage-taking in Sweden characterizes the now controversial “Stockholm Syndrome”
After six days, the police ended the hostage drama. She drilled a hole in the bank’s roof and sprayed gas
© EXP/TT / Picture Alliance
The hostage drama in a bank robbery in Sweden coined the term Stockholm Syndrome 50 years ago. The psychological concept is controversial nowadays.
“Get on the ground!” shouted Jan-Erik Olsson as he robbed the credit banks in Stockholm on August 23, 1973. Thus began the six-day hostage drama that coined the term Stockholm Syndrome – the psychological phenomenon of victims developing an emotional bond with their captors. Armed with a submachine gun, Olsson captured four employees, three women and one man.
Hostage drama was one of the first major live broadcasts in Sweden
Olsson, known as “Janne”, demanded three million kroner and the release of notorious bank robber Clark Olofsson from prison. The government agreed and brought Olsson’s cronies to the credit banks.
The whole country watched the hostage-taking on television, spellbound. It was one of the first major live broadcasts in Sweden. “When Clark Olofsson arrived, he took command. He was the one who spoke to the police,” recalls photographer Bertil Ericsson, now 73, in an interview with the AFP news agency. “He had a lot of charisma and could talk well.”
Olsson calmed down when Olofsson was there. And Enmark quickly saw their savior in Olofsson. “He promised to make sure nothing would happen to me and I decided to believe him,” she writes. Enmark made several phone calls to authorities during the hostage crisis, shocking the public by defending the bank robbers.
“I’m not a bit afraid of Clark and the other guy. Do you know what I’m afraid of? That the police will do something to us, that they will storm the bank,” she told then-Prime Minister Olof Palme on the phone. “Believe it or not, we’re having a really nice time.” They would “tell stories” and play checkers, Enmark reported.
Stockholm Syndrome is more a defense mechanism than a ban on the offender
On the sixth day, the police ended the hostage drama. She drilled a hole in the bank’s roof and sprayed gas. Olsson surrendered and the hostages were released. As a member of the negotiation team, psychiatrist Nils Bejerot analyzed the behavior of the bank robbers and the hostages. He coined the term “Stockholm Syndrome” and assumed that the victims were under the spell of the perpetrators.
Psychiatrists have since dismissed this notion. Rather, cooperating with the tormentor is a “defense mechanism that helps the victim” to cope with a traumatic situation, says Christoffer Rahm, a psychiatrist at the Karolinska Institute who studies the syndrome scientifically.
For Cecilia Ase, a professor of political science at Stockholm University and an expert on gender issues, the term has a political dimension. The women were portrayed as having lost all reason, she says. This view was fueled by rumors that Enmark and Olofsson were having an affair during the hostage situation. Years later, the two did indeed have a love affair, but there’s no indication that it began in the bank’s vault. “There was no love or physical attraction on my part. He was my chance to survive and he protected me from Janne,” Enmark writes.
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In reality, the prisoners “acted incredibly rationally,” says Ase. “They called the media, argued and tried to persuade politicians and the police to release them.” According to the researcher, “Stockholm syndrome is a made-up concept” to cover up the state’s failure to protect the hostages.
“We were a real threat to the hostages,” Commissioner Eric Rönnegard admitted years later in a book examining police failures in the raid. “With so many police officers surrounding the bank, there was a risk that the four hostages would be shot.”