Release Lightens Relatives’ Mood : Jokes Are Again Possible as Families Gather in Frankfurt

When Terry Swack, the girlfriend of TWA hostage Stuart Darsch, finally got word Sunday that the hostages had left Beirut, she knew the first thing she would say when he arrived here in Frankfurt: “I’ll ask him if he had a nice trip.”

Her joke reflected a profound shift in mood on the part of the hostages’ families and friends, who had been on an emotional seesaw over the hostages’ off-again, on-again release.

It was a trip that Swack, a graphic designer who works with Darsch in Boston, might have made with him. She had been traveling through Greece with him but left early to serve as maid of honor in a close friend’s wedding in Los Angeles.

So Darsch was on his own June 14 on TWA Flight 847 from Athens to Rome. Swack said she was so busy preparing for the wedding that she did not connect Darsch’s departure from Athens with news of the hijacked plane until more than 24 hours after the fact.

“I didn’t really think about it until I called Stu’s number from Los Angeles,” she said.

Swack was among only a handful of hostage family members and friends who made the trip to Frankfurt when the State Department notified them--mistakenly, it turned out--that the hostages were on their way out of Beirut early Saturday morning.

When Swack arrived here early Sunday morning, the sky was gray and overcast and the hostages were still in Beirut, their expected departure the day before delayed by the obscure politics of a strange and distant land. Nobody knew how much longer the wait might be.

Hours later, the sun shone brilliantly--and the hostages were on the road to Damascus, Syria, from where they flew to Frankfurt.

“The day has gone from dismal, in terms of both weather and outlook, into quite a beautiful afternoon,” Swack said.

Swack flew from Boston to Frankfurt with Gerald Darsch, Stuart’s older brother. Accompanying them were Axel Traugott, the older brother of 32-year-old hostage Ralf Traugott, and Axel Traugott’s wife, Susan. The group, traveling at the expense of NBC News, sat four-across in the front row of the business-class section of Lufthansa Flight 423.

The Traugotts decided immediately to make the trip from Boston when a State Department official telephoned them at 3 a.m. Saturday to tell them the hostages had left Beirut. Hours later, when it became cruelly apparent that the good news had been premature, the Traugotts refused to accept the setback and carried on with their plans.

“Even if they’re still sitting in Beirut, it gives us a boost to be on our way,” Axel said.

The Traugotts made the trip against the wishes of his parents, who felt that their captive son had already received too much publicity and preferred that the situation be handled by U.S. officials without outside interference.

No Interest in Pictures

“I’m not here to have my picture in the paper,” Axel Traugott said. “I’m here to get my brother back. When I was younger, they always pushed me to take responsibility for my little brothers and keep them out of trouble, and I feel I’ve got to do it.”

After arranging for Susan Traugott’s mother to fly from Boston to Kansas City to baby-sit for their two young children, they searched for their passports--and panicked when they discovered that Susan’s had expired last August. “We called the State Department,” Axel said, “and they told us not to worry--promised that they would waive the requirement for a valid passport.”

Susan Traugott, who has been critical of the way in which the Reagan Administration has handled the crisis, chuckled softly as they were whisked without incident through airport passport controls in both Boston and Frankfurt. “It’s the one time the State Department has really helped,” she said.

A Bizarre Homecoming

For Axel Traugott, who spent the first 15 years of his life in Wiesbaden, West Germany--the location of the U.S. Air Force base near Frankfurt where the hostages were flown from Syria--it was a bizarre homecoming. “It’s not exactly the way I expected to be back in Germany,” he said.

While the Traugotts were waiting for the hostages’ release, they spent Sunday afternoon driving to the house where Axel Traugott was brought up. His reaction was that of any adult returning to the place of his childhood: “It looks very different. It looks smaller than I remembered it.”

Axel Traugott, who speaks German, learned of the hostages’ release on a car radio but, after the disappointment of the previous day, refused to let his emotions carry him away. “We all agree that jumping up and down every time there’s a good piece of news--the let-downs get even worse,” he said. “We’ll reserve our outbursts until touchdown. But we did buy champagne, and we’re ready to pop the cork.”

‘Smell Like a Goat’

Gerald Darsch brought something more practical for his brother Stuart--an extra suitcase of clean clothes in Stuart’s size. “I’m afraid he’ll smell like a goat,” Gerald said.

And Terry Swack, Stuart Darsch’s girlfriend, had a gift for Stuart’s 30th birthday, which was Sunday. It may not top his other birthday present--his freedom--but it was a pair of multicolored swimming trunks he had said he was going to wear on a trip to Martha’s Vineyard they had scheduled for mid-July.

“We go there every summer,” she said, “and we plan to go this year, too.”

On Sunday, other families of the freed hostages made plans to fly to Frankfurt. TWA spokesman David Venz said 24 of the hostages’ relatives were scheduled to take off Sunday on two flights from New York to Frankfurt. Nine more were departing on a flight from St. Louis. TWA agreed to provide one free ticket to Frankfurt to the family of each hostage.

Robert and Podie Trautmann, the parents of hostage Robert Trautmann Jr., flying from Laredo, Tex., to Frankfurt, said they were relieved to see their son on a live television newscast from Beirut on Sunday.

“This was the most wonderful feeling I’ve ever had,” Podie Trautmann said.

The family of Thomas Murry of Newbury Park decided to stay home. “We’re all waiting here until my dad calls us from Wiesbaden to instruct us what to do,” said Murry’s daughter, Marianne Robertson. “We think it’s time he should get to decide what to do.”

Times staff writers John J. Goldman in New York and Doug Smith in Los Angeles contributed to this story.