Terrorism : Germans Not Interested in Hostages’ Fate

Their fate is uncertain, their government unmoved and their compatriots, for the most part, seemingly uninterested.

Two and a half years after being kidnaped in southern Lebanon, German aid workers Thomas Kemptner and Heinrich Struebig may soon become the epilogue to the hostage story--the ones left behind.

Since their captors are insisting upon the release of two terrorists serving long prison terms in Germany, a trade is considered unlikely.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a government official familiar with the case privately conceded that Bonn had pinned its hopes on quiet diplomacy. But Bonn now feels that chances are slim for including the Germans in the U.N.-brokered deals that have secured the release of a number of Western hostages in recent weeks, including American Thomas M. Sutherland and Briton Terry Waite.

Struebig, 50, and Kemptner, 30, worked for ASME Humanitas, a private humanitarian organization that Struebig founded 15 years ago.

They were abducted May 16, 1989, after ignoring explicit warnings by the German Foreign Ministry and the Lebanese Embassy in Bonn to leave.

“Not only did they not bring Struebig out as we warned them, they sent Kemptner in afterwards, when the crisis was imminent,” said Renate Schimkoreit, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman. “They were kidnaped a few days later.”

Not a word was heard about the Germans until last summer, when a Polaroid photograph of Struebig appeared in a Lebanese newspaper.

The two are believed held by the Hamadi clan of Shiite Muslim extremists, who are demanding the release of two Hamadi brothers jailed in Germany.

Mohammed Ali Hamadi is serving a life sentence for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner and the slaying of an American sailor on board.

Abbas Ali Hamadi is serving 13 years in connection with the kidnaping of two German businessmen he hoped to use as bargaining chips for his brother. The businessmen were released when Germany refused to extradite Mohammed to the United States. Germany does not condone capital punishment, and the Foreign Ministry said it routinely refuses to extradite anyone to countries that impose the death penalty.

Unlike the American and British hostages, Struebig and Kemptner remain virtually unknown in Germany. The media pay scant attention, their families remain in virtual seclusion and their organization has only one worker left.

“They are not very popular,” the government official said.

ASME Humanitas’ lone representative, Dagmar Nackunstz, said the organization provides medical goods to underprivileged nations, primarily in Africa. “We were aware of the danger” in Lebanon, she said. “We weren’t going there for a holiday.”

Nackunstz said Struebig had been in Lebanon for nearly two years. Twice-divorced and the father of five children, he is “rather brusque and not at all a diplomat,” she said.

Describing him as a perfectionist, she said, “It is much easier for him to make enemies than friends.”

Kemptner, a male nurse, had just responded to an ASME advertisement for volunteers to go to Lebanon. Neither the Foreign Ministry nor ASME knows much about him, and his parents and sister remain out of the spotlight.

The hostages’ cause was further muddied by ASME’s background, including allegations of weapons smuggling by a volunteer who Nackunstz said was immediately recalled from Lebanon and an earlier fraud case against Struebig, who was acquitted.

Otherwise, the press has largely ignored the German hostages’ plight.

“They went in spite of all the warnings,” said Josef Joffe, foreign editor of the respected daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung. “They are not Terry Waite. They do not inspire.”

Although Nackunstz and a few friends sport yellow ribbons, public support and sympathy for the Germans have been lacking.

“It’s a different mentality,” said the Bonn government official.