Last Western Hostages in Lebanon Freed : Terrorism: Two Germans arrive home amid speculation that Bonn cut a deal with their captors. Bonn denies it.

The last two Western hostages held in Lebanon arrived home Wednesday amid speculation that the German government secretly cut a deal with the terrorists who held them captive for more than three years.

The release of aid workers Heinrich Struebig and Thomas Kemptner marked the end of an agonizing decade in Lebanon’s violent history and opened the door for improved international relations and millions of dollars in economic aid for the war-ravaged region.

Struebig, 51, and Kemptner, 31, appeared pale and gaunt upon their arrival at the Cologne-Bonn airport aboard a government plane. They issued no statements, and were immediately taken by helicopter to a military hospital in Koblenz, 80 miles south of here, for complete physical examinations.

German Radio reported that Kemptner was suffering from dysentery. Sources on the Greek island of Crete, where they had been flown from Beirut for a family reunion and to board the government plane that brought them home, said a doctor had examined them and found them to be basically in good health, if somewhat malnourished.

Details about their ordeal were not disclosed, except that they had been held in chains for most of the time since they were kidnaped in May, 1989, and frequently moved around, as was the case with most of the Western hostages held over the past 10 years.

“There is no evidence they were tortured,” said Bernd Schmidbauer, the envoy whom Chancellor Helmut Kohl sent to pick up the two hostages in Beirut.

Their release, after an unexplained 36-hour delay, took the combined efforts of U.N. special envoy Giandomenico Picco and the Bonn government, with backstage negotiations by Iran and Syria.

The Bonn government denied that any deal was made with the Shiite Muslim clan that held the two Germans, and Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel insisted that “no demands were accepted, not a penny in ransom money was paid.”

Germany’s RTL television network reported without attribution that Germany had agreed to free two clan members jailed for terrorist acts, and to pay $12 million in exchange for the hostages.

Any promises to pardon or parole the two clan members would probably anger the United States, which sought unsuccessfully to have one of them, Mohammed Ali Hamadi, extradited to stand trial for murder.

Mohammed Hamadi is serving a life sentence for hijacking a TWA plane in 1985 and killing a passenger, U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem. His brother, Abbas Ali Hamadi, was sentenced to 13 years for kidnaping two German businessmen in 1987 in a vain attempt to win his brother’s freedom. Those two captives were freed when Germany refused the U.S. request to extradite Mohammed Hamadi.

(Germany does not condone capital punishment and routinely refuses to extradite criminals to countries that impose the death penalty).

Official spokesmen in Bonn did acknowledge that the government might improve prison conditions for the Hamadis, but they stressed that such a change would not be linked directly to the hostage release and would not go beyond the privileges any inmate can expect for good conduct.

The two hostages were turned over to Schmidbauer, a state minister, at Government House in Beirut as Prime Minister Rashid Solh looked on with obvious relief. They were then flown to Crete to meet family members. They wolfed down a meal with such relish that their departure for Germany had to be delayed.

They were the last of about 90 foreigners taken hostage since American educator David Dodge was snatched from the campus of American University in Beirut in July, 1982. Dodge was released a year later, but 17 more Americans were eventually seized. The last one, Associated Press journalist Terry A. Anderson, was released last December after nearly seven years in chains. He was the longest-held hostage.

More than most of the other hostages before them, the two Germans must step back through the looking glass into a world they will no longer know. While they were imprisoned, the Berlin Wall fell, the Cold War ended, communism in Europe collapsed and a divided Germany was united.

Through it all, though, these were the forgotten hostages, the ones never remembered with yellow ribbons or candlelight vigils. Their families remained in virtual seclusion, the German media paid scant attention to them and the Bonn government, when asked about their plight, was more likely to express annoyance than sympathy: They had been officially warned to leave Lebanon.

“Both of them went there with their eyes open despite repeated warnings,” government spokesman Hanns Schumacher reminded journalists at a Bonn news conference after the hostages were freed.

Indeed, the Foreign Ministry and the Lebanese Embassy in Bonn advised Struebig repeatedly to pull his private relief organization out of Lebanon because it was too dangerous. Struebig, described by colleagues and family members as a hard-headed maverick, not only ignored the warnings but also placed a newspaper advertisement seeking new volunteers.

Kemptner, a nurse, responded, went to Lebanon and was abducted along with his new boss within a matter of days. A third volunteer for the charity, Petra Schnitzler, also was kidnaped but was soon released.

Sources in Beirut who were familiar with Struebig described him as a swaggering adventurer who toted a revolver and wore a military-style uniform in the Palestinian camp where he worked in south Lebanon. A twice-divorced father, with five children ranging from 8 to 28, Struebig has spent much of his adult life overseas, in Africa and the Middle East. Little is known about Kemptner, a bachelor.

Sources in the German Foreign Ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, have previously said there were indications that the aid workers were snatched by professional kidnapers who then sold or traded them to the Hamadi clan. The Hamadis’ older brother, Abdel Hadi Hamadi, is security chief of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah group.

The clan demanded the release of the two brothers. Bonn refused.

With all the other Western hostages freed, the Bonn government stepped up pressure on the Lebanese government in February by tying the Germans’ release to the distribution of a $120-million European Community aid package. Government spokesmen said Wednesday that the package will now be released.

Times staff writer Jones reported from Bonn and special correspondent Raschka from Beirut.