Face Down: The Disappearance of Thomas Niedermayer – Murder Documentary Ireland

On 27 December 1973 the nightmare began: late that night German businessman Thomas Niedermayer was kidnapped from his home in Belfast. Never seen alive again by his friends or family, he became one of the ‘disappeared’ and it seemed that no one knew what had happened to him

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Now on one a Belfast kidnapping in 1973 affected three generations of one German family the horrendous Fallout is explored by the only two surviving granddaughters in Face Down The Disappearance of Thomas nerer which contains some distressing Scenes [Applause] Still us toing Get I came to Australia to escape everything that happened to us I ran away just to be able to start a new life without a constant reminder of the pain that we’d gone through so I don’t remember an awful lot of my time at Uni the day of my last

Exam I got on a plane came to Australia with no intention of staying longterm I came on a oneyear Visa 2 days after I arrived I got on a boat to go and look at great white sharks and I never left well that’s cowgir so hopefully we’ll be able to get together tagging

Her no matter what I did or where I ended up Mom would always have been proud of me and Tanya all she wanted was for us to be happy and you know I’m very happy with the life I forged for myself here in Australia when I was in my 19s and my

20s I never thought that I would get to this age I remember my mom telling me that my family don’t live beyond 40 so achieving my 40th birthday was a celebration so to speak in itself no okay he’s not having it I could have allowed myself to fall

Back into that dark place but I’ve managed to get out of it and and I enjoy life now being a mother is just wonderful they Light Up My Life T’s definitely struggled and been through an awful lot of Heartache I ran away and started a new life and and she

Wasn’t able to do that and she got left with picking up a lot of the pieces on her own so you know she’s she’s an amazing woman we were never told any history about the family at all so it wasn’t until my father died and that’s when we were

Going through the bureau and found all the old newspaper cuttings and that’s when we realized that there was a whole a whole background to this story of what had happened to Thomas There’s one County in Ireland Belfast the capital of that odd shaped corner of the United Kingdom which lies outside Great Britain aler had a job being born at T and she’s been struggling for survival ever since the UN employment rate in Northern Ireland now stands at 8% something drastic had

To be done to lure new employers over the Water 180 new factories have been established in the province already some have come from the continent like this Grundig plant the only one of their dozen or so factories built outside Germany at the beginning there were 16 German technicians here now there are only six one of whom is the general

Manager when we opened that box a hidden history emerged the boss of the Grundig Factory in Belfast was our grandfather Thomas neem he’ started as an apprentice and he’ worked his way up from the shop floor in Germany to become a manager he was also the German honorary console in Northern

Ireland Thomas and inorg are grandmother moved to Belfast with their daughters ratti and Gabrielle the family soon settled into their new home and their new life in Northern [Applause] Ireland is here so iy I could honestly say it was the happiest years of of my career as a

Secretary Master Nar was a good boss a good boss but he had a sense of humor you know as I say you would have thought he was on skits when he was going out you know and Sharp As a Razor I mean he had plans for nearly up to 5 years at

What he was going to do and how the company was going to progress I first started here when I was only 16 years of age in 1969 and your grandfather met me along with my parents to discuss my apprenticeship way back in that time wow Thomas your grandfather would have

Been held in the very highest regard and perhaps even by me with a a slight amount of fear as you approached his office you would have seen the German Consul sign outside his door you would have thought to yourself there’s a very important man in there he’s not to be messed

With Northern irand at that time there was a massive scarcity of work over 2,000 people were brought into a plant and were able to get a living and the two sides of the religious divide both were helped it wasn’t the case of a Catholic company or a Protestant company it was for the [Applause] workers over September 1970 I met one of my childhood best friends he said I’ve discovered the provos and I’m going along tomorrow evening to be sworn in and he said will you come with me on the spot I said yeah I’m come with you yeah I mean exciting

One moment we were exhilarated and excited to be you know secret agents of the IRA at 15 the next minute they were threatening us us if you give any information or if you squeal on anything or if you tell anybody you know we’ll shoot you

Dead I grew up and very said I really always wanted to get into the police but I had no idea what L had of me obviously I thought there was a passing thing of troubles or have we just become a policeman but during those first two

Years I was the first officer at the scene of 12 sarian murders they just came in firing the people there was no provocation whatsoever uh they firing what Rubble bullets no it was lad bullets they fired I was in radio televison and a bomb went off and the whole building

Shook then another bomb went off and another bomb and bombs just were going off it’s 20 3 in the afternoon and for the last 20 minutes Belfast has been rocked by the biggest bombing offensive scene in the city this year the summer of 1972 it was a terrible terrible summer

Of Slaughter of Mayhem of Butchery Northern Ireland was teetering on the brink of Civil War as a consequence of a very concerted Ira campaign against the state the Protestant population had responded with param activity of their own and between them they had caused complete [Applause] chaos the B station was crowded when a

Bomb went off without warning I met a member of the IRA Army Council he said we’re in for a 20-year war and at the end of the war this will be a wasteland but it’ll be our Wasteland there is so much more to my grandparents and my aunt and my mother

Than I ever knew our granny Inger came from East Prussia in Northern Germany in 1945 it was overrun by the Soviet Red Army in a rare moment of disclosure iner once told me of her ordeal as a teager in 1945 to escape the advancing Russian army she was put on a refugee

Train terrible atrocities took place mass murder and mass rape she lived amongst the dead and dying on that train for 6 months while it was shunted all over Germany eight members of her family died in that conflict and then she met Thomas started to make

A life for herself become a wife and a Mother Gabrielle who we knew as Gabby was our mother and she was the eldest daughter her younger sister was renate renati and I were friends from pretty early on from primary school and really what got us together was our love of horses and she was absolutely fanatical about horses and adored them

Animals came first she would run to rescue any animal we couldn’t have been more different but we actually became just great friends she had a big sister we used to think she was fantastic she had makeup and she had nice dresses and she wore nice clothes and she had a

Boyfriend well I first met Gabby when I was 13 when I went to boarding school I was a border and she was a day girl and she had a lovely calm dig dignity sorry she was very dignified almost like sort of Princess Grace in a way that she moved and dressed and very

Easy to be friends with Gabby’s father Thomas nemire he was a lovely calm very gentle looking man with kind eyes I remember his eyes and he had Gabby calm gentle Aura start of March of 1973 10 Ira volunteers were sent over to plant three car bombs in London after they planted their car

Bombs they fled heo airport they were subsequently arrested in two groups at London’s Heathrow Airport now these 10 operators were very important to the IRA Marian and Dolores price two prominent Young activists who were highly regarded they were all convicted that the price sisters W have moved to prison

Northern irand but they would have special category status but the British government said no so the government on Hunger Strike I knew a fair number of low ranking Ira people and they were quite nice some of them were very nice but the the leaders were monsters in 1973 for the I Army Council

The contact house was a sweet shop owned by two spinster sisters and in their kitchen Army Council people just had tea in there and met there and I met Brian Keenan there and I was introduced to Brian as the Quarter Master General of the IRA we are strongest in adversity we’re going

To win this struggle and the quicker our enemy realizes it the last slaves will be lost Kenan was the single most important person in the IRS we believe he visited certainly Libya and he had a personal audience with Colonel GFI and obtained the promise and a supply of Arms from GFI he had actually worked in Grundig and he had been a shop steward when nether Mar was the general manager BR came wouldn’t be a man that I’d want have been in the company of too often there would have been aggravation in a couple of times Mr Nar more or less told him

Just leave the room Brian Keenan was one of the most magnetic people I I have ever met and I’ve met a few in his company you knew this man would do anything to achieve his ends Brixton prison London inside these walls doar and Maran price are dying on one occasion and I

Distinctly remember I arrived at the Sweet Shop the room had a PA of intensity about it I could clearly see in a few moments that the entire Ira Army Council had become transfixed by the plate of the price sisters we were entering a phase where the first kidnapping was going to be

Authorized by the IRA Army counil the PLO had kidnapped Sports person murdered them now ETA were pretty good at kidnapping people VIPs are hard to get because they’re all so well guarded nor that time but here was neire living up M Belfast and best of all he was the

Honorary West German consult to Northern Ireland well we were off school it was Christmas we wouldn’t have visited Christmas boxing day I went up the next day during Christmas ratti’s mom had gone into hospital ratti was there she answered the door and she brought me into the kitchen to make me tea I

Thought her dad was maybe in his study because we weren’t going in there to watch the big TV and then I came home early in the evening and Uh it was a few days after Christmas late at night the only ones at home were renate and Thomas and then according to police reports the front doorbell rang and renate went to answer It the kidnapping was all the easier because the seizing of foreigners here is a new type of crime and I’m listening to the news the next morning and it come up that Mr Nar had been kidnapped well I neared a heart attack you know a British Ambassador is

Hard to get at or judges that all a form of Protection security Nar was living among the people and why shouldn’t he was providing employment for the people was a good man but a good man was a soft target her ner me’s wife was back home today from hospital reluctant to be

Photographed she was still bewildered by her husband’s disappearance the the police and the security forces are still keeping an open mind about the case but as the hours pass and no word is received from the kidnappers there is increasing concern as to exactly what has happened to Mr

Neider Mr neiderer had disappeared and nobody was saying what had happened there was a great lull of mystery and worry But as time goes on of course it gets more and more distressing and one cannot be absolutely certain at this time but I hope that the man is still Alive on the 27th of December my husband Thomas was taken away from me and our daughters please do him no harm he has never harmed anyone please please let him come back to me and at the very least please let him get in touch with

Me or allow him to give him a sign of life I am waiting for him day and Night I can imagine some of the stories that that came out in the news during that time of uncertainty would have been very very hurtful the behavior of the press and I include myself in this was appalling there was the theory that he was an arms dealer I was contacted by a German

Journalist Boris galash he told me the theory now was that the IRA had nothing to do with the abduction that Grundig believed it was not a republican abduction that it was a loyalist abduction and I believed it I ran a story in the Observer saying that German authorities now believed it

Was no longer an IRA kidnap but a loyalist kidnap galash genuinely admired the IRA and I suspect he was doing what the IRA wanted him to do by causing people to look at the uvf and by using me in The Observer they found their useful idiot and I was a useful

Idiot there was the theory that he had had an affair and run off with another woman this was a scandal it was in every Dam newspaper that there was I was been followed there was cars fllying down the road I was actually going halfway through lights to get on the other

Side I was in the supermarket and I was behind these two IES and they were criticizing that secretary is way off of them so I popped them on the shoulder I said I’m this lady you’re talking about do I know you I tell you it’s a wonder

That didn’t drop dead in front of me because I had been really G for me well what do you think yourself has happened I just don’t know it’s something I can’t understand it’s never happened before and you just don’t know what to think do you think there is a

Possibility that your father is still alive yes sir certainly until he’s been proven dead I will continue to believe is that he is alive how has your mother stood up to this period of anxiety well I think she’s gone through it very well um at first we were all very confused

And we didn’t know what to do but we’ve managed to get things organized and I don’t know what we would have done without her if the worst has happened do you want information about this yes certainly anything just didn’t let us know exactly what has happened one way or the

Other I’ve never heard my mom’s voice like that before she just comes across as very strong but really wanting answers really wanting to know what’s happened so yes of course I’d want to know but we’ just keep on living Our Lives until we do that’s really Brave of them I Thought after her father’s kidnap she was very stoic she kept her pain inside but I remember her telling me very excitedly that she’d met somebody and he was rather special he was a life belt to a drowning person something she could reach out to and hope for a future for

Herself less than a year after Thomas disappeared my mom and dad were engaged I know that there were concerns about the security at their wedding there were fears that the IRA might actually Target the whole Nida family and then on the eve of the wedding there was a shooting

Nearby an IRA man was accidentally shot with his own gun only a mile from where they were being married this created quite a lot of paranoia as to why that man was there and whether he had been sent there to enact something at their wedding when Robin and Gabby got married

We knew the date of the wedding weding but we didn’t know the time of the wedding so we only got an hour’s notice because they thought that Robin and Gabby could be um targets for the IRA so I do remember that we had secret police protecting us around the Wedding Kanan was almost a mythical figure a boogeyman for the provision Ira it was a hard age that could convince people to do his bidding and that bidding was usually going out murdering somebody he didn’t give one Fiddler [ __ ] about victims it’s as cold as that Brian

Kenan couldn’t keep away and wanting to be at the scene of London bombings he could then talk about abroad yes I was there I saw our heroic bombers at work they couldn’t keep away I have put myself in in a B shoes to try and see how she might have felt

To always be looking over her shoulder wondering if she was going to see him I can’t imagine the number of scenarios she would have gone through in her head yeah I’m told that she was psychiatrically assessed and in that assessment she confirmed her genuine belief that her husband was still alive

And she carried that that hope for so long throughout the 1970s the police continued to search for my grandfather would it be fair to say that this is the strongest tip you’ve had since Mr niday disappeared no it’s one of a number of tips that we’ve had yes but nevertheless

The previous scraps of information haven’t resulted in you cordoning off areas and bringing in 75 police officers and dogs specially trained to look for bodies that would be Sure he was on the high Wanted list as been in charge of the England bombing team he was flown by our he was considered of such importance he Ed on and charged for seven years the family waited and waited and pled for information about my grandfather always had an interest in cultivating

Agents one particular interview told me there’s a m you should be interested in the keeps a very low profile but he’s a very important M we gave him a code name the so I took the SLE down to Springfield Road he said look I am heavily involved in the ira I drank

Regularly with the commander of the IRA in Anderson town and somebody would raise up the question wonder what ever happened itar he would say ah don’t worry about him he’s down a hole and he’s digging himself in deeper what do you mean he’s diing himself in deeper

He’s very face down so he can take himself deeper where is he just beyond the bridge to Cal ground that was one mile from Thomas D’s home and the whole of the province was on alert Road checks everywhere and all the time he was just a mile from where he was

Kidnapped if a group of men come to your house and N Them wearing masks and to take you away in my experience you’re not coming back there was never any chance of that mom being Released we set up a conservation organization who named it the West Belfast Environmental Action Group and we got a grant to clear up K Glenn dead animals old fridges mattresses and I said how are we ever going to find a body and all of this as the weeks were on and more and

More rubbies disappeared now the rats were starting to appear the weather was horrendous almost constant Dre time was coming more and more anxious cuz this is a big Operation on the first day of the fourth week no s in the body my heart was starting to sink and about 2:00 two of all the guys were down much in the bucket one of them show up to me halt halt I’ve got him I’ve got him and I ran

Down and there was a pair of calary 12 trasers with bones sticking out of them the very last afternoon of the very last day we have found what we’ have come for and guess what he was bra F thing the discovery has given right to speculation that the body may be that of

Thomas nemire the German industrialist who disappeared after being kidnapped in December 1973 tree well there has been that speculation and it could well be the body of Thomas Lear uh we’ll not know that until we get it positively identified we had trouble getting a positive identification because we couldn’t Trace any dental

Records now this is photograph and better times of Thomas nire so the pathologist came up with this brilliant idea he got us technician to make it transparency of the portrait of Thomas dear showing his very distinct teeth he then superimposed that upon the skull they matched up perfectly that was positive

Identification now that we had the body of Thomas Nar and it was a sad day when that happened to me it was the biggest shame that Northern Ireland had you Lord are all I have and you give me all I you will show me the path I asked disciple had he known whose brainchild this whole lar a was always is yes it was quite wi known at the time ran Keenan it was his brainchild and it would have been a master stroke if he had managed to get the price moved to nor

Island we arranged for Scotland Yard for us to get into Brixton prison so brand Keenan is produced I would ask questions and Kenan would just stare back at us with venomous eyes It was clear he was absolutely dedicated to the cause and we just a bit of a nuisance I think he probably gained more from it than we did cuz he said nothing during our interviews disciple told me John Bradley was involved in John Brad was a smalltime player you

Might have sent him out to hijack a car or something like that but you wouldn’t bring him into a big job like nether Mar specific to the Keening case you look at one of the suspects Broadley once you get into the The Cold Light of Day and you have two people in

Front of you and all of a sudden you’re confronted by The Brute reality of what You’ did people talk he says out of the blue I got a knock at the door and sand look with a major operation and we need someone to act as

A jaler and I was shown up into this house in Hill had Crescent and there was near I knew right away who he was on the second night near M was quite calm he was in a small bedroom only the lights from an open electric fire

But one time he asked to go to the toilet and when he got on the hallway he made a break for three of them managed to get him and haul him back up into the bedroom he says but he started to scream we were starting to panic so we got him

Onto the mattress on the floor and still he was screaming and he says one of the gang had a 9 mil bring and he clubbed him twice in the head with it and he say gradually near where FR lump and he was there we also learned that when Keen was

Up for the operation he was very much on the run and one of the houses he slept in was the house of Eugene McManus Eugene McManus was the adant of the Belfast Brigade when we interviewed mcmanis he told us this whole operation against the was bran Ken’s grandchild

And I has gone terribly wrong if the rest I already got to know Kenan made such a file up bad for reputation so it was he was insistent that everything be kept close and the body be taken away and buried secretly and was never to be mentioned

Again two Irishmen have been jailed for their part in the kidnapping and death of the West German industrialist Thomas nemire in 1973 John Christopher Bradley one of the men guarding him was today sentenced to 20 years a second accused Eugene mcmanis who admitted helping the kidnappers and

Belonging to the IRA received a 5-year sentence Thomas neid’s life and death meant nothing to the people who brought it about that’s what they did the IRA produces death Thomas nidah was a victim of that death cult and so was his and so was his Family for me this is discovering more about my family more about what they went through and the people they were I’m outside the house that my grandfather Thomas was taken to after his kidnapped this is where he was murdered the people who live here now

Had nothing to do with it and it is on a quiet family street it’s not an abandoned boarded up building that you could imagine such Horrors happening as someone being held hostage and it’s surreal that I’m here now looking at the place that he was held that he fought and that he was

Killed at not long after Thomas’s funeral inorg moved back to Germany to Bamberg Thomas’s Hometown granny inberg I can only ever remember as a very small timid lady who just seemed incredibly Sad there was a lot of love between her and my mom and they did you used to talk in German to each other so none of us knew what was going on or what was being Said the fact that Granny inur would come back here even after the house was sold and just sit on this bench time and time again over and over again it’s just so sad it feels that she was stuck here this is the moment this is the place that their lives changed

Forever thinking about grandfather and my grandmother and renate and my mom and the turmoil that they must have all gone through on that day just breaks my heart without me even knowing it it’s overshadowed my life in June 1990 inorg went went back to Ireland this seafront hotel in Bray that

She and Thomas had been to and enjoyed and had fun she’d clearly planned it extremely well remembering those Happy Times tragically Mrs Nar committed SU Side by walking into the Sea it’s terribly sad that she decided that that was her only option renati loved animals and I think her animals took the place of friendships I cannot imagine the pain that renati would have felt on being the person who opened the door in the years after the kidnapping

It became clear that she had developed an eating disorder she went a long way away she moved to South Africa while in South Africa she worked as a volunteer in a refuge for wounded and abandoned animals and that’s where she died in 1992 from organ failure related to

Bulimia to me that is a form of Suicide those who say the war is over I don’t know what they’re talking about the evolution can never be over until we have our country until we have British imperialism where they belong and the do history his nickname was the dog that’s how intelligence Services refer to him

He was like the rot wheeler of the of the provisionals I interviewed a lot of Republican agents dur three years A lot of them talked a father turned up at e everybody sat there apartment Guinness turned up people just sat there I’ve ke appeared in the room everybody up the attention my mother

Was the kindest most gentle sorry there was always a sadness there but she was 100% dedicated to me and Tanya there wasn’t a single point where you didn’t know that she loved you completely and that her life she dedicated to to giving us everything she possibly could I remember coming home one night

And dad said that Mama had disappeared she said she was going into town to do some shopping the next day her body was found in a car in a field Thomas’s kidnapping it absolutely shaped my mother’s life and the choices she made and her overall happiness with her

Life so she left a whole stack of cards and she wrote us hand letters some of the page the words have run because there are tears on the page as she wrote this letter to me she said I know that you’re capable full of great things with

Your life remember that I love you so much that this letter is the hardest thing I’ve done in my life her letter to me essentially said I’m sorry but you understand why this is necessary and I love you but it’s clear that my life is no more

So it’s time to end it Thursday evening my very last letter of all and it’s written to both Tanya and myself I just want you to know that I love you please grow up as ladies let nothing stand in the way of your chosen careers and above all be happy remember I’ll be

With you always cuz it strikes me as what I mean like uh a surrender well there will be no surrender like Kenan was advisor to begin us and ADR the peace process everything at the British government offered Adams and mcginness they had to go and run it past Kenan if Kenan said

It was okay the rest of their a was said was okay his support for the peace process for Shen pin’s peace strategy was crucial and pivotal it’s a complete fantasy to say that Brian Keenan became a man of Peace what he realized was that the armed

Phase of the war was over over and they could continue their campaign against Northern Ireland state by subversion by Lies by Dishonesty my mom died in ’94 and that loss affected my dad Robin so horrendously and in 99 my dad killed himself and that is a further effect of that kidnap of Thomas on his doorstep so he is just as much a victim as the rest of the nmi Is Brian Keenan the former leading member of the IRA has died in Belfast to day aged 66 Keenan didn’t want a traditional Church funeral his wish was that his body would be cremated and his ashes scattered from the hills above Belfast family Shin Fain and Ira members took turns to carry the

Coffin for someone like Kenan when he passes the world wants to capture it this great Patriot of Ireland who fought the Brits and dedicated his life to this noble cause and you’ll have his victims like Thomas neemar her absolutely utterly Forgotten could he not I’ve told the truth was it so difficult to turn around to the family and say this is what happened we did it and you know what it was wrong and we’re sorry there’s none of that my name’s Tanya I’m one of the the two

Grandchildren of Thomas need meire my sister was only 14 when our mother died she was 19 when our father died and that is the Legacy that’s the multigenerational trauma that has been caused by the decision to kidnap Thomas that cycle of trauma and guilt and grief of being the ones left behind

Shouldn’t Define our continued Existence my children they know about what has happened to our family and they have some understanding of what’s happened and my hope is that my children will help us break this cycle and they are going to lead prosperous loving happy lives even with that awareness thank you so much for listening to [Applause] Me the damage that’s happened to our family has to stop at myself and Tanya I don’t want to see it trickle down into the Next Generation I don’t want to see any of our children’s lives impacted any further my mother’s death was just a crushing crushing

Blow I think it’s not until really I had a child of my own that I really appreciated how much you still need your mom even even through adulthood to be able to travel to Germany and meet the family that we never knew we had is very

Exciting so Tanya and I always used to have this thing in our head that we would never live past 40 we’re both pass that luckily [Laughter] I don’t think we’re special I think there’s plenty of people out there who have far worse things happened to them

Than what has happened to our family and they’re able to survive and they’re able to overcome and not be victims of what has happened to them so I absolutely know that for tan and I we can overcome what has happened to our Family