KIDNAPPING:CONFIDENTIAL files released in Belfast this week shed new light on the abduction and subsequent death in IRA custody of Thomas Niedermayer, managing director of the Grundig electronics factory in Dunmurry in 1973.
A confidential RUC report records that on December 27th, 1973, Mr Niedermayer (then aged 45) was bundled into a car outside his Glengoland, Belfast, bungalow at about 11pm. Two men, who called at his home, lured him outside on the pretext that they had damaged his car.
He was last seen being driven off towards the Andersonstown area of west Belfast. Initial reports suggested that the German industrialist, who was also West German honorary consul in Northern Ireland, was being held hostage by paramilitaries in exchange for the Price sisters, recently sentenced at Winchester for bombing offences.
Mr Niedermayer had just announced plans for the opening of a second factory in Newry.
In February 1978, solicitors acting for Mr Niedermayer’s widow sought compensation for his widow and family from the Northern Ireland Office (NIO). In 1976, the West German government gave Mrs Niedermayer leave to assume her husband was dead for the purposes of winding up his affairs. By this stage, the file shows her health had deteriorated due to her husband’s disappearance.
On August 9th, 1978, E Dalzell, an NIO official, informed colleagues that he had checked all records held by the RUC Special Branch concerning Mr Niedermayer’s abduction and added: “On the balance of probabilities he was kidnapped by members of the Provisional IRA and murdered by them. There are no reports which would suggest that he either went voluntarily with the PIRA or that he disappeared for any other reason.”
Mr Dalzell referred to a report in June 1978 from “a reliable informer”, stating that the industrialist was “kidnapped and murdered by three known members of the Provisional IRA and has been buried somewhere in the First Battalion area, ie, Upper Andersonstown”.
The official also referred to a report that “following the kidnap Mr Niedermayer died of a heart attack and was buried by the Provisional IRA”. However, this report was “not considered reliable”. There were no reports to suggest Mr Niedermayer was still alive, he noted.
Mrs Niedermayer was awarded £100,000 compensation in May 1979. Two years later in March 1980, Thomas Niedermayers remains were found in a rubbish tip at Colin Glen, on the outskirts of west Belfast. His hands and legs had been tied and postmortem reports showed he had two skull fractures, one of which could have caused his death.
Examination revealed that it could have been caused by a blow from a Browning automatic pistol although the evidence suggested he could also have died from asphyxiation or a heart attack.
In 1981, a Belfast man John Bradley was jailed for 20 years for the manslaughter of Mr Niedermayer. A murder charge was dropped.
Described as one of the team of IRA men guarding Mr Niedermayer at a house in the nearby Hillhead area, he said he was told that the object of the abduction was to barter him for the Price sisters.
On the third day of his confinement the businessman became restless. His captors had tied his hands and legs while one of them struck him with the butt of an automatic pistol to stop him screaming. “He was still struggling, but then he went limp and somebody said the man was dead,” the court was told. On the following night, his captors took his body to Colin Glen and buried it in a shallow grave.
Ten years after the discovery of Mr Niedermayer’s body, his widow Ingeborg, booked into a hotel at Bray, Co Wicklow. A week later her body was recovered from the sea at Greystones. An inquest concluded that Mrs Niedermayer, who had suffered from recurrent depression after her husband’s abduction, had drowned.