The first victims of Stockholm syndrome found the symptoms as unexplainable as the doctors who examined them.
Wikimedia CommonsThe Kreditbanken construction , where Jan - Erik Olsson take his hostages .
In 1973 , Swedish criminologist and psychiatrist Nils Bejerot coin a most interesting psychiatrical phenomenon . He called itNorrmalmstorgssyndromet , after Norrmalmstorg , the area of Stockholm where thephenomenon had originate . To people out of doors of Sweden , however , it became known as “ Stockholm syndrome . ”
The case for his newfound condition was a peculiar one . A bank robbery had occurred , and hostages had been taken . However , unlike every surety situation before it , the hostages feel no veneration toward their hostage taker . In fact , it was quite the reverse . The hostages really seemed to have developed positive opinion toward their captors , perplex almost every law enforcement agent and psychiatric practician in the mankind .
Wikimedia CommonsThe Kreditbanken building, where Jan-Erik Olsson took his hostages.
On the sunup of Aug. 23 , 1973 , Jan - Erik Olsson , on leave from prison house , walked into the Sveriges Kreditbanken at Norrmalmstorg , a bank in central Stockholm . Armed with a submachine gun , Olsson can several shot at the ceiling and herald he was robbing the money box .
As he can , he cried out “ The party has just begun ! ”
Upon Olsson ’s comer , one of the bank workers had triggered a understood alarm , and two policeman showed up and seek to subdue Olsson . He fired at one of the policeman , hit him in the helping hand . The other he wedge into a chairwoman , and told to “ peach something . ” As the unharmed policeman let the cat out of the bag out “ lone Cowboy , ” Olsson collected four bank workers and show them into a hurdle .
AFP PHOTO / PRESSENS BILD FILES / ROLAND JANSSON / AFP PHOTO / SCANPIX SWEDEN / ROLAND JANSSONPress photographers and police snipers lie side by side on a roof opposite the Kreditbanken bank on Norrmalmstorg
In return for the prisoner , Olsson told the law , he wanted a few things in exchange . First , he wanted his Quaker , fellow captive Clark Olofsson to be play to the cant . Then , he need three million Swedish kronor ( some $ 376,000 ) , two guns , bulletproof singlet , helmet , and a fast railcar .
AFP PHOTO / PRESSENS BILD FILES / ROLAND JANSSON / AFP PHOTO / SCANPIX SWEDEN / ROLAND JANSSONPress photographers and police sniper dwell side by side on a ceiling opposite the Kreditbanken banking company on Norrmalmstorg
The government reserve Olofsson to be released , to serve as a communication inter-group communication between law and Olsson , and within a few minute he get at the bank with the ransom , the requests , and a blue Ford Mustang with a full tank . The governments only request for Olofsson and Olsson was that they provide the surety behind when they left .
AFP/Getty ImagesClark Olofsson and two of the hostages.
Unfortunately , the yoke did n’t like these term , as they want to leave with the hostages in purchase order to assure their own safe transition out of the savings bank . In a furor , Olsson called the Swedish Prime Minister , threaten the spirit of one of the hostage , a vernal woman named Kristin Enmark .
The world watched in horror through the dozens of word crew camp out outside the bank . The public flooded local newsworthiness and police place with trace as to how to get the hostage out , which range from hostile to downright silly .
However , while the public outside the bank grew more self-opinionated and apprehensive by the day , inside the bank building something very strange was happening .
AFP PHOTO PRESSENS BILD / AFP PHOTO / SCANPIX SWEDEN / EGAN-PolisenJan-Erik Olsson is lead out of the bank after the tear gas was released.
AFP / Getty ImagesClark Olofsson and two of the hostage .
The first mansion that something was amiss came the mean solar day after Olsson ’s threatening call . The Prime Minister receive another call from the group inside the banking concern , though this clip it was from one of the hostage – Kristin Enmark .
To the Minister ’s surprisal , Enmarkdid not express her awe . Instead , she recount him how disappointed she was with his attitude toward Olsson , and would he listen countenance them all go free .
It seemed that while the outside populace was worried the hostages would be killed , the hostages had alternatively formed a human relationship with their captors , and had begun to tie with them . Olsson had given Enmark a jacket when she was stale , had soothed her during a incubus , and had let her take a bullet from his artillery as a relic .
Another hostage , Birgitta Lundblad , had been leave to call her sept , and when she could n’t reach them , was encourage to keep assay and not give up . When another surety , Elisabeth Oldgren , complained of claustrophobia , she was allowed to take a walk around the outside of the burial vault ( albeit while tied to a 30 - foot leash ) .
“ I retrieve thinking he was very genial to allow me to leave alone the bank vault , ” she told theNew Yorkera twelvemonth later .
Her fellow hostage Sven Safstrom , the lonely male surety , agreed with her , despite the fact that Olsson jeopardize to pip him in the pegleg .
“ How kind I thought he was for sound out it was just my wooden leg he would shoot , ” he remembered .
“ When he treated us well , we could think of him as an emergency God , ” he continued .
AFP PHOTO PRESSENS BILD / AFP PHOTO / SCANPIX SWEDEN / EGAN - PolisenJan - Erik Olsson is lead out of the bank after the tear gas was expel .
finally , six days after Olsson had first enter the bank , the police force outside reached a decision . Due to the hostage ’s confusing plea for mercifulness on their captors , there seemed no way to get them out other than by force-out . On Aug. 28 , police pumped tear gas pedal into the bank vault for a small kettle of fish in the ceiling . Olsson and Olofsson surrendered almost straight off .
However , when the police send for for the surety to do out first , their irrational dedication to their captor held tight . They insisted that the captor leave first , as they believe the law would spud them if they were the last in the vault . Even as the capturer were take into custody and carried off , the hostages defend them .
The unexplainable empathy that the captive felt for their captors , their “ Stockholm syndrome , ” confused police and health professional in the calendar month after the event . The day after being released , surety Elisabeth Oldgren admit she did n’t even know why she feel the way she did .
“ Is there something awry with me ? ” she asked her shrink . “ Why do n’t I hate them ? ”
Before long , the term Stockholm syndrome would be used to report the billet and others in which the surety became emotionally attached to their captors . Stockholm syndrome again was brought to interior attention a year after the banking concern robbery , when American newspaper heiress Patty Hearst claimed it explicate her allegiance to the Symbionese Liberation Army , an urban insurgent group that had kidnapped her .
For the original victims , it appeared that their Stockholm syndrome linger . After Olofsson and Olsson were imprisoned , the hostages made routine jail visit to their captor , never finding themselves capable to recrudesce the inconceivable bond that had formed under such dark circumstance .
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