The Kidnaper

Tipped off by an informer, West Berlin cops were waiting one night last week when a burglar broke into a junk dealer's home. They got more than an ordinary crook: once arrested, Kurt Knobloch began to talk, and what he said made the pinch, in the eyes of a top West Berlin police official, "the most important arrest made in West Berlin since the end of the war."

At 22, Knobloch is a veteran but inept burglar, with a record of four arrests and three convictions. He had finished one stretch in an East Berlin jail and was headed for a trial that might bring him another when he was visited by a top East German secret police bureaucrat known to him only as "Paul." Paul had a bargain to offer. If Knobloch would agree to help kidnap Dr. Walter Linse, the No. 2 man in the anti-Communist Investigating Committee of Free Jurists, he himself would be set free; if he refused, Knobloch would find himself in jail for a long, long time. Knobloch accepted the bargain.

Dr. Linse was a man the Communists wanted badly (TIME, July 21) and he was on guard. Before Knobloch's team was brought into action, another group of Communist thugs had tried three times to kidnap Dr. Linse, and failed. Then team No. 2--Knobloch, a professional wrestler and two other bully boys--got the alert. At 7:20 on the morning of July 8, an East German Opel, disguised as a West Berlin taxicab, stopped outside Linse's home. Linse emerged and Knobloch asked him for a light. As Linse fumbled for his lighter, the wrestler pinioned his arms. Linse broke free and ran to the "cab" seeking help. The thugs inside grabbed him, threw him into the back seat and sped off.

Linse stiffened his legs, thus held the car doors open. The thug sitting beside the driver pumped a bullet into Linse's legs; they relaxed and the door closed. Inside the Soviet zone, Paul and a major in the People's Police were waiting; they took Dr. Linse. Knobloch and his buddies got a six-week, all-expenses-paid vacation and a $250 bonus.

Last week, after signing the confession, Knobloch returned to his cell, became hysterical, ripped apart a tin can and nicked his left wrist artery, then beat on the wall, screaming: "Help me! I don't want to die!" Knobloch would not die. At the most, he might get 15 years for kidnaping. But what of Dr. Linse? Five stiff U.S. notes of protest had brought only Red shrugs. The Reds had Dr. Linse and the West had only a stupid, repentant, petty criminal named Kurt Knobloch.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.