Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Norrmalmstorg Robbery
34 Plays30 days ago
Episode fourteen of the new series of Pieces of History steps into the heart of 1970s Stockholm, where a botched bank heist gave rise to one of psychology’s most confounding concepts: Stockholm Syndrome.
In this episode, we unravel the tense six-day standoff at Kreditbanken in Norrmalmstorg Square - a robbery that turned into a media circus, a national spectacle, and a defining moment in the study of trauma and empathy. As police surrounded the building, something strange was happening inside: hostages began identifying with their captors, defending them, even fearing the authorities more than the gunmen.
Who were the players in this gripping drama? What psychological mechanisms were at work behind the vault doors? And how did a single phrase - “Stockholm Syndrome” - come to define hostage dynamics for generations?
This is more than a story of crime and crisis. It's a window into the human psyche, a moment when fear, trust, and identity collided - and changed how we understand captivity, survival, and loyalty.
Email: piecesofhistorypod@outlook.com
Facebook: Pieces of History podcast
Instagram: @pieceofhistorypod
Recommended
Transcript
The Heist Begins
00:00:13
Speaker
August 23rd, 1973, Stockholm, Sweden. A cool morning sun filters through the tall windows of credit banking, tucked neatly into normal Strokes Square, a refined pocket of the capital, better known for high-end boutiques and conversation than for chaos.
00:00:32
Speaker
Inside the bank, all is routine. The soft ticking of a wall clock, the rustle of paper, the customer at the counter filling counterer fill not with withdrawal slip, a teller smiles.
00:00:43
Speaker
Then the door opens. A man steps inside, blue overalls, a tight stocking pulled over his face. In one hand, a submachine gun. He fires a shot into the ceiling, plaster rains down.
00:00:56
Speaker
The party has just begun, he shouts in perfect English.
Birth of Stockholm Syndrome
00:01:00
Speaker
Over the next six days, the world would watch, transfixed, as a violent bank robbery morphed into a psychological puzzle, one that would test the nerves police, rattle rot government and challenge everything we thought we knew about fear, empathy and survival.
00:01:15
Speaker
This is the story of the Normals Drug Robbery and the birth of what would come to be known as Stockholm Syndrome.
Sweden in the 1970s
00:01:22
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Pieces of History, I'm Colin McGrath.
00:01:26
Speaker
In each episode I delve into some renowned and lesser known events throughout history. But before we step into the vault and the stand off the captivated nation, let's take a moment to understand the backdrop, the country where it all happened, Sweden.
00:01:40
Speaker
Sweden is a land of striking contrasts, ancient forests and sleek modern cities, Viking rune stones and cutting edge innovation, centuries old monarchy and a world renowned welfare state.
00:01:52
Speaker
Located on the Scandinavian peninsula, bordered by Norway and Finland and lapped by the Baltic Sea, Sweden is one of Europe's largest countries by land area, yet home to just over 10 million people.
00:02:03
Speaker
Most Swedes live in the south, in cities like Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo, places at home with cultural life and international influence. Yet much of the country remains untamed, pine woods stretching towards the Arctic, dealt with rivers, lakes and the occasional red cottage nestled in the trees.
00:02:22
Speaker
Politically, Sweden is a constitutional monarchy, where a ceremonial king presides over democracy built on consensus, rationality and deep civic trust. It's a nation where institutions, courts, police, even tax agencies enjoy a level of public confidence that's the envy of much of the world.
00:02:40
Speaker
And since the early 19th century, Sweden has remained at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality that became central to its national identity, especially during the Cold War.
The Hostage Situation
00:02:50
Speaker
But neutrality doesn't mean stagnation.
00:02:52
Speaker
The 1970s were a time of change. While Sweden's post-war economy thrived, built on steel, timber and modern industry, the nation also grappled with social transformation.
00:03:04
Speaker
It was the land of strong unions and high taxes, of free universities and cradle the grave care. But it was also the scene of growing political radicalism, student protests and rising unease about the crime and urban unrest.
00:03:18
Speaker
It was a country searching for balance, between freedom and order, between tradition and progress, and in that delicate space, something was about to break. By mid-morning on August 23rd, the calm of credit banking was shattered.
00:03:32
Speaker
A man stepped through the doors wearing in a light summer jacket, oversized sunglasses with blue tinted lenses and a curly wig pursed awkwardly on his head. His moustache was dyed black, his cheeks rouged.
00:03:45
Speaker
He looked like an actor in bad disguise, but the weapon in his hand was all too real. He fired a shot into the ceiling. The man was Jan Eric Olsen. He was 32, a convicted bank robber who had simply walked away from a prison furlough weeks earlier.
00:04:00
Speaker
This wasn't a botched escape, was a plan. In the confusion, he herded bank employees into the back, shouting instructions and waving his weapon. Customers hit the floor, clerks backed away, and when the dust had settled, Olsen had taken four hostages.
00:04:17
Speaker
Birgitta Lundblad, 31, who was married. Elizabeth Oldgren, 21, who was the youngest. Kristin Enmark, 23, who was soon to become a central figure, and Sven Saffström, 24, the only man among the hostages.
00:04:33
Speaker
Then came the demands. Olsen wanted 3 million Swedish kronor, roughly 500,000 pounds in today's money, a getaway car, bulletproof vests and some helmets.
00:04:45
Speaker
On one final request, the one that stunned officials, bring me Clark Olofsson. Olofsson wasn't just any criminal. He was infamous, a media fixture, a slick, charismatic outlaw with a talent for escaping and manipulating the system.
00:05:00
Speaker
He already turned Swedish courtrooms into stages, charming reporters and judges alike, and now Olsen wanted him by his side. It sounded absurd, inviting another criminal into an already volatile situation, but Sweden had no precedent for a standoff like this.
00:05:16
Speaker
And in a nation that prized the safety of its citizens above all else, the government caved.
Bonding in Captivity
00:05:21
Speaker
That afternoon a helicopter had delivered Clark Olofsson, clean-shaven, confident and curious, to the steps of credit banking.
00:05:29
Speaker
What followed next was strange. The two men greeted each other, not like co-conspirators but like comrades, as if resuming a war only they understood, and together they moved with the hostages into the bank's secure fault.
00:05:43
Speaker
From that moment on, a psychological drama unfolded, one that would blur the lines between captor and captive. At first there was fear, pure and visceral. The vault door remained slightly ajar, just enough to pass food and supplies through.
00:05:57
Speaker
Snipers perched outside, TV cameras ringed a square and inside, the tension simmered. Kristen Enmark later said, I believed a maniac had come into my life.
00:06:08
Speaker
I believed i was saying something that could only happen in America. Olsen barked threats and paced like a caged animal. His presence was volatile. But beside him stood Clark Olofsson, calm, collected, almost disarmamentally human.
00:06:24
Speaker
He untied the women. He coaxed Fenn Sallstrom out of hiding. He even requested a phone so the hostages could speak to their families. When Brigada Lundblad couldn't reach her husband, she began to cry, and Olsen, unexpectedly gentle, touched her cheek.
00:06:40
Speaker
Try again, he said. Don't give up. Night came, and with it, a strange kind of peace. The hostages and their captors slept side by side on the cold vault floor. Kristin and Mark would later describe listening to their breathing in the dark, sinking hers to theirs, not out of affection but out necessity, a rhythm of mutual exhaustion, a temporary truce, born of shared circumstance.
00:07:06
Speaker
As the hours passed, the surreal became routine. Elizabeth, claustrophobic and star-crazy, was allowed to walk the length of the bank on a long rope leash. When she shivered, Olsen draped his jacket over her shoulders, and still, the threat lingered like smoke.
00:07:22
Speaker
At one point, Olsen proposed shooting Salfström in the leg, a non-lethal warning shot to show he meant business. Salfström, shockingly, agreed. Christian comforted him. It's only in the leg.
00:07:34
Speaker
The shot never came. Outside the scene turned into a spectacle. Crowds filled Norman Strogg Square. Cameras rolled. Newspapers labelled it the pornography of violence.
00:07:47
Speaker
Reporters camped outside the bank doors. The hostages spoke to the media and even the Prime Minister, Olaf Pa himself. When Christian's voice crackled over the radio waves, the entire nation paused to listen.
00:07:59
Speaker
I fully trust Clark and the robber. They haven't done a thing to us. I'm scared the police will attack and cause us to die. The statement shocked Sweden. The line between hostage and captor had begun to blur.
00:08:10
Speaker
Over the course of six long days, fear gave way to something far more complicated. A strange intimacy forged in close quarters in constant danger. Kristen Enmark would later reflect, They didn't scare us.
00:08:22
Speaker
They treated us well. The police were the threat. Not Jeanne. Jeanne, her nickname for Jeanne Eric Olsen, the masked gunman who had stormed the credit bank. She spoke of him not with hatred or horror, but with a reluctant, almost protective trust.
00:08:38
Speaker
Despite once tying a noose around one hostage's neck and threatening to pull it if the police intervened, Alston soon whispered to her, Don't worry, I'd never hurt you. Inside the vault, sealed off from daylight, thick with anxiety, a microcosm formed.
00:08:54
Speaker
A fragile ecosystem of captor and captive. They joked, they argued, they cried. They listened to the radio and comforted each other in silence. One woman got her period.
00:09:06
Speaker
Olsen handed her sanitary products without a word. Another day, Christian pled it with the authorities not to storm the bank, not to risk the fragile bonds that had become their strange protection. What unfolded in the vault wasn't simple madness, it was something more primal, a psychological pact formed under pressure, a survival instinct twisted into ampath empathy, trust forced into strange and desperate shapes.
00:09:31
Speaker
By day 3 the pressure escalated. The police, desperate to re-assert control, slammed the vault shut completely. No more cracks of light, no voices filtering in, no contact with the outside world.
00:09:45
Speaker
What had already felt like a cage now i became a tomb. And yet, something even stranger happened. Olsen took out three powers, sliced them and handed the pieces around, taking the smallest portion for himself.
00:09:58
Speaker
The gesture wasn't just kindness, it was a signal. He wasn't trying to break the hostages, he was trying to win them. They watched him closely, they noticed his choices.
00:10:10
Speaker
Sven Saffström would later say, When he treated us well, we could think of him as an emergency god. By now, something crucial had shifted. The hostages, once terrified, began to see the police as a greater threat.
00:10:24
Speaker
They didn't fear the men inside the vault, they feared what might come crashing in from above. They feared rescue. Day 4, then day 5. The sound of a drill echoed through the concrete.
00:10:37
Speaker
The police were boring holes through the ceiling. Officially, it was to lower a telephone line. Unofficially, it was preparation for something else, something chemical. Everyone inside the vault knew what was coming.
00:10:50
Speaker
Tear gas. Olsen's response was grim and theatrical. He rigged the hostages with nooses, tying them to steel fixtures above. If gas came in and they lost consciousness, they'd hang.
00:11:03
Speaker
Christa Mout later said that she didn't believe he'd go through with it, but that hardly mattered. The threat hung in the stale air just as tangibly as the ropes, and still, they endured. The hostages stood for hours, suspended in uncertainty.
00:11:17
Speaker
They swayed slightly when they grew tired, muscles trembled, breathing grew shallow. Finally, Sven spoke. He volunteered to stand for them all, to take the strain, to let the others rest.
00:11:30
Speaker
He was a real man, Olsen would later recall. He was ready to be a hostage for the hostages. Inside the vault, power no longer followed the barrel of a gun. It shifted, moment to moment, through acts of sacrifice, empathy and patience.
00:11:45
Speaker
The hostages and their captors weren't becoming friends. They were becoming something harder to name, co-survivors. Bound by a shared desperation, they were, in every way that mattered, in this together.
Media Reaction and Psychological Analysis
00:11:58
Speaker
Among those captivated by the event was American historian David King. Decades later, he would recall the moment it first pulled him I used to walk past the site of the credit bank on my way to the library while living in Sweden in the he wrote.
00:12:13
Speaker
The story reminded me of Dog Day Afternoon, but this was different. This was the origin of a psychological concept that would echo far beyond Scandinavia. King wanted answers, so he began digging, and eventually he found the men at the centre of the drama.
00:12:30
Speaker
Come to Sweden, said a raspy voice over the phone, I'll answer whatever the F you want. was Clark Olofsson, older, no less theatrical, sipping rum and puffing a cigar.
00:12:42
Speaker
A counterculture icon of the 1970s Sweden, reading Nietzsche in prison, taunting reporters the next. One journalist I called him, a scruffy Scandinavian mixture of Jesse James and Warren Beatty.
00:12:54
Speaker
Olofsson wasn't just a footnote in the robbery, he was central to it. When Jan-Erik Olsson walked into the credit bank that morning in August 1973 wielding a machine gun, it was Olofsson he demanded to be released from prison.
00:13:07
Speaker
Shockingly, the authorities complied. They brought Clark into the vault, into a hostage crisis already unfolding. How could they have released a known criminal into a hostage situation?" King asked.
00:13:18
Speaker
Because, Sweden seemed to answer, this was uncharted territory. And it was. At the peak of the standoff, 73% of Sweden's population was tuned in. Radio, television, and newspapers.
00:13:30
Speaker
The country wasn't just watching, it was consumed. Outside the bank, a media circus had formed in Normal Strog Square. Reporters filed early updates. Psychologists and criminologists whispered theories, but no one could explain what they were saying.
00:13:45
Speaker
and Inside the vault, the psychological reversal deepened. Microphones placed near the vault door captured the strange intimacy forming. Hostages comforting captors, captors showing concern, fear blending with trust,
00:13:59
Speaker
Laughter and tension in the same breath. And then, the gas. Tear gas, thick and choking, filled the air. Chaos erupted. Screaming, coughing, eyes streaming.
00:14:10
Speaker
But what stunned the world wasn't the panic. It was who the hostages were screaming for. Not for themselves. Not for freedom. They screamed for the robbers. They begged police to stop. They pleaded for the safety of Olsen and Olofsson.
00:14:24
Speaker
That moment, recorded, replayed, analyzed for decades. The standoff ended without a single shot fired. No one died. When the vault door finally opened, the hostages emerged, pale, blinking into the sunlight, arms shielding their eyes, shaking, coughing, but alive.
00:14:43
Speaker
What followed confounded the public. In interviews, the hostages did condemn their captors. They didn't rage against them. Instead, they offered something far more complicated, understanding, even affection.
00:14:56
Speaker
They described Olsen and Olsen as human, flawed yes, but not monsters. They insisted the real threat had come from the outside, from the police. The ones who had, in their words, ignored their pleas and endangered them with brute tactics.
00:15:12
Speaker
Jan Eric Olsen was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He claimed the robbery had been a desperate, misguided attempt to gain control over his life. Few believed him fully, but some saw shades of truth.
00:15:24
Speaker
Clark Olofsson, ever the escape artist, managed to avoid major consequences, but his life would remain entangled with crime. He bounced in and out of prisons across Europe for decades, a man who seemed unable or unwilling to escape the road society had cast him in.
00:15:41
Speaker
The hostages faded back into private life. They weren't interested in becoming symbols, but they had already become something more, case study. The psychologist Niels Berserot, watching from the sidelines, coined the phrase in his notes, Normalstrog syndromat.
00:15:57
Speaker
The world would come to know it as Stockholm Syndrome. The idea that captives, in moments of extreme stress, might bond with their captors, not out of irrationality, but as a survival instinct.
00:16:08
Speaker
An emotional adaptation to powerlessness. The term leap across borders and decades involved in cases from Patricia Hurst to Elizabeth Smart, from hostage negotiators to pop culture scripts.
00:16:20
Speaker
But as David a King would later write, the popular conception of Stockholm Syndrome was even part of the original story. It came later, shaped by the media, myth and a desire to simplify something fundamentally complex.
Legacy of the Heist
00:16:33
Speaker
To truly understand it, you had to go back, not to the label, but to the vault, in those six days in 1973 when trust and terror lived side by side. The normal strong robbery lasted just six days, not a single life was lost, but something else was left behind, something far harder to calculate, a new language for trauma, a psychological puzzle that still unsettles the experts, and a story that forces us to ask, what do we really understand about survival?
00:17:03
Speaker
Sometimes
Closing Remarks
00:17:04
Speaker
there are no clean categories. No heroes or villains, just people trapped together in impossible circumstances, reaching for something human in the dark.
00:17:15
Speaker
Thank you for joining me on this journey into the history of the Normals drug robbery. Stay tuned for the next episode where we'll continue to uncover more hidden and corners of history. Make sure to subscribe and rate Pieces of History podcast on Spotify and iTunes and you can contact me at piecesofhistoryatoutlook.com or on Instagram and Facebook at Pieces of History. history Thanks for listening.