Jan Philipp Reemtsma's account of his kidnapping. On March 25, 1996, Jan Philipp Reemtsma was knocked down in front of his house in Hamburg-Blankenese and abducted. His captors held him captive for 33 days in the basement of a rented house near Bremen; he was released only after a payment of 30 million marks. This is Jan Philipp Reemtsma's report on his captivity in the basement - a chronology of events and, beyond that, the analysis and self-analysis of an intellectual who had scientifically engaged with the traumatic phenomena whose effects he now had to experience. Reemtsma describes the feelings that accompany a state of forced passivity, of being at the mercy of gangsters. He recounts the progression of days that consist primarily of fear of death and waiting - the shame of having fallen into such a situation.