Face Down: The Disappearance of Thomas Niedermayer

by David Blake Knox

On 27 December 1973 the nightmare late that night German businessman Thomas Niedermayer was kidnapped from his home in Belfast. Never seen alive again by his friends or family, he became one of the ‘disappeared’ and it seemed that no one knew what had happened to him.

His wife, Ingeborg, and his daughters, Renate and Gabriele, spent the next seven years not knowing if Thomas were alive or dead. In 1980, an IRA informant led police to recover his body. But the trauma for Thomas’s family was far from there were further devastating consequences for all of them.

Five decades on, FACE DOWN sets out to discover what really happened in Belfast all those years ago.

Now in its second, updated edition and the subject of a feature-length documentary, this astonishing story of one family's generational trauma undermines any attempt to glamorise or minimise the effects of political violence.

392 pages, Paperback

Published December 16, 2023

Reviews

[HarryMc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written. This book covers so much more than just the abduction and killing of Thomas Niedermayer. One reviewer summed it up perfectly as "a rigorous and compelling historical study" A perfect description.
Very interesting background into Herr Niedermayer and his wife before they came to Northern Ireland. Also lots of detail on what was going on in NI at the time within the IRA, RUC and government.
And of course the writer details the very far reaching effect on the Niedermayers two daughters.

[Marie O'Halloran · Rating 4 out of 5]

The senseless killing of Thomas Niedermayer and the consequences for his wife and daughters must be one of the saddest of all the tragic events from Northern Ireland's troubled times. David Blake Knox gives a comprehensive background, which would be helpful to people unfamiliar with the history of that region.