Netflix series – “Bank under Siege”: Hands up or we’ll put up a coup

When eleven masked, armed men stormed the central bank in Barcelona in the morning hours of May 23, 1981 and took almost 300 hostages, the authorities and the public initially assumed that it was a bank robbery. But after some time, the perpetrators demanded the release of several military officers who had occupied the Spanish parliament exactly three months earlier in the so-called 23-F in order to carry out a coup and stop the transition to democracy with a right-wing coup six years after Franco’s death.

Was the attack on the central bank of Barcelona another act of violence by nationalist, right-wing extremist military forces to destabilize democracy? The 37-hour hostage-taking, which ended with the arrest of all perpetrators, definitely had this latter effect. Or were the perpetrators just interested in money and the political demands were a diversionary tactic while they unsuccessfully tried to dig an escape route into the sewers? The five-part Spanish Netflix series “Bank Under Siege” now explores these questions, which have not yet been clearly answered, and plays through the individual options in an exciting plot.

At the center of this story, which is staged very closely to historical reality, is the fictional young journalist Maider Garmendia (María Pedraza), who writes for the “Diario de Barcelona” and is researching the case with her colleague, the photographer Bernardo García (Hovik Keuchkerian). . The two are initially arrested by the police, but then they are very close to the investigation, which is led by Inspector Francisco “Paco” López (Isak Férriz).

Between telephone calls with the hostage takers, some of whom are the president himself or the general in charge of the operation, and the investigations by the commissioner, whose trail the two reporters always follow closely, the story of José Juan Martínez (Miguel Herrán) rolled up, the head of the attack. He was a petty criminal from Almeria who committed robberies as a teenager, was caught by the police, served a prison sentence and was recruited in prison by the Francoist secret service, for which he raised money through illegal activities in the 70s.

The series lives above all from the meticulous staging of the 80s.

Before José Juan Martínez and his followers attacked the central bank in Barcelona, ​​he lived for a time in Perpignan, where he is said to have been a member of an anarchist group. Or was that just a disguise? Did he possibly attack the central bank of Barcelona for the Spanish secret service? At least that’s the story he told after his arrest. Allegedly, the real reason for the raid was for Martinez to steal a document from a safe deposit box that contained incriminating information for the government related to the failed coup three months earlier.

However, Martinez backed away from this version. In the series he does this because of the threats that secret service chief Emilio Alonso Manglano (Roberto Álamo) makes against his family. Martinez didn’t stay in prison for long and was released after a few years. To this day it is not clear whether this robbery was a secret service operation, nationalist terror or simply a bank robbery. “Bank Under Siege” cleverly juxtaposes these different versions.

The series lives above all from the meticulous staging of the 80s. It’s also about ETA terrorism, the big wave of heroin that hit Spain at that time, but also about the spirit of optimism in the time after Franco’s death. This includes the rather blunt approach of the security authorities, whose greatest concern is that members of the paramilitary federal police Guardia Civil could be present during the robbery. Because then, it becomes clear, the special forces who ended the hostage-taking might have refused access so as not to have to take action against colleagues.

In the first half of the 1980s, Spain, which never really came to terms with the Franco dictatorship, experienced three coup attempts by right-wing military men and nationalists. The epilogue to the series is the Socialist election victory in 1982. This marked the end of the so-called “Transición”. What role the bank robbery played during this time remains unclear. The series encourages people, at least in Spain, to deal with the topic.

Available on Netflix