The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History, Volume 1

by J. Smith

  Karl-Heinz Ruhland, who had proven an embarrassment to the state in the first RAF trials, was now reinforced by a slightly more convincing turncoat: Gerhard Müller, a former SPK member, who had been captured along with Meinhof in 1972. After two and a half years of hunger strikes and isolation, Müller could take no more and finally broke during the third hunger strike, in the winter of 1974/75. Tempted with offers of leniency and threatened with a murder charge going back to Hamburg police officer Norbert Schmid in 1971, he agreed to work for the prosecution.

  The murder case was dropped, and the charges relating to the May Offensive—for which he could have received life—culminated in a tenyear sentence, of which he was only required to serve half.1 The deal was further sweetened with offers of a new identity and the possibility of selling his story for a considerable sum.2 He eventually received 500,000 DM and was relocated to the United States.3

  In exchange, Müller painted a nightmare picture of the RAF as brutal killers, accusing Baader in particular of having executed one member, Ingeborg Barz, simply because she wished to opt out of the guerilla struggle.

  Barz had joined the RAF in 1971 along with Wolfgang Grundmann; they had both been previously active in the anarchist prisoner support group Black Aid.4 While she is known to have participated in the Kaiserslautern bank robbery during which police officer Herbert Schoner was killed, she was never apprehended, nor did she ever surface from the underground. Disputing Müller’s claims, witnesses subsequently came forward testifying that they had met with Barz after this supposed execution, and when Müller brought police to the place where she was supposedly buried, they found nothing there.5

  Brigitte Mohnhaupt took the witness stand to refute this story, describing in detail the various ways in which people might leave the guerilla, and insisting that, even in the case of traitors, the RAF had not carried out any executions. Given the growing list of former members who worked with the media and Buback’s prosecutors against the RAF and the glaring fact that none of them had been killed, Mohnhaupt’s statements were far more credible than Müller’s.

  Another somewhat less important witness for the prosecution was Dierk Hoff, a metalworker and former SDS member from the Frankfurt scene. Hoff, who had built bombs and other weapons for the guerilla, testified that he had not realized what he was doing at the time. He claimed that Holger Meins, the conveniently dead former film student, had put him up to it with a story about how they were to be used as realistic props in a movie about terrorism. By the time he realized what was what, it was too late: the guerilla warned him that he was too deeply involved to be able to go to the police.

  In exchange for his cooperation, Hoff’s somewhat incredible story was not challenged by the prosecution, and he received only a short prison term.6 Despite this, his testimony was not felt to be particularly damaging.

  Supporters’ claims that all these broken witnesses were being paraded out not to secure a conviction (of which there was never any doubt) but to discredit the guerilla were vindicated at the eleventh hour as the trial was wrapping up. In January 1977, Otto Schily received a tip that Federal Judge Theodor Prinzing, who was in charge of the trial and was thus supposed to pretend to be impartial, had been passing on court documents and evidence to a judge from the appeals court. Copies of these documents had then been making their way to the press, accompanied by suggestions as to how they could be used to discredit the guerilla.

  In his eagerness to exploit the testimony of Müller and the others, Prinzing had miscalculated, and in so doing provided the defense with one of its few legal victories: the Federal Judge was forced to recuse himself.7 He was replaced by associate judge Eberhard Foth, and the circus continued.

  Nevertheless, the point had been made: this was a propaganda exercise, coordinated by either the BKA or the BAW, with a purely political goal. In other words, it was a show trial.

  The prisoners defended themselves against all this as best they could: they may have accepted collective responsibility for all of the attacks the RAF had carried out, but they were far from indifferent about what was said in court. It was of great importance for them to counter allegations that could easily undermine what support they enjoyed on the left.

  In her 1974 statement to the court regarding the liberation of Baader, Ulrike Meinhof had already attempted to refute the state’s slanders, and to place the guerilla’s actions within their proper political context. But the smears continued, and during the years of trials to come, the prisoners repeatedly felt compelled to defend not only their politics, but also their internal structure in the face of accusations of authoritarianism and cold inhumanity.

  Quoted out of context, the prisoners’ attempts to defend their past practice can seem exaggerated, even shrill. The desire to paint one’s own experiences in the most favorable light can easily backfire, making one appear to be an uncritical enthusiast, dewy-eyed, if not fanatical, which is precisely what we are told to expect from self-styled revolutionaries. Nevertheless, it is difficult to see what else they could have done, as the state moved to use their various trials as so many opportunities to present its cockamamie stories and slanders.

  In this context, the prisoners had little choice but to do what they could to affirm their political identity and continuing solidarity with one another.

  “We know why he’s saying it”

  These are excerpts from Brigitte Mohnhaupt’s testimony at Stammheim; a cruder but more complete translation is available at http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/documents/76_0708_mohnhaupt_pohl.html. (M. & S.)

  ON MÜLLER’S CLAIMS

  REGARDING THE “LIQUIDATION” OF COMRADES

  Of course there were people who left. It would be untrue to say otherwise. Contradictions develop within a group engaged in the process that this one is engaged in. In the course of the struggle, there are obviously contradictions, and there are people who decide at a certain point to no longer do the job, because they no longer want to.

  They decide to return to their previous lives, to go back, or they do other things, even though everyone knows perfectly well that it isn’t possible, that it is a lie, when one has already been engaged in a practice such as ours. Such a decision can only be a step backwards, which always signifies a step backwards into shit.

  There were departures like that, but there was obviously never a question of liquidation at any point or regarding any departure. There were departures involving people who, as I’ve already said, could no longer do the work, who no longer wanted to do it, because they understood that it meant going underground, which is what armed struggle always means. It was a completely free decision on their part. Leaving was the right thing for them to do. It would be stupid for them to stay, because there wouldn’t, in any case, be any way to engage in a shared practice.

  There were also departures that we ourselves decided upon. There were people who knew that we were ending relations with them for clear reasons, basically for the same reason, because, at a given point, it was no longer possible to have a shared practice, because contradictions had developed. And, yeah, they’re all still alive, that’s all complete nonsense—it unfolded completely normally. They do other things, conscious that they can never again engage in this practice.

  Maybe it should be explained how things would happen when someone decided to stop. It always happened in the course of a discussion in which everyone participated, or at least a good number of people, everyone who could participate, given the circumstances.

  This took place in the context of discussions. It wasn’t done in a heavy-handed way. Each time there was an evolution which allowed the person concerned—along with all the others, each person in the group—to understand that the point had been reached where it was no longer possible to work together, the time had come for him to make a decision: to change, if he still wanted to, if he could manage it, if he could, obviously, with the help of all the others—or else he can leave.

  At that point, he is f
ree to leave, and there is no pressure, because it’s his decision, because he understands this, and because throughout it all there is no loss of self-respect, he is not rejected. It could not possibly have been handled any other way given the structure.

  That is what makes this Hausner story of Müller’s absolutely impossible. Under certain specific circumstances, liquidation is obviously an option. But within the context of what the group was doing in 72, it would have been an error in that situation.

  It is absolutely untrue that Hausner wanted to leave, and it is also completely untrue that we had said he should leave. There was absolutely no reason, given who he was, given what he had done, that would have led us to force him to leave or to have liquidated him. It’s absolutely ridiculous. It never happened. Obviously, everyone makes mistakes, but nobody had the arrogance or the absolutism to say, “Me, I don’t make mistakes.”

  In any case, given the situation within the group, it is a swinish lie that we would have said, “Now he must leave, and if he doesn’t leave, then …”—what Müller said was, “If he couldn’t go to Holland, if he couldn’t be sent to a foreign country, then it was necessary, as an emergency solution, to simply liquidate him.”

  If such a thing could have happened, it would have weakened and destroyed the structure, destroyed the group, destroyed the individuals who had struggled as part of the group, rather than strengthening them, because if something like that could happen in the group how would it remain possible for individuals to struggle, to be courageous, and above all to find their identities?

  I maintain that it is impossible, even as an emergency solution or because there was no more place for someone, for things to have functioned in the way Müller described. It’s complete nonsense.

  Is this clear yet?

  I can give another example: the story of the woman in Berlin, Edelgard Graefer, I believe—in any case it was Graefer—who denounced a half a dozen people. She betrayed the people and gave away safehouses. And what happened? What was done? She got a slap in the mouth and was hit in the throat with a placard. So, I think these facts speak for themselves: when someone betrays people, in effect lines them up against the wall, because you never know what could happen when the cops break into an apartment, and this person only receives a slap in the head, then it is all the more absurd to think that someone who has never betrayed anyone could, as the result of a situation where everything culminates, as Müller describes it, in searches and whatever, in arrests, could simply be shot down. It’s absolutely out of the question.

  And, of course, the strongest evidence, I would say, that this story can’t be true is simply that Siegfried Hausner led the Holger Meins Commando, and it would have been out of the question for it to be otherwise. Quite simply, he made the arrangements, he did it himself, which clarifies the nature of the structure that existed at the time. I believe this clarifies everything. Why would he have done it? Why would he have struggled in a situation like the one Müller described?

  ON MÜLLER’S CLAIMS

  REGARDING THE SPRINGER BOMBING

  For instance, the statement which suggests that Ulrike carried out the attack against the Springer Building over the objections of Andreas or Gudrun or in opposition to a part of the group, and the claim that this led to a split, or, at least, to conflict between members, terror, or whatever it was that the pig said.

  The truth is that when the Hamburg action was carried out—and this was already clarified during this trial—we knew nothing because of the structure of our groups: decisions were made autonomously, and actions were carried out autonomously. After the action against Springer, there was a lot of criticism from other groups. As a result, Ulrike went to Hamburg to find out what had happened, because the RAF never considered actions if there was a risk that civilians could be hurt. It was an essential principle in all discussions and in the criticism addressed to the Hamburg group, that they carried out the action without clearly considering that Springer, of course, wouldn’t evacuate the building. So given this, it had not been well prepared. That was the criticism made of the group that had carried out the action.

  That is why Ulrike went to Hamburg at that time, to clarify this, to find out what had happened. After doing this, she formulated the statement about this action, in which everything was explained, the entire process, the warnings, Springer not evacuating, etc.

  Which shows that what Müller said, yeah, we know that already, and we know why he’s saying it. What he claims now, regarding Ulrike, that she had or could have intended to carry out actions that the others objected to, it is completely absurd, but it fits in perfectly with the current line: “the tensions.” Its purpose is to legitimize Ulrike’s murder. The claim that there were tensions is a story that goes back—according to what Müller has said here—to Hamburg, to the organization of the group in 71-72. It is purely and simply a fabrication, presented here with the sole objective of legitimizing the murder …

  Brigitte Mohnhaup

  Stammheim Trial

  July 22, 1976

  On the Liberation of Andreas Baader

  The following text was read by Ulrike Meinhof at her trial alongside Hans-Jürgen Bäcker and Horst Mahler. (M. & S.)

  This trial is a tactical maneuver, a part of the psychological war being waged against us by the BKA, the BAW, and the justice system:

  • with the goal of obfuscating both the political ramifications of our trials and the BAW’s extermination strategy in West Germany;

  • with the goal of using separate convictions to create the appearance of division, by putting only a few of us on display at any one time;

  • with the goal of erasing the political context of all the RAF prisoners’ trials from the public consciousness;

  • with the goal of forever eliminating from the people’s consciousness the fact that on the imperialist terrain of West Germany and West Berlin there is a revolutionary urban guerilla movement.1

  We—the Red Army Faction—will not participate in this trial.

  THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE

  If it is to be more than just an empty slogan, the struggle against imperialism must aim to annihilate, to destroy, to smash the system of imperialist domination—on the political, economic, and military planes. It must aim to smash the cultural institutions that imperialism uses to bind together the ruling elites and the communications structure that ensures their ideological control.

  In the international context, the elimination of imperialism on the military plane means the elimination of U.S. imperialism’s military alliances throughout the world, and here that means the elimination of NATO and the Bundeswehr. In the national context it means the elimination of the state’s armed formations, which embody the ruling class’ monopoly of violence and its state power: the police, the BGS, the secret service. On the economic plane, it means the elimination of the power structure that represents the multinational corporations. On the political plane, it means the elimination of the bureaucracies, organizations, and power structures, whether state or non-state (parties, unions, the media), that dominate the people.

  PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM

  The struggle against imperialism here is not and could not be a national liberation struggle. Socialism in one country is not its historical perspective. Faced with the transnational organization of capital and the military alliances with which U.S. imperialism encircles the world, the cooperation of the police and the secret services, the way the dominant elite is organized internationally within U.S. imperialism’s sphere of power—faced with all of this, our side, the side of the proletariat, responds with the struggle of the revolutionary classes, the people’s liberation movements in the Third World, and the urban guerilla in imperialism’s metropole. That is proletarian internationalism.

  Ever since the Paris Commune, it has been clear that a people who seek to liberate themselves within the national framework in an imperialist state attract the vengeance, the armed might, and deadly hostility
of the bourgeoisie of all the other imperialist states. That is why NATO is currently putting together an intervention force, to be stationed in Italy, with which to respond to internal difficulties.

  Marx said, “A people who oppress another cannot themselves be free.” The military significance of the urban guerilla in the metropole—the RAF here, the Red Brigades in Italy, and the United Peoples Liberation Army1 in the U.S.A.—lies in the fact that it can attack imperialism here in its rear base, from which it sends its troops, its arms, its instructors, its technology, its communication systems, and its cultural fascism to oppress and exploit the people of the Third World. This is because it operates within the framework of the Third World liberation struggles, struggling in solidarity with them. That is the strategic starting point of the guerilla in the metropole: to unleash the guerilla, the armed struggle against imperialism, and the people’s war in imperialism’s rear bases, to begin a long-term process. Because world revolution is surely not an affair of a few days, a few weeks, or a few months, because it is not an affair of a few popular uprisings, it will not be a short process. It is not a question of taking control of the state as the revisionist parties and groups imagine—or, more correctly, as they claim, for they don’t really have any imagination.

  THE NOTION OF THE NATION STATE

  In the metropole, the notion of the nation state has become a hollow fiction, given the reality of the ruling classes, their policies, and their structure of domination, which no longer has anything to do with linguistic divisions, as there are millions of immigrant workers in the rich countries of Western Europe. The current reality—given the globalization of capital, given the new media, given the mutual dependencies that support economic development, given the growth of the European Community, and given the crisis—while remaining subjective, greatly encourages the formation of European proletarian internationalism, to the point that the unions have worked for years to box it in, to control it, to institutionalize it, and to repress it.