The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History, Volume 1

by J. Smith

  2 The practice of union representatives having a vote on the corporate boards dates from the late 1940s. Also referred to as co-determination.

  3 Roughly $1.45 billion.

  1 Roughly $43. Regarding the flat rate: wage increases in many German industries were indexed by workers’ “skill category,” which meant that every wage increase in fact served to increase the divide between different layers of the working class. The demand for a flat wage increase was meant to counter this trend, as such an increase would benefit all workers equally. On this, see Roth, 116-117.

  1 Roughly $58.

  2 Karl Schiller was the SPD’s Federal Minister of Economic Affairs and Minister of Finance at the time. His reference data would presumably have determined the government’s wage guidelines.

  3 Roughly $43.

  1 Ernst Bloch was an important 20th century German Marxist theorist and art critic who counted the much younger Rudi Dutschke among his friends and intellectual peers.

  1 Support During Labor Disputes.

  2 The ARD is the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Consortium of Public-Law Broadcasting Institutions of the Federal Republic of Germany); Bayerischen Rundfunk is a member of the ARD. ZDF is the Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (Second German Television), owned by Deutche Telekom; it is commercial TV, partially funded through advertising.

  3 This is a reference to a statement by Willy Weyer, Interior Minister of North-Rhine-Westphalia, who stated that “Citizens must get as used precisely to the sight of policemen with machine pistols as they are to paying tax.” (Cobler, 141).

  1 Gerhard Löwenthal was a German journalist and a ZDF news anchor from 1969 until 1988.

  2 “Spartacus Youth”: the DKP’s student section, by far the largest self-styled communist organization active on campuses during this period.

  3 The construction of the Berlin Wall cut off the flow of refugees from the East that had been providing a reservoir of cheap labor up until that time. This signaled the beginning of a guest worker policy of recruiting cheap labor from southern Europe, Turkey, and elsewhere.

  1 A prominent German publishing company.

  2 Destroy the Islands of Wealth in the Third World.

  3 Jürgen Roth is a German investigative journalist.

  4 Poverty in the Federal Republic.

  5 Roughly $35 to $140.

  1 Roughly $220.

  2 Roughly $127.

  3 Roughly $167.

  4 Lukrezia Jochimsen was a sociologist and TV journalist. Today she is a member of parliament for the left-wing Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (PDS).

  5 Backyards of the Nation.

  1 The Ahlener Program, adopted by the CDU on February 3, 1947, in the town of Ahlen, stated in its opening that the interests of capitalism and those of the German people were identical.

  2 Erhard Eppler, a member of the SPD and left-leaning Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation. He resigned in 1974.

  3 Signed in August and December 1970, these two treaties were milestones in the SPD’s Ostpolitik, normalizing the FRG’s relations with Poland and the Soviet Union for the first time since World War II.

  4 Gerhard Schröder was a CDU politician, Minister of the Interior from 1953 until 1961, Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1961 until 1966 and Minister of Defense from 1966 until 1969.

  1 Herbert Wehner was leader of the SPD’s parliamentary group from 1958 until 1983, and Deputy Chairman of the SPD from 1958 until 1973.

  2 Diether Posser, SPD Minister of Justice in the Land of North Rhine Westphalia from 1972 until 1978.

  3 The project to build a massive dam in Mozambique, then a Portuguese colony. The right-wing Portuguese government had plans to settle over one million European colonists in the African country. By 1969, five German companies were implicated in the project.

  1 In February 1968, a film by Holger Meins showing how to make a molotov cocktail was presented at a meeting held in Berlin to discuss the campaign against the Springer Press.

  2 On December 20, 1971, Heinrich Böll famously said that Bild’s news coverage “isn’t crypto-fascist anymore, nor fascistoid, but naked fascism, agitation, lies, dirt.”

  1 A reference to Rudi Dutschke’s proposed strategy. See p. 35, fn 2.

  1 Peter Homann had previously worked as a journalist for the Spiegel.

  2 Margharita von Brentano was a sociology professor at the Free University, where a prize and a building are now named in her honour.

  3 A. Schwan, a West Berlin professor and a member of the Bund Freiheit de Wissenshaft (Alliance for Free Scholarship). The BFW was an organization of rightwing university professors who accused the student movement of attempting to establish a left-wing educational system to the exclusion of free thought.

  1 Most likely a reference to the West German Tupamaros, not to be confused with their South American namesake. These groups had existed in West Berlin and Munich at the beginning of the decade, part of the same amorphous scene as the Roaming Hash Rebels. The 2nd of June Movement grew out of this scene, although several members would instead join the RAF.

  1 In his 1957 “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People,” Mao differentiated between two kinds of conflict or contradiction—“those between ourselves and the enemy and those among the people.” While the former should be dealt with by attacking the class enemy, the latter should be dealt with through criticism with the goal of bringing about unity.

  1 See page 352.

  2 Serve the People: The Urban Guerilla and Class Struggle, cf 156-7.

  3 Aust, 104; Becker, 255-256.

  4 Becker, normally not shy about stating that various combatants actually did various things, in this case merely writes, “Astrid Proll (‘Rosi’) was to claim later that she shot at him from a car but missed.” (Becker, 228)

  5 Aust, 170-172.

  1 The relevant excerpts from Mohnhaupt’s testimony are included in this volume, see page 357.

  2 Dan Synovec,“Security Beefed Up at U.S. installations,” European Stars and Stripes, May 13, 1972; Dave Lams, “Police Trace Leads in V Corps Blasts,” European Stars and Stripes, May 13, 1972.

  1 Synovec,“Security Beefed Up.”

  2 Thomas Kirn, “Bombendrohungen werden schnell geahndet,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 9, 1972.

  3 “General Pearson seeks community help in solving Frankfurt bombings,” European Stars and Stripes, May 16, 1972.

  4 Kirn, “Bombendrohungen werden schnell geahndet.”

  5 European Stars and Stripes, “German Facilities Struck by Bombs,” May 13, 1972.

  6 Aust, 211.

  7 See the RAF’s interview with Le Monde Diplomatique, on page 422 of this volume. See also Brigitte Mohnhaupt’s testimony at the Stammheim trial, cf. 357-58.

  8 Aust, 211.

  9 Dan Synovec, “Bombs kill 3 at USAREUR Hq,” European Stars and Stripes, May 25, 1972.

  10 They were: Clyde Bonner of El Paso, Texas, Ronald Woodward of Otter Lake, Michigan, and Charles Peck of Hawthorne, California. (Associated Press, “W. Germans Sentence 3 Guerrillas to Life for Bomb Deaths,” Tri-City Herald, April 28, 1977.)

  1 Synovec, “Bombs Kill.”

  2 Internazionale Kommission zum Schutz der Gefangenen une Gegen Isolationshaft, October 1980, 2.

  3 “Wir waren in den Durststreik treten,” Spiegel 4/1975, translated in this volume on pages 300-318.

  4 Arm The Spirit, “A Brief History of the Red Army Faction,” http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/61/191.html.

  1 RZ Letter to the RAF Comrades, reprinted in this volume on pages 457-463.

  2 Not to be confused with the pro-Soviet KPD that was banned in the 50s and later reconstituted as the DKP.

  3 Varon, 213.

  4 Hockenos, 114.

  5 Varon, 213.

  6 Statement to the Red Aid Teach-In, reprinted in this volume on pages 183-85.

  7 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, “DKP verurteilt
anarchistische Demonstrationen in Frankfurt,” May 26, 1972.

  8 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, “Keine Solidarisierung mit Abenteurern,” May 29, 1972.

  9 Dan Synovec, “Terrorists: odd solidarity prompts aid to the Baader-Meinhof gang,” European Stars and Stripes, June 3, 1972.

  1 Associated Press, “Bombers Threaten 3 Blasts Friday in Stuttgart Area,” European Stars and Stripes, May 29, 1972.

  2 Regarding the Fascist Bomb Threats Against Stuttgart, reprinted in this volume on pages 181-82.

  3 Cobler, 169.

  4 Dan Synovec, “Anarchist gang blamed,” European Stars and Stripes, May 27, 1972.

  5 “Bescheidene Mitgleiderzahlen radikaler Organisation,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 7, 1972.

  6 Aust, 219.

  7 Brigitte Mohnhaupt’s Testimony at the Stammheim Trial, July 22, 1976, http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/documents/76_0708_mohnhaupt_pohl.html.

  8 Clare Bielby, “‘Bonnie und Kleid’: Female Terrorists and the Hysterical Feminine,” Forum 2, http://forum.llc.ed.ac.uk/issue2/bielby.html.

  9 They were turned in by Fritz Rodewald, who evidently did not know if he was coming or going: he would donate the reward money to the prisoners’ defense fund (Vague, 49). For more details on Rodewald’s motivations, see page 201.

  10 Wolfgang Tersteegen, “Mit der Bombe im Handgepäcke,”Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, June 19, 1972; Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, “Erst nach Stunden identifiziert,” June 19, 1972.

  1 United Press International, “Ends French Stay: Member of Gang Turns Self In,” European Stars and Stripes, July 1, 1972.

  2 He was sentenced to life in prison in 1977. Associated Press, “2 German terrorists given life,” European Stars and Stripes, June 3, 1977.

  3 Four years later, she was sentenced to four and a half years for forging documents, resisting arrest, possession of an unlicensed firearm, and membership in a criminal organization. In 1979, she was found guilty of three counts of murder and sentenced to life for planting the bombs in the Augsburg and Heidelberg attacks. By the time she was released in 1994, she had survived 22 years behind bars, making her Germany’s longest held female prisoner at that time.

  4 United Press International, “8 Terrorist gang suspects still sought,” European Stars and Stripes, July 10, 1972.

  1 Hans Filbinger (CDU) was, at this time, the Land Chairman of Baden-Württemberg, of which Stuttgart is the capital.

  2 Walter Krause (SPD) was, at this time, the Minister of the Interior and acting President of Baden-Württemberg.

  3 Arnulf Klett was, at this time, the Mayor of Stuttgart.

  1 Frankfurt police chief at the time.

  2 The Hauptwache is the central point on a major pedestrian mall in Frankfurt.

  1 United Press International, “Baader-Meinhof lawyer praises guerillas,” European Stars and Stripes, October 10, 1972. As we shall see, this was not moot criticism.

  2 Christopher Dobson, Black September: Its Short, Violent History (New York: Macmillan, 1974), 1.

  3 Ibid., 12.

  4 Ibid., 65-79.

  5 Simon Reeve, One Day in September: The Full Story of the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2000), 40.

  6 Black September would later tell Voice of Palestine radio that they had demanded the release of five “revolutionary German girls belonging to the Baader-Meinhof organization,” which five being left open to conjecture. (United Press International, “Other Arab guerrilla demand told,” Hayward Daily Review, September 8, 1972.)

  7 Iqrith (also spelled Ikrit) and Bir’im were two Christian villages in the upper Galilee. In 1948, shock troops from the Zionist Hagana expelled the towns’ inhabitants at gunpoint. “The pogrom-like expulsion was carried out without the Israeli government approval,” writes Palestinian journalist Khalid Amayreh. “However, the democratic Israeli state never allowed the Christian inhabitants to return, despite several rulings to the contrary by the Israeli High Court.” (Khaled Amayreh, “Christians, too, suffer the evilness of the occupation,” at http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2007/12/26/christians_too_suffer_the_evilness_of_th).

  1 Aaron J. Klein, Striking Back: the 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel’s deadly response (New York: Random House, 2005), 72-73.

  2 Reeve, 116.

  3 Ibid., 121-122.

  4 Dobson, 85.

  5 Reeve, 41-42.

  6 Ibid, 42.

  7 The FRG press reported his name as Ibrahim Badran.

  8 Mahmud Abdallah Kallam, Sabra wa-Shatila, dhakirat ad-Damm (Beirut: Beisan Publishing), 40-41.

  9 Time Magazine [online], “Return of Black September,” November 13, 1972.

  10 Associated Press, “Bay Area service for slain Jews,” Hayward Daily Review, September 8, 1972.

  11 Sami Hadawi, Crime and No Punishment: Zionist-Israeli Terrorism 1939-1972 (Beirut: Palestine Research Centre, 1972), 83.

  1 Ibid., 84.

  2 Henry Cattan, The Palestine Question (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 122-123.

  3 Reeve, 160-169, 175-195. For more on Israel’s reaction, see Brad E. O’Neill, Armed Struggle in Palestine: A Political-Military Analysis (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1978), 87-88.

  4 Black September was demanding the release of Sirhan Sirhan, who had assassinated Bobby Kennedy, a number of Palestinians held in Jordan, all Arab women held in Israel, as well as Ulrike Meinhof and Andreas Baader in the FRG.

  5 Patricia McCarty, “The Terrorist War,” European Stars and Stripes, August 9, 1973.

  6 O’Neill, 151.

  7 “Terrorism 101—Counter-Terrorism Organizations: Germany - GSG-9,” http://www.terrorism101.org/counter/Germany.html.

  8 Edgar O’Balance, Arab Guerilla Power (London: Faber and Faber, 1974), 215.

  9 MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base, “Black September Attacked Business Target (Feb. 8, 1972, Federal Republic of Germany),” http://www.tkb.org/Incident.jsp?incID=790.

  10 Dobson, 65.

  1 Ibid., 132.

  2 Decades later, Abu Daoud remained adamant on this point. “I would be against any operation like Munich ever again,” he told Sports Illustrated magazine in 2002. However, “[a]t the time, it was the correct thing to do for our cause. … The operation brought the Palestinian issue into the homes of 500 million people who never previously cared about Palestinian victims at the hands of the Israelis.” (Alexander Wolff, “Thirty years after he helped plan the terror strike, Abu Daoud remains in hiding -- and unrepentant,” Sports Illustrated, August 26, 2002.)

  3 Indeed, the years 1969-1972 can be considered the golden age of political hostage takings. While kidnappings were a particularly prevalent tactic for the South American guerilla, skyjackings in this period were pioneered by various Palestinian organizations. Whereas there had been only twenty-seven aircraft hijacked between 1961 and 1968, and most of these had been non-political acts, between 1969 and 1972, two hundred seventy-seven aircraft were hijacked, many of them successfully, i.e. the hijackers got away and their demands were met. During this period, seventy-eight political prisoners were released as demanded by various skyjackers. [Alona E. Evans, “Aircraft Hijacking: What is Being Done?” American Journal of International Law 67 (1973): 641-645].

  4 Carlos Marighella, “Kidnapping,” Minimanual of the Urban Guerilla, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marighella-carlos/1969/06/minimanual-urbanguerrilla/ch28.htm.

  5 Reeve, 147.

  1 Peter Jochen Winters, “Ulrike Meinhof läßt sich nur die Stichwort geben,” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 15, 1972. Our translation. Note that those sections not in quotes consist of the summary by Winters. The entire relevant portion of the FAZ article is reproduced in German and English in Appendix I, pages 544-47.

  2 In the words of Andrew Roth, a friend of the magazine’s editor Melvin Lasky: “Encounter’s function was to combat anti-Americanism by brainwashing the uncertain with pro-American articles. These were paid for at several times th
e rate paid by the New Statesman and offered British academics and intellectuals free U.S. trips and expenses-paid lecture tours. There was no room for the objective-minded in this cold war to capture intellectuals.” (Andrew Roth, “Melvin Lasky, Cold Warrior who Edited Encounter Magazine,” The Manchester Guardian [online], Obituaries, May 22, 2004.)

  3 George Watson, “Race and the Socialists,” Encounter 47 (Nov. 1976): 23.

  4 Scholar Diane Paule, for instance states: “Watson’s translation and analysis make Meinhof’s point appear to be much clearer than in fact it is, and his charge that she ‘spoke up publicly in the Good Old Cause of revolutionary extermination’ is not obviously supported by the text.” [“‘In the Interests of Civilization’: Marxist Views of Race and Culture in the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of the History of Ideas 42, no. 1. (January-March, 1981): 128.]

  1 Nobel Foundation “Saul Bellow—Nobel Lecture,” http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1976/bellow-lecture.html.

  2 Paul Lawrence Rose, Revolutionary anti-Semitism in Germany from Kant to Wagner (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).

  3 For more on this, see Not Wanted in the Model: the KPD, pages 17-18.

  4 Horst Mewes, “The German New Left,” New German Critique 1, (Winter 1973): 39.

  5 “The Angela Davis Case,” Newsweek [online], October 26, 1970, 20.

  1 Mewes, 32-35.

  2 Jürgen Schröder,“USA Black Panther Party (BPP) und Angela Davis Materialien zur Analyse von Opposition,” http://www.mao-projekt.de/INT/NA/USA/USA_Black_Panther_Party_und_Angela_Davis.html.

  3 Linksnet “Rede zum Angela-Davis-Kongress 1972,” http://www.linksnet.de/artikel.php?id=374.

  4 Schröder, ”USA Black Panther Party.”

  5 Jutta Ditfurth, interview by Arno Luik, “Sie war die große Schwester der 68er.”

  1 A quote from Karl Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Napoleon Bonaparte.

  1 In the wake of the 1967 Six Day War, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had fled to Jordan, where they lived in ramshackle refugee camps. On September 16, 1970, alarmed at the growing power of Palestinian revolutionaries, King Hussein declared martial law, and the Jordanian armed forces attacked suspected militant strongholds: according to most sources, between four and ten thousand Palestinians, including many non-combatants, were slaughtered. This is the source of the group’s name.