The Red Army Faction –
Terrorism in Germany in the 70s and 80s
What were the motivations of the West German terrorist movement, the RAF? How did they
legitimise their objectives? How did Germany’s Nazi past influence their views of state power
and how could one define terrorism?
Below are a few ideas on how you could approach these questions. They are not meant to be
definitive.
Motivations & Objectives
The targets in the early days of the first generation RAF terrorists seem to tell us a lot about their
political motives. They are targets such as; department stores, American military bases, police
stations and the office building of the Axel-Springer publishing house, the publishers of the
conservative daily Bild Zeitung. These targets could be broadly summarised as representatives
of capitalist, conservative German society (which supported American foreign political interests)
– a society the terrorists had analysed as repressive, imperialist and fascist. An analysis of the
articles, texts and pamphlets published by the group may serve to confirm this assumption. In a
“Statement regarding the freeing of Andreas Baader”, 1974, Meinhof states that:
The struggle against imperialism, if we want it to be more than an empty slogan, has
as its goal to annihilate, to destroy, to smash the system of imperialist domination on
the political, economic and military levels, to smash the cultural institutions by which
imperialism gives a hegemony to the dominant elites and to smash the
communications system which assure them their ideological power.
(For full statement see: http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/index.html)
Initially, human life was not to be put at risk. For example, the arson attack on the Frankfurt
department store took place at night. The attack on the Springer publishing house was
announced in advance (via a phone call to the Springer offices) but it was decided not to
evacuate the building. Later, the first generation Baader-Meinhof members dissociated
themselves from the attack in which several people were critically injured.
In the late 60s and early 70s, many young people in West Germany were extremely dissatisfied
with the German government. From 1966 to 1969 a Grand Coalition, formed by Germany’s two
major parties, the SPD and the CDU, governed West Germany. The SPD, Germany’s socialist
party, explained they no longer wished to be associated with their sister organisation, the SDS
(Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund). This left students wondering about the
effectiveness of any parliamentary opposition. Politicised students supported the so-called nonparliamentary opposition (Außer Parlamentarische Opposition, short APO) with its charismatic
speaker Rudi Dutschke as they no longer felt represented by the major parties. Ulrike Meinhof,
a well established left wing journalist, was influenced by and belonged to a large group of
intellectuals protesting against Germany’s re-armament, membership of NATO, and support of
the American war in Vietnam. The APO and their supporters saw their fight as part of a bigger,
global fight against oppression and capitalism. Communist leaders like Fidel Castro and Che
Guevara were seen as fellow fighters. During a demonstration against the state visit of the
American backed Shah or Persia in Berlin (2. July 1967), the police used force against the
protesters. During the chaotic events, one of the student protestors, Benno Ohnesorg, was shot
dead by a police officer. In 1968, Rudi Dutschke was shot and critically wounded by a young
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man who supported right wing ideas and might have been encouraged by a campaign against
Dutschke in the right wing press, especially the Bild daily newspaper. These events were later
seen as a turning point in the movement’s self understanding. The step from peaceful protest to
armed political resistance seemed an inevitable consequence. Ensslin writes:
"They’ll kill us all. You know what kind of pigs we’re up against. This is the
Auschwitz generation. You can’t argue with people who made Auschwitz. They
have weapons and we haven’t. We must arm ourselves!”
(for quote see here: http://books.google.com/books?id=WOD9ncsixssC&pg=RA1PA314&dq=%22You+know+what+kind+of+pigs+we%E2%80%99re+up+against%22
#PRA1-PA314,M1)
From now on, principles of war, or guerrilla warfare, were adapted for use in West German
cities. Politically motivated attacks were intended to awaken the political awareness of German
citizens. The intention was to reveal the German state for what it was in the eyes of the group
members: a fascist regime backing wars to oppress the poor in the Third World. Once the state
was provoked it would show its true face, using its power to hunt down a few young people who
opposed it openly. German citizens would then wake up and rise and join the RAF in their just
struggle. This was the theory. As a consequence, state representatives were seen not as
human beings but as legitimate targets:
To be an urban guerrilla means to launch an offensive against imperialism. The Red
Army Faction is striking the connection between the legal and illegal resistance;
between national and international resistance; between national and international
struggle; between the strategic and tactical requirements of the international communist
movement. Support the armed struggle! Victory in the people’s war!
(Quote from The Urban Guerilla Concept, see here: http://www.germanguerilla.com/redarmy-faction/index.html)
After Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin and Andreas Baader were imprisoned for their various
attacks (1972), a second generation of RAF members carried out further attacks. Some of these
were motivated by the desire to secure the release of the first generation prisoners. For
example, the kidnapping, imprisonment for more than a month and execution of Hans Martin
Schleyer (the president of the German employers association, and also a former member of the
Nazi party) in 1977 was instigated with this in mind.
The Influence of Germany’s Nazi past
Meinhof was born in 1934, Baader in 1943, and Ensslin in 1940. They came from different
backgrounds but shared a mistrust of the state – which they shared with numerous other young
Germans growing up in post war West Germany. Ex-Nazis filled positions in all areas of
German public life: school teachers, civil servants, politicians. This first generation of RAF
members found it difficult to look to their parents’ generation for guidance and advice. Some of
the terrorists might have been motivated by the fear that the German state was growing more
and more fascist and that a new fascist regime had to be prevented – by all means possible.
The Definition of terror
The first generation of terrorists disassociated themselves from any kind of attacks which put the
general public, or the Volk, in any danger. This first generation called such attacks terrorism. In
contrast, what they wanted was to join an international movement of guerrilla warfare in cities,
modelled after the guerrilla warfare as explained by Che Guevara and adapted by Marighella.
This model of guerrilla warfare contrasted with Rudi Dutschke’s idea of ‘a long march through
the institutions’ which envisaged the revolution as coming from within the institutions
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themselves, with revolutionaries becoming part of the system (by becoming civil servants and
politicians, for example) and then changing it from within. This strategy demanded patience and
discipline and is seen to have worked with West Germany’s Green Party which used these
tactics. Prominent German politicians like Otto Schily (German Minister of the Interior 1998 –
2005, SPD member, former member of the Green Party) and Joschka Fischer (German Foreign
Minister and Vice Chancellor 1998-2005, Green Party member) had both been part of the 60s
student movement. However, the state reacted to the RAF’s form of guerrilla warfare by calling
them ‘terrorists’ and by instigating the biggest man hunt yet seen and employing new police
search methods to arrest the RAF ‘terrorists’. The scope of today’s state access to information
about citizens is partly a consequence of the terrorist threat against the state in the 80s.
Further links:
http://www.bpb.de/themen/2GD4Y0,0,0,Links_ins_Internet.html A very good compilation of
material in German: http://www.bpb.de/themen/TSS56U,0,Die_Geschichte_der_RAF.html
Going further
The portrayal of terrorists in the media is crucial in forming public opinion about the activists’
legitimacy. For example, the ever-present terrorists’ faces on wanted posters – and in the 80s
these posters were put up by the state in every official building – were meant to remind the
general public that the terrorist threat was omnipresent. Through this poster campaign the state
achieved their aim of gaining the voters’ support for their newly introduced laws: laws which
allowed stop and search, state surveillance and other intrusive police measures. However,
some people maintain that the ubiquitous posters helped the terrorists in gaining a pop iconic
status. Members of the RAF knew how to use the media to their advantage. Andreas Baader,
for example, wore fashionable clothes and sun glasses and Gudrun Ensslin looked like a pop
star. The new film version of the events, based on Stefan Aust’s book Der Baader Meinhof
Komplex, might be seen as an accurate depiction of the main protagonists in that sense.
However, scoring scenes in which people are shot dead with fast, rhythmic music might be seen
to legitimise the RAF’s presence within popular culture more than might be considered
acceptable.
On the Times online space for readers’ comments you can find this view:
The closest we'll get these days to a student revolution would occur if you dare abolish
social networking sites. Indifference has gripped this nation's youth like a cancer. But
that may change in the wake of the global financial crisis. (J.P Wilcox, Ipswich, England,
on: Times online)
You may want to discuss what other students in your school think about this statement.
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