The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History (38 page)
Read The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History Online
Authors: J Smith
Besides appealing to the public in its hunt for the guerilla, the
Verfassungsschutz
continued to infiltrate the movement. In 1981, the RAF identified two likely agents in the Hamburg scene and arranged for a letter to be circulated outlining their concerns. Egon and Paula Giordano were significantly older than most other activists, and Paula would in fact claim to have been active in the anti-Nazi resistance decades before. She was a regular at meetings of Women Against Imperialist War. For his part, Egon had worked with anti-NATO groups and for a movement newspaper, and both were involved in the Hamburg
Friedenskoordination,
which coordinated radical antimilitary actions.
1
Women Against Imperialist War echoed the RAF's accusations, and uncovered evidence that Egon had in fact been expelled from the KPD in the 1950s because he had been informing on people to the
Verfassungsschutz.
All of which would be confirmed one year later, when Hamburg
Verfassungsschutz
chief Christian Lochte admitted to
Spiegel
that he had planted the two former KPD members in Hamburg.
2
_____________
1
Frauen gegen imperialistischen Krieg,
Stellungnohme zu Egon u. Paula Giordano.
September 15, 1981.
2
Spiegel,
“Die alte RAF ist zu Ende gegangen,” November 22, 1982.
The state's strategy of criminalizing activists as members of the “aboveground RAF” would pay handsome dividends. In the years to come, many were those who would spend time in prison as a result of such charges. This not only lent §129a its bite, it also isolated the militant left, as many people feared what might happen if they worked on the “wrong” political issue.
These “aboveground RAF” arrests prompted the real RAF to issue a public statement, refuting the state's allegations. The RAF accused police of planting Roos's fingerprints, and denied that any of the individuals arrested had had any involvement in the summer's attacks. It was pointed out that there was a new resistance taking shape, and that this was the state's real targetâby acting as if anti-imps were in fact aboveground RAF members, the state was laying the groundwork to clamp down on the entire radical left.
This was an important observation, shared by many, and in harmony with the RAF's line that guerillas must go underground, that any “aboveground organization” would simply amount to setting people up for arrest. As they had argued in
Serve the People
in 1972,
We do not believe that the guerilla can be formed as the “illegal wing” of a legal organization. Such an illegal wing would lead to the illegalization of the organization, i.e., its liquidation, and nothing else.
127
The arrests of aboveground supporters and the criminalization of otherwise legal activities by §129a bore out the truth of this early observation.
However, the RAF could only be renewed by support from the radical left. In the 1970s, this may have occurred organically, but by 1981 most militants on the street were a generation younger than most RAF members. What's more, by 1981, the Revolutionary Cells were offering a more attractive, and seemingly more effective, alternative that consisted of blurring the line between aboveground and clandestine activists.
The RAF grappled with the tensions that arose from these contradictory realities, trying to chart a way forward in this unfamiliar territory.
Nevertheless, despite these questions, and the arrests of supporters, it was clear that the RAF had finally overcome the trauma of â77. There was a new movement afoot, with potential beyond that of the APO from which the guerilla had first emerged.
The guerilla had reached out, and some people had reached back.
It finally seemed like things just might be back on track.
_____________
1
.
Hamburger Abendblatt,
“Amerika-Haus war besetzt,” March 3, 1980; “Erklärung zur Besetzung des Amerikahauses in Hamburg,” in Marat, 43.
2
. dpa, “Stürmischer Stammheim-ProzeÃ,”
Hamburger Abendblatt,
May 21, 1980.
3
. dpa, “Geschossen oder nicht? Lebenslang für Folkerts,”
Hamburger Abendblatt,
August 1, 1980.
4
. dpa, “Vogel: Gewalt von rechts nimmt zu,”
Hamburger Abendblatt,
September 6, 1980.
5
. Wisniewski, 5.
6
. “Summary of a Brochure by Autonomist and Anti-imperialist Groups,” in Prairie Fire Organizing Committee,
War on the War Makers: Documents and Communiqués from the West German Left
(San Francisco: John Brown Book Club n.d.), 8.
7
. Geronimo, 101.
8
. Wienke Zitzlaff, interviewed by
Libertad,
“Interview with the West German Resistance!”
Libertad,
May 1986: 988.
Hamburger Abendblatt,
“Besetzer in der âSpiegel'-Kantine: Protest gegen âIsolationshaft',” March 5, 1981.
9
. Michel, 79-80. Discussed in further detail below, for many radical women, WAIW would come to provide a route out of the impasse of the late 1970s.
10
.
hungerstrekabbrucherklärung
(sic) March 11, 1981âreaders should note that this document has been translated and is available at
http://www.germanguerilla.com/red-army-faction/documents/81_03_11.php
.
11
. Ibid.
12
.
Resistance,
“Anti-Imperialist Prisoners: The Struggle Against Isolation,” no. 5 (Winter 1983): 38.
13
. Amnesty International,
Amnesty International Report 1981
(London: Amnesty International Publications, 1981), 290.
14
.
Guerilla Notes,
“Statement from Women Against Imperialist War, April 3rd 1981,” 1981: 20.
15
. Michel, 78.
16
. Hans Schueler, “Knast für Schmierer?”
Die Zeit,
May 22, 1981. The banner read, “The RAF prisoners have been hunger striking for 9 weeks against isolationâ Immediate association for RAF prisoners.”
17
.
Spiegel,
“Spatzen und Sternchen,” July 13, 1981.
19
. Bunte Hilfe Nürnberg, “Wunderwaffe oder Papiertiger?” in Wüster Haufen,
Aufruhr: widerstand gegen repression und §129a Widerstand Gegen Repression und §129a
(Berlin: ID Archiv, 1991), 227-228.
20
. This was of course the same Judge Horst Kuhn who had seen fit to interrogate Günter Sonnenberg in 1977 while he was still in intensive care. See
page 35
.
21
. Amnesty International (1981), 291-292.
22
. “Kommunique: Die Solidarität der Menschen gründet in der Revolte!!!,” “Kommunique: Die Solidarität der Menschen gründet in der Bewegung der Revolte!!!” and “Kommunique,” in Marat, 56-58; United Press International, “Bomb Damages U.S. Air Base in Germany,”
Logansport Pharos-Tribune,
August 31, 1981; dpa, “Vor neun Jahren gab es Tote in Heidelberg,”
Hamburger Abendblatt,
September 16, 1981.
23
.
Die Zeit,
“Hungerstreik: Mobilisierung der Anhänger,” April 17, 1981. In 1968, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Thorwald Proll, and Horst Söhnlein had set fire to two Frankfurt department stores to protest the carnage in Vietnam. This is widely viewed as the precursor action to the formation of the RAF. See Moncourt and Smith Vol. 1, 47-48.
24
. dpa, “Vor neun Jahren gab es Tote in Heidelberg.”
26
. Hans Schueler and Gerhard Spörl, “Krieg aus dem Knast,”
Die Zeit,
June 5, 1981. As has been noted elsewhere, women prisoners were doubly attacked, subjected to sexism, forced gynecological examinations, attempts at psychiatrization, etc., as well as the “normal” attacks on political prisoners. (Michel, 98)
27
. Schueler and Spörl, “Krieg aus dem Knast.”
28
.
Die Zeit,
“Hungerstreik: Mobilisierung der Anhänger.”
29
. Amnesty International (1981), 290.
30
. These statements had been made at a 1975 conference of prison doctors. See: Andreas Juhnke, “Tod durch Ernährung,”
konkret
4/86.
31
.
Hamburger Abendblatt,
“Seine Mutter nicht erkannt,” April 9, 1981.
32
. Juhnke “Tod durch Ernährung.”
33
.
Die Zeit,
“Hungerstreik: Einlenken nach dem ersten Opfer,” April 24, 1981.
34
.
Guerilla Notes,
“Statement from Women Against Imperialism,” 1981: 29.
35
. Frank Jackson,
Squatting in West Berlin
(London: Hooligan Press, 1987), 8.
36
.
Spiegel,
“Schnell aufschaukeln,” April 27, 1981.
37
. “Kommunique: Die Solidarität der Menschen Gründet in der Bewegung der Revolte!!!” in Marat, 59.
38
. “Summary of a Brochure by Autonomist and Anti-imperialist Groups,” in Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, 8.
39
. jok, “Friedlicher Protest gegen Zwangsernährung,”
Hamburger Abendblatt,
April 27, 1981.
40
. rob, “Radler nach Brandanschlag von der Polizei gestellt,”
Hamburger Abendblatt,
April 30, 1981.
41
.
Spiegel,
“Schnell aufschaukeln.”
42
. Irmgard Möller, interviewed by Dagmar Brunow and Luka Skywalker, “Zur Mythenbildung nicht geeignet.”
43
. Katsiaficas, 89.
44
. Serhat Karakayali, “Lotta Continua in Frankfurt, Türken-Terror in Köln: Migrantische Kämpfe in der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik.”
45
. Katsiaficas, 92.
46
. William Guess quoted in John Vinocur, “A Cry of âNo Future' Rallies West Germany's Young,”
New York Times,
March 18, 1981.
47
. Alexander, 214.
48
. Ibid., 194-195.
49
. Katsiaficas, 98.
50
.
Tuwat
means “do something.” This was a deliberate reference to the countercultural festival of three years prior, which as we have seen, had been known as
Tunix,
or “do nothing.”
51
. A.G. Grauwacke,
Autonome in Bewegung
(Assoziation A: Berlin, 2008), 50-56.
52
. Andrej Holm and Armin Kuhn, “Squatting and Urban Renewal: The Interaction of Squatter Movements and Strategies of Urban Restructuring in Berlin,”
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research,
2010.
53
. Geronimo, 131-134.
54
. Freia Anders,
Violent Action and Political Communication: The âAutonomen' at the Startbahn West 1981-1988,
conference paper presented at This Town's Gonna Blow⦠(Bremen, May 2010), 2.
55
. Ibid.
56
. Geronimo, 109; Katsiaficas, 87.
57
.
Spiegel,
“Da packt dich irgendwann âne Wut,” December 22, 1980.
58
.
Spiegel,
“Wir sind unregierbar und unkalkulierbar,” March 26, 1979.
59
.
Spiegel,
“Deutschland ist krank,” March 23, 1981.
60
. Associated Press, “Youths Defy Consumer Values of W. German Establishment,”
The Lethbridge Herald,
April 16, 1981.
61
. Michel, 74-76.
62
. Ibid., 74.
63
. Untitled document about the West German women's movement, in the editors' possession, 1980s.
64
. Revolutionary Feminist Cells,
Women at War
(np, nd). Document in the editors' possession.
65
. Michel, 77.
66
. Women Against Imperialist War (Hamburg), “War on Imperialist War,” in Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, 25.
67
. Untitled document about the West German women's movement, 1980s.
68
. “Redebeitrag auf der Demo gegen die Räumung der Startbahn West und die Häuser- räumungen in Berlin vom 15.10.81 am Platz der Luftbrücke,” in Marat, 80-81.
69
. Jackson, 16-17.
70
. Women Against Imperialist War (Hamburg), in Prairie Fire Organizing Committee, 22.
71
. Associated Press, “Haig Takes Hard Line in Diplomatic Debut,”
Gettysburg Times,
January 39, 1981.
72
. “Redebeitrag auf der Demo gegen die Räumung der Startbahn West und die Häuserräumungen in Berlin vom 15.10.81 am Platz der Luftbrücke,” in Marat, 81.
73
. Daniel J. Nelson, “The Problem of Terrorism Against American Forces in Germany,”
The Atlantic Community Quarterly
, Fall 1985.