The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History (63 page)

After being released the four went together to a safe country. One important thing that came out of this was the clarification. The issues were very simple: the lies that had cost the group so much energy and so many arrests, the reasons why Boock had lied, as well as his future relationship to the group. All of this would have to be clarified through further discussion.

He had got caught up in a form of politics in which he was always the “tough guy” and his cunning led him to make up stories and develop an all-encompassing political rationalization for his drug use; it was a dynamic in which he was a rat in a maze of consumption, drugs, lies, and the exploitation of his comrades. What had happened became increasingly clear with time.

The first question was how he and the group would carry on. This was at a time when we were clarifying the ‘77 actions, their effects, the errors, and what to do next—in other words, the overall development of a new phase of struggle and a more clear-headed focus on strategy and planning. Obviously no one was willing to work with him after everything that had happened, which meant we had to set up a safe life for him, a viable long-term living situation. That soon became clear.

There was one option, but Boock still had not decided what to do. Boock was only one factor in the overall clarification. In the following months, there was also the question of how to develop the next phase of struggle, and one after another, eight people decided to leave the group. The reasons and routes that led to these departures varied, and the desire to clarify matters always came in part from the individuals themselves, but sometimes the initiative came from those who would later continue the politico-military project.

For those who wanted to leave, we sought a place that would be more than just a safe hideout, something that would offer much more of a life and a future. We found a good solution, and Boock could have chosen to accept it. This would have been possible, because the solidarity and the sense of responsibility within the group (and the political bonds) were more important than the personal and political differences about whether or not to continue the struggle here after ‘77. The group was soon deeply immersed in both the reflection and the practical steps required to carry on politically. At first, this was more focused on new concrete actions than on fancy conceptual formulations.

Soon, Boock was insisting that he wanted to return to Western Europe with us to continue the struggle. There were many discussions about this. He didn't want the exile we had arranged and overcame the group's resistance to the idea of continuing to work with him.

Boock conducted multiple self-criticisms to achieve his goal, and, most importantly, he rejected exile. We couldn't jam up the comrades there with a guy who absolutely didn't want to be there. That would have been a disgraceful solution. They were already finding his demands difficult to bear.

Eventually, we arranged for Boock to travel back to Western Europe and integrated him into a section of the new structure. It wasn't long
before he began trying to acquire dope. That made it perfectly clear that a different decision was required, that we could no longer work together. Exile was the solution, and we weren't giving in this time. Boock saw that this was now a clear group decision and that we were organizing his trip. That was when he ran for it.

There was a reason he was so determined to return to Western Europe: the kind of drug consumption that is only possible in the metropole; and ultimately his confidence in his own cunning, which made him think he could deal with life in the underground, and that should he ever be arrested he could simply continue to make deals on a new terrain thanks to Baum's offer at that time.
³
This was the basis for the deal he tried to make with Rebmann, which proved that his cunning was nothing more than political idiocy. In this way, Boock eventually defected with the support of some public figures and everyone who wanted dirt on the RAF. That was the road that lay before him, and it is along that road that he has foraged ever since.

It is unclear whether or not Boock is connected to the state security apparatus, but it is obvious that he is managed—for journalistic purposes. Among the defectors, Boock holds a special place. In pursuing his charade, he has become morally bankrupt. That makes him particularly useful to state security propaganda. He is an empty vessel that can be filled with anything. His claim to fame in this regard: “Insider” (but not too far inside). Even a section of the left, with its consumerist and voyeuristic mentality, sits at home believing that there is much in Boock's many stories that is true. But there isn't. His story is a house of cards. It's nothing more than his trip. With spite and projections he rejected everything in his own life in exchange for a pardon: this is what his cunning really amounts to.

The most important thing is the campaign he is engaging in. It always includes the tried and true model of the state security campaign; the campaign to politically and morally discredit the guerilla and all other decisive efforts for liberation in the metropole. Boock's fabrications: an underdog's special relationship with the original Stammheim prisoners; the early RAF was still political; the RAF continues as the struggle against prison conditions; the hierarchy; the futile attempt to shape the new human; group pressure; his friendship with the Palestinians, which served to protect him from the group; the return home; and the red carpet rolled out for his rehabilitation, with the claim that the Nazis were worse and they never had to serve time in prison.

This has created a feeding frenzy within the deflated German left-wing intelligentsia. They aren't victims of Boock's lies. It's a mutual arrangement. It all serves to justify their shameless subservience to power. The fleeting moment of truth that these sectors of the left experienced in ‘77 melted away in their dance with the fraud, Boock.

Die Zeit
proudly presents, while in
Spiegel
one can read that “Weizsäcker is interested in the case.” The extensive media campaign— the showpiece of contrite, repentant former militants and an imposed peace—all of this is fuel for expanding the role of German imperialism on a world scale.

Knut Folkerts, Rolf Heißler, Sieglinde Hofmann, Christian Klar, Christine Kuby, Roland Mayer, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, Adelheid Schulz, Günter Sonnenberg, Rolf Clemens Wagner

August 1988

_____________

1
. This refers to the January 21, 1978, arrest of Christine Kuby. See
pages 49–50.

2
. See pages 51, 53.

3
. See
chapter 8
, especially page 262-266, 268-269.

The following interview with Helmut Pohl was originally published as “RAF bestätigt Ausbildung an Waffen in der DDR; Helmut Pohl dementiert Spionage im Auftrag der Stasi” in the July 7, 1991, Frankfurter Rundschau. On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall had fallen, and soon afterwards the entire GDR was annexed by the FRG. Over the course of the summer of 1991, all ten former RAF members who had been living in the GDR were captured. All except Inge Viett would provide the police and crown prosecutors with information about the guerilla, leading in some cases to new charges being laid against prisoners from the RAF. (Viett, it should be noted, did provide information about her former contacts in the MfS.) (M. & S.)

Frankfurter Rundschau:
Herr Pohl, we'd like to proceed directly to the question of the connection between the RAF and the
Stasi.
When were you yourself in the GDR for the first time?

Helmut Pohl: First, I'd like to say a few words. We only agreed to this because we feel compelled to comment on this GDR story, which has been blown out of proportion. Neither for our practice nor for the GDR did the contact have the significance that has been attached to it. Of all our international contacts, those with the GDR were the least significant. The only reason to discuss them is that the story has been exaggerated, and that must be corrected.

Frankfurter Rundschau:
We'll take that into consideration. Again, when did you first travel to the GDR?

Pohl: In the autumn of 1980.

Frankfurter Rundschau:
As early as the early 1970s, the GDR apparently allowed RAF members to transit through.

Pohl: I've been with the RAF since the end of 1970. The only transit was in connection with training in Jordan. I didn't take part in that in 1970. At that time, the group traveled from Schönefeld to Jordan, using phony IDs. Incidentally, in 1973, I traveled to the Middle East in a way that had nothing to do with the GDR.

Frankfurter Rundschau:
Are we going to address the question of…

Pohl: The GDR story is connected to the fact that the eight went there. As I understand it, the contact was established by Inge Viett. A year had been spent looking for somewhere for the eight to go. I got out of prison in the autumn of 1979. I don't know anything about the nature of the meetings before that. I went to the GDR in the autumn of 1980. There was a house there, managed by an older married couple; for the life of me, I can't remember where it was. The question for us was whether we'd continue to go there or not. That was clarified in the autumn. I estimate that I remained there for about fourteen days. That was my longest visit. Apart from that there were short discussions. We didn't know what they had in mind.

Frankfurter Rundschau:
Which
Stasi
associates did you personally meet?

Pohl: We addressed each other by our first names. Helmut, Günther, and Gerd were the names I knew them by. I learned their last names when they were printed in the press.

Frankfurter Rundschau:
What did you talk about with them?

Pohl: About the military-political conflict surrounding missile stationing. We were interested in getting a picture of how other countries saw it, because, as a result of its internationalism, the GDR knew a lot about Third World countries. Their views interested us.

Frankfurter Rundschau:
Was the exchange productive for the RAF?

Pohl: Let me finish with the first question. I want to give you a complete picture. In early 1984, we ended the contact to the GDR from our side. After the second-to-last discussion in the autumn of 1983, we had actually decided to break it off, because the discussions were always unpleasant. In early 1984, our members Ingrid Jakobsmeier and Christa Eckes went there for the last visit. Christa because she had never been, and she needed to get a sense of why we had ultimately come to this conclusion.

Frankfurter Rundschau:
The objective of the RAF in the 1970s was to provoke the state's repressive apparatus. To formulate it in the RAF's jargon: “to expose the ugly face of capitalism.” Was there even any debate within the RAF about the problem of cooperating with a repressive apparatus like the
Stasi?

Pohl: We wanted contact with the GDR. The Ministry for State Security
¹
was simply the appropriate agency for such contact. The trainers did not, in any case, come from the MfS, but from the National People's Army. Now, all of that was structurally interlocked. In the beginning, the contact occurred in the limited context of finding a place for the eight people, which created a basis for further discussion, out of which came the training. Beyond that, there was no cooperation.

Frankfurter Rundschau:
What was the political significance of these discussions for the RAF?

Pohl: Starting in 1980, our politics changed conceptually from what they had previously been. After 1977, we arrived at a point where we were restructuring. Part of the organization broke away, and the remainder wanted to do things differently. We developed the front strategy as a strategy against the offensive of the imperialist state. At the time, all politics were closely tied to and defined by the rearmament debate, the Reagan policies, and the military strategy. These were the main issues we discussed. These discussions helped us to clarify our concept, and we hoped to learn as much as possible about the actual nature of NATO policies.

Frankfurter Rundschau:
What did the GDR hope to learn from the RAF?

Pohl: They wanted to know about political developments in the FRG. We absolutely never talked about our structure. They, of course, had numerous contacts in the FRG. They asked us, “What do you think about this or that? What's your assessment?” They showed us numerous leaflets and asked us about them. We thought about how we should talk to them. We had a very clear approach: we would talk to them like anyone here that came from one of the social movements or, in the same sense, like any international contact. We generally talked in the same way: extensively on a political level, while offering very limited concrete information.

Frankfurter Rundschau:
What price did the RAF pay for the GDR's help in solving the defector problem?

Pohl: There was no price. There was never, for example, any effort to find out about our plans for actions. For them, it was a question of understanding developments in the militant scene, as, for example, with the leaflets I mentioned. At the most, their interest included using our “appeal,” as they called it, to mobilize for the peace movement. They said things like, “Imagine if you said that all militants should get involved. That would have an impact.”

The most recent nonsense being spread by
Spiegel TV
is this espionage story.

Frankfurter Rundschau:
According to
Spiegel,
Helmut Voigt, a lieutenant and a section leader with the
Stasi's
Department XXII, claims otherwise. He spoke of shooting and explosives training for the RAF in the GDR…

Pohl: Certainly that was discussed during our conversations. But first a little more about this most recent espionage story. What Voigt now says is the exact opposite of what they said to us at the time. I clearly remember that we once addressed the issue—more or less in this way, conversationally, not as an offer—of whether they had any interest in our knowledge about military facilities, and they expressly said, “No, anything that could be construed as espionage should be avoided.” Today, Voigt claims the opposite. This is a result of the crown witness policy. He has to produce evidence of a legally useful offense. The goods must be delivered. Obviously, crown witnesses were always called upon to comment on the RAF's actions and structures. As this failed to produce anything, an effort is being made using this alleged “espionage.” In fact, it's a joke. Everything we knew about military facilities, they, with their satellites, knew far better. That the opposite is now being advanced by an ex-MfS agent makes no sense to me, other than as an attempt to fabricate something so as to be able to make use of the crown witness law.