The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History, Volume 1 (61 page)

Class politics are a struggle against the politics of capital and not against the economy, which, directly or by way of the state, proletarianizes the class. The class position of the proletariat is war. It is a
contradictio in adjecto
—it is nonsense. It is nonsense from a class point of view, because the Soviet Union attempts to promote its state policy under the cover of class struggle. What I am saying is that it is the expression of Soviet foreign policy.

Which is to say, they can be allies in the process of liberation, but not protagonists. The protagonist has no position—the protagonist has a goal. The “class position” is always a cudgel. It is always the claim to possess and bestow, by way of the party apparatus, a conception of reality different from reality as it is perceived and experienced. Specifically, it is a claim to a class position without class struggle. As you say, it is “on this basis” that we should act, rather than on the basis of how we have been acting up to now.

In 1969, it was the MLs, the KSV, and the AO groups who, with the “class position,” depoliticized the movement in the universities by supporting policies that no student could relate to emotionally. It is a position for the liquidation of the anti-imperialist protest movement. And I think that that is the horrible thing about this concept and what it represents, the fact that it rules out any emotional identification with proletarian politics—it is a kind of catechism.

We do
not
act on the basis of a class position, no matter what its class perspective may be, but on the basis of class
struggle
, which is the principle of all history, and on the basis of class
war
as the reality within which proletarian politics are realized—and, as we have discovered, only in and by war.

The class position can only be the class
movement
within the class war, the world proletariat engaged in armed struggle, the true vanguard, the liberation movements.

Or, as Jackson
²
said, “connections, connections, connections.” As such: movement, interaction, communication, coordination, common struggle—strategy.

All of this is paralyzed by the concept of “class position”—and that is how you used it when you attempted to win over Ing.
³
You must know by now that there is not much worse than being fed complete nonsense

Which is all to say, the class position is a triumphalist position.

Certainly, there is also something heroic about it. However, we’re not concerned with that. We are, instead, concerned with its consequences.

But that’s enough. I have the impression that I’m talking to a wall, and that is not the point of all of this. The goal is to have you climb down from your pedestal.

So, come on down. You’re boasting.

Ulrike Meinhof
April 13, 1976

This interview originated from questions presented to the lawyers by Le Monde Diplomatique. The political parts of the questions were answered by the prisoners. While we are not aware of the interview ever being published by the liberal French newspaper, copies were distributed by the prisoners’ supporters. The date normally given for this document is June 10, 1976.

A somewhat expanded version of the interview addressing supplementary questions exists. However, the only version of that text available to us was an extremely poorly translated and badly organized English-language version. Faced with this problem, we decided to base our translation on the Germanlanguage version available on a website maintained by former RAF member Ronald Augustin. The English-language translation of the longer version available to us indicates that little of substance was added to what is presented here. (M. & S.)

Q.: The alleged suicide of Ulrike Meinhof is seen overwhelmingly by the left and critical observers as an institutional murder, the culmination of 4 years of soul-destroying solitary confinement.

A: The concept of institutional murder is not precise enough. It is more accurate to say that, in a military conflict, imprisoned revolutionaries will be executed. We are certain that, as with Holger Meins and Siegfried Hausner, it was murder—a premeditated execution following the years of psychological warfare. We are trying to find out the details of how this murder was committed. It is clear that the state has done everything possible to hide the facts, while state security and the state security journalism organized by the BAW attempt to exploit the situation for propaganda purposes. Nothing indicates suicide, but there are many facts that suggest murder:

The prisoners were not allowed to see their dead comrade. Her corpse was rushed out of the prison as the first lawyer arrived to visit Gudrun
Ensslin. The corpse underwent an autopsy by order of the BAW, without the lawyers or relatives having an opportunity to see her, in spite of their demands to do so. Her sister was denied the right to bring in a pathologist of her choosing. The corpse was so mangled after the autopsy that the second pathologist could not deliver any precise findings—for example, a 25 cm long caesarean scar from the birth of her children could not be located.

Her brain and internal organs were removed.

Nevertheless, the effects of numerous injuries from blunt objects were visible on her legs.

And the injuries to the organs in her throat (a broken hyoid bone and the damage to the thyroid cartilage) virtually rule out “death by hanging.”

The request to have the cell inspected by her lawyer, her executor, or a relative was denied. The cell was “renovated,” totally repainted, two days after her death, even though the wing in which she died is not occupied. So far, neither the lawyers nor the relatives have received any answers from the authorities, besides the terse assertion that it was “suicide by hanging.”

In the press statements from the political judiciary, there are five contradictory versions regarding how the rope was secured. The one that ultimately became the official version and which was published was that she had rolled a hand towel into a 5 cm thick rope and fastened it tightly around her neck. Then she climbed onto a chair and threaded and fastened this 5 cm thick rope through the mesh of a screen, through which not even the small finger of a child would fit (for this an instrument would be needed, and none was found). Then she is supposed to have turned herself around and jumped.

Before this version was decided upon, the prison warden, who was one of the first in the cell, stated that there was no chair near the corpse, and the prison doctor who examined her first declared that her feet were 20 cm from the floor.

In the statements from the political judiciary, one finds only contradictions. Nonetheless, there has been no inspection of the files, and they have adamantly refused to share information with the relatives, the lawyers or neutral authorities. Regarding the possibility of an international committee of inquiry, which has been demanded throughout Europe, the Ministry of Justice declared, “There is neither the grounds nor the scope for any international body.”

Q: Against which background is deliberate murder to be seen?

A: The story behind this murder is documented in the files. On the government’s behalf, and using all available political and moral means, the Attorney General has tried for six years to “exterminate” the RAF prisoners, especially Ulrike and Andreas, and to “wipe out” the example they set in resisting the new fascism’s institutional strategy, as formulated by Schmidt in government statements and programs.

For as long as the RAF has existed, the Attorney General’s plan for Ulrike was to use her to personalize and pathologize revolutionary politics. Therefore, after her arrest, she was to be broken in the dead wing and psychiatrically restructured before her trial. After her arrest, she was imprisoned, by order of the BAW, from June 16, 1972, until February 9, 1973—that is 237 days—in a dead wing, which means total acoustic isolation. That is the prison in which state security houses prisoners during the phase of interrogation and “preparation for trial.” It is an extreme form of torture. No human can endure a lengthy period in an acoustic and social vacuum. One’s sense of time and one’s physical equilibrium are destroyed. One aspect of white torture is that the prisoner’s agony is magnified, not reduced, as the torture continues. The ultimate result is irreversible brainwashing, which, to begin with, dissolves the control the tortured person has over what he says, over his speech; he babbles.

And his ability to grasp even a single thought is destroyed. What is left is a body, which on the outside shows hardly any sign of injury.

The program was at all times under the control of the BAW and the state security psychiatrist, Götte. But Ulrike endured the 237 days, because she fought. All of us could see that her mind and her will remained unbroken.

Another RAF prisoner, Astrid,
¹
who had previously spent three months in the dead wing, never recovered—not even after her release three years ago. Even today she is seriously ill.

The BAW assumed that Ulrike would be broken by the dead wing. On January 4, 1973, Buback—the Attorney General—wrote that Ulrike was to be committed “to a public sanitarium—or a nursing home—so that a report on her mental health could be prepared.” The public, which the defense lawyers were able to mobilize, just barely managed to prevent this. But the BAW tenaciously pursued their goal of having
Ulrike declared mentally ill. On April 18, 1973, Buback directed the justice system psychiatrist Witter to deliver an opinion on Ulrike’s sanity. In his letter, he said:

On the basis of Frau Meinhof’s conduct to date, it seems doubtful she would cooperate regarding particular examinations or consent to surgical treatment. If professional opinion suggests that certain interventions are necessary, I would ask you to report to me with detailed information on the examination considered necessary, so that, under §81 of the Criminal Code, the pertinent court order can be obtained. Should it be necessary to involve a neurologist, I would suggest making arrangements to obtain the cooperation of the Director of the University Neurological Clinic in Homburg, Professor Dr. Loew.

At this point the attempt to gain control of Ulrike’s brain became obvious. Loew is one of the most notorious neurosurgeons in Germany. He experiments with “adaptive surgery” on prisoners.

Witter, in his answer, initially requested an x-ray of the skull and a scintigraphy.
²
But in the same letter, he explains to the BAW that the examination could be carried out under anesthesia, should Ulrike, to quote, “refuse to cooperate.”

The objective of this intervention is made clear in an August 28, 1973, letter to the Attorney General. It says, “Above all, proof of a brain tumor could be an important indication of the need for a therapeutic operation.”

“Important indication” here means that permission for cretinization is not required from either the prisoner or the prisoner’s relatives. The psychiatrist decides “after consideration” about whether to proceed with stereotactical
³
mutilation. The BAW then files a petition with the investigating judge and after receiving the decision orders the intervention, with the proviso that “These measures can be undertaken against the will of the accused, and if necessary by use of direct force and under anesthesia.”

The whole thing eventually failed as a result of massive international protest, including that of many doctors.

Striving for an orderly retreat, the BAW declared that they had only at this point become aware of Ulrike’s medical history, which had been published in the
Zentralblatt für Neorochirurgie
in 1968 and in
Stern
in 1972. That is a stupid lie, as, according to the files, Ulrike was identified by state security after her arrest in 72 by referring to the x-rays in her medical files.

After that, Ulrike was placed in the dead wing on two more occasions—alone from December 21, 1973, until January 3, 1974, and together with Gudrun from February 5, 1974, until April 28, 1974.

But the incarceration of the two prisoners in the dead wing met with such strong international protests that the SPD government had to drop their plan to pathologize Ulrike in order to depict fundamental opposition to the Federal Republic as constituting an illness. The project, a “quiet and determined assertion of normality,” was an attempt to present, through torture and neurosurgery, a destroyed mind at a political show trial. It failed. That is the back story.

All the facts, which are gradually becoming known, suggest that on the night of May 8-9, 1976, Ulrike was murdered by state security, because the years of torture had failed to destroy her political identity, her revolutionary consciousness, and her will to fight.

The staging of the suicide follows the exact psychological warfare line that state security has followed since 1970. Physical liquidation and the political extermination of the RAF were the objectives of the massive hate and counterinsurgency campaign. Two months ago, Buback, the Attorney General, held that the second package of special legislation that had been rushed through was no longer needed for this trial, because, “We do not need any legal provisions. State security is given life by those who are committed to it. People like Herold and myself, we always find a way. If there are statutory provisions that must from time to time be stretched, they will for the most part be ineffective.”

While Herold, the President of the BKA, said at a meeting regarding the problem of these prisoners, “Actions against the RAF must primarily be developed in such a way as to undermine the positions held by sympathizers.”

As an example, four hours after her death, the BAW disseminated rumors through the press regarding the motive: “tensions within the group,” “far-reaching differences,” etc., and the BAW’s statement was nothing new. It is a word for word repetition of a formulation published
in 1971, five years ago, as part of a state security disorientation campaign. Then it was: Ulrike Meinhof has created “tensions” and “farreaching differences” within the RAF.