Podcast 33: Occupy Wall Street’s German Precursor, the APO
The Occupy Wall Street movement had a precursor in the APO, the student-led protest movement active in the late sixties in West Germany.
Podcast 32: Carl Tighe on Heinrich Böll and the Springer Press
An interview with noted UK author and professor Carl Tighe on the conservative Springer Press (the hated enemy of the Baader-Meinhof Group) and the Springer Press’ relationship with Heinrich Böll. Read professor Tighe’s masterful essay on Heinrich Böll and the Springer Press.
4-27-1975 Bonn Radical Group has Violent Past (UPI)
Short resume of events following The Federal Governments pledge to stamp out the RAF. PDF: 4-27-1975 Bonn Radical Group has Violent Past (UPI)
11-17-1971 Campus Struggle Forming (AP)
A brief, semi-inflammatory Associated Press article detailing efforts to organize on German campuses by leftist groups. The article is notable for being the first English newspaper account that I’ve found mentioning the “official” name of the group, the Red Army Faction. PDF: 11-17-1971 Campus Struggle Forming AP
6-18-1972 The wife who became Public Enemy No 1 (Guardian UK)
Great article by Neal Ascherton on Ulrike Meinhof’s journey toward terror, including memories of conversations with the subject. PDF: 6-18-1972 The wife who became Public Enemy No 1
3-16-1969 Dutschke Assailant gets 7 Years (Stars and Stripes)
Stars and Stripes published a short follow up to the stories the past year detailing the attempted assassination of student leader Rudi Dutschke. His assailaint, Josef Bachmann, was sentenced to seven years for the attack.
April 11, 1968 West Berlin
A young house painter, Joseph Bachmann, waits patiently in the street outside the home of Rudi Dutschke. Dutschke is the firebrand leader of the APO — a leftist movement. In Bachmann’s coat pocket is a gun. Bachmann shoots Dutschke three times, knocking him clean out of his shoes. Dutschke survives his shooting. Immediately following the [read all]
2-6-1968 Germans Attack US Trade Center (Stars and Stripes)
A short article in Stars and Stripes detailing a student demonstration in Frankfurt am Main. Student demonstrators occupied the US Trade Center in Frankfurt, eventually hoisting the North Vietnamese flag on the roof in triumph.
Late November, 1974 Cologne & Stuttgart
Former student leader, “Red” Rudi Dutschke, visits Jan-Carl Raspe in Ossendorf prison. Dutschke’s young son, Hosea-Ché Dutschke (named after a biblical character and Ché Guevara), tags along. Raspe is transferred to Stammheim shortly thereafter. At Meinhof’s urging, Baader-Meinhof lawyer Klaus Croissant convinces famous French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre to visit Andreas Baader in prison. His chauffeur [read all]
APO
Ausser-Parlianentarische Opposition or Extraparliamentary Opposition The APO was the student-initiated opposition movement in West Germany during the late sixties and early seventies. In many ways it was a product of a unique German trait — a strong desire to associate with political parties. When German students grew disillusioned with the so-called “Grand Coalition” of the two major [read all]
Chapter 4 — Praxis
May, 1967 – May 1970, 59 pages: The stories of the three major characters, Baader, Meinhof, and Ensslin, merge into one story in this chapter, and follow a straight narrative arc for the rest of the book. But first this chapter will look into the extremes of the student movement, exemplified by a West German [read all]
Podcast 25: How Heated Rhetoric Helped Give Birth to Baader-Meinhof
The deadly Arizona shooting offers interesting and tragic parallels to the heated environment and rhetoric that helped give birth to the era of the Baader-Meinhof Gang. [display_podcast]