Recent literature on the Red Army Faction in Germany: a critical overview

Abstract

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Emmanuel-Pierre Guittet for his great and very encouraging commitment and support. The author also thanks Anita Gohdes for her very useful comments on the text.

Notes

1. The latest English publications are Schiller (2007/2009) and Bauer (2009).

2. For another English overview of the most important literature about the RAF, see Gutmann (2008).

3. It is important to note that the term ‘failure’ includes two very different meanings in this context. Some members only claim that the RAF actions were simply ineffective, but its ideological aims are nevertheless desirable (Wisniewski 1997, Tolmein 2005). Others argue that the RAF was not only ineffective in its means, but also partly wrong in its aims (Hogefeld 2004, Dellwo 2007).

4. Kraushaar's (2006a) two volumes contain some articles that analyse relations between the RAF and the media (pp. 1060–1185); and Tolmein and Zum Winkel (1987) have sought to give an overview of the media debate between 1977 and 1987. Unfortunatley, no contribution deals with the rekindled media debate in the 1990s and the different positions defended in the last two decades. There is an obvious lack of profound and explanatory research.

5. The term ‘German Autumn’ refers to a series of violent – and finally unsuccessful – events organised by the RAF and other terrorist groups which reached a high point in the suicide of the leading members of the first generation in prison.

6. See articles by Weinhauer (Kraushaar 2006a, pp. 932–947) and Polzin (pp. 1026–1047). Wesel (pp. 1048–1058) gives a good overview of facts and Kraushaar himself (pp. 1011–1025) provides a very good analysis.

7. This mainly concerns the ideological background of the RAF. The second part of Kraushaar's (2006a) first volume covers some important ideological issues, but there are still some remaining questions considering the RAF's actions in the context of Germany between 1945 and 1980. Herfried Münkler's recent Die Deutschen und ihre Mythen (The German and their myths) (Münkler 2009) point out the myths that have dominated post-war Germany. His argument about the steady signification of myths reveals that the interpretation of the RAF's ideological background has always been enormously reliant on the dominating political culture. Future research on the historical and political meaning of the RAF will have to take this contextualisation into account in order to achieve plausible arguments.

8. Hanns Martin Schleyer and Siegried Buback are the most prominent examples of unexplained killings. See Buback (2008) and Aust (2008, pp. 286–288) for the case of Siegried Buback; and Peters (2008, pp. 741–742) and Aust (2008, pp. 417–420) for the case of Hanns Martin Schleyer.

9. One of the first and maybe most interesting interviews was given by Urike Meinhof just five months before the foundation of the RAF. It was meant to be an interview about her involvement in the making of a film about young girls living in a children's home. In the end, it bore witness to her growing dissatisfaction with her bourgeois life and hinted at the forthcoming events. For other important interviews, see Jünschke (1985), Tolmein (2005) and Wisniewski (1997).

10. Peter-Jürgen Boock's ambiguous behaviour in court and in the media was harshly criticised by many of his former companions (for example, Wisniewski 1997, p. 32, Hogefeld 2004, p. 94, Varon 2004, p. 303, and Dellwo 2007, p. 103).

11. Since the beginning of the 1990s, Horst Mahler has regularly appeared in the German public as an adherent of extreme right-wing Nazis. He has provoked several public outrages and in March 2009 was finally sentenced to more than five years in prison because of his repeated Holocaust denial.

12. This mainly refers to Ulrike Meinhof, who was the Chief Editor of the German left-wing newspaper konkret from 1959 to 1970 (Aust 2008, pp. 14–15, Peters 2008, pp. 143–166, Seifert in Kraushaar 2006a, pp. 361–367).

13. Michael Buback does not belong to a political party, but he was part of an important election campaign for the liberal-conservative CDU (Christian Democratic Union) in 2003.