Is there something about the whole baader-meinhof era that you are wondering about? Use this forum to ask me anything and I'll do my best to answer your questions. Feel free to add to my responses or challenge what I have to say as well...

Hi there --

I don't know of any sources; though the doc you speak of (which is truly excellent BTW), has been posted on youtube in it's entirety. I have no idea where google is at with their auto caption/translate efforts but I would imagine some time in the future that this will be a button right there on the youtube page. And like most google translations, it will make sense about 60 percent of the time.

I'm slowly but surely putting up stuff from my old site to this new version of baader-meinhof.com; included will be discussions and info about every single english language documentary, and fiction film about the subject. I'm also going to have some stuff available to watch for free to registered site members (like full videos) that I probably can't just plop on the regular site.

Until then, there are several docs that are worth tracking down that are either in English or subtitled: the BBC doc "in love with terror,", an incredible swedish (i think) doc called "stockholm 75" about the embassy takeoever, Starbuck: Holger Meins" about Holger Meins, and the history channel show I was in called simply "The Baader-Meinhof Gang." Other related docs are the massively interesting time piece "Germany in Autumn," "Protagonist" a weird and excellent documentary that features an interview with Hans Joachim Klein, and "the devil's advocate" (I think that's the name), which also features an interview with klein.

And in terms of narrative films, Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex has zero factual errors; same goes for Carlos (perhaps the best movie of the last 10 years).

Hi There --

Thanks for the kind thoughts!

In the early seventies, what we now know as Yemen was divided into two countries: South Yemen and North Yemen (Both Yemens had been decolonized from Britian in 1963 and ultimately they unified in 1990). A Marxist party had won power in South Yemen in, I think 1969, and the country was essentially full-on socialist with heavy dose of support for third world and guerrilla causes. So when given an opportunity to go to "a country of their chosing" in the early 1970s, terrorists invariably selected from among the usual suspects at the time: South Yemen, Iraq (I think) and others. These were countries that were sort of aligned with the Soviet Union in the great power game known as the Cold War, but often marched to the beat of their own drummer.

Because South Yemen had no real diplomatic relations with most Western countries, and very little trade, and most importantly they were willing to take in terrorists, it represented a move for terrorists that had very little chance for unexpected consequences like deportation, or assassination by an international anti-terrorist unit.

It points to a time when a strong component of middle eastern popular movements were not religious but Marxist. Now we tend to view anything and everything in the Middle East almost exclusively through the lens of Islam. But it wasn't always this way. The People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine, for instance, was Marxist and as devoted to politics as military actions. It was this devotion to Marxism that lead to the creation of the People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, which avoided Marxism and focused on military actions.

If you read writings among imprisoned Northern Ireland IRA leaders in the 70s and 80s, you see a deep undercurrent of Marxism and solidarity with other groups like the RAF in Germany etc. At the time it felt like compelling evidence of a strong, international Marxist-terrorist complex.

In retrospect it is much much easier to discern the differences between these groups than it is the similarities. The IRA and the Basque ETA seem to have little in common with the RAF in Germany, as well as the PFLP in Palestine, for instance. But at the time through their writings and other sources you could easily put them all under a general rubric of Marxist-inspired organizations.

In retrospect I think the only truly Marxist (and Maoist)-style groups were the German terrorists. I think the experimenting with Marxist thought among the other groups and regions (like South Yemen) can to some extent be explained by the zeitgeist of the time...

Good luck with your project; hope you get an A.

Hi,just 1 question when does your book come out!seems like I have been waiting for ages to read it,no pressure!

Keep going Rich,will be great to read it when it comes out,even if it takes a bit longer than expected!