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Author Topic: Go ahead and ask!
richardhuf-
fman
Administrator
Posts: 11
Post Go ahead and ask!
on: October 8, 2011, 02:35

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...

Richard Huffman is the creator of baader-meinhof.com, lives in Seattle, and is hard at work on his perpetually forthcoming book about the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

imp44791
Comrade
Posts: 1
Post Re: Go ahead and ask!
on: October 28, 2011, 02:47

I have been reading up on the subject and watching documentaries related to it. Unfortunately my lack of German limits me to English-language sources. There is a 2007 documentary by ARD (I think) called "Die RAF" with extensive interviews by many of the principals from the era (Bock, Schmidt etc). Do you know if there is any source of subtitles in English, or perhaps French, or any other way that I can have it translated? Thanks

richardhuf-
fman
Administrator
Posts: 11
Post Re: Go ahead and ask!
on: October 28, 2011, 09:19

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).

Richard Huffman is the creator of baader-meinhof.com, lives in Seattle, and is hard at work on his perpetually forthcoming book about the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

kmcnally
Comrade
Posts: 2
Post Re: Go ahead and ask!
on: December 1, 2011, 14:37

hi, i'm sorry if I'm posting this in the wrong place, but I have a (very probably) very stupid question. Why did the freed terrorists choose to go specifically to Yemen after the June 2. Movement kidnapping of Peter Lorenz?

thank you!
by the way, i'm a grad student in german preparing a presentation on left wing german radicalism, and this site has helped me more than any other source-thank you soo much! love the podcast too.

richardhuf-
fman
Administrator
Posts: 11
Post Re: Go ahead and ask!
on: December 1, 2011, 15:19

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.

Richard Huffman is the creator of baader-meinhof.com, lives in Seattle, and is hard at work on his perpetually forthcoming book about the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

kmcnally
Comrade
Posts: 2
Post Re: Go ahead and ask!
on: December 2, 2011, 05:22

Thank you! wow, that is extremely helpful.
Just listened to your interview with Bommi Baumann and really enjoyed it.

saintmatt
Comrade
Posts: 3
Post Re: Go ahead and ask!
on: December 3, 2011, 03:59

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

richardhuf-
fman
Administrator
Posts: 11
Post Re: Go ahead and ask!
on: December 3, 2011, 14:39

Ugh! the one question I don't have a great answer for (but honestly thank you for being so patient). Without going into the minutiae of my non-efforts to get my book done over the last 10 or 12 years, I can only say "I'm working on it." Originally I was going to do it more breezily; like an old school journalist who relies on occasional translators to help them out as I provide a quick narrative of some foreign culture. But over the last few years my project morphed into something much more definitive and exhaustive.Of course the big problem continues to be my (embarrassingly bad) German language skills. So I am systematically working on improving my German, which will allow me to dig much, much deeper.

I do have a few things in the hopper though; I'm trying to put together a small audio documentary exploring the day in May 1972 when the Baader-Meinhof Gang finally turned their theory in "praxis" and bombed the US Army V Corps headquarters in Frankfurt. It will incorporate snippet of many of the interviews you've perhaps heard on my podcasts as well as many that you haven't. My goal is to make it sound very professional and interesting, and I want it to tell a story that simply hasn't ever been told before. As part of this, I'll also probably put u on my site my mostly completed chapter about the May bombing campaign. Almost every single book about the May bombing campaign presents it as a series of vivid snapshots ("and on Monday they bombed a police station in Augsburg"). Even in the Baader-Meinhof Complex movie it was simply a one minute montage.

But I think it is highly worth exploring in detail. In the Frankfurt bombing Gudrun Ensslin, among others, walked right into the foyer of the US Army building, to set her bomb. She walked past dozens of young women--many German--who were waiting for a tour bus. So much of the internal dynamic of the group prior to this had been focused on systematically demonizing the German state, and the American state; they were "Nazi" and effectively not worthy of life. What must Ensslin have thought when she showed up with her bomb, ready to kill "Nazi" Americans, and found dozens of non-combatant women and their families? It issues like this I want to explore in detail...

Which is a long way of saying that you'll probably be seeing me post parts of my book in drips and drabs... but at least it will be free to read...

If you've ever seen the TV show Hoarders... well that's kind of how my mind works for this stuff. I just consume massive amounts of raw Baader-Meinhof info and like the crazy people living with 10 rooms filled floor to ceiling with their crapola, my struggle is to sort that stuff out!

Richard Huffman is the creator of baader-meinhof.com, lives in Seattle, and is hard at work on his perpetually forthcoming book about the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

saintmatt
Comrade
Posts: 3
Post Re: Go ahead and ask!
on: December 4, 2011, 06:35

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

pfkellogg
Comrade
Posts: 1
Post Re: Go ahead and ask!
on: April 11, 2012, 20:47

next month marks the 40th year since the heidelberg bombing. it would be nice to virtually hook up with fellow soldiers who were there (maybe on facebook) to have a moment of silence to pay hommage to the three victims and their families. they were all good people and i miss and respect them.

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