Living History, Part Three

Last year in my German class, I struggled to understand a text we were reading. It spoke of RAF and terror in the 1970s. I knew that the Royal Air Force was terrifying to Germans during WWII, but in the 1970s?

RAF actually stands for "Rote Armee Faktion," or "Red Army Faction." This terrorist organization in West Germany was born out of German frustration following the second world war. After 1945, Germany vowed to never again bring war upon the planet. The people wanted to rebuild themselves as a just, equitable soceity. Instead, some began to see West Germany as a sort of police state, keeping the masses quiet while allowing the rich to profit off the world's evils.

When political moves and lengthy columns failed to achieve the desired result, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof (journalist and mother of two) lead a coalitions of young, radically-left Germans into battle. By bombing capatalist buildings and army outposts, the Baader-Meinhof complex spawned a movement that killed 34 people and may have helped hijack a Lufthansa plane.

Germany, always examining its past, touched upon the "German Autumn" of terror in a recent film entitled the Baader-Meinhof Komplex. I went to see the much-debated release a few weeks back. With many young Germans upset about globalization, some feared that "Baader-Meinhof Komplex" would inspire the most troubled to action. 

The movie, however, does not portray RAF as a young group of idealistic heros. Instead, it allows the viewer to watch their descent into violence-- with each attack becoming a reason for more. They weren't protesting capitalist excess; they were justifying their own violence.