The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History, Volume 1 (59 page)

That same day, there were bomb attacks in Hamm in North Rhine-Westphalia, and also in Rome, Seville, and Zurich.

Three days later, there was another demonstration of 8,000 people in West Berlin, during which several police officers were injured. Bombs continued to go off in France, and cars with German license plates and
the offices of a right-wing newspaper were targeted.
³
On June 2, the Revolutionary Cells bombed the U.S. Army Headquarters and U.S. Officers’ Club in Frankfurt, carrying out the attack under the banner of the “Ulrike Meinhof Commando.”
⁴
That same day, just outside the city, two fully loaded military trucks at a U.S. airbase were blown up.

Claims that Meinhof had committed suicide were interpreted by the RAF as part of the state’s psychological warfare campaign, a horrible escalation intended to discredit the guerilla in general and Meinhof’s participation in particular.

In an attempt to refute claims that there had been a falling out between Meinhof and the others, or that she was weakening in her resolve, the prisoners opted to release several documents she had written just before her death.

These documents were accompanied by the following stipulation by Jan-Carl Raspe:

This is a fragment about the structure of the group, which Ulrike insisted on presenting in Stammheim, in order to destroy the leadership theory around which the BAW wanted to build this trial. Andreas was opposed, and we all wanted to write it differently.

It is not very important, but I have put it out today anyway because it refutes Buback’s filthy lies—“the conflict”—and because this is what Ulrike was working on last.

It must only be published in its entirety, accompanied by the two letters to Hanna Krabbe and the one to the Hamburg prisoners.

These documents were intended to refute allegations that Meinhof had committed suicide by showing her to be as committed and determined as ever. Ironically, this makes them amongst the least interesting of the statements from the captured combatants. Meinhof’s praise for the RAF’s collective process and for Baader as an individual, taken out of context, may seem naïve, while her letters to other prisoners, which were not written for broad publication, would strike many as unduly harsh.

The prisoners were aware of this, and their reticence is noted by Raspe, but countering the suicide story was clearly viewed as being of greater importance. After all, the state had shown that it was prepared to incorporate the death or even murder of prisoners into its psychological warfare campaign. How could countering this campaign
not
assume the highest priority?

Apart from releasing Meinhof’s last documents, the defense attorneys arranged for a collective interview with the prisoners, meant to be published in
Le Monde Diplomatique
, one of France’s most important newspapers. Here, the prisoners put forward their view of the murder, the state’s propaganda campaign, and the way in which their broken former comrades were used against them. (Although this interview was widely circulated within the radical left, to the best of our knowledge it was never in fact published in
Le Monde Diplomatique,
although the information was parsed into a series of articles that appeared at that time.)

The state’s psychological warfare campaign failed in its attempt to turn Meinhof’s death against the prisoners. The story it floated—that she had had a “falling out” with the others, supposedly as a result of the Springer bombing four years earlier
¹
—was simply not credible.

Meinhof’s death may have traumatized the RAF and its prisoners, but it certainly did not lessen their resolve. The stakes now seemed higher than ever, and West Germany’s “fascist drift” seemed well nigh indisputable.

As never before, circumstances cried out for action.

The cry would not go unanswered.

I don’t have much to say.

We believe Ulrike was executed. We don’t know how, but we understand the reasoning behind the method chosen. I recall Herold’s statement, “Actions against the RAF must primarily be developed in such a way as to undermine the positions held by sympathizers.”

And Buback said, “State security is given life by those who are committed to it. People like Herold and myself, we always find a way.”

It was a cold, calculated execution, just like with Holger, just like with Siegfried Hausner. If Ulrike had decided to end it all, to die, because she saw this as her last chance to save herself—to save her revolutionary identity—from the slow destruction of her will in isolation—then she would have told us—or at least she would have told Andreas: that was the nature of their relationship.

I believe that the execution of Ulrike now, at this moment, is a result of developments—an initial political breakthrough in the conflict between the international guerilla and the imperialist state in the Federal Republic. To say anything more about this would require getting into things I don’t wish to discuss.

This murder is consistent with all of the state’s attempts to deal with us over the past six years—the physical and psychological extermination of the RAF—and it is aimed at all of the guerilla groups in the Federal Republic, for whom Ulrike played an essential ideological role.

Now I want to say that as long as I’ve been witness to the relationship between Ulrike and Andreas—and I’ve witnessed it for the past seven years—it was marked by intensity and tenderness, sensitivity, and clarity.

And I believe that it was precisely because of this relationship that Ulrike was able to survive the eight months in the dead wing.

It was a relationship like that which can develop between siblings, oriented around a common objective and based on shared politics.

And she was free, because freedom is only possible in the struggle for liberation.

There was no breakdown in their relationship during these years. There couldn’t have been, because it was based on the politics of the RAF, and when there were fundamental contradictions within the
group, they were addressed concretely through praxis. No reason for such a breakdown can be found in the course of our theoretical work, the only kind that remains possible in prison—nor can it be found in the shared nature of our struggle or the history of the group.

This can be clearly seen in the discussions and Ulrike’s letters and manuscripts in the period leading up to Friday evening. They show what this relationship was really like.

It is a crude and sinister smear, a bid to use Ulrike’s execution for psychological warfare purposes, to now claim that “tensions” and “estrangement” existed between Ulrike and Andreas, between Ulrike and us. This is Buback in all his stupidity.

So far all such efforts have simply further exposed the fascist nature of the reactionary forces in the Federal Republic.

Jan-Carl Raspe
May 11, 1976

This is a fragment about the structure of the group, which Ulrike insisted on presenting in Stammheim, in order to destroy the leadership theory around which the BAW wanted to build this trial. Andreas was opposed, and we all wanted to write it differently. It is not very important, but I have put it out today anyway because it refutes Buback’s filthy lies—“the conflict”—and because this is what Ulrike was working on last. It must only be published in its entirety, accompanied by the two letters to Hanna Krabbe and the one to the Hamburg prisoners.

Jan
May 11, 1976

Concepts developed by Habermas provide a starting point, from which we can draw conclusions about proletarianization in the metropole: isolation resulting from the alienation which exists throughout the entire system of production. Isolation is the basis for manipulation.

Freedom in the face of this system is only possible through its total negation, that is to say, through an attack on the system as part of a fighting collective, the guerilla, a guerilla that is necessary if a genuine strategy is to be developed, if victory is to be had.

The collective is a key part of the guerilla’s structure, and once subjectivity is understood as the basis of each person’s decision to fight, the collective becomes the most important element. The collective is a group that thinks, feels, and acts as a group.

The guerilla leadership consists of the individual or individuals who maintain the open and collective functioning of the group and who organize the group through their practice—anti-imperialist struggle, based on each individual’s self-determination and decision to be part of the intervention, understanding that he can only achieve what he wants to achieve collectively, meaning within the group in all its dimensions, military and strategic, and as the embryo of the new society, developing and conducting the anti-imperialist struggle through the group process.

The line, which is to say a rational and logical strategy geared towards a single purpose—action—is developed collectively. It is the result of a process of discussion informed by everyone’s experiences and
knowledge, and is therefore collectively formulated and serves to draw people together. In other words, the line is developed in the course of practice, through an analysis of conditions, experiences, and objectives. Coordination is only possible because there is unanimity regarding the goal and the will to achieve it.

Once the line has been developed and understood, the group’s practice can be coordinated according to a military command structure. Its execution requires absolute discipline, and, at the same time, absolute autonomy, that is to say, an autonomous orientation and decision-making capacity regardless of the circumstances.

What unites the guerilla at all times is each individual’s determination to carry on the struggle.

Leadership is a function that the guerilla requires. Leadership cannot be usurped. It is exactly the opposite of what psychological warfare describes as the RAF’s leadership principle. Andreas has stated that if he had in fact acted in the way described by the baw, there would be no RAF and the political events of the past five years would not have occurred. Simply stated, we would not exist. If he assumed leadership of the RAF, it is because from the beginning he has always had that which the guerilla needs most: willpower, an awareness of the goals, determination, and a sense of collectivity.

When we say that the line is developed in the course of practice, through an analysis of conditions, experiences, and objectives, what we mean is that leadership falls to the individual who has the broadest vision, the greatest sensitivity, and the greatest skill for coordinating the collective process.

Leadership must have as its goal the independence and autonomy of each individual—militarily speaking, of each combatant.