The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History, Volume 1

by J. Smith

  At this point the attempt to gain control of Ulrike’s brain became obvious. Loew is one of the most notorious neurosurgeons in Germany. He experiments with “adaptive surgery” on prisoners.

  Witter, in his answer, initially requested an x-ray of the skull and a scintigraphy.2 But in the same letter, he explains to the BAW that the examination could be carried out under anesthesia, should Ulrike, to quote, “refuse to cooperate.”

  The objective of this intervention is made clear in an August 28, 1973, letter to the Attorney General. It says, “Above all, proof of a brain tumor could be an important indication of the need for a therapeutic operation.”

  “Important indication” here means that permission for cretinization is not required from either the prisoner or the prisoner’s relatives. The psychiatrist decides “after consideration” about whether to proceed with stereotactical3 mutilation. The BAW then files a petition with the investigating judge and after receiving the decision orders the intervention, with the proviso that “These measures can be undertaken against the will of the accused, and if necessary by use of direct force and under anesthesia.”

  The whole thing eventually failed as a result of massive international protest, including that of many doctors.

  Striving for an orderly retreat, the BAW declared that they had only at this point become aware of Ulrike’s medical history, which had been published in the Zentralblatt für Neorochirurgie in 1968 and in Stern in 1972. That is a stupid lie, as, according to the files, Ulrike was identified by state security after her arrest in 72 by referring to the x-rays in her medical files.

  After that, Ulrike was placed in the dead wing on two more occasions—alone from December 21, 1973, until January 3, 1974, and together with Gudrun from February 5, 1974, until April 28, 1974.

  But the incarceration of the two prisoners in the dead wing met with such strong international protests that the SPD government had to drop their plan to pathologize Ulrike in order to depict fundamental opposition to the Federal Republic as constituting an illness. The project, a “quiet and determined assertion of normality,” was an attempt to present, through torture and neurosurgery, a destroyed mind at a political show trial. It failed. That is the back story.

  All the facts, which are gradually becoming known, suggest that on the night of May 8-9, 1976, Ulrike was murdered by state security, because the years of torture had failed to destroy her political identity, her revolutionary consciousness, and her will to fight.

  The staging of the suicide follows the exact psychological warfare line that state security has followed since 1970. Physical liquidation and the political extermination of the RAF were the objectives of the massive hate and counterinsurgency campaign. Two months ago, Buback, the Attorney General, held that the second package of special legislation that had been rushed through was no longer needed for this trial, because, “We do not need any legal provisions. State security is given life by those who are committed to it. People like Herold and myself, we always find a way. If there are statutory provisions that must from time to time be stretched, they will for the most part be ineffective.”

  While Herold, the President of the BKA, said at a meeting regarding the problem of these prisoners, “Actions against the RAF must primarily be developed in such a way as to undermine the positions held by sympathizers.”

  As an example, four hours after her death, the BAW disseminated rumors through the press regarding the motive: “tensions within the group,” “far-reaching differences,” etc., and the BAW’s statement was nothing new. It is a word for word repetition of a formulation published in 1971, five years ago, as part of a state security disorientation campaign. Then it was: Ulrike Meinhof has created “tensions” and “farreaching differences” within the RAF.

  But Ulrike’s last letters and the experiences of everyone who knows the group—and the experiences of all the lawyers who have seen the group over the past twelve months—prove that the relationships within the group were intense, loving, disciplined, and mutually open.

  Everyone could see this.

  Five years ago, in 1971, the state was unable to get at Ulrike. She was free, because she was underground. So as part of the psychological warfare campaign, state security claimed she was dead.1 Now she was defenseless and imprisoned, so she was killed, because she continued to struggle in prison and at the trial.

  One must understand at what point in time this murder was staged: four days earlier, the prisoners had filed evidentiary petitions, for which Ulrike had done the essential work.

  These petitions addressed:

  1) the fact that, in violation of international law, since its foundation the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany has been a strategic base for the aggressive, expansionist policies of the U.S.A. against third states, against the constitutional governments of third states, and against the anticolonial, national, and antiimperialist liberation movements in the Third World, in the course of which, amongst other things, all relevant overt and covert military and secret service operations against the Warsaw Pact states and against legitimate parliamentary changes of government in the West European states, against anti-imperialist liberation movements in the Middle East, in Africa, and in South- East Asia, were planned, organized, orchestrated, supported, and overseen by U.S. intelligence services based on the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany, specifically

  a) that the ig Farben building in Frankfurt am Main functioned as the headquarters of several U.S. secret service organizations throughout the entire duration of the illegal aggression of the U.S.A. in Indochina;

  b) that these U.S. agencies in the IG Farben building in Frankfurt am Main carried out strategic military planning, management, coordination, and control functions for both the operations and logistics of the U.S. military forces in Indochina and secret operations of U.S. intelligence agencies in Indochina;

  2) that the structuring of the Federal Republic of Germany as a state after 1945 was carried out and developed by the U.S.A. as part of their expansionist strategy directed towards world power—particularly that after the Second World War, the CIA, founded as an illegal arm of American foreign policy, directly controlled all relevant political, economic, and cultural institutions in the Federal Republic during the Cold War, through civilian front organizations, or through the businesses, unions, cultural organizations, and student organizations that they controlled, and later through the financing of political parties and trade unions, as well as by educating, financing, and sponsoring politicians and officials;

  3) that through overt and covert, direct and indirect pressure, in the form of illegal interference in the internal affairs of the Federal Republic, and through the complete economic, military, and political hegemony of the U.S.A. over the Federal Republic, the Kiesinger/Brandt and Brandt/Scheel governments were involved in the overt and covert, aggressive, genocidal strategy against the Third World liberation movements, particularly in Indochina,

  a) in that they supported the aggression politically, economically, and through propaganda, and allowed the U.S. Army to use military bases on the Federal Republic’s territory;

  b) in that they, as a sub-center of U.S. imperialism, developed a policy of illegal interference in the internal affairs of the Third World, particularly in regards to Indochina and the European periphery. This was done using their own intelligence services and through the export of police and military, weapons, training, technology, and logistics, through the financing of political parties, politicians, etc., as well as through economic pressure;

  4) that the Federal Republic of Germany

  a) on the basis of its origins as a product of the dictatorship of the Allied military powers led by the U.S.A.,

  b) on the basis of conditions and requirements assuring the rights of the occupying powers under the leadership of the U.S.A., control was handed over to the German authorities,

  c) on the basis of the provisions of the German Treaty of 1956 and later modificatio
ns of the Treaty, particularly the CIA-controlled dependence of the Federal Republic on the U.S.A., without it being a colony under international law, but with no declared national sovereignty in relationship to the U.S.A.

  That was an extract.

  One line in the petitions, for example, dealt with how social democracy and the trade unions, with the help of CIA-bought politicians like Willy Brandt and Rosenberg,1 used career “advancement” and “positions” in the party and the trade union leadership, etc. to win support for the aggression and the consolidation of U.S. imperialism in Europe and in the Third World. This was established through extremely well documented investigations by comrades and friends, using witnesses who were directly involved.

  The BAW coordinates matters between the domestic and foreign intelligence services—that is to say, between the CIA, BND, Verfassungsschutz, Military Counter-Intelligence Service, etc.—and is also the point of intersection between the propaganda and ideological functions of the political judiciary. With these petitions, the BAW was confronted with the problem that the crude theatrics with which they had hoped to depoliticize the trial—four years of torture, hate campaigns, psychological warfare, special legislation, a special court, the liquidation of the defense, etc.—were all crumbling in full public view. And at exactly this point, Ulrike would give up? It is absurd: the prisoners knew that the confrontation would come to a head here, and Ulrike was determined to fight to establish the facts during the trial, as were we all. Her letters and manuscripts, her speeches, and her work for the trial, for example, are proof of this right up until the very last day.

  She was murdered once it became clear to the BAW that the fascist example of the victory of the political judiciary and the Federal Republic over the guerilla—the show trial in Stammheim—might collapse despite all the repression.

  Stammheim was meant to demonstrate the hopelessness of any and all resistance within the Federal Republic.

  In this regard, for four years, “all possible means” were used—as had been expressly sanctioned by Schmidt and the Federal Constitutional Court. One can now say that they were unsuccessful.

  What the struggle of the Stammheim prisoners established and communicated is the necessity, the possibility, and the logic of politics based on revolutionary action in the Federal Republic.

  Q: The accused have fought with their last remaining means, the hunger strike, against the prison conditions. Has this achieved a change in the conditions of solitary confinement? Does the court take the state of health of the accused into account?

  A: No.

  At the time the prisoners broke off their hunger strike, after five months, it had become clear that the legal left could not manage a second mass mobilization like the one that followed the murder of Holger Meins. Furthermore, it had become clear that the BAW and Buback were determined to use the hunger strike to kill even more prisoners from the RAF, accompanying this with a bombastic display of medical window dressing. At this point, the RAF on the outside issued a statement ordering the prisoners to end the strike, even though their demand, the end of solitary confinement, had not been achieved. The statement said:

  We are saying that the prisoners’ strike has done everything it could to mediate, mobilize, and organize anti-imperialist politics here. Its escalation would not contribute anything qualitative to the struggle.

  The state has calculated that it will be able to create propaganda from the execution of guerilla prisoners—who struggle, always struggle, in spite of everything struggle—that would make resistance seem hopeless. Allowing you to continue in this situation would amount to sacrificing you.

  We are taking this weapon away from you, because the prisoners’ struggle—given the existing balance of power—is now something that we must settle with our weapons.1

  This was a realistic appraisal of the balance of power.

  The court had arrived at the conclusion that the prisoners, weakened by years of isolation, were only capable of attending the trial for two or three hours a day, which effectively excluded them from the trial. Disagreeing with the court-appointed doctors (no expert for the defense was accepted), whose involvement the defense finally succeeded in obtaining after months of fighting, the court maintained that the prisoners’ inability to appear was a result of the hunger strike, and as such was deliberate and self-inflicted.2

  In their expert opinion, the doctors clearly state that the prisoners’ miserable state of health is caused by their prison conditions. Eight other expert opinions from public health agency doctors, etc. in RAF trials reached an identical conclusion: years of solitary confinement equals extermination.

  The Federal Supreme Court has used disinformation to stretch the definition of “self-inflicted”. Unlike the court, they do not claim that the inability to appear is due to the hunger strike—extracts from the expert opinions, which refute this claim, have been published since then. Instead, the Federal Supreme Court claims that the prisoners have, through their behavior in custody, forced the authorities to impose these prison conditions. The Federal Supreme Court eventually adopted this position and declared torture constitutional. In fact the custodial judge has already asked the prison warden to make sure that such prisoners are held in isolation. The Federal Supreme Court and the Federal Supreme Court judge who arrived at this decision know what they are doing. The judge consciously supported the objectives of the police and the Bonn Security Group’s “Terrorism” Section—they and the BAW dictate prison conditions. Political justice in the Federal Republic is a function of the counterinsurgency campaign.

  The rulings clearly state that the prison conditions can and will be changed if the prisoners renounce their politics, provide evidence, and place themselves at the disposal of the psychological warfare campaign against the urban guerilla. As regards such rulings, torture is clearly defined in international conventions as those means employed to destroy the prisoner with the objective of extorting statements that can be used in propaganda. It is in just this way that the West German justice system has legalized extermination imprisonment, so as to use the prisoners’ state of health against the political prisoners.

  Q: Has a political defense of the RAF been possible at any time during the Stuttgart-Stammheim proceedings? Are the accused free to explain their political motives and objectives at this trial?

  A: So far, the prisoners have seldom been able to utter a sentence without being interrupted by Prinzing, or else the BAW intervenes. Bobby Seale was at least publicly gagged.1 Here the court just switches off the prisoners’ microphones, and if the prisoners still continue to speak, it bars them from the proceedings for at least four weeks. This method of interruption is effective. If one’s thought process is interrupted ten times, then it is derailed. The spectators get the impression of mental redundancy. The trial’s political significance is blocked. Every minute of the proceedings is simply psychological warfare.

  There was an attempt to present a political defense, that is to say, to reconstruct the defense after the lawyers who had prepared it were barred shortly before the trial began. The court reacted by barring six more lawyers. Using challenges, denials, and, above all, court-appointed public defenders, the BAW has established Disciplinary Committees,2 with the aim of applying the Berufsverbot. And it works. The Bar Association’s Disciplinary Committee has a new staff made up of lawyers who specifically represent the interests of the BAW.

  The Chairman of the Law Society admitted this openly during a radio interview a few months ago. Now the circle of special legislation will be closed. In June, the SPD presented parliament with a new “package” of special legislation that would perfect the existing ones. Now a prosecution motion will be sufficient to begin Disciplinary Committee proceedings against a lawyer so as to disbar him and initiate Berufsverbot proceedings against him, etc.

  The law will also be applied to trials that are already underway—in effect retroactively.

  It is the second wave of special legislation, a
ll for a single trial. As the trial was underway, Ströbele and Croissant were arrested and all of the defense material on which they were working was seized, and this after the BAW had already confiscated all of the prisoners’ defense materials in three cell raids.

  A detail worth adding is that the office of Andreas Baader’s last remaining lawyer, Haag, who avoided arrest, was searched by Zeis, one of the federal prosecutors from Stammheim. This means that the BAW—by having the same federal prosecutor carry out both the persecution of the lawyers and the prosecution of the prisoners—does not even feel the need to hide why it is criminalizing the lawyers. That is the whole problem in the Federal Republic. Fascism is open, but there is no consciousness of it, and hardly any resistance.

  Q: In a petition for a stay of proceedings, one of the defense lawyers described the trial as a military-political conflict rather than a legal one. What measures did the ruling class use to ensure that this conflict would be carried out with unequal weapons?

  A: Special legislation, a judge illegally pushed into the head position, a 16 million DM3 bunker built just for this trial on the outskirts of town far away from any public transportation, the confiscation of 90% of the files by the BAW and the BKA, witnesses coached by the police and presenting testimony that has been structured for propaganda purposes, the persecution of lawyers, which of course handicaps the remaining lawyers at the trial.

  Lawyers depend on a minimum of constitutional consistency. If, as in these proceedings, it is totally absent due to blatant repressive measures, then the lawyers are helpless. Special legislation for these big trials has reduced the number of defense counsel for each prisoner to three, and the successive banning of lawyers and the ban on the collective defense of the accused precludes any division of labor between the lawyers.

  The despotic, secret administrative exclusions, which are effected with random, arbitrarily constructed accusations, including the Berufsverbot executed by the Bar Association—and one must say it—resemble the state security orgies of 1933. The arrests; the terrorism against the lawyers’ offices, with the confiscation of all of their files, including files from other proceedings, which a political lawyer depends on to make a living; the terrorism through open surveillance; the open intimidation of former clients, who are sought out, questioned, and pressured by the BKA squads; the loss of mandates; the criminal charges; the convictions based on defense arguments presented in court, etc., etc.—all of this leaves the lawyers helpless. The lawyers were confronted with false documents fabricated by the BAW, documents which were published with false quotes in the propaganda magazines of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, and which were distributed to schools, etc. in their millions; they are encircled by the police and by propaganda.