The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History

by J. Smith

  Wheels Within Wheels

  On January 22, 1979—shortly after meeting with West German government representatives in Austria—Ali Hassan Salameh was assassinated by the Mossad in Beirut.

  Not only was this payback for Salameh’s previous role in the Munich Olympics operation, it was also intended to sabotage the work he had been carrying out forging ties with the West. As such, the Mossad chose to use a sleeper agent who had spent years in the FRG, living close by the offices of the BND and the Verfassungsschutz, leading to accusations that the Germans had had a hand in the assassination.

  The West Germans were alarmed, and Baum himself issued a public statement to the effect that, “Someone is trying to derail our contact with the PLO. I’m fighting terrorists, and nobody should interfere.”1

  Ali Hassan Salameh

  _____________

  1 Time, “Death of a Terrorist,” February 5, 1979; Tom Rawstorne, “The Top QC, His Vanished Sister and the Mystery of Mossad’s first British Hitwoman,” Daily Mail, February 20, 2010; Spiegel, “Zwielichtige Geschichte,” November 12, 1979.

  It was ironic that Salameh—also known as Abu Hassan—was the one negotiating these terms, as it was he who had been in charge of the training camps where the first RAF members had been hosted in Jordan in 1970.34 It was also he who, in 1972, had organized the Black September attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, whose demands included the release of Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, and other unnamed RAF members.35 In offering to help the FRG in its fight against the RAF, the PLO was not simply buckling under Libyan pressure, rather, it was pursuing its own strategy of quiet rapprochement with Western intelligence agencies. Despite his personal history, this strategy very much revolved around Salameh, who had been the PLO’s liaison with the CIA since 1974.36

  In exchange for these favors, it was hoped that the Europeans might help the PLO gain standing as the Palestinians’ sole legitimate representative—and indeed, there had been overtures in this direction leading up to the Austrian meeting.37 The Israeli colonial project at that time relied on denying Palestinians any national recognition, pretending that they did not even exist, and so it was of some significance that in 1978 the PLO was granted observer status at a United Nations conference in Vienna, receiving the same privileges as other participants. That same year the Informationsstelle Palästina (Palestine Information Agency) was recognized by Bonn as the PLO’s unofficial representative in West Germany, and in 1979, the Kreisky government extended official diplomatic recognition to the PLO.38 This was part of a complex dynamic that challenged the Palestinian people’s exclusion from the international political arena, while simultaneously encouraging neocolonial tendencies within their own liberation struggle.

  It remains unclear what consequences these maneuvers had, if any, for the West German guerilla. By the time Salameh agreed to work with the FRG, it had been some time since the RAF had received any assistance from the PLO—by then its Middle Eastern contacts were with the PFLP (EO), and with the PFLP (SC) after that. Nor is there any evidence of the West German guerillas having ever benefited from Libyan support, accusations to the contrary notwithstanding. Nevertheless, even if they were only empty gestures, these efforts show how the West Germans used “antiterrorism” to bring the national liberation movements into the imperialist camp, a position supported by America’s Carter administration, though less popular with its Republican successors.

  While one might expect such foreign diplomacy to provoke right-wing bellyaching, it was not considered particularly scandalous, for it fit within both the amoral framework of international espionage, as well as West Germany’s traditional role as a neocolonial “friend” of the Third World. Indeed, the CDU had used similar diplomatic means to its own anticommunist ends at the height of the Cold War during the global wave of decolonization.39

  SPLITTING THE GUERILLA

  Turncoats like Gerhard Müller and Volker Speitel may have had some propaganda value, but their outlandish claims and the questionable legality of the deals they had cut often discredited the state more than the RAF. While the right-wingers from the CDU/CSU were undaunted, and perhaps even happy to have an antiguerilla strategy that would also alienate the legal left, Baum and others recognized the need for something more subtle. Indeed, besides isolating the combatants at home and abroad, the soft counterinsurgency strategy aimed to sow division within the guerilla itself.

  Over the years, certain RAF prisoners had taken their distance from the guerilla project, all the while retaining a commitment to revolution and solidarity with their former comrades. Manfred Grashof, for instance, had stepped away in 1974, at the time of the prisoners’ third hunger strike. Nevertheless, he made no public criticism, and continued to maintain the RAF position in his dealings with the police and guards. Klaus Jünschke had similarly broken with the RAF quietly during the ‘77 hunger strike. Then during the sixth hunger strike, Stefan Wisniewski took his distance, in part due to the strike’s timing and in part as a reaction to Debus’s death, which he felt had been avoidable.40 At the time, none of these prisoners allowed themselves to be incorporated into the state’s propaganda strategy.

  Former RAF member (and future neo-nazi) Horst Mahler meeting with Minister of the Interior Gerhart Baum: attempts at rapprochement.

  As such, the first opportunity for Baum’s new line to come into play would involve a man from the guerilla’s earliest days: former attorney Horst Mahler. While he is sometimes described as a founding member, this is disputed by everyone else from the RAF; furthermore, Mahler had been expelled in 1973.41 He had then gone through a period with the KPD/AO, but by the end of the decade had abandoned Marxism-Leninism as well.42 As a repentant guerilla, he enjoyed the support of Jusos chairman Gerhard Schröder, who began acting as his lawyer in 1978. With time off for good behavior, he was released from prison in August 1980.43

  Mahler represented a unique opportunity for the state, but one which the hardliners in government were ill-equipped to fully exploit. Unlike Ruhland or Müller, Mahler fancied himself a thinker—while he had renounced his past, he would want more out of any propaganda exercise than the somewhat pathetic role reserved for previous turncoats. What’s more, Mahler had never testified against any of his former comrades, nor had he gone along with the state’s various slanders. The typical cop’s idea of how a defector should act was too cartoonish and clichéd to work here.

  In December 1979, just before his release, Spiegel published a joint interview with both Mahler and Baum, in which each bemoaned the chasm that separated the state from the radical left, calling on all parties to “come out of the trenches.” Following Mahler’s release, the two repeated the exercise, holding a series of talks in which they continued to belabor this theme. These interviews were collected and published in book form shortly thereafter.44 Plans were also made for Mahler to start touring schools and speak at a variety of public events, expounding on the futility of “terrorism.”45

  In freeing Mahler and pursuing dialogue with sections of the radical left, Baum may very well have been acting out of a personal commitment to democratic principles. At the same time, however, he was not afraid to argue that a more flexible position on the part of the state might lead to splits among the prisoners, isolating the more “hard core.” It was even hoped that this approach might foster divisions within the underground, perhaps convincing some combatants to lay down their arms. In this regard Baum distinguished between “traitors”—those like Ruhland, Müller, and Speitel, whom the police and hardliners were equally happy to use—and “defectors” such as Mahler, who might wish to separate from the guerilla without testifying against their erstwhile comrades or publicly embracing the counterinsurgency agenda.

  He elaborated on this in an interview with Spiegel magazine in 1981, entitled “The State Must Not Be Implacable”:

  The way defectors are dealt with is important. It can make an important contribution to containing terrorism. It can prevent young people fr
om embracing terrorism, which is the most important thing. In the long run, this can also make the active terrorists’ image of the state as an enemy difficult to sustain.46

  As to imprisoned defectors, Baum said,

  In my opinion, a suspect who makes it clear that he is a defector should be handled differently than someone who continues to actively embrace terrorism, even in prison. This principle must be applied from day one, even in remand. Our society must set an example for that which we naturally demand: rehabilitation through social reintegration, toward which we must all struggle.47

  And regarding more traditional means of suasion:

  I believe that the crown witness rules regarding terrorists can play a role after an arrest if need be…48

  According to Baum, defectors need not even turn themselves in—the act of laying down arms was enough. When Spiegel suggested that the minister was advising fugitives to remain in hiding, he merely answered, “It happens… We concentrate on active terrorists. If we know someone has defected, we don’t look for them so hard.”49

  Mahler was not the only defector Baum courted. As previously mentioned, Peter-Jürgen Boock had left the RAF in early 1980, living under a false name in Hamburg for a year before being captured on January 22, 1981. Boock had had a troubled relationship with his guerilla comrades for some time, ever since his drug addiction and lies about his health had been revealed during the Yugoslav sojourn in 1978. He had left the RAF in the midst of Baum’s public dialogue with Mahler, at a time when the minister was promising that other defectors could expect leniency and understanding. He would later claim that this is why he remained in the FRG rather than seeking refuge abroad.50 By the time he was captured, Boock had made up his mind to pursue this option, hoping to make the best of his situation by following in Mahler’s footsteps and playing the part of the principled defector.

  Immediately following arrest, Boock publicly criticized the RAF while insisting that he would be no mere stooge for the state. As he put it to his erstwhile comrades:

  I will not betray anyone. I won’t name names. I will not make statements against anyone. However, I will defend myself. I know that that is enough to make me a traitor and a pig in your eyes. For me now, that is only part of the ignorance and the political superficiality that makes up the wall behind which you sit and behind which I also once sat.51

  Boock asked for an interview with Spiegel magazine, and used this tribune to call upon those still active in the RAF to lay down their arms, to recognize the futility of armed struggle.52

  Throughout his trial, Boock denied that he actually bore any responsibility for the RAF’s deeds. He claimed that he had not been aware of the Ponto and Schleyer actions until after the fact, that the only commando action he had been involved in was the failed attack on the BAW, and that during this attack he had in fact purposefully sabotaged the rocket launcher, ensuring that it would fail.53 Meanwhile, the defense made much of Boock’s drug habit, essentially arguing that he had been stoned for years, and as such had not been fully responsible for his behavior.

  The spectacle was in stark contrast to the RAF prisoners’ usual position of being willing to stand by all the RAF’s actions. What’s more, Boock began telling increasingly enticing stories to the press, including details of what he claimed were actions the RAF was planning. Although he had at first insisted that he would not betray his former comrades, it was clear that he was increasingly comfortable in the limelight, enjoying it even.

  Boock’s case provided a very public arena for proponents of “hard” and “soft” counterinsurgency methods to air their differences. Baum demanded that Boock’s prison conditions be relaxed, in line with his strategy of soliciting defectors. As a measure of how promising Boock appeared, the new BKA President Heinrich Boge also supported this demand. On the other side, Rebmann insisted that Boock testify as a prosecution witness in the trials of other RAF members, in the tradition of Müller, Speitel, and company. When he refused, Rebmann had him transferred to Stammheim, closing the door on the preferential treatment that Baum and Boge had requested.54

  His lawyers being based in Hamburg and Bremen, the move to Stammheim posed a significant inconvenience to Boock’s legal defense. What’s more, his request for counseling to deal with his drug addiction was initially denied, and he was placed in the very cell where Andreas Baader had died. When one of Boock’s lawyers suggested to Rebmann that his client was himself at risk of committing suicide, the answer was short and to the point: “That’s a responsibility the BAW will just have to live with.”55

  Peter-Jürgen Boock and his police detail, following arrest.

  Liberal opinion was shocked, with Die Zeit’s justice critic complaining that, “If self-avowed dropouts and defectors are handled the way Boock is now being handled, if they are only well-treated on condition that they become crown witnesses, then all the big political talk directed to the terrorist underground that a retreat will be fairly honored becomes nothing but words.”56

  Anxieties about Boock’s treatment were reinforced in December 1981 by a statement from an unexpected source: the fugitive Hans-Joachim Klein, a former member of the Revolutionary Cells’ international wing. From the underground, Klein had precipitated much of Baum’s interest in reconciliation back in 1978, when he had broken with the guerilla and mailed his gun, along with a lengthy criticism of the armed struggle, to Spiegel.57 He had been in hiding ever since. Now, as Boock prepared for trial, Klein once again used Spiegel to reach out to the liberal establishment, in an open letter to Baum in which he decried the state’s collective responsibility thesis and the consequences it had for would-be defectors:

  Why wasn’t this done after 1945, when it would have been damned appropriate, and the future FRG would have been spared so very much? Who knows, maybe even this perverse form of political conflict in which I had a terrible part.

  This collective sentencing at terrorism trials is, from my point of view—and not only because it affects me personally—a tremendous obstacle to this whole defector problem…. Obviously, what incentive would a defector have to turn himself in, if he sees years of prison or even a life sentence in store for him.58

  Those who were disappointed by Boock’s initial treatment would be truly dismayed by what came next. Soon after his trial began, the hardliners gained the upper hand, not because of their own successes in the counterinsurgency field, but due to larger political changes afoot. That year, the FDP made the historic decision to break with Schmidt’s SPD over the question of job security, which the liberals wanted gutted. On October 1, 1983, the CDU called for a vote of no-confidence and, supported by the FDP, took power. This was ratified by a federal election several months later, with the FDP once again supporting the CDU and CSU, which now formed the government. Although the Free Democrats were a necessary part of this new coalition, the Ministry of the Interior was removed from their hands for the first time since 1969; Baum’s old position now went to the CSU’s Friedrich Zimmermann, a former member of the Nazi Party under Hitler.

  Hans-Joachim Klein: a German Guerilla

  Formerly active in Frankfurt’s Sponti and prisoner support scenes, Hans-Joachim Klein, who had acted as Jean-Paul Sartre’s driver during the latter’s famous prison visit with Andreas Baader, went underground following the death of Holger Meins in 1974, joining the Revolutionary Cells and ending up as part of the 1975 raid on OPEC, led by Carlos.

  Dismayed by what he considered the unprincipled and foolhardy politics of the RZ’s international wing, Klein left the organization sometime in 1976 or 1977. His public criticism of the guerilla from the underground sent shockwaves through the RZ’s support scene, and the group eventually felt compelled to respond with two statements entitled “The Dogs Are Barking and the Caravan Moves On” and “The Dogs Always Bark.” (Despite this angry dismissal, several other former RZ members would later claim that the substance of Klein’s criticisms were based in fact.)

  With assistance from various friends, in
cluding the Green politician Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Klein lived underground for many years, settling in Normandy, France, before being arrested in 1998. Following a four-month trial in 2001, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for his role in the 1975 OPEC raid. He was released in 2003, having provided information about former guerilla associates.

  Needless to say, the “openness” of the Baum years quickly came to a close, and this did nothing to help Boock. After a fifteen-month trial, on May 7, 1984, the repentant guerilla was found guilty of six counts of murder related to the Ponto and Schleyer actions. He was also found guilty of membership in the RAF under §129a, and the court rejected his claim that he had sabotaged the BAW action, declaring him guilty of four counts of attempted murder in that regard.59

  Because at the time there was no evidence proving that he had actually been at the scene of any of the killings, the most serious charges against Boock all relied on the collective responsibility thesis. Representing the BAW, Peter Zeis—a right-wing prosecutor who had made a career out of RAF trials, and who insisted on referring to Boock and his lawyers as “the accused and his aides”60—had asked for four life sentences. Judge Walther Eitel gave almost that: three life sentences plus fifteen years. It was the heaviest penalty pronounced in a RAF trial up to that point.61

  For all his public repudiation of the guerilla, Boock had received no mercy from the state. “Where fairness was promised,” one newspaper complained, “the attorney general demonstrated unyielding harshness.”62