Baader, Meinhof and Me

'What did y'all think decolonisation meant?'

A scene from the ‘Baader-Meinhof Complex’, recreating the 1977 kidnap of Hanns Martin Schleyer

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I recently re-watched the 2008 movie The Baader-Meinhof Complex, which inspired today’s piece. If you’re new to my Substack, I served as a Special Branch and counterterrorism officer for 12 of my 25 years’ police service. As a domestic extremism investigator in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I developed an interest in the Baader-Meinhof group (also known as the Red Army Faction) and how they operated. This led to an enduring interest in the shadowy, occasionally tragi-comic world of para-politics.

The Red Army Faction’s place in left-wing counterterrorism history is carved in stone. Even now, the ruthlessly professional kidnap of Hanns Martin Schleyer in 1977 is taught as a textbook ambush operation to protection officers seeking to avoid the fate of Schleyer’s bodyguards (they were murdered).

As I learned more about the group, what intrigued me was the cultlike dedication of the terrorists. The RAF became self-replicating, each ‘generation’ (there were three in total) more lethal than the last - without each new cohort knowing any of the original members. Remember, these were the days of photocopied pamphlets and underground news sheets (Ulrike Meinhof was the group’s proselytiser and scribe). There was no internet or mobile phones. The SB officer in me hoots with delight at the thought of Generation ‘Z’ radicals trying to organise anything without instant messaging apps, TikTok or Instagram.

The Baader Meinhof phenomenon, therefore, is widely considered to be unique. It has inspired legions of writers and academics to ask the question: How did Wirtschaftswunder West Germany spawn dozens of privileged young people determined to kill? Prison breaks. Bombings. Bank robberies. Arson. Nothing was off the table in their quest to create the conditions they considered necessary for revolution.

Re-watching the movie, I decided to share a few thoughts as a former SB officer, not least because of the interesting parallels between the 1970s and today (the hard left’s accommodation with Islamist politics, for example). Part of my job was to identify and develop intelligence on individuals attracted to what we called subversion or domestic extremism - one of the pathways whereupon a disgruntled person might choose to commit acts of violence. Nowadays, I absolutely wouldn’t be a PREVENT officer, as this sort of thing isn’t really my bag.

This essay, then, is a smorgasbord; part movie-review and part commentary on domestic extremism both ancient and modern. I’ll also ask, could something like the RAF happen today? Or was it specific to 1970’s Germany? I might even get a little political.

Baader-Meinhof as radical chic; wannabe revolutionaries have always found the RAF cool

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The 1970s spawned numerous terrorist groups, on both the political left and right. On the left (with which this essay concerns itself), the Americans had the Weather Underground. Britain had the Angry Brigade (whose effectiveness never quite matched how bloody well miffed they were). France had Action Directe. We could even indulge in some some chin-stroking about the Provisional IRA of the ‘70s, who were definitely Marxists. Yes, their politics were camouflaged with Catholicism and Nationalism, but the ‘RA were still as Red as Red can be.

None of them, though (PIRA notwithstanding) can hold a candle to the sheer destructive, anarchic, murderous efficacy of the Red Army Faction. Between 1971 and 1993, the RAF murdered 37 people and injured many more in bombings and shooting attacks. This, remember, was during the relatively quaint era of European pre-mass casualty terrorism - the RAF never resiled from causing collateral damage, but their attacks were focussed on specific establishment figures - industrialists, judges, military personnel and bankers.

Like any sharp-elbowed, educated, upper-middle class leftist, RAF activists were ambitious, professional and excellent at networking; they were friends with journalists, activist lawyers (indeed, lawyers joined the group and became terrorists) and artists; the pistol Andreas Baader eventually killed himself with was smuggled into prison by his lawyer. Ulrike Meinhof was a successful journalist. Andreas Baader went to film school. They soon joined forces with Palestinian terror groups, attending training camps in Jordan in the early 70s. By 1977 (by which time Ulrike Meinhof committed suicide in Stammheim prison), RAF terrorists were hijacking airliners.

Here’s an example of what true extremism looks like; Ulrike Meinhof was so committed to the cause she decided her two daughters were a burden. Not wanting them to grow up in Bourgeois Germany, she agreed for them to be sent to a Palestinian refugee camp, never to be seen again. Luckily, her husband discovered her plan and the girls were rescued.

The movie, The Baader-Meinhof Complex, documents the RAF’s excesses unflinchingly, yet flirts uncomfortably close to glamorising the group. The camera lingers on their groovy 70s clothes. Baader cruises around at night in a stolen Porsche singing songs by ‘The Who.’ The free-loving, swinging German radicals parade their sexuality in front of their increasingly pissed-off Palestinian training instructors. There’s one moment where I thought the director was going to use the camera to comment on the terrorist’s luxury views. We see a party in Meinhof’s garden - she’s married to a successful journalist and holidays in the luxury coastal resort of Sylt. The camera pans back to show her beautiful house, framed by lush trees and blue sky. Then, we realise, this is merely a device demonstrating Meinhof’s dissatisfaction with her stifling existence of bourgeois comfort. Still, it was a strange-looking prison to little old me.

The police are, on the whole, shown as a faceless bunch. ‘Pigs’, dehumanised slaves of Capital in Meinhof’s writings, described as worthy only of a bullet (I recall another German who preached something similar). The only security official shown in a sympathetic light is Horst Herold, played by the late Bruno Ganz. Herold, head of the Federal Police pioneered analytical data collection methods to identify the terrorists. He’s depicted as a thoughtful man, intrigued by the RAF’s motives. He also identifies how the long-term solution to terrorism is political - seeing through the Marxist’s desire to provoke the State into taking indefensible measures in order to provoke revolt.

This spoke to me as a former police officer. When dealing with grave societal issues, policing is only a tool. Relying solely on police action - especially coercion - is counterproductive. Although, having said that, kinetic counterterrorist policing was pioneered in the 70’s - the Germans (after the 1972 Olympic massacre by Black September) formed their own elite CT unit, GSG-9. Yes, you can understand terrorism as much as you like; it’s also true that, occasionally, doors need to be kicked in by hard-nosed people with guns.

Carrots and sticks, people. Counterterrorism and Counterextremism is all about carrots and sticks. Remember, though, the carrots need to be juicy and the sticks need to be strong.

GSG-9 operators in the 1970s. GSG-9 ended the RAF-inspired hijack of a Lufthansa flight in Somalia in 1977

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As I suggested earlier, the parallels between now and the 1970s are easy to see, even if our unpopular foreign wars are mostly over (the ‘68 generation were incensed by Vietnam). The thorny issue of Palestinian statehood, for example, remains evergreen. The European left have, once again, found themselves sympathising with a foreign ‘resistance struggle’ (although, for the avoidance of doubt, I subscribe to the provable fact Hamas are terrorists). Furthermore, the 70s were a time of massive economic upheaval and an energy crisis.

Sounding familiar?

Unlike the 70’s, we have an additional factor - an abundance of over-educated, under-employed middle-class kids. Generation ‘Z’ are also the victims of blatant generational injustice (they take the view that the Boomer class of ‘68 are now all enjoying index-linked pensions in their equity-bloated houses). The young also live in an era of instant gratification, low wages and internet-fuelled anomie. A time of soul-crushing postmodern relativism, where you can easily bask in online approval for desecrating Stonehenge or preventing people from attending funerals by blocking motorways. And during my time in Special Branch I saw how protest groups camouflaged their attempts to ferment public disorder with hoary old Marxist theories like Situationism.

Therefore you might be as surprised we haven’t suffered our own 21st Century Baader-Meinhof moment. Not yet, anyway. Although, putting my SB officer’s hat on, I occasionally wonder if the next iteration might come from the opposite ideological direction. Or, even, worse… both? After all, it’s Emmanuel Macron talking about civil wars, not me.

But hold your horses! Wasn’t Baader-Meinhof a uniquely German phenomenon, borne partly of post-war guilt, what they call Vergangenheitsbewältigung? (usual spelling). Too many members of the German establishment in the 70’s were ex-Nazis (Hanns Martin Schleyer, for example, was a former SS officer). Yet the penal system in West Germany was laughably soft, another legacy of rejecting the nation’s fascist past, (one only has to watch the farcical scenes of the grandstanding Baader-Meinhof trials to see how the German authorities failed to grip extremists). What else can explain how so many Germans saw the RAF as Robin Hood-style figures? Which they did, especially in the more left-sympathetic cities.

So we have modern parallels with today, but significant historic differences - that of a country struggling with overwhelming guilt over its past.

Or is it that different?

Consider this; modern Critical Theory (as adopted by schools, universities and our public services) tells us the past is the present. The British Empire, in particular, sits in its own special category of evil. A generation of academics have grown fat by presenting British history as an orgy of murder, inequality, racism, other assorted intersectional injustices and quite probably kitten-strangling. Richard III, apparently, killed Bambi’s mother.

Interestingly, when I studied the British Empire for my history degree many moons ago the overwhelmingly left-wing lecturers weren’t fans of Empire either. They did, however, try to apply a soupcon of objectivity to proceedings, trying to understand what happened from a protagonist’s point of view. How they’d be cancelled in 2024! Remember, the left’s favourite dish is other leftists and all revolutions eat themselves. The only variable is how many innocent bystanders get devoured along the way.

Academic objectivity is now taught as a way of denying, excusing and normalising evil. There is no possible mitigation, as the stain of imperialism - the Original Sin - is woven into Britain’s DNA. Reparations for slavery, destruction of statues, little notices on National Trust houses telling us the orangery was paid for by colonial loot? That Britain, inventors of the concentration camp, is the source of every international dilemma?

Do you see where I’m going with this?

The Germans who were born in the 40’s were taught never again, including by the people who profited from Nazism. That hypocrisy must have stuck in their craw.

Now, Gen ‘Z’ in the UK are taught not only that their country’s seeped in blood, but that the bloodstain can only be erased via a specific political route. Which, like almost every other ideology on the left, is like a Matryoshka doll… the final doll being this bloke.

Do you wonder if the spirit of Baader-Meinhof is dead? That the vampire of domestic terrorism is nailed up in its coffin? That postmodernism and critical theory is simply another theory of viewing the world? That ‘decolonisation’ is about navel-gazing?

Then I give you this now infamous tweet, posted after the Hamas attacks of 7th October 2023;

Ulrike Meinhof would recognise the sentiment

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Thanks for reading. I thought I’d try something new, so let me know if watching a movie then using it as a springboard for policing-themed rumination works for you or not.

Cheers,

Dom.