Ulrike Meinhof | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Meinhof as a journalist,c. 1964 | |
| Born | Ulrike Marie Meinhof (1934-10-07)7 October 1934[1] Oldenburg, Germany |
| Died | 9 May 1976(1976-05-09) (aged 41) |
| Organization | Red Army Faction |
| Spouse | Klaus Rainer Röhl (divorced) |
| Children |
|
Ulrike Marie Meinhof (7 October 1934 – 9 May 1976) was a Germanleft-wing terrorist, journalist and founding member of theRed Army Faction (RAF) inWest Germany, commonly referred to in the press as the "Baader-Meinhof gang". She is the reputed author ofThe Urban Guerilla Concept (1971). The manifesto acknowledges the RAF's "roots in the history of thestudent movement"; condemns "reformism" as "a brake on the anti-capitalist struggle"; and invokesMao Zedong to define "armed struggle" as "the highest form ofMarxism-Leninism".[3]
Meinhof, who took part in the RAF's May Offensive in 1972, was arrested in June of that year and spent the rest of her life in custody, largely isolated from outside contact. In November 1974, she was sentenced to 8 years in prison for an attempted murder that had taken place during the RAF's successful jailbreak operation ofAndreas Baader.[4]
From 1975, she stood trial on multiple charges of murder and attempted murder, with the three other RAF leaders: Baader,Gudrun Ensslin, andJan-Carl Raspe. Before the end of the trial, she was found hanged in her cell in theStammheim Prison. The official finding of suicide sparked controversy. One year later, on7 April 1977, two members of the RAF assassinated the Federal Attorney-GeneralSiegfried Buback as revenge.[5][6]
Meinhof was born in 1934 inOldenburg. Her father Werner Meinhof, a curator ofJena Museum, died of cancer in 1940, causing her mother to take in aboarder,Renate Riemeck, to make money.[7] In 1946, the family moved back to Oldenburg[8] after Jena fell underSoviet occupation as a result of theYalta agreement. Meinhof's mother, Ingeborg Meinhof, an art historian, began to work as a teacher[9] and died from cancer in 1949. Riemeck took on the role of guardian of Meinhof and her elder sister, Wienke.[10]
In 1952, Meinhof took herAbitur at a school inWeilburg. She then studiedphilosophy,sociology,education andGerman atMarburg, where she became involved with reform movements. In 1957, she transferred to theUniversity of Münster, where she met the SpanishMarxist intellectualManuel Sacristán[11] (who later translated and edited some of her writings), joined theSozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS), the German Socialist Student Union. She participated in protests against theBundeswehr and the proposal ofKonrad Adenauer's government to deploy nuclear weapons. Despite her involvement, Meinhof was critical of the SDS leaders' subconscious misogyny and the organisation's marginalisation of female members.[12] Meinhof eventually became the spokeswoman of the localAnti-Atomtod-Ausschuss (Anti Atomic-Death Committee). In 1958, she spent a short time on theAStA (German:Allgemeiner Studierendenausschuss, or General Committee of Students) of the university and wrote articles for various student newspapers.[13][14]
In 1959, Meinhof joined the bannedCommunist Party of Germany (KPD)[15] and later began working at the magazinekonkret, a monthly which, until 1964, had clandestine financing from theEast German government.[16]Konkret was widely read by student activists and progressive intellectuals, and as its chief editor from 1962 to 1964, Meinhof was able to elicit contributions from established journalists and authors.[17]
On 2 June 1967, Meinhof's exposure inkonkret of German complicity in supporting thePahlavi dynasty helped rally students to a demonstration inWest Berlin against the visit of theShah of Iran. When Iranian counter-demonstrators, including agents of theShah's intelligence service, attacked the students, the police joined the affray beating the demonstrators into a side street where an officer shot and killed the student protesterBenno Ohnesorg[18] The leadingStern columnist,Sebastian Haffner whom Meinhof had befriended, took tokonkret to suggest "with the [anti-] Student pogrom of 2 June 1967 fascism in West Berlin had thrown off its mask".[19][20]
In February 1968, Meinhof was a participant in the International Vietnam Conference in West Berlin, which the authorities had permitted only in the face of large-scale protests. She was co-signatory, along with intellectuals includingErnst Bloch,Noam Chomsky,Eric Hobsbawn,Ernest Mandel, andJean Paul Sartre, of the final declaration. This defined the U.S. intervention in Vietnam as "the Spain of our generation" and called for mobilisation against the "extermination" (Vernichtung) of the Vietnamese people.[21]
In 1961, Meinhof married the co-founder and publisher ofkonkret,Klaus Rainer Röhl. Their marriage produced twins, Regine andBettina, born on 21 September 1962. Meinhof and Röhl separated in 1967 and divorced a year later.[22]
In 1962, Meinhof had a benign brain tumor surgically removed; the 1976 autopsy showed that remnants of the tumor and surgical scar tissue impinged on heramygdala.[23]
The attempted assassination of SDS leaderRudi Dutschke on 11 April 1968 provoked Meinhof to write an article inkonkret demonstrating her increasingly militant attitude and containing perhaps her best-known quote:
Later that year, her writings onarson attacks in Frankfurt as protests against theVietnam War resulted in her developing an acquaintance with the perpetrators, most significantlyAndreas Baader andGudrun Ensslin. She stopped writing forkonkret which had in her opinion evolved into a completely commercial magazine in the early part of 1969, and many other authors followed her. She stated that neither she nor her collaborators wanted to give a left-wing alibi to the magazine that sooner or later "would become part of the counter-revolution, a thing that I cannot gloss over with my co-operation, especially now that it is impossible to change its course".[26] Later, they organised an occupation atkonkret's office (along with several members of theAußerparlamentarische Opposition), to distribute proclamations to the employees, something that failed since Röhl learned about it, and moved the employees to their homes to continue their work from there. Finally, Röhl's house was vandalized by some of the protesters. Meinhof arrived in Röhl's villa at 11:30, after police and journalists had already arrived. She was accused by Röhl (and subsequently described by the media) as the organizer of the vandalism. It was difficult to prove, as she was not there when it happened.[27]: 352–354
Perhaps her last work as an individual was the writing and production of the filmBambule [de] in 1970, where she put focus on a group ofWest Berlin girls injuvenile detention; by the time it was scheduled to be aired, she was wanted for her part in the violent escape from police custody of Andreas Baader, and its broadcast was delayed until 1994.[28]
Meinhof had been approached to help in Baader's escape by his girlfriend, Gudrun Ensslin. Meinhof persuaded the left-wing publisherKlaus Wagenbach to assist in the release of what he saw as a political prisoner.[29] He issued her with a book contract, on the basis of which she petitioned authorities to allow Baader to travel fromMoabit Prison for an interview at an institute for social research in theDahlem district of Berlin. The plan was for armed comrades to enter the building, overpower the guards, and escape with Baader. No shooting was to take place, and Meinhof was to stay behind and deny any complicity in the action.[27]
Baader arrived with two guards and set to work with Meinhof in the institute's library. Two women in Ensslin's group, along with a man with a criminal record (hired because of his supposed experience with armed encounters) broke into the institute. The man shot the elderly librarian Georg Linke, severely wounding him in his liver. It was later claimed that the man was holding two weapons, a pistol and a gas canister gun, and accidentally fired the wrong weapon in the confusion. Following the unanticipated shooting, Meinhof joined the others in jumping out of the institute's window. She then called a friend to pick up her children from school.[27] Within days wanted posters appeared throughoutBerlin offered a 10,000DM reward for her capture forattempted murder.[30][31]
In the next two years, Meinhof participated in the variousbank robberies andbombings perpetrated by the group. She and other RAF members attempted tokidnap her children so that they could be sent to a camp forPalestinian orphans and educated there according to her desires; however, the twins were intercepted inSicily and returned to their father, in part due to the intervention ofStefan Aust.[32]
During this period, Meinhof wrote or recorded many of themanifestos and tracts for the RAF. The most significant of these is probablyThe Concept of the Urban Guerrilla, a response to an essay byHorst Mahler, that attempts to set out more correctly their prevailingideology. It also included the first use of the nameRote Armee Fraktion and, in the publications of it, the first use of the RAF insignia.[33] Her practical importance in the group, however, was often overstated by the media, the most obvious example being the common nameBaader-Meinhof gang for the RAF.[34][35] (Gudrun Ensslin is often considered to have been the effective female co-leader of the group rather than Meinhof.)[36]
Meinhof wrote anessay defending theMunich massacre as part of a Palestinian strategy of resistance against Israeli land theft and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.[37]
On 14 June 1972, inLangenhagen, Fritz Rodewald, a teacher who had been providing accommodation to deserters from theU.S. Armed Forces, was approached by a stranger asking for an overnighting house the next day for herself and a friend. He agreed but later became suspicious that the woman might be involved with the RAF and eventually decided to call the police. The next day the pair arrived at Rodewald's dwelling while the police watched. The man was followed to a nearby telephone box and was found to be Gerhard Müller who was armed. After arresting Müller, the police then proceeded to arrest the woman – Meinhof.[38]
During her solitary confinement at Köln-Ossendorf Prison from June 1972 to February 1973, Meinhof wrote what was later published as "A Letter from a Prisoner in Isolation" (Brief einer Gefangenen aus dem Toten Trakt).[39][40] It conveys a sense of disorientation and despair:
The feeling that one's head is exploding…
The feeling that the brain is shriveling up like a baked fruit
The feeling that… one is being controlled remotely
The feeling that all one's associations are being cut away
The feeling of pissing the soul out of one's body, like someone who can no longer hold water.
…The raging aggressiveness for which there is no outlet. That's the worst. The clear understanding that one has no chance of survival…
In December 1972, Meinhof, who was awaiting trial, was called to testify atHorst Mahler's trial where Mahler questioned her about the statement of support the two had issued for themassacre at the1972 Summer Olympics inMunich. TheFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published the following hostile account of her response:
"Unless we absolve the German people of fascism—that the people really didn't know what was going on in the concentration camps—they can't be mobilized for our struggle," she said. After the war, the left, in dealing with fascism, were "negligent, stupid, and insolent." They dealt with the people in the foreground, but didn't look any deeper. "How was Auschwitz possible; what was antisemitism?" That is something that someone should have clarified at the time. Instead of collectively understanding Auschwitz as an expression of evil, Meinhof stated.
"The worst thing is that all of us, communists as well as others, were united in this." However, she now recognizes that antisemitism can in its own way be anticapitalist. It separates the hatred of people about their dependency on money as a means of exchange from their desire for communism.
"Auschwitz meant that six million Jews were murdered and carted off to Europe's garbage heap, dispensed with for what they were presented as: money Jews." Finance capital and banks, "the hard core of the system" of imperialism and capitalism deflected the hate of the people for money and oppression from itself and transferred it to the Jews. Not having made this connection clear was the failure of the left and the communists.
Germans were antisemitic, therefore they are today RAF supporters. Only they don't know it, because they've forgotten that they must be absolved of fascism and murdering Jews, and that antisemitism is in reality hatred of capitalism. In this regard Ulrike Meinhof ably constructed a remarkable statement about the failure of the Baader-Meinhof Group. With it, it is also possible to praise the Black September attack in Munich. She claimed to feel an "historical identity" with the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, who attempted an unarmed uprising leading to their defeat. "We have broken through the entire blah blah. We have provided the left with obvious encouragement, which they have voluntarily allowed to dissipate, because we've all been arrested."[41][42]
After two years of preliminary hearings, Meinhof was sentenced to eight years imprisonment on 29 November 1974. Eventually, Meinhof, Baader, Ensslin, andJan-Carl Raspe were jointly charged on 19 August 1975, with four counts of murder, fifty-four of attempted murder, and a single count of forming a criminal association. Before the trial was concluded, Meinhof was found hanged by a rope, fashioned from a towel, in her cell in theStammheim Prison, Stuttgart, on 9 May 1976.[43] It is highly probable that, if not for her death, she would have been sentenced to life imprisonment plus 15 years. (The remaining three defendants received such a sentence,[44] designed to minimize the possibility of early parole.)
On 9 May 1976, Meinhof was found dead in her prison cell in Stuttgart-Stammheim. The official verdict was Meinhof had committed suicide. It was later claimed that she had become increasingly isolated from other RAF prisoners. Notes exchanged between them in prison included one by Ensslin, describing her as "too weak". The official findings were not accepted by many in the RAF[45] and other militant organisations, and there are still some who doubt their accuracy and believe that she was murdered by the authorities. A second investigation was carried out by an international group. The findings of the inquiry were published under the titleDer Tod Ulrike Meinhofs. Bericht der Internationalen Untersuchungskommission (The Death of Ulrike Meinhof. Report of the International Investigation Committee) in 1979.[46]
Meinhof was buried in Berlin-Mariendorf, six days after her death. Her funeral turned out to be a demonstration of about 7,000 people. Demonstrations took place across the country, and social and political prisoners in Berlin and Hessen held a three-day hunger strike.Jean-Paul Sartre andSimone de Beauvoir in an open letter compared her death to the worst crimes of the Nazi era.[47]
In late 2002, following investigations by her daughter Bettina, it was discovered that Meinhof'sbrain had been retained (apparently without permission) following theautopsy performed as part of the investigation into her death. The original autopsy had found brain injury near theamygdala, resulting from successful surgery in 1962 to remove a (benign) cyst. The unpublished autopsy results at the time stated that the brain injuries "justified questions as to the culpability" of Meinhof. Bernhard Bogerts, a psychiatrist at Magdeburg University, later re-examined the brain and also doubted that Meinhof was fully criminally responsible.[48][49] On Bettina's request, the brain was interred in Meinhof's burial place on 19 December 2002.[50][51]
Meinhof's last appearance in court was on 4 May 1976, in a hearing the defendants had requested in order to provide evidence about the participation of West Germany in the Vietnam War. This, they claimed, was the cause of their radicalisation, and was their basis for demanding the status ofprisoners of war (see above). According toJutta Ditfurth, the last days before Meinhof's death went smoothly. The prisoners (including Meinhof) spent their meeting time (30 minutes, twice per day) discussing various philosophers and political issues. One of the guards noted that they were laughing.[27]: 586, 592
According to Meinhof's sister, Wienke Zitzlaff, during her last visit to the prison, Meinhof had told her: "You can stand up and fight only while you are alive. If they say I committed suicide, be sure that it was a murder."[27]: 582
In early May, attorneyAxel Azzola contacted his client (Meinhof). They were hopeful about the possibilities that the new strategy seemed to offer. They also discussed whether Meinhof could testify as a witness at the International Law Conference in Geneva where a delegation of lawyers planned to denounce the measure of detention in solitary confinement. Finally, Meinhof was planning to reveal main witness Gerhard Müller's role in the trial.[27]: 590 Federal prosecutors had indicted the four defendants for the murder of a policemanNorbert Schmid, who was shot by Müller himself.[52]
During thepress conference called by defense attorneys, one of Meinhof's lawyers, Michael Oberwinder, stated that it was less than a week before Meinhof's death that they had a very involved conversation. He claimed that there was not the least sign of depression or lack of interest on her part and that it was an animated discussion in the context of which Meinhof explained the group's point of view.[53]
Meinhof's last visitor was Giovanni Capelli, lawyer of theRed Brigades. He conveyed the desire of the Red Brigades to contact her and described the conditions of detention inItaly where prisoners were not held in isolation (exceptRenato Curcio) and were politically active. They also discussed the establishment of an international committee of lawyers to defend the RAF. Capelli later said that Meinhof gave him the impression of "a vivid, lifelike woman", "open to all questions". They arranged to meet again soon. "She behaved like a woman who wanted to live".[54]
At 9.20 a.m. on 9 May, the Ministry of Justice ofBaden-Württemberg announced that Meinhof had committed suicide, although the initial post-mortem body examination by Professor Joachim Rauschke did not begin until at least 9:25 a.m. At 9:34 a.m. the German news agency (dpa) announced "Suicide by hanging".[27]: 594, 595 . Two hours later Professor Rauschke together withHans Joachim Mallach performed the official autopsy in the general hospital of Stuttgart from 11:45 a.m. until 12:45 p.m., whose outcome was "death by hanging beyond doubt". According to Ditfurth the hasty press releases that followed Meinhof's death, were similar to those of April 1972, when it was incorrectly broadcast that Meinhof had committed suicide.[27]: 596 . In the following days, the newspapers reported in detail what were supposed to be Meinhof's thoughts, like: "she realised her mistake," "she had become aware of the futility," and that she "resigned to death".
There was a concern among Meinhof supporters about the forensic surgeons chosen by the state to perform the autopsy. Mallach (NSDAP Member No. 9154986) had been a member of the SS. He served in World War II ascorporal in aPanzer division. In 1977, he made (without approval) and kept for a long time the death masks of Baader, Ensslin, and Raspe.[55] Rauschke was the one who also performed the autopsy ofSiegfried Hausner one year earlier and was accused by fellows and supporters of the RAF for ignoring the injuries to Hausner's head, so as to cover up the true cause of his death.
On 11 May a second autopsy was performed on demand of Wienke Zitzlaff by Werner Janssen and Jürgen Schröder, even though the brain, a lot of critical organs, and tissue parts had been previously removed from the body. Also, her nails had been cut, so the doctors could not determine clearly if there were traces of struggle. Some examinations could not take place since a critical time had passed. Janssen concluded that the most probable cause of death was "suicide by hanging", however in order to come to a definite conclusion he insisted to be given access to the report of the first autopsy, something that never happened.[27]: 602, 603
Finally, on demand of Meinhof's attorneyKlaus Croissant and the International Committee for Political Prisoners, an international investigation commission was created in order to examine the conditions surrounding Meinhof's death. Once more the German authorities refused to give the complete (first) autopsy report to the commission, hindering their investigation. In 1978 the committee published its report, concluding that: "The formal claim that Ulrike Meinhof committed suicide by hanging is unfounded, given the fact that the investigation results reasonably converge to the conclusion that she could not hang herself. Most probably Ulrike Meinhof was already dead before she was hanged and there are warning signs indicating the involvement of a third party regarding her death."[56]
The circumstances around Meinhof's death have been disputed by people close to her, including many of Meinhof's relatives, friends, lawyers, and comrades, presenting various arguments. There are inquiries regarding the procedure followed by the authorities, including the autopsy reports and the findings of the international commission. Some of them are:
Some other questions still remain, including:
Finally, there is a dispute over the arguments regarding Meinhof's motive. Some of the points usually mentioned are:
The bookLieber wütend als traurig (Better angry than sad) by Alois Prinz was intended as a mainly faithful account of Meinhof's life story for adolescents.[61]
Meinhof's life has been the subject, to varying degrees of fictionalisation, of several films and stage productions. Treatment in films includeReinhard Hauff's 1986Stammheim, an account of theStammheim trial,Margarethe von Trotta's 1981Marianne and Juliane andUli Edel's 2008 filmThe Baader Meinhof Complex. Stage treatments include the 1990operaUlrike Meinhof by Johann Kresnik, the 1993 playLeviathan byDea Loher, the 2005 playLa extraordinaria muerte de Ulrike M. by Spanish playwrightCarlos Be and the 2006 playUlrike Maria Stuart [de] by Austrian playwrightElfriede Jelinek. The 1981 French movieBirgitt Haas Must Be Killed is inspired by Meinhof's death.
In 1978,Dario Fo andFranca Rame wrote the monologueMoi, Ulrike, je crie...[62]
The 2010 feature documentaryChildren of the Revolution tells Meinhof's story from the perspective of her daughter, journalist and historianBettina Röhl.[63]
Subtopia, a novel published in 2005 by Australian author and academicA.L. McCann, is partially set in Berlin and contains a character who is obsessed with Meinhof and another who claims to have attended her funeral.
The 2013 book "Revolutionary Brain" byHarold Jaffe features a titular section devoted to the brain of Meinhof.[64]
The 2018 film7 Days in Entebbe aboutOperation Entebbe mentions Meinhof as motivation for the participation of the Germans in the hijacking, particularlyBrigitte Kuhlmann. The film suggests Meinhof was a friend of Kuhlmann and Böse and that a mistake Kuhlmann made resulted in her imprisonment and subsequent death.
In 1975, the Italian singer-songwriterClaudio Lolli published the song Incubo Numero Zero (Nightmare #0), with the verse "turn off the light, thought Ulrike", and more.
Marianne Faithfull's 1979 albumBroken English had the title track dedicated to Meinhof.
Theanarcho punk bandChumbawamba's 1990 album,Slap! featured an opening and closing track, both named after Meinhof. The first track was entitledUlrike and featured lyrics that directly involve Meinhof as theprotagonist and the final track was an instrumental reprise of the first track. and was entitled "Meinhof". The album's liner notes included information and an article relating to the song Ulrike.
Electronica act Doris Days created a track entitledTo Ulrike M., in which there is a passage spoken in German throughout the song, presumably an archived audio file from Meinhof herself. This track has since been remixed by other electronica acts likeZero 7,Kruder & Dorfmeister, and The Amalgamation of Soundz.
The German duo Andreas Ammer andF.M. Einheit released an album in 1996 entitledDeutsche Krieger, a substantial portion of which consists of audio recordings of and about Meinhof.
Der Plan, the electronic music group fromDüsseldorf published 2004 the songUlrike, as part of the Die Verschwörung album.
London-based experimental groupCindytalk has an electronic side-project called Bambule, named after the Meinhof filmof the same name.
GermanNeue Deutsche Härte bandRammstein feature Meinhof, played by lead singerTill Lindemann, in the music video to their 2019 songDeutschland.
The English alternative rock bandUlrika Spacek took their name from Meinhof and American performerSissy Spacek.[65]
Works of the Red Army Faction
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