ARD | RAF: Against the Sharks

The Red Army Faction (RAF) is a distant memory; its story has almost become a German folk tale. Had its alleged former member, Daniela Klette , not been arrested last year after decades of unsuccessful searches, many would no longer know what the so-called armed struggle even once was.

Founded in 1970 as an experiment to see whether an "urban guerrilla" could be built in West Germany based on the Latin American model "to escalate conflicts." The RAF was not disbanded until 1998, long after it had become clear that it had completely failed. Instead of achieving the "reorganization of the proletariat" it had intended, the armed struggle devolved into a bloody and hopeless disaster, which strengthened the state rather than weakened it. Anyone who speaks of revolutionary uprisings and the like in this country since then is considered crazy. The RAF achieved that.

A life-threatening attitude

The constitution of the uncompromisingly strong state took place in Stuttgart-Stammheim, in the high-security prison and during the criminal trial against the imprisoned RAF founders as representatives of the far left, which they did not survive. This is precisely why they developed a very special appeal. Regardless of whether Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, Andreas Baader, and Jan-Carl Raspe committed suicide in Stammheim (very likely) or not (as their supporters claimed), their deaths demonstrated that even in prison, it is life-threatening to try to fight the state.

The course of this confrontation is the subject of the docudrama "Stammheim – Zeit des Terrors" by Niki Stein and Stefan Aust, now broadcast on ARD. The trial of the first generation of the RAF began on May 21, 1975. It was, as the RAF rightly said, a political trial, precisely because the state claimed it was conducting normal proceedings under the penal code against criminals who had robbed and murdered in the course of their activities. However, it did so in a newly built, windowless courtroom, directly adjacent to the high-security prison where the RAF members were held under special conditions. The trial was conducted according to new, recently enacted laws: most importantly, both the defendants and their lawyers could be excluded from the proceedings, which then continued regardless.

The RAF saw itself at war against such a state, and its detainees as prisoners of war, which is why Andreas Baader declared the RAF "not justiciable." The political conflict was also to be escalated to a head in the courtroom, as can be seen in the television film "Stammheim." However, the political conflict is not explained; it's all about atmosphere and individual psychology – unfortunately.

Knocking on heaven's door

At the beginning, Ulrike Meinhof (Tatiana Nekrasow) and Gudrun Ensslin (Lilith Stangenberg) are flown by helicopter into the prison, which appears like a fortress, filmed in black and white to the sounds of Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." Interspersed are original footage from the 1960s (Martin Luther King, bombs on Vietnam, Rudi Dutschke, the demonstrations, Benno Ohnesorg, but also the original Ensslin and the original Meinhof on television). Knocking on Heaven's Door: footage somewhere between utopia and death with a claim to reality: "This film is based on records and recollections of the people involved," reads the opening credits. Collected, processed, and edited by Stefan Aust, the RAF's chief expounder since he wrote the 1985 bestseller "The Baader-Meinhof Complex," a kind of "We Children from Bahnhof Zoo" in a political sense.

Upon entering the prison, the film switches to color. Meinhof calls out from her cell: "Where is my typewriter? I have to work." And Ensslin types the group's new code names, derived from Herman Melville's novel "Moby Dick": "Andreas is Ahab...and the cook is myself. The cook preaches on board against the sharks." Later, Andreas Baader (Henning Flüsloh) and Jan-Carl Raspe (Rafael Stachowiak) are also brought to Stammheim. All in the same wing, right at the top. In the middle of the hallway, a table stands in front of a wall made of glass blocks. There, they meet and work on some papers, chain-smoking.

The state of knowledge of the movement

We later learn from Meinhof what all this is about: "It's about historically preserving the state of knowledge of the '67/68 movement and not handing it over to the class enemy." But Ensslin immediately reprimands her for this, saying that as a "former star journalist, she should reflect on her socialization as a fascist." Raspe remains friendly toward her, but the lovers Baader and Ensslin trample on her. This affects her deeply, and she is the first to die: in 1976, she is found hanged in her cell. Bullied, even though, according to Ensslin, she is "the voice of the RAF," or perhaps precisely because of this? These are the questions that "Stammheim – Time of Terror" raises; the political ones are only briefly touched upon. At one point during the trial, Meinhof says: "The purpose of imprisonment is the death of the prisoners," and Raspe reads a statement in court: "It is impossible not to see the analogies to the justice system of the Third Reich."

Anyone who wants to know what the RAF actually wanted should watch other films about them instead. Bernd Eichinger's "Baader-Meinhof Complex" (2008) showcases the development of this strict group from the anti-authoritarian '68 revolt; Reinhard Hauff's "Stammheim" (1986), which won the Berlinale, explains the prisoners' struggle in court.

It's noteworthy that Stefan Aust also wrote the screenplays for these films and acted as a content consultant. The former editor-in-chief of "Der Spiegel" knows his stuff. Like Ulrike Meinhof, he comes from the old "Konkret" magazine of the 1960s, and he brought her young daughters from Sicily in 1970 to prevent them from joining the PLO when their mother went underground.

Aust's perspectives on the RAF and its protagonists vary over the decades, reflecting the changing social climate. The most politically powerful film is Hauff's "Stammheim" from the 1980s. This film isn't interested in the group dynamics of the wing, but takes place almost exclusively in the courtroom, where the RAF members and their lawyers, as radical intellectuals, encounter a conservative judge who fails to pretend this is a completely normal trial.

Ulrike Meinhof through the ages

The character of Ulrike Meinhof is portrayed here as a strong, intelligent personality, and Andreas Baader as a sharp-witted analyst. A film from the more manageable 1980s, when people assumed there was a left and a right wing (the now-mythical center was of no interest), and the RAF, albeit isolated and peripheral, historically belonged to the left. Its so-called armed policy was condemned as senseless and inhumane, but solidarity with its prisoners was often expressed because their detention and judicial conditions were considered scandalous.

In the frosty, neoliberal Merkel era of the 2000s, Eichinger's "Baader-Meinhof Complex" served as a reminder that at the end of the 1960s, intense political heat had once been generated on the streets, in the cultural sphere, and at universities – from the left. This was portrayed like an action film, which in the second part transformed into a chamber play set in Stuttgart's Stammheim district. In this film, Meinhof seems somewhat more broken, and Baader like a mercurial rebel. But dramaturgically and thematically, these were still very interesting characters.

The new film "Stammheim – Time of Terror" is a remake of the second part of the "Baader-Meinhof Complex," except that Meinhof is now portrayed as a completely insecure person, and Baader as a loudmouth who doesn't seem particularly bright. Ensslin, on the other hand, is more intelligent but jealous. From a purely cinematic perspective, this is presented quite coherently, but it also remains merely a mood. Entirely in keeping with the current zeitgeist, which disregards sociopolitical issues and prefers to deal with all problems from the perspective of individual psychology. Baader is allowed only one moment of joy, when the RAF kidnaps Hanns Martin Schleyer in order to free the Stammheimers. The RAF rejects the hijacking of a Lufthansa plane to Mogadishu by a PFLP commando with the same goal, Baader explains to a visiting representative of the German government.

Nevertheless, in the latest Aust film, the RAF in prison essentially appears as nothing more than a collection of oddballs whose moods are warned against. The prison officer supervising them, Horst Bubeck (Moritz Führmann), has to deal with these consequences. He is granted the most empathy here, for example, when he sympathizes with the prisoners when they are force-fed during a hunger strike and when he witnesses them having a tube inserted down their throats.

Showing this form of state violence is new to Aust. So is the surveillance of the prisoners in their cells, including their homemade communication system, until their deaths on the night of October 18, 1977, after the Lufthansa plane in Somalia was stormed by the German GSG 9. The end credits state: "Whether the cells were bugged on the night of their deaths and in the days leading up to them remains controversial to this day. The responsible authorities deny this." This is the rest of Aust's political critique of the state.

»Stammheim – Time of Terror«, 19 May, ARD, 8:15 p.m. and in the ARD Media Library