GERMANY: Stefan Aust - The Baader Meinhof Complex 2005 - Masterminds TV - 54 Hours: The Gladbeck Hostage Crisis TV - Adam Curtis TV - The Week online - Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis 2022 -
The Baader-Meinhof Gang drew a measure of support that violent leftists in the United States, like the Weather Underground, never enjoyed. A poll at the time showed that a quarter of West Germans under forty felt sympathy for the gang and one-tenth said they would hide a gang member from the police. Prominent intellectuals spoke up for the gang’s righteousness (as) Germany even into the 1970s was still a guilt-ridden society. When the gang started robbing banks, newscasts compared its members to Bonnie and Clyde. (Andreas) Baader, a charismatic, spoiled psychopath, indulged in the imagery, telling people that his favourite movies were Bonnie and Clyde, which had recently come out, and The Battle of Algiers. The pop poster of Che Guevara hung on his wall, (while) he paid a designer to make a Red Army Faction logo, a drawing of a machine gun against a red star. Stefan Aust, author Der Baader Meinhof Komplex
Today, three banks in West Berlin were robbed within ten minutes. The Baader Meinhof Complex 2005 [Der Baader Meinhof Komplex] starring Moritz Bleibtreu & Martina Gedeck & Johanna Wokalek & Nadja Uhl & Simon Licht & Alexandra Maria Lara & Susanne Bormann & Bruno Ganz et al, director Uli Edel, news
An astonishing crime riveted an entire country. He [Kallet Alvarazi] waged a war of nerves with the police. His gang scored millions in cash and jewellery. Masterminds e47: The Berlin Heist, 2005
Sixteen people are being held hostage itself by four masked men. ibid.
Hundreds of safe deposit boxes are housed in a basement vault. ibid.
He [Kallet] is going to build a tunnel. ibid.
Shall we cordon off the area? 54 Hours: The Gladbeck Hostage Crisis I, rozzer in jam-jar, opening scene, BBC 2018
Good morning, minister. We’ve just received a telex from Gladbeck. Bank robbery with hostages. ibid. civil servant
Let’s shoot our way through the front. ibid. rozzer
We’re talking about people’s lives! ibid. chief rozzer
There’s no work for people like me, and no morality or that kind of shit. I want to get ahead. I want to live. 54 Hours: The Gladbeck Hostage Crisis II, gangsta to press
We only have the right ammunition for a shot to the head. ibid. sniper’s coordinating rozzer
I like to see brains splattered all over the place. ibid. other gangsta
Death is better than life with no money. ibid. gangsta
The members of the Red Army Faction were now planting bombs and robbing banks all across West Germany. They announced that they had now become Moaists, followers of Moa Zedong, and they were going to awaken the popular masses. The government were desperate to catch them. Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head II: Shooting and Fucking are the Same Thing, BBCiplayer 2021
A violent, leftist collective consisting of some 60 people with roots in the revolutionary student movement that swept Europe and the US in 1967-8. Its legacy of self-styled ‘armed resistance’ – assassinations, kidnaps and bombings of the German establishment – has been argued over ever since. The Red Army Faction (RAF), as it formally called itself, was founded in 1970 by Andreas Baader, his girlfriend Gudrun Ensslin (pictured) and Ulrike Meinhof, a left-wing journalist. It started by burning down department stores, then moved on to full-scale terrorism. In ever more brutal attacks, the group killed a total of 34 people, mainly bankers, government officials, their chauffeurs and bodyguards. Thirteen gang members also died. Baader, Meinhof and Ensslin, were arrested in 1972 and prosecuted in 1975. Meinhof killed herself during the gang’s three-year, chaotic trial. The Week online article, The Baader Meinhof Gang
The footage you are about to see was shot in August 1988. For 54 hours, the West German TV audience was gripped by an unfolding hostage situation. Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis, Netflix 2022
16th August 1988: In Gladbeck-Rentfort, two masked men have committed a robbery … They’ve taken a woman and the bank manager hostage … ibid. news clips