Masterminds TV - Stefan Aust - Fred Kaplan – The Week online - 54 Hours: The Gladbeck Hostage Crisis TV - The Baader Meinhof Complex 2005 - Subway in the Sky 1959 - Unknown 2011 - Adam Curtis TV - States of Terror: Betrayal TV - World in Action TV - Gladbeck: The Hostage Crisis 2022 - Dogs of Berlin 2018 -
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.
World War II was only twenty years earlier. Those in charge of the police, the schools, the government – they were the same people who’d been in charge under Nazism. The chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, had been a Nazi. People started discussing this only in the ’60s. We were the first generation since the war, and we were asking our parents questions. Due to the Nazi past, everything bad was compared to the Third Reich. If you heard about police brutality, that was said to be just like the SS. The moment you see your own country as the continuation of a fascist state, you give yourself permission to do almost anything against it. You see your action as the resistance that your parents did not put up. Stefan Aust, author Der Baader Meinhof Komplex
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. ibid.
When the film opened in Germany last year, some younger viewers came out of theaters crestfallen that the Red Army Faction members, still mythologized, were such dead-enders. Some who were older complained that the film had made the gang look too attractive. But they were dead-enders, and they were attractive. A film about them, or any other popular terrorist movement, has to account for both facts if it seeks to explain not just their crimes but also their existence. Fred Kaplan, The New York Times
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
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
Do you think the Americans are acting out of concern for others? Those pigs only want control of the Middle East oilfields! They couldn’t give a shit if 10,000 people died! 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
We did it to protest against the apathy with which people sit back and watch the genocide in Vietnam. ibid.
Free yourself from the system and burn your bridges behind you. ibid.
We say the man in uniform is a pig, not a human being. ibid. Ulrika
We fight oppression and injustice with our comrades around the world. ibid.
Today, three banks in West Berlin were robbed within ten minutes. ibid. news
We will continue to carry out bombings against judges and prosecutors until they cease violating the rights of political prisoners. ibid. statement
The question is whether terrorism represents a new form of warfare. ibid. rozzer
I’m Baxter Grant. And this is my apartment. Now where’s my wife? Subway in the Sky 1959 starring Van Johnson & Hildegarde Knef & Albert Lieven & Cec Linder & Katherine Kath & Vivian Matalon & Carl Jaffe & Michael Bell & James Maxwell et al, director Muriel Box, him to her
I’m in trouble. Big trouble. ibid.
And now I’m stuck again. Only this time the subway is in the sky. ibid.
You have been in an accident. Can you tell me your name? … You were the only passenger. The taxi you were in went into the river. Your heart stopped for several minutes. It’s Thursday November 24th. You have been in a coma for four days. Unknown 2011 starring Liam Neeson & Diane Kruger & January Jones & Aidan Quinn & Frank Langella & Bruno Ganz & Sebastian Koch & Stipe Erceg & Olivier Schneider & Rainer Bock et al, director Jaume Collet-Sera, doctor
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
This is the weapon Silke Mayer Witt took with her during the whole time she was a terrorist: it’s a 45 automatic weapon taking seven bullets. States of Terror: Betrayal, BBC 1993
For nearly 15 years Silke Maier Witt was one of Germany’s most wanted and dangerous terrorists. The group to which she belonged – the Red Army Faction – paralyzed West Germany, assassinated its leaders and shook the state to its foundations. ibid.
1972 West Germany: There was a shoot-out and siege; the terrorists were known as the Baader Meinhof gang. Already they had murdered five people and injured fifty-four. The group was named after two of its leaders … Their aim: to destroy capitalism. ibid.
The Red Army Faction often known as the Baader-Meinhof Group, Europe’s most ruthless terrorist gang. He [Horst Mahler] wanted a socialist revolution in Germany. The method he and his comrades used was to unleash a wave of terror. World in Action: Prisoner of Terrorism, ITV 1978
Under the pressure of life on the run, the Red Army Faction became nervous. They began to forget their political ideals and fell into acts of discriminate violence. ibid.
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, captions, 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
I always knew my day of reckoning would come but I never thought I’d burn the city down with me. Dogs of Berlin I: VIP, opening riot scene, Netflix 2018
The victim isn’t anybody. That’s all I can say for now. ibid. Kurt to young rozzers
I owe some money to some bad people. Seventeen thousand. ibid. Kurt to Sabine
Our first murder and we are fucking up big time! ibid. young rozzers
With the refugee crisis, tension in the city has never been higher. Dogs of Berlin II: Team, lady head rozzer
Grimmer with his neo-Nazi connections investigating the murder of a famous Turk? The press will have a field day. ibid.
Anything at all that points to the brotherhood. ibid. investigative duo of Kurt & Neo-Nazis to naive rozzer
You know the punishment: if the money is not back by Sunday, there will be ball-busting. ibid. gang to Ulf
I didn’t want to believe it but Kurt was right. You are evil. ibid. Paula to Eva
I took him out, man. I’ve got the whole German team. Dogs of Berlin III: Clash, Kareem to big cheese Tomo
The real war is about to start. ibid. Eva