Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex

               Personally, I thought this was a great movie with lots of interesting aspects to see evolve and experience. It contained what I thought to be good acting with a very human portrayal of each character. The movie focused on the lives and works on those involved in the Baader-Meinhof group (later to become the RAF). Through the film we get to see how the group so rapidly and aggressively formed with the main characters meeting through far left political ideologies. They essentially form a coalition of youth seeking a cultural revolution in defense from a fascist state. The group seeks to attract attention to their cause through violent means, i.e. bombings robberies, and later killings. I found it strange how the group was so opposed to structure and concerned for the welfare of the people, yet at the same time they would perform egregious acts that harmed either directly or indirectly the lives of many. To them they wanted to combat the rise of a nazi-like government or some extreme fascism .However, from my perspective it seemed like they wanted to complain and continue to make demands on the society just because they were hell-raisers. The movie portrayed them as complete rebels who did whatever they wanted, which I can’t say for sure if it’s accurate or not, nonetheless, according to this view of their character (especially that of Andreas Baader) I would say that they were just disgruntled assholes that were power-hungry. After the formation of the group we see its evolution into different phases of violence and terrorism. This happens as the old leaders are arrested giving rise to a more aggressive and spurious faction. For movie purposes, it was a great movie. Not too sure on the character representations, but I’ll take their representation as the most accurate that I know of.

Rote Army Fraktion

                This group is the child of the Baader-Meinhof group post WWII. The original cause of the group stems from student protests in West Germany associated with the youth of the postwar baby boom. The group was also somewhat of a reaction to post Nazi rule and on suspicion of authoritarian type governments who sought to command power. These radicals felt that lawmakers were continuing authoritarian policies on grounds of prior indoctrination of the Nazi regime. Influences for the group of the ‘New Left’ were influenced by various other counter-cultural movements such as the Chinese writings of Mao Zedong.

                The RAF was divided into three generations based on the scope of leadership and events that occurred. The first generation consisted of Anreas, Ensslin, and Ulrike. This was the ‘original’ group that was less terroristic and more goal oriented in their activities. The second generation stepped in while the original leadership was imprisoned and received loose instruction from inmates through lawyers etc. Here we see the group start to take on more radical and aggressive attacks against the people. Moving into the 1980s is when the third generation of leaders had taken place. At this time the original leadership was dead. One source describes the 3^rd generation as bourgeois Germans who turned to terrorism for kicks versus having any actual goals.

                The RAF after mid 1980 saw decline in activity and even more so post reunification. The last action of the RAF took place 1993 as a bombing on a prison. The RAF came to a subtle and official end in 1998 via a letter to Reuters declaring the dissolution of the group.

                This group is somewhat comparable with modern terrorism because today both served a purpose. For the RAF it was against a fascist state whereas today is more focused upon religion; nonetheless, comparable with having motivation for attacking vs. random attacks for no apparent reason.

Resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Army_Faction

http://www.baader-meinhof.com/second-generation-of-the-red-army-faction/