TERRORISM

Terrorism

Terrorism

Section A

Ideological Terrorism (Baader-Meinhof)

In this part of the paper the ideological terrorism will be defined and discussed. In this scenario can be well defined by the presence of Baader-Meinhof in Germany. In the German History Museum's permanent exhibition, the centerpiece of the vitrine dedicated to West Germany's terrorist past is a pram. This same pram was used in the kidnapping of the German industrialist and president of the Employers' Federation Hanns Martin Schleyer on 5 September 1977; an event that marked the start of the 44 days known as the German Autumn of 1977. On this date, the pram concealing weapons was rolled into the middle of the road to halt Schleyer's chauffeur-driven limousine as it passed through the streets of Cologne. A dazed but unhurt Schleyer was dragged from the car by his kidnappers, while his chauffeur and bodyguard and two police officers were fatally shot. The motivation behind the kidnapping was to secure the release from prison of, amongst others, Andreas Baader, Jan Carl Raspe and Gudrun Ensslin, the most high-profile remaining founder members of the group that called itself the Red Army Faction (RAF), West Germany's most prominent left-wing terrorist group.

This paper has considered how Germany's terrorist period is remembered in the permanent exhibition of the German History Museum and in certain print media publications, particularly Der Spiegel, Stern and Die Zeit. I have argued that there is a tendency to feminize, allegorize and pornographies the RAF, and that such representational strategies draw on those found in the print media of the 1970s where the violent woman was constructed as the German mother's and the nation's other. As with the publication of terrorist corpses and the artistic representation of terrorism's protagonists, this tendency to feminize and allegorize is driven by an urge to distance the RAF and its politics from contemporary Germany: terrorism can be reduced to a pram carrying weapons; terrorism can be blamed on phallic women; terrorism can be blamed on 'effeminate' men such as Baader who allow such women to dominate. Further, in the post 9/11 context, the German print media is arguably capitalizing on cultural preoccupations with international terrorism and the provocative figure of the female suicide bomber who is perceived to call gendered norms into question. In feminizing and pornographizing West German terrorism, the print media is able to appeal to prurient fascinations and hence to sell more newspapers. (Perdue, 1989)

The Social Democrat led government under Chancellor Helmut Schmidt would not relent. On 13 October, a Lufthansa airplane called the Landshut was hijacked by Palestinians sympathetic to the RAF and demanding the release of RAF prisoners, as it left Mallorca en route for Frankfurt. During the five days of the hijacking, the plane was diverted a number of times and its pilot, Jurgen Schumann, was shot dead. On 18 October, a West German GSG 9 commando team managed to storm the plane, killing three of the hijackers but none of the hostages. The next day, Baader and Ensslin were found dead in ...