Originally posted by Amaurotethey were in solitary confinement ... what are the odds they would all commit suicide? ... how successful were the prosecutions if more attacks came after the capture of the original gang than after it? ... it looks like the second generation lost funding after east germany fell, and probably also got older, tireder, and wiser ...
Thanks for the offer, but I don't need to, I've already read three or four books on the subject. I even forked out a hundred quid for a translation of Aust's Inside Baader-Meinhof last year. The history on wikipedia is naturally very curtailed and telescoped but even taking that into account I don't quite see what you're getting at - apart from some mi ...[text shortened]... amo, and the manner in which Baader and Raspe committed suicide is ample testimony to that fact.
I think you're buying into the mythology a bit too much there, though - the suicides were part of B-M's policy, hence the attempt to make Death Night look like state murder: in fact, Gudrun Ensslin was on record actually stating that she regarded their bodies as a weapon of last resort, which is exactly what they became.
Also isolation torture (not solitary confinement at all - they mixed freely with one another and could also have mixed with ordinary prisoners if they had wanted - they didn't): this was much exaggerated by Astrid Proll at the time, but the fact is that their isolation was largely self-imposed because they refused to mix with ordinary prisoners and in fact lobbied for a special political prison - which is what they got in Stammheim. As for the Second Wave - sure, B-M lingered on into the 80s, and the new ones surpassed the old ones in professionalism, but the Second Wave was as good as it got, and most of them were in prison within about three months...the rest were paroled on good behaviour after promising to renounce political violence, which worked even more effectively than it did in Northern Ireland after Good Friday - note for example the way the likes of Astrid Proll and Horst Mahler renounced the movement.
Sure. But you have to say that the people who made up Baader-Meinhof were by and large not the kind of people who would ordinarily have committed murder if it wasn't for a misplaced sense of idealism - and although you can overstate their youth (they weren't all college kids, and German college kids are generally older than most European or American college kids anyway), most of them did go on to live normal, law-abiding lives which presumably benefitted Germany. Astrid Proll is a great photographer, for example - I've got a volume of her B-M stuff, hard to get hold of, but if you ever get the chance, beg, borrow or steal a copy, it's very, very nice indeed.
Originally posted by Amauroteon the other hand, the victims had families, who probably weren't consulted ... idealism is not a factor in leniency, or should not be ...
Sure. But you have to say that the people who made up Baader-Meinhof were by and large not the kind of people who would ordinarily have committed murder if it wasn't for a misplaced sense of idealism - and although you can overstate their youth (they weren't all college kids, and German college kids are older than most European or American college kids an ...[text shortened]... d of, but if you ever get the chance, beg, borrow or steal a copy, it's very, very nice indeed.
murder is abstract when it happens to someone else, or someone else's family ...
the benefits to society after parole are negligible, especially on a percentage basis, there are are large numbers of contributing citizens who manage never to commit major crimes ...
I wouldn't argue with that, zeeble - but politics isn't about morality, it's about finding a compromise and resolving messy, unglamorous situations. I thank the stars there were enough self-interested politicians to suspend morality and sign the Good Friday Agreement - because people's lives were saved.