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Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang
The Baader-Meinhof Gang. Throughout the 1970s, there was no more feared group of terrorists. On the surface, they were militant revolutionaries. But in reality they were 'Hitler's Children' - both in the sense that most of them were born during the Nazi regime, and in the sense that they were fiercely opposed to individual freedom and liberal democracy. In this ground-breaking book, Jillian Becker examines the roots of the Gang. The terrorists in the Federal Republic of Germany came out of the pacifist ‘new left’ student protest movement of the late 1960s. Few in number, almost all of them came from prosperous, educated families. Unaware how closely they resembled their Nazi predecessors, they described themselves as ‘anti-fascist’. ‘Fascism’, they claimed, lay just under the surface of liberal democracy and would be called into the open by the use of terrorist violence. In the name of ‘peace’, ‘national liberation’, ‘anti-imperialism’, and ‘anti-capitalism’, they killed Germans, Americans, Jews and others with bullets and bombs. Detailed biographical portraits, especially of Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin, reveal how they laid waste their own lives, and drove themselves furiously to their own destruction. Praise for Hitler's ''An important and highly readable book, thoroughly researched and written with the pace and excitement of a crime thriller' - TLS 'A serious and readable study of events which few people in Britain have seriously tried to understand' - The Observer 'Superbly researched . . . Mrs Becker has performed a great service with this book' - Sunday Telegraph
422 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1977
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October 28, 2015
This book is a must-read, an absolute must-read! So why only 3 stars?
To make it clear: There is nothing in this book that deserves 3 stars. The contents (results of obviously ample research) deserve 5 stars. The writing, however, deserves only 1 star, and even this star is actually 1 star too many.
The book reads like a badly written dissertation (and it might have served as one). I am not even talking about the numerous typos, spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, and false or unclear modifiers; I am talking about the miserable writing style. It varies from chapter to chapter. Some chapters are narrated like 8th-grade essays that deserve no better than a C. Others are written in less-than-mediocre satire style. And the sarcasm of yet some other chapters reads uncomfortably like wannabe-satire. Why on earth couldn’t this author, at least, stick to one style, be it ever so bad?
This being said, the book tells a fascinating story about initially somewhat justified student protests turned into decades of terrorism that caused immense damage and cost many lives.
I had heard about these terrorists sporadically, during the 1960s, while I was living in Canada. And then, when I returned to Germany, in September 1970, I found these terrorists almost daily in the news, and they stayed in the news throughout the 1970s and even 1980s. The media had named them Baader-Meinhof Gang, after two of their infamous celebrity members, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. More accurately, they should have been called Baader-Ensslin Gang, as Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin were a pair, and Gudrun Ensslin, driven by hysteria and lust to kill, had been the loudest crier for violence, demanding the acquisition of weapons, long before Ulrike Meinhof, a journalist, had become a criminal. Or maybe, even more accurately, these terrorists should have been called the Horst Mahler Gang, because their lawyer, Horst Mahler, was the actual brain of the group.
I read some reviews of this book on Goodreads and also on Amazon, and I was appalled. Most reviewers criticized the reviewer not for her bad writing style but accused her of being biased. They obviously sympathized with these terrorists. I could hardly believe it.
Let me assure you: These gang members were AT NO TIME peaceful demonstrators or protesters. Even in the early stages of the group, when they only demonstrated and protested against outdated university rules and customs, they were totally out of line, breaking the law, causing damage, and provoking authorities in every possible way. At no time did they wish to have their “problems” solved. They declined any mediation. (And there were repeated offers of mediation by clerics, high politicians, and even by sympathizing leftist university professors and philosophers, among them Herbert Marcuse and Jean-Paul Sartre.) And they continued spreading terror long after their initial demands were met with university reforms.
I must admit that I never really understood what these terrorists wanted. (Other people I talked to didn’t either.) Reading this book, I came to the conclusion that these terrorists didn’t know themselves what they wanted, at least, not in a political way.
They all seemed to have different agendas. The only things they had in common was that they were against all authority (that is, they were anarchists) and that they eventually enjoyed violence for violence’s sake. Laying bombs and killing (mostly innocent) people had become their favorite activity. They were also all Leftists, with many of them dreaming to get the working class to join them to form a Marxist society, yet they didn’t approve of Soviet communism, and quite a few of them (among them Andreas Baader) had probably never read Karl Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto”.
Their initial terrorist acts were clumsy and stupid, reminding of comedies with idiot criminal protagonists. Later, they became more skilled and considerably more destructive and murderous.
(What I still cannot understand is that these terrorists triggered violent student revolts in numerous other countries and on several continents, causing considerable damage and also loss of life. Why don’t students, who are supposed to become intellectuals, take a closer look at whom they are imitating and/or following?)
Several main culprits of the Baader-Meinhof Gang were eventually caught and imprisoned. Some escaped. Some were shot. One died of a hunger strike in prison. Others went underground. And a few, namely, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe, and Ulrike Meinhof committed suicide in prison, attempting to make it look like murder.
For more facts and details, please see the Wikipedia entry. Here is the link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Arm...
While Wikipedia supplies a lot of info, it is in no way a substitute for the above book, which, despite of its shortcomings, is a must-read no one should miss.
The most bizarre story in the book is about a gang-sympathizing and obviously insane psychiatrist, who told his patients, in a mental hospital, that the only reason for their mental illness was society. He managed to get a group of severely mentally ill patients into a workshop where his wife taught them bomb-making and bomb-laying. He further managed that these brainwashed mental patients were released and turned into terrorists, associated with the Baader-Meinhof Gang. They launched a hostage-taking attack on the German embassy in Stockholm (with the purpose of freeing all incarcerated Baader-Meinhof Gang members in Germany). When their plan didn’t work out, they shot a few of their hostages and, then, blew up the upper floor of the building, injuring fatally two of their own. (They hadn’t mastered the bomb-laying they had been taught.)
Another irony of the Baader-Meinhof Gang is that they declared every non-Leftist a Nazi, but at the same time practiced anti-Semitism and would have shot all Jewish passengers of a hijacked plane, in Entebbe, where the plane had landed, had not Israeli special forces freed the hostages and shot the terrorists.
The Baader-Meinhof Gang called itself RAF (abbr. for Red Army Fraction). After Andreas Baader’s, Gudrun Ensslin’s, Jan-Carl Raspe’s, and Ulrike Meinhof’s deaths (following the failed hostage taking in Stockholm), the new generation of terrorist gang members was also referred to as RAF by the media. The terrorism continued, and Wanted posters showing photographs with names and other known details of some 50 to 100 RAF terrorists were hung at all public places.
It was in 1981 or 1982, when I took a train from Munich to Petershausen, one evening. There were only few passengers. I was seated alone in one compartment, when another passenger arrived in a hurry. The young man sat down and behaved like a hunted deer. He first looked anxiously out of the window, screening the platform. Then, when the train started moving, he kept anxiously checking the aisle. The anxious screening of the platform was repeated at every train stop, and the anxious checking of the aisle went on throughout most of the time while the train was moving. I don’t remember why I didn’t leave the compartment. I should have. Maybe I was just fascinated by this man’s behavior. It was an “S-Bahn” (= a commuter train). Peterhausen was the end of the line. As soon as the train stopped, my fellow passenger jumped out of the train, whereas I took my time. All passengers departed and left for the huge parking lot, while I went to my car, which was parked quite a distance from the parking lot, not too far from the station building. When I got to my car, there stood this young man. He still had the attitude of a fugitive. His eyes were fluttering, and he nervously kept checking his surroundings. He asked me to give him a ride to Hilgertshausen, which was about 20 km away. I declined and said that I was headed in a different direction (which I was). He repeated his request with more urgency. I declined again. After this, the look on his face and also his body language let me fear for my safety. I thought he’d grab me any moment and force me into the car. He was tall and well-built. I wouldn’t have stood a chance to fight him. I evaluated for a moment whether it would make sense to even try. Then, all of a sudden, he froze, turned around and ran off in full speed. This was when it came to my mind that he might be one of the wanted RAF terrorists. I returned to the empty station building to look at the Wanted poster. And there he was—the 4th on the top line.
I drove home with the intent to call police. Yet my significant other (later 2nd husband) talked me out of it. He argued that police officers weren’t always the brightest, and that this man knew my face and my car (a little lemon-yellow Fiat, which was easy to spot). Besides, had he registered the number of my license plate, it would not be difficult to obtain our address. I reluctantly relented but had a bad conscience about it whenever I thought of it, until I read the above book. Mind you, I knew that these terrorists were dangerous, but only when I read this book, I fully comprehended HOW dangerous and revengeful they were. So in retrospect, my husband’s insistence not to call police had, under the circumstances, probably been best after all.
I had forgotten the name of this terrorist over the years. Yet searching my memory and looking at images of the RAF members on Google, I recently identified him again as Christian Klar.
The Guardian writes: "Klar was convicted in 1985 for his involvement in nine murders in 1977, including the killings of bank head Jürgen Ponto, industrialist Hanns-Martin Schleyer and federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback. He was sentenced to six life terms to run concurrently and served longer in prison than any other RAF terrorist."
Klar was set free in 2008, much to the quite understandable dismay of the descendants of his victims.
More about Christian Klar can be found on Google, for instance, by going to the following link:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008...
As we all know, terrorism is a problem to this day. And while the terror groups change, their agendas tend to be rather flimsy. It seems to me that what really spurs them is power-craving, enjoyment of destruction, enjoyment of violence, and sheer lust to kill.
Reading this book, the reader not only gets a chance to “look into different terrorists’ brains” but also learns what the German justice system will tolerate (so many of these terrorists avoided convictions), learns how some university professors propagate theories that inspire students to become terrorists, and last but not least, learns how a crazy psychiatrist couldn’t be stopped turning mentally ill patients into terrorists and setting them free to commit violent crimes. If this isn’t a must-read, then what is?
P.S. I am utterly opposed to the book’s title. There is nothing to indicate in this book that all—or even the majority—of these terrorists had Nazis for parents. Thus, my conclusion is that the author depicts all of my generation as “Hitler’s children”. Here, I personally take offense. None of my ancestors (or other close relatives) were Nazis. Neither were the parents and/or grandparents of about half of my generation. At the last free elections, in 1932, Hitler’s party got no more than 39-point-something percent of the votes. Hitler only came to power due to a coalition with the Center Party (which he soon pushed out of the government) and also due to President Hindenburg’s significant senility and dementia. Once Hitler was in power, his ongoing propaganda and brainwash probably recruited more followers. My wild guess is that by the end of the war, about half of the German population were Nazis. To depict all Germans as Nazis is not only wrong but also highly insulting.
To make it clear: There is nothing in this book that deserves 3 stars. The contents (results of obviously ample research) deserve 5 stars. The writing, however, deserves only 1 star, and even this star is actually 1 star too many.
The book reads like a badly written dissertation (and it might have served as one). I am not even talking about the numerous typos, spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, and false or unclear modifiers; I am talking about the miserable writing style. It varies from chapter to chapter. Some chapters are narrated like 8th-grade essays that deserve no better than a C. Others are written in less-than-mediocre satire style. And the sarcasm of yet some other chapters reads uncomfortably like wannabe-satire. Why on earth couldn’t this author, at least, stick to one style, be it ever so bad?
This being said, the book tells a fascinating story about initially somewhat justified student protests turned into decades of terrorism that caused immense damage and cost many lives.
I had heard about these terrorists sporadically, during the 1960s, while I was living in Canada. And then, when I returned to Germany, in September 1970, I found these terrorists almost daily in the news, and they stayed in the news throughout the 1970s and even 1980s. The media had named them Baader-Meinhof Gang, after two of their infamous celebrity members, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. More accurately, they should have been called Baader-Ensslin Gang, as Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin were a pair, and Gudrun Ensslin, driven by hysteria and lust to kill, had been the loudest crier for violence, demanding the acquisition of weapons, long before Ulrike Meinhof, a journalist, had become a criminal. Or maybe, even more accurately, these terrorists should have been called the Horst Mahler Gang, because their lawyer, Horst Mahler, was the actual brain of the group.
I read some reviews of this book on Goodreads and also on Amazon, and I was appalled. Most reviewers criticized the reviewer not for her bad writing style but accused her of being biased. They obviously sympathized with these terrorists. I could hardly believe it.
Let me assure you: These gang members were AT NO TIME peaceful demonstrators or protesters. Even in the early stages of the group, when they only demonstrated and protested against outdated university rules and customs, they were totally out of line, breaking the law, causing damage, and provoking authorities in every possible way. At no time did they wish to have their “problems” solved. They declined any mediation. (And there were repeated offers of mediation by clerics, high politicians, and even by sympathizing leftist university professors and philosophers, among them Herbert Marcuse and Jean-Paul Sartre.) And they continued spreading terror long after their initial demands were met with university reforms.
I must admit that I never really understood what these terrorists wanted. (Other people I talked to didn’t either.) Reading this book, I came to the conclusion that these terrorists didn’t know themselves what they wanted, at least, not in a political way.
They all seemed to have different agendas. The only things they had in common was that they were against all authority (that is, they were anarchists) and that they eventually enjoyed violence for violence’s sake. Laying bombs and killing (mostly innocent) people had become their favorite activity. They were also all Leftists, with many of them dreaming to get the working class to join them to form a Marxist society, yet they didn’t approve of Soviet communism, and quite a few of them (among them Andreas Baader) had probably never read Karl Marx’s “The Communist Manifesto”.
Their initial terrorist acts were clumsy and stupid, reminding of comedies with idiot criminal protagonists. Later, they became more skilled and considerably more destructive and murderous.
(What I still cannot understand is that these terrorists triggered violent student revolts in numerous other countries and on several continents, causing considerable damage and also loss of life. Why don’t students, who are supposed to become intellectuals, take a closer look at whom they are imitating and/or following?)
Several main culprits of the Baader-Meinhof Gang were eventually caught and imprisoned. Some escaped. Some were shot. One died of a hunger strike in prison. Others went underground. And a few, namely, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Jan-Carl Raspe, and Ulrike Meinhof committed suicide in prison, attempting to make it look like murder.
For more facts and details, please see the Wikipedia entry. Here is the link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Arm...
While Wikipedia supplies a lot of info, it is in no way a substitute for the above book, which, despite of its shortcomings, is a must-read no one should miss.
The most bizarre story in the book is about a gang-sympathizing and obviously insane psychiatrist, who told his patients, in a mental hospital, that the only reason for their mental illness was society. He managed to get a group of severely mentally ill patients into a workshop where his wife taught them bomb-making and bomb-laying. He further managed that these brainwashed mental patients were released and turned into terrorists, associated with the Baader-Meinhof Gang. They launched a hostage-taking attack on the German embassy in Stockholm (with the purpose of freeing all incarcerated Baader-Meinhof Gang members in Germany). When their plan didn’t work out, they shot a few of their hostages and, then, blew up the upper floor of the building, injuring fatally two of their own. (They hadn’t mastered the bomb-laying they had been taught.)
Another irony of the Baader-Meinhof Gang is that they declared every non-Leftist a Nazi, but at the same time practiced anti-Semitism and would have shot all Jewish passengers of a hijacked plane, in Entebbe, where the plane had landed, had not Israeli special forces freed the hostages and shot the terrorists.
The Baader-Meinhof Gang called itself RAF (abbr. for Red Army Fraction). After Andreas Baader’s, Gudrun Ensslin’s, Jan-Carl Raspe’s, and Ulrike Meinhof’s deaths (following the failed hostage taking in Stockholm), the new generation of terrorist gang members was also referred to as RAF by the media. The terrorism continued, and Wanted posters showing photographs with names and other known details of some 50 to 100 RAF terrorists were hung at all public places.
It was in 1981 or 1982, when I took a train from Munich to Petershausen, one evening. There were only few passengers. I was seated alone in one compartment, when another passenger arrived in a hurry. The young man sat down and behaved like a hunted deer. He first looked anxiously out of the window, screening the platform. Then, when the train started moving, he kept anxiously checking the aisle. The anxious screening of the platform was repeated at every train stop, and the anxious checking of the aisle went on throughout most of the time while the train was moving. I don’t remember why I didn’t leave the compartment. I should have. Maybe I was just fascinated by this man’s behavior. It was an “S-Bahn” (= a commuter train). Peterhausen was the end of the line. As soon as the train stopped, my fellow passenger jumped out of the train, whereas I took my time. All passengers departed and left for the huge parking lot, while I went to my car, which was parked quite a distance from the parking lot, not too far from the station building. When I got to my car, there stood this young man. He still had the attitude of a fugitive. His eyes were fluttering, and he nervously kept checking his surroundings. He asked me to give him a ride to Hilgertshausen, which was about 20 km away. I declined and said that I was headed in a different direction (which I was). He repeated his request with more urgency. I declined again. After this, the look on his face and also his body language let me fear for my safety. I thought he’d grab me any moment and force me into the car. He was tall and well-built. I wouldn’t have stood a chance to fight him. I evaluated for a moment whether it would make sense to even try. Then, all of a sudden, he froze, turned around and ran off in full speed. This was when it came to my mind that he might be one of the wanted RAF terrorists. I returned to the empty station building to look at the Wanted poster. And there he was—the 4th on the top line.
I drove home with the intent to call police. Yet my significant other (later 2nd husband) talked me out of it. He argued that police officers weren’t always the brightest, and that this man knew my face and my car (a little lemon-yellow Fiat, which was easy to spot). Besides, had he registered the number of my license plate, it would not be difficult to obtain our address. I reluctantly relented but had a bad conscience about it whenever I thought of it, until I read the above book. Mind you, I knew that these terrorists were dangerous, but only when I read this book, I fully comprehended HOW dangerous and revengeful they were. So in retrospect, my husband’s insistence not to call police had, under the circumstances, probably been best after all.
I had forgotten the name of this terrorist over the years. Yet searching my memory and looking at images of the RAF members on Google, I recently identified him again as Christian Klar.
The Guardian writes: "Klar was convicted in 1985 for his involvement in nine murders in 1977, including the killings of bank head Jürgen Ponto, industrialist Hanns-Martin Schleyer and federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback. He was sentenced to six life terms to run concurrently and served longer in prison than any other RAF terrorist."
Klar was set free in 2008, much to the quite understandable dismay of the descendants of his victims.
More about Christian Klar can be found on Google, for instance, by going to the following link:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008...
As we all know, terrorism is a problem to this day. And while the terror groups change, their agendas tend to be rather flimsy. It seems to me that what really spurs them is power-craving, enjoyment of destruction, enjoyment of violence, and sheer lust to kill.
Reading this book, the reader not only gets a chance to “look into different terrorists’ brains” but also learns what the German justice system will tolerate (so many of these terrorists avoided convictions), learns how some university professors propagate theories that inspire students to become terrorists, and last but not least, learns how a crazy psychiatrist couldn’t be stopped turning mentally ill patients into terrorists and setting them free to commit violent crimes. If this isn’t a must-read, then what is?
P.S. I am utterly opposed to the book’s title. There is nothing to indicate in this book that all—or even the majority—of these terrorists had Nazis for parents. Thus, my conclusion is that the author depicts all of my generation as “Hitler’s children”. Here, I personally take offense. None of my ancestors (or other close relatives) were Nazis. Neither were the parents and/or grandparents of about half of my generation. At the last free elections, in 1932, Hitler’s party got no more than 39-point-something percent of the votes. Hitler only came to power due to a coalition with the Center Party (which he soon pushed out of the government) and also due to President Hindenburg’s significant senility and dementia. Once Hitler was in power, his ongoing propaganda and brainwash probably recruited more followers. My wild guess is that by the end of the war, about half of the German population were Nazis. To depict all Germans as Nazis is not only wrong but also highly insulting.
April 23, 2024
Yes, I do and very readily admit that after reading my Goodreads friend's Lilo's review of Jillian Becker's Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang I was actually not really all that much looking forward to reading a book which according to Lilo is factually interesting, well researched (and equally an important piece of 1970s European history) but written (or rather I should say supposedly penned) in a truly horrible and patently useless style. However, because I was indeed a child living in what was then West Germany during the Baader-Meinhof Gang's reign of terror and since I had a downloaded a copy of Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang on my Kindle for iPad, I decided that I might as well consider the book (and well, that perhaps the issues with Jillian Becker's writing style might not be as problematic for me as they had been for Lilo).
But no, my personal reading reaction to Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang has in fact been not just similar to Lilo's own reaction but if anything even more negative and frustrated. For yes indeed, Jillian Becker's way of textually expressing herself in Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang has stylistically totally and utterly so much bothered and rubbed me the wrong proverbial way that in order for me to even be able (and willing) to complete Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang, I had to constantly be skimming (and even skipping some of Becker's chapters) as the author's obvious lack of decent penmanship really started to majorly wear me down and to also infuriate me to no end, with multiple typos, spelling and grammar gaffes, with questions of weird looking syntax and problematic vocabulary choices. And since there is nothing that does tend to enrage me more whilst I am reading than bad writing and bad stylistics (and this especially when I am reading non fiction) it actually kind of even surprises me that I in fact ended up deciding to not abandon Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang, that I managed to actually continue reading (albeit very cursively and with much grating my teeth with total and utter annoyance).
And while factually Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang does most certainly and definitely present a both interesting and also in my opinion (and from what I have gleaned from my own reading about the Baader-Meinhof terrorists over the decades) a generally true and justifiably critical if not rightfully utterly condemning portrait and analysis of the latter (and of their ridiculous motives and reasons for engaging in their acts of mayhem and terror), I really cannot with my deep and intensely lasting personal animosity towards how pedestrian and lacking Jillian Becker's writing has been justify giving to Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang more than a two star rating at best. But really, what has (I guess) finally made me consider two and not three stars for Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang is the fact and truth of the matter that aside from my very real and massively aggravating issues concerning Jillian Becker's lacking and woefully so style of textual expression, I also (and again just like Lilo) absolutely and totally think that the book title of Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang is both inappropriate and indeed also majorly bigoted and highly personally insulting.
Because honestly, from where I am standing, the Baader-Meinhof terrorists should not ever be regarded as somehow being genetically or culturally linked to Adolf Hitler and National Socialism but rather we should consider them as a violent and dangerous (as well as totally unacceptable) radically left wing reaction towards the 20th century as a whole and which also and equally appeared and transpired in many other countries of Europe at that particular time. And come on and really, no one would likely ever want to and strive to consider groups like ETA, the IRA, the Red Brigades etc. as being somehow related and linked to the Nazis, but since the Baader-Meinhof Gang originated in West Germany, I guess to and for Jillian Becker, that should just make this so, that should just make the Baader-Meinhof terrorists as being the so-called children of Adolf Hitler (something that I for one totally do not think makes any logical and historical sense whatsoever, something that is in my opinion at best totally ridiculous and ignorant). Furthermore and finally, I also must state and claim that if Jillian Becker actually in any manner means to insinuate with Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang that everything in Germany and that all Germans are because of WWII, the Holocaust and the Third Reich supposed to be forever linked to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and thus also somehow guilty just by association and for simply being German, that indeed this attitude would not only be totally brainless and ignorant, it would also be both absolutely culturally bigoted and in fact it would equally be making use of rather the same types of generalising stereotypes and rhetoric towards Germany and towards us as Germans as the Nazis themselves used during the Third Reich and WWII (against and towards the Russians, against the Roma, against the Jews and so on and so on).
But no, my personal reading reaction to Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang has in fact been not just similar to Lilo's own reaction but if anything even more negative and frustrated. For yes indeed, Jillian Becker's way of textually expressing herself in Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang has stylistically totally and utterly so much bothered and rubbed me the wrong proverbial way that in order for me to even be able (and willing) to complete Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang, I had to constantly be skimming (and even skipping some of Becker's chapters) as the author's obvious lack of decent penmanship really started to majorly wear me down and to also infuriate me to no end, with multiple typos, spelling and grammar gaffes, with questions of weird looking syntax and problematic vocabulary choices. And since there is nothing that does tend to enrage me more whilst I am reading than bad writing and bad stylistics (and this especially when I am reading non fiction) it actually kind of even surprises me that I in fact ended up deciding to not abandon Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang, that I managed to actually continue reading (albeit very cursively and with much grating my teeth with total and utter annoyance).
And while factually Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang does most certainly and definitely present a both interesting and also in my opinion (and from what I have gleaned from my own reading about the Baader-Meinhof terrorists over the decades) a generally true and justifiably critical if not rightfully utterly condemning portrait and analysis of the latter (and of their ridiculous motives and reasons for engaging in their acts of mayhem and terror), I really cannot with my deep and intensely lasting personal animosity towards how pedestrian and lacking Jillian Becker's writing has been justify giving to Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang more than a two star rating at best. But really, what has (I guess) finally made me consider two and not three stars for Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang is the fact and truth of the matter that aside from my very real and massively aggravating issues concerning Jillian Becker's lacking and woefully so style of textual expression, I also (and again just like Lilo) absolutely and totally think that the book title of Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang is both inappropriate and indeed also majorly bigoted and highly personally insulting.
Because honestly, from where I am standing, the Baader-Meinhof terrorists should not ever be regarded as somehow being genetically or culturally linked to Adolf Hitler and National Socialism but rather we should consider them as a violent and dangerous (as well as totally unacceptable) radically left wing reaction towards the 20th century as a whole and which also and equally appeared and transpired in many other countries of Europe at that particular time. And come on and really, no one would likely ever want to and strive to consider groups like ETA, the IRA, the Red Brigades etc. as being somehow related and linked to the Nazis, but since the Baader-Meinhof Gang originated in West Germany, I guess to and for Jillian Becker, that should just make this so, that should just make the Baader-Meinhof terrorists as being the so-called children of Adolf Hitler (something that I for one totally do not think makes any logical and historical sense whatsoever, something that is in my opinion at best totally ridiculous and ignorant). Furthermore and finally, I also must state and claim that if Jillian Becker actually in any manner means to insinuate with Hitler's Children: The Story of the Baader-Meinhof Terrorist Gang that everything in Germany and that all Germans are because of WWII, the Holocaust and the Third Reich supposed to be forever linked to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and thus also somehow guilty just by association and for simply being German, that indeed this attitude would not only be totally brainless and ignorant, it would also be both absolutely culturally bigoted and in fact it would equally be making use of rather the same types of generalising stereotypes and rhetoric towards Germany and towards us as Germans as the Nazis themselves used during the Third Reich and WWII (against and towards the Russians, against the Roma, against the Jews and so on and so on).
December 19, 2009
For a long time I didn't know what to write about this book. I personally am very interested in the subject (Red Army Faction, Baader-Meinhof group), and I found the historical bits, and all the detailed descriptions of events and biographies rather fascinating. It is the first full-fledged book on RAF I have read. For all this information, the photographs, the accounts, which I had not encountered elsewhere, I wanted to give the book 4 or even 5 stars.
But then, the author's extremely partial view on the people and the events the book deals with just shone through on every page, in every line. Take the title even: Hitler's children. The Story of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang. It says it all about the author's lens and her openly branding attitude. She is not hesitant to label RAF members as losers, fascists, social and personal failures, hypocrites and you name it. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but it seemed a bit weird to me that a book that looks like it's aiming at simply providing a history of what went on was so overtly passing on judgments and issuing sentences.
The author is perhaps rightfully outraged at the methods used by RAF to pursue their supposed political aims, but she is quite a bit more ok with the fact that former NAZIs were still in positions of power which was partly the reason that triggered the 1970s German left-wing insurgencies. Shootings of innocent students by the German police were somewhat frowned upon by the author, but she unleashes a deluge of scathing caustic ranting when the left-wing are the perpetrators of crimes.
For all its flaws, the book is a very comprehensive read, and if one can somehow filter out the liberal democracy, middle-class, ultra capitalist condescending moralizing, to concentrate on the facts, it is a very worthwhile book indeed.
I have now borrowed a book of essays on the same subject (German Left-wing groups), written in 2005 or 2006 - Baader-Meinhof returns. The first essay is a review on Hitler's Children and I will be curious to see how a more contemporary author views the book and how it was written.
But then, the author's extremely partial view on the people and the events the book deals with just shone through on every page, in every line. Take the title even: Hitler's children. The Story of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang. It says it all about the author's lens and her openly branding attitude. She is not hesitant to label RAF members as losers, fascists, social and personal failures, hypocrites and you name it. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but it seemed a bit weird to me that a book that looks like it's aiming at simply providing a history of what went on was so overtly passing on judgments and issuing sentences.
The author is perhaps rightfully outraged at the methods used by RAF to pursue their supposed political aims, but she is quite a bit more ok with the fact that former NAZIs were still in positions of power which was partly the reason that triggered the 1970s German left-wing insurgencies. Shootings of innocent students by the German police were somewhat frowned upon by the author, but she unleashes a deluge of scathing caustic ranting when the left-wing are the perpetrators of crimes.
For all its flaws, the book is a very comprehensive read, and if one can somehow filter out the liberal democracy, middle-class, ultra capitalist condescending moralizing, to concentrate on the facts, it is a very worthwhile book indeed.
I have now borrowed a book of essays on the same subject (German Left-wing groups), written in 2005 or 2006 - Baader-Meinhof returns. The first essay is a review on Hitler's Children and I will be curious to see how a more contemporary author views the book and how it was written.
June 6, 2016
This book was written in 1977 about the German Communist terrorist organization called the Red Army Faction, or more popularly the Baader Meinhof gang, which waged a reign of terror across Germany in the 1970s and also the Lufthansa 181 Somalia hijacking in 1977, together with Palestinian terrorists who found out that three women on the airplane were Jewish and singled them , made them kneel down and kicked and beat them. Their terrorist activities in Germany including a series of shooting of police officers and civilians and some high profile kidnappings and executions.
The BMG trained in various Arab countries and while they claimed they were fighting Fascism, in reality they aimed to overthrow the tolerant liberal democracy respectful of human rights in West Germany and replace it it with another totalitarian regime such as East Germany or the Soviet Union which they fully identified with. Ulrike Meinhof, one of the gang's most ruthless ringleaders wrote a piece in the far left newspaper published by the group when they belonged to the radical student movement the SDS and in it she praised the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia-so much for their professed pacifism and hatred of 'fascism'
Meinhof and the others also exhibited a violent anti-Zionism which is of course a form Jew-hatred targeting the Jewish State and it's Jewish population-and the author of this book recognizes the lie that aims to distinguish Jew-hatred from Israel-hatred as the vile sophistry that it is. They were in this Jew-hatred akin to their Nazi forefathers and again their opposition to 'fascism; s a slogan used by leftwing totalitarians which is ironic as they favour methods and systems which so resemble the 'fascism' and Nazism they so virulently claim to hate.
looking at this from the vantage point of 2011 one can look at the vile Communist front organization in the United Kingdom known as 'United Against Fascism', which is simply a front for support of Islamic radicalism and hatred of England's white working class.
Referring to the atrocities committed by the BMG the author refers to the trial of the BMG and how "The judges maintained that it was not acceptable to refer to genocide in Vietnam and then to start a war of one's own. The accused they said knew and were fully conscious that they were breaking the law. They listed the people who had been made into scapegoats for "American Imperialism" by the accused. As well as the soldiers who had been killed, printers, proof-readers, housewives, a tourist group, a child riding a scooter on a sidewalk had all been killed by their bombs".
The author paints biographical portraits of the ringleaders of the group such as Ulriche Meinhof, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler (who today is a fanatical Neo-Nazi) and Jan-Carl Raspe. all of these young people came from comfortable upper middle class backgrounds in common with most white radicals from western backgrounds. The author describes the psychological causes based on narcissism and the need to kill in the name of a vague ideal: In discussing the next generation of young terrorists linked to the Baader Meinhof gang Jillian Becker describes how they "came from the same affluent background;were moved by the same ambition to be extraordinary;the same urge to defy for the sake of defying, were as much in need of submitting to the authoritarianism of the group; and out of the same boredom, self-dissatisfaction, hatred and confusion, they committed their acts of cruelty and destruction and felt the same need to justify themselves by referring to vague ideals"
Today their is a new generation of European and American radicals from similar affluent backgrounds, and with a similar hatred of western society who have put their passions into supporting Islamic terror and particularly Arab terrorists groups that aim to destroy Israel. The International Solidarity Movement is made of of young radicals from Arab countries who have aided and abetted Palestinian terrorists groups such as Hamas, the PFLP, the Popular Resistance Committees and others carry out attacks on Israeli citizens. The ISM is quite open about its belief that killing Israeli children is justified. This is an important book to read in understanding the psyche and modus operandi of ruthless young white radicals from affluent backgrounds, including those today!
Merged review:
This book was written in 1977 about the German Communist terrorist organization called the Red Army Faction, or more popularly the Baader Meinhof gang, which waged a reign of terror across Germany in the 1970s and also the Lufthansa 181 Somalia hijacking in 1977, together with Palestinian terrorists who found out that three women on the airplane were Jewish and singled them , made them kneel down and kicked and beat them. Their terrorist activities in Germany including a series of shooting of police officers and civilians and some high profile kidnappings and executions.
The BMG trained in various Arab countries and while they claimed they were fighting Fascism, in reality they aimed to overthrow the tolerant liberal democracy respectful of human rights in West Germany and replace it it with another totalitarian regime such as East Germany or the Soviet Union which they fully identified with. Ulrike Meinhof, one of the gang's most ruthless ringleaders wrote a piece in the far left newspaper published by the group when they belonged to the radical student movement the SDS and in it she praised the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia-so much for their professed pacifism and hatred of 'fascism'
Meinhof and the others also exhibited a violent anti-Zionism which is of course a form Jew-hatred targeting the Jewish State and it's Jewish population-and the author of this book recognizes the lie that aims to distinguish Jew-hatred from Israel-hatred as the vile sophistry that it is. They were in this Jew-hatred akin to their Nazi forefathers and again their opposition to 'fascism; s a slogan used by leftwing totalitarians which is ironic as they favour methods and systems which so resemble the 'fascism' and Nazism they so virulently claim to hate.
looking at this from the vantage point of 2011 one can look at the vile Communist front organization in the United Kingdom known as 'United Against Fascism', which is simply a front for support of Islamic radicalism and hatred of England's white working class.
Referring to the atrocities committed by the BMG the author refers to the trial of the BMG and how "The judges maintained that it was not acceptable to refer to genocide in Vietnam and then to start a war of one's own. The accused they said knew and were fully conscious that they were breaking the law. They listed the people who had been made into scapegoats for "American Imperialism" by the accused. As well as the soldiers who had been killed, printers, proof-readers, housewives, a tourist group, a child riding a scooter on a sidewalk had all been killed by their bombs".
The author paints biographical portraits of the ringleaders of the group such as Ulriche Meinhof, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler (who today is a fanatical Neo-Nazi) and Jan-Carl Raspe. all of these young people came from comfortable upper middle class backgrounds in common with most white radicals from western backgrounds. The author describes the psychological causes based on narcissism and the need to kill in the name of a vague ideal: In discussing the next generation of young terrorists linked to the Baader Meinhof gang Jillian Becker describes how they "came from the same affluent background;were moved by the same ambition to be extraordinary;the same urge to defy for the sake of defying, were as much in need of submitting to the authoritarianism of the group; and out of the same boredom, self-dissatisfaction, hatred and confusion, they committed their acts of cruelty and destruction and felt the same need to justify themselves by referring to vague ideals"
Today their is a new generation of European and American radicals from similar affluent backgrounds, and with a similar hatred of western society who have put their passions into supporting Islamic terror and particularly Arab terrorists groups that aim to destroy Israel. The International Solidarity Movement is made of of young radicals from Arab countries who have aided and abetted Palestinian terrorists groups such as Hamas, the PFLP, the Popular Resistance Committees and others carry out attacks on Israeli citizens. The ISM is quite open about its belief that killing Israeli children is justified. This is an important book to read in understanding the psyche and modus operandi of ruthless young white radicals from affluent backgrounds, including those today!
The BMG trained in various Arab countries and while they claimed they were fighting Fascism, in reality they aimed to overthrow the tolerant liberal democracy respectful of human rights in West Germany and replace it it with another totalitarian regime such as East Germany or the Soviet Union which they fully identified with. Ulrike Meinhof, one of the gang's most ruthless ringleaders wrote a piece in the far left newspaper published by the group when they belonged to the radical student movement the SDS and in it she praised the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia-so much for their professed pacifism and hatred of 'fascism'
Meinhof and the others also exhibited a violent anti-Zionism which is of course a form Jew-hatred targeting the Jewish State and it's Jewish population-and the author of this book recognizes the lie that aims to distinguish Jew-hatred from Israel-hatred as the vile sophistry that it is. They were in this Jew-hatred akin to their Nazi forefathers and again their opposition to 'fascism; s a slogan used by leftwing totalitarians which is ironic as they favour methods and systems which so resemble the 'fascism' and Nazism they so virulently claim to hate.
looking at this from the vantage point of 2011 one can look at the vile Communist front organization in the United Kingdom known as 'United Against Fascism', which is simply a front for support of Islamic radicalism and hatred of England's white working class.
Referring to the atrocities committed by the BMG the author refers to the trial of the BMG and how "The judges maintained that it was not acceptable to refer to genocide in Vietnam and then to start a war of one's own. The accused they said knew and were fully conscious that they were breaking the law. They listed the people who had been made into scapegoats for "American Imperialism" by the accused. As well as the soldiers who had been killed, printers, proof-readers, housewives, a tourist group, a child riding a scooter on a sidewalk had all been killed by their bombs".
The author paints biographical portraits of the ringleaders of the group such as Ulriche Meinhof, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler (who today is a fanatical Neo-Nazi) and Jan-Carl Raspe. all of these young people came from comfortable upper middle class backgrounds in common with most white radicals from western backgrounds. The author describes the psychological causes based on narcissism and the need to kill in the name of a vague ideal: In discussing the next generation of young terrorists linked to the Baader Meinhof gang Jillian Becker describes how they "came from the same affluent background;were moved by the same ambition to be extraordinary;the same urge to defy for the sake of defying, were as much in need of submitting to the authoritarianism of the group; and out of the same boredom, self-dissatisfaction, hatred and confusion, they committed their acts of cruelty and destruction and felt the same need to justify themselves by referring to vague ideals"
Today their is a new generation of European and American radicals from similar affluent backgrounds, and with a similar hatred of western society who have put their passions into supporting Islamic terror and particularly Arab terrorists groups that aim to destroy Israel. The International Solidarity Movement is made of of young radicals from Arab countries who have aided and abetted Palestinian terrorists groups such as Hamas, the PFLP, the Popular Resistance Committees and others carry out attacks on Israeli citizens. The ISM is quite open about its belief that killing Israeli children is justified. This is an important book to read in understanding the psyche and modus operandi of ruthless young white radicals from affluent backgrounds, including those today!
Merged review:
This book was written in 1977 about the German Communist terrorist organization called the Red Army Faction, or more popularly the Baader Meinhof gang, which waged a reign of terror across Germany in the 1970s and also the Lufthansa 181 Somalia hijacking in 1977, together with Palestinian terrorists who found out that three women on the airplane were Jewish and singled them , made them kneel down and kicked and beat them. Their terrorist activities in Germany including a series of shooting of police officers and civilians and some high profile kidnappings and executions.
The BMG trained in various Arab countries and while they claimed they were fighting Fascism, in reality they aimed to overthrow the tolerant liberal democracy respectful of human rights in West Germany and replace it it with another totalitarian regime such as East Germany or the Soviet Union which they fully identified with. Ulrike Meinhof, one of the gang's most ruthless ringleaders wrote a piece in the far left newspaper published by the group when they belonged to the radical student movement the SDS and in it she praised the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia-so much for their professed pacifism and hatred of 'fascism'
Meinhof and the others also exhibited a violent anti-Zionism which is of course a form Jew-hatred targeting the Jewish State and it's Jewish population-and the author of this book recognizes the lie that aims to distinguish Jew-hatred from Israel-hatred as the vile sophistry that it is. They were in this Jew-hatred akin to their Nazi forefathers and again their opposition to 'fascism; s a slogan used by leftwing totalitarians which is ironic as they favour methods and systems which so resemble the 'fascism' and Nazism they so virulently claim to hate.
looking at this from the vantage point of 2011 one can look at the vile Communist front organization in the United Kingdom known as 'United Against Fascism', which is simply a front for support of Islamic radicalism and hatred of England's white working class.
Referring to the atrocities committed by the BMG the author refers to the trial of the BMG and how "The judges maintained that it was not acceptable to refer to genocide in Vietnam and then to start a war of one's own. The accused they said knew and were fully conscious that they were breaking the law. They listed the people who had been made into scapegoats for "American Imperialism" by the accused. As well as the soldiers who had been killed, printers, proof-readers, housewives, a tourist group, a child riding a scooter on a sidewalk had all been killed by their bombs".
The author paints biographical portraits of the ringleaders of the group such as Ulriche Meinhof, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler (who today is a fanatical Neo-Nazi) and Jan-Carl Raspe. all of these young people came from comfortable upper middle class backgrounds in common with most white radicals from western backgrounds. The author describes the psychological causes based on narcissism and the need to kill in the name of a vague ideal: In discussing the next generation of young terrorists linked to the Baader Meinhof gang Jillian Becker describes how they "came from the same affluent background;were moved by the same ambition to be extraordinary;the same urge to defy for the sake of defying, were as much in need of submitting to the authoritarianism of the group; and out of the same boredom, self-dissatisfaction, hatred and confusion, they committed their acts of cruelty and destruction and felt the same need to justify themselves by referring to vague ideals"
Today their is a new generation of European and American radicals from similar affluent backgrounds, and with a similar hatred of western society who have put their passions into supporting Islamic terror and particularly Arab terrorists groups that aim to destroy Israel. The International Solidarity Movement is made of of young radicals from Arab countries who have aided and abetted Palestinian terrorists groups such as Hamas, the PFLP, the Popular Resistance Committees and others carry out attacks on Israeli citizens. The ISM is quite open about its belief that killing Israeli children is justified. This is an important book to read in understanding the psyche and modus operandi of ruthless young white radicals from affluent backgrounds, including those today!
February 18, 2014
Becker compiles a good, factual account of group members and activities of the BM group; also of the lives of key participants, first wave RAF, both leading up to and during their heyday. If you don't mind the editorial style and obvious bias, this book has more personal information than Aust's "Der Baader Meinhof Komplex." Perhaps's Aust's friendship with Meinhof's ex-husband kept him from mentioning Rohl's infidelities and behavior toward her, which Becker posits influenced her leap from political journalist to terrorist leader. Becker's suggestion that Meinhof's broken heart led her to violent action toward her homeland's perceived fascism/capitalism is a bit short-sighted. However, given the time "Hitler's Children" was written, I guess it should come as no surprise. However, she certainly possessed the motivation and ideologies while by her husband's side, and the momentum of the times carried her further than the loss of her marriage.
January 29, 2008
The sneer starts on page one and doesn't end until you hit the index. The author is a right-winger who obviously wrote this book as part of the propaganda campaign various secret services were waging against the Red Army Faction. That said, most of the facts are correct.
December 22, 2018
Ad Nausium
Chapter after chapter of terrorist behaviour of the Bader Meinhof gang. Two or three chapter would have sufficed; but then the author wouldn't have had a book.
The book actually fails to make the connection to Hitler or his regime. The "Hitler's Children" part of the title is deceptive.
A connection to universal disaffection of a generation would have been far more interesting and honest. Barely deserves the three stars awarded.
Chapter after chapter of terrorist behaviour of the Bader Meinhof gang. Two or three chapter would have sufficed; but then the author wouldn't have had a book.
The book actually fails to make the connection to Hitler or his regime. The "Hitler's Children" part of the title is deceptive.
A connection to universal disaffection of a generation would have been far more interesting and honest. Barely deserves the three stars awarded.
March 3, 2018
Comprehensively researched and a compelling story. But poorly written and badly edited. Long rambling sentences compete with a zig zagging of the narrative that confuses the reader and detracts from a clear understanding of the timeline and peripheral characters.
I’m sure there’s a better history of this period available.
I’m sure there’s a better history of this period available.
March 8, 2019
The book and started well the style of writing was not engaging and the stories of the characters while individually interesting were a bit too long. The book does give good insight into post war Germany but I am not sure if the rational for the behaviour of the Baader Meinhof is adequately explained which was what I was looking for.
September 15, 2014
Solid in terms of reporting of the facts, but spoilt by the authors clear bias against the Baader-Meinhof members. Some ridiculously subjective descriptions are particularly frequent in the early sections.
June 21, 2023
Interesting details
This book provides a detailed analysis of the background and motives of the terrorists involved in the violent crimes in Germany in the sixties and seventies. The author puts her viewpoint quite strongly and, while I agree with her, it does make the book seem more like a polemic than an objective account of the subject. It is worth reading because of the effort that has gone into researching people and events that other accounts do not supply.
This book provides a detailed analysis of the background and motives of the terrorists involved in the violent crimes in Germany in the sixties and seventies. The author puts her viewpoint quite strongly and, while I agree with her, it does make the book seem more like a polemic than an objective account of the subject. It is worth reading because of the effort that has gone into researching people and events that other accounts do not supply.
February 28, 2022
Very good account
I did not know all the history of the B-M gang, or its transition into RAF, and this book laid out the characters and timeline very well. I think there should be an addendum for the 80's . I was warned all through my tour in FEB of potential terrorism. Who boned the Hahn AB club, and the car bombs in Frankfurt.
I did not know all the history of the B-M gang, or its transition into RAF, and this book laid out the characters and timeline very well. I think there should be an addendum for the 80's . I was warned all through my tour in FEB of potential terrorism. Who boned the Hahn AB club, and the car bombs in Frankfurt.
September 29, 2018
Informative account
An informative if somewhat biased account of the RAF during the years they terrorised Germany. The author doesn't hide her disdain for them but one can't blame her for that given the chaos and destruction these bourgeois revolutionaries left in their wake.
An informative if somewhat biased account of the RAF during the years they terrorised Germany. The author doesn't hide her disdain for them but one can't blame her for that given the chaos and destruction these bourgeois revolutionaries left in their wake.
August 4, 2020
Not just the guns and violence
Much more background into some o the key players, not all of them but many of them. Interesting for the backstories and how the group were not always successful or even competent
Much more background into some o the key players, not all of them but many of them. Interesting for the backstories and how the group were not always successful or even competent
November 25, 2020
Scholarly, not what I expected
Not a bad read, just not what I expected, I admit my expectations were derived from memory of news about the gang and my interaction with both right and left extremists finishing up my degree after my 2years in Vietnam
Not a bad read, just not what I expected, I admit my expectations were derived from memory of news about the gang and my interaction with both right and left extremists finishing up my degree after my 2years in Vietnam
July 24, 2024
We love a woman who hates other women and is also extremely racist
Really helpful however in proving how misogynistic the portrayal of the RAF women was. Read Heinrich Böll's Katharina Blum or Stefan Aust's Der Baader Meinhof Komplex for less biased reporting. This is straight up propaganda.
Really helpful however in proving how misogynistic the portrayal of the RAF women was. Read Heinrich Böll's Katharina Blum or Stefan Aust's Der Baader Meinhof Komplex for less biased reporting. This is straight up propaganda.
October 4, 2019
A good place to start if you wish to study Baader-meihof
April 19, 2022
Fascinating story ruined by wretched writing, bordering at times on tasteless yellow journalism.
November 21, 2024
An interesting and very thorough book about terrorism in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews