Recent Dispatches from Comrades in Germany, 2024–25

By the time Daniela Klette, Burkhard Garweg, and Volker Staub ended up on wanted posters, the group they were accused of belonging to—the Red Army Faction—had been in existence for over two decades. The RAF was a clandestine organization that had waged armed struggle throughout the 1970s and 1980s in order to create an anti-imperialist pole of resistance in West Germany, as the country was known at the time.……… Read the rest
Inge Viett

Inge Viett, 1944-2022

Several weeks ago, we learned that Inge Viett had died. She passed on May 9, at the age of 78. We offer the following notes to English-speaking readers, so that they can know something of this former guerilla and her legacy.……… Read the rest

RIP

Over the past seven months, two former members of the Red Army Faction have died. To learn more about Rolf Clemens Wagner and Helmut Pohl, and also to read recollections of their comrade and friend Ron Augustin, see: Rolf Clemens Wagner, 1944-2014 Helmut Pohl, 1943-2014 See also this interview, with both Wagner and Pohl, which was published by junge Welt on October 17, 2007, and which has been translated by André Moncourt and J.……… Read the rest

Helmut Pohl, 1943-2014

“I can still see myself sitting there with Gudrun and Andreas, in front of us a long report on Vietcong attacks in the US military’s hinterland in South Vietnam. Guerrilla units had attacked US military headquarters right in enemy territory. One single attack already conveyed the entire strategy.……… Read the rest

Rolf Clemens Wagner, a Life of Resistance

Former Red Army Faction member Rolf Clemens Wagner died on February 11, 2014. Wagner had first become involved in underground armed politics in the aftermath of the RAF’s 1972 May Offensive in West Germany. Dozens of guerillas had been captured, and were being held in strict solitary confinement (in some cases, entire prison wings were emptied to isolate the political prisoners) and subjected to various forms of abuse.……… Read the rest

Christa Eckes – Honor Her Memory!

The first time Christa Eckes made the news was back in 1970, when as a teenager growing up in the West German city of Hamburg she was expelled from high school for starting a political action group. The “Basisgruppe LS-Schülerinnen” (LS Students Grassroots Group) was said to have distributed leaflets, organized resistance to the school board, the school administration and the parents’ advisory board, organized a questionnaire about sexual problems without informing the school administration and also to have disrupted a Christmas party.……… Read the rest