From the WSJ Opinion Archives
GLOBAL VIEW
Red Terror, Green Terror
Anti-Americanism is the common thread.
Thirty years ago this month, Germany's Red Army Faction--better known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang--kidnapped Hanns-Martin Schleyer, president of the German employers' association, and murdered his driver and three bodyguards. Six weeks later, on Oct. 18, 1977, the RAF murdered Schleyer, too, after the West German government refused to give in to RAF demands for the release of its imprisoned leaders. That same day, three of those leaders--Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe--committed suicide. Schleyer's body was found the next day in the trunk of a car, his mouth stuffed with pine needles. An RAF communiqué announced that "we have ended Hanns-Martin Schleyer's pitiful and corrupt existence. . . . His death is meaningless for our pain and our rage."
Today, Germans remember these events--collectively known as der Deutsche Herbst, or German autumn--with a degree of fascination that sometimes borders on nostalgia. (Der Spiegel devotes this week's cover story to it.) They might remember them, too, for what they say about the present: The sixth anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11 is upon us, as is another manifesto from Osama bin Laden, as is another foiled terrorist attack in Germany. Is the autumn of '77 so different from this one? How significantly does the Red Terror of the RAF differ from the Green Terror of radical Islam?
In some respects, it differs considerably. The RAF wanted to overthrow the West German government in favor of a Marxist regime. Bin Laden wants to overthrow the Arab dictatorships in favor of a unified caliphate and convert the rest of the world to Islam. Baader-Meinhof was mainly a domestic phenomenon, although it had its links with other European and Palestinian radicals. Al Qaeda is a genuinely global organization. In its 25 years, the RAF murdered some 30-odd people and maimed another 60--just a short day's work for al Qaeda. "Collateral damage" aside, Baader and friends were selective about their targets, sometimes cannily so--Schleyer, for instance, had a Nazi past and seemed to personify what the Baader-Meinhof gang believed was the fundamental linkage between the Third Reich and the Federal Republic. Al Qaeda, by contrast, murders Christians, Jews, Hindus, Shiites and even Sunnis without discrimination.
Yet as the details of last week's foiled plot become clearer, the contrast between the practitioners of Red and Green terrorism starts to blur. Often, the similarities are personal: Just as Ayman al-Zawahiri had been a doctor and Mohamed Atta an urban planner before turning to jihad, Ulrike Meinhof and Gudrun Ensslin had each had prior careers in journalism and publishing. These are not the wretched of the earth, but the educated and disgruntled children of the bourgeoisie.
The similarities are also ideological. Islamism is a political doctrine no less than it is a religious one, and in its critique of Western society it is indistinguishable from the rhetoric of radical chic. "The capitalist system seeks to turn the entire world into a fiefdom of the major corporations under the label of 'globalization,' " says bin Laden in his latest sermon. He also manages to cite Noam Chomsky on the subject of "the manufacturing of public opinion," while scolding the Democrats for not putting a stop to the war in Iraq and the Bush administration for "not observing the Kyoto accord." Where have we heard this before?
Anti-Americanism is the common thread. The German terror plot of 2007 had as its targets the U.S. Air Force base at Ramstein and the Frankfurt airport, which thousands of Americans pass through on their way home. For its part, Baader-Meinhof detonated car bombs at U.S. military bases in 1972, 1977, 1981 and 1985. In the last of these attacks, RAF cadres Birgit Hogefeld and Eva Haule lured American GI Edward Pimental from a bar, murdered him, and used his ID to park a car bomb at the Rhein-Main air base. The bomb killed American airman Frank Scarton and civilian contractor Becky Bristol and injured 20 others.
In March 2005, the German parliament held an art exhibit that included a set of photographs of "women under captivity." The portraits were the work of Ms. Haule, who had become an accomplished photographer in prison and was quietly released from prison last month. The German state also considered the parole of Christian Klar, an (unrepentant) accomplice in Schleyer's murder. German President Horst Köhler ultimately decided against early release, but Claus Peymann, the director of the Berliner Ensemble, has made it known that Mr. Klar has a job waiting for him as a theater technician the moment he is freed.No doubt the latent sympathy for Klar, Haule and the others has something to do with the view that, at bottom, they are nothing worse than misguided idealists. No doubt it also has to do with the fact that, once upon a time, they were the boy and the girl next door. A similar fascination will likely be felt about the life stories of Fritz Martin Gelowicz and Daniel Martin Schneider, German converts to Islam who were among those planning this month's attacks.
Up to a point, these reactions are fairly natural. Terrorists have always relied on the morbid fascination their actions tend to exert among ordinary people, fascination which usually descends to "understanding" and often to a kind of romance. Despite its ultimate defeat, the Baader-Meinhof Gang managed to accomplish that trick brilliantly, and now its surviving members have earned clemency and become part of a certain folklore. Whether they deserve it is ultimately up to Germans to decide (however unjust that may be to their American victims). But it might also be asked what effect a rose-tinted view of the past has on a clear-eyed view of the present. Today's anniversary makes for a dreadful foreboding.
Mr. Stephens is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board. His column appears in the Journal Tuesdays.
