Ulrike Meinhof

Ulrike Meinhof was well educated and bright personality, a favorite of journalists. But she chose to become a fanatical and violent a terrorist. Its history is largely mysterious and inexplicable.

In an environment of postwar German youth do not all believe in the economic miracle that could revive the devastated economy, to lift the city from the ruins and make Germany even stronger and more prosperous than under the pre-war "Third Reich". The ideas of a new revolution brewing in the school, university, academic environment, in some segments of the intelligentsia. These people were looking to the East, especially in East Germany, hidden behind a stone wall and barbed wire. They seriously considered the GDR as a state model of the future.

These "kitchen radicals", the middle class, believed that the concept of capitalism has outlived itself and it's time to truly proletarian revolution. But they were convinced that to realize this idea can not peacefully - a new Jerusalem should be built on the blood. In a furious stream of violence addressed Ulrike Marie Meinhof was inextricably linked with the name of Andreas Baader. Created their organization was one of the most well-known terrorist groups in Germany.

Lively mind and natural charm

Ulric was born in Lower Saxony, October 7, 1934 and belonged to the "lost generation", which was crippled by the war. Born during the ascent to power of Hitler, old enough to understand that he put the country on her knees, she soon ran into difficulties of real life. Her father died of cancer at the end of the war, and his mother died in 1948. Adoptive mother made sure to get an education, Ulrika. Intelligent, gifted young woman, Ulrika had a lively mind and natural charm. It attracted the pacifist ideas, works of Bertrand Russell and Vera Brittain. Stormy era left its mark in the minds of its young.

For twenty-three years she enrolled in doctoral University of Mц?nster. Ulrika has been an active member of various left-wing movements that advocated the abolition of nuclear weapons, called upon to fight the growing threat of militarism in Germany by the right - at that time it was a major policy directions. Even the Social Democrat Willy Brandt, who became Chancellor of the Federal Republic, did not stay away from these ideas.

By 1959, Ulrika has acquired a firm reputation as a radical and a good scientist. She masterfully owned the audience, so it is constantly invited to speak. On the anti-nuclear conference in Bonn she met the editor of the student newspaper "The specific" Klaus Reiner Rolem. They loved each other, and in 1962 became husband and wife. A year later, Ulrika gave birth to twins. Although it is now a lot of time on the family, her enthusiasm for politics is not diminished. In the 60's, when England appeared "beatniks" and the words "free love" were on all lips, Ulrika concluded that the old capitalist system must be destroyed. However, plunging ever deeper into the abyss of "left" ideology, it is not bad living in that system, which despised.

Ulrika and Klaus were advantaged people. The role of no small benefit pornographic Swedish books translated into German, and revenues Ulrika grew with the increase of circulation of the newspaper "The specific", where she became editor. Around them formed a group of different social status of people united by the desire to change the world around. Ulrika has become a permanent guest of the political and popular radio, whenever possible, promoting "alternative" views on current events. During all these years of comfortable life - with "Mercedes" next to his house and basement, . filled with fine wines, . - Ulrike Meinhof has continued to assert, . that only violent revolution could cure the modern society from all its diseases,
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In the late 60's there were two events that have shaken her pretty orderly world. First, in 1968 she divorced her husband, who always had been unfaithful and eventually passed all bounds of decency. Secondly, it held the trial of a young revolutionary, Andreas Baader.

Baader was born in Munich in 1943. He was a supporter of violent methods of class struggle, which he thought necessary in modern German society. Handsome loafer has never worked, a favorite of women, he went to Berlin and regularly participated in all sorts of demonstrations that took place daily in the old capital of the empire. There were protesting on any occasion and fought for anything - to protect the rights of people illegally settled in an apartment, to the demand increase student scholarships. In 1967, convinced communist Gudrun Ennslin left her husband with a small child and lived with Baader, had met at a student demonstration. Just at that time, Andreas Baader was vehemently preach his philosophy of class hatred. He began to call for an armed guerrilla struggle against the state, the so-called "people's war".

On the way to terror

The first act of armed struggle was unsuccessful. Baader and Ennslin planted incendiary devices at the Frankfurt department store in protest against the Vietnam War, but were caught at the crime scene and brought to justice. During this process, Ulrike Meinhof was on the side of Baader and his actions. Convinced Supertestimone took the first step to a new role - a terrorist, willing to sacrifice lives to achieve their goals.

Baader Ennspin and two other "partisan" were sentenced for setting fire to the store for three years each. In June 1969, after they had spent fourteen months at the request of their lawyers released pending a review of case. But Baader, his mistress and one of the accomplices did not wait for a new trial and fled to France. They engaged Ingerpol, and in 1970 they were re-arrested, taken to Germany and imprisoned. Ulrike Meinhof was outraged by this to the soul. Now she lived in West Berlin, its connection with the "left" hardened, flat became a meeting place for like-minded political. In 1970, Ulrika finally embarked on the path of terror.

Together with several colleagues Baader she decided to get him out of jail.
In Germany, formed a group of people who sympathized with the Baader and his case. She was known as a faction of the "Red Army". He created her, Horst Mahler, a lawyer who defended Baader at trial, an ardent supporter of the violent overthrow of the state system in West Germany. "Red Army" was connected not only with the local underground extremists, but also had contacts with terrorist groups in the Middle East.
Sipami this organization was arranged Jailbreak Baader and his associates. After his escape, Mahler, Meinhof, Baader and Ennslin went to Jordan, where a training camp had intended to replenish their terrorist "entity".

Education Palestinians

Meinhof was capable student. She successfully comprehended the wisdom of terrorism: how to jump on the run from the galloping machine and it does not suffer as the strike target pistol of modern design. But relations between the Arab masters and their German guests were cool, and each side accused the other of arrogance. Arabs seem especially irritated Baader, who refused to participate in group sessions, saying that they were "not suitable" for the war, which he plans to run in Europe.

When the differences between the two groups reached the limit, the Germans were asked to leave training camp. Ulrika has decided to stay - it is very interested in the bomb, and she wanted to learn how to apply them correctly. But the Palestinians did not want to listen. Panel secretly returned to Germany. There they went into hiding in apartments and homes radicals, friends Ulrike remnants of its turbulent political activity

. Ulrica sends his sons to the camp of terrorists

. Ulrika was so convinced of the justice of the case "Red Army", which sent its seven-year twin sons in the Jordan, in the same training camp of terrorists, who recently left the
. She wanted to be in the future they were fighting with the Palestinians against Israel. This desire, as she explained, was a true expression of her love for children. The boys arrived only to Sicily, where they were detained by police. Accompanied them terrorists arrested. After several weeks of camp in which they were sent, was turned into ruins aviation King Hussein.

Meanwhile, Ulrika and her supporters began to develop a plan for "people's war". It turns out that first of all need to take care of the main - money. Mahler organized a series of raids on banks in order to get the amount needed to purchase explosives, forged documents, weapons and warehouses, where we could all keep. One day, they managed to rob three banks at once, but Ulrica was displeased because the production was negligible. Since then, the robbery went into the habit. Temerity in conjunction with careful preparation of the shares to a large extent ensured the success of her dreams operations.

Work-mechanic Karl-Heinz Ruhland, too, fell into this group, since had the opportunity to supply the raiders machines. Intellectuals-conspirators looked down at the beginner, but his name out of all men "Red Army" Ulrika chose as his lovers. It was rumored that her sexual choices demonstrated a belief that the class system is dying and that she, Ulrika, recognizes no class prejudice.

However Rulavd thought otherwise. "I am a simple worker, whom she had taught, - he said later. - Even though it is intellectually far above me, she never looked like this ".
Ulrika was quartermaster group. It provided them with arms through Palestinian contacts and developed plans for attacks on government agencies to obtain official letterhead and print. Then they were used for the manufacture of false documents, which opened access to such places as the military camps and research centers. Incursions on the banks continued. Thus managed to obtain hundreds of thousands of stamps.

But such actions, according to the terrorists, were not effective enough to destroy the "anti-people" state system. It was necessary to clearly and accurately define the goal of "people's war".

In October 1970, Mahler made a grave mistake and landed in police trap.
Management team fell on the shoulders of Baader. Unbalanced, inclined to extravagance, Baader needed a sober analytical mind, Ulrike Meinhof, to keep its "guerrilla army" in the hands of.

After two criminals robbing banks in Kassel, police intensified their search. German criminal police - Kripa - has formed a special unit to once and for all put an end to this criminal group. Many members of the "Red Army" were behind bars. There was a time when only the Baader Meinhof gang and several militants remained at large. However, a lack of willing to engage with them on the path of crime was. Soon the gang switched to robbing banks in the destruction of people, and blood flowed river.

"Crazy gang" - one of the units of the "Red Army" - was the product of the perverted mind of Dr. Wolfgang Huber of the University of Heidelberg. This figure argued that mental illness provokes State; change the political system - and mental illness will disappear. He taught his patients demolition, the art of observation, judo and other ways of unarmed combat. Wife Ursula was his faithful assistant. By mid 1971 a group of murderers, psychopaths agreed that the "Red Army" is very close to them in spirit, and acceded to. Detectives from Kripa dubbed this group "a band of lunatics".

October 22, 1971 the crew of the patrol car in Hamburg identified the member of the "gang of lunatics" Margrit Schiller, when she left the station. She met with two accomplices. Patrol officers Helmut Schmid and Heinrich Lemke tried to take the terrorists, but the trio were well armed, and police found an easy target for "crazy". Shmvd dead with six bullets in the chest, and Lemke was lucky - he escaped with minor injuries.

Elimination of "apostates"

Murder police guardians of the law added a determination to defeat the "Red Army". Margrit Schiller was arrested two days after the murder. When it turned out to be weapons and "Church Black Book", written by Meinhof. The book found a list of priests, doctors, journalists, lawyers, at which the "Red Army" could rely on in difficult times. This book caused a storm of indignation in the community activities of preachers of violence and suicide.

Nevertheless, the killing continued. December 22, 1971 was shot by a policeman Herbert Shoner when the gang robbed the bank in the town of Rhine riparian Kayzerlautern. He was 32 years old, he left a wife and young children.

Participated in the raid 19-year-old Ingeborg Bartz, recently joined the gang, was stunned by the sight of blood and the baby cries. She decided to go to Berlin to his mother, get a job as a typist in some small firms, and try to forget the life of a revolutionary and the cries of children, scared to death raiders.
But Meinhof issued an order to "eliminate" any member of the "Red Army", who decided to "engage".

A member of the gang after Gerhart Mueller will testify against his former associates, and tell that Meinhof was furious when she heard that Ingeborg wants to go. Mueller pointed to the investigation that Ulrike Meinhof and Baader Ingeborg was taken in an abandoned stone quarry and shot "backsliding".

Baby-bomb "Ulrike

Police killed more. One of them was killed by bullets, dum-dum "- a barbaric way of killing prohibited by international convention. Meinhof perfecting a series of bombs, made from scraps of pipe bombs. Such a device called a "baby bomb". It was suspended on the shoulder strap so that was lying on his stomach, and the woman seemed to be pregnant.

Meinhof was a think-tank bomb campaign. She planned actions, plotted as targets for government agencies in the area of Hamburg, Heidelberg, Augsburg, Munich and Frankfurt.

In Frankfurt, Jean-Carl Raspe, another lover Ulrika and leader of the group, Baader and Ennslin laid several bombs in the headquarters of the 5 th U.S. Army Corps. The explosion killed an American colonel, thirteen civilians and military personnel were injured. American army Ulrika identified as one of the objectives of the struggle. She believed that it is America to blame for all European troubles. In addition, it was revenge for the war in Vietnam, a war to which the Red Army treated with abhorrence by the known ideological reasons.

The following year, the Red Army continued its bloody campaign. Five people were injured in the premises of the Munich police stations, where the exploded time bombs left in suitcases. The wife of a judge who signed the warrant for the arrest of terrorists, was seriously wounded by a bomb exploded in his car when the ignition key is turned. Ulrika personally planted the bomb in the offices of the largest publishing house Axel Springer Verlag in Frankfurt. Another three Americans were killed a week later by a bomb explosion in the barracks of the city of Heidelberg. Bombs Ulrike works were gifted mechanic Derkom Hoff, who replaced former occupation of political terror. He did such sensitive timers that arms firms subsequently searched his drawings to be used for production purposes.

Ambush The ease with which terrorists operate, bloody footprints, which they left, causing intense concern to the Government of West Germany. It is known that Ulrike Meinhof frequent visitor to East Germany to replenish stocks of weapons. However, to trace her was very difficult - it is often changed and appearance, and documents. But it is above all interested in the police and security services, because it was a think tank "Red Army" of terror.

A week after the crime, "Red Army in Heidelberg, the inhabitants of the Frankfurt suburb, going to work, is unlikely to pay attention to a group of workers discharged peat near the garages away from the residential area. Around the garage was bare earth. Anyone who saw what was happening, probably decided that the city authorities finally gathered here to sow grass. In fact, workers were snipers Kripa, and the turf was needed, so that in case the need to quickly make a shelter, because the police learned that one of the garages terrorists staged a weapons cache. After a long and fruitless waiting police searched the garage and indeed found in one of these weapons cache. Replacing the dummy explosives and weapons, operatives of Kripa decided to still wait for the terrorists.

On the street where the ambush snipers early in the morning braked Porsche. Of the two men got out and went to the garage. Third - Jean-Carl Raspe, lover Ulrika, - waited in the car, nervously glancing in the direction of the nearest gardens. Years of experience and intuition terrorist told him that there is something wrong. And when the police surrounded him and offered to surrender, he answered a hail of bullets, but was immediately seized.
Andreas Baader and Holger Mines managed to hide in the garage, but there were thrown tear gas. The terrorists began to fire back, but Baader was wounded in the leg. A few minutes later they surrendered.

Last refuge

Of the entire leadership of the group at large remained only Ulrika. Her lover was arrested, the second leader of the group, too, "family" fell apart: someone was behind bars, someone was killed. Even friends from the "left" turn away from her, angry that the wave of violence and looting, which has raised its group.

Once a safe home in Berlin came under police surveillance, Ulrika has found a new refuge. She and Gerhard Muller settled in the house of a schoolteacher from the "left" Fritz Rodewald, who at first sympathized with its ideas. But Rodewald was a socialist and not a terrorist. He was a respected man, the president of Teachers' Union, he had a family and a stable position in society, the thing it seeks to destroy. On the advice of friends called the police Rodewald.

When the team then broke into the apartment, Ulrika unpacked. Among the rags in suitcases were three pistols, two hand grenades, automatic and one of her "baby bombs". Gerhard Mueller surrendered immediately and was to be an important witness. But handcuffed to Ulrika was not easy: she fought like a wild cat.

Photographs taken in the detention center, the face looks puffy Ulrike. But this is not the result of the use of tranquilizers - just life on the run has left its imprint on it. In recent months, terrorist thin and weighed just over 45 kilograms.
Arrest of Ulrike Meinhof was the last nail driven into the coffin of the "Red Army". She was the driving force of all operations, has unique abilities and enjoyed unquestionable authority among like-minded. Some underground groups have tried to release her, the other in response to her arrest had a series of terrorist acts.
May 21, 1975 trial of Meinhof, Baader, Raspe and Ennslin. With them in the dock had to sit and Mines, but he went on hunger strike and died in custody.

Four thousand people walked behind her coffin

The trial lasted a year. Defendants did not say a word, saying it would not recognize this court. But in the end Ennslin "broke". She reiterated that the gang committed a series of murders. Four days later, Ulrika broke jail towel into strips, made a rope tied to the lattice Behold the window of his cell and hanged.
Her death has raised a new wave of terror. Culminating in the murder of industrialist Hanns-Martin Schleyer and the seizure of aircraft, "Lufthansa" in October 1977. With the release of passengers by a group of special-purpose, three of the four terrorists were killed on the spot and one injured.

This news is so stunned Raspe, Baader and Ennslin, who were sentenced to life imprisonment, the men shot themselves out secretly transferred to their guns, and Ennslin hanged

. When the police once again carefully reviewed the list of wanted terrorists, . "example" to his whirling world of murder, Hans-Martin Schleyer (known industrialist West, . shortly before the stolen "Red Army", . was killed a few hours after the failed terrorist operation to seize the aircraft at the airport of the capital of Somalia), . experts struck by the fact, . that at least half of the list were suicide with distinct "handwriting" Ulrike Meinhof,
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Gillian Baker, author of a biographical chronicle of the bloody events of life overflowing Ulrike Meinhof, wrote: "Sometimes she behaved like a giddy teenager, which suddenly awoke irrepressible thirst for love. It irreconcilably tried to coexist puritanka and a rebel, is equally enthusiastic and deceived the communist utopia ".

But those who knew Ulrike Meinhof, argue that somewhere at the bottom of her soul, displacing the love, concealed black hatred that made this woman the "queen of terror.