First, let me say that the movie, The Baader Meinhof Complex, is riveting, subperb drama, far more so than a fictional action movie. It is well worth seeing. The drama is not all action. For me the most drama and disturbing sequences were when the gang members sold their souls to remain part of the gang. This was particularly true of Ulrike Meinhof who was about eight or more years older than the others. The movie was also intellectually enlightening. I remember generally the major events, but had forgotten or never knew the details. I do remember being puzzled as to why the media referred to the gang as anarchists when clearly they were communists. Later I realized that during that time there was a longing for detente with the official communists in Moscow and the media people perhaps that it would aid detente if the communist nature of the terrorism were ignored.

That brings me to my criticism of the movie and that it is that the role of East German communists, particularly the stasi, in the gang's activities. Consider an incident that mobilized the protest moments in West Germany. In June of 1967 the Shah of Iran with his Queen visited Germany. There were demonstators protesting his public appearances. Their were also pro-Shah people, probably flow in to counter the anti-Shah people. Riot broke out between the two groups. During the police action to break up the riot an anti-Shah protester, Benno Ohnesorg, was shot in the head and died. The policeman, Karl-Heinz Kurras, claimed it was an accident. But Ohnesorg was not shot in an arm or a leg or in the butt; he was shot in the head, the one place most likely to kill him. The policeman was exonerated and the protestors howled in rage and vowed to fight the heartless establishment. Some vowed to fight the establishment violently, such Gudrun Ensslin, the good-girl preacher's daughter who had fallen in love with the bad boy, Andreas Baader. Years later when German unification gave the West German authorities access to the Stasi files they found that the policeman, Kurras, had been a member of the Communist Party and had worked for the Stasi. It would be impossible at that date to determine whether Ohnesorg's death was an accident or not. However, it is strange that the conservatives in the police force did not resort to the use of gun's against the left-wing demonstrators but a Communist among them found it necessary to have his gun drawn and accidently shoot a demonstrator in the head. What appears to be far more likely is that Kurras on his own or under orders from the Stasi decided to give the left wing a matryr to mobilize them.

Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin went on to plant incendiary bombs in a department store. It only took the police about two days to locate them. They were sentenced to several years in prison. They were mistakely released under a political prisoner amesty. When the authorities decided that they did not qualify for the release it was too late. The two went into hiding and decided to become urban guerillas. They gathered other psychopaths into the group, including a lawyer named Horst Mahler. They seemed to have no trouble getting guns but it was not that easy to obtain guns in West Germany. This is something that the Stasi would have no trouble supplying.

Later when the original gang was in prison a second and third generation took over. These were people the Stasi gave training so they were able to carryout in professional fashion assassinations and kidnappings. When some of these later generation people wanted to retire they were given refuge in East Germany complete with new identities. They thought they were safe. But with unification the Stasi records became available to the West German police and those retired terrorists were arrested.

With unification came an end of support and the group announced its disbandonment in 1997, but not before it targeted prominent figures in the unification, thus revealing that it was basically a tool of the Stasi, the one organization that most feared unification.

Ulrike Meinhof’s daughter Bettina Röhl has published files from the archives of the East German secret police, or Stasi, showing that subsidies and other forms of support flowed regularly to the group from the other side of the Berlin Wall.

The Baader-Meinhof Group early on went to Palestine for military training. I think it quite unlikely that an undisciplined group such as they were would have been able to arrange this accommodation by the more serious-minded Palestinian guerilla organization. But the East German Stasi would have been able to arrange it as a return favor for the help the Stasi had given Palestinian guerilla organizations.

So once the East German Stasi ties to the Baader Meinhof Complex are brought in the full story becomes quite different from the one told by the movie. However there is an additional line not explored in the movie. There were great similarities between the Gang and the fascist terrorist of the 1920's. The fascists called the terrorism the propaganda of the deed. Basically the philosophy of Andreas Baader was the propaganda of the deed. And the lawyer Horst Mahler, one of the founders of the Gang, ended up organizing a neo-Nazi group.