The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History: Volume 1: Projectiles for the People

737 Pages·2009·11.55 MB·English

by  J. Smith

This book about the Red Army Faction of American-occupied
Germany is one that should be read by any serious student of anti-
imperialist politics. “Volume 1: Projectiles for the People” provides
a history of the RAF’s development through the words of its letters
and communiqués. What makes the book especially important and
relevant, however, is the careful research and documentation done
by its editors. From this book you will learn the mistakes of a group
that was both large and strong, but which (like our own home-grown
attempts in this regard) was unable to successfully communicate with
the working class of a “democratic” country on a level that met their
needs. While the armed struggle can be the seed of something much
larger, it is also another means of reaching out and communicating
with the people. Students interested in this historic era would do
well to study this book and to internalize both the successes and
failures of one of the largest organized armed anti-imperialist
organizations operating in Western Europe since World War II.
—Ed Mead, former political prisoner, George Jackson Brigade
Clear-headed and meticulously researched, this book deftly avoids
many of the problems that plagued earlier attempts to tell the brief
but enduring history of the RAF. It offers a remarkable wealth
of source material in the form of statements and letters from the
combatants, yet the authors manage to present it in a way that is
both coherent and engaging. Evidence of brutal—and ultimately
ineffective—attempts by the state to silence the voices of political
prisoners serve as a timely and powerful reminder of the continued
need for anti-imperialist prisoners as leaders in our movements
today. At once informative and inspirational, this is a much-needed
contribution to the analysis of armed struggle and the cycles of
repression and resistance in Europe and around the world.
—Sara Falconer, Toronto Anarchist Black Cross Federation
This first volume about the RAF is about a part of WWII that did not
end when the so called allies defeated the nazis. The RAF warriors
come from a strong socialist history and knew they were fighting for
the very life of their country. Many victories and many errors were
scored which provide this important look into REAL her/history
lessons. A must read for all serious alternative history students who
then in turn can use it as a teaching tool towards a better future.
—b♀ (r.d. brown), former political prisoner, George Jackson Brigade
Starting in the Sixties, a new revolutionary strategy began to
plague the capitalist metropolis—the urban guerilla. Warfare
once waged by peasant armies in the countryside of a Cuba, a
China, or a Guinea-Bissau, was suddenly transferred to small
cells of ex-students in the imperialist centers of Berlin, Rome,
and New York. No urban guerrillas became more famed or more
demonized than West Germany’s Red Army Faction (RAF).
We knew their signature bold actions in the headlines: from the
damaging bombing of the u.s. army V Corps headquarters in
Frankfurt in 1972, in response to Washington’s mining of Hanoi’s
harbor in an escalation of the Vietnam War, to the kidnapping
and later execution of the head of the West German industrialists’
association, in an effort to negotiate for the release of revolutionary
prisoners. But we never heard their political voices. Since the
RAF’s political statements, debates, and communiqués were
untranslated and unavailable in English even within the left.
Now, at last, a significant documentary history of the RAF
has come into the spotlight, complete with a readable account
of the postwar German New Left from which it emerged. Even
better, this work was done by editors/translators who reject the
obedient capitalist media’s trivializing of the RAF as “pathological”
death-wishing celebrities. In their hands, the words of the RAF
are revealed as serious responses to the failure of parliamentary
reformism, trade-unionism, and pacifism, to stop the solidification of
Germany’s own form of a neofascist capitalism (lightly cosmeticized
with a layer of that numbing “consumer democracy”). The young
RAF fighters hoped for liberation in their dangerous experiment
but were willing to accept tragic consequences, and their story
is emotionally difficult to read with eyes open. Controversial as
the RAF was, their systematic torture in special “anti-terrorist”
facilities stirred worldwide unease and even protest. In fact, those
special prisons were the eagerly studied forerunners for the u.s.
empire’s own latest human rights abuses, from Guantanamo to
the domestic “maxi-maxi” prisons. We all and the RAF are much
closer than the capitalist public wants to believe. It is all here, in
this first volume of the Red Army Faction documentary histories,
and we should thank all those who worked on this book.
—J. Sakai, author of Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat
the red army faction:
a documentary history
volume 1
P
ROJECTILES
P

EOPLE
for the

the red army faction:
a documentary history
volume 1
P
ROJECTILES
P

EOPLE
for the
forewords by Bill Dunne and Russell “Maroon” Shoats
introductory texts and translations by
André Moncourt and J. Smith
the red army faction: a documentary history
volume 1: projectiles for the people
introductory texts and translations by André Moncourt and J. Smith
The opening epigram on page v is from Karl-Heinz Dellwo “Kein Ankommen,
kein Zurück” in Nach dem bewaffneten Kampf, Angelika Holderberg ed. (Gießen:
Psychsozial-Verlag, 2007).
ISBN: 978-1-60486-029-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008929110
Copyright 2009 Kersplebedeb
This edition copyright 2009 PM Press and Kersplebedeb
Many of the translated texts in this book
are available online at www.germanguerilla.com
Kersplebedeb Publishing and Distribution
CP 63560
CCCP Van Horne
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H3W 3H8
www.kersplebedeb.com
PM Press
PO Box 23912
Oakland, CA 94623
www.pmpress.org
Layout and Index by Kersplebedeb
Cover Design: Josh MacPhee/Justseeds.org
The photo used on the front cover is of the funeral of Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin,
and Jan-Carl Raspe in 1977.
Printed in the United States on recycled paper
dedicated to the memory of Jim Campbell

“We are a projectile,” Andreas Baader wrote to the group,
thereby articulating an ethical point of view in which the
subject and his objective became a single thing. It also meant
that if no further separation existed between the “subject” and
“object” it was obvious how it would end: in death.
Karl-Heinz Dellwo