After The Red Army Faction by Charity Scribner

Ronald Reagan said “Communism will end up on the ash heap of history” and his prediction eventually came true. Not only did Communism go down in history as a failure, but a whole lot of countries that were sponsored by communism failed as well. Finally, the terrorist groups that were sponsored by those countries ended up on the ash heap. The German Red Army, in particular, ended up as a big nothing. Some say the members were misguided youth. Others say they were spoiled children of privilege, trying to cover for their Nazi past. But the question remains; why were there so many women involved in the Red Army, while the other “red” terrorists (IRA, ETA, Red Brigade) were mostly male-dominated?

In the introduction, we see many possibilities in the origin of the Red Army Faction. Some blame it on the hierarchies in German society that fostered a rebellion. Others blame it on West Germany’s mad rush to reindustrialize and outrun communism. Did some people get left behind? As the book progresses, the Vietnam was seems to have been a catalyst for German youth in their collective anger, but what did they know about Vietnam? Perhaps they were reacting to the US Army presence in Germany, with the US tanks rolling across German soil, and the arrogant GI’s flooding the clubs and bars, impressing German women with their macho attitudes? I suspect that the Red Army Faction may have been the result of jealousy that bored young Germans felt towards the Americans.

In the chapter Buildings On Fire, the author compares the Watts Riots of 1965 with anti-consumerism in Germany. But the same time, Germany wasn’t anywhere near the type of consumer culture that the USA was. Germany didn’t have the 1950’s “I Love Lucy” ideal of the suburban housewife surrounded by labor-saving machines. Tradition was still a big part of German life, but had these traditions been eroded after WWII and the collapse of Hitler? Maybe these German youths, with nowhere to expand and nothing to rebel against, found destructive ways to unleash their frustration?