• Historiography and Armed Struggle, by Ron Augustin

    Ron Augustin, former RAF member (Talk at the University of Amsterdam, June 2016) In every epoch, the attempt must be made to deliver tradition anew from the conformism which is on the point of overwhelming it. —Walter Benjamin The RAF’s history spans a period of thirty years.……… Read the rest
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RIP

Over the past seven months, two former members of the Red Army Faction have died. To learn more about Rolf Clemens Wagner and Helmut Pohl, and also to read recollections of their comrade and friend Ron Augustin, see: Rolf Clemens Wagner, 1944-2014 Helmut Pohl, 1943-2014 See also this interview, with both Wagner and Pohl, which was published by junge Welt on October 17, 2007, and which has been translated by André Moncourt and J.……… Read the rest
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Helmut Pohl, 1943-2014

“I can still see myself sitting there with Gudrun and Andreas, in front of us a long report on Vietcong attacks in the US military’s hinterland in South Vietnam. Guerrilla units had attacked US military headquarters right in enemy territory. One single attack already conveyed the entire strategy.……… Read the rest
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Rolf Clemens Wagner, a Life of Resistance

Former Red Army Faction member Rolf Clemens Wagner died on February 11, 2014. Wagner had first become involved in underground armed politics in the aftermath of the RAF’s 1972 May Offensive in West Germany. Dozens of guerillas had been captured, and were being held in strict solitary confinement (in some cases, entire prison wings were emptied to isolate the political prisoners) and subjected to various forms of abuse.……… Read the rest
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Christa Eckes – Honor Her Memory!

The first time Christa Eckes made the news was back in 1970, when as a teenager growing up in the West German city of Hamburg she was expelled from high school for starting a political action group. The “Basisgruppe LS-Schülerinnen” (LS Students Grassroots Group) was said to have distributed leaflets, organized resistance to the school board, the school administration and the parents’ advisory board, organized a questionnaire about sexual problems without informing the school administration and also to have disrupted a Christmas party.……… Read the rest

A Statement and a Poem for Christa Eckes

Former RAF member Christa Eckes died of cancer on Wednesday, May 23, in Karlsruhe, Germany. (To read more about Christa, click here.) The following is a statement by Ronald Augustin and a poem by Gisela Dutzi, regarding their comrade and friend: ron: christa and i, we failed to meet each other on several occasions. ……… Read the rest

A Word From Russell “Maroon” Shoats

In today’s world ANYONE who dares to raise their voice against ANYTHING being heaped on them by those in power needs to read this book. The repressive methods that the West German state brought to bear against the RAF—detailed by the authors—have been adopted, universalized, and refined, and can be found in use in a prison, jail, detention center or other “holding facility” not far from you.……… Read the rest

Foreword by Bill Dunne

Projectiles for the People, Volume One of The Red Army Faction: A Documentary History, is an important exposition of what it means to wage armed struggle as an urban guerilla in the post WWII western imperial-capitalist paradigm. Via the fast-turning pages of Projectiles, Smith and Moncourt usher us through the RAF ’s emergence in Germany from a moribund and constrained left opposition misdirected and suppressed by U.S.……… Read the rest

Staying Alive: Sensory Deprivation, Torture, and the Struggle Behind Bars

By 1972, practically the whole founding generation of the RAF were behind bars. Yet there was still a second generation and a third generation. Why? Primarily because of the conditions of imprisonment and state-organized terror. Dieter Kunzelmann former K.1 Communard[1] Having captured the ideological leadership of the RAF, the West German state set in motion the second element of their counterinsurgency project: one which would eventually become known as the “Stammheim Model.” The mere incarceration of the guerilla was insufficient.……… Read the rest