Original subtitles

Is it possible to make films in Germany today?

Is it even possible from a philosophical point of view?

Briefly, the idea was:

Is it possible to make pictures in Germany?

Is it possible to have the image, I mean, the imagination?

I mean, is a German able to make a picture?

We'll see at the end of the film.

A GERMAN YOUTH

20 years ago, German youth stood to attention.

Today, the survivors try to forget,

but their children can't understand these pictures.

They believe in culture and intelligence again.

What's most symbolic for them of Nazi folly: 30 years ago,

in Berlin, books by the poet Heine and Brecht were burnt.

Is democracy a reality for young people today?

I think it's only among young people.

Only by young people.

I also believe that, as regards the other generation,

Germany isn't stable.

From a political point of view, there are Nazis everywhere.

There's a certain hesitation between democracy and ideology.

The only sure thing in Germany is the young people.

What's your reason for painting a swastika on this wall?

Why did you do it?

I don't know anything about it.

Six million killed! Hitler!

It's not me.

- I'm Jewish! - It's nothing to do with you and me.

That's not it.

10 million were killed in Germany!

What do you mean, "I didn't do it"? You think it was me?

I was too young at the time. I had to obey.

I don't understand. Why did you have to obey?

You're just silly boys.

It's a fictional film.

A fictional film to make us look ridiculous.

Do you know what you deserve?

A clip on the ear!

Why not hang him?

But grandad, they're your children!

My children...

For some years lately, there have been disturbances in the universities.

Rebellious students attack the provost, snatching the microphone away,

and terrorize the assembly.

They distribute tracts

treating their professors as idiots.

We can't show you these scenes

as they weren't filmed.

Students of the university intend to distribute tracts

against Professor Selbach.

This isn't terrorism.

No, the students just want

to express their right to oppose,

even if it's not in an orthodox manner.

The professor feared this aggressiveness

and declared:

"Democracy means acting decently, and such methods are indecent."

Ulrike Marie Meinhof, born in 1934 in Oldenburg,

pedagogical studies, grant for national merit,

editorial director for the magazine Konkret,

radio and TV journalist.

Authority in Decline

Ladies and gentlemen, a late good evening.

The debate tonight has a provocative title:

"Moral decline".

At the table here... Ah, "Authority in decline"!

Our last debate concerned moral decrepitude.

This time we'll discuss authority in decline.

On my right,

Ulrike Meinhof, from Hamburg,

editorialist of the magazine Konkret.

Your influence is based on your arguments as columnist.

Obtaining TV programmes, being listened to

is part of my profession as a journalist and socialist,

and extends my influence beyond Konkret.

The role that gave me access to this world

corresponds only partially to my desires,

as it claims my ideas are those of a clown.

Thus obliging me to say jovially

things that are of vital importance for all of us.

I have to say them from behind a mask.

Parents have lost their credibility

due to their identification with Nazism.

The Catholic Church has lost credibility

by protecting itself behind National Socialism.

It is rarely mentioned,

but employers' authority has been questioned

during the last 100 years,

due to the terrible conditions used to develop industry.

Those representing authority are no longer convincing.

One hesitates to give them one's confidence.

And anyway, the relationships in the society we're living in

are still particularly authoritarian.

If one has the desire or the presumption to educate a population,

one must create conditions of real democracy.

Then an authentic authority will be acceptable.

The abuse of authority is annihilated,

servility and submission will no longer exist.

This is not possible without changing society in concrete terms.

- I don't agree. - I agree with Mrs Meinhof.

Institutions and practice play a large role.

Here's an example.

There was a dismissal judged by the industrial tribunal.

A worker refused to work, because of a lack of safety regulations.

He lodged a complaint, and his employer dismissed him.

The worker took his employer to court.

The industrial tribunal upheld the employer's right to dismiss him.

In lodging a complaint, the worker had rendered collaboration impossible.

This is the limit,

the faulty employer was not denounced and dismissed,

but the employee,

who had shown civil courage and firmness.

One must have no illusions.

Self-assurance in citizens is not what's at stake.

Reports, analyses, opinions

Industrial Accidents

In 1871, at the same time as these factories were built,

laws on trade and industry were set up in Germany.

The organization of workshops, tools and machines

must be established in a way that workers be protected.

Contrary to what happens here, workers must not hinder a colleague.

Here they wear neither helmets

nor protective goggles.

Rules are often not applied,

but when there's an accident, they state that it's the workers' fault.

This is cynical fatalism.

It's said that most accidents are due to human error.

Have the unions propositions for limiting industrial accidents?

One thing is certain. This can't be done by sweet speeches.

Work and Stopwatches

Man's life is as regular as clockwork.

Punctuality and speed are all-important.

The American business slogan: "Time is money".

Concentrated, rationalized, an assembly line.

The more organized a workplace,

the quicker the work is done, the better deadlines are met.

Working on such shifts is not physically difficult,

but it's often very trying on the nerves.

The economic benefit of this procedure

is undeniable.

But is it humanly acceptable?

We are now speaking more about TV than films,

but it's still what we're concerned with.

We're discussing thought, language, communication and society.

Mr Kluge,

a filmmaker

is someone

who tries, by means of moving images,

to tell stories.

We should like to know

how he can, with his stories,

target society,

move it,

perhaps

touch it

and finally even change it?

Is this possible?

Welcome to the start of the first year

at the DFFB,

the Film and TV Academy in Berlin.

Berlin will be able to count

over the coming years

on the impulsive force,

both artistic and organizational, of the DFFB graduates.

Only 35 students out of 825 candidates have been admitted.

Holger Meins, born in 1941,

art school in Hamburg, assistant cameraman in Munich,

student at the DFFB.

When the DFFB was founded in 1966, the film crisis was at its peak.

The industry envisaged overcoming it by reconciling economy and art.

A school must create a revival and train specialized technicians

to give fresh impetus to the industry of awareness.

Instead of showing themselves worthy of a grant,

the most gifted students turned out to be rebellious left-wingers.

A film by Holger Meins

We give you food, you won't find any elsewhere.

Go and see the caretaker and make your excuses.

Got it!

It's about putting it into practice!

It won't happen again.

You've brought alcohol in on the sly, that's not permitted,

unless you want there to be rioting again.

Shit!

You want me to say "shit"?

Just say "shit". Swear!

Shit!

Say it again.

Look at the camera.

During our studies, let's practise being professional revolutionaries!

Let's learn our trade in class struggle!

Colour Test Camera Class

The Red Flag

We renamed the school Dziga Vertov Academy.

Thanks to him, we learnt to make films,

to politicise, to make films that will change the system.

"Our basic task

is to help those oppressed and the proletariat to find their bearings

in the world surrounding them."

Johnson & Co. and the Campaign Against Poverty

a film by

Hartmut Bitomsky

filmed by and with Holger Meins

Where I live, the buildings are run-down.

The owner says with such low rent, he can't do them up.

If these places were as run-down as ours,

the tenants would refuse to pay.

The owners would earn less.

Here, to earn a lot, the owners have to spend a lot.

Where I live, to earn a lot, they don't have to spend anything.

Here, as the buildings are well maintained,

the tenants willingly pay.

We should learn to study the contracts, as they all contain arguments

which give us reasons to tear them up,

and stop being the victims.

An uneducated army can't conquer the enemy.

The Berlin police learnt that a group of young people

wanted to throw bombs at the American Vice-President.

Horst Mahler, the commune's lawyer, sees things differently.

The judges refused the arrest warrant,

because an expert

and the accused themselves

contradicted the judges' accusation,

notably that the group would make explosives.

They only made harmless smoke grenades

which were analysed by the police.

That a different combination of the same elements

could produce a real bomb

doesn't correspond to legal principles.

Horst Mahler, born in 1936 in Haynau,

business lawyer,

founded the Berlin socialist barristers collective.

These students and professional troublemakers

have come out of prison and assess their failed attack.

The members of the "terror commune",

thus named with mockery and respect, still want to terrify the world.

Invading parliament isn't demonstrating.

Here the activists disturb a sitting in Berlin.

This isn't surprising, coming from apprentice Marxists.

True democrats respect elected representatives.

Andreas Baader,

born in 1943,

unfinished art studies in Munich,

active in the alternative scene in Munich and Berlin.

He who unmasks society, at a moment it least expects it,

is pursued over the desolate reactionary plains.

Let's look at politically committed films.

This Berlin group shoots a film

which it will present to the cultural institutions.

If they appreciate its quality, they'll issue a grant.

But people who speak of politics and art remain outside the system.

One must never contradict the institutions' political standpoint.

Gudrun Ensslin, born in 1940 in Bartholomä,

studied German, English, Greek and philosophy in Tübingen, then Berlin,

grant for national merit,

co-published books by Sartre, Mao and the Black Panthers.

It's 11 o'clock.

Here is Radio Free Berlin.

According to an official report from Saigon,

American bombers have again attacked targets in North Vietnam...

Why do you read Die Welt, Mr President?

Die Welt is clear,

unbiased,

and gives detailed information

on politics and the economy.

Why do you read Bild?

Bild is entertaining,

exciting,

realistic,

serious,

German and modern.

Axel Springer publishes 18 papers in 8 German cities,

5 dailies, 40% of the circulation in Germany,

70% of the press in Berlin,

90% of the Sunday press,

2 billion copies per year.

Mr Springer's editors are the dictators of the press,

a means of expression of the economic powers,

a permanent campaign against liberalism and progressivism.

The systematic demolition of angry students.

Students mistrust cinema and TV. The team explains its film.

We are making a film about Springer.

We're not journalists, we're engaged citizens.

BZ in the Toilet, an unfinished film by Holger Meins

Expropriate Springer

Better Democrats...

...Or Anarchists?

By Ulrike Marie Meinhof

When the Shah came to West Germany, we knew little about Iran

and little about our own country.

DEATH

When the students took to the streets, we learnt the truth about Iran

and the truth about our state:

you can't welcome the head of a police state without agreeing with it.

Here is an extract from Roman Brodmann's film:

"Visit of the Police State".

Once the Shah enters the town hall, his partisans attack.

The barriers separating them from the demonstrators fall down.

Suddenly, they arm themselves with bludgeons and truncheons.

Of the 5,000 policemen mobilised, not one is there to avoid what happens.

The Iranians beat the students for several minutes.

The students are hopeful:

at last the police join in.

But it's surprising which side they're on.

The impression they don't want to defend the students gets stronger.

They attack the demonstrators,

but avoid the Iranian aggressors.

That evening, Berlin TV reacts in the same way,

criticising the demonstrators but not the police.

The police try to separate the two groups,

but the confrontations remain violent.

The images contradict the affirmations.

The TV presents the facts

like Springer would.

There have been confrontations.

In this agitation, it's understandable

that the police chose to be firm, even a bit excessive.

That day, we understood that liberty in our state was expressed by bludgeons,

and liberty of the press was Springer's version for justifying the bludgeoning.

In such agitation, it's understandable

that the police chose to be firm...

At nightfall, a shot could be heard.

A passer-by came to help Ohnesorg who had been shot in the head.

People shouted at her: "What's the point of helping him now?"

I saw a demonstrator, Benno Ohnesorg, trying to escape

while signalling peace to the police.

Suddenly, a hand came up behind him,

a policeman's. Slowly he crumpled.

Policemen arrived

and began to beat him.

They calmed down, then started again.

At last they stopped. I went up to Benno.

The policemen wanted to go on beating him.

I told them to call an ambulance.

I stayed here and saw them transfer him.

They turned on the water cannons.

I passed through the demonstrators they were still beating.

I went to the station.

I was just so shocked.

I couldn't understand all this brutality,

this force against young people, unarmed people, women.

It wasn't so much a question of student protest,

but rather an escalating reaction

on the part of the authorities.

The events of June 2 that happened here in Berlin

are exemplary.

I insist on saying here

that the police

made a serious strategic error.

They didn't think that such an important guest at the opera

would be covered by all the press and photographers.

This provided us with

all the necessary material for a detailed reconstitution of the events.

Free Teufel!

Negotiations a film by Holger Meins

Tribunal in Berlin temporary detention, Fritz Teufel

student journalist, born in 1943, single

serious rioting

against policemen, he threw a stone

charged

leader acts of violence

crime

undermining of public order

rioting

presumed guilty

The student Fritz Teufel has been in detention since June 2.

He was arrested during the demo

against the Shah.

He is accused, together with the student Rainer Langhans,

of having encouraged arson.

Mr Mahler, I am greeting you

from several hundred kilometres away.

We're questioning you,

because, more than others,

you are a witness of the problems of German justice.

Do you state

that you back your clients,

even if they degrade a law court?

Your question demands a precise answer.

Usually, a lawyer doesn't identify with his clients.

At most with their political objectives.

This is true for many of my clients.

I even think this is necessary.

I don't always consider

the means used to be the most just.

But these young people must be given a chance

- I stand as one of them -

to have the political experience of the means they use.

It's absurd to condemn a means just because it's extreme.

Discussion on Drugs and Revolution with Holger Meins

All change anticipating the concrete realisation of a utopia

can only be achieved collectively,

not individually.

Social struggles will increase.

But there is a hope

that the change will not only be an idea in people's heads,

but will really come about.

Then, the decisive stage

consists in putting the theory into practice.

The theoretical necessity for change must be practised,

but the key is action.

Festival of Experimental Cinema

Spectators have voiced their dissatisfaction.

Here, the students of the DFFB protest

against Wolfgang Ramsbott's film, "The White Hop Garden".

There were protests at the films, because the public consisted

of the filmmakers themselves.

You work in films, not in politics.

But films are politics!

Don't shout on TV!

They're dirty or political films.

The manager forbids political actions in the establishment.

Political opinions can be formulated in films,

but one may not express them openly.

In another room, an unofficial action is being prepared.

They're preparing a poster

against American military and cinematographic imperialism

and against the Vietnam war.

Reality! Reality!

Be aware! Be aware!

We filmmakers are making a documentary on student struggles.

A film serves as information, but it's also a means of activism.

We no longer claim to be objective.

The representation of our movement must be carried out by its participants.

This way, we can change things.

This change is reflected in our specific way of working.

Even if we are not in direct action,

our cameras are, technically and chemically, tools of activism.

Commitment cannot be divided.

That's why Springer speaks of commitment,

and the provincial press loves young people to be committed.

But they all say it depends on the cause defended.

We've searched for an answer to this question.

We defend a humane rationalism.

Our commitment is not directed, as has been stated,

against war in general,

but we are committed in favour of those

who seek to free themselves from terror and violence.

If war is the only means, we defend their war.

Mrs Meinhof, my question refers to what has just been said.

I don't know if you lived through the reality of the Third Reich,

a period of totalitarianism in Germany,

but I imagine you did not.

I did live through it

and I appreciate the difference.

My question is

whether you consider that the democratic debate

should take place uniquely in the street.

I don't think the street is

the best place to express one's opinions.

But if there is no other solution,

if there's no place on TV

to express oneself once or twice a week,

if there aren't millions of Springer's newspapers,

and if when one wishes to discuss with the public,

meetings are forbidden, premises are not provided,

and demos are also forbidden.

Thus this weekend's congress on Vietnam will probably be forbidden.

So I consider it very democratic,

if we continue, in spite of these bans,

to demonstrate in the street,

the last public place which remains.

Now, it's Horst's turn.

Either the police tolerates the demo, even if it's illegal,

to avoid confrontation, which would be unpleasant for the Senate,

- in this case, the Halensee bridge isn't an obstacle -

or the police will use all the means at their disposal.

Out of the 20,000 policemen in Berlin,

excluding the ones on normal duty,

they amount to 10 or 15,000.

If the mounted police rush up and attack us,

we'll not do a sit-in at that moment,

we'll go over to the offensive.

Here, the student Rudi Dutschke was shot.

A man fired three bullets into his head.

The culprit, Josef Bachmann, was arrested.

He justified his act by saying Dutschke was a communist.

Dutschke is the representative of the radical students,

who fight for change in West German society.

We didn't invent violence. We met it there.

Before picking up a gun,

you must use your camera to take action and criticise.

Before picking up a gun, a filmmaker must set the scene

for the actions that cause this society's fall.

How To Make a Molotov Cocktail a remake of Holger Meins' lost film

2/3 petroleum

1/3 petrol

Springer murderer!

After the attack on Rudi Dutschke,

the students demonstrated outside Springer's.

Windows were smashed, cars burnt.

Springer's lawyers estimated the damages

at 506,996.71 Marks.

One person was accused:

Horst Mahler, the protesters' lawyer.

Two department stores were set on fire

in April in Frankfurt.

The damages amounted to 2 million Marks.

The police discovered the remains

of explosives and detonators.

Two days later, the suspects were arrested.

Last week,

the court found

the accused guilty of arson.

The student Thorwald Proll,

the journalist Andreas Baader,

the actor Horst Söhnlein

and the student Gudrun Ensslin

were sentenced to 3 years of prison.

All the accused come from middle-class families.

Why have they become criminals?

Why did a young woman place bombs?

I, too, like cars and department stores.

But buying is to blind oneself.

The price to pay is too high.

You don't need to look at Vietnam to see what's going on.

I'll never accept

the tendency of the late capitalist society,

which leads us straight to fascism.

You just have to look at what's happening in the USA.

I don't see

why we must go on repeating the same errors,

while saying we can't change anything.

I must say I shall never accept not doing anything about it.

"The Arsonists" is Klaus Lemke's first TV movie.

I had made a short film with Söhnlein.

I met friends of Proll, Söhnlein and Ensslin.

This film is not about throwing bombs and stones.

It questions the moment when one must ask oneself:

When to stop being tolerant and to start throwing stones?

It's not a decision that can be enforced,

like: "Now, you must throw a stone".

You can't force a person to place bombs,

but there are many on the verge of throwing stones.

It doesn't matter if they choose to do it

or if they are forced to do it.

They have the right to do it.

The Arsonists

I don't want to go on accepting

that this society sees every pacific protest, demonstration or film

as the confirmation of its alleged freedom.

Those that call themselves revolutionaries

show bombs in their films

without ever meaning to use them.

You cannot act without violence in a society that has become violent.

Films about burnt children can't stop napalm bombings.

We've played too long with the idea of a revolution.

The time has come to start one.

The DFFB has been occupied by striking students.

The Board has refused to cancel

the courses as they've requested.

The police protect the DFFB from its students.

18 students have been dismissed.

WE WILL TAKE ARMS

AND GET INSIDE THE SYSTEM

TO BRING ABOUT ITS DESTRUCTION

When they tried to make a declaration to the Board of Trustees,

the police forced them to leave.

They have been to the DFFB

to commit other criminal acts, notably reading the records.

Mr Meins, reading those records is forbidden!

Communist Collective of Students and Cinema Workers

March Down Tegeler Street! A film by ROSTA KINO

Mahler, the students' lawyer,

always present where there's trouble.

Mahler politicised our court cases and destabilised our rulers.

He's a danger to the system, so...

Springer sues him.

Here's the court in Berlin.

Throw things

Monday, don't forget:

helmet, gloves, umbrella, sturdy shoes

Self-defence

Assembly, resistance, riot

A film by the Berlin police

Protection of the Court

The police prepare the protection of the court

where the case against Horst Mahler will take place,

seen here with his defence lawyer, shortly before the trial.

"Hands off Mahler!"

"March down Tegeler Street!"

These are the slogans distributed at the university.

The police stay calm,

to avoid being blamed for provoking the demonstrators.

The Battle of Tegeler Street an unfinished film by ROSTA KINO

We got hold of a water cannon,

and we used it against the cops.

The cops threw smoke bombs

but the wind sent the smoke back to them!

They let us go.

We marched triumphantly to the university.

We made love in the big amphitheatre.

We thought it was going to be the start,

but nothing more happened.

Ladies' Journal

The problem for every woman who works in politics, including me,

is that on the one hand, she is a militant,

she must know how to speak, write, agitate,

and on the other hand, she is as helpless,

due to her children, as any other woman.

Oppression of women

is rooted in the contradiction between private and public life.

However, if political work is not linked to private life,

it can't come to anything.

Private life is eminently political.

Relationships are political.

They indicate whether people are oppressed or free,

whether they can understand an idea, whether they can act.

It's difficult, very difficult.

Hamburg, midday.

A disgraceful situation for Klaus Röhl,

chief editor of Konkret, the protest magazine.

The police are protecting it from the vanguard of its readers.

Among those in revolt, Ulrike Marie Meinhof,

the editor's ex-wife and the magazine's star columnist.

This editorial has provoked the final battle.

Meinhof, the ideologist, accuses the chief editor

of publishing positive articles

on subjects he claims to combat.

He betrays his colleagues in favour of marketing and profit.

She sums up the situation:

"Konkret is no longer left-wing, but opportunist."

Röhl replies:

"Ah! Ulrike wants beauty and excitement, but this isn't realistic.

She demands ideological purity,

that no concessions be made,

but she wants high salaries and punctual payments."

Those in revolt tried in vain to storm the editorial department.

Blind with rage, they went to Röhl's home.

They threw out furniture and smeared the walls.

One shot at the windows.

Finally the gang left the old gangster signature:

they defecated on the owner's bed.

Ulrike Meinhof refused to comment on the action.

We think we can do better ourselves.

You should question yourselves and analyse your own problems.

Instead of observing ours,

take them as an example.

Analyse TV and interview yourself.

Holger?

I'd like to go further. Up till now we've never succeeded

in having strategic ambitions,

or a sufficient desire for something concrete.

Harun is leaving on Sunday,

so I'd like him to present his project,

so we can discuss practical points, about material, for instance.

We can speak about that later!

I'm for studying this question...

We must consider practical issues.

During discussions, Holger remained reserved

due to his idea of the filmmaker's role

that he should merely impart his technical knowledge.

We spent a year in Frankfurt in 1968/69.

We went into classrooms

where the pupils were between 15 and 18 years old.

The pupils had to make the films themselves

and decide on their content.

They came to realise... Here's the cat!

...how complicated it was. Repression isn't easy to portray.

It's not enough to show Dad giving slaps in the face.

Many had understood that they must make decisions individually,

according to pleasure principles:

"What do I need at present? Should I do that or not?"

These considerations are problematical when making a film.

The films were not finished.

The groups shot them on different subjects.

We edited them in part,

but they were neither finished nor released.

See? We undertake an action and what happens?

A mutiny! We smash everything and the cops turn up.

Let's try again!

The girls here are hopeless!

We must discuss more.

Much more!

Why we do this, what we want.

And write it on our prison walls.

Not "Peter I love you" or "It's shit".

What then?

Something like "Care homes are prisons".

Or "We want decent wages".

You'll never get out.

Nonsense! It's the tough ones who get thrown out.

They forget the good ones. They rot here.

The docile ones are finished off. See?

Mutiny

by Ulrike Marie Meinhof

When she shot her unreleased TV movie "Mutiny",

she wanted to do a report on girls in care

and make them take political action.

In care, where oppression is tangible, she counts on solidarity.

For her, those who have failed socially are victims,

but also the most capable of revolting to gain freedom.

She pointed out that what went on here

was not exceptional, that things could be worse elsewhere.

But the girls have reached their goal and aren't interested in anything else.

In the court in Kassel: Ulrike Marie Meinhof.

She was an expert at a trial

against youths in care who had sequestrated an educator.

In Konkret, she advocated left-wing politics.

Her editorials didn't deal with

feminist themes and were not only aimed at women.

This is an important question.

Is there a specifically feminine emancipation?

I'd say no.

Oppression of women is linked to that of the proletariat.

I've written these editorials

in the interest of the emancipation of the proletariat.

Was she influential as an editorialist?

No.

Ulrike Meinhof wrote editorials for Konkret,

a magazine more left-wing than Spiegel.

She's remained left-wing.

Augstein was an idol for the left.

RUDOLF AUGSTEIN, SPIEGEL EDITOR

Has he changed?

At one time, left-wingers,

especially students and intellectuals, read Spiegel.

They hoped the wrong people would act as they should have.

To hope that Augstein would act correctly is to expect

more than meat from a cow, or class struggle from a capitalist!

For us, the people's movement, there are only two possibilities.

Either we charge and become revolutionary soldiers

or we return to our bourgeois niches and become anti-communist pigs.

Words alone won't transform leftists into revolutionaries.

Only action plus words will do it. And that's still not enough

as a young white can drop back into his illusory privileged abundance

unless he immerses himself in the revolution,

not only in his ideas, but also his lifestyle.

Armed struggle is becoming

commonplace.

Not simply in the form of sabotage, but also

in direct attacks on all imperialist forces,

whatever and wherever they may be.

Andreas Baader, sentenced to 3 years in prison,

has just been freed with armed force.

Two men and two women got into the building

where he was consulting books on juvenile delinquency.

He was writing a book with Ulrike Meinhof.

Organising armed opposition,

developing class struggle, founding the Red Army Fraction.

You can't win the revolutionary proletariat's trust by political action.

You can if you bring up the question of armed struggle and reply to it.

So as not to question their privileges, junk or bright kitchen furniture,

left-wing intellectuals invoke psychoanalytical interpretations

to explain the revolutionaries' determination.

They use erroneous information

to prove that the urban guerilla concept doesn't work.

Why do urban guerillas have to justify themselves?

To wonder if it's right to create clandestine opposition groups

means wondering if it's possible.

The answer can only be a practical one. Anything else is speculation.

Some comrades have decided on taking action.

We'll see if there are enough of us,

if we have enough determination and strength,

intelligence and discipline, dissatisfaction and class hatred

to attack the imperialism at the heart of West Germany.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

24 HOURS ON CHANNEL 1 PRESENTS

ROVING REPORTERS' RENDEZVOUS

Good evening.

Kept abroad for a medical report,

Etienne Lalou cannot be with us this evening.

The theme we've chosen to discuss

with colleagues from foreign TV

and from the press is global violence.

Of course we do not intend to study all types of violence,

but especially political terrorism on an international level.

And as a prologue, we would like

to show you a report

which is a kind of synthesis on this theme.

Political terrorism is a series of indirect actions,

sporadic and desperate,

which aim to obtain a political result through terror.

Usually it's the action of a small, well-trained group,

prepared in secret, activated by surprise,

exercising great political pressure

by the destruction or threat of destruction of life or property.

Terrorism is age-old, but has changed.

Sometimes it disappeared.

Lately, it has increased considerably.

In 1968, terrorism was already responsible for 18%

of the total number of acts of violence.

Today it is responsible for 51%.

The world now lives under a constant threat of terrorism.

There's no reserved space,

no neutral state, people not involved.

There's no longer anywhere on Earth

where one is safe from bombers, plane hijackers, hostage takers.

Close to the centre of Berlin, at 1 Meierotto Street,

where the lawyer Horst Mahler used to work.

Behind the bourgeois façade, the collective of socialist barristers.

Its founder has disappeared to the Middle East,

with the two people accused of arson: Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin.

Also the journalist Ulrike Meinhof.

Her flat will be emptied.

The curtains are drawn.

The furniture will be taken away. The flat will be rented out.

Here is the irremediable end to Ulrike Meinhof's bourgeois life.

The criminal police have discovered new elements

in the investigation which made front-page news recently.

The woman concerned, Ulrike Meinhof, has changed her appearance.

She has cut her dark brown hair and dyed it blond.

She is suspected of having taken part

in attempted murder and at least 3 bank hold-ups.

As Ulrike Meinhof's group continually rents flats and cars,

we ask estate agents and car rental firms to beware.

Today, in Berlin,

the police entered a flat.

The policemen were in hiding

when the bell rang.

We recognised the man at the door.

It was Mr Mahler.

He confirmed his identity

and congratulated the police on their success.

A week ago, 3,000 policemen were mobilised.

The police's firm reaction is normal. They had read Ulrike Meinhof's texts.

Cops are pigs.

Guys in uniform are pigs, not men, and we deal with them accordingly.

We refuse to talk to them, but we can of course shoot them.

Today, during an operation against the Baader-Meinhof group,

a young woman was shot and 5 people were arrested.

The first news was that the victim was the journalist Ulrike Meinhof.

This was denied shortly afterwards.

Apparently, there are many people

who think it's great to support bank robbers and murderers,

to house them

and help them with cash and information.

This was confirmed by this week's investigation

after the murder of a policeman in Hamburg.

Following the murder in Hamburg,

the police are searching for two members of the Baader-Meinhof group,

Holger Meins and Gudrun Ensslin.

We do not support the practices of the Red Army Fraction.

But Ulrike Meinhof's political motives

are 100% more preferable to those of the people in power

who legitimise the methods of the Gestapo again.

We shall fight, we shall win, capitalism will lose.

To this "We shall win"

we answer "Never"!

All of those who have survived brown fascism

would never have imagined that 25 years later,

young people could believe such stupid words and slogans.

Red fascism, according to the left-wing sociologist Habermas,

is in no way different from brown fascism.

The sympathisers of this left-wing fascism,

Böll, Brückner and other so-called intellectuals,

are like the Nazi ideologists who led our country to ruin.

All these idiots on TV who've drunk too much

associate my name with bombers.

If you speak of security, you must also speak

of the security of the intellectuals who have a great deal of responsibility.

They must analyse things and put them into perspective.

If this continues,

there'll be an intellectual desert.

Everyone is afraid. Your colleagues in the press and the radio

are afraid

and discouraged.

You ask intellectuals, lawyers,

and filmmakers to be worse than Bild.

A provincial worker with a wife, 2 children, a car, TV and garden.

He can be considered a typical West German worker.

It's him and his freedom from capitalist repression

that are targeted by the RAF manifesto.

Extract from "The Armed Struggle in Western Europe"

Today, a revolutionary theory can only be established

by those who, thanks to their class position,

can assimilate intelligently past experiences

and the resulting historic knowledge,

who have the capacity for abstraction,

permitting the analysis, interpretation and generalisation

of the experiences of the present class struggle

at an intellectually objective level.

End of quotation.

Which worker understands that? Who's still a "proletarian"?

Or rather: who considers himself "proletarian"?

In Frankfurt on May 11,

3 bombs explode at the US army HQ.

The bombing leave 1 dead and 14 injured.

In a communiqué, the RAF demands the end of the Vietnam war.

The next day, two bombs explode in the police station in Augsburg.

6 are injured. At the same time, in Munich,

a car explodes outside the criminal police HQ.

10 injured, some severely.

3 days later, on May 15, in Karlsruhe,

the car of the judge investigating the RAF explodes.

His wife is seriously injured.

On May 19, the Springer publishing house

is the target of an attack. Several bombs explode.

38 people injured:

workers, typesetters and proofreaders, of whom 19 seriously.

Heidelberg, May 24.

Just after 6 pm, two bombs explode here.

The spot is a scene of desolation:

destroyed cars, broken windows, crumbling walls, torn trees...

Three hours after the explosion, the press officer in charge

makes a short declaration in English, followed by its German translation.

The bombs exploded at intervals of 15 seconds.

The first explosion caused 3 deaths.

The attack destroyed the computer

for the coordination of US bombings in Vietnam.

The deaths and injuries accelerated a political polarisation in society.

The terrorist hunt occupied almost the whole police force

and hypnotised the public.

Wanted: the Baader-Meinhof group.

If you want to stay alive,

you have only one solution: obey us.

Put your hands up and come out one by one.

You won't get hurt.

We're more patient than you. Much more.

We're in the best place.

Come out! What are you waiting for?

Holger Meins is the first to come out.

A second, injured by a bullet, is brought out.

Andreas Baader, the leader.

Ensslin's arrest is a second great success

for the police in a short period.

According to the state prosecutor,

she had 2 pistols on her when arrested.

Both resisted, especially the woman.

Thanks to an X-Ray of her skull

and a Caesarean scar,

we were able to identify Ulrike Meinhof.

Ulrike Meinhof, Carl Raspe and Astrid Proll,

imprisoned in Cologne, are subjected to severe restrictions.

Deprived of contact with other prisoners and of any social activities,

they are only allowed half an hour of exercise, alone.

The prison's psychiatrist indicated

that medically speaking, this kind of isolation

is harmful for a human being.

Do the judges want to show them the "strong arm of the law"?

How can prisoners in isolation signify to the authorities,

should they so wish, that they've changed their attitude?

How, if any sign of life is forbidden?

Prisoners in isolation have only one way

of indicating that their attitude has changed:

betrayal.

There are two options in isolation. Either...

- It's irrelevant! - I want to discuss it.

Either they're forced to silence, which leads to death,

or they're forced to talk, confess and betray. That's torture.

Torture through isolation is aimed at extorting a confession,

intimidating, punishing and destabilising prisoners.

Silence!

Good evening.

We don't know why Holger Meins is dead.

Only ideologists know why, they always know.

This member of the Baader-Meinhof group has died after a 56-day hunger strike.

All social democrats

deplore each victim

of blind ideologies.

An independent commission will conduct an inquiry,

but you must remember

that Mr Meins was a member of a violent group

which caused other people's deaths,

namely the Baader-Meinhof group.

Given the suffering caused to our citizens,

they will not wait for their trial

in a convalescent home.

They must make do with prison conditions.

Chancellor Schmidt

Terrorists have no rights over the freedom of others.

To protect a state founded on the rule of law,

you must be ready to go to the limits

this state proposes and imposes.

Hunger strikes and attacks have provoked

a parliamentary vote on the rights of the accused and their lawyers:

excluding barristers, banning collective defence,

limiting the number of barristers, trying the accused in their absence.

Mrs Meinhof, you may speak

when the Senate has decided if it excludes you or not.

We shall not forget what you are doing today.

You cannot continue with this trial

with false witnesses and reconstructions.

You cannot hide the fact that we can't participate in this trial,

because we've been tortured for over three years.

- Mrs Meinhof... - Dirty...

...is disrupting the audience

by her interventions and we expect her to continue.

- Take Mrs Meinhof out. - This is impossible behaviour!

- It's fascism. - Mr Raspe, don't speak out of turn!

Is the microphone on?

Take the accused out!

Channel 1, Germany, tonight's news.

Good evening.

The anarchist Ulrike Meinhof

has committed suicide.

She was found dead in her cell in Stammheim prison.

The prisoner hanged herself from the bars in her cell.

An autopsy was ordered.

Here are

the last images of her.

You can see a corpse on the ground

that has fallen out of the car.

It was difficult to gather information.

The police were rather shocked, rather at a loss.

All the police and security who witnessed this attack

couldn't make a statement as they're all dead.

Schleyer, the president of the employers' union, was in this car.

10 minutes ago, I was told he wasn't there anymore,

he wasn't one of the corpses, he'd been taken away.

Two days later, the terrorists announce their demands:

they demand 11 prisoners of the Baader-Meinhof group be freed.

The accused are probably among this evening's audience.

They can be jubilant and feel they're all-powerful.

But they mustn't be mistaken.

There is no future for terrorism.

For terrorism has determined adversaries:

the state and the German people are against it.

What happened today proves

that a pack of murderers, blinded by rage,

acts in our country

and wages a war against our people and our civilisation.

These people are enemies of our freedom and democracy.

Terrorism has been able to develop,

because left-wing intellectuals,

journalists, politicians, professors

have trivialised the danger

by trying to understand the anti-establishment.

They've thus widened the circle of sympathisers.

Are critical people only those

who want to destroy and transform our society,

who advocate the theory of conflict,

who drive young people to hatred and revolt

against their parents, natural authority,

the Church, school, all our society's institutions?

Are they critical people? No, they're destructive people,

intellectual bombers, not critical people!

There is a great difference between critical and destructive people.

I am speaking especially to our foreign guests,

because I want them to help us.

He who compares the methods

for fighting against terrorism

with those of a police state in the days of the Gestapo,

or he who thinks there's fascism here,

helps our adversaries.

He helps Hitler's children!

A Lufthansa plane was hijacked this afternoon.

We've no information as to the motivation of the hijackers.

There are four of them, originating from Arab countries.

On board there are 86 passengers

and 5 crew members.

The hijackers demand the liberation

of West Germany's political prisoners.

Stop your sinister operation.

You are wrong!

We refuse to be contaminated by your madness.

You take yourselves for a small elite,

predestined to free the masses.

You are wrong! The masses are against you!

- Hang them from the first tree you see! - I agree.

Shoot them while they're running away!

Stand them in a line and shoot them all with a machine-gun!

Kill them!

At first, when Schleyer was the only hostage,

I thought we should sacrifice him.

But since yesterday's hijacking,

I said to myself, the government could not sacrifice the hostages.

We should negotiate, but at the same time I wondered

that if we accept their conditions,

we'll never have any latitude for action.

We'll be in a stranglehold.

What if it were my family in the plane?

Not Schleyer. He's secondary.

The plane must be taken by assault.

They've already killed one of the pilots

and they'll kill the others.

The plane must be taken by assault, or it'll never stop.

Midnight on Radio Germany.

We bring you a news flash.

A special commando has launched

an operation at Mogadishu airport.

The Lufthansa hostages have been set free.

They are dead.

Baader, Ensslin and Raspe.

They killed themselves in their cells.

She hanged herself,

Baader and Raspe shot themselves in the head.

Nobody knows how they got the guns.

An international commission must decide

if it was suicide or not.

Whatever I think, nobody could care less.

When the pilot

was killed in Mogadishu or in Aden,

you said that for each victim in Aden,

we should execute a terrorist in Stammheim.

- Yes, in public. - In public?

And that's democratic?

No. It wasn't democratic either

to hijack a plane and say: "We'll kill them one after the other."

If you'd have been there, what would you have thought?

You don't care about laws, but you call yourself a democrat!

- I do care about laws. - You said the opposite.

When such criminals...

There are situations when you don't care about laws

and you call yourself a democrat?

- But when these people... - No! Answer me first!

- They scorn the law, not me! - Like any murderer!

- Terrorists are also murderers. - Of course! So what?

The laws are the same for everybody!

But we manage to arrest the others and restrain them.

- They don't wreak such havoc. - No?

No?

Ordinary murderers often act for the wrong reasons.

But what worries you about terrorists is that you could understand them.

- Yes, but the means are not right. - So, we agree.

But you too couldn't care less about laws!

I was so indignant...

How can there be situations when you don't care who makes the laws?

And what laws!

Democracy is a form of state which is the most humane, yes or no?

It's the least evil.

The least evil?

At present it's really evil.

- Democracy? - Yes.

- Would authoritarianism be better? - No, in Germany today...

If it's the least evil, there must be something...

something good. What would that be?

The best thing would be an authoritarian leader

who'd be good, agreeable and reasonable.

End credits 1 on 1, second.

Silence, please!

I did the sound for the Fritz Teufel demonstration.

I did the camera for the Fritz Teufel demonstration,

and for two Vietnam demonstrations.

I provided two extracts from my superb film "Berlin, June 2".

I provided film material.

I spoke the commentary.

I was the production manager and I tried to screw the police.

I supervised the script.

I did the rest.

Is that OK?

It's our duty if we want

to remain socialists,

to go and meet the masses and mingle with them.