Grenada. There was a lot going on in both Western Europe and the Third World, and yet following the release of the May Paper, the RAF remained silent and unseen.
While the precise details remain unknown, the fact of the matter is that the RAF was busy working with others to lay the groundwork for its front. Guerilla groups may be unique for their armed quality, but they remain a primarily political phenomenon. Implementing what was essentially a new strategy, the two years following the release of the May Paper would be without further RAF attacks, and yet they were far from being without activity.
This was also a period in which the relationship with the
Stasi
seems to have come to an end. According to Helmut Pohl, this happened in early 1984. As he would later explain, there had been sympathy there, but not any kind of ideological unity: âWe didnât care a wit about real existing socialism. The artificiality and the clichésâthat aspect created friction at every point. We were probably sometimes as unbearable for them as they were for us.â 35 Meanwhile, in the Middle East, thePFLP (EO)âs leader Waddi Haddad had been assassinated by Mossad in 1978, and his comrades-in-arms were embarking on different trajectories. The Palestinian scene which had been providing the RAF with support was in flux, and while the West Germans retained connections in the region, South Yemen suddenly seemed a little further away. Yet while these foreign ties were perhaps reduced, other links were being forged, and clandestine structures extended, as the guerilla repositioned itself for campaigns to come.
In mid-September 1982, it was reported that three RAF members had successfully robbed a bank in Bochum making off with 100,000 DM . 36 What was planned next remains unclear, as the state was about to score a major victory.
At some point in October, the BKA located a RAF supply cache outside of Frankfurt. Among other things, they found a series of coded documents, which they quickly shipped off to the Wiesbaden headquarters. Within forty-eight hours the code had been cracked, allowing the BKA to locate a series of similar depots in wooded areas throughout the FRG. 37 Besides a large quantity of fake driverâs licenses and passports, military IDs, guns, as well as notes about various prisons, police stations, politicians, and Israeli and U.S. institutions, these depots provided the perfect opportunity to trap members of the guerilla, for none of the discoveries were made public. 38 Under the rubric
Operation Eichhörnchen
(âOperation Squirrelâ), GSG-9 agents and MEK special police units were deployed around each of these locales, and an indefinite stakeout ensued.
On November 11, Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Heidi Schulz were captured as they approached a cache outside the town of Heusenstamm, close to Frankfurt. Although they were armed, they were taken by surprise and overpowered before they could defend themselves.
Left to right: Heidi Schulz, Christian Klar, and Brigitte Mohnhaupt; all captured in November 1982.
Five days later, Christian Klar was similarly captured as he approached an arms cache outside of Hamburg. He too was armed, butdid not put up a fight, leading to media propaganda that he must have been despondent following the capture of his companions the week before. Indeed, Attorney General Rebmann gloated that he was âastonishedâ that Klar, âa man so sensitive to police hunts and such a practiced criminal could have made this mistake after the events in Frankfurt last week.â 39
In the wake of these arrests, houses were searched throughout the FRG, and several anti-imps were arrested, including Dag Maaske and Karin Avdic who had worked on the 1978 Russell Tribunal, as well as Peter Alexa, who had been one of the dpa occupiers. (Most of these would be released almost immediately, with the exception of Maaske, police claiming that his fingerprints had been found on a sketch
While the precise details remain unknown, the fact of the matter is that the RAF was busy working with others to lay the groundwork for its front. Guerilla groups may be unique for their armed quality, but they remain a primarily political phenomenon. Implementing what was essentially a new strategy, the two years following the release of the May Paper would be without further RAF attacks, and yet they were far from being without activity.
This was also a period in which the relationship with the
Stasi
seems to have come to an end. According to Helmut Pohl, this happened in early 1984. As he would later explain, there had been sympathy there, but not any kind of ideological unity: âWe didnât care a wit about real existing socialism. The artificiality and the clichésâthat aspect created friction at every point. We were probably sometimes as unbearable for them as they were for us.â 35 Meanwhile, in the Middle East, thePFLP (EO)âs leader Waddi Haddad had been assassinated by Mossad in 1978, and his comrades-in-arms were embarking on different trajectories. The Palestinian scene which had been providing the RAF with support was in flux, and while the West Germans retained connections in the region, South Yemen suddenly seemed a little further away. Yet while these foreign ties were perhaps reduced, other links were being forged, and clandestine structures extended, as the guerilla repositioned itself for campaigns to come.
In mid-September 1982, it was reported that three RAF members had successfully robbed a bank in Bochum making off with 100,000 DM . 36 What was planned next remains unclear, as the state was about to score a major victory.
At some point in October, the BKA located a RAF supply cache outside of Frankfurt. Among other things, they found a series of coded documents, which they quickly shipped off to the Wiesbaden headquarters. Within forty-eight hours the code had been cracked, allowing the BKA to locate a series of similar depots in wooded areas throughout the FRG. 37 Besides a large quantity of fake driverâs licenses and passports, military IDs, guns, as well as notes about various prisons, police stations, politicians, and Israeli and U.S. institutions, these depots provided the perfect opportunity to trap members of the guerilla, for none of the discoveries were made public. 38 Under the rubric
Operation Eichhörnchen
(âOperation Squirrelâ), GSG-9 agents and MEK special police units were deployed around each of these locales, and an indefinite stakeout ensued.
On November 11, Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Heidi Schulz were captured as they approached a cache outside the town of Heusenstamm, close to Frankfurt. Although they were armed, they were taken by surprise and overpowered before they could defend themselves.
Left to right: Heidi Schulz, Christian Klar, and Brigitte Mohnhaupt; all captured in November 1982.
Five days later, Christian Klar was similarly captured as he approached an arms cache outside of Hamburg. He too was armed, butdid not put up a fight, leading to media propaganda that he must have been despondent following the capture of his companions the week before. Indeed, Attorney General Rebmann gloated that he was âastonishedâ that Klar, âa man so sensitive to police hunts and such a practiced criminal could have made this mistake after the events in Frankfurt last week.â 39
In the wake of these arrests, houses were searched throughout the FRG, and several anti-imps were arrested, including Dag Maaske and Karin Avdic who had worked on the 1978 Russell Tribunal, as well as Peter Alexa, who had been one of the dpa occupiers. (Most of these would be released almost immediately, with the exception of Maaske, police claiming that his fingerprints had been found on a sketch
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