Q. The discussion that we wish to have with you is truly a
new experience for all of us. We hope to obtain answers to questions
that we
and, certainly, others are asking ourselves. The principle points are
the
political developments during and after the prisoners’ hunger strike
and,
specifically, the steps taken towards the development of the European
front.
To start immediately with concrete matters: the attacks against Audran
and
Zimmermann, which translated the ideas developed in your common
statement
with AD [1] into reality -
could
you again say something about what was behind this?
A. For AD and ourselves it was necessary to attack the driving
force for the European imperialist project through these actions: the
Paris-Bonn axis. The essentials regarding this can be found in our
joint text and in the communiqués. The actions were building
blocks for the West European revolutionary strategy - as is also
crucial for us now - to directly begin to build the political and
military base for the West European front, for the strategic unity of
revolutionaries in West Europe. In the joint text, we have spelled out
the fundamental determining factors. To push this process forward, to
transform our resolve into action in a directed and organized way, is
what we have begun with Audran and Zimmermann, and this will be
our orientation in the future, following this first successful
breakthrough.
Q. What was the function of these two figures, that is Audran
and Zimmermann? There isn't much information in the communiqués.
A. Both were key links in the military-economic structure of
West
Europe, Audran as head of International Affairs for the Minister of
Defense
[2], Zimmermann as the president of
the
Bundesverband der Deutschen Luff-, Raumfahrt-, and
Ausrustungsindustrie
(BDLI) [3]. The BDLI is the
political organization of the military-industrial complex in the FRG [4]. All of the arms manufacturers are
members - to mention only the most important: MBB, Kraus-Maffer,
Dornier, MTU – as are the electronics companies, such as Siemens, AEG,
Philips, and the steel and chemical corporations. The association is
financed by the large German banks and the Alliance.
The BDLI collaborates directly with NATO as a member of the Industrial
Councilors Group (NIAG) and in the European Armament Industries Group
(EDIG), which
are part of IEPG (Independent European Program Group). This is where
the
most important arms manufacturers in the US, Canada and West Europe
participate directly in military planning. In practice, they combine
military strategy with the strategy of multinational capital, planning
the research and development of new conventional, electronic and
nuclear weapons, and discussing industrial transformation.
In the FRG itself, the BDLI works with the Ministers of Defense, of
Research
and of Economics, and with the Office of Arms Technology and
Development (BWB)
of the Bundeswehr[5].
Zimmermann also sat on the Armaments Economic Work Group, where leaders
of
the German corporations meet regularly with representatives of the
Ministers
of Defense and the Generals of the Bundeswehr.
At the same time he was Vice-President of AECMA, that is the European
Association
of Aerospace and Aviation Industries, in which the arms manufacturers
cooperate.
Zimmermann represented the type of businessman who "thinks and acts
transnationally."
Welt[6] wrote on this
subject on
February 2nd: "The head of the MTU is said to favour a tighter
Franco-German
and European aerospace cooperation on both the technical and the
technological
levels." And Figaro[7], on
February
6th wrote: "For the Paris-Bonn axis, pivot of a strong West Europe,
based
on strategic defense and the growth of the armaments industry,
Zimmermann
was the privileged interlocutor of the Minister of Defense for
Franco-German
military cooperation and was involved in the corresponding
technologies."
Q. “Privileged interlocutor;” he was probably principally
this in his function as the head of the BDLI, and because he sat on
many important European institutions. It remains the case that one can
obtain very little information from the media. Part of the excitement
after the action took
the form of claiming he was a "simple" arms dealer, like a thousand
others,
so as to make the action seem to be just an "undirected emergency
response." Tell us again precisely what the BDLI, IEPG, etc. are?
A. We have here quotes from a "memorandum on the future of
aeronautics in the FRG," published by the BDLI in 1984. The demands of
capital are formulated exactly as they are now supported by Kohl [8] and Mitterand [9]. The BDLI clearly states that they demand a
"European security policy," increased cooperation with France, and,
starting from there, with other European countries, and they demand
from the Federal Government "significant budget increases". They
want to share the dominant position with the US, but, at the same time,
European cooperation is the precondition for a technological advantage
in
the world market. Again two quotes: "German cooperation must be
increased
to achieve transnational cooperation and a stronger meshing in Europe"
and
"As well, such cooperation drives political integration."
We won't enumerate all of the projects, satellites, helicopters, etc.;
everyone knows perfectly well about them; the newspapers are full of
such
details.
As for France, Audran was the one at the Ministry of Defense who pulled
all of the strings for the cooperation and export of arms, whereas it
was Zimmerman who fulfilled this function in the FRG, as the
representative of the Military-Industrial Complex.
Military cooperation is a road along which the European project is
driven.
Again, some information about the IEPG; in general, its function is to
bring about West European weapons integration, with the goal of
military
integration and politico-military coordination. Its extraordinary
significance
comes from the fact that France participated from the beginning, even
though
it wasn't officially integrated into the structure of NATO. Since its
foundation
in 1975, the IEPG has worked to standardize the arms systems of the
NATO
states, which is the condition for other common armaments projects, and
for
a tighter politico-military integration. It is within this project that
European
cooperation is determined.
So again, Audran and Zimmermann represent the process of concentration
of the capitalist commandos towards strategic-military ends. As we said
in the communiqué, they must concentrate on pushing a common
strategy
for the solution of the economic crisis and on safeguarding their
military
domination. That is to say, they must centre their planning on war.
Q. What were the reactions in the French media to your common
actions with Action Directe?
A. Well, the newspapers and the news were full of coverage. What
they said in a completely heavy-handed way was all this bullshit; that
we lead Action Directe, that there simply are no authentic
revolutionary politics in France, but that everything is directed from
outside. The same as with the CCC [10]
in Belgium. That was the line from the beginning; especially in Libération[11]. They say that formerly AD was
a militant antifascist group, which was okay, but now they are like us,
they talk like us, have been consumed by us. Therefore, it’s all over.
It is clear why
it is like that. They wish to avoid a political discussion. There is
nothing left, no arguments, only this feeble propaganda. Another thing
that they
said was that all the armed groups are so weak and defeated that they
must
unify their logistics and commandos, but nobody really believes this.
They
were blown away everywhere when the joint text was published. In
France,
they quoted much of the text, at first without commentary. From
mid-January,
there were daily reports about the hunger strike and the actions in the
FRG
and other European countries and, we have heard, new BKA [12] posters on TV each night. After the action
against
Audran, it was widely published that we had done it and AD had only
claimed
it, and other things of that sort. They rationalized this by the fact
that
the commando was called Elisabeth von Dyck [13] and that the statement was sent to DPA [14] in two languages. Come on!
Q. You said at the beginning that the Paris-Bonn axis is the
driving force of the imperialist project in. Europe. What exactly do
you
mean by that?
A. When we say the European project and its military nucleus,
that is to say, constructing the West European project as the strategic
centre for imperialist reconstruction, two points are important.
They have been trying to unite Europe as a politico-economic
nucleus for thirty years now. Today, the situation is
such that there
are, in essence, two issues for them. One is the military structure
directed
towards the exterior, that is to say, the placing of medium range
missiles.
It is all of the military projects, as they are enumerated in the joint
text and the communiqués from AD and ourselves. All of these
projects
exist as a result of the politico-military cooperation between the FRG
and
France. The other issue is the unified campaign of war, under the
leadership
of the USA, which now proceeds and is visible at a new level. We will
come
back to that later.
Military policy is the driving force for the economy and for politics,
for European integration; one can also see this in other areas. All of
their
efforts to arrive at a solution to the economic crises - unemployment,
etc.
- at the heart of the European community and formulate an "autonomous
European policy" have failed, as have all of their efforts to mobilize
people here for their project. What remains and what continues to
function is the military cooperation within NATO and the concentration
of capital on weapons production and new technologies, and on expanding
the police and secret service structures, the coordination of the war
against the revolutionary struggle or, to put it differently, the
"internal line of defense." They are now at a decisive point, and that
creates a significant opening for the anti-imperialist struggle, an
opening from which, given the developments of the recent months, we can
act. The question we face is whether they will succeed in pushing
through their military strategy. They know full well that they have
lost support
for their aggressive policy and that their cover is more and more
damaged
with each revolutionary action. What's more, they fear not being able
to
get a handle on the growing crises within the metropoles themselves.
There
are already twenty million unemployed today, and in January, in two
weeks,
more than two hundred men froze to death in West Europe. They are now
increasingly destroying the "social safety net" with which they have
until now controlled the tendency towards poverty, above all here in
the FRG. They are destroying it for the benefit of their military
project, because they can't finance
it in any other way. In other words, we face the militarization of
society,
control and manipulation throughout Europe. The structuring of
publicity,
for example, via the "new media" can bring the dominant ideology to
even
the smallest Greek village, where people may have no work and little to
eat,
but they do have televisions with 12 channels. In other words, the
bourgeoisie’s
ideal fantasy is unemployed people, "retired people," who are tied to
their
cable TV and chained to their beer. This simply expresses all of the
contempt
of this class.
These are just a few examples of the different centres where the
contradictions will worsen. Our current breakthrough came just in time.
Q. Would you also say that about the hunger strike? For many
people it looked like this: the action followed by the end of the
hunger
strike [15].
A. Shit, no. We didn't do the action to "stop" the hunger
strike. It was the practical step for the West European front. This is
what we have worked for and why we have carried out the actions. We
have achieved everything. In 81, we said the guerrilla, the struggle of
the prisoners from the guerrilla and the struggle of the
anti-imperialist militants are lines that shape,
or will shape, the unity of the revolutionary front in West Europe. We
have
integrated the political effect, the mobilization begun by the
prisoners'
struggle, into our actions and have developed this dynamic into a
breakthrough
for the West European guerrilla. This has nothing to do with the
campaign
of psychological warfare lies repeated throughout the hunger strike;
the
prisoners directing the outside, or, more clearly, directing the
actions
from their cells. On this subject, the BAW [16] and the BKA have always cited a "Strategy Paper"
that
they found in an apartment in Frankfurt. From us, there was no 84
Strategy
Paper. What they found was a discussion paper of some militants, in
which
they developed their own ideas about their practice and the struggle of
the
prisoners and how they could unite the two. The purpose of this
campaign
of psychological warfare is clear; they now want to push to the limit
their
strategy to annihilate the prisoners, and to legally establish the
existence
of a "united RAF" so as to be able to further isolate the prisoners.
But
on this subject the prisoners have already said everything that needs
to
be said. We won't repeat it here.
Q. In their statement ending the hunger strike, the prisoners
said,
"the breakthrough in the direction of the West European dimension of
revolutionary
practice necessarily provokes a united 'strategic', firm reaction from
the
entire chain of imperialist states."
Yes, this is important. We know this from Belgian newspaper articles,
from at least mid-January. And it was in this situation - the hunger
strike,
the failed action in Oberammergua [17],
the Belgian actions, the militant campaign during the Christmas-New
Year
period, the text from AD and ourselves - that the NATO Security
Committee
involved themselves directly. In this context the secret service
organizations
and the "anti-terrorist specialists" of the NATO states work together.
They
plan and coordinate measures against the revolutionary struggle here.
They
have been permanently in session from that time on, and for the first
time
the French Secret Services are officially involved because of "the
increase
of terrorist attacks against the institutions of West European defense
and
the joint text of the terrorist groups AD and the RAF have caused great
anxiety" (Le Soir, Belgium). Parallel to this, the statement of
the
US government, of the State Department, that they fear more attacks and
request that the western states "unite in the struggle against
international
terrorism." With regard to that, we should go over what has happened
over
the past year in this regard. Reagan's "Anti-Terror Directive" raised
preventive
and retaliatory strikes against guerrillas throughout the world to the
level
of a State doctrine. And for the first time, the coordination of
counterinsurgency
was made subordinate to a Military High Command. What's more, special
squads
were established, trained and prepared for action on all continents.
Over
the past year, the US Minister of Foreign Affairs Schultz, has
described
West Europe, the Middle East and Latin America as the three fronts -
centers
of revolutionary struggle - and we have a situation where the West
European
guerilla is on the offensive. By the reaction of the West European
governments
now, it has become clear that the line of conducting a unified war has
become
the global logic of the chain of imperialist states. The question of
how
the European governments can act against our breakthrough is now
discussed
at all of the international meetings - the Ministers of Foreign Affairs
for NATO, for example, or the secret meetings of the Military Supreme
Commanders
of NATO, such as the one in Copenhagen… everywhere, even at the
managers
symposium in Davos. Mainly, what this means is the creation of a common
political line. After the Audran action, occurring at the same time as
the
FP-25 attacks [18] in Portugal,
the relationship
between the United states and Europe became obvious when Schultz
intervened,
yet again, directly in European politics; a logical reaction, because
for
them it is war. That was the cutoff point. The confrontation was
suddenly
on a new level; the West European guerrilla versus the entire
imperialist
raison d'etre. At that point, it was no longer a question of whether to
satisfy the demands of the prisoners or not. Their decision was to push
back our breakthrough by murdering the prisoners. One must be clear
that
they had decided to allow the prisoners to die. For the Federal
Government,
it was no longer a question of whether to accept the political price,
the
price for them if they liquidated the prisoners, but whether the
imperialist
chain, specifically the West European governments, should combine their
efforts
against the guerrilla here. And that means militarily, because they
have
already lost politically against the armed struggle here, as all of
their
illusions of an end to the guerrilla struggle here have been destroyed.
Regarding
this it is necessary to understand the bomb at the large, crowded
department
store in Dortmund. As long as we've existed, and now against the entire
resistance,
the Secret Service has organized such actions, has used them, has
carried
them out themselves. Today, they are less certain that there are not
more
and more people who find our actions and those of the militants just.
As
such, no options remain for them except to wage their violent
psychological
war against the people, who must be made to fear us. In
this
same regard, they offer a reward of a million DM to those who
collaborate with the cops.
If US representative Schultz says, frankly, "Innocent people may also
die
in the struggle against terrorism," that implies exactly such
counter-actions.
Dortmund was directed against the mobilization during the hunger
strike,
against the political nature and the clarity of the actions [19]. It is clear beyond a doubt that
it was the cops themselves
who claimed it as "Action Christian Klar."[20] Even TAZ[21]
played a leading role.
And another thing in this context; when the airplane hijacking happened
in
Tehran in December, the US government concentrated their navy and put
the
RDF [22] in position. The Iranian
government
was threatened with direct intervention if they didn't put an end to
the
hijacking. This was the context in which the US State Department
announced
that the US would henceforth carry out retaliatory actions in the
Middle
and Far East. We stress this, because it shows how intense the current
situation
is. They have brought the war to a new level, and this is a condition
that
we must take into account, that is to say, that we must anticipate in
practice.
The decision of the prisoners was perfectly just.
Q. You also say that for the imperialist states it was a
decision with regards to implantation.
A. That is a phrase from the statement breaking off the hungers
strike, which the guy from the TAZ got so worked up about,
because
he hoped to score some political points from the prisoners' struggle.
After
everything we've said, this should be clear. There exists, for the
imperialist
states, which are in substantial crisis, only one strategy and only one
objective, stopping the world revolutionary process. This strategic
military
objective is directed both internally and externally, and they must
carry
it through even at the cost of sharpening the contradictions between
the
state and society and taking another step towards fascism.
Q. You haven't said anything about the Oberammergau action.
A. For us, it is clear that the need to attack NATO and American
military strategy must cut across our entire revolutionary process. It
must always be a cornerstone of revolutionary strategy. The first step
towards the unification of the anti-imperialist struggle in Western
Europe was the series of attacks against the NATO-US war strategy. Many
people are now aware of what NATO policy means. We wanted to continue
in this vein with the attack against the SHAPE School. We wanted to
bring the struggle to a new level, as we have said, to the real level
of the war. In this school, directly subordinate to the Headquarters in
Brussels, the cadre of the integrated leadership
of NATO are trained, amongst other things, in how to carry out
conventional
and nuclear war. These are the superior officers; most from the US and
other
NATO states. To hit them directly was the goal of the action.
Q. Why do you think it is that the action did not succeed?
A. We planned it like this: somebody drove in a car and parked
it next to the school in the parking lot. The SHAPE School is isolated
on a
section of Bundeswehr Administrative School property.
We did not think that the Budeswehr soldiers would know which US
soldiers
belonged there and which did not, so there would be no problem leaving
once
inside. The issue was getting past the door, and this was the reason
for
the chosen cover. If something went wrong, we needed to be able to
protect
the person driving the car. To drive a car in, park, return; all of
that
was no problem. But as we later learnt, just when one of us passed the
door
an officer of the Bundeswehr, the replacement chief at the
SHAPE School
arrived. He, of course, knew all of the soldiers and must have noticed
something
immediately. After that, they had one and a half hours to find the car
and
defuse the bomb. In any event, we didn't intend to say much about the
action,
because shortly after that our common text with AD was published, and
the
action would have been clearly understood in the light of Haig [23], Ramstein [24], Kroesen [25]
and
the entire mobilization against NATO in West Europe.
Q. There was a strong national and international mobilization
during the hunger strike. What do you think about this?
A. We have not yet had time to evaluate everything that
happened, but we can certainly say that there is now a stable base from
which we can act. What is so impressive is that so many groups and
individuals from different resistance movements – this was true in
other European countries as well
— joined in a common struggle with the prisoners.
This was the first offensive of the prisoners, the resistance and the
West
European guerrilla.
These experiences must now be built upon as a conscious beginning in
the
direction of the West European front.
Q.And what does this mean concretely? How will it continue?
A. With regards to reflections about "how it will continue," we
can only speak in general terms. These are concrete political and,
above
all, practical questions, which can only be answered and resolved in
practice. But this isn't a discussion for a newspaper, which takes
place under the
eyes of the cops. One can go into the political questions, but one
cannot
go into the more important issues, the questions of practice. What can
be
developed from this new base? As the prisoners have said, we must
develop
the unity of the resistance as the practical and political expression
of
what we have won together, and as the qualitative leap forward in the
revolutionary
struggles within the NATO states, the leap towards a West European
dimension.
Build the contacts and the structures that each individual and the
entire
resistance need, structures which set subjectivity free, in which the
practical
steps to build a real base are taken together by those who now have a
common
conception and a common desire oriented toward the attack. Build a base
beyond
the reach of the secret services, one which they have no chance of
infiltrating
- meaning: build the illegal organization of the front autonomously
from
within the resistance.
Q.That is to say then that it is possible for people to
organize themselves illegally in an autonomous way so as to struggle
along with you in the front, as is indicated in the communiqué
from the comrades
who carried out the action in Bonn against the "Technical Mission."
They
signed themselves "Illegal Militants."
A. No, it means more than that. What you are describing is only
part of it. The entire idea of the front is based on
self-determination,
on the force of independent political and practical organization by
groups
that carry out attacks to achieve their own goals. From our point of
view,
the activity and the growth of the front must occur in the illegal
context.
There is no blueprint or “master plan,” because the front is only
possible
as an open practical process. Those who struggle in the context of the
front,
or who want to, must organize themselves appropriately, oriented
towards
the practice which they desire, and as a function of that practice and
of
nothing else, and that must be done at all levels. It requires a
commitment
from each particular individual. In the case of the comrades who
carried
out the action in Bonn, that was the correct development from their
subjective
process and their practical conception. We can't discuss this in
general
terms; abstract debates about "illegality" make no sense. If it is
possible
for some "Illegal Militants," that will make the possibility clear for
others
who want this sort of practice for themselves.
Members of the Red Army Faction
April 85
Footnotes
N.B. All footnotes in this document were
added by the translator and editor. None are originally from the RAF.
[1] Action. Directe, French anti-imperialist
guerrilla group. [return to text]
[6] Welt - West German bourgeois news
daily. [return to text]
[7] Figaro - French bourgeois news daily. [return to text]
[8] Helmut Kohl - West German Chancellor and head
of the CDU, the Christian Democratic Party at the time. [return
to text]
[9] François Mitterand - French Prime
Minster and head of the Socialist Party at the time. [return
to
text]
[10] CCC - Cellules Communistes Combattantes
(Fighting Communist Cells), Belgian Marxist-Leninist guerrilla group. [return to text]
[11] Libération - French Social
Democratic news daily. [return to text]
[12] BKA - West German Federal Criminal Bureau.
The BKA produces regularly updated poster with photos of suspected RAF
members. These posters are hung in banks, post offices, train stations,
etc. [return to text]
[13] Elisabeth von Dyck - RAF member shot by
police in 1979. [return to text]
[15] On December l, 1984, the prisoners of the RAF
began a hunger strike for association. On February 1, 1985, the
Commando Patsy
O'Hara of the RAF executed Ernst Zimmermann, head of the BDLI and board
member
for many arms manufacturers. On February 2, the prisoners broke their
hunger
strike, feeling they had succeeded in encouraging the development of
the
West European front and, hence, had nothing more to gain. [return
to text]
[17] The RAF attempted to bomb the NATO training
school in Oberammergua in January 1985. The bomb was discovered and
defused. [return to text]
[18] The FP-25 was a guerrilla group that came into
existence in response to the military smashing of the 1975 revolution
in Portugal. [return to text]
[19] Refers to clandestine actions of aboveground
militants. [return to text]
[21]TAZ - left of center news daily in West
Germany. Prints RAF communiqués and statements, but is
scathingly
critical of the RAF in its editorials. [return
to text]
