This document was originally
translated by Arm the Spirit.
Statement Concerning The Attack On Weiterstadt Prison
March 30th 1993
Nothing has changed since the step we took in
our history, a step which we needed and wanted to take [1]. We are busy with a new process in which a social
counter-power from below can develop, and from which can come new
proposals for a revolutionary process of change. This requires a
discussion in which various people can find new foundations and common
criteria for this process. This is about building up a social
counter-power which can be a relevant force in a new international
struggle for changing the destructive relationships of capitalism.
Thus, we have to fully understand both the international situation as
well as the changed reality within our own society, and this process
must also "brush off all the old ideas (of the left)...", because only
through a very deep discussion can we come upon a proposal for how to
change the ruling relationships
in a revolutionary manner. Only out of this process can the questions
regarding
what forms of struggle and concrete organizing are necessary be
answered.
For us, this process, now as before, has
the highest priority. The necessity is obvious to us each moment as we
observe the continuing destructive development of the capitalist system
before our eyes. This system, for a long time now, has been responsible
for marginalization, for the material and social misery and death of
millions of people in the Three Continents [2]. Today, the fundamental crisis within this system
has reached a point where the destruction of living conditions within
the metropoles can no longer be avoided, and material and social misery
has become a reality for more and more people here, and many people
realize that this system's perspective can only mean hopelessness for
them. Given this situation, the lack of any decent alternative as a
social power has had catastrophic consequences. While the state
protects and advances the expansion and escalation of fascist and
racist mobilizations within the society and, for example, continues its
hate-campaign against refugees, a great number of now-visible
contradictions have been channeled in a reactionary direction because
our side has been hampered by isolation and disorganization.
Last August, we wrote a paper in which
we reflected upon our history and at the same time sketched out
criteria
and interests for the future; thoughts which had developed out of our
discussions from the past few years [3].
These thoughts are the starting-points for the discussion we'd like to
initiate. Naturally, new questions and interests have arisen. Although
our paper did not create much resonance, we would like to develop the
discussion both wider and deeper.
Parts of the women's movement criticized
us for not involving ourselves more in their discussions, and the same
applies to the discussion of racism. And also from certain monumental
events, for example those in Rostock [4],
it has become crucial for us to carry out this discussion more
diligently. Although even before the sharpening of living conditions
here and before the failure of the left as a political force and the
lack of perspective in so many people, the road was left open for the
rise of the fascists, on the other hand it's also clear that the roots
lie deeper as to why, even here in the metropoles, in the new Great
Germany, disappointment has gotten channeled to such a degree against
foreigners. Everyone needs to examine this closely. As one man from
Mozambique said: "In our country, people are poor, but that doesn't
mean
they turn around and hit the people lower than themselves." The
discussion of racism has to be a significant part of the build-up of
the counter-power from below, and it's something which can't stay stuck
in a ghetto or as something to be pushed off onto others, but rather it
has to be a question of personal consciousness, of how each individual
views and wants social change.
The Autonome-L.U.P.U.S. [5] group has critiqued the mistakes
made in the past in their book "The History of Racism and the Boat".
The write: "so obvious, and yet it seems today that the revolutionary
left of the last 20 years overlooked these obvious racisms, the
striving for 'specific German' characteristics... That which has become
impossible in leftist discussions of patriarchal conditions seems to be
no big deal when it comes to the question of German-ness: we don't have
anything to do with it."
The chances are great to do something
different today and to discover something new: the question of the
building of a counter-power from below is not exclusively a question
for white, German leftists, but rather a question of how people living
here can organize in common. And the population here is comprised of
people of different nationalities and skin colors.
"...the dialogue with black women need not take place in some
far-off land, but rather would be much easier and more intense if
carried out with women who live here in Germany. The history of
migrants and their knowledge from their nations of origin is just as
important for the understanding of internationalist associations as
their political opinions and their experiences with the racism and
sexism which they experience here are important for the understanding
of German society..."
-- from "Basta", Woman Against Colonialism
"...it was the 68-movement which took back that which fascism
had chased down and destroyed in Judaism and brought the left and its
culture, worth, and continuity back to life and justified these in West
Germany. And if today there is a revival of fascism, then it will
spread itself in the political-cultural vacuum which the left has
abandoned through its retreat from social responsibility and the new
proposal of values and attitudes."
-- Lutz Taufer, imprisoned RAF member
It is one duty of the left to find new
value and life in its praxis, despite the fact that what continually
comes
out in the society is that which 500 years of colonialism have
implanted
in the metropolitan consciousness: racist ideology. White supremacist
consciousness has led to the colonialist and imperialist exploitation
of the people of the
Three Continents for the past 500 years. This is still present in the
white
metropolitan consciousness, and the state and capital often mobilize
this
during times of crisis.
Racism means categorizing people as
"different" or "more-" and "less-valuable". This is how people who are
no longer needed or who will be still more exploited are categorized by
the capitalist production system.
The collapse of the social element among
people has led to the advance of racism. This collapse means a 24-hour
per day struggle among people for competition and the push to achieve,
according to the dictates of the capitalist system; people are robbed
of their own
criteria for worth, only to have them replaced by capitalism's
functional
standards - most effectively in the metropoles. This means, for
example,
a connection between achievement and labor as the defining standards
for
the worth of a human being: without a job, you're nothing... That is
today's
standard, and most people have become accustomed to living their entire
lives
according to an entirely pre-destined rhythm, lives in which there is
no
place for creativity and a desire for living.
This shows how, under this system, most
things are valued according to their relationship to physical matters,
which naturally means that it is most often women that are forced to
view their bodies as wares to be either consumed by men or turned
down...
It is and always has been the
practice of the ruling capitalist system to divide people with such
criteria and with 1,000 different divisions: the division between those
that are more- and
less-valuable; between those that are able to work and those that are
"shy
of work"; between black and white; between men and women; between young
and
old; between the sick, the weak, and the disabled and the strong and
healthy;
between the clever and the "dumb".
This destructive process has today
reached a dimension in which the society has been undergoing an
internal conversion.
A racist consciousness, and its
destructive process in the society, can only be combated and reversed
by means of struggles in which social conditions and values are put
forward and transformed. A perspective of revolutionary change can only
be realized in such processes. Either the left - and by that we mean
all those who are searching for ways of putting forward a humane way of
living both here and worldwide - must make
a new beginning, which has a relevance in the society - or the
initiative will remain on the right, with the fascists.
Either our side will develop a
base-movement from below, which is directed by solidarity and justice,
and by the struggle against this cold society and against poverty and a
lack of perspective, or the explosive contradictions will remain
destructive and the violence will
escalate, each person against the other.
There are leftists who don't want to
discuss these questions of social development - the questions which we
and others are posing - because they see them as reformist. Such false
discussions of revolutionary versus reformist are useless when it comes
to the re-orientation of revolutionary politics; and also holding onto
timeless truths won't give anyone any answers to the new questions of
today. At the same time, the notion that the revolution has to be
international is also banal - it's of no use to anyone, not even the
peoples of the east and the south.
The real questions start by asking
how our own social counter-power can be developed here, and how our
experiences and progress can be concretely transformed into a relevant
force in the international struggle and discussion. In this sense, we
can no longer look for a re-orientation as part of an international
grouping, because both in terms of content and superficiality, this is
absurd.
Getting stuck on orienting on
others to see how to tear things apart (or to see if it's better to
hold onto things) is an old manner of behavior of the German left. What
was positive about the discussions since April 10 of last year [6] was that within the radical-left, a
lot of old garbage - like competitive or limiting thinking, or the
obstinate retention of old manners of behavior - was scrutinized, and
now, since things are so open, they can finally be turned around.
The advantage of the re-orientation of
revolutionary politics is that now people are getting together,
organizing
and acting, people that actually want to learn new thoughts from one
another
and develop themselves.
Since we halted the escalation from our
side nearly one year ago, the state has heightened its pressure on
progressive individuals and the political opponents of this system;
attempts to search for a new way from out of the few struggled-after
spaces have been beaten back like never before. One prime example was
the counter-congress to the G-7 summit in Munich, which was hindered
before it started, making an international discussion impossible, and
also the demonstration there which was encircled by the police.
Anti-fascist organizations are
being criminalized and anti- fascist demonstrations, like the one last
summer in Mannheim, are beaten down.
Of course, there has to be a connection
between the hindering of self-determined proposals, the pursuit and
jailing of anti-fascists, and the rising strength of the fascist
mobilization.
The ruling powers know that all
measures which the present crisis forces them to take will only sharpen
the contradictions: societal collapse, rising housing shortages, rising
unemployment, crisis in the steel industry, crisis in the automobile
industry... - Reuter, the head of Daimler-Benz, talks of 30-50 years of
crisis - all of this will fall on the shoulders of the people. At the
same time, the state needs to get a
big mobilization for Great Germany behind it. When, for example,
federal troops
go into military action, like in the war in Iraq [7] and also against the Kurdish people - then the
Great German
state takes a different perspective and tries to get a big acceptance
here
for Germany's role as a military power - there's little difference
between this and the racist, white mobilization of the "German
citizens" on their boat, something which this society might one day
manage in the interest of the ruling capitalists.
While on the one hand they have drilled
the notion into people's minds that the foreigners and the refugees and
the
scrapping of the constitutional asylum clause are all part of "the
Germans' problem", and they thereby call the fascist mobilization into
the plan, on
the other hand there has been the ruling powers' fake side, like the
demonstration
against racial hatred held in Berlin at the end of last year. Also in
this
way, the state seeks to channel the many people who are opposed to the
fascist
attacks and murders. To insure that this movement does not develop into
a
movement of international solidarity of the oppressed against the
ruling
powers and their fascist attackers, a weeks-long media campaign was
initiated:
talk of violence, violence from the left being equated with violence
from
the right. Although last year alone there were attacks on foreign,
disabled,
and homeless people which left 17 people dead, Kohl [8] talks of the need to struggle against violence from
both the right and the left.
The jubilation of the ruling
powers upon the collapse of the state-socialist systems and the "big
victory" of the capitalist system has been silent for some time now -
this development has placed the capitalist system in its greatest
crisis. The ruling powers have no answers to this crisis - but this
doesn't mean that they won't continue with their inhumane plans and
measures in an attempt to regulate the situation, which is something
they cannot do.
It seems that the only line which they
have perfected is their struggle against the left. They feel that all
those
involved in an anti-fascist and anti-racist mobilization from below
against
the ruling interests need to be defeated. They want to prevent all
initiatives
in which people attempt to organize solutions to their problems by
means
of solidarity from below.
As a part of this, the state has
been taking revenge on old communists and anti-fascists, and the trial
and
imprisonment of Gerhard Boegelein [9] is exemplary of this process,
namely
that all resistance experiences from this century need to be wiped out.
And another part of this posture is revealed in the state's treatment
of
our imprisoned comrades.
We have often been criticized
because in our communiqué last April we linked our decision to
halt our actions to the situation of the prisoners, particularly to the
state's destructive stance.
We have always maintained that the
step in our history which we took was grounded in the necessity of
developing new foundations, and we stated that this necessity was
independent of the state's conduct. But from the beginning, it was
unclear how the state would react to the decrease in pressure from our
side, and that's why we left the option open of intervening, if
necessary, in order to place limits on the state's conduct. In August
'92 we wrote [10]:
"We will then decide on armed
intervention as a moment of pushing back and not as a further strategy.
We won't simply be made to revert to our old ways. This escalation is
not
in our interest. But the state has to realize that when it leaves no
other
option, we have the means, the experience, and the determination to
make
them take responsibility."
It's ridiculous to say that we were
making the question of the re-development of revolutionary politics
dependent on the prisoners. But the fact is, our step forced the state
to show its real intentions concerning freedom for the political
prisoners. This whole situation is a contradiction; we have to deal
with this and act within this. After all, we don't live in a vacuum.
After we removed the pressure from
our side, the state once again decided on an escalation against the
prisoners - the prosecution against Christian Klar [11] and the new wave of trials will put people away
for their entire lives; the decision to not release Bernd Roessner
early [12]; and the refusal of
prisoners based on the offer of release after submission to psychiatric
tests, whereby they would be forced to claim that their struggle, their
initiatives, their entire opposition was simple insanity.
The prisoners are not going to be
regrouped, because this would allow them to take part in discussion
processes and social processes - and there's even less chance of them
being released. Just as before, they are to be destroyed, and their
experiences in the struggle are to be kept distant from others. It has
become clear to us that a political decision demands that the state
turn away from its destructive stance and adopt a political attitude
with regard to the prisoner question - the state justice system has
shown that it does not have the political will to make this decision.
Of course, there are thousands of questions still on the table, and as
for a discussion of solidarity, in which our struggles and experiences
of the past 25 years can be learned from, decisions for the future can
be made, and from which common criteria for new proposals for a process
of change can be made, this discussion has hardly begun. But there are
fundamentals and things that are self-understood that need not be
questioned, and from which we proceed: for example, the relationship
between our prisoners and the reality that the state has tortured
political prisoners in isolation for
22 years - we are fighting for the freedom of these prisoners.
We will not say that we have been
looking for a new strategy while what happens to them in the meantime
does not fit in our concept. We can't start a new beginning or develop
new proposals separately from the question of how the freedom of our
comrades who have been imprisoned during the 22 years of our struggle
can be won. They have been in isolation cells and small groups for
18...22 years! There is no question: THEY MUST ALL BE FREE!
The question of whether the
freedom for all political prisoners can be pushed through with a common
effort by all left-wing and progressive people also, according to us,
has the significance of whether, in this phase of re-orientation, a
strong and self-conscious force, which will be a counter-power to the
ruling relationships, can be built
up. Anyone today that accepts powerlessness and is seeking cover,
because they think that our side is too weak - how can they then think
that we will be able to build up a force that can change the common
relationships?
With the Commando Katharina
Hammerschmidt, we attacked the prison in Weiterstadt and thereby
delayed the detention of people there by several years. With this
action, we sought to insert some political pressure against the firm
stance against our imprisoned comrades and to force the state to deal
with this question. But the pushing through of the demand for their
freedom requires various initiatives from many people. Over the last
year, we have sought, despite the absence of pressure from us, to keep
this question urgent. Sadly, those things that could have been put into
action and pushed to their limits were not taken up by the comrades of
the left-radical spectrum.
With our action, we have once again
increased this pressure and made the urgency real. We think that this
can be utilized.
"We demand the closure of the Weiterstadt prison! Weiterstadt was
conceived as a deportation prison and constructed accordingly..."
-- from a discussion paper by prisoners in
Stuttgart-Stammheim, Sept. '91
The Weiterstadt prison is exemplary of
how the state deals with the splintering and broadening contradictions:
more and more people are faced with prison, prison, prison - and this
prison
was also supposed to act as a deportation prison as a part of the
racist
state refugee policy.
In its technological perfection of
isolation and differentiation of imprisoned people, it was to be a
model
for the rest of Europe.
Weiterstadt, after Berlin-Ploetzenzee,
was to be the second fully-conceived maximum-security prison for women,
and it was being billed as "the most humane prison" in Germany. But
behind
this notion is hidden its scientifically further-developed concept of
the
isolation, differentiation, and total control of prisoners. It is the
principle
of reward and punishment in a high-tech form that forces prisoners to
be
disciplined and subordinate and which forces them, even if it means
breaking
them, to give their "cooperation".
The electronic surveillance system
was the most expensive and highly-developed in all of Europe, with
which
all aspects of the prison could be controlled and utilized for the
psychological program of destroying all attempts at solidarity,
friendship, and self-determined organization.
"Before the prisoners are divided into their various living
groups, they undergo a selection process. Here, a psychiatrist can
monitor their willingness to adapt or their level of resistance. On the
basis of these results,
the exact division of the prisoners into their living groups is decided
upon.
The living groups are set up hierarchically. They range from the
uncooperative
and unbreakable ones to those that can adapt. The goal: to have the
prisoners
go through a 'carrier' from the lowest levels (i.e., unadapted) to the
highest
(i.e., conformist) living groups."
-- from the info-paper "Bunte Hilfe", Darmstadt
Some women from Ploetze, who went on
hunger-strike to call for the abolition of the living group plan, wrote
the following:
"This situation is characterized by a level of control and
repression whose totality can hardly be imagined. Ploetze has been
conceptualized in this way, both architecturally and in terms of
personnel, so as to prevent contact between women or at least that
everything be recorded in detail. The women will be dispersed in forced
groupings separated from one another, and then it will be observed how
well they adapt and how they best can be made ready. Each isolated cell
has a two-way intercom, so that the women can
be acoustically monitored at all times. All of the hallways are
monitored by cameras, and the common areas, where the prisoners spend
their free time, have glass walls - in short, the perfect surveillance
over all living areas..."
With the lie of a "humane prison",
the Justice Department was hoping to get prisoners in other prisons
used
to the idea of their transfer to Weiterstadt. For years, they have
ignored
the demands of prisoners in Frankfurt-Preungsheim, announcing instead
that
Weiterstadt would be open in '93. What does the demand to dismantle the
brutal
cement display in Preungsheim have to do with Weiterstadt? It's not
merely
the claim that the prisoners' conditions would be changed in
Weiterstadt
(where there transfer was already planned) that is contradicted by
reality.
It has proved that their answer to developments in the society is to
build
more and more prisons (because Preungsheim was not going to be closed
down,
just renovated) and more places of detention to jail more and more
people.
The construction of prisons is no
solution for the (Preungsheim) prisoners. Their demands must be
fulfilled - prisons must be torn down.
Freedom For All Political Prisoners!
Free All HIV+ Prisoners!
Close All Isolation Units!
We Greet All Those Who Are Struggling In The Prisons For Their
Human Rights - In Preungsheim, Santa Fu, Ploetzenzee, Rheinbach,
Stammheim, Straubing...
Solidarity With The International Prisons Struggle!
The Path To Liberation Is Part Of A Social Change Process, Which
Must Be Part Of A New International Struggle For Change! Fight
Against The Racism Of The State And The Nazis!
Remove The Racist Consciousness In The Society Through The Struggle For
The Social Element Among People - Also For This Do We Need A
Base-Movement From Below, Which Is Directed By Solidarity And Justice
And The Struggle
Against The Cold Society, Poverty, And The Lack Of Perspective!
For A Society Without Prisons!
Commando Katharina Hammerschmidt Red Army
Faction
March 30, 1993
PS: The notion that we protected the lives of the guards and the
low-level justice officials only out of "tactical concerns" or that
they could thank Kinkel for their lives is, of course, a lie. The RAF
has no interest in wounding or killing such people. This lie is also in
line with the fact that the
BAW [13] forgot to mention the
warning
notices which we painted all over the prison's outer perimeter -
although
they usually like to parade every piece of evidence they have.
Footnotes
N.B. All footnotes in this document were
added by the editor. None are originally from the RAF.
[1] On April 10th 1992 the RAF issued its
declaration “To All Who Are Looking For Ways to Organize and to Push
Through a Human Life in Dignity Here and Worldwide On Really Concrete
Issues” in which it announced that it would no longer be attacking
representatives of capital and the State. (This can be read at http://www.germanguerilla.om/red-army-faction/documents/92_04_10.html).
[return to text]
[2] Three Continents: refers to Africa, Asia and
South America. [return to text]
[3] This paper, “We Must Search For
Something New”, can be viewed at http://www.germanguerilla.om/red-army-faction/documents/92_08.html
[return to text]
[4] In August 1992 there were five nights of
violent mass attacks on a refugee center in the town of Rostock in the
state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania. Over 1,000 people participated in
these racist riots under the watchful eyes of the police. They were
followed by the German State adopting tighter anti-immigrant
legislation. [return to text]
[5] Autonome LUPUS was an autonomist anti-racist
group. [return to text]
[6] On April 10th 1992 the RAF issued its
declaration “To All Who Are Looking For Ways to Organize and to Push
Through a Human Life in Dignity Here and Worldwide On Really Concrete
Issues” in which it announced that it would no longer be attacking
representatives of capital and the State. (This can be read at http://www.germanguerilla.om/red-army-faction/documents/92_04_10.html).
[return to text]
[7] The first Gulf War, in 1991. [return to text]
[8] Helmut Kohl, was Chancellor of Germany from
1982 to 1998 (West Germany between 1982 and 1990) and the chairman of
the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973-1998. [return
to text]
[9] In 1992 a German court sentenced the
76 year old anti-fascist Gerhard Boegelein to life in prison for having
allegedly killed a former Wehrmacht judge in a Soviet prison camp in
1947
- despite the fact that no direct evidence existed. Gerhard Bogelein
died
in 1993 as a consequence of his imprisonment. [return to
text]
[10] This paper, “We Must Search For Something
New”, can be viewed at http://www.germanguerilla.om/red-army-faction/documents/92_08.html
[return to text]
[11] Christian Klar was accused along with
Peter-Jürgen Boock of an action to obtain money in Zurich
(Switzerland) in 1979. During this action one passer-by was killed and
a car-owner was seriously injured. Peter-Jurgen Boock subsequently
renounced his ties to the RAF and accused Klar of being responsible for
the shootings. [return to text]
[12] Bernd Rössner was a member of the
Holger Meins Commando which occupied the West German embassy in
Stockholm in April 975, in an unsuccessful attempt to secure the
liberation of RAF prisoners held in West Germany. [return
to text]
[13] BAW: Public Affairs Office. [return
to text]
