Violent turn of German New Left and failure of urban guerrilla politics

By Harsh Thakor* 

On May 9 this year, the 50th death anniversary of Ulrike Meinhof was commemorated by sections of the radical left in Europe and elsewhere. Meinhof remains one of the most controversial political figures in postwar German history. To supporters, she symbolized uncompromising resistance to imperialism, fascism, and the Vietnam War. To critics, she represented the turn of a section of the radical student movement toward political violence and terrorism.

Meinhof played an important role in the formation and ideological development of the Red Army Faction (RAF), also known as the Baader-Meinhof Group. The organization emerged in West Germany during the late 1960s and early 1970s amid widespread student unrest, anti-war mobilizations, and debates over the persistence of authoritarian and former Nazi influences within state institutions.

Born on October 7, 1934, in Oldenburg, Meinhof experienced the upheavals of Nazi Germany and the Second World War during her childhood. Her father, Werner Meinhof, was an art historian and museum director, while her mother worked as a teacher. Both parents died during her youth, leaving Ulrike and her sister in the care of family friend Renate Riemeck, a socialist intellectual who reportedly had a strong influence on her political outlook.

Meinhof studied sociology, philosophy, and German studies at universities in Marburg and Münster. During the 1950s she became active in the student movement and joined the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund (SDS), which emerged as a leading force in West Germany’s New Left. She participated in anti-nuclear protests and campaigns against the rearmament of West Germany during the Cold War.

Her political reputation first developed through journalism rather than underground militancy. Meinhof became associated with the left-wing magazine Konkret, serving as one of its most prominent writers and later as editor. Her articles criticized capitalism, militarism, the Vietnam War, and what she regarded as the incomplete denazification of West German society. She married Konkret publisher Klaus Rainer Röhl and had twin daughters before the couple separated in the late 1960s.

The political climate in West Germany became increasingly polarized during this period. Student protests intensified after the attempted assassination of SDS leader Rudi Dutschke in April 1968. Meinhof wrote extensively on the event, arguing that conventional protest methods were proving inadequate in confronting state repression and imperialist violence abroad. One of her best-known statements from this period distinguished between protest and resistance, reflecting her growing acceptance of militant politics.

The RAF emerged from this radicalization process. In 1970, Meinhof assisted in the escape of Andreas Baader from custody during a staged research visit to an institute in Berlin. The operation, during which a librarian was shot and seriously wounded, marked Meinhof’s transition from public intellectual to underground militant. Soon afterward, she formally joined Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and others in founding the RAF.

The organization drew inspiration from Marxist-Leninist theory, anti-colonial struggles, Latin American guerrilla movements, and Palestinian militant organizations. RAF members argued that the West German state remained authoritarian beneath its democratic framework and functioned as an ally of U.S. imperialism, particularly through support for the Vietnam War. The group advocated “urban guerrilla” tactics aimed at provoking confrontation with the state and exposing what it saw as the coercive foundations of capitalist democracy.

During the early 1970s, the RAF carried out bank robberies, bombings, and attacks on U.S. military and West German government targets. Meinhof contributed significantly to the group’s political manifestos and theoretical writings, including The Concept of the Urban Guerrilla, which defended armed struggle as a revolutionary strategy in advanced capitalist societies.

However, the RAF’s tactics generated sharp criticism both within and outside the left. Critics argued that the organization’s violence isolated it from workers and broader social movements while enabling the West German state to strengthen surveillance and security powers. Many left-wing activists who opposed the Vietnam War and supported social change rejected the RAF’s turn toward armed struggle.

Meinhof was arrested in 1972 after two years underground. She and other RAF leaders were imprisoned in the high-security Stammheim Prison complex, where they faced lengthy legal proceedings on charges including murder, attempted murder, and forming a criminal organization. The conditions of their imprisonment, particularly prolonged isolation, became a subject of controversy among civil liberties advocates and supporters of the RAF.

On May 9, 1976, Meinhof was found dead in her prison cell, hanging from a towel. West German authorities ruled the death a suicide. However, supporters of the RAF and some political organizations questioned the official account and alleged state involvement. The debate surrounding her death has continued for decades, though no conclusive evidence has emerged disproving the official findings.

Meinhof’s funeral in Berlin drew thousands of participants and became a significant political demonstration. Her death intensified tensions between the RAF and the West German state during a period that later became known as the “German Autumn.” In 1977, imprisoned RAF members Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe also died in Stammheim Prison under officially declared suicides following a wave of RAF-linked kidnappings and attacks.

By the late 1970s, the RAF had become increasingly isolated from wider public support. While the organization continued operating through later generations, its strategy of armed struggle failed to generate the revolutionary movement it had anticipated. Instead, many historians argue that RAF violence strengthened the security apparatus of the West German state and weakened broader radical movements.

Leftist critics have argued that the RAF’s strategy differed fundamentally from mass-based revolutionary politics. Even the Maoist theory emphasized prolonged struggle rooted among workers and peasants, whereas the RAF functioned largely as a small urban underground organization composed primarily of students and intellectuals. Critics within Marxist circles contended that the RAF’s reliance on spectacular acts of violence substituted armed action for mass political organization.

Today, Meinhof remains a deeply divisive historical figure. Some continue to view her as a symbol of resistance against imperialism and authoritarianism, while others regard her legacy as a warning about the consequences of political extremism and armed militancy. Her life and death continue to provoke debate about the limits of protest, the ethics of revolutionary violence, and the political turmoil that shaped postwar West Germany.

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*Freelance journalist