Revolutionary Cells

Revolutionary Cells (German: Revolutionäre Zellen or RZ) was perhaps the most successful (based upon the number of attacks and the limited number of arrests) of the left-wing West German urban guerilla organisations, although certainly not the most well-known. According to the office of the German Federal Prosecutor, during their 30 year campaign, the RZ claimed responsibility for 186 attacks, of which 40 were committed in Berlin.

History

Formed in the early 1970s from networks of independent militant groups in Germany, such as the Autonomen movement and the feminist Rote Zora, the RZ became known to the general public as a terrorist organisation in the wake of the hijacking of an Air France airliner to Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976. During the operation, which was carried out in conjunction with the PFLP, the German hijackers separated Jews from non-Jews, detaining only the former. The hijacking, which most observers reported initially as another Palestinian operation against Israeli targets, thus became emblematic of the perceived ideological proximity – at its extremist fringes – of the radical left, particularly in Germany, and fascist doctrine. It is thought that both, Revolutionary Cells and RAF had received training and arms from the PFLP whose own supporters included François Genoud, the Swiss financier and trustee of the estate of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi-German Minister for Propaganda.^[1]

The Air France hijacking ended with Operation Entebbe, the Israeli rescue raid and the death of two of RZ's founding members, Wilfried Böse, called Boni, and Brigitte Kuhlmann. Böse's friend Johannes Weinrich, another RZ founder, left the group to work for Carlos, together with his girlfriend Magdalena Kopp, later Carlos' wife.

Prior to the Air France hijacking, members of the later RZ took part in bombings of premises of ITT in Berlin and Nuremberg, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany in Karlsruhe and, in December, 1975 together with terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez – also known as Carlos the Jackal – RZ member Hans-Joachim Klein took part beside Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann of J2M in the raid on the Vienna OPEC conference.

Ideology

The core beliefs of the RZ can be understood as an amalgam of radical left anti-imperialist liberation doctrine mixed with strong anti-Zionist, anti-patriarchal feminist, and anti-racist elements. The group stated that its participants should be regular members of society, in contrast to the more elitist Red Army Faction, who posited that revolutionaries should truly be "underground" (outside the socio-political system). Structured differently from the better-known Red Army Faction, or the more anarchist Movement 2 June, the Revolutionary Cells were very loosely organised into cells, making them much harder to capture. Its members were encouraged to remain "legal" – i.e., continue to operate from within society and even take part in the mainstream political process and its organisations, a tactic which led law enforcement agencies refer to them at times as "weekend terrorists".

Demise

The group is thought to have lost much of its remaining covert support amongst the radical left in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent German reunification. In a pamphlet published in December 1991, the RZ attempt a critical review of their so-called anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist campaign during the 1970s and 80s with particular emphasis on the ill-fated Air France hijacking and its much publicised segregation of Jewish and non-Jewish passengers.

The antisemitism evident in the Entebbe hijacking had become the focus of long-running internal arguments during which one of the RZ members, Hans-Joachim Klein, eventually left the movement. Klein had sent a letter and his gun to Der Spiegel in 1977, announcing his resignation. In an interview with Jean-Marcel Bougereau,

Klein expressed the view that the two German terrorists who had participated in the Entebbe operation were more antisemitic than Wadi Haddad, leader of the PFLP operational division, for planning to assassinate the famous Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. Even the notorious terrorist Carlos opposed this operation on the grounds that Wiesenthal was an anti-Nazi.^{[2] [3]}

According to Simon Wiesenthal (quoting Klein's Libération interview), the plot was first proposed by Wilfried Böse.^[4]

Klein also announced that the RZ planned to assassinate the head of the German Jewish community, Heinz Galinski. The RZ responded to Klein's allegations with a letter of their own:

instead of reflecting on Galinski's role in the crimes of Zionism, for the cruelties of Israel's imperialistic army, you don't reflect on the propaganda work and material support of this guy, you don't see him as anything other than "a leader of the Jewish community", and: you don't reflect about what to do against this fact, and what could be done in a country like ours... You avoid this political discussion and get excited about the maintained (anti-semitism?) fascism of the RZ and the men behind them. ^[5]

Klein hid in Normandy, to where he was eventually traced in 1998. One of the witnesses at his trial was his former friend, former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. In some accounts Fischer's break with the far-left was due to the Entebbe affair.^{[6] [7]}

The last attacks by the Revolutionary Cells, two bomb blasts at airport and federal infrastructure in the former East Germany, took place in 1993.

References

External links

• [1] Klein's letter to Der Spiegel, May 1977
• Revolutionary Cells
• German Autumn
• An Phoblacht
• Revolutionary Nuclei attacked Utilities target - June 1, 1985, Federal Republic of Germany