The mystery of Bad Kleinen: Interview with "RAF"-expert Wolfgang Landgraeber
In March, we published an article on "The phantom of terrorism in Germany: Who hides behind the label "Red Army Faction"?" (FECL No.13, p.2). The article was based mainly on a book by the German journalists Gerhard Wisnewski, Wolfgang Landgraeber, and Ekkehard Sieker. The book amounts to a merciless unmasking of German "anti-terrorist" policing and fundamentally questions the picture drawn by the prosecution authorities and the main-stream media of the "RAF" as a leftist terrorist gang responsible of a bloody series of professional killings.
While the three authors' revelations were largely ignored, if not ridiculed by the German main stream press, just half a year ago, their assessment of the "RAF" mystery and the role of German security bodies became a subject of public interest and discussion almost overnight, after the shoot-out at Bad Kleinen.
In the following, we publish an interview with Wolfgang Landgraeber, realized for FECL on 12 June by Jürgen Holzapfel (European Civic Forum). Wolfgang Landgraeber is a journalist with WDR, a German public broadcasting company.
FECL : Mr. Landgraeber, the German authorities contend that Grams and Hogefeld are members of the "command level" of the "RAF" and directly involved in the failed terrorist attack againstthe than Minister Tietmeyer. What are these accusations based upon and are they justified in your opinion?
W.L. : I don't know, what these accusations are based upon. At a visit at the BKA (Federal Office of Criminal Investigation), about a year ago, we were told that Ms. Hogefeld was suspected, because she is said to have rented a car that was later used by the perpetrators in carrying out their assassination attempt against Tietmeyer. This, the BKA says, was established by its own graphological expert evidence. However, in the course of our investigation, we more closely examined the question of these graphological expert opinions and found out that this sort of evidence hardly ever was accepted by the courts, because of lacking evidential trustworthyness. In several cases this caused major embarassment to the BKA. In this respect, the alleged evidence really lacks consistency. As for Grams, he is merely suspected of membership in a terrorist organisation, on the sole ground that he disappeared in 1984. There is no other evidence against the two.
FECL : Has it meanwhile been established that Grams was actually armed?
W.L. : No, there is still no conclusive evidence. In recent days, the already confusing tracks have been further blurred to such an extent that we have good reasons to suspect that there is an instance somwhere in the security and investigation apparatus which is deliberately spreading disinformation. In the event of major actions police is engaged to video-film the entire operation. Now, the video-tape of the Bad Kleinen operation has finally emerged and - behold! - the crucial sequences either have not been filmed or have been removed subsequently. This is, after all, very suspicious, because, as a matter of fact, this means there still are more open questions than reliable answers with regard to Grams' death. A gun was found that is said to have belonged to Grams. According to some speculations a bullet fired from this gun might have hit Grams in the head. Other expert opinions contradict this version. There is also a lot of confusion about the amunition used, although we are told that it is established which gun belonged to Grams and which ammunition the GSG-9 officers used. According to the BKA, the GSG-9 used so-called "action-ammunition" [a type of only partly coated bullets, producing large surface wounds]. Was it really Grams who shot and killed the young GSG-9 policeman, or did his colleagues kill him by accident? The characteristic of the lethal wound would point to the latter.
FECL : What is known about this under-cover agent "Klaus"?
W.L. : Again, this is a real maze. First version: He was seen at the restaurant and ran away when the police took up the pursuit of Hogefeld and Grams. The second version: Some witnesses believe to have seen how this "third man" too was arrested and brought away. Yesterday there were speculations in the press that been brought to the USA with a new identity and a new face, in order to protect him from revenge actions of the "RAF". In short, we know nothing.
FECL : It is said in the newspapers that this under-cover agent was member of the alleged "command level" of the "RAF"...
W.L. : Thereto I can but say that for us, the three authors ofthe book "The RAF-phantom", the alleged "command level" is still a spectre. Although one is constantly told that it exists, there is not the slightest evidence. Our fellow journalists writing about the "command level" are somewhat helpless. They just take the BKA's search list and the photos - previously there were eight photos on the BKA's search poster, now there are only six - and then they say: this is the command level of the Red Army Faction. Yet, neither the chief of the BKA nor the federal Prosecutor general rewally know, what the "command level" of the RAF really is. They simply claim that there is a bunch of terrorists who take the decisions. But one doesn't even know, if they know each other, if they are organised in small, independently operating cells, if they inform each other through a sinle contact person, one doesn't know what they are doing and planning - in short, one knows nothing. The only established fact is that a group of eight - now six - people vanished from the surface of the earth. Nobody knows where they are staying, in many cases it is even unknown if they are still alive. Yet, precisely the fact that nothing is known about them is interpreted as circumstantial evidence for an alleged vaste conspiracy.
FECL : As compared with the military professionalism of other attacks attributed to the "RAF", the failed attempt against Tietmeyer, in which Ms. Hogefeld is presumed to be involved, makes a rather amateurish impression. This clumsy proceeding would better match the the picture of leftist students or social workers. Could one not deduce from this the following thesis: that there is on the one hand an amateurish but authentic "RAF", formed of a group of confused leftists and thoroughly infiltrated by under cover-agents, and on the other one or several profesional killer squads, rsponsible of the very spectacular and intriguinly successfull attacks?
W.L. : I would, indeed, warm up to this thesis, since a lot of circumstantial evidence points in that direction.. Remember not only the Tietmeyer attack but also such bizarre attacks as, for instance the gun fire on the US embassy in Bonn during the Gulf war, followed by an explanation of an alleged "RAF" that this was a "symbolical act" against the US-imperialists aiming at uniting opposition against the Gulf war in Germany. The attack had exactly the oposite effect. It lead to a desolidarisation, as none of the peaceful anti-war protestors wanted to appear as sitting in the same boat as the terrorists.. The picture is indeed, confusing and troubling. And no security expert has so far been able to produce a satisfying explanation for this aspect: why is the "RAF" capable, at some occasions, of acting like a perfect secret service, with really sophisticated operations? Also this most recent bombing of a high-security detention centre under construction in Weiterstadt shows this professional hand-writing. Explosive experts have confirmed for us that this bombing could only be carried out by genuine professionals with intimate knowledge of the statics of the building. The blast irreparably damaged all the carrying structures and the whole huge building had to be torn down.
How could just the "RAF" dispose of bombing professionels, who must have had many years of experience, according renowned expolosive experts?
The picture is very intruiging and it is conceivable, indeed, that there does exist a "Red Army Faction", which uses the symbols of the "first generation" of the "RAF" and refers to this tradition, but which nevertheless is just a little bunch of amateurish would-be terrorists, whereas the large-scale, sophisticated and successful attacks would have been carried out by other perpetrators, making use of the "RAF" trade-mark for very different aims.
FECL : The question remains about the consequences of the Bad Kleinen shoot-out. It could appear as somewhat astonishing that Interior Minister Seiters resigned so quickly, after this incident. After all, considering the incapacity of German security to cope with right wing violence in recent months, he would have had better reasons and earlier occasions to step back. What is your interpretation of this resignation and how is it motivated?
W.L. : There is not much I can explain. I can only register and guess, just as you do.. As things are developing right now, with new questions and stumble stones emerging every day, one has good reasons to suspect that Mr. Seiters knows a whole lot more than he admitted during recent weeks. and that he might have been aware of a developing big "state crisis", the "Spiegel" magazine calls it, which he inevitably would have been drawn into. He might have preferred to step back at an early stage of the scandal in order to save his chances for a later political come-back.
In addition to this, the resignation might indicate that an even larger scandal might be hidden behind the incident of Bad Kleinen and that facts might emerge showing that Grams was actually executed by the police and that there was a government conspiracy to conceal this. But in this event, new questions would rise: why did this happen? Why was Grams drawn from circulation now? What did he know, that he should be prevented at any cost from revelating? A lot of questions, indeed.
FECL : The Interior Minister and the Federal Prosecutor General have resigned. But who was in charge of the operation on the site?
W.L. : It must still be found out, who was responsible at the operational level on the site, what happened with regard to Grams' death and who ordered what in the course of the incident. It preys one my mind that this affair will not be brought to a close by the resignation of ministers responsible at a top level, but that the scandal might lie somewhere else.
FECL : In your book the same question rises again and again: cui bono? Who benefits of all that? Do you have the beginning of an answer to this question, or is it to early?
W.L. : For the time being, it is impossible to give clear answers. We can but guess and register what happens. We have registered how lame the prosecution apparatus is as far as right wing terrorism is concerned. We must have in mind that 17 persons died in Germany since 1990, as a result of right wing terrorism, and many more were very seriously injured. On the other side, except for the assassination of Mr. Rohwedder in early 1991 - an attack officially attributed to the "RAF", although this is very doubtful - in the same period beginning with 1990, no persons were killed or injured. During this whole period police and judicial authorities almost had to be flogged into doing their duty and arresting and sentencing right wing perpetrators of terrorist attacks.
Considering this one indeed gains the impression that the attempt is made to hold alive this leftist terrorist spectre of a "Red Army Faction". And a spectre it is. The "RAF" can no longer be made out in its most basic outlines. It actually vanishes from the ground with the "second generation". As for the alleged "third generation", there are no traces whatsoever.
Against this background, the suspicion that there is a policy of deliberately underestimating the right wing threat and of permanently drawing public attention to an alleged terrorist organisation on the left instead, despite the obvious fact that there exists neither an infrastructure, nor a personal basis in today's Germany for any serious threat of left wing terrorism.