The Attack

Since Gudrun Ensslin was still wanted by the police for arson, she could not contact Baader openly. Ulrike Meinhof, however, had no criminal record and was a respected journalist. She requested to meet the prisoner in the Institute for Social Issues to do literary research for a co-authored book about marginalised adolescents (Nagel 1970: 37-41). The governor of the prison in Berlin Tegel refused this request at first but gave his consent after an intervention by Horst Mahler (ibid.: 41-46). It was, after all, not exceptional for detainees to participate in activities outside prison under the surveillance of police officers. According to an unofficial report, 1012 detainees from prisons in Berlin were escorted to external events in 1969, and only nine of them attempted to escape (Der Baader-Meinhof- Report. Dokumente, Analysen, Zusammenhänge 1972: 36). In the weeks prior to the excursion to the library, Baader received visitors on an almost daily basis. Not only Meinhof but also Mahler and his apprentice Monika Berberich came several times to see the prisoner. Even Ensslin visited Baader, using a pseudonym (Nagel 1970: 35-36).

In a routine stop-and-search operation at 2.20 am on 12 May, police officers verified the identity of two women exploring the neighbourhood of the Institute: one of them turned out to be Meinhof and the other, who identified herself as ‘Dr. Gretel Weitemeier’, was probably Ensslin (ibid.: 48-49). On 13 May, Meinhof paid a short visit to the library and asked if the material she had requested for the following day was available. Goergens, Proll and Schubert were also actively involved in the preparations for Baader’s liberation. The young women purchased a gun, which was used in the attack (ibid.: 44-45). Moreover, not only Meinhof

but also Schubert and Goergens visited the Institute for Social Issues on 13 May. They wore wigs and registered in the library under fake names. The two women claimed to be doing research on therapies for criminal youths and began to go through subject-related publications in the reading room. Before leaving, Goergens and Schubert informed employees of the Institute that they would continue their work on the following day (ibid.: 49).

At 9.45 am on 14 May, Baader arrived in the library in the company of two male police officers. Meinhof awaited him with the documents she had requested in the reading room (ibid.: 53). In an internal report, a librarian stated that he found nothing suspicious about the guests. According to the employee of the Institute, the ‘pale’ [blasse] prisoner looked ‘very harmless’ [sehr harmlos] and smoked a lot (Schneider 1970: 2). In front of the reading room, he noticed ‘two young girls, who […], if I remember rightly, wore green glasses, who seemed strangely nervous and stressed, and who both had a notably large bag next to them at all times’103 _{(ibid.: 1). The ‘nervous girls’ were Goergens and Schubert, who} pretended to continue their literature research in the reading room. They were told by employees of the Institute that they should wait in the entrance hall for as long as Baader and Meinhof were working in the reading room (Nagel 1970: 56).

At about 11 am, the young women took guns out of their bag and opened the front door for a third intruder. This person was of male sex and wore a balaclava that showed only his eyes (ibid.: 57-59). Initially, the

103 _{‘zwei junge Mädchen, [...] die, wenn ich mich recht erinnere, beide grüne Brillen} trugen, beide merkwürdig nervös und abgespannt wirkten, und beide eine auffallend groβe Tasche ständig neben sich hatten’

police suspected that the man was the artist and journalist Peter Homann, a friend of Meinhof’s. Later investigations, however, revealed that the third intruder was the 31-year-old mechanic Hans-Jürgen Bäcker.104 Attracted by the noise in the entrance hall, Georg Linke – the door attendant at the Institute – entered the scene. Without any warning, the man in the balaclava fired at him at close range, seriously wounding the 62-year old (ibid.: 59). The armed intruders proceeded to storm the reading room, where they attacked the two surprised police officers. The masked man disabled one of Baader’s guards by shooting him in the face with a gas pistol (ibid.: 61). The other police officer struggled with Schubert, but she managed to get away and escaped with the other group members through a window into the garden behind the library (ibid.: 62- 63). Proll waited for them in a stolen car near the Institute, in which the group drove away (ibid.: 64).

Only a few hours after the attack, the police issued an arrest warrant for Meinhof. She was charged with attempted murder and the liberation of a prisoner. Both of these crimes were said to have been committed in complicity with at least two other perpetrators.105 _The police authorities chose not to specify the sex of the other participants in the attack in the arrest warrant or in other documents that they released immediately after the attack. It seems, however, that they quickly realised that women had greatly outnumbered men among Baader’s liberators. Allegedly, one of the first police officers to arrive at the Institute for Social

104 _{Ten months after Baader’s rescue, the leading prosecutor Nagel informed the public} during the fifth day of the trial against Mahler, Goergens and Schubert that Bäcker, not Homann, had been involved in the attack (Schultz 1971).

Issues on the day of the attack said: ‘It seems that we are dealing primarily with a “ladies squad’”106 _{(Der Baader-Meinhof-Report.} Dokumente, Analysen, Zusammenhänge 1972: 38).

Shortly after the attack, the police initiated a thorough search that, since the armed intruders were not yet identified, focused on the only known participant in the attack: Ulrike Meinhof. Shortly after the liberation of Andreas Baader, the Chief Public Prosecutor authorised a nationwide search with a 10,000 deutschmark (DM) reward for information leading to the arrest of Ulrike Meinhof – the first instance of such a reward being offered in Germany since WWII (Peters 1991: 81). A number of biographical and journalistic accounts indicate that Meinhof had not intended to play an active role in Baader’s rescue and took the decision to escape with the rest of the group only in the heat of the moment (Edschmid 2001: 125, Ditfurth 2007: 13, Winkler 2007: 163, Sontheimer 2010: 15). Regardless of all situational and unintentional dynamics during Baader’s rescue, the police investigations after the attack focused at first almost exclusively on Meinhof. The journalist was now pursued for attempted murder, and her name and face featured prominently on wanted posters on advertising pillars throughout West Germany.

One of the first things that Meinhof and Baader did after the escape from the Institute for Social Issues was therefore to change their outward appearance. According to the journalist Michael Sontheimer, a friend of Meinhof’s cut Baader’s hair and helped other group members to change their appearance (ibid.: 19). Meinhof also tried to change her

looks with makeup and a range of hairstyles (see Images 5 and 6). Apparently, she began to wear a wig after the raid (Edschmid 2001: 126). One reason why Baader, Meinhof and Ensslin were not arrested before June 1972 was certainly that they continued to alter their disguise throughout their period in hiding. Months after the attack, journalists asked the Security Chief Günter Nollau why the leading members of the RAF were – much to the embarrassment of the police – still on the run. According to Nollau, fashion at the time – and the popularity of wigs in particular – constituted a great advantage for the group. ‘The wig is an element’, claimed Nollau, ‘that makes all cats look gray’107 _{(‘Löwe los’} 1971: 26).

Image 5: Police Handouts on Ulrike Meinhof 1972 (left)

Source: ‘My Mother, the Terrorist’, dw.de, 14 March 2006, <http://www.dw.de/my- mother-the-terrorist/a-1933629> [accessed 20 February 2013].

Image 6: Photograph consfiscated during Ulrike Meinhof’s arrest (right)

Source: BAK, Kriminalakte Ulrike Meinhof, M-157.018.

Apart from Ulrike Meinhof, the individuals who were most likely involved in the preparation and execution of Baader’s liberation were Horst Mahler, Gudrun Ensslin, Ingrid Schubert, Irene Goergens, Hans-Jürgen

Bäcker and Astrid Proll. It remains an open question whether Monika Berberich should also be included in this list. While Mahler’s apprentice was not directly involved in the attack, police suspected that the future RAF member functioned as a messenger for the group during her visits in prison. However, the state authorities were not able to prove that Berberich knew about the group’s plan to liberate the prisoner prior to the attack (Nagel 1970: 88-89). Police investigations left little doubt that Goergens, Schubert and Bäcker were among the perpetrators. Moreover, there is evidence that Ensslin also played an active role in the attack (Diewald-Kerkmann 2009: 3).108 _{Since Mahler, by contrast, did not} participate in Baader’s liberation, the ratio of women and men among the perpetrators can be calculated at around five to one. Given that women greatly outnumbered men among the participants in Baader’s rescue and that they used feminine accessories such as handbags, wigs, and fashionable clothing to prepare the attack unnoticed, I was surprised to find that politicians, journalists and legal authorities ignored or misrepresented and misunderstood the gendered performances of the actors involved.