Once again a German film is among the five nominees for best foreign films for the Oscars, the highest award in the film industry. I have not had a chance to see The Baader Meinhof Complex and it will be some time before it comes to any screens in Northern New England. I am looking for forward to seeing it, since the "Complex" was raging while I was a student in Germany in the 1970s. Later, I met Dr. Alfred Herrhausen, Chairman of Deutsche Bank, who was assassinated by the Red Army Faction – a successor group to Baader Meinhof.
Even though The Baader Meinhof Complex has not been widely shown in the US, it is already being used to bash the 1960s anti-war movement in America. Jeffrey Herf, writing in The New Republic, sees the film as an admirable attempt at German Vergangenheitsbewältigung or "coming to terms with past", something Americans have not done with respect to the anti-war movement:
this movie as a long overdue invitation to revisit the uglier side of
this country's experience with radicalism during the 1960s–and engage
in some Vergangenheitsbewältigung of our own."
The US anti-war movement was a mass movement of non-violence that sought to end a policy of total violence of the United States government that resulted in the death of approximately 3 million Vietnamese – mostly civilians. Even the most extemist groups that broke away from the anti-war movement, such as the Weather Undergound, were involved in the destruction of property, rather than kidnapping and killing, and they mostly succeeded in blowing themselves up. And, by the way, there is an excellent film about the history of the Weathermen: the 2002 documentary The Weather Underground.
But Jeffrey Herf is correct in one sense: America is in need of Vergangenheitsbewältigung. In spite of excellent films such as Platoon and novels such as The Things They Carried, the nation has still not come to terms with starting an unncessary and immoral conflict in Southeast Asia. Until we do, we are doomed to waging more unnecessary and immoral wars. In 2003, one of the most vocal supporters of the US invasion of Iraq was The New Republic – something the magazine's editors later came to regret.
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Excellent post. Thanks for all the thinking and researching you do on these important subjects.
I was in Germany in the 70’s too. At that time there was very little Vergangenheitsbewaeltingung going on in the sense of coming to terms with the Nazi past.
But everyone I knew was horrified by the Baader-Mienhoff group because they were so afraid of even the suggestion of civil disorder and violence which left right polarization could set off.
There was a bombing in Freiburg that caused a lot of damage. I do not know who did it.
It’s an awesome film. Very exciting and stays close to real history. Does a great job inserting real video, real audio, and actual texts composed by the RAF into the story.
One quibble is Esslin and Meinhof were not nearly as hot as the actresses who portray them here–they make being a terrorist look even sexier than the originals. Some will worry that the film glorifies terrorism, but in truth it exposes the RAF as narcissists and psychopaths. Certainly “Weather Underground” paints a much more sympathetic picture of left-wing terrorism.
Also Moritz Bleibtreu as Andreas Baader doesn’t really work, though it has its moments to be sure.