2 research outputs found
The laws of terrorism: Representations of terrorism in German literature and film
Representations of the reasons and actions of terrorists have appeared in German literature tracing back to the age of Sturm und Drang of the 18th century, most notably in Heinrich von Kleist's Michael Kohlhaas and Friedrich Schiller's Die Räuber, and more recently since the radical actions of the Red Army Faction during the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as in Uli Edel's film, The Baader Meinhof Complex. By referring to Walter Benjamin's system of natural law and positive law, which provides definitions of differing codes of ethics with relation to state laws and personal ethics, one should be able to understand that Michael Kohlhaas, Karl Moor, and the members of the RAF are indeed represented as terrorists. However, their actions and motives are not without an internal ethics, which conflicts with that of their respective state-sanctioned authorities. This thesis reveals the similarities and differences in motives, methods, and use of violence in Schiller, Kleist, and representations of the RAF and explores how the turn to terrorism can arise from a logical realization that ideologies of state law do not align with the personal sense of justice and law of the individual
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Re-Reading the RAF: The Literary Nature of Terrorist Propaganda
The critical exploration of what modern state security entails in its defense against “terrorism,” who benefits from increased securitization, and at what costs existed before 09/11/2001 (Krause and Williams 1997, Huysmans 1998, Wyn Jones 1999). The increased attention on terrorist attacks in mainstream media in the intervening 20 years has resulted in a reactionary increase of broad support for right wing politics in Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, the United States and elsewhere, accordingly rekindling a growth of interest in leftist action. The questions and criticisms surrounding the legitimacy of German leftist politics in today’s public conscience mirrors that of early 1970s West Germany, when the Red Army Faction began its “armed struggle” against western capitalism. The RAF has often been explored in the context of political science (Kraushaar 2006, Hess 2006) and social philosophy (Habermas 1977, Colvin 2009, Passmore 2011, Scribner 2014). The literature and films inspired by the RAF explored in terms of their relation to artworks as a whole (Gerhardt 2010/2011/2014, Scribner 2014) and to the historical RAF (Tremel 2006, Kreimeier 2006). Using Critical Security Studies alongside theories grounded in the New Frankfurt School as a synthetic framework, this dissertation demonstrates how critical literary analysis of the RAF political texts can help reorient what security should accomplish and how Critical Security Studies readings provides a nuanced understanding of RAF inspired literature and film. The main political texts that this dissertation will focus on are the Texte der RAF as well as selections from Ulrike Meinhof’s pre-RAF articles. The main literary works that this dissertation will focus on are films, such as: Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum, Die dritte Generation, Die bleierne Zeit, and the play Ulrike Maria Stuart. In order to create a nuanced analysis and synthetic understanding of the RAF, I will explore the following questions:1. How do the “schools” of Critical Security Studies and the New Frankfurt School inform a critical understanding of the RAF rhetoric in relation to the counter rhetoric produced by mainstream news organizations?
2. How the RAF employs violence and how their terrorism functions as communication and performance. The gaps between language and action, as well as the interconnection of language as action, creates a unique affective space in which the RAF is imagined.
3. How the trial of the core RAF members reproduces limited affect of their terrorism, and how the West German judicial system performs affect as an institution of justice.
4. How film and literary productions based on the RAF creates a meta-discourse with the RAF’s own propaganda texts, and how these reflect back on the RAF discourse and discourses surrounding West Germany’s security apparatus.Release after 08/13/202