In the preeminent text describing the history of the Baader Meinhof Group, Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, Stefan Aust describes Ulrike Meinhof’s descent into the terrorist underground succinctly:
Am 14. Mai 1970 um 9.00 Uhr morgens war es soweit. Andreas Baader wurde mit Waffengewalt aus dem Institut für Soziale Fragen im Westberliner Stadtteil Dahlem befreit…Baader und seine Befreier entkamen. Mit dem Sprung aus dem Fenster des Instituts für Soziale Fragen beendete Ulrike Meinhof ihre journalistische Karriere und ging in den Untergrund.
In the 2008 film of the same name based on Aust’s book, director Uli Edel fills in the emotional dynamic of this scene missing from Aust’s account. He focuses on Meinhof’s panic and indecision in particular. As her accomplices enter and violently free Baader, the camera switches back and forth from Meinhof’s face to the chaos erupting around her.
She realizes she has two options: remain in the room and feign surprise when the police arrive, as planned, or follow her accomplices through the window, join the terrorist underground, and leave
any chance of continuing her journalistic career. Of course, she chooses to jump through the window, and much scholarship has been dedicated to understanding her life and work after her move into the underground. Yet her ambivalence towards leaving in this scene led me to the two principle questions that motivated this project: Why did Ulrike Meinhof decide to follow Andreas Baader and Gudrun Ensslin through that window? Further, what would have become of Meinhof had she chosen to continue legitimate work as a journalist and public figure?
To answer these questions, I will discuss the television film, Bambule, for which Meinhof wrote the screenplay and created a radio feature in preparation. The film, set to air ten days after Baader’s escape on May 24, 1970, was quickly removed from the network’s schedule because of Meinhof’s terrorist connections. It would not be shown on German television until the 1990s. In the following two chapters, I will investigate how Meinhof used two forms of electronic media, radio and television, differently to convey a political message. These works represent a transition for Meinhof as she moved from print journalism to electronic media and created her first fictional work. Analysis of these works give us an indication of what direction her career and political legacy could have taken had she chosen to sit back down in the Institut für Soziale Fragen and disavow her connection to Baader’s escape. Additionally, Meinhof’s attitude towards these works, particularly towards their perceived weaknesses, helps to explain how her decision to jump through the window might not have been as spontaneous as it seems in Edel’s Der Baader Meinhof Komplex.Bachelor of Art
