Is There a Critical Threshold for Popular Support?
Film based on book by stephan aust a called boterminhof, the inside story of the rf. Film is really very much an adaptation of the book and i know it pissed off some radicals. The main complaint is that they didn't demonstrate enough ideological commitment. But in so fara, especiallyi the person of adres potter, he was sort of just kind of a, iwas a personality type that was just drawn to radicalism for its own sake. And he definitely had a lot of moral failings. I guess you'd say the film definitely portrays him, i think, in a way that lines up with what people had said about him.
Transcript
chevron_right
Play full episode
chevron_right
Transcript
Episode notes
Growing up in the generation following the second world war, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Meinhof lead the West German militant Red Army Faction in a series of bombings, kidnappings and assassinations during the 1970s that led to the death of 35 people. Identifying with various leftist and communist causes including anti-imperialism, Maoism, and opposition to the Vietnam War, the group sought a break in their society from what they felt was a continuation of their parents’ generation of fascist government now under the control of what they saw as the American-led capitalist war machine. The group and their leaders in particular gained notoriety in the press and significant popularity amongst the youth of Germany, underscoring the generational divide that seemed to be growing in the shadow Nazi Germany’s defeat and subsequent de-Nazification process.