Silke Maier-Witt-with the Kalashnikowunm starry sky

The problems that you could have as a freshly baked member of the left-wing radical city guerrilla group Rote-Armee faction (RAF) were sometimes very practical: “Yes, I know that weapons are part of it, but this one is really big and scary … I take the gun in my handbag with me. It is the first time that I carry her around with me in public. She weighs heavily. ”The 27-year-old Silke Maier-Witt has just been given her first pistol to always carry her with her, as you explain. “Can I really get used to it? When trying on, it becomes clear to me that from now on I will only wear large tops. The pants must not be too tight in the federal government, otherwise this thing, the pistol, fits in between. «

She never shot people with “this thing”, as she writes in her autobiography that has just been published: “I never got into the situation of pulling her or even pulling it out. Thank God! ”Maier-Witt, in her book, which the lurid title» I thought that until then I was dead «told from her years in the RAF, which she belonged to from 1977 to 1980, and the time after which she spent-until her arrest by Federal German authorities in 1990-as a submerging in the GDR.

If you believe it, it seems to have been as relaxed in the RAF as with Uschi Obermaier and Rainer Langhans at home: »Everyone is in the big living room, are a good atmosphere, the television is running, the food is already expected. There is a flat share atmosphere. «But everyday life is also characterized by creeping paranoia and permanent being on the road. In conspirective apartments, “ten people on mattresses on the floor”. The author also describes the wrangle that is common in left -wing scrambles for authority and the only laboriously hidden unofficial hierarchies. Above all, everyday life is a logistical challenge: planning of “actions”, tasks, gathering cash, creating so-called earth depots, weapons smuggling, rental of apartments and cars, falsification of passport documents, exploration of driving routes or border crossings, transports and courier activities, spying on places and temporal processes, constant trends.

Maier-Witt’s report on her life not only gives an insight into the inner life and the everyday life of an illegal militant group, he is also the psychogram of a classic fellow runner. The author repeatedly describes her behavior patterns during her years in the RAF: the tendency to subordinate and insert themselves; The silent upright to the high -ranking members of the group; The shyness of noticeable through inappropriate statements or questions; the desire to get specific instructions from “above”; The constant willingness to fulfill orders.

The autobiographer portrays herself as a conflict-shy person in search of recognition, a shy and reserved young woman who wants to get involved in a better, fairer world, but basically is largely a clue and disoriented and does not quite know where she ended up: “In the first time of my illegality in Amsterdam, I usually do not understand the other.” Above all, unsafe, but I don’t want to show that. I do not know what is actually playing here, what is required by me. ” -” I am actually helpless, I don’t know which initiatives should develop. ” -” I usually don’t know what it is about. ” -” I think there is nothing wrong with me. I do what is expected from me. “

In fact, in numerous places in her book it shows that it is completely immaculate of any knowledge when it comes to political knowledge or theory. Basically, she is looking for a substitute family: »For compensation, reconciliation, yes, love was not a place. It is no coincidence that love has played such a subordinate role in my life. “

On the first 60 pages of the book, the author looks back on her childhood and youth in the post -national socialist FRG of the 50s and 60s: it is served by several families, experiences little affection that change caregivers. The mother dies early; The father, most of the time, is, as in many German families of that time, a Nazi past. A completely normal German youth, which acts like the template for a Gisela-Eelsner novel: “The time of my beginning puberty was characterized within the family of speechlessness, numbness and cold.” In addition, shame, inhibition, unspoken conflicts “. Until finally a lot changes at the end of the 1960s: anti-Vietnam War protests, student and women’s movement, shared apartments, hashish. In the silke that grows up, as romantic and simple ideas thrive: »If many people could have the experience of an LSD trip, I thought for a while, the world would be a better one. In everything, there was the desire to make this world more fairly. “

On the one hand, the book is an interesting document that provides information about life and the emotional world of an illegal, police -pursued militant political group. It refutes the myth that all RAF terrorists were bloodthirsty monsters who lived out their joy in killing other people. On the other hand, it is written in a way that meanders reading. Because the most striking and most unrealed on this autobiography is her style-or better: non-style: an unstoppable mix of awkward school structure, teenage diary sound, Karl-May-Kolportage and tabloid newspaper German.

For example, Maier-Witt tells of her first shooting training in the forest: »I can also hand in one or two shots. It is the first time … It feels like I was deaf, but I met. “She writes about the time of preparing for the kidnapping of Hanns Martin Schleyer:” I don’t know much, but I can feel the tension that is in the air. “Over a stay in a” Palestinian camp “in Yemen, a camp in the desert, in which terrorists live and train, report” is far from what we do here. You have your worries, we our discussions, shooting exercises and problems … a bizarre romance is in the air, once we shoot at night. ”With Maier-Witt, who falls in love with a young Palestinian during this military training, it sounds as if she is talking about her first school home stay:» I am the first woman for him, it is nice … Kalaschnikov next to us Sternen sky above us. We are romantic in love. Shy tenderness, small gifts, secrets, stealthy touch when the others are there. “

If you believe this book, it seems to have been as relaxed in the RAF as with Uschi Obermaier and Rainer Langhans at home.

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Half book is written in this partly real, undisclosed naivety, partly involuntarily funny -looking language à la rainbow press. Small anecdotes are broken down here and there, in which it should be human and who should provide amusement at the reader. For example, Maier-Witt tells of the attempt to spy on the surroundings of the residential building of the former Federal Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher: »And then we realize: We need a dog! You go for a walk with that and that regularly, the sniffing around, you can stop with it. So Rudi comes from the shelter at a loss, a mixed dachshund … With his short legs, he has great difficulty getting on the train. He slips on the steps again and again. Rudi gets his last name at a loss because of his facial expression. He does a good job when checking out the Genscher-Bungalow. ”As it says, it could also be taken from the” colorful “or the” Bild “newspaper.

Perhaps the design, choice of words and the emotional, sometimes rather kitschy tone of the book are explained by the participation of a co-author. André Groenewoud, who was at her side while putting her memories, used to work as an editor and “chief reporter” for the illustrated “colorful”.

Silke Maier-Witt/André Groenwoud: I thought I was dead until then. My time as a RAF terrorist and my life afterwards. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 384 pages, born, 26 €.