Last Question(s)

If a typical German student of our age could go anywhere in the world, where would they go?

"Rote Armee Fraktion" A.K.A. RAF

2. Then reserach the "Rote Armee Fraktion" RAF and provide a second post with your findings of
- the causes
- the three generations of activists
- the end of the RAF
- the similarities between current day's terro attacks and the RAF (similarities and differences)

"World War 2 was only twenty years earlier. Those in charge of the police, the schools, the government — they were the same people who’d been in charge under Nazism. The chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, was a Nazi. People started discussing this only in the 60's. We were the first generation since the war, and we were asking our parents questions. Due to the Nazi past, everything bad was compared to the Third Reich. If you heard about police brutality, that was said to be just like the SS. The moment you see your own country as the continuation of a fascist state, you give yourself permission to do almost anything against it. You see your action as the resistance that your parents did not put up."

— Stefan Aust, author of Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex 

This quote clearly states the cause of the formation of the group. The government was still being run by the same people who ran it under the Nazi regime. This was just an uprising waiting to happen.

There were three successive incarnations of the organization, the "first generation" which consisted of Baader and his associates, the "second generation" RAF, which operated in the mid to late 1970s after several former members of the Socialist Patients' Collective joined, and the "third generation" RAF, which existed in the 1980s and 1990s. 

Three generations of the RAF came over time, each one larger than the last. This only shows that the ideas held by the first generation were growing. The first's ideas spread, and grew, and infected more and more with passing time. 

On April 20th, 1998, an eight-page typewritten letter in German was faxed to the Reuters news agency, signed "RAF" with the machine-gun red star, declaring that the group had dissolved, even though they had not made any actions for a few years prior to this letter.

The actions the RAF took against the government and other agencies are extremely similar to modern terrorist attacks. The RAF did everything from car bombings to hijacking planes, same as terrorists today. The RAF may have paved the path for todays modern terrorists.

Baader-Meinhof Complex (Movie)

1. Write a post providing your personal response to the movie we viewed together: Baader-Meinhof Complex. 250-300 words.

I found this movie to be very good; well acted, well directed and very well written. The events portrayed in this film could have been doctored up and even viewed as positives. I am glad this video was watched in class. Up to the viewing of this film I had no idea what the "Baader-Meinhof Complex" was, an important piece of German history completely unknown to many Americans. This should be in the history books right next to the section on the Vietnam War. What I saw in this film completely terrified me. The actions the government took one step at a time leading to a government who was ruling its people should be feared. Governments should have a people's union or something to make sure the government can't violate our rights so that people like the criminals in this movie do not need to exist. In the parade scene when the officers start hitting the people because they are standing up for a cause gives critical incite to the psyche of police officers. It seems they think they are the law or are above its punishments and can do as they please. As if they can live by there own set of rules without worrying about the consequences. I didn't agree with the actions the RAF took but if I were in there shoes, I probably would have done the same. They were a people pushed to do things most of us would call horrible, but if you look at what they were trying to fight against, you probably would have helped them any way you could.

18th Century German Industry

THE GUILLOTINE (In Germany)

By: Patrick & Kyle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo5BBHtn4tM

Story Of the Living Heads- http://www.guillotine.dk/Pages/30sek.html

Credit Goes To----->

The French got credit for creating it, but was really invented by a German engineer by the name of Tobias Schmidt.  Original design was different than the one poeple know today.  It was first used in Paris and was made of 3 peices of wood.  Two peices were used on either side of the blade standing tall, with groves on the inside of them to allow the blade to run through.  There was another peice of timber on the top used as a cross beam.  The blade would drop down the groves, cut the head off, and drop it into a wicker basket. 

June 1793 to July 1794)

Famous/Nobility Executions!

• Collenot d'Angremont of the National Guard
• King Louis XVI
• Arnaud II de La Porte
•  Queen Marie Antoinette
•  Maximilien Robespierre
•  Eugen Weidmann (Last Public)
• Hamida Djandoubi (Last Recorded)