Margrit Schiller

Last updated

Margrit Schiller
BornMarch 1948 (age 76)
Organization(s) Socialist Patients' Collective, Red Army Faction

Margrit Schiller (born March 1948) is a German far-left activist formerly associated with the Socialist Patients' Collective (SPK) and then the Red Army Faction (RAF). She was released from prison in 1979 and has written two autobiographical books.

Contents

Early life

Schiller was born in 1948. [1] She joined the Socialist Patients' Collective (SPK) and after it dissolved, she became a member of the Red Army Faction (RAF). [2] :229,230

Militant leftist career

On 25 September 1971, two policemen approached a wrongly parked vehicle near to the Freiburg-Basel autobahn. Schiller and Holger Meins emerged and started firing guns at them. [2] :232 A month later Schiller left a train station in Hamburg around 10pm and realised she was being trailed by police. She met her RAF comrades Irmgard Moeller and Gerhard Müller, then a shootout occurred, with one of the policemen being shot dead. Schiller was arrested and later claimed that it was Müller that was responsible for the murder. [2] :234,235 She was re-arrested alongside other RAF members Kay Werner-Allnach and Wolfgang Beer on 4 February 1974 after police carried out raids in Hamburg and Frankfurt. She received a five year sentence and was released from prison in 1979. [1] Whilst in prison Schiller took part in the RAF hunger strikes. [1]

Later life

Schiller moved to Cuba in 1985 and then Uruguay in 1993. She described her experiences abroad in the 2011 memoir So siehst du gar nicht aus!. [3] [1]

Selected works

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red Army Faction</span> Far-left wing militant organization from West Germany

The Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader–Meinhof Group or Baader–Meinhof Gang, was a West German far-left militant group founded in 1970 and active until 1998. The RAF described itself as a communist and anti-imperialist urban guerrilla group. It was engaged in armed resistance against what it considered a fascist state. Members of the RAF generally used the Marxist–Leninist term "faction" when they wrote in English. Early leadership included Andreas Baader, Ulrike Meinhof, Gudrun Ensslin, and Horst Mahler. The West German government considered the RAF a terrorist organization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ulrike Meinhof</span> German left-wing journalist and militant (1934–1976)

Ulrike Marie Meinhof was a German left-wing journalist and founding member of the Red Army Faction (RAF) in West Germany, commonly referred to in the press as the "Baader-Meinhof gang". She is the reputed author of The Urban Guerilla Concept (1971). The manifesto acknowledges the RAF's "roots in the history of the student movement"; condemns "reformism" as "a brake on the anti-capitalist struggle"; and invokes Mao Zedong to define "armed struggle" as "the highest form of Marxism-Leninism".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gudrun Ensslin</span> German far-left militant (1940–1977)

Gudrun Ensslin was a German far-left terrorist and founder of the West German far-left militant group Red Army Faction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andreas Baader</span> German far left-wing militant leader (1943–1977)

Berndt Andreas Baader, was a West German communist and leader of the left-wing militant organization Red Army Faction (RAF) also commonly known as the Baader-Meinhof Group.

Jan-Carl Raspe was a member of the German militant group, the Red Army Faction (RAF).

Holger Klaus Meins was a German cinematography student who joined the Red Army Faction (RAF) in the early 1970s and died on hunger strike in prison.

Irmgard Möller is a German former militant. She joined the Red Army Faction (RAF) in 1971. After participating in two bombings she was arrested the following year. During the German Autumn of 1977, she was one of the prisoners demanded by the RAF to be freed and was part of an alleged suicide pact in Stammheim Prison with Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Jan-Carl Raspe. The other three died and she survived, claiming it was an assassination attempt. She was released from prison in 1994.

Brigitte Margret Ida Mohnhaupt is a German convicted former terrorist associated with the second generation of the Red Army Faction (RAF) members. She was also part of the Socialist Patients' Collective (SPK). From 1971 until 1982 she was active within the RAF.

Sieglinde Hofmann was a German militant and member of both the Socialist Patients' Collective and the Red Army Faction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Members of the Red Army Faction</span> Members of Red Army Faction

Members of the Red Army Faction (RAF) can be split up into three generations. The first (founding) generation existed from 1970 onwards. The second generation emerged from 1975 and included people from other groups such as the Socialist Patients' Collective (SPK) and the 2 June Movement. The third generation began in 1982. The group announced its dissolution in 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Astrid Proll</span> Early member of the Baader-Meinhof Gang

Astrid Huberta Isolde Marie Luise Hildegard Proll was an early member of the Red Army Faction. She is a photo editor and published a book.

Ingrid Schubert was a West German militant and founding member of the Red Army Faction (RAF). She participated in the freeing of Andreas Baader from prison in May 1970 as well as several bank robberies before her arrest in October 1970. She was found dead in her cell in 1977.

Monika Berberich is a convicted West German terrorist and a founding member of the Red Army Faction (RAF). She was involved in the violent freeing of Andreas Baader in 1970, and served a prison sentence between 1970 and 1988 in connection with it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Petra Schelm</span> Founding member of Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF)

Petra Schelm was a German founding member of the Red Army Faction (RAF). She trained as an urban guerilla in Jordan and was killed in a shootout with the police in Hamburg in July 1971.

The Socialist Patients' Collective is a patients' collective founded in Heidelberg, West Germany, in February 1970 by Wolfgang Huber. The kernel of the SPK's ideological program is summated in the slogan, "Turn illness into a weapon", which is representative of an ethos that is continually and actively practiced under the new title, Patients' Front/Socialist Patients' Collective, PF/SPK(H). The first collective, SPK, declared its self-dissolution in July 1971 as a strategic withdrawal but in 1973 Huber proclaimed the continuity of SPK as Patients' Front.

Siegfried Hausner was a student member of the German Socialist Patients' Collective who was sentenced to three years imprisonment in 1972 for terrorist related crimes. When he was released in 1974, like many other former members of the SPK, he joined the Red Army Faction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stammheim Prison</span> Maximum-security prison in Stuttgart, Baden Württemberg, Germany

Stuttgart Correctional Facility, also known as Stuttgart Prison or Stammheim Prison, is located in the Stuttgart district of Stammheim, the northernmost district of the state capital of Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is the largest of a total of 17 correctional facilities with 19 branches in the Baden-Württemberg state prison system. Stammheim Prison gained national media attention in the 1970s due to the trials against the Red Army Faction and the imprisonment of its leading members in the high-security wing. Designed as a maximum to supermax security facility, the prison was put into operation in September 1963 after four years of construction. Today, it covers an area of approximately 50,000 square metres (540,000 sq ft).

<i>The Baader Meinhof Complex</i> 2008 German drama film

The Baader Meinhof Complex is a 2008 German drama film directed by Uli Edel. Written and produced by Bernd Eichinger, it stars Moritz Bleibtreu, Martina Gedeck, and Johanna Wokalek. The film is based on the 1985 German best selling non-fiction book of the same name by Stefan Aust. It retells the story of the early years of the West German far-left terrorist organisation the Rote Armee Fraktion from 1967 to 1977.

Siegfried Haag was a member of the West German Red Army Faction (RAF). He became a leading figure of the second generation of the group.

Irene Goergens is a former member of the West German terrorist group, the Red Army Faction (RAF).

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Smith, J.; Moncourt, André (2009). The Red Army Faction, a Documentary History: Volume 1: Projectiles for the People (eBook ed.). PM Press. ISBN   978-1-60486-029-0.
  2. 1 2 3 Becker, Jillian (1977). Hitler's children: the story of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang (1st ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott. ISBN   9780397011537.
  3. "Assoziation A – Margrit Schiller". Assoziation-a.de. Retrieved 7 November 2012.