Der Baader Meinhof Komplex
Encyclopedia
The Baader Meinhof Complex is a 2008 German film 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 extremist group the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction, or RAF). The film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film for the 81st Academy Awards
. It was also nominated for the Golden Globe in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
to attend a performance at the Deutsche Oper. Angered at the Shah's repressive policies in governing Iran, a number of young Germans show up to protest his appearance. The German police and the Shah's forces attack the German protesters and one of them, Benno Ohnesorg
is shot and killed without provocation by Karl-Heinz Kurras
.
The Ohnesorg murder outrages many Germans, including left wing journalist
Ulrike Meinhof
(Martina Gedeck
) who had earlier written articles critical of the Shah. Inspired by Meinhof's outspoken criticism of the government, Gudrun Ensslin
(Johanna Wokalek
) leaves her common law husband and child. Together with her new lover, Andreas Baader
(Moritz Bleibtreu
), and two others she carries out a fire bombing of a department store
in Frankfurt am Main. The group is caught and put on trial where they are represented by attorney Horst Mahler
, who shares their political beliefs. Ulrike Meinhof covers the trial and is impressed by the group's dedication to revolutionary principles as well as the change which they have brought about within their own lives. Meinhof secures an interview with Ensslin in prison, where the two strike up a friendship.
Meinhof discovers her husband having an affair and leaves with her two children to live with her friend Peter Homann. Meanwhile, Ensslin and Baader have been released on parole and continue to live a bohemian lifestyle
while attracting the loyalty of various young people including Astrid Proll
, and Peter-Jurgen Boock
. After spending some time abroad, Baader, Ensslin and Proll return to Germany at the urging of Horst Mahler. They begin to live with Ulrike Meinhof, who has also taken in a young runaway, Peggy Schoenau. Meinhof has become increasingly disillusioned by her inability to achieve change through her journalism and is looking to take more direct action. Her chance comes when Baader is arrested at a traffic stop. Using her journalism connections, Meinhof is able to arrange for Baader to be interviewed off prison grounds, where Ensslin and the others manage to rescue him. Wanted by the law, the group flees Germany.
After leaving Meinhof's children with sympathizers in Sicily, the group travels to Jordan
where they are to receive training in a Fatah
training camp, but the rebellious nature of the Germans soon annoys their Palestinian hosts. Peter Homann leaves the group after a falling out and learns that they intend to send Meinhof's children to a Palestinian camp from which they will never return. Instead he informs Meinhof's associate Stefan Aust
who returns the children to their father.
Returning to Germany, the group, now styling itself the Red Army Faction, engages in a series of bank robberies and draws increasing attention from the police. One of their number, Petra Schelm runs a police roadblock and is killed in a shoot-out with the police. This action only angers the RAF and leads to a campaign of bomb attacks directed at German authorities as well as American military personnel based in West Germany. As their notoriety grows and police attention intensifies, more and more members of the group are captured. Baader and Holger Meins
are captured after a shoot out with police. Ensslin becomes increasingly paranoid and is captured trying to change her clothes in a store after a clerk notices her gun. Meinhof is soon captured as well, meaning that virtually all of the "first generation" of RAF members are now in prison.
Initially put in solitary confinement
in separate prisons, the RAF members engage in a hunger strike which ultimately results in Holger Meins' death. The RAF consider this to be murder since the prison authorities withheld medical treatment from the critically ill Meins. The authorities then move Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof, and Jan-Carl Raspe
(Niels-Bruno Schmidt) to the same quarters in Stammheim Prison
. There, they work on their case as their physical and mental state deteriorates.
In 1975, a group of "second generation" RAF members seizes control of the West German embassy in Sweden
. The siege ends with a series of explosions, which kills several of the RAF members and injures the hostages. RAF member Siegfried Hausner
survives the blast but is critically wounded. Against medical advice he is flown back to Germany to be treated in a prison hospital, where he dies. The imprisoned RAF members are appalled by the poor execution of the Sweden operation and this contributes to their internal dissension. In particular, Ulrike Meinhof has fallen out with the other members over both her increasing depression and over recriminations about the groups tactics, in particular the 1972 bombing of the Axel Springer AG
publishing company which injured mostly workers and which Ensslin feels alienated them from common Germans. Eventually, her increasing depression leads Meinhof to commit suicide by hanging herself in her cell. The RAF disbelieve that this was actually a suicide and assert that it was an extrajudicial execution. After Meinhof's death, Baader, Ensslin and Raspe are able to get other members of their group transferred into their wing. Of particular concern to the authorities is Brigitte Mohnhaupt
(Nadja Uhl
) whose prison term will be ending shortly and who the authorities suspect will be used to carry orders to free RAF members.
Upon her release, Mohnhaupt hooks up with a group run by Peter-Jurgen Boock. Mohnhaupt informs Boock that the leadership has forbidden any more attacks on civilians and also enlists Boock's help to smuggle weapons into Stammheim, implying that the imprisoned members may choose to commit suicide, a fact that she wants kept hidden from the other RAF members. In retaliation for what they regard as the murders of Meins, Hausner, and Meinhof, they assassinate federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback
. Mohnhaupt, along with Christian Klar
and Susanne Albrecht
also attempt to kidnap Jurgen Ponto
, the president of Dresdner Bank
and a family friend of Albrecht's, at his home, but when Ponto fights back he is shot and killed. Albrecht is horrified by the murder but is forced to sign a statement justifying Ponto's death. In response to the murders of Buback and Ponto, the authorities force the imprisoned RAF members back into solitary confinement.
The imprisoned members send a message to their free comrades that they fear they may be murdered by their jailers. Boock and Mohnhaupt's group then kidnaps industrialist Hanns-Martin Schleyer, killing four members of his security detail in the process. They demand the release of the imprisoned RAF members in exchange for Schleyer. When the German authorities are slow in meeting their demands they enlist the PLO to hijack Lufthansa Flight 181
. The hijacking ends with the hostages rescued and the hijackers captured. Despairing of ever being released, Baader and Raspe shoot themselves with guns which had been smuggled into the prison, Ensslin hangs herself in her cell, and Irmgard Moller
tries to take her own life by stabbing herself four times in the chest. Horrified by the suicides, the free RAF members execute Schleyer.
, Munich
, Stammheim Prison
, Rome
and Morocco
. The film was subsidized by several film financing boards to the sum of EUR
6.5 million.
for Best Foreign Language Film
.
Michael Buback
, the son of former chief federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback
who was assassinated by the RAF in 1977, expressed doubts concerning whether the film seriously attempts to present the historical truth, although he had not seen the movie when he expressed this concern. He subsequently amended this statement, but pointed out that the film concentrates almost exclusively on portraying the perpetrators which carries with it the danger for the viewer of too much identification with the protagonists.
Protesting against the historically "distorted" and "almost completely false" depiction of the RAF's assassination of leading German banker Jürgen Ponto
, Ponto's widow and witness Ignes Ponto returned her Federal Cross of Merit
, since she saw the German government, which co-produced the film through various film financing funds, as jointly responsible for the "public humiliations" suffered by her and her family. Representing the family, her daughter Corinna Ponto called the film's violation of their privacy "wrong" and "particularly perfidious".
Jörg Schleyer, the son of the assassinated manager and then president of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations
, Hanns Martin Schleyer
, states, however, that the movie was a great film which finally portrayed the RAF as what it actually was, "a merciless, ruthless gang of murderers". Commenting on the blatant depiction of violence he said, "Only a movie like this can show young people how brutal and bloodthirsty the RAF's actions were at that time."
The movie website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 87% of critics gave the film positive write-ups based upon a sample of 83 with an average score of 7.1/10.0.
Hollywood Reporter gave the film a favourable review, praising the acting and storytelling, but also noting a lack of character development in certain parts. A mixed review with similar criticism was published in Variety. Fionnuala Halligan of Screen International
praised the film's excellent production values as well as the efficient and crisp translation of a fascinating topic to film, but felt that the plot flatlines emotionally and doesn't hold much dramatic suspense for younger and non-European audiences unfamiliar with the film's historical events.
Christopher Hitchens
wrote a very favorable review for Vanity Fair
. He appreciated the film's attempt to strike against conventional Hollywood stereotypes of revolutionaries by making the connection between urban warfare and criminality explicit. By slowly erasing the boundaries, the film revealed the "uneasy relationship between sexuality and cruelty, and between casual or cynical attitudes to both", as well as the tendency of the terrorists to offer their support and allegiance to only the most extreme factions of the revolutionary underground. Hitchens describes the RAF as "a form of psychosis
" which swept through all of the post-Axis
countries following the war, all of which Hitchens' claims had similar leftist terrorist groups. "The propaganda of the terrorists" [...] showed an almost neurotic need to “resist authority” in a way that their parents’ generation had so terribly failed to do." Finally, he praises the film's depiction of an escalating cycle of violence and paranoia in "which mania feeds upon itself and becomes hysterical."
The Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden, Germany's national agency which evaluates movies on their artistic, documentary and historical significance, gave the movie the rating "especially valuable". In their explanatory statement the committee says: "the film tries to do justice to the terrorists as well as to the representatives of the German state by describing both sides with an equally objective distance." The committee asserts: "German history as a big movie production: impressive, authentic, political, tantalizing".
Uli Edel
Uli Edel is a German film director.-Work:After studying theatre science in Munich, he was accepted into Munich Film School alongside Bernd Eichinger. Uli befriended him and they started working together on their exercise movies, sharing a love for the nouvelle vague and Italian neorealism as well...
. Written and produced by Bernd Eichinger
Bernd Eichinger
Bernd Eichinger was a German film producer and director.- Life and career :Eichinger was born in Neuburg an der Donau. He attended the University of Television and Film Munich in the 1970s, and bought a stake in the fledgling studio company Neue Constantin Film in 1979, becoming its executive...
, it stars Moritz Bleibtreu
Moritz Bleibtreu
Moritz Bleibtreu is a German actor.Bleibtreu was born in Munich, the son of actors Monica Bleibtreu and Hans Brenner, and the great-grand-nephew of the actress Hedwig Bleibtreu.Bleibtreu grew up in Hamburg...
, Martina Gedeck
Martina Gedeck
Martina Gedeck is a German actress. She came to broader, international attention due to her roles in films such as Mostly Martha, The Lives of Others, and The Baader Meinhof Complex...
and Johanna Wokalek
Johanna Wokalek
Johanna Wokalek is a German stage and film actress. A student of Klaus Maria Brandauer, she received critical recognition and three newcomer awards for her performance in the play Rose Bernd. Wokalek is best known for her award-winning appearances in the German films Hierankl, Barfuss, and The...
. The film is based on the 1985 German best selling non-fiction book of the same name by Stefan Aust
Stefan Aust
Stefan Aust is a German journalist and was the editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel from 1994 to February 2008...
. It retells the story of the early years of the West German
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
far-left extremist group the Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Faction, or RAF). The film was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film for the 81st Academy Awards
81st Academy Awards
The 81st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 2008 and took place February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST...
. It was also nominated for the Golden Globe in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
Plot summary
In 1967, the Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, visits West BerlinWest Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...
to attend a performance at the Deutsche Oper. Angered at the Shah's repressive policies in governing Iran, a number of young Germans show up to protest his appearance. The German police and the Shah's forces attack the German protesters and one of them, Benno Ohnesorg
Benno Ohnesorg
Benno Ohnesorg was a German university student killed by a policeman during a demonstration in West Berlin.- Death :On June 2, 1967, Ohnesorg participated in a protest held near the Deutsche Oper, aimed against the state visit of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who was attending a...
is shot and killed without provocation by Karl-Heinz Kurras
Karl-Heinz Kurras
Karl-Heinz Kurras is a former German police officer who served in the police force of West Berlin, and a former agent of the East German secret service Stasi....
.
The Ohnesorg murder outrages many Germans, including left wing journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
Ulrike Meinhof
Ulrike Meinhof
Ulrike Marie Meinhof was a German left-wing militant. She co-founded the Red Army Faction in 1970 after having previously worked as a journalist for the monthly left-wing magazine Konkret. She was arrested in 1972, and eventually charged with numerous murders and the formation of a criminal...
(Martina Gedeck
Martina Gedeck
Martina Gedeck is a German actress. She came to broader, international attention due to her roles in films such as Mostly Martha, The Lives of Others, and The Baader Meinhof Complex...
) who had earlier written articles critical of the Shah. Inspired by Meinhof's outspoken criticism of the government, Gudrun Ensslin
Gudrun Ensslin
Gudrun Ensslin was a founder of the German militant group Red Army Faction . After becoming involved with co-founder Andreas Baader, Ensslin was influential in the politicization of Baader's voluntaristic anarchistic beliefs. Ensslin was perhaps the intellectual head of the RAF...
(Johanna Wokalek
Johanna Wokalek
Johanna Wokalek is a German stage and film actress. A student of Klaus Maria Brandauer, she received critical recognition and three newcomer awards for her performance in the play Rose Bernd. Wokalek is best known for her award-winning appearances in the German films Hierankl, Barfuss, and The...
) leaves her common law husband and child. Together with her new lover, Andreas Baader
Andreas Baader
Andreas Bernd Baader was one of the first leaders of the German left-wing militant organization Red Army Faction, also commonly known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang.- Life :...
(Moritz Bleibtreu
Moritz Bleibtreu
Moritz Bleibtreu is a German actor.Bleibtreu was born in Munich, the son of actors Monica Bleibtreu and Hans Brenner, and the great-grand-nephew of the actress Hedwig Bleibtreu.Bleibtreu grew up in Hamburg...
), and two others she carries out a fire bombing of a department store
Department store
A department store is a retail establishment which satisfies a wide range of the consumer's personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice of multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories...
in Frankfurt am Main. The group is caught and put on trial where they are represented by attorney Horst Mahler
Horst Mahler
Horst Mahler is a former German lawyer and advocate of radical ideologies. He once was an extreme-left militant, a founding member of the Red Army Faction. Subsequently he became a Maoist and later shifted to the extreme-right. He was for a time a member of the National Democratic Party of Germany...
, who shares their political beliefs. Ulrike Meinhof covers the trial and is impressed by the group's dedication to revolutionary principles as well as the change which they have brought about within their own lives. Meinhof secures an interview with Ensslin in prison, where the two strike up a friendship.
Meinhof discovers her husband having an affair and leaves with her two children to live with her friend Peter Homann. Meanwhile, Ensslin and Baader have been released on parole and continue to live a bohemian lifestyle
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
while attracting the loyalty of various young people including Astrid Proll
Astrid Proll
Astrid Huberta Isolde Marie Luise Hildegard Proll was an early member of the Baader-Meinhof Gang.-As a Baader-Meinhof member:...
, and Peter-Jurgen Boock
Peter-Jürgen Boock
Peter-Jürgen Boock is a former member of the Red Army Faction.-Earlier life:After completing secondary school, Boock began training as a mechanic but soon quit. Claiming that his father was a staunch Nazi, Boock then left his parents’ home and travelled to the Netherlands...
. After spending some time abroad, Baader, Ensslin and Proll return to Germany at the urging of Horst Mahler. They begin to live with Ulrike Meinhof, who has also taken in a young runaway, Peggy Schoenau. Meinhof has become increasingly disillusioned by her inability to achieve change through her journalism and is looking to take more direct action. Her chance comes when Baader is arrested at a traffic stop. Using her journalism connections, Meinhof is able to arrange for Baader to be interviewed off prison grounds, where Ensslin and the others manage to rescue him. Wanted by the law, the group flees Germany.
After leaving Meinhof's children with sympathizers in Sicily, the group travels to Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
where they are to receive training in a Fatah
Fatah
Fataḥ is a major Palestinian political party and the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization , a multi-party confederation. In Palestinian politics it is on the left-wing of the spectrum; it is mainly nationalist, although not predominantly socialist. Its official goals are found...
training camp, but the rebellious nature of the Germans soon annoys their Palestinian hosts. Peter Homann leaves the group after a falling out and learns that they intend to send Meinhof's children to a Palestinian camp from which they will never return. Instead he informs Meinhof's associate Stefan Aust
Stefan Aust
Stefan Aust is a German journalist and was the editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel from 1994 to February 2008...
who returns the children to their father.
Returning to Germany, the group, now styling itself the Red Army Faction, engages in a series of bank robberies and draws increasing attention from the police. One of their number, Petra Schelm runs a police roadblock and is killed in a shoot-out with the police. This action only angers the RAF and leads to a campaign of bomb attacks directed at German authorities as well as American military personnel based in West Germany. As their notoriety grows and police attention intensifies, more and more members of the group are captured. Baader and Holger Meins
Holger Meins
Holger Klaus Meins was a German cinematography student who joined the Red Army Faction in the early 1970s and died on hunger strike in prison.-As a Revolutionary:...
are captured after a shoot out with police. Ensslin becomes increasingly paranoid and is captured trying to change her clothes in a store after a clerk notices her gun. Meinhof is soon captured as well, meaning that virtually all of the "first generation" of RAF members are now in prison.
Initially put in solitary confinement
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
in separate prisons, the RAF members engage in a hunger strike which ultimately results in Holger Meins' death. The RAF consider this to be murder since the prison authorities withheld medical treatment from the critically ill Meins. The authorities then move Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof, and Jan-Carl Raspe
Jan-Carl Raspe
Jan-Carl Raspe was a member of the German militant group, the Red Army Faction.- Young life :Raspe was born in Seefeld in Tirol. He was described as gentle but had difficulty communicating with other people. His father had said that he couldn't stand violence...
(Niels-Bruno Schmidt) to the same quarters in Stammheim Prison
Stammheim Prison
Stammheim Prison is a prison in Stuttgart, Baden Württemberg, Germany. It is situated on the northern boundaries of Stuttgart in the city district of Stuttgart-Stammheim — right between fields and apartment blocks on the fringes of Stammheim...
. There, they work on their case as their physical and mental state deteriorates.
In 1975, a group of "second generation" RAF members seizes control of the West German embassy in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. The siege ends with a series of explosions, which kills several of the RAF members and injures the hostages. RAF member Siegfried Hausner
Siegfried Hausner
Siegfried Hausner was a student member of the German Socialist Patients' Collective and later the Red Army Faction.-As a Terrorist:...
survives the blast but is critically wounded. Against medical advice he is flown back to Germany to be treated in a prison hospital, where he dies. The imprisoned RAF members are appalled by the poor execution of the Sweden operation and this contributes to their internal dissension. In particular, Ulrike Meinhof has fallen out with the other members over both her increasing depression and over recriminations about the groups tactics, in particular the 1972 bombing of the Axel Springer AG
Axel Springer AG
Axel Springer AG is one of the largest multimedia companies in Europe, with more than 11,500 employees and with annual revenues of about €2.9 billion. The Company is active in a total of 36 countries, including Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Russia and Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland...
publishing company which injured mostly workers and which Ensslin feels alienated them from common Germans. Eventually, her increasing depression leads Meinhof to commit suicide by hanging herself in her cell. The RAF disbelieve that this was actually a suicide and assert that it was an extrajudicial execution. After Meinhof's death, Baader, Ensslin and Raspe are able to get other members of their group transferred into their wing. Of particular concern to the authorities is Brigitte Mohnhaupt
Brigitte Mohnhaupt
Brigitte Margret Ida Mohnhaupt is a German militant associated with the second generation of the Red Army Faction members. She was also part of the Socialist Patients' Collective...
(Nadja Uhl
Nadja Uhl
Nadja Uhl is a German actress.She studied at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy College of Music and Theatre in Leipzig between 1990 and 1994, beginning her career as a theatre actress at the Hans Otto Theater in Potsdam in 1994...
) whose prison term will be ending shortly and who the authorities suspect will be used to carry orders to free RAF members.
Upon her release, Mohnhaupt hooks up with a group run by Peter-Jurgen Boock. Mohnhaupt informs Boock that the leadership has forbidden any more attacks on civilians and also enlists Boock's help to smuggle weapons into Stammheim, implying that the imprisoned members may choose to commit suicide, a fact that she wants kept hidden from the other RAF members. In retaliation for what they regard as the murders of Meins, Hausner, and Meinhof, they assassinate federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback
Siegfried Buback
Siegfried Buback was the Attorney General of Germany from 1974-1977.Buback studied at the University of Leipzig. From 1940 to 1945 he was a member of the Nazi Party. From 1945 to 1947 he was a POW...
. Mohnhaupt, along with Christian Klar
Christian Klar
Christian Klar was a leading member of the second generation Red Army Faction between the 1970s and 80s...
and Susanne Albrecht
Susanne Albrecht
Susanne Albrecht is a former member of the Red Army Faction.-Early life:Albrecht was the daughter of a successful maritime lawyer, and spent her childhood living in a wealthy suburb of Hamburg. She did not fit in well in public school, and was later sent to a private school in Holzminden...
also attempt to kidnap Jurgen Ponto
Jürgen Ponto
Jürgen Ponto, was a German banker and chairman of the Dresdner Bank board of directors. Previously, he had worked as a lawyer...
, the president of Dresdner Bank
Dresdner Bank
Dresdner Bank AG was one of Germany's largest banking corporations and was based in Frankfurt. It was acquired by competitor Commerzbank in December 2009.- 19th century :...
and a family friend of Albrecht's, at his home, but when Ponto fights back he is shot and killed. Albrecht is horrified by the murder but is forced to sign a statement justifying Ponto's death. In response to the murders of Buback and Ponto, the authorities force the imprisoned RAF members back into solitary confinement.
The imprisoned members send a message to their free comrades that they fear they may be murdered by their jailers. Boock and Mohnhaupt's group then kidnaps industrialist Hanns-Martin Schleyer, killing four members of his security detail in the process. They demand the release of the imprisoned RAF members in exchange for Schleyer. When the German authorities are slow in meeting their demands they enlist the PLO to hijack Lufthansa Flight 181
Lufthansa Flight 181
Lufthansa Flight 181 was a Lufthansa Boeing 737-230 Adv aircraft named Landshut that was hijacked on October 13, 1977 by four members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine...
. The hijacking ends with the hostages rescued and the hijackers captured. Despairing of ever being released, Baader and Raspe shoot themselves with guns which had been smuggled into the prison, Ensslin hangs herself in her cell, and Irmgard Moller
Irmgard Möller
Irmgard Möller is a German militant and a former member of the Red Army Faction...
tries to take her own life by stabbing herself four times in the chest. Horrified by the suicides, the free RAF members execute Schleyer.
Production
The film began production in August 2007 with filming at several locations including BerlinBerlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Stammheim Prison
Stammheim Prison
Stammheim Prison is a prison in Stuttgart, Baden Württemberg, Germany. It is situated on the northern boundaries of Stuttgart in the city district of Stuttgart-Stammheim — right between fields and apartment blocks on the fringes of Stammheim...
, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
. The film was subsidized by several film financing boards to the sum of EUR
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
6.5 million.
Cast
- Martina GedeckMartina GedeckMartina Gedeck is a German actress. She came to broader, international attention due to her roles in films such as Mostly Martha, The Lives of Others, and The Baader Meinhof Complex...
as Ulrike MeinhofUlrike MeinhofUlrike Marie Meinhof was a German left-wing militant. She co-founded the Red Army Faction in 1970 after having previously worked as a journalist for the monthly left-wing magazine Konkret. She was arrested in 1972, and eventually charged with numerous murders and the formation of a criminal... - Moritz BleibtreuMoritz BleibtreuMoritz Bleibtreu is a German actor.Bleibtreu was born in Munich, the son of actors Monica Bleibtreu and Hans Brenner, and the great-grand-nephew of the actress Hedwig Bleibtreu.Bleibtreu grew up in Hamburg...
as Andreas BaaderAndreas BaaderAndreas Bernd Baader was one of the first leaders of the German left-wing militant organization Red Army Faction, also commonly known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang.- Life :... - Johanna WokalekJohanna WokalekJohanna Wokalek is a German stage and film actress. A student of Klaus Maria Brandauer, she received critical recognition and three newcomer awards for her performance in the play Rose Bernd. Wokalek is best known for her award-winning appearances in the German films Hierankl, Barfuss, and The...
as Gudrun EnsslinGudrun EnsslinGudrun Ensslin was a founder of the German militant group Red Army Faction . After becoming involved with co-founder Andreas Baader, Ensslin was influential in the politicization of Baader's voluntaristic anarchistic beliefs. Ensslin was perhaps the intellectual head of the RAF... - Bruno GanzBruno GanzBruno Ganz is a Swiss actor, known for his roles as Damiel in Wings of Desire and Adolf Hitler in Downfall.- Early life :Bruno Ganz was born in Zürich to a Swiss mechanic father and a northern Italian mother. He had decided to pursue an acting career by the time he entered university...
as Horst Herold - Stipe ErcegStipe ErcegStipe Erceg is a German/Croatian actor. He is notable for playing the role of Peter in the 2004 Hans Weingartner film The Edukators alongside Daniel Brühl and Julia Jentsch.Erceg was born in Split, SR Croatia, Yugoslavia...
as Holger MeinsHolger MeinsHolger Klaus Meins was a German cinematography student who joined the Red Army Faction in the early 1970s and died on hunger strike in prison.-As a Revolutionary:... - Jan Josef LiefersJan Josef LiefersJan Josef Liefers, is a German actor and musician. He was born on August 8, 1964 in Dresden.-Life:Liefers is the son of director Karlheinz Liefers and actress Brigitte Liefers-Wähner. After his apprenticeship he studied at the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch in Berlin...
as Peter Homann - Alexandra Maria LaraAlexandra Maria LaraAlexandra Maria Lara is a Romanian-born German actress. She performs predominantly in leading roles in a variety of historical and crime films...
as Petra Schelm - Andreas Tobias as Manfred Grashof
- Nadja UhlNadja UhlNadja Uhl is a German actress.She studied at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy College of Music and Theatre in Leipzig between 1990 and 1994, beginning her career as a theatre actress at the Hans Otto Theater in Potsdam in 1994...
as Brigitte MohnhauptBrigitte MohnhauptBrigitte Margret Ida Mohnhaupt is a German militant associated with the second generation of the Red Army Faction members. She was also part of the Socialist Patients' Collective... - Simon Licht as Horst MahlerHorst MahlerHorst Mahler is a former German lawyer and advocate of radical ideologies. He once was an extreme-left militant, a founding member of the Red Army Faction. Subsequently he became a Maoist and later shifted to the extreme-right. He was for a time a member of the National Democratic Party of Germany...
- Hannah HerzsprungHannah HerzsprungHannah Herzsprung is a German actress.- Biography :Hannah Herzsprung is the daughter of actor Bernd Herzsprung and fashion designer Barbara Engel. She debuted as an actress in 1997 in the BR series Aus heiterem Himmel, where she played the role of Miriam "Mimi" Pauly in the beginning of the fourth...
as Susanne AlbrechtSusanne AlbrechtSusanne Albrecht is a former member of the Red Army Faction.-Early life:Albrecht was the daughter of a successful maritime lawyer, and spent her childhood living in a wealthy suburb of Hamburg. She did not fit in well in public school, and was later sent to a private school in Holzminden... - Vinzenz Kiefer as Peter-Jürgen BoockPeter-Jürgen BoockPeter-Jürgen Boock is a former member of the Red Army Faction.-Earlier life:After completing secondary school, Boock began training as a mechanic but soon quit. Claiming that his father was a staunch Nazi, Boock then left his parents’ home and travelled to the Netherlands...
- Daniel Lommatzsch as Christian KlarChristian KlarChristian Klar was a leading member of the second generation Red Army Faction between the 1970s and 80s...
- Niels-Bruno Schmidt as Jan-Carl RaspeJan-Carl RaspeJan-Carl Raspe was a member of the German militant group, the Red Army Faction.- Young life :Raspe was born in Seefeld in Tirol. He was described as gentle but had difficulty communicating with other people. His father had said that he couldn't stand violence...
- Katharina Wackernagel as Astrid ProllAstrid ProllAstrid Huberta Isolde Marie Luise Hildegard Proll was an early member of the Baader-Meinhof Gang.-As a Baader-Meinhof member:...
- Annika Kuhl as Irmgard MöllerIrmgard MöllerIrmgard Möller is a German militant and a former member of the Red Army Faction...
- Sandra Borgmann as Ruth (Sieglinde HofmannSieglinde HofmannSieglinde Hofmann was a militant and member of both the Socialist Patients' Collective and the Red Army Faction.-Biography:...
) - Sebastian Blomberg as Rudi DutschkeRudi DutschkeAlfred Willi Rudi Dutschke was the most prominent spokesperson of the German student movement of the 1960s. He advocated 'a long march through the institutions' of power to create radical change from within government and society by becoming an integral part of the machinery...
Distribution and reception
The film premiered on September 15, 2008, in Munich and was commercially released in Germany on September 25, 2008. The film was chosen as Germany's official submission to the 81st Academy Awards81st Academy Awards
The 81st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , honored the best films of 2008 and took place February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST...
for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
.
Michael Buback
Michael Buback
Michael Buback is a chemist and professor at Göttingen University. He is the son of Siegfried Buback, the former chief federal prosecutor of Germany who was assassinated by Red Army Fraction militant group in the German Autumn 1977....
, the son of former chief federal prosecutor Siegfried Buback
Siegfried Buback
Siegfried Buback was the Attorney General of Germany from 1974-1977.Buback studied at the University of Leipzig. From 1940 to 1945 he was a member of the Nazi Party. From 1945 to 1947 he was a POW...
who was assassinated by the RAF in 1977, expressed doubts concerning whether the film seriously attempts to present the historical truth, although he had not seen the movie when he expressed this concern. He subsequently amended this statement, but pointed out that the film concentrates almost exclusively on portraying the perpetrators which carries with it the danger for the viewer of too much identification with the protagonists.
Protesting against the historically "distorted" and "almost completely false" depiction of the RAF's assassination of leading German banker Jürgen Ponto
Jürgen Ponto
Jürgen Ponto, was a German banker and chairman of the Dresdner Bank board of directors. Previously, he had worked as a lawyer...
, Ponto's widow and witness Ignes Ponto returned her Federal Cross of Merit
Bundesverdienstkreuz
The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany is the only general state decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has existed since 7 September 1951, and between 3,000 and 5,200 awards are given every year across all classes...
, since she saw the German government, which co-produced the film through various film financing funds, as jointly responsible for the "public humiliations" suffered by her and her family. Representing the family, her daughter Corinna Ponto called the film's violation of their privacy "wrong" and "particularly perfidious".
Jörg Schleyer, the son of the assassinated manager and then president of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations
Confederation of German Employers' Associations
The Confederation of German Employers' Associations or BDA is the umbrella organization for German employers' associations...
, Hanns Martin Schleyer
Hanns Martin Schleyer
Hanns-Martin Schleyer was an SS officer, a German business executive and employer and industry representative, serving as President of the two influential organizations Confederation of German Employers' Associations and Federation of German Industries...
, states, however, that the movie was a great film which finally portrayed the RAF as what it actually was, "a merciless, ruthless gang of murderers". Commenting on the blatant depiction of violence he said, "Only a movie like this can show young people how brutal and bloodthirsty the RAF's actions were at that time."
The movie website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 87% of critics gave the film positive write-ups based upon a sample of 83 with an average score of 7.1/10.0.
Hollywood Reporter gave the film a favourable review, praising the acting and storytelling, but also noting a lack of character development in certain parts. A mixed review with similar criticism was published in Variety. Fionnuala Halligan of Screen International
Screen International
Screen International is a multimedia film magazine covering the international film business. It is published by EMAP, a British b2b media company.The magazine is primarily aimed at those involved in the global movie business...
praised the film's excellent production values as well as the efficient and crisp translation of a fascinating topic to film, but felt that the plot flatlines emotionally and doesn't hold much dramatic suspense for younger and non-European audiences unfamiliar with the film's historical events.
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
wrote a very favorable review for Vanity Fair
Vanity Fair (magazine)
Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
. He appreciated the film's attempt to strike against conventional Hollywood stereotypes of revolutionaries by making the connection between urban warfare and criminality explicit. By slowly erasing the boundaries, the film revealed the "uneasy relationship between sexuality and cruelty, and between casual or cynical attitudes to both", as well as the tendency of the terrorists to offer their support and allegiance to only the most extreme factions of the revolutionary underground. Hitchens describes the RAF as "a form of psychosis
Psychosis
Psychosis means abnormal condition of the mind, and is a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality"...
" which swept through all of the post-Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
countries following the war, all of which Hitchens' claims had similar leftist terrorist groups. "The propaganda of the terrorists" [...] showed an almost neurotic need to “resist authority” in a way that their parents’ generation had so terribly failed to do." Finally, he praises the film's depiction of an escalating cycle of violence and paranoia in "which mania feeds upon itself and becomes hysterical."
The Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden, Germany's national agency which evaluates movies on their artistic, documentary and historical significance, gave the movie the rating "especially valuable". In their explanatory statement the committee says: "the film tries to do justice to the terrorists as well as to the representatives of the German state by describing both sides with an equally objective distance." The committee asserts: "German history as a big movie production: impressive, authentic, political, tantalizing".