Gudrun Ensslin
Encyclopedia
Gudrun Ensslin (ˈɡuːdʁuːn ˈɛnsliːn; 15 August 1940 – 18 October 1977) was a founder of the German
militant
group Red Army Faction
(Rote Armee Fraktion, or RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang). 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. She was involved in five bomb attacks, with four deaths, was arrested in 1972 and died on 18 October 1977 in what has been called Stammheim Prison
's Death Night.
in Baden-Württemberg
, Germany
. Her father, Helmut, was a pastor of the Evangelical Church in Germany
. Ensslin was a well-behaved child who did well at school and enjoyed working with the Evangelical Girl Scouts, and doing parish work such as organizing Bible studies. In her family, the social injustices of the world were often discussed, and Gudrun is said to have been sensitized to social problems in West Germany
and the world as a whole.
At age eighteen, Ensslin spent a year in the United States of America, where she attended high school in Warren, Pennsylvania
. She graduated in the Honor Group at Warren High School in 1959. After returning home, she finished the remaining requirements for her German secondary education
.
Like her partner Bernward Vesper and other members of the Red Army Faction
(such as Ulrike Meinhof
and Horst Mahler
) Ensslin had excellent exam scores and received a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation. Studying at the University of Tübingen, she read education
, English Studies
, and German studies
as well as meeting Bernward Vesper in February, 1962.
Vesper's father Will
had been a best-selling author before the First World War and joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) in 1931. The senior Vesper kept a pro-Nazi stance until his death in 1962, and his writings, compiled posthumously as Die Reise (The Trip), are an explosive mixture of radical left-wing and radical right-wing views. The son's life was largely shaped by his father's experiences. Ensslin's politics harmonized with those of the Vespers, and the couple made a failed attempted to publish a collection of the senior Vesper's works.
In Tübingen, together with two other students, Ensslin and Vesper organized a student workshop for new literature which led to a shoestring publishing business called Studio neue Literatur. The first book produced was an anthology of poems against atomic weapons, with many well known poets from all German speaking countries. as well as a bilingual edition of poems by Gerardo Diego
. In 19631964, Gudrun Ensslin earned her elementary school teacher's diploma. In the summer of 1964, the couple moved to West Berlin
where Gudrun would began her thesis on Hans Henny Jahnn
at the Free University.
In 1965, Gudrun's younger sister Johanna married Günther Maschke, then a revolutionary Marxist poet and member of the Situationist International group Subversiven Aktion, which included Rudi Dutschke
as a member. Maschke is now a leading conservative antidemocratic intellectual and editor of Carl Schmitt
. Later that year, Gudrun and Bernward were engaged to be married. Both were active on the democratic left-wing, they had well-paid jobs working for the Social Democratic Party of Germany
. The couple demonstrated together against new security laws, the Vietnam War
, an Allied Powers arms show, and for the right to demonstrate. Vesper neglected his studies, read voraciously, and in 1966 published, with a group of friends, a serious and important series of pamphlets and paperbacks, the Voltaire Flugschriften.
In May 1967, Ensslin gave birth to their son Felix Robert Ensslin. In February 1968, Ensslin broke up with Vesper by phone, informing him that the relationship was already finished before Felix was born. In July or August 1967 Gudrun met Andreas Baader
and they soon began a love affair. Baader had come to Berlin in 1963, to escape ongoing troubles with the Munich
justice system and also to dodge the draft. The young criminal who drifted in and out of youth detention center
s and prison soon became the man of Ensslin's life. An artifact from this time is an experimental film Ensslin participated in entitled Das Abonnement (The Subscription).
, fights broke out between pro-Shah and anti-Shah factions and an innocent young man by the name of Benno Ohnesorg
was shot in the back of the head by a police officer. That night, Ensslin angrily denounced West Germany as a fascist state at a Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund
meeting. Also, Berlin's own urban guerrilla organization, Movement 2 June
, named itself after this event.
The police officer who shot Ohnesorg, Karl-Heinz Kurras
, was revealed in 2009 to be an undercover Stasi
(East German State Security) agent. Kurras was charged with manslaughter and acquitted of the charge on 23 November 1967, which caused public outrage. Matters eventually cooled, which enraged Gudrun Ensslin. She had left Bernward Vesper and her child for good early in 1968 and now she, Andreas Baader and Thorwald Proll
decided to escalate the fight against the system. They left Berlin around 20 March, and in Munich decided to fire-bomb department stores in Frankfurt, where a Socialist German Student Union congress was taking place. Together with Horst Söhnlein
, they left for Frankfurt on 1 April.
On the night of 2 April 1968, two fires were set in two department stores in Frankfurt
. Baader, Ensslin, Proll and Söhnlein remained in Frankfurt and were arrested three days later. In October 1968, they were sentenced to three years in prison for arson
. After being released pending an appeal in June 1969, Baader, Ensslin and Proll fled when the appeal was denied. Baader was arrested on 3 April 1970. Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof
, who was at that time a well-known leftist polemicist, and two other women freed him on 14 May 1970. One person was shot. This was the beginning of the gang's violent crimes, and the Red Army Faction. Ensslin became one of the most wanted people in Germany.
In May 1971, Bernward Vesper committed suicide and Felix was sent to live with foster parents.
Ensslin was arrested in a boutique on 8 June 1972 in Hamburg
.
. When this failed to work, the RAF orchestrated the hijacking of a Lufthansa airliner on 17 October. After the airplane was stormed by a German anti-terrorist unit, Schleyer was killed.
Hours later, in a night that became known as "Death Night", Ensslin, Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe
were found dead in the high security block of Stammheim Prison
. Like Meinhof, Ensslin was found dead by hanging
in her cell. Andreas Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe shot themselves. A fourth member, Irmgard Möller
, stabbed herself four times in the chest with a stolen knife. She survived her suicide attempt and has since stated that the deaths were not suicide, but rather extrajudical killings undertaken by the German government of the time, a claim strongly denied by the German governments former and present. The exhaustive study of the RAF by Stefan Aust
(revised in 2009 as "Baader-Meinhof: the inside story of the RAF") is categorical in finding the deaths suicides. On 27 October 1977, Ensslin was buried in a common grave with Baader and Raspe in the Dornhalde Cemetery in Stuttgart.
presented a fictionalised portrayal of an incarcerated Ensslin (Barbara Sukowa
) and her sister (Jutta Lampe). Five years later, Sabine Wegner played Ensslin in Reinhard Hauff's Stammheim
, a detailed account of the terror trial against Ensslin, Baader, Meinhof and others. Also in 1986, Corinna Kirchhoff played Ensslin in Markus Imhoof's Die Reise, based on the memoirs of Enssslin's companion Bernward Vesper. In 1997, Anya Hoffmann was Ensslin in Heinrich Breloer's award winning TV docudrama
Todesspiel. Ensslin was portrayed by Johanna Wokalek
in Uli Edel
's 2008 film The Baader Meinhof Complex, an adaptation of the non-fiction book of the same name by Stefan Aust
. Wokalek's performance in the film was awarded with a nomination for the 2009 German Film Awards and a Bambi
award as best German actress. The film was chosen as Germany's submission to the 81st Academy Awards
for Best Foreign Language Film
, and was already nominated Best Foreign Language Film for the 66th Golden Globe Awards
.
In February 2011, Andres Veiel
's feature film Wer wenn nicht wir (If Not Us, Who?), in which Lena Lauzemis plays Gudrun Ensslin, won the Alfred Bauer Prize and the Prize of the German Art House Cinemas at the Berlin International Film Festival
.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
militant
Militant
The word militant, which is both an adjective and a noun, usually is used to mean vigorously active, combative and aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in 'militant reformers'. It comes from the 15th century Latin "militare" meaning "to serve as a soldier"...
group Red Army Faction
Red Army Faction
The radicalized were, like many in the New Left, influenced by:* Sociological developments, pressure within the educational system in and outside Europe and the U.S...
(Rote Armee Fraktion, or RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang). After becoming involved with co-founder 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 :...
, Ensslin was influential in the politicization of Baader's voluntaristic anarchistic beliefs. Ensslin was perhaps the intellectual head of the RAF. She was involved in five bomb attacks, with four deaths, was arrested in 1972 and died on 18 October 1977 in what has been called 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...
's Death Night.
Early life
Ensslin, the fourth of seven children, was born in the village of BartholomäBartholomä
Bartholomä is a municipality in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, in Ostalbkreis district.Bartholomä is mainly a commuter town in the historical region of Swabia, that straddles the border between Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria....
in Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg
Baden-Württemberg is one of the 16 states of Germany. Baden-Württemberg is in the southwestern part of the country to the east of the Upper Rhine, and is the third largest in both area and population of Germany's sixteen states, with an area of and 10.7 million inhabitants...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Her father, Helmut, was a pastor of the Evangelical Church in Germany
Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...
. Ensslin was a well-behaved child who did well at school and enjoyed working with the Evangelical Girl Scouts, and doing parish work such as organizing Bible studies. In her family, the social injustices of the world were often discussed, and Gudrun is said to have been sensitized to social problems in West Germany
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....
and the world as a whole.
At age eighteen, Ensslin spent a year in the United States of America, where she attended high school in Warren, Pennsylvania
Warren, Pennsylvania
Warren is a city in Warren County, Pennsylvania, United States, located along the Allegheny River. The population was 9,710 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Warren County. It is home to the headquarters of the Allegheny National Forest and the Cornplanter State Forest...
. She graduated in the Honor Group at Warren High School in 1959. After returning home, she finished the remaining requirements for her German secondary education
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
.
Like her partner Bernward Vesper and other members of the Red Army Faction
Red Army Faction
The radicalized were, like many in the New Left, influenced by:* Sociological developments, pressure within the educational system in and outside Europe and the U.S...
(such as 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...
and 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...
) Ensslin had excellent exam scores and received a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation. Studying at the University of Tübingen, she read education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, English Studies
English studies
English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S.,...
, and German studies
German studies
German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents, and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, German history, and German politics in addition to the...
as well as meeting Bernward Vesper in February, 1962.
Vesper's father Will
Will Vesper
Will Vesper was a German author and literary critic.- Life :...
had been a best-selling author before the First World War and joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) in 1931. The senior Vesper kept a pro-Nazi stance until his death in 1962, and his writings, compiled posthumously as Die Reise (The Trip), are an explosive mixture of radical left-wing and radical right-wing views. The son's life was largely shaped by his father's experiences. Ensslin's politics harmonized with those of the Vespers, and the couple made a failed attempted to publish a collection of the senior Vesper's works.
In Tübingen, together with two other students, Ensslin and Vesper organized a student workshop for new literature which led to a shoestring publishing business called Studio neue Literatur. The first book produced was an anthology of poems against atomic weapons, with many well known poets from all German speaking countries. as well as a bilingual edition of poems by Gerardo Diego
Gerardo Diego
Gerardo Diego Cendoya was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27.Gerardo Diego taught language and literature at institutes of learning in Soria, Gijón, Santander and Madrid...
. In 19631964, Gudrun Ensslin earned her elementary school teacher's diploma. In the summer of 1964, the couple moved to West Berlin
West 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...
where Gudrun would began her thesis on Hans Henny Jahnn
Hans Henny Jahnn
Hans Henny Jahnn was a German playwright, novelist, and organ-builder.As a playwright, he wrote: Pastor Ephraim Magnus , which The Cambridge Guide to Theatre describes as a nihilistic, Expressionist play "stuffed with perversities and sado-masochistic motifs"; Coronation of Richard III ;...
at the Free University.
In 1965, Gudrun's younger sister Johanna married Günther Maschke, then a revolutionary Marxist poet and member of the Situationist International group Subversiven Aktion, which included Rudi Dutschke
Rudi Dutschke
Alfred 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...
as a member. Maschke is now a leading conservative antidemocratic intellectual and editor of Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt
Carl Schmitt was a German jurist, philosopher, political theorist, and professor of law.Schmitt published several essays, influential in the 20th century and beyond, on the mentalities that surround the effective wielding of political power...
. Later that year, Gudrun and Bernward were engaged to be married. Both were active on the democratic left-wing, they had well-paid jobs working for the Social Democratic Party of Germany
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...
. The couple demonstrated together against new security laws, the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, an Allied Powers arms show, and for the right to demonstrate. Vesper neglected his studies, read voraciously, and in 1966 published, with a group of friends, a serious and important series of pamphlets and paperbacks, the Voltaire Flugschriften.
In May 1967, Ensslin gave birth to their son Felix Robert Ensslin. In February 1968, Ensslin broke up with Vesper by phone, informing him that the relationship was already finished before Felix was born. In July or August 1967 Gudrun met 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 :...
and they soon began a love affair. Baader had come to Berlin in 1963, to escape ongoing troubles with the 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...
justice system and also to dodge the draft. The young criminal who drifted in and out of youth detention center
Youth detention center
A youth detention center, also known as a juvenile detention center , juvenile hall or, more colloquially as juvie, is a secure residential facility for young people, often termed juvenile delinquents, awaiting court hearings and/or placement in long-term care facilities and programs...
s and prison soon became the man of Ensslin's life. An artifact from this time is an experimental film Ensslin participated in entitled Das Abonnement (The Subscription).
Leader of the Red Army Faction
In June 1967, Ensslin participated in political protests against the Shah of Iran during his visit to Germany. Though Western governments viewed the Shah as a reformer, his regime has been criticized for oppression, brutality, corruption, and extravagance. In what started as a peaceful demonstration at Deutsche Oper BerlinDeutsche Oper Berlin
The Deutsche Oper Berlin is an opera company located in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany. The resident building is also home to the Berlin State Ballet.-History:...
, fights broke out between pro-Shah and anti-Shah factions and an innocent young man by the name of 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...
was shot in the back of the head by a police officer. That night, Ensslin angrily denounced West Germany as a fascist state at a Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund
Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund
Der Sozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund was founded 1946 in Hamburg, Germany, as the college organisation of the SPD...
meeting. Also, Berlin's own urban guerrilla organization, Movement 2 June
Movement 2 June
Movement 2 June was a West German terrorist organization that was based out of West Berlin. Active only from 1971–1980, the anarchist group was one of the few violent groups at the time in West Germany. Although Movement 2 June did not share the same ideology as the Red Army Faction , these...
, named itself after this event.
The police officer who shot Ohnesorg, 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....
, was revealed in 2009 to be an undercover Stasi
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...
(East German State Security) agent. Kurras was charged with manslaughter and acquitted of the charge on 23 November 1967, which caused public outrage. Matters eventually cooled, which enraged Gudrun Ensslin. She had left Bernward Vesper and her child for good early in 1968 and now she, Andreas Baader and Thorwald Proll
Thorwald Proll
Thorwald Proll is a writer and was active in the German student movement in the 1960s.On 2 April 1968, along with Andreas Baader, Horst Söhnlein and Gudrun Ensslin, he set fire to two department stores in Frankfurt as a protest against the Vietnam War...
decided to escalate the fight against the system. They left Berlin around 20 March, and in Munich decided to fire-bomb department stores in Frankfurt, where a Socialist German Student Union congress was taking place. Together with Horst Söhnlein
Horst Söhnlein
Horst Söhnlein is a German activist and former member of the Baader-Meinhof Group who was convicted of arson in 1968.On 2 April 1968, along with Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin and Thorwald Proll, he set fire to two department stores in Frankfurt as a protest against "the genocide in Vietnam"...
, they left for Frankfurt on 1 April.
On the night of 2 April 1968, two fires were set in two department stores in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
. Baader, Ensslin, Proll and Söhnlein remained in Frankfurt and were arrested three days later. In October 1968, they were sentenced to three years in prison for arson
Arson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...
. After being released pending an appeal in June 1969, Baader, Ensslin and Proll fled when the appeal was denied. Baader was arrested on 3 April 1970. Ensslin, 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...
, who was at that time a well-known leftist polemicist, and two other women freed him on 14 May 1970. One person was shot. This was the beginning of the gang's violent crimes, and the Red Army Faction. Ensslin became one of the most wanted people in Germany.
In May 1971, Bernward Vesper committed suicide and Felix was sent to live with foster parents.
Ensslin was arrested in a boutique on 8 June 1972 in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
.
Death
The Red Army Faction's second generation made several attempts to free Ensslin and her comrades from prison. One attempt involved the kidnapping of Hanns-Martin Schleyer on 5 September 1977, and a proposed prisoner exchangePrisoner exchange
A prisoner exchange or prisoner swap is a deal between opposing sides in a conflict to release prisoners. These may be prisoners of war, spies, hostages, etc...
. When this failed to work, the RAF orchestrated the hijacking of a Lufthansa airliner on 17 October. After the airplane was stormed by a German anti-terrorist unit, Schleyer was killed.
Hours later, in a night that became known as "Death Night", Ensslin, Baader 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...
were found dead in the high security block of 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...
. Like Meinhof, Ensslin was found dead by hanging
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
in her cell. Andreas Baader and Jan-Carl Raspe shot themselves. A fourth member, Irmgard Möller
Irmgard Möller
Irmgard Möller is a German militant and a former member of the Red Army Faction...
, stabbed herself four times in the chest with a stolen knife. She survived her suicide attempt and has since stated that the deaths were not suicide, but rather extrajudical killings undertaken by the German government of the time, a claim strongly denied by the German governments former and present. The exhaustive study of the RAF 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...
(revised in 2009 as "Baader-Meinhof: the inside story of the RAF") is categorical in finding the deaths suicides. On 27 October 1977, Ensslin was buried in a common grave with Baader and Raspe in the Dornhalde Cemetery in Stuttgart.
In film
In 1981, Margarethe von Trotta's feature film Marianne and JulianeMarianne and Juliane
Marianne and Juliane is a 1981 West German film directed by Margarethe von Trotta. Its original German title is Die bleierne Zeit, an idiomatic expression which can be translated as "the leaden times" and refers to a complex mixture of feelings that were shared by many people of the 1970s political...
presented a fictionalised portrayal of an incarcerated Ensslin (Barbara Sukowa
Barbara Sukowa
Barbara Sukowa is a German theatre and film actress.- Work :Sukowa's stage debut was in Berlin in 1971, in a production of Peter Handke's Der Ritt über den Bodensee. Günter Beelitz invited her to join the ensemble of the Darmstädter National Theatre in the same year...
) and her sister (Jutta Lampe). Five years later, Sabine Wegner played Ensslin in Reinhard Hauff's Stammheim
Stammheim (film)
Stammheim - Die Baader-Meinhof-Gruppe vor Gericht is a 1986 West German film directed by Reinhard Hauff...
, a detailed account of the terror trial against Ensslin, Baader, Meinhof and others. Also in 1986, Corinna Kirchhoff played Ensslin in Markus Imhoof's Die Reise, based on the memoirs of Enssslin's companion Bernward Vesper. In 1997, Anya Hoffmann was Ensslin in Heinrich Breloer's award winning TV docudrama
Docudrama
In film, television programming and staged theatre, docudrama is a documentary-style genre that features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction....
Todesspiel. Ensslin was portrayed by 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...
in Uli Edel
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...
's 2008 film The Baader Meinhof Complex, an adaptation of the 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...
. Wokalek's performance in the film was awarded with a nomination for the 2009 German Film Awards and a Bambi
Bambi (prize)
The Bambi - Deutschlands Wichtigster Medienpreis, often simply called Bambi Awards and stylized as BAMBI, are presented annually by Hubert Burda Media to recognize excellence in international media and television "with vision and creativity who affected and inspired the German public that year",...
award as best German actress. The film was chosen as Germany's submission to 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...
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...
, and was already nominated Best Foreign Language Film for the 66th Golden Globe Awards
66th Golden Globe Awards
The 66th Golden Globe Awards Ceremony was broadcast on January 11, 2009, from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, United States on the NBC TV network...
.
In February 2011, Andres Veiel
Andres Veiel
Andres Veiel is a German film director and screenwriter. His 2011 film If Not Us, Who? was nominated for the Golden Bear at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival. Veiel won the Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlinale....
's feature film Wer wenn nicht wir (If Not Us, Who?), in which Lena Lauzemis plays Gudrun Ensslin, won the Alfred Bauer Prize and the Prize of the German Art House Cinemas at the Berlin International Film Festival
Berlin International Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in West Berlin in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978...
.
Other references
- Ellen Seiter, "The Political Is Personal: Margarethe von Trotta's Marianne And Juliane" Journal Of Film And Video 37.2 (1985) : 41 - 46.
- Film: "Marianne and JulianeMarianne and JulianeMarianne and Juliane is a 1981 West German film directed by Margarethe von Trotta. Its original German title is Die bleierne Zeit, an idiomatic expression which can be translated as "the leaden times" and refers to a complex mixture of feelings that were shared by many people of the 1970s political...
", with original German title "Die bleierne Zeit", directed by Margarethe von Trotta in 1981. - Book: Hitler's ChildrenHitler's ChildrenHitler's Children is a 1977 biography of the West German militant left-wing group, the Red Army Faction , by South African author Jillian Becker....
by Jillian BeckerJillian BeckerJillian Becker is a novelist, prize-winning story-writer, critic, journalist, lecturer, best known internationally as a writer, researcher, and authority on the subject of terrorism.-Life:...
http://www.baader-meinhof.com/students/resources/print/hitlerchild.html - Book: Televisionaries (Televisionaries: the red army faction story 1963-1993) by Tom Vague http://www.baader-meinhof.com/students/resources/print/televisionair.html
- Book: "High School Graduates of Warren, Pennsylvania 1889-1995"
- Warren, PA: Warren Bicentennial History Committee, 1995. Oliphant, Nancy (editor)