Movement June 2nd

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Logo of the June 2nd movement

The June 2nd Movement was a left-wing extremist terrorist organization active in West Berlin in the 1970s . It was named after the date of death of Benno Ohnesorg , who was shot dead by the Berlin police officer Karl-Heinz Kurras during a demonstration in West Berlin on June 2, 1967 .

After Georg von Rauch was shot while attempting to arrest him on December 4, 1971, meetings of various left-wing, sometimes violent groups took place in Berlin at the turn of the year 1971/72. They discussed their union and in January 1972 founded the June 2nd Movement. It carried out a number of terrorist bombings , bank robberies and kidnappings of officials from the state and the economy. The President of the Berlin Court of Appeal Günter von Drenkmann was shot in 1974 in a failed kidnapping attempt. With the kidnapping of the CDU top candidate for the parliamentary elections in Berlin in 1975, Peter Lorenz , the June 2nd movement extorted the release of several convicted terrorists.

On June 2, 1980, the organization declared its self-dissolution. Some of their activists joined the Red Army Faction (RAF).

Self-image and members

Members were among others

Co-founders Reinders and Fritzsch wrote in 1995 about the founding motives:

“The real politicization came with the shooting of Benno Ohnesorg on June 2, 1967. After all the beatings and beatings, we had the feeling that the cops had shot us all. You could defend yourself a bit against a beatings. The fact that someone is simply gunned down went a little further. "

History and terrorist attacks

On February 2, 1972, the June 2 Movement carried out an explosive attack on the British Yacht Club and two cars belonging to the Allied forces stationed in Berlin. The actions were in connection with the Bloody Sunday in Derry, Northern Ireland . The boat builder Erwin Beelitz, who works as caretaker, found one of the bombs in the British Yacht Club in Berlin-Kladow and took it for himself. When he clamped it in a vice and worked it on with a hammer and chisel, it exploded. Beelitz died.

After Thomas Weisbecker was shot on March 2, 1972 while attempting to arrest in Augsburg , the June 2 movement carried out an explosive attack on the Berlin State Criminal Police Office on March 3 . On her short leaflet “It's enough!”, She also referred to Petra Schelm and Georg von Rauch who were shot during arrest or in a shooting .

On May 5, the June 2 Movement set an arson attack on the law school after proceedings against police officers who shot terrorists were suspended.

As a sign of protest against the Vietnam War and the resumption of hostilities, the terrorist group decided in the summer of 1972 to carry out attacks on American facilities in Berlin. On April 11, 1972 positioned Ulrich Schmucker and Harald Sommerfeld around midnight at a basement window of the Harnack House accommodated officer clubs Berlin-Dahlem an explosive device. At the same time, the Mahn couple placed an explosive device on a car belonging to the press chief of the American armed forces. Passers-by discovered the petrol cans attached to the car around 2 a.m., which were then defused by a special police unit. After the explosive device at the Harnack house did not detonate in the morning either, Sommerfeld alerted the police to prevent civilians from dying again.

Inge Viett broke out of the Lehrter Strasse women's prison in West Berlin in August 1973 . From September 13, 1974 to February 5, 1975, prisoners of the RAF, June 2 Movement and others went on hunger strike. They demanded normal execution and equality for all prisoners and protested against special conditions. A Magna Charta was discussed as the basis for a common platform for all prisoners. One day after the death of RAF member Holger Meins from a hunger strike , the President of the Berlin Court of Appeal Günter von Drenkmann was shot on November 10, 1974 in a failed kidnapping attempt.

On June 5, 1974, group member Ulrich Schmücker was murdered in Grunewald . The act was initially viewed as a fememord by members of the June 2nd Movement, as it became known that he was a liaison officer for the Berlin Office for the Protection of the Constitution . He had joined the group in 1972. Before he could commit his first attack, with which he had intended to plant a bomb at the Turkish consulate general in the then capital Bonn , he was arrested with three terrorists - Inge Viett, Wolfgang Knupe and Harald Sommerfeld . While in custody, he began working with the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. According to his diaries, however, he was only doing this in appearance. He looked for a new connection in Berlin, but the people in the scene no longer really trusted him. The murder of Schmücker was never solved , despite the 17 year long Schmücker trial .

On February 27, 1975, three days before the election to the House of Representatives, the lead candidate of the CDU, Peter Lorenz , was kidnapped. He was held prisoner for five and a half days in a specially developed cellar under a shop at Kreuzberg Schenkendorfstrasse 7 across from the Kreuzberg CDU office. In an exchange with Lorenz two detained after the death of Holger Meins demonstrators were released, and Verena Becker , Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann , Ingrid Siepmann , Rolf Pohle and Rolf Heißler accompanied by the vicar Heinrich Albertz in South Yemen flown. Albertz was selected by the "Movement June 2nd" because he had resigned as mayor of Berlin on September 26, 1967 because of the shooting of Benno Ohnesorgs and was critical of the events surrounding the demonstration on June 2nd, 1967 in West -Berlin had dealt with. Horst Mahler refused his exchange, which was also requested. He read out his statement on March 1st shortly before midnight in the Tagesschau .

In two bank robberies on July 30 and 31, 1975, DM 100,000 were  looted. On July 7, 1976 Monika Berberich , Inge Viett, Gabriele Rollnik and Juliane Plambeck broke out of the Lehrter Strasse women's prison. It was Viett's second escape from the same detention center.

The Austrian entrepreneur Walter Palmers was kidnapped on November 9, 1977 in Vienna and released on November 13, 1977 after 100 hours of imprisonment after paying 31 million Schilling . As a result, Thomas Gratt and Othmar Keplinger were arrested on November 23, 1977 in Chiasso, and Reinhard Pitsch on November 28, 1977 in Vienna and later sentenced. Part of the stolen ransom turned up when Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann and Christian Möller were arrested on December 20, 1977 in Fahy . Another part of the money was found in June 1978 when Gabriele Rollnik and Angelika Goder were arrested in Burgas , Bulgaria.

On May 27, 1978, Till Meyer was freed from the Moabit correctional facility by two terrorists from the Nabil Harb commando . The intended release of Andreas Vogel could be prevented.

Self-dissolution

On June 2nd, 1980 the June 2nd movement declared its self-dissolution. Some members joined the RAF. In a dissolution paper presented by Gabriele Rollnik in the courtroom, which, according to Inge Viett, was written by Juliane Plambeck together with the RAF, it says:

“We dissolve the June 2nd movement as an organization and continue the anti-imperialist struggle in the RAF - as the RAF . […] The movement was an alleged alternative to the RAF as a possibility for those comrades for whom the uncompromising struggle went too far. This has produced division, competition and disorientation among the left for 10 years, and it has also hampered our own revolutionary process. "

Already since the German autumn of 1977 there had been tensions within the June 2nd Movement about strategic direction. While some of the members propagated a change of strategy towards anti-imperialism and increasingly oriented themselves towards the RAF, the other part pursued a "populist" direction and vehemently distinguished themselves from the RAF's actions, in particular from the Landshut kidnapping . This “populist” faction reacted with incomprehension to the dissolution paper and declared that the June 2nd Movement could not be dissolved like a “petty-bourgeois allotment association”.

literature

  • Lutz Korndörfer: Terrorist Alternative in the FRG: The June 2nd Movement. In: Alexander Straßner (Ed.): Social revolutionary terrorism. Theory, ideology, case studies, future scenarios . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-15578-4 , pp. 237-256.
  • Tobias Wunschik: The June 2nd Movement. In: Wolfgang Kraushaar (ed.): The RAF and left-wing terrorism. Volume 1, Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2006, pp. 531-561.

Individual evidence

  1. Armin Pfahl-Traughber : Left-wing extremism in Germany: A critical inventory. Springer, Wiesbaden 2014, ISBN 978-3-658-04506-7 , p. 170.
  2. ^ Matthias Dahlke: "Only limited readiness for crisis". The state reaction to the kidnapping of the CDU politician Peter Lorenz in 1975. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 55, issue 4, (2007), p. 653.
  3. Ralf Reinders, Ronald Fritzsch: The June 2nd Movement. Conversations about hash rebels, the Lorenz kidnapping, jail. (PDF; 856 kB) Edition ID archive, Berlin / Amsterdam 1995, blurb
  4. ^ Wolfgang Kraushaar : Verena Becker and the protection of the constitution . Hamburger Edition , Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-86854-227-1 , p. 48 f.
  5. Anarchists - In the Hole. In: Der Spiegel. No. 32, 1972, pp. 28-29.
  6. The Lorenz kidnapping. from: The June 2nd Movement, discussions about hash rebels, Lorentz (sic!) - kidnapping and jail. Edition ID-Archiv, ISBN 3-89408-052-3 nadir.org> Archive> Movement June 2, October 14, 1997, last accessed October 4, 2015.
  7. Palmers' kidnapping and Kreisky's fears. on: derstandard.at , November 9, 2012, last accessed October 4, 2015.
  8. ^ Declaration of dissolution of the movement on June 2nd, quoted from: Lutz Korndörfer: Terrorist alternative in the FRG: The June 2nd movement. In: Alexander Straßner (Ed.): Social revolutionary terrorism. Theory, ideology, case studies, future scenarios . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-15578-4 , p. 255.
  9. ^ Lutz Korndörfer: Terrorist Alternative in the FRG: The June 2nd Movement. In: Alexander Straßner (Ed.): Social revolutionary terrorism. Theory, ideology, case studies, future scenarios . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-15578-4 , pp. 253ff.