Edward Pimental

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Edward F. Pimental ( June 19, 1965 in Fall River , Massachusetts - August 8, 1985 in Wiesbaden ) was a United States Army soldier who was murdered by terrorists of the Red Army Faction on the night of August 8, 1985 to to get his troop ID. The following day, the RAF gained access to the Rhein-Main Air Base with the ID and placed a car bomb there . The selection of Pimentals, who, unlike other RAF victims, was not a celebrity, and the execution-like manner of killing provided the sharpest criticism from those around the RAF.

Family and military service

According to his sister, Pimental came from a family of Mexican immigrants who were proud of the fact that many family members served in the US Army and who were characterized by military and conservative Catholic values. He grew up in poor conditions in New York City . His mother worked at the counter of a hotel bar, and he completed an apprenticeship as a car mechanic . Because of the advancement opportunities and to see something of the world, he went to the US Army. There he served as a specialist for cruise missile maintenance in the 563rd Ordnance Company. His rank corresponded to that of a corporal in the Bundeswehr.

Pimental murder and bomb attack

Stationed in the Federal Republic of Germany for three months - at Camp Pieri in Wiesbaden - on the evening of August 7, 1985, Pimental and other GIs visited the “Western Saloon” bar in Wiesbaden, where Birgit Hogefeld probably approached him with the prospect of a sexual adventure asked. At about 11.30 p.m. he followed her and a male companion and was killed with a shot in the back of the head between midnight and 3 a.m. in the Wiesbaden city forest. The perpetrators are unknown; it was later determined that the survivor was still alive as “blunt violence caused by blows to the head”. His body was found undocumented the next morning.

A male RAF member used Pimentals troop ID to gain access to the Rhein-Main Air Base and parked a car with 126 kilograms of explosives in its parking lot. When the explosive bomb exploded at 7:19 am, two people were killed and 23 injured; the damage to property amounted to one million DM. On August 9, the RAF committed to both acts in a joint letter with the French terrorist organization Action directe . Pimental's ID was enclosed with the copy of the letter, which the Reuters news agency received on August 13 .

Discussions in the RAF environment

The murder of Pimental led to discussions in left-wing extremist circles and, according to Wolfgang Kraushaar , triggered the “most violent defensive reactions” among all RAF victims, as Pimental was the first time a person without an important status in politics or business was deliberately killed. Even RAF sympathizers considered this murder - also because of the cold-bloodedness - as a final turnaround away from the ideals of the 68 movement . Instead of the “ideology-overloaded approach” of the first two RAF generations, “simple utilitarianism” became visible, according to Alexander Straßner , which is why the act shows the RAF's “progressive isolation” within the radical left. Irmgard Möller and other imprisoned RAF members initially considered the murder to be a secret service operation ( false flag ) and the letter of confession a forgery because of the similarity to the execution and the choice of the victim . Mathias Bröckers accused the RAF on August 15, 1985 in the taz of "moral depravity" and described the logistics of the act as "below the level of any Frankfurt egg thief": "This republic is not in great danger from such a bunch of idiots". The procedure was compared several times with the SS tactics when shooting in the neck .

Criticism was aggravated by the additional justification of the RAF published on August 25, 1985: “We shot Edward Pimental ... who gave up his previous job because he wanted to make money faster and more easily because we had his id -card to drive to the air-base. ... for us, the us soldiers in Germany are not both perpetrators and victims at the same time, we do not have this glorified, social worker view of them ”. In September 1985, KD Wolff criticized "murderous stupidity" and " Cheka style": "Anything would be better than continuing to kill like this." He added: "Your violence has become" part of the problem ", not its solution."

Since the outrage over the murder did not cease, the RAF command level described the act in a statement in January 1986 as a "mistake ... that affected the effect of the attack on the air base and thus the disputes over the politico-military determination of the action, how the offensive blocked in general. ”Wolfgang Kraushaar judged this as a“ tactical criticism that reacted to external pressure ”. Such a public admission had never been made before, which, according to Alexander Straßner, made the decline in authority of the RAF command level visible for the first time. The argument continued anyway; the former RAF member Klaus Jünschke wrote an example in the taz of February 8, 1986, the “shot in the neck murder of a twenty-year-old soldier” made it clear that “the RAF no longer has any responsible leadership. On the contrary, this degenerate bunch had the forehead to brag about this cowardly murder and to present it as a new quality in the construction of a Western European front of the struggle against imperialism ”.

Legal processing

In 1994, Eva Haule for their involvement in the murder Pimentals and the attack on the air base from the State Security Division of the provincial high court sentenced to life imprisonment, as two the imprisoned RAF member Manuela Happe found secret messages Haules who demonstrated to the satisfaction of the court their identification with these deeds ; Among other things, she wrote: “We made mistakes, everyone knows that. Anyone who now leads the GI against us is doing it because he is against the RAF anyway. "

Birgit Hogefeld was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1996 for various offenses by the same Senate . In connection with the murder of Pimental, in which he considered Hogefeld's complicity due to testimony from the “Western Saloon” as proven, the court spoke of “inhuman attitudes”, for which their guilt weighs particularly heavily . She did not get involved in the trial, but described the act in a process declaration in March 1995 as “one of the worst wrong decisions of the RAF” and in July 1995 also distanced herself from the earlier declaration: “It is wrong and ignorant, this one To dismiss the action, so to speak, as a “political accident”, as we did back then. ”In her closing remarks in 1996, she said:“ When I imagine people going up and shooting a young man because he is a soldier in the US Army and has an ID owns that they want, then I find it horrific and deeply inhuman - I can't describe it any other way ”. The preoccupation with Pimental's murder was central to Hogefeld's reflection on her life story.

Family and artistic processing

Inspired by contacting Andres Veiel , the director of Black Box BRD , Pimentals half-sister Kathleen Pequeño dealt with the history and goals of the RAF. She traveled to Europe several times and spoke to former members of the RAF and the June 2nd Movement to understand their motives, including the day after the Bataclan attack . Pequeño had contact with Hogefeld via email. The 2007 release from prison was received differently in the family. Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 , Pequeño has gone public several times and spoke out against demonizing the perpetrators of terrorist acts.

The documentary To Germany, With Love (original title The Worst Thing ) by director Desireena Almoradie traces part of this dispute Pequeños as acting in the sense of restorative justice . It contains excerpts from conversations between Pequeño and the former terrorists visited in Europe. In May 2019 the film premiered in the Wiesbaden Caligari Filmbühne - in the presence of RAF founding member Monika Berberich .

In April 2019, the play Lost Fighters , written by Maxi Obexer , was premiered in the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden , in which the story of the couple Hogefeld and Grams is processed and the night of Pimental's murder is re-enacted.

literature

  • Alexander Straßner : The third generation of the “Red Army Fraction”. Formation, structure, functional logic and disintegration of a terrorist organization. Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-531-14114-7 (also dissertation, University of Passau), chapter "Edward Pimental", pp. 146–151 (preview) .
  • Butz Peters : Deadly mistake. The history of the RAF. Argon, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-87024-673-1 , chapter "Edward Pimental and the Rhein-Main-Airbase", pp. 609–614.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Theresa Bullman: Movie review: "To Germany, with Love". In: TOA magazine. No. 1, 2019, p. 39 (PDF) .
  2. ↑ Lutz Taufer : About borders. From the underground to the favela. Association A , Berlin, Hamburg 2017, chapter "Edward Pimental and his sister Kathleen Pequeño" .
  3. ↑ Soldier's ID Checked for Link to Blast: GI Found Dead on Day of Bombing at US Base in Germany. In: The Los Angeles Times , August 13, 1985 (English, AP report); William Drozdiak: Car Bombing, Slaying. In: The Washington Post , August 14, 1985.
  4. ↑ Holger Schmidt : How safe are we? Counter-terrorism in Germany. A critical balance. Orell Füssli, Zurich 2017, ISBN 978-3-280-05653-0 , p. 38 (e-book edition) .
  5. ↑ According to Butz Peters : Deadly error. The history of the RAF. Argon, Berlin 2004, p. 609 it was about Hogefeld. According to Alexander Straßner : The third generation of the “Red Army Fraction”. Formation, structure, functional logic and disintegration of a terrorist organization. Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2003, p. 151, the credibility of the witnesses who recognized Hogefeld is controversial. There were a number of other suspicions about the identity at times, including Eva Haule . Wolfgang Kraushaar : The RAF's blind spots. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 978-3-608-98140-7 , p. 338 assigns the decoy role to Hogefeld and sees Haule as a member of "the killer squad" as well.
  6. ↑ Terrorists: The P-Man. In: Der Spiegel , August 19, 1985; on the findings of the court ruling against Hogefeld in 1996 in this case see Butz Peters: Tödlicher Errtum. The history of the RAF. Argon, Berlin 2004, p. 801, endnote 316.
  7. ↑ To the details Butz Peters: Tödlicher Errtum. The history of the RAF. Argon, Berlin 2004, pp. 609-611; Matthias Naß : Terror against NATO. In: Die Zeit , 23 August 1985.
  8. ^ A b Wolfgang Kraushaar : The RAF and their victims: Between self-heroization and foreign taboos. In: Federal Agency for Civic Education , August 20, 2007; ders .: The blind spots of the RAF. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 978-3-608-98140-7 , p. 337.
  9. ↑ a b Alexander Straßner: The third generation of the "Red Army Fraction". Formation, structure, functional logic and disintegration of a terrorist organization. Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2003, p. 147 f.
  10. ↑ a b c Butz Peters: Deadly error. The history of the RAF. Argon, Berlin 2004, p. 613 f.
  11. ↑ Wolfgang Kraushaar: The blind spots of the RAF. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2017, ISBN 978-3-608-98140-7 , p. 337. See also Andres Veiel : Black Box BRD. Alfred Herrhausen, Deutsche Bank, RAF and Wolfgang Grams. 2nd Edition. DVA, Stuttgart, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-421-05468-1 , pp. 205-207.
  12. ^ Discussion on the shooting of the GI Pimental. In: Social History Portal , Documentation (PDF) , quotation p. 1405.
  13. ↑ Alexander Straßner: The third generation of the "Red Army Fraction". Formation, structure, functional logic and disintegration of a terrorist organization. Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2003, p. 286.
  14. ^ Sven Felix Kellerhoff : Eva Haule - The unknown face of the RAF. In: Die Welt , August 17, 2007.
  15. ↑ New murder allegation against RAF terrorist. In: Der Spiegel , January 25, 1993. This complex is described in detail in Klaus Pflieger's memoir: Against Terror. A prosecutor's memories. Verrai, Stuttgart 2016, pp. 272–280.
  16. ↑ Birgit Hogefeld: "Lashing in old patterns": Birgit Hogefeld on the conditions of her detention and the dissolution of the RAF. In: analysis & criticism , No. 417, August 27, 1998.
  17. ↑ Birgit Hogefeld: Declaration of the lawsuit from July 21, 1995. In: Info on the trial against Birgit Hogefeld: No. 6. Rote Hilfe Wiesbaden, July 22, 1995, online at Nadir , November 20, 1996.
  18. ↑ Birgit Hogefeld: “Much in our history can be seen as a wrong path”. The defendant's closing words. In: Hans-Jürgen Wirth (Ed.): Hitler's grandchildren or children of democracy? The 68 generation, the RAF and the Fischer debate. Psychosozial, Giessen 2001, ISBN 3-89806-089-6 , pp. 195-236; partly online at Nadir , February 7, 1997.
  19. ↑ Gudrun Schwibbe: “We must finally tackle our history ourselves” - justification and responsibility in the context of the “history of the RAF”. In: Rolf Wilhelm Brednich (Ed.): Narrative cultures. Contributions to cultural studies narrative research. Hans-Jörg Uther on his 65th birthday. Campus, Berlin / New York 2009, p. 85–99, here p. 88–97 , quote p. 97: “At the center of Birgit Hogefeld's great history of justification is a serious violation of norms: the murder of the US soldier Edward Pimental.”
  20. ↑ Andrea Bonhagen: Interview with sister of RAF victim (Edward Pimental): "My brother's murderers are not monsters" ( Memento from February 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). In: Hessenschau , August 7, 2015; Holger Schmidt : How safe are we? Counter-terrorism in Germany. A critical balance. Orell Füssli, Zurich 2017, ISBN 978-3-280-05653-0 , p. 39 (e-book edition) . For this encounter and the background of the Pimentals family, see Lutz Taufer : About borders. From the underground to the favela. Association A , Berlin, Hamburg 2017, chapter "Edward Pimental and his sister Kathleen Pequeño" .
  21. ↑ Christina Oxfort: Wiesbaden world premiere: Film about the RAF murder of Edward Pimental. In: Wiesbadener Kurier , May 3, 2019.
  22. ↑ Geir Moulson: German in US Soldier Murder Paroled. In: The Washington Post , August 17, 2007.
  23. ↑ Category Germany and me with comments on Edward Pimental on Pequeño's blog.
  24. ↑ Theresa Bullman: Movie review: "To Germany, with Love". In: TOA magazine. No. 1, 2019, p. 39 (PDF) .
  25. ↑ Marcus Kloeckner: Documentary follows sister's search for answers in soldier's Cold War-era murder. In: The Stars and Stripes , April 30, 2019; Christina Oxfort: Wiesbaden world premiere: Film about the RAF murder of Edward Pimental. In: Wiesbadener Kurier , May 3, 2019. See The Worst Thing. Web presence of the film (English, German) and To Germany with Love. Film screening at the Institute for Restorative Practices.
  26. ↑ Alexander Juergs: The terrorists from the neighborhood. In: Nachtkritik.de , April 28, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Pimental, Edward
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pimental, Edward F.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American soldier; RAF victims
DATE OF BIRTH June 19, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH New York , United States
DATE OF DEATH August 8, 1985
Place of death Wiesbaden