Ernst Zimmermann (Manager)

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Ernst Zimmermann (born March 7, 1929 in Waldkirch in the Günzburg district ; † February 1, 1985 in Gauting near Munich ) was CEO of the Motoren- und Turbinen-Union (MTU) and chairman of the Federal Association of the German Aerospace Industry (BDLI). Zimmermann was murdered by terrorists of the Red Army Faction (RAF).

education and profession

After graduating from high school in Augsburg, Ernst Zimmermann studied business administration at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and was a member of the Munichia student union (in the Coburg Convent ). After completing his doctorate in Munich, he started his first job at MAN in Augsburg in 1955 . He moved to MTU in 1960. On January 1, 1984, he was promoted to chairman of the board of directors for the engines and turbines business and was elected chairman of the BDLI for two years in the same year.

assassination

On February 1, 1985, at around 7:15 am, Zimmermann was the victim of an attack by the RAF " Patsy O'Hara Command ". Under the pretext that Zimmermann had to confirm receipt of a letter with his signature, Zimmermann's wife let an RAF member disguised as a mail carrier on her private property in Gautingen, where they lived in seclusion. When Ernst Zimmermann went to the front door immediately afterwards, a young man with a machine gun jumped up. Together they tied up the Zimmermann couple and brought Ernst Zimmermann into the bedroom, where they shot him several times in the back of the head from a short distance. He died in the hospital that evening. The assassins could not be identified. The Bavarian State Criminal Police Office is still investigating on behalf of the Federal Prosecutor's Office .

Zimmermann was the first casualty of the RAF in eight years, which, according to Michael Sontheimer , found its way to the shooting in the neck with the execution-like killing . The attack was part of the so-called "Offensive 1984/85" of the third RAF generation that was just formed . This offensive began on December 4, 1984 with a hunger strike by the 39 RAF prisoners, which the two arrested and accused leaders of the second RAF generation , Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar , had called. In the next few weeks there were several acts of violence by the RAF in quick succession, as well as 71 arson and explosive attacks - in one of them the defective detonator saved 43 lives - and smear actions by militants from the radical left scene; In Hamburg, Berlin and Karlsruhe, over 1000 people demonstrated for better conditions for the RAF prisoners. Regarding the unsuccessful attempt on December 18, 1984 to detonate a bomb in the NATO school in Oberammergau , the RAF confessed as follows: “The Federal Prosecutor's Office's calculation to turn the action against the prisoners' hunger strike will not work. It breaks up in the collective struggle of the prisoners and in the offensive of the Western European guerrillas, the perspective of the revolutionary front in Western Europe, which is now becoming real. ”This set the concrete goal, namely to trigger an international armed uprising (see on the strategy of an“ anti-imperialist front “The “ May paper ”from 1982, which was then considered the ideological basis ).

At the beginning of January 1985, the RAF and another terrorist organization, the French Action Directe , published a letter “For the unity of revolutionaries in Western Europe”, in which they announced that they would begin a “revolutionary strategy in the imperialist centers”. Thereupon the Action directe (which had already supplied the explosives for Oberammergau) murdered the French General René Audran on January 25, 1985 - while the RAF aimed a week later with the industrialist Ernst Zimmermann on the other side of the " military-industrial complex " - as representatives of the “axis paris-Bonn”. The contemporary historian Petra Terhoeven points to the mutual radicalization through the transnational context not only in this case. Since the newly founded Action Directe did not yet have any martyr figures, but the internationalist claim was to be expressed, the RAF command had chosen Patsy O'Hara, the name of an INLA activist; From Ireland, however, protests against this attempted capture came immediately after it became known.

Zimmermann as MTU and BDLI boss corresponded to the political scientist Alexander Straßner "exactly the enemy image" of the third RAF generation. In their joint letter of confession with Action Directe, the RAF referred to the “new NATO doctrine” of opening up “multinational capital at the same time“ billion-dollar markets ”by means of electronic warfare and intelligent weapons systems, for which it made Zimmermann jointly responsible as President of the BDLI this represents "the interests of the military-industrial complex". In addition, the RAF declared in a pamphlet from April 1985: "Just as Audran was for France within the Ministry of Defense where all the threads for arms cooperation and export came together, so was Zimmermann for the FRG". The hunger strike ended at the beginning of February and neither a new solidarity nor greater internationalization had been achieved. For the first time, in addition to approval, there was also criticism from the support scene, for example regarding the selection of victims, which was accepted “only on the basis of ratio” and, according to Straßner, no longer created a feeling of togetherness with the RAF command level. Such criticism should increase sharply with the next act - the shooting of the young US soldier Edward Pimental . For the investigative authorities, the change in the selection of victims to less known “functionaries” instead of the previous prominent “figureheads”, which was emerging with Zimmermann, meant an even greater challenge, since the group of potentially endangered people was greatly expanded. Zimmermann was among the 1,000 or so names of potential victims that investigators had found in a conspiratorial apartment belonging to RAF members in mid-1984.

Commemoration

Zimmermann was buried in the cemetery in Gauting. MTU published a memorial and donated an Ernst Zimmermann Memorial Prize.

literature

  • Terrorism: "This is the RAF speaking" . In: Der Spiegel . No. 6 , 1985, pp. 17-25 ( online - 4 February 1985 ).
  • 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, 2002), chapter "Ernst Zimmermann", pp. 144-146 (preview).
  • Butz Peters : Deadly mistake. The history of the RAF. Argon, Berlin 2004, chapter "The Wrong Postman - The Murder of MTU boss Zimmermann", pp. 605–608.

Individual evidence

  1. BDLI. In: Interavia. Vol. 39, 1984, p. 108; Aerospace Yearbook. 1984, p. 393; Farewell to Ernst Zimmermann. In: Defense technology. Vol. 17, 1985, p. 12; MTU Group: Obituary for Dr. Ernst Zimmermann. In: Hansa . Vol. 122, 1985, p. 368.
  2. a b murderer still unknown. In: Münchner Merkur , January 30, 2015.
  3. a b Michael Sontheimer : Deadly Post. In: Spiegel Online , one day , January 30, 2015.
  4. ^ Petra Terhoeven: The Red Army faction. A history of terrorist violence. CH Beck, Munich 2017, p. 99.
  5. ^ Butz Peters: Deadly error. The history of the RAF. Argon, Berlin 2004, pp. 601-605, 608, citations p. 602 and 604.
  6. ^ Petra Terhoeven: The Red Army faction. A history of terrorist violence. CH Beck, Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-406-71235-7 , p. 99 f.
  7. 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. 144.
  8. ^ Butz Peters: Deadly error. The history of the RAF. Argon, Berlin 2004, p. 606.
  9. Alexander Straßner: The third generation of the "Red Army Fraction". Formation, structure, functional logic and disintegration of a terrorist organization. Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2003, pp. 145 f. (Quote p. 145 ). For the terms “functionary” and “figurehead” see Butz Peters: Tödlicher Errtum. The history of the RAF. Argon, Berlin 2004, p. 608.
  10. ^ Butz Peters: Deadly error. The history of the RAF. Argon, Berlin 2004, p. 606.
  11. Commemorative Dr. oec. publ. Ernst Zimmermann. Motoren- und Turbinen-Union, Munich et al. 1985 (40 pages).
  12. Personal details . In: Flug-Revue. 1988, p. 33.