Gerd Albartus

Gerhard Heinrich Albartus , called Gerd Albartus (* 1950 in Papenburg ; † December 1987 ) was a German journalist and terrorist of the Revolutionary Cells . He was murdered by Palestinian terrorists.

Life

The son of a police officer studied education at the Free University of Berlin and was involved in the student group "Socialist Studies". Together with Johannes Weinrich and Gerd-Hinrich Schnepel , he temporarily published the magazine Education and Class Struggle . Schnepel and Weinrich won Albartus for their faction after the revolutionary cells split up .

First arrest

On January 4, 1977, Albartus and Enno Schwall laid an incendiary bomb in the Gloria-Palast cinema in Aachen because the film Entebbe about the Entebbe kidnapping was shown there. The Revolutionary Cells viewed this film as a “nasty inflammatory film” by the “ Zionists, ” which “glorified imperialist violence and legitimized racist oppression and the murder of Palestinians and Africans.” The time fuse of the bomb failed, but detonated when the police tried to defuse it . Albartus, who had been under police surveillance since December 15, 1976, after being caught attempting to steal a car, and Schwall were arrested on January 5, 1977. Albartus was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison for attempted arson "as a member of a terrorist organization ". In October 1981 he was released from custody.

Work as a journalist

In the mid-1980s Albartus worked as a freelance journalist , including for West German Broadcasting and the taz .

Assassination by the Carlos group

Albartus, who meanwhile worked for the Greens in Brussels , was invited to Damascus in 1987 by a Palestinian group around Ilich Ramírez Sánchez , known as Carlos, according to Magdalena Kopp . Albartus was not able to accept the invitation until Christmas, when Carlos and Weinrich brought him to a tribunal, sentenced him to death and shot him. The background was probably that Albartus was thought to be a spy from the Ministry of State Security . Other speculations suggest that Albartus' homosexuality may have been the reason.

In December 1991, the Revolutionary Cells published a paper entitled "Gerd Albartus is dead", which is considered a turning point in the group's history. For the first time, the Revolutionary Cells deal extensively with anti-Semitism in their own ranks in connection with the Entebbe kidnapping.

literature

• Oliver Schröm : In the shadow of the jackal: Carlos and the pioneers of international terrorism . Ch. Links, Berlin 2002.

Web links

• Peter Hillebrand: Free flight to death. In the footsteps of Gerd Albartus. SWR2 broadcast “Feature”, September 14, 2011, archived from the original on February 12, 2013 ; accessed on January 14, 2017 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Oliver Schröm: In the shadow of the jackal: Carlos and the trailblazers of international terrorism. Ch. Links Verlag, 2002, p. 125f.
2. ↑ Schröm: Schatten , p. 126.
3. ↑ Gerd Albartus: Open letter to Rudolf Raabe . Website of the “Berlin Alliance for Release”, accessed on January 14, 2017 (Written by Albartus on the occasion of his arrest.).
   Schröm: Schatten , pp. 126–135.
4. ↑ Schröm: Schatten , p. 178.
5. ↑ Markus Mohr: Legends about Entebbe. An act of air piracy and its dimensions in the political discussion. Unrast, Münster 2016, ISBN 978-3-89771-587-5 , p. 172.
6. ↑ Josef Hufelschulte: Terrorism: headshot for traitors . Focus 38/1998, September 14, 1998, accessed January 14, 2017.
7. ↑ Schröm: Schatten , p. 278f.
8. ↑ Times of Anger - On the History and Politics of the Revolutionary Cells . Recording of an event about the data center on March 22, 2001 at SO 36 in Berlin-Kreuzberg, in which Klaus Viehmann gives a comprehensive lecture on Albartus (1:27 hour, mp4, 321 MB).
9. ^ Roland Kaufhold : 40 years after Entebbe. German Left, Memories of the Holocaust and Anti-Zionism. In: http://www.hagalil.com/2017/02/40-jahre-nach-entebbe/ . hagalil, February 2, 2017, accessed on August 25, 2018 (German). 
10. ↑ Gerd Albartus is dead. Website of the “Berlin Alliance for Liberation”, December 1991, archived from the original on July 25, 2001 ; Retrieved January 14, 2017 (obituary for Gerd Albartus). 
11. ↑ Willi Bischof, Irit Neidhardt: We are the good guys. Anti-Semitism in the radical left . Unrast, Münster 2000, ISBN 3-89771-400-0 , p. 159 . Johannes Wörle: Earthing through network structure. Revolutionary cells in Germany. In: Alexander Straßner (Ed.): Social revolutionary terrorism. Theory, ideology, case studies, future scenarios . Wiesbaden 2008, p. 269.