Inge Viett

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Inge Viett (2nd from right) at a demonstration with left-wing politician Ulla Jelpke , 2011

Inge Viett (born January 12, 1944 in Stemwarde ) is a former terrorist . As a former member of the June 2nd Movement , she joined the Red Army Faction (RAF) in 1980 and went into hiding in the GDR in 1982 . After her exposure in 1990, she was sentenced to thirteen years in prison for attempted murder. Since her release in 1997, she has been active as a left-wing activist and author .

Life

Childhood and youth

After the youth welfare office withdrew her mother's custody, Inge Viett first lived in a children's home in Schleswig-Holstein from 1946 . In March 1950 she came to a foster family in a village near Eckernförde . Inge Viett described the time and especially the upbringing by her foster mother as very stressful. A local farmer was raped. She attended elementary school in the village. After nine years, she fled the foster family. With the support of the local pastor, she was given a place at the youth development organization in Arnis for a year , where she was taught housekeeping and child care. The youth welfare office then sent her to the nanny school in Schleswig . She herself wanted to become a physical education teacher and later described her training as a nanny as "horrible". The situation led to a suicide attempt. However, she continued her training and went to a wealthy family in Hamburg to complete a year of recognition as a nanny. Here Inge Viett suffered from the father who was perceived as authoritarian. During this period she had a relationship with an educator in Schleswig who was about 20 years older than her, who also took over her guardianship and made it possible for her to attend the sports school. This was followed by a relationship with a US soldier of African American origin. In 1963 she began studying sports and gymnastics at Kiel University , which she broke off after six semesters, shortly before graduation.

She then went to Hamburg and stripped for two months on St. Pauli . She moved to Wiesbaden with a partner and worked there as a graphic assistant. After the breakup, she got by with various temporary jobs. She has worked as a tour guide , film editor , housemaid and barmaid , among other things .

APO, June 2nd Movement and RAF

In 1968 she moved to a women's apartment in Kreuzberg on Eisenbahnstrasse in West Berlin , and took part in meetings, demonstrations and actions of the APO . As an essential element of her politicization, she described a journey of several months to North Africa and the experience of the poverty there in contrast to the wealth of some and the Western abundance. At a demonstration, she was arrested by a plainclothes officer after throwing a cobblestone. She stayed in police custody overnight . She later describes this brief detention experience as a deep break. Viett had taken up an internship in a film copier factory in order to be able to start training later, but provoked her resignation there. Participation in militant actions followed. An arson attack on the Axel-Springer-Verlag vehicle fleet failed due to technical difficulties. She learned how to make and use Molotov cocktails . Viett was one of the squatters of the Georg von Rauch House . On the occasion of a police operation against the house, she was prevented by other residents from throwing Molotov cocktails from the top floor at the police officers in front of the house. Further actions were directed against shop windows of bridal and pornographic shops as well as voting in department stores. She also took part in organized thefts in department stores, the spoils of which were sent to prisoners. She moved to the Liebenwalder Strasse commune, a black aid center .

By Bommi Baumann and tuber it was for the terrorist organization on June 2 Movement recruited. She moved back to Eisenbahnstrasse to avoid the alleged surveillance of the community by state agencies and founded a cell there with three other members, which then grew to seven members. A first bank robbery, in which Viett also participated, and which served to finance actions, was abandoned without result, a later one was carried out. In response to Bloody Sunday in January 1972 in Derry , the group planned a bomb attack on the British officers' mess in Berlin. However, the bomb did not explode at night in the casino on February 2, 1972, as planned, but was placed by Harald Sommerfeld in front of the door of the neighboring yacht club without activating the timer, where it was later found by the boat builder and caretaker Erwin Beelitz. It detonated when he clamped the bomb in a vise and worked on it. Erwin Beelitz passed away. Viett later said she was dismayed but felt not responsible and considered it a fatal accident.

On May 7, 1972, Viett and others, including Ulrich Schmücker , were arrested in Bad Neuenahr . She was initially imprisoned in the Koblenz correctional facility before being moved to Lehrter Strasse in Berlin after four months. From January 1973 she took part in a nationwide organized hunger strike for better prison conditions for five weeks . Using a file smuggled in by a fellow prisoner , she escaped through the barred window of the television room on the first floor, which she was allowed to use with other prisoners two hours a week. She was initially housed in a women's flat-sharing community for a few days and then got back in touch with the June 2nd Movement. She devoted herself to reorganizing the group. She had also learned to shoot in the Tegeler Forst and Grunewald . In a first action, an arms shop was robbed in order to improve the armament of the group.

It was then intended to kidnap a prominent state official in order to free prisoners. Viett was involved in the preparation. After the death of Holger Meins , who died in custody on a hunger strike , it was decided to react quickly. As a kidnapping victim, it was decided in favor of the President of the Supreme Court Günter von Drenkmann . In the failed kidnapping attempt on November 10, 1974, von Drenkmann was shot. The next target was the CDU top candidate for the Berlin House of Representatives elections, Peter Lorenz . Viett was also involved in the preparation and execution of the Lorenz kidnapping in 1975. Several imprisoned June 2 terrorists were pressed and Lorenz released.

Following the action, Viett flew to Beirut with another member of the Movement on June 2nd to contact those who had been released and those who had flown to South Yemen . She spoke to Abu Hassan and Abu Iyad , but without getting any concrete results. After a few weeks she returned to Europe . Another trip to Lebanon followed . Viett received military training there and returned to Berlin.

In Berlin, the movement then carried out two bank robberies on June 2, which caused a sensation by distributing chocolate kisses to bank customers.

Another arrest took place on September 9, 1975. Viett was arrested in a police operation together with Ralf Reinders and Juliane Plambeck . In the course of various other arrests, the police succeeded in arresting almost all members of the June 2nd Movement in a very short time. Viett was returned to her former cell in the women's prison on Lehrter Strasse in Berlin.

A first attempt to escape on December 24, 1975 failed. On July 7, 1976, Viett, Gabriele Rollnik , Monika Berberich and Juliane Plambeck managed to escape using a duplicate key that had been prepared and by overpowering two prison officers.

Viett went to Baghdad with Rollnik and Plambeck - Berberich had been caught again . Here she met some of the 1975 free-pressed. She continued to travel to southern Yemen, where she stayed for three months in a Palestinian training camp. Her code name there was Intissar . Returning to Europe, Viett went to Vienna with other members of the June 2nd Movement . The entrepreneur Walter Palmer was kidnapped there to extort money and released for a ransom . Viett then went to Italy .

With the aim of carrying out a liberation campaign in West Berlin , Viett traveled to West Berlin via Prague and East Berlin 's Berlin Schönefeld Airport . She was approached in Schönefeld by GDR Stasi major Harry Dahl , head of the main department XXII for counter- terrorism, who - surprisingly for Viett - had knowledge of her true identity. A two-hour conversation ensued. The GDR authorities assured her that they would not cooperate with the police of the Federal Republic of Germany, so that an unimpaired entry into the GDR would be possible.

On May 27, 1978 a command of the June 2nd Movement freed Till Meyer from Berlin-Moabit prison. The also intended liberation of Andreas Vogel failed. Viett traveled with Meyer and the command via Friedrichstrasse to East Berlin. Since weapons found during body searches caused problems, Viett referred to her meeting with the State Security employee, which actually led to the handover of the weapons and unimpaired entry into the GDR. The group traveled on to Bulgaria . On June 21, 1978, Till Meyer, Gabriele Rollnik , Gudrun Stürmer and Angelika Goder were arrested by a German anti-terrorist unit at Burgas Airport . Viett and two other members managed to leave for Prague via Sofia . Here she was interrogated by the ČSSR authorities for three days . Viett gave her real name and requested contact with the GDR authorities. As a result, they were picked up from prison by three employees of the GDR State Security and brought to the GDR. There they stayed for two weeks in a state security facility before they were allowed to take off for Baghdad via Berlin-Schönefeld. Viett stayed in Baghdad for three months and then returned to Europe, where she settled in Paris . Viett later described the mood in the group and his own mood as rather resigned.

During this time, Viett was involved in talks about merging the June 2 Movement and the Red Army faction . After Sieglinde Hofmann , Ingrid Barabass , Regina Nicolai , Karola Magg and Karin Kamp were arrested on May 5, 1980 in Paris , Viett decided to switch to the RAF. For the RAF she started negotiations with the GDR State Security in East Berlin in order to enable eight “RAF dropouts” to leave for sub-Saharan Africa, as another option had failed due to lack of papers. The State Security pointed out the problems of going into hiding in sub-Saharan Africa and, to Viett's surprise, suggested a life in the GDR instead. Viett arranged the relocation of the eight to the GDR, who eventually traveled to the GDR via Prague. Viett himself traveled on to South Yemen and wanted to reconsider her own situation there. She felt marginalized in the RAF. After six weeks she returned to Europe. Together with three other RAF members, she completed a military training course from the AGM / S (working group of the minister / special groups) to carry out terrorist attacks in Briesen in the GDR. She returned to Western Europe and lived in an RAF-run house in Namur, Belgium .

In August 1981 Viett drove through Paris without a helmet in a Suzuki moped she had bought . When two traffic police tried to check her, she tried to escape. A longer chase through Paris followed, which Viett finally continued on foot. In a courtyard, she met one of the policemen at gunpoint. When the police officer Francis Violleau tried to use his own weapon, she shot the police officer from four meters away. The traffic policeman sustained an injury to his 7th cervical vertebra and was therefore paraplegic . The father of three had to live in a home for severely disabled people near Blois on the Loire from 1985 . He was in pain every day. His family moved back to Brittany from Paris. Violleau died of complications from the injury in 2000 at the age of 54.

Viett first settled down in the house in Namur and then in southern Yemen. Her doubts about the point of continuing the armed struggle increased. She perceived the RAF as socially isolated, whose actions only reached marginalized groups, even within the left.

Escape to the GDR

1982 she appeared in the GDR , where he lived first in the "conspiratorial Object 74" of their Stasi supervisor, a secluded spot "Forsthaus on the Spree" state security far from Briesen in Frankfurt (Oder) and was for six months on their DDR Life prepared. Under the name Eva-Maria Sommer and with a legend that she was a migrant from the west, she moved to Dresden - Prohlis . There she completed an apprenticeship as a repro photographer and acquired a skilled worker qualification . On February 25, 1983 Viett was registered as an unofficial employee (observation) "Maria Berger" of a subdivision of the Department for International Counter-Terrorism of the Ministry for State Security .

A colleague of the company saw a wanted poster with the picture of Inge Viett on a trip to the Federal Republic of Germany and told another colleague about the true identity of Eva-Maria Sommer. Viett then had to leave Dresden and first came to Berlin-Marzahn . She was given a new identity, this time as Eva Schnell . The legend has also been changed. This time Eva Schnell was a citizen of the GDR, but she had previously worked in a small family business of her husband, after whose death a professional reorientation took place. In 1987, with the new legend, she moved to Magdeburg and lived on Hans-Grundig-Strasse in Magdeburg-Nord . Professionally, she was responsible for the organization of the children's holiday camps for VEB Schwermaschinenbau Karl Liebknecht (SKL) based in the Salbke district of Magdeburg and managed a budget of 1,000,000 marks annually. She was subordinate to three employees, although she described the working atmosphere as very tense at first. According to her autobiography, Viett had a positive view of the GDR project , but she was particularly critical of the level of press coverage and, above all, of the political analysis in the press. The Die Wende was criticized by her. She went to one of the Monday prayers in Magdeburg Cathedral . Unlike other participants who later did this, she described the speeches as "aggressive". A “group of black-rocked churchmen” blocked her “the way out” when she left the event prematurely, “fascist leaflets” would have been distributed in front of the door. This is how she imagines “the counter-revolution”. On the occasion of the Volkskammer election on March 18, 1990, Viett worked as an election worker in her residential area .

Viett stayed in Magdeburg despite the political changes and the peaceful revolution in the GDR and the arrest of Susanne Albrecht , who was also a former RAF member in the GDR. A neighbor reported Viett to the police as a wanted terrorist. Viett was arrested on June 12, 1990 in the entrance area of ​​her home on the way to the elevator. After four weeks in GDR detention, Viett was extradited to West Germany.

During her time in the GDR, Viett, like the other nine RAF dropouts, was completely monitored until they were exposed, their apartments were bugged and their phone calls were tapped. All processes were recorded in the "operational process star 2".

In June 1990 Inge Viett wrote a hymn to the GDR in a letter to her "Dear Collective" after her arrest:

“A country that has written the values ​​for which I lived on its flags, its constitution and its laws: anti-fascism, solidarity, friendship between peoples and collectivity. All these years in the GDR I lived and worked with great strength for these social goals. These are the most important years in my life. "

In 1992 she was sentenced to thirteen years in prison by the Koblenz Higher Regional Court for attempted murder because of the shooting at the police officer in Paris.

After imprisonment

In January 1997 Viett was released after serving half the sentence in custody and the remainder of the sentence was for parole suspended. Her first book was published during her imprisonment and she is still an author today. Viett never distanced himself from the armed actions of the RAF. The director Volker Schlöndorff used motifs from her autobiography for his film The Silence after the Shot . Then Viett shot him and screenwriter Wolfgang Kohlhaase ago, a plagiarism of having committed. The two parties were able to reach an out-of-court settlement.

Viett published on February 24, 2007 in the " Young World " a contribution in which she defended the terrorism of the RAF. The “political / military attack” was then “for us the appropriate expression for our resistance to capitalism”. In retrospect, in the text entitled Lust auf Freiheit , she complains that "the guerrilla struggle in the FRG and in all imperialist states would have been better for more experience, intelligence, perseverance and support." In this article she described the armed actions of the RAF as “class struggle from below”. Forty years ago there was a small group of people who resolutely took up the fight against the German elite and their power system, said Viett. They were inspired by the anti-colonial and national liberation movements. Viett also appeared in 2007 as a guest at an event organized by the Swiss Revolutionary Construction Program in Zurich .

During a demonstration against a pledge by the German armed forces, which took place on July 20, 2008 at the Brandenburg Gate , Viett was provisionally arrested. In this context, the Berlin edition of the Bild newspaper attacked Viett extremely sharply on its front page. A trial before the Berlin district court for "attempted release of prisoners" ended on October 22nd, 2009 with an acquittal, but Viett was fined 225 euros for resisting police officers.

On January 8, 2011, during the panel discussion at the International Rosa Luxemburg Conference in Berlin, she spoke of the need to establish “a revolutionary communist organization with secret structures”. On the way to communism , a “combative practice” is required, in which the “civil legal order” cannot be a yardstick. She explained literally: “If Germany is at war and Bundeswehr equipment is torched as an anti-war operation, then this is a legitimate action, as is sabotage in the operation of armaments. Also wild strikes, company or house occupations, militant anti-fascist actions, resistance to police attacks, etc. ”The CDU internal politician Wolfgang Bosbach described this as a“ call for a violent fight against the state ”. The media spoke of a "call for a new terrorist organization". In November 2011, the Berlin-Tiergarten District Court sentenced Viett to a fine of 1200 euros for approving criminal offenses based on her statements . An invitation from Viett's Revolutionary Construction Switzerland to an event in Zurich at the end of April 2011 also caused a stir .

Controversial discussions sparked Viett's appearance at a demonstration against the Munich Security Conference in the spring of 2013 in the “Anti-Siko Alliance” when she gave a speech at the invitation of the anti-capitalist bloc .

Fonts

Movie

  • Große Freiheit - kleine Freiheit , Kristina Konrad (director), documentary film, Germany 2000, b / w, 83 min.
    Documentation about Inge Viett from Germany and María Barhoum from Uruguay, two women who at the end of the 1960s for a revolutionary change in the world fought.
  • The silence after the shot , semi-fictional drama by director Volker Schlöndorff based on the motifs and plot of Inge Viett's autobiography.

literature

  • Tobias Wunschik: Baader-Meinhof's children. The second generation of the RAF. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1997, ISBN 3-531-13088-9 , see register, p. 514.
  • Butz Peters : Deadly mistake. The history of the RAF. Argon, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-87024-673-1 , see register, p. 861.

Web links

Commons : Inge Viett  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. RAF retiree Inge Viett has to go back to court. In: Welt Online , June 5, 2011; Berlin public prosecutor accuses Inge Viett. In: Berliner Morgenpost , June 5, 2011.
  2. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 18 ff.
  3. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 45 f.
  4. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 53
  5. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 55
  6. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P.56
  7. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 56 ff.
  8. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 58 ff.
  9. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 60
  10. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 61
  11. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 68 ff.
  12. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 80 ff.
  13. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 83 f.
  14. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 85
  15. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 86 f.
  16. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 92 f.
  17. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 94
  18. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 94 f.
  19. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 107 ff.
  20. a b c d e f g h i Ex-RAF terrorist Inge Viett: Revolutionary on hold (taz.de from July 22, 2008, accessed on October 22, 2017)
  21. a b c RAF in the GDR: "The most important years in my life" (spiegel.de from June 2, 2015, accessed on October 22, 2017)
  22. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 191 f.
  23. Why Bulgaria's Stasi deported left-wing terrorists (welt.de, August 9, 2015, accessed October 22, 2017)
  24. a b Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 202 ff.
  25. ^ RAF in the GDR autumn 1977 - When the terror fled to Koethen (Mitteldeutsche Zeitung of September 23, 2017, accessed on October 22, 2017)
  26. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 237 ff.
  27. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 236 f.
  28. 25 years of German unity, RAF and GDR - a suitable couple: Inge Viett in the training camp (berliner-zeitung.de from June 5, 2015, accessed on October 22, 2017)
  29. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 256 ff.
  30. Terrorism: “The nights are bad,” Der Spiegel, September 8, 1997
  31. ^ Willi Winkler: The history of the RAF . 2nd edition, Hamburg 2008, p. 381.
  32. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 263 f.
  33. sz-online: "Forget Dresden". (No longer available online.) In: sz-online.de. August 1, 2017, archived from the original on August 2, 2017 ; accessed on August 2, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sz-online.de
  34. ^ Regine Igel : Terrorism Lies ; Pp. 164-166
  35. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 307 f.
  36. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 315
  37. Inge Viett: I have never been more fearful. 1999, p. 316 f.
  38. Inge Viett: I was never more fearful (1999); P. 326 f.
  39. Welcome to the RAF summer camp (welt.de, August 19, 2016, accessed October 22, 2017)
  40. Red Army Faction Still wanted for three perpetrators (Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, September 24, 2017, accessed October 22, 2017)
  41. ^ Inge Viett: Punch and Judy Theater in No Man's Land . In: specifically , No. 4, 2000.
  42. Submerged, purified, unteachable: That became of the RAF terrorists (focus.de from January 21, 2016, accessed on October 22, 2017)
  43. Andreas Förster: How Inge Viett defends the terrorism of the RAF: "Why did we only take up arms?" Berliner Zeitung, March 2, 2007.
    RAF violence - ex-terrorist Viett justifies terror . Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 17, 2010.
  44. a b Convicted RAF terrorist appears in Zurich (20min.ch of April 21, 2015, accessed on October 22, 2017)
  45. Ex-terrorist Inge Viett among demonstrators (welt.de, July 20, 2008, accessed October 22, 2017)
  46. ^ Bundeswehr pledge: ex-terrorist Inge Viett free again . Der Tagesspiegel , July 21, 2008; with picture from July 2008
  47. Matthias Lukaschewitsch: Who will shut up the ex-terrorist? Bild , regional edition Berlin, March 6, 2009, title headline.
  48. Resistance against police officers: Ex-RAF terrorist Viett sentenced to a fine. RP Online, October 22, 2009, accessed December 3, 2011 .
  49. ^ A b Jörn Hasselmann: After the Rosa Luxemburg Conference: Ex-terrorist Viett in the sights of the judiciary . Der Tagesspiegel, August 5, 2011.
  50. Never renounced terrorism: Inge Viett demands new acts of violence (hna.de January 5, 2011, accessed October 22, 2017)
  51. Former RAF terrorist: court confirms fine for Inge Viett (faz.de of August 17, 2012, accessed on October 22, 2017)
  52. Miriam Hollstein: Inge Viett in court: Bizarre appearance of an unteachable RAF pensioner. In: Welt Online , November 23, 2011.
  53. Stage for the ex-terrorist (sueddeutsche.de from February 1, 2013, accessed on October 22, 2017)
  54. Inge Viett takes up the microphone (taz.de, February 3, 2013, accessed October 22, 2017)
  55. Bernd Sobolla: In conversation: There was common ground… Friday , September 15, 2000 (Inge Viett on the film The Silence after the Shot and her experiences in the GDR.)