Silke Maier-Witt

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Silke Maier-Witt (born January 21, 1950 in Nagold ) is a former German terrorist . She had been a member of the second generation of the Red Army Faction (RAF) since 1977 , went into hiding in the GDR in 1980 , was exposed in 1990, sentenced to ten years in prison and released early in 1995.

Life

From 1960 Silke Maier-Witt attended the Heilwig-Gymnasium in Hamburg . In 1969 she studied medicine and psychology in the Hanseatic city, and during her studies she worked with young people with behavioral problems.

On April 7, 1977, she joined the Red Army faction in a conspiratorial apartment in Amsterdam - partly in response to the death of Holger Meins . She was involved as a scout in the kidnapping and murder of Hanns Martin Schleyer . Your main tasks within the organization were mostly in the area of ​​research and feeder services.

After a bystander was shot dead in a bank robbery in Zurich in 1979 , she went into hiding in the GDR. There she trained as a nurse under the name Angelika Gerlach in Hoyerswerda and later studied information science at the Technical University of Ilmenau . In 1981 she became an unofficial employee of the GDR State Security (MfS) with the code name Anja Weber .

On June 13, 1985, a young GDR emigrant reported to the police in Möglingen in Baden-Württemberg that he had seen the wanted Silke Maier-Witt in Weimar as Angelika Gerlach , who lived in Erfurt . When the MfS found out about this from the Soviet secret service KGB , Maier-Witt relocated to East Berlin with the new identity of Sylvia Beyer and appointed her to head the VEB Pharma Neubrandenburg information center . Under this name she was arrested on June 18, 1990 in Neubrandenburg and deported to the Federal Republic. She was sentenced to ten years in prison on October 8, 1991, and was released early in 1995.

In 1994 she resumed her psychology studies at the Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg . She then completed training in systemic family therapy and finally worked in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry, psychological counseling and internal communication.

In 1999 she applied to the forum ZFD with a letter of recommendation from Attorney General Kay Nehm for training as a peace specialist . In this role, she worked in Prizren , Kosovo from 2000 to 2005 .

In 2006 she supervised a vacation project of the Committee for Fundamental Rights and Democracy in Ulcinj as part of the vacation from war campaign for Albanian and Serbian youth from Kosovo . Today Maier-Witt lives in North Macedonia .

Maier-Witt is one of the few participants in the narrowest RAF group who is now self-critical in public. As part of a testimony in 2011, she appealed to her former comrades-in-arms: "We have all become old people, so it no longer makes sense to want to keep up the game of hide-and-seek." There is a moral duty "also towards Mr Buback's son, who has a right to know who he was".

In an interview after her conviction, Maier-Witt made connections between her membership in a terrorist group and her father's membership in the SS .

In November 2017 she asked Jörg Schleyer, the youngest son of Hanns Martin Schleyer, for forgiveness. The two met for a seven-hour conversation in a hotel in Skopje, Macedonia . Jan Feddersen wrote in the taz that Maier-Witt was the first former RAF member who “seriously dares to do something like reconciliation, explanation, remorse and the request for 'forgiveness'”.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Maier-Witt statement: History lesson on the RAF terror. In: Focus Online . February 24, 2011, accessed January 21, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Miriam Hollstein: The monosyllabic meeting of two terror pensioners. In: Welt Online . February 25, 2011, accessed January 21, 2016 .
  3. ↑ Maike Röttger: “I have to stand by it. That was so ” , in: Hamburger Abendblatt , June 28, 2008
  4. ↑ a b Markus Wehner : Silke Maier-Witt: "We never asked who are we erasing?" , In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , April 29, 2007, No. 17 / p. 8.
  5. ^ BStU : The integration of the RAF terrorist Silke Maier-Witt, who went underground in the GDR, from the perspective of the MfS. In: Stasi-Mediathek.de .
  6. ^ Georg Mascolo, Michael Sontheimer: Terrorists: Artful legend . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 1998 ( online - Nov. 16, 1998 ).
  7. ↑ Michael Sontheimer : Of course you can shoot. A Brief History of the Red Army Faction. DVA / Spiegel-Verlag, Munich 2010, ISBN 3-421-04470-8 , pp. 147–150 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  8. ^ MfS document from the Stasi media library of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi documents: Resettlement of RAF terrorist Silke Maier-Witt by the MfS. In: Stasi media library. Retrieved June 23, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Robert Leicht: Silke Maier-Witt wanted to participate in the "Forum Ziviler Friedensdienst" - but the ministry behind it now became uncanny , an analysis in Der Tagesspiegel of September 30, 1999
  10. ↑ Gerd Rosenkranz: Prevented Peace Dove , Der Spiegel No. 39/1999 of September 27, 1999
  11. ↑ Silke Maier-Witt: Albanian and Serbian young people from Kosovo go on vacation together in Montenegro , Project Holidays from War , brochure 2006 , p. 38.
  12. ^ NDR: Silke Maier-Witt: Between RAF and Stasi, minute 6:00. In: Nordmagazin. October 15, 2017. Retrieved October 18, 2017 .
  13. ↑ sueddeutsche.de: Buback assassination: Maier Witt exonerates Folkerts. (No longer available online.) February 25, 2017, archived from the original on December 4, 2017 ; accessed on November 28, 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.sueddeutsche.de
  14. ↑ dw.com: RAF terrorist Silke Maier-Witt asks for forgiveness. November 28, 2017. Retrieved November 28, 2017 .
  15. ↑ welt.de: Silke Maier-Witt asks Schleyer's son for forgiveness. November 28, 2017. Retrieved November 28, 2017 .
  16. ↑ taz.de: Ex-RAF member apologizes. November 28, 2017. Retrieved July 9, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Maier-Witt, Silke
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Silke Gerlach
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German RAF terrorist
DATE OF BIRTH January 21, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Nagold