Symbionese Liberation Army

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Patty Hearst in a bank robbery

The Symbionese Liberation Army ( SLA ) was a terrorist guerrilla group in the USA, which saw itself as a liberation army close to Maoism in the tradition of Robin Hood . She carried out several violent acts including a. Bank robberies, kidnappings and murders.

The SLA was founded in 1971 by Russell Little and Robyn Sue Steiner in San Francisco . From 1972, Donald DeFreeze was the leader , with William Wolfe and the Harris couple.

The SLA's logo depicts a seven-headed serpentine serpent. The name is a neologism from the word symbiosis .

Kidnapping of Patty Hearst

The SLA became internationally known for the kidnapping of Patty Hearst , the then 19-year-old granddaughter of publisher William Randolph Hearst and daughter of billionaire Randolph Apperson Hearst , on February 4, 1974. Along with her abduction, a $ 6 million aid program was to be enforced to feed hungry populations in the United States. Patty Hearst was first imprisoned, then a lover of a group member, and finally a member of the group; she even took part in a bank robbery. It could not be conclusively determined whether her behavior indicated a fake kidnapping, as the courts later believed, or whether it was a case of Stockholm Syndrome .

On May 17, 1974, Donald DeFreeze and five other members of the SLA were killed in a police shootout. On September 18, 1975, Patty Hearst was arrested (alongside SLA members) and sentenced to 35 years in prison in 1976 by a San Francisco court. In an appeal process, the sentence was reduced to seven years. After 21 months, Hearst was pardoned by then US President Jimmy Carter and released on February 1, 1979 from California federal prison near San Francisco. In 2001 she received a “presidential pardon” (full pardon ) from Bill Clinton .

literature

  • Suellentrop, C .: What Is the Symbionese Liberation Army? Slate 2002
  • Boulton, David. The Making Of Tania Hearst . Bergenfield, NJ, USA: New American Library, 1975. 224+ [12] p., Ill., Ports., Facsim., Index, 22 cm. Also published: London, GB: New English Library, 1975.
  • Hearst, Patty, with Alvin Moscow, Patty Hearst: Her Own Story . New York: Avon, 1982. ISBN 0-380-70651-2 (Original title: Every Secret Thing) .
  • McLellan, Vin, and Paul Avery. The Voices of Guns: The Definitive and Dramatic Story of the Twenty-two-month Career of the Symbionese Liberation Army. New York: Putnam, 1977
  • Weed, Steven, with Scott Swanton. My Search for Patty Hearst. New York: Warner, 1976. (Weed was Hearst's fiancé at the time of the kidnapping, which marked the end of their relationship)
  • Neverland: The Rise and Fall of the Symbionese Liberation Army, Directed by Robert Stone, 2004

Web links

Commons : Symbionese Liberation Army  - Collection of images, videos and audio files