Does Ulrike want mercy or safe conduct?

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Does Ulrike want mercy or safe conduct? is an essay by the writer Heinrich Böll , which was published on January 10, 1972 in the magazine Der Spiegel andsparkeda domestic political scandal . In the text, Böll dealt with the motives and methods of the left-wing extremist terrorist organization Red Army Fraction (RAF),which was emerging at the time, and at the same time criticized the reporting of the media, especially the tabloid Bild from Springer-Verlag . In his own words, he wanted to bring about a kind of relaxation in the public debate and secretly move the group to give up.

Instead, he was seen as a sympathizer of terror, especially in the conservative political camp , and was heavily attacked in politics and the media.

Origin and falsification of the title

Böll wrote the text between December 23 and 26, 1971. The title was originally So much love at once, an ironic reference to a headline for the picture during the Christmas season. Against Böll's express request, the title was changed in the Spiegel editorial team. The title borrowed from a text passage of the essay ("Will Ulrike Meinhof, that it comes like this? Does she want grace or at least safe conduct?") Is highly problematic in that it is a personal address due to the first name address - not used by Böll himself Familiarity between Böll and the RAF member Meinhof suggested, which actually did not exist.

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In the text, Böll turns against the picture, which on December 23, 1971, under the heading Baader-Meinhof-Gang murders, reported on various crimes that were ascribed to the RAF without any evidence of their involvement in individual cases. The reason for the picture article was the bank robbery on December 22, 1971, in which the police officer Herbert Schoner was shot. Böll's main point of criticism was the reporting, which presented as a fact what was not yet certain knowledge at the time:

"Where the police authorities determine, suspect, combine, Bild is a lot further: Bild knows."

He criticized Bild with extremely sharp words and implicitly accused her of the inevitable escalation of violence:

“This is no longer crypto- fascist , no longer fascistoid , this is naked fascism . Incitement, lies, filth. This form of demagogy would not even be justified if the presumptions of the Kaiserslautern police were found to be correct. In every manifestation of the rule of law , every suspect has the right to emphasize that if one is allowed to publish a mere suspicion, it is only suspected. The headline "Baader Meinhof Group continues to murder" is an invitation to lynch justice . Millions, for whom image is the only source of information, are supplied with falsified information in this way. "

Since the group around Ulrike Meinhof Böll had only six members, it would be absurd to assume a national emergency , as the reporting in the newspaper Bild suggests. But Meinhof himself was also sharply criticized by Böll:

“There is no doubt - Ulrike Meinhof lives at war with this society. Anyone could read their editorials. anyone can read the manifesto written after the group went into hiding. It is now a war of 6 against 60,000,000. A senseless war, not only in my opinion, not only in general, also in terms of the published concept. "

Aftermath

In conservative circles, Böll has since been considered a “ sympathizer of terrorism”, which, according to his own admission, offended him very much and contradicted the essay's fundamental statements, which were very critical of the RAF and violence. For example, the editor-in-chief of the weekly newspaper Christ und Welt , Ulrich Frank-Planitz , described Böll in a television commentary for which Südwestfunk was responsible for "salon anarchist sympathizers" of the RAF, whereupon Böll in a telegram to SWF director Helmut Hammerschmidt against the "fascist-slanderous tendency" of the comment protested and terminated his collaboration with the station. Shortly thereafter, he also terminated his collaboration with other institutions, including the ZDF and the Goethe Institute .

Conservative politicians in particular took a public position against Böll, including Hans Karl Filbinger , Bernhard Vogel , Rudolf Titzck (all CDU), Bruno Merk (CSU) and the Junge Union , but also Karl Hemfler (SPD). The North Rhine-Westphalian Minister for Federal Affairs Diether Posser (SPD) published a comment in Spiegel on January 24, 1972 in which he accused Böll, among other things, of uncritical adoption of statements by the RAF and dangerous trivialization of the group, and came to the conclusion that the im Böll's essay from Zorn was unobjective and exaggerated. Böll responded to this on January 31 with an article “It was not only Paul who was persecuted ”, in which he agreed and summarized Posser on several points:

“The effect of my article does not even hint at what I had in mind: to bring about a kind of relaxation and to ask the group, albeit covertly, to give up. I admit that I have not measured the extent of the demagoguery I would conjure up. "

In his article One must go too far, printed in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on January 29, 1972 , Böll made it clear:

“I put the group around Ulrike Meinhof into perspective - yes. Downplayed no. I tried to adjust the proportions. Nothing else."

He further noted:

“The Spiegel article has weaknesses, less in what is in it than in what is not; A comprehensive study of the escalation is missing: from the shooting of Benno Ohnesorg to the assassination attempt on [Rudi] Dutschke . "

Although Böll had already publicly expressed his political opinion, this writing began to a certain extent his “political career” and a corresponding public awareness. On June 1, 1972 - the day of the arrest of Andreas Baader , Jan-Carl Raspe and Holger Meins - there was an annoying police operation in his home to check the identity of a couple who were friends and who were visiting him.

In 1974 Böll took up the critical interrelationship between tabloid journalism and radical left-wing protest movement, which was first discussed in the essay, in the story Die Lost Ehre der Katharina Blum . The 1972 controversy was also taken up in the reception.

literature

  • Does Ulrike want mercy or safe conduct? In: Der Spiegel . No. 3 , 1972, p. 54–57 ( online - original text).
  • Rearview mirror: quotes . In: Der Spiegel . No. 4 , 1972, p. 118 ( online ).
  • Hanno Balz: About terrorists, sympathizers and the strong state. The public debate about the RAF in the 1970s . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38723-9 .
  • Heinrich Böll: Safe conduct for Ulrike Meinhof. An article and its consequences. Compiled by Frank Grützbach. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1972, ISBN 3-462-00875-7 .
  • Angelika Ibrügger: The involuntary self-reflection of a 'learning democracy'. Heinrich Böll as an intellectual at the beginning of the terrorism discussion. In: The "German Autumn" and the RAF in politics, media and art: National and international perspectives. Edited by Nicole Colin et al., Transcript, Bielefeld 2008, pp. 156-169.
  • Hans Mathias Kepplinger, Michael Hachenberg & Werner Frühauf: Structure and function of a journalistic conflict. The dispute over Heinrich Böll's article “Will Ulrike grace or free passage?” In: Journalism. 22, 1977, pp. 14-34.
  • Robert Weninger: Arguable writers: controversies and scandal in German literature from Adorno to Walser. CH Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-51132-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich Böll: Works. Cologne edition. Volume 18. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2003, ISBN 3-462-03260-7 , pp. 454 f.
  2. ^ Heinrich Böll: Works. Cologne edition. Volume 18. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 2003, ISBN 3-462-03260-7 , p. 483 f.
  3. ^ Robert Weninger: Disputeable literati. P. 92.
  4. ↑ Angelika Ibrügger: The involuntary self-reflection of a 'learning democracy'. P. 158.
  5. ↑ This practice is devastating . In: Der Spiegel . No. 5 , 1972, p. 40-41 ( online ).
  6. ↑ Not only Paul was persecuted . In: Der Spiegel . No. 6 , 1972, p. 60 ( online ).
  7. ^ Christiane Grefe : Literature: Where is Böll? In: The time . No. 32, August 2, 2007
  8. ^ Rober Spaemann: Coffee, Cake and Terror , Die Zeit 19/1998