Wojtek wrote:
> The fact that they were not "chump change"
Actually, the RAF accomplished comparatively little. Well even that's too charitable; it really didn't accomplish anything.
The so-called "second" and "third" generations of the RAF (i.e. the ones who sprung up after the "first" generation ended up in prison or killed) were preoccupied *solely* with attempting the release of the first generation from prison. They had no other Raison d'être.
The first generation made good media copy, the cinematic quality is also apparent to me. Anyone who has seen the Gerhard Richter paintings (part of the MOMA collection in New York and exhibited in Berlin when the MOMA lent its collection) succumbs to this fascination, I think.
But really, politically the RAF didn't accomplish much, other than unleashing a wave of state repression that ended up hitting the rest of the left as well.
Also, there were other significant urban guerilla groups beside the RAF, but comparatively little about them in English. The most notable were the "Revolutionary Cells" and their feminist counterparts the "Red Zoras". These were notable for being comprised of activists who weren't in the underground but who rather led "normal" lives and were involved in the "above ground" left as well. There is a lot of info in German, but in English the only source I know dealing with them is in Katsiafica's book on European autonomism.