How It All Began: Personal Account of a West German Urban Guerilla

Description

Bommi Baumann’s autobiographical history is a must read for anyone try to understand the so called German Autumn: the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhoff Gang), student rebellions and fear of revolution. Baumann strips away the ideology and doesn’t seek the readers approval on the basis of ‘the struggle’ or the need for revolution. Instead he guides you through the formative years, when petty oppression and dashed hope led to escapism and eventually conflict with authority. Baumann is afraid of iconoclasm and at times is crushing in his off-hand criticism of the RAF and posturing self appointed revolutionary cadre. Nor does he apologise. The book for me represents a connection to a more ordinary rebellion, one that seems more connected to the street, to Kreutzberg, than the famously aloof RAF in their Baader Meinhiff Wagens.