Who are the Red Brigades?

Richard Clutterbuck

The similarities between the kidnapping of Aldo Moro in Italy and Hans Martin Schleyer in Germany led many people to suspect that some of the German Red Army Fraction (RAF) may have been involved in the Moro operation. This may well be, but those similarities do not necessarily make it so.

The Italian Red Brigades have certainly learned a lot from the professional example of the German terrorists, but much of this could have been acquired simply from studying the detailed newspaper reports (with diagrams) and other operations. Nevertheless, working links between the two movements have certainly existed since 1970, and between sympathisers in Austria, Belgium, France and Holland; some are in organised underground movements and others just casual supporters willing to provide 'safe houses' and other facilities for them.

The origins and development of the RAF and the Red Brigades have been remarkably similar, despite the diametric contrast between the two societies — Germany with its strong, stable political system and Italy with unstable government inspiring little confidence, its fragmented police forces, and its much More lawless society.

Both movements began in 1967-8, born of student unrest focusing upon the Vietnam war and a reaction against the consumer society. Both have been recruited. almost entirely from the sons and daughters of the middle class. Both were initially idealistic and rather inept. During the middle 1970s both became more lethal and professional when the original leaders were arrested and replaced by a more ruthless faction within their ranks.

In 1968-9, Gudrun Ennsling, Andreas Baader and their friends began their attacks upon property, initially with fire and later with bombs and guns. Joined by Ulrike Meinhof in 1970 they carried out a series of remarkably amateurish bank robberies and raids killing six people before the police arrested almost all of them in 1972. This marked the end of the first generation, though some survived to join the second generation which emerged in 1974 after the suicide by hunger strike of one of the original Baader-Meinhof gang in prison — Holger Meins. The second generation were much more selective in their victims, their first being the President of the Supreme Court, Gunter von Drenkmann, shot down at the door of his home. A few weeks later they kidnapped Peter Lorenz, candidate for Meyer and West Berlin, and secured the release of five of the first generation from prison (though not including Ennsling, Baader or Meinhof).

In 1975-6, fortunes were mixed for the second generation. When they seized the German Embassy in Stockholm, all six of the terrorists were killed or captured and imprisoned; of the two Germans who cooperated with Carlos in the OPEC kidnapping in Vienna, one was wounded and later defected; and the two Germans who led the hijacking to Entebbe in 1976 were both killed by the Israeli commandos; at the end of that year, the man believed to be the leader of the second generation, Siegfried Hagg, was also arrested.

Much less publicised have been the international fund-raising kidnaps by the RAF. Of some fifty criminal kidnaps for ransom in Germany in the past five years, some have undoubtedly been done by or on behalf of the RAF. They were certainly involved in three particularly lucrative kidnappings in December 1977 — after the murder of Hans Martin Schleyer. Two of these (Mrs Boehm and Palmers) were in Vienna and the third (Oetker) in Munich. The total ransoms for the three were of the order of $12 million, most of which probably went to the RAF coffers — already well filled from their long co-operation with the rich Palestinian terrorist movement. Gabriele KrocherTiedemann — one of the six released for Peter Lorenz — who also took part in the OPEC kidnapping in Vienna, was arrested in January 1978 in possession of $200,000 from the Palmers ransom. She was in

Switzerland on her way to Italy. .

The Red Brigades were founded in Milan University in 1969 by Renato Curcio, who had earlier organised the 'negative university' in 1967, whilst a sociology student at Trento. Initially running parallel with the Red Brigades were the Partisan Action Groups (GAP) formed in 1970 by the bizarre young Italian millionaire publisher, Giangiacomo Feltrinelli, who was a friend of Ulrike Meinhof and contributed to the RAF, with whom he had regular contact.

The GAP as such was short-lived because Feltrinelli was killed in a bomb attack on a pylon in 1971. The ten hard-core members Of GAP thereupon joined the Red Brigades, along with about forty followers — and presumably with access to Feltrinelli's money and to his contacts in the richer echelons of Italian society.

The GAP members formed a more violent faction in the Red Brigades. In 1971-2 they concentrated their attacks on junior managers in industry, intimidating them, (by burning their cars, etc), kidnapping them (knowingly to gain local concessions), beating them up, but seldom killing them. Their aim at this stage was to disrupt indus

try by exacerbating relations between management and labour.

In April 1972 they turned to more clandestine violence, declaring war, as they Put it, 'on the heart of the state', selecting their targets from the managerial world,the Christian Democrat Party, and from the judiciary, the police and prison staffs. In 1974 they kidnapped Judge Sossi, demand' ing the release of six Red Brigade prisoners. The Government stood firm and Sossi was released, having signed a 'confession' after forty-four days in captivity.

In the same year the militant faction raided a club of the right wing Par; liamentary party, the MSI, and murdereo two of its members. The moderate faction were critical of these actions and for a time they prevailed, but in October 1974 Curci° was arrested and thereafter the militant faction actually took over the leadership. Like, the RAF in the middle 1970s the gad Brigades became more lethal and PO" fessional, as they have remained. Rennwi. Curcio can in many ways be compared with Ulrike Meinhof. He founded his move, ment when he was twenty eight (she joiner' the RAF at thirty seven); he was not a hard killer and nor was she (Baader certainlY was). And the mOvement became more violent when Curcio went.

The Red Brigades reorganised during 1974-6 into a much tighter, more disciplined cell structure, with stricter security — only one cell member having contact with senior, and subordinate cells. The 'red brigades themselves, despite their name, are actuallY the lowest unit; each 'red brigade' is just a cell, four or five strong, whose task is t° organise local collaborations on the fringes of the radical intellectual world, who in turn recruit and indoctrinate students from the universities. (They should in theory als° seek proletarian recruits, they in fact hay,e little success in the factories, being total Y condemned by the Italian Communist PartY (PCI) and by the Communist-led trade unions.) Three or four such brigades (cells) are co-ordinated by a 'column' with respoT sibility for one city or region and the 03,1: umns are responsible to a central hen", quarters giving strategic direction. The total strength of this cell structure is believed t° be about 150-200. They in turn are sli„P; ported by a semi-clandestine fringe, ah°"t 2,000 strong, some of whom have opted °,1i, of society to live in communes and squa,`; whilst others give part time support wh" working as lawyers, teachers, journalists' etc. —exactly as they have done in GermanY• Feeding not only the Red Brigades but also other extreme left movements is a hug pool of about 150,000 sympathisers in th.e overcrowded and chaotic Italian nal: versities. Not all of the students are all tha, young, since it is possible to stay at versity for many years, doing part-tild, work. This provides an ideal field for mat0,1t, ing revolutionaries to continue their P0114 ical activities almost indefinitely. Some

their recruits graduate to the semiClandestine fringe and of those a smaller Proportion go on to join the brigades themselves, to do the killing. As in Germany, Most of them do not reach the killing stage until their middle twenties or later. The Italian Red Brigades can be seen as being in the second generation stage — where their, German comrades were in 1975-6; the numbers, both of terrorists and supporters, are about three times as large. It will be interesting to see whether they now develop along the same lines as the Germans.

The new generation of the RAF has now largely discarded the support of its semiclandestine fringe, whom it no longer trusts. The people who rented flats, bought the cars, etc for the Schleyer kidnapping were all found from the forty or fifty professional terrorists themselves already on the wanted list for previous murder and other crimes. 'rills was new. Another reason for this professionalism is that the killing — particularly the killing of working class drivers and policemen — alienates the majority of student and fringe supporters. As a result many more students in Germany are shifting their allegiance to a new movement, the 'revolutionary cells', which declares that it does not believe in killing and attacks the symbols of Capitalism (department stores, ticket machines, etc.) by fire and bombing at night, to reduce the risk of casualties. This is roughly where Ennsing and Baader began, and it will be interesting to see whether the revolutionary cells remain non-violent or escalate to indiscriminate bombing, then to selective assassination and finally to kidnapping — the most sophisticated form of terrorism — as their predecessors did.

It remains to be seen whether Italian students and intellectuals, too, will become sickened by the violence of the second generation Red Brigades and divert to less lethal forms of revolution. Much now depends on their reaction to the reported death of Aldo Moro.