Reconstruction 7.1 (2007)
Return to Contents, The state, Family, Nationalism, Gender, Terrorism»
Attacking the Body Politic: the Terroristin [1] in 1970s German [2] Media / Clare Bielby
Abstract: In a 1977 special feature on female terrorism, the German weekly newsmagazine, Der Spiegel, published a photograph of a woman with a bomb strapped to her front, masquerading as a pregnant woman. This image perfectly encapsulates the "paradoxical" quality of the female terrorist, who instead of giving life takes it. Furthermore, if, according to Tamar Mayer, women are represented in national and cultural narratives as "the nation's social and biological womb," the threatening quality of such representations for the body politic of the nation starts to become clear. As Mayer asserts "an attack on these [female] bodies becomes an attack on the nation's men" and so on the nation itself. This article will consider print media discourses on female terrorists as abject mothers and threatening "home wreckers" in 1970s German media. In particular, it will explore the way in which the radical left-wing female terrorist is staged as attacking and subverting the sacred private realm of hearth and home, the better to prop up notions of proper and sanctioned German motherhood and, by extension, nationhood. Central to this study shall be an analysis of divide and rule strategies, deployed by the German media in order to discipline and punish - in the Foucauldian sense - female subjectivity, bodies and the nation. This shall be situated in the context of the Federal Republic of Germany; a state with a deeply troubled sense of identity, not least because of its repressed Nazi past, its contested status as a state, and in the context of the Cold War.
<1> In a special 1977 feature on "Female Terrorists: Women and Violence," [3]Der Spiegel, a German weekly newsmagazine, published a photograph of a woman with a bomb strapped to her stomach, masquerading as a pregnant woman ("Frauen im Untergrund" 1977:29). [4] The image - given the caption "Baby-Bomb" - was taken during a police training demonstration. Although the contraption was constructed by Dierk Hoff, an accomplice of the German anti-capitalist guerrilla group, the Red Army Faction [5] (RAF), there is no evidence that it was ever used by German female terrorists. [6] This begs the question as to why Der Spiegel would print such a provocative image. On the one hand, it warns the reader to be vigilant at a time of heightened terrorist [7] activity. The article followed the RAF shooting of the high profile Head of the Dresdner Bank, Jürgen Ponto, on 30 July 1977: an action in which several female terrorists played a central role. However, far more is clearly at stake here, especially in the context of a highly charged Spiegel feature on women and terror, provoked by the fact that the majority of radical left-wing terrorists were, by 1977, women. [8] As well as connoting the absolute inhumanity of the "unnatural" and threatening female terrorist, the "Baby-Bomb" image styles the female terrorist as constituting a symbolic attack on the female body, motherhood, "nature" and "the natural" itself. It is the absolute illustration of the "paradox" of women taking, rather than giving, life. Furthermore, if, according to Tamar Mayer, "women's bodies represent the 'purity' of the nation" and "an attack on these bodies becomes an attack on the nation's men" and on the nation itself (2000:18), the female terrorist is being figured as a direct threat not only to the female spaces of femininity, motherhood, the family and "Heim und Herd" ("Hearth and Home"), but also to the nation. T he Spiegel image acquires particular significance in the context of Mayer's further claim that "women are represented as the nation's social and biological womb" [9] (2000:10). The "Baby-Bomb" image is typical of the 1970s German media which posits violent female terrorists as a direct threat to the body-politic of the nation and as the "unnatural" abject other of sanctioned, "natural" and pure German womanhood. [10] As this article will demonstrate, this divide and rule strategy serves to bolster hegemonic understandings of both womanhood and the nation as "natural," at a time of intense anxiety about both gendered and national identity, in the context of second-wave feminism [11] and the Cold War.
<2> Mayer's comments about the "'purity' of the nation" and women's bodies, where "women's bodies have become the nation's boundary" (2000:18), is appropriate here. It recalls the ideas on both social and bodily abjection put forward by the anthropologist, Mary Douglas, and the psychoanalyst, Julia Kristeva, respectively. [12] According to both, the pure self of the community, or in this case the nation, and of subjectivity is constituted through the ritual of abjection. Judith Butler describes the abject as designating "that which has been expelled from the body, discharged as excrement, literally rendered 'other'" (1999:169). She continues: "The construction of the 'not-me' as the abject establishes the boundaries of the body which are also the first contours of the subject" (1999:169). And these boundaries or margins must be continually policed since the body of the nation and of the self is a living and evolving entity, an unstable "becoming" rather than a stable, static essence. This is why boundaries are invested with such power and danger. According to Butler, "all social systems are vulnerable at their margins" and "all margins are accordingly considered dangerous" (1999:168). This paper will explore how the German media of the 1970s perpetually performs this ritualised act of abjection, policing the borders between pure and impure, "natural" and "unnatural," safe and threatening bodies. It subscribes to Douglas' notion:
ideas about separating, purifying, demarcating and punishing transgressions have as their main function to impose system on an inherently untidy experience. It is only by exaggerating the difference between within and without, above and below, male
and female, with and against, that a semblance of order is created (1970:4).
As a result of the "purifying, demarcating and punishing" of "transgressions" the Barthesian myth [13] of the "Terroristin" is born; a condensation or cluster of associated ideas which are perpetually invoked to discipline and punish - in the Foucauldian sense [14] - the German woman, mother, family and, ultimately, the nation. [15] Myth, here, functions in such a way that when one characteristic of the Terroristin is evoked, so the whole myth of the Terroristin is conjured up as the foil to the "proper" German woman and mother.
<3> This paper shall draw on a number of mainstream German newspapers, both left-wing, liberal "quality" journals, such as Der Spiegel and, to a lesser extent, Stern, and more rightwing papers, such as Bild and Die Welt. It is my contention that although these journals may seem to be of different quality, the same paradigms are being mobilized with regard to the violent female terrorist: paradigms that are firmly anchored in the German popular imagination of the 1970s.
Divide and Rule [16]
<4> In the 1970s German media, the Terroristin is juxtaposed to the pure and proper German woman, the better to control and discipline threatening female bodies and subjectivity. This strategy can be illustrated through two articles published in Die Welt after the RAF murder of Jürgen Ponto. The failed kidnapping of Ponto in July 1977 generated much inflammatory media discourse. Not only had a high profile member of the German establishment and bastion of capitalist ideology been murdered by terrorists, but this murder had been planned and executed by Terroristinnen. [17] One man and two women, one of whom was Ponto's goddaughter Susanne Albrecht, carried out the murder. [18] This led to a proliferation of discourse on women and terror in the German media. The twelve-page Spiegel special feature, along with its front cover image of Albrecht and title "Women and Terror," [19] is a good example of this. The rightwing newspaper Die Welt also printed multiple articles on women and terrorism. Two articles, in particular, are instructive in outlining the symbolic threat posed by the violent Terroristin to the nation and womanhood and the attendant compulsion to divide and rule. On 2 August 1977, Die Welt published a half page article and images of the Terroristinnen. The "mugshot" style photographs and the short descriptions of the female terrorists are arranged in two rows of six which evokes the ubiquitous "wanted" posters of RAF terrorists ("Dies sind" 1977:3). On 3 August, the following day, a similar half page article was published, this time with the pictures of famous German female establishment figures who comment on the "phenomenon" of the violent Terroristin ( "Frauen über Frauen" 1977:3). This second collection of images is vertically arranged, in three columns of four, which differentiates it slightly. However, the binary opposition between good, "natural," normal women and bad, violent, "unnatural" Terroristinnen is overt. The terrorist women are much younger and largely dark haired (perhaps connoting the other) whereas those in the second article are older and blond (perhaps connoting the Aryan and consistent with western understandings of beauty). Furthermore, the older establishment figures mainly smile or look serene which contrasts with the grimaces and dark threatening eyes of the Terroristinnen who challenge or avoid the viewer's gaze. Similar binary oppositions are apparent in the relative attractiveness of both sets of women. In terms of the older women, there is a prevalence of pretty faces which contrast with the ugly distorted faces of the Terroristinnen. In western society, ugliness is usually symbolic of inherent evil or inner ugliness, as countless fairytales document. [20] Furthermore, these images recall nineteenth-century photographic representations of deviant women in which the supposed objectivity or "truth" of the camera, as recorder of the "real," captures the scientific "truth" of the deviant's body, face, and therefore soul. These images, then, are recalling pseudo-scientific discourses of physiognomy where outer appearance, primarily the face, reflects character and personality, and ugliness/ deformity reflects deviance. [21] Physiognomy was particularly important in the German, or at least the German speaking, context and imagination. [22] The contrast between the body beautiful and the body ugly/deformed is further heightened through the fact that two of the older establishment women are winning Olympic athletes, thereby connoting fit, healthy, pure German bodies, as opposed to abject, sickly Terroristin bodies [23] that can only feign pregnancy through technology. [24]
<5> The photograph of each Terroristin is accompanied by her age, along with a short description of what she is accused of or, alternatively, why she is threatening. The disrespectful gesture of publishing age is consistent with conventional treatment of the Terroristin's life and body as public property, as can be seen, for example, in the Stern close-up image of Petra Schelm shot in the head (Serke 1972:20). Unsurprisingly, the age of each establishment female is omitted. Published under her photograph, instead, is her occupation - reflecting why the reader should trust or respect her view - and a short paragraph on what each woman thinks of the "phenomenon" of the Terroristin. This divide and rule strategy is made even more overt through the fact that the second article is given the explicit heading "Women on Women," [25] where, even linguistically, the two sets of women are pitted against each other. According to Nira Yuval-Davis' ideas about the nation and the role of women, the fact that the female establishment figures are older is significant as it means that they are perceived as more qualified to discuss and discipline their female counterparts and women in general:
Very often it is women, especially older women, who are given the roles of the cultural reproducers of the "nation" and are empowered to rule on what is "appropriate" behaviour and what is not and to exert control over other women who might be constructed as "deviants." As very often this is the main source of social power allowed to women, they might become fully engaged in it (1997:37).
A quick glance at what these women understand of Terroristinnen suffices to show that they are indeed fully engaged in disciplining aberrant, threatening females using popular masculinist discourses. Furthermore, the fact that their views are published in a sort of vox pop mode lends them more authenticity, immediacy and accessibility. This "subjective" mode serves as an apparent point of contrast with the factual and supposedly "objective" descriptions about the terrorists and what they are accused of, as well as with the supposedly objective photographic representations of them. It therefore reinforces the idea that standard media discourse is an objective recorder of the truth.
<6> The second part of the title and the question the older women are asked to answer is, "What drives girls to terror?" [26] This question reveals the fundamental social need to explain and state causes, especially with regard to phenomena deemed threatening to the hegemonic cultural order. This is also a question that is asked considerably less, if at all, with regard to male terrorists. It is interesting, too, that "girls" are the direct object of the verb "to drive" in this question. Consistent with masculinist understandings, women are even linguistically constructed as passive. The idea seems to be that they could only be behaving in this abject manner if active external forces are compelling them, where "to drive" is a suitably dynamic and forceful verb.
<7> The women from the article "Women on Women" discuss all the main attributes of the myth of the Terroristin, describing the whole range of popular ideas and perceptions about women and violence, and the abject status of the Terroristin. The singer, Katja Epstein, informs us, for example, "these girls must be completely uptight" [27] and "sexual elements must certainly be playing a role," [28] especially in terms of the use of the phallic pistol. Explaining female violence and criminality through sexuality, the body, and an inability to develop heteronormatively is not uncommon in popular media discourse and criminology more generally. Ann Lloyd describes how, still today, female violence is "understood" in court "in terms of the body," and this behaviour is often excused on hormonal or psychiatric ground (Lloyd 1995:XVI). Biological and sexual explanations are sought far less with regard to male terrorism or violence. Indeed, if explanations are required at all, they largely concern questions of class. Another claim popularly made is that Terroristinnen are masculine and often lesbian. Gabriele Henkel suggests that women are drawn to terrorism "perhaps through a sort of amazon complex" [29] ("Frauen über Frauen" 1977:3). Similarly, Heide Ecker-Rosendahl describes the Terroristin as "completely unfeminine." [30] She also conflates the apparent prevalence of Terroristinnen with "second-wave" feminism, declaring: "female anarchists are misdirecting their emancipatory endeavours." [31] This strategy is often employed by the German media to demonise feminism as it threatens the hegemonic patriarchal order.
<8> Interestingly, again in terms of a patriarchal divide and rule strategy, the mother is blamed by these women, or at least made responsible, for failing to bring up a daughter successfully. Here the putative bad mother is contrasted with the good establishment figure, offering her valuable opinion. Hildegard Hamm-Brücher, for example, smugly explains: "I really used to have a lot of political discussions with my two children. They have learnt to be discerning." [32] Nadja Tiller, on the other hand, claims: "This gruesome and, for a woman, downright undignified deed shows every mother to what extent and above all how early she must concern herself with her daughters' social life." [33] Emphatic words like "gruesome" and "downright" are also telling in terms of popular indignation at the very idea of a violent Terroristin, who is always perceived as that much more dangerous, more cold-blooded and threatening than her male counterpart. Fides Krause-Brewer reveals her own indignation "that of all people it is young girls that do such things." [34] This abnormal, "unnatural" behaviour must be explained away through infantalising terrorist women, as Krause-Brewer does, or through invoking popular ideas about madness, hysteria and fanaticism. Hildegard Hamm-Brücher, for example, understands the Terroristin to be operating "as the result of an emotionally driven fanaticism. Unfortunately, women can be especially fanatical." [35] Krause-Brewer also mobilises feminine cultural stereotypes by suggesting that such action can only be explained "through a certain psychological dependency on a man." [36] This last quotation echoes the idea of the passive woman who only acts as the result of external influences, as discussed above with regard to the question "What drives girls to terror?"
<9> The women from the article "Women on Women" express most of the characteristics of the media myth of the Terroristin: attributes which contrast strikingly with their own status as sanctioned and authentic reproducers "of the nation, defending the 'moral code' and partaking in controlling the Other" (Mayer 2000:6). This binary, staged in Die Welt, can be mapped onto the dichotomy in representations of women as virgin or whore which can be traced right back through western culture to the Biblical seductress, Eve, and her foil, the virgin Mary. [37] I shall now turn to the status of the devoted, all-sacrificing Madonna as the model of "proper" womanhood and the nation. Through exploring how and why this figure is particularly significant in the context of the Federal Republic of Germany, I shall demonstrate the threatening nature of aberrant Terroristinnen to German womanhood and the German nation.
German Mothers and the Family
<10> Nira Yuval-Davis and Tamar Mayer discuss the crucially important role of woman, most particularly as mother, in ideas about the nation. According to Mayer, this is because:
the national project was initially defined by men and almost immediately became a masculinist project, ... femininity is generally produced as a means of supporting the nation's construction, through symbolic, moral and biological reproduction; in turn, it is precisely because it is a masculine project that nation becomes feminized and figured in service to male needs (2000:16).
Mayer also states that "women are figured as the biological and cultural reproducers of the nation" (2000:10) which reveals both the literal and symbolic function of woman with regard to the nation.
<11> The significance of motherhood and the family in the German context, and especially the German postwar context, cannot be underestimated. The German nation collapsed completely at the end of the war, as expressed through terms such as "Stunde Null" ("Hour Zero") to refer to the capitulation of the Nazi government in 1945. Not only did West Germany need to be rebuilt in terms of its infrastructure, economy and political institutions, but the millions of men who had died in the war also needed replacing. According to Robert G. Moeller, "in any plan for postwar West German economic recovery, production and reproduction were inextricably linked. Building a new Germany required building new Germans, and this was work that began at home" and, crucially, with the mother and the family (1993:110).
<12> On a more ideological level, the role of the family and motherhood were important as they seemed to be the only thing that guaranteed stability after the collapse of the Third Reich. According to the German sociologist, Helmut Schelsky, the family constituted a "vestige of stability in our social crisis" (quoted in Moeller 1993:6). Moeller supports this view and emphasises the importance of the family in terms of national identity:
Debates over measures affecting women and the family constituted a particularly important arena for political self-definition in the Federal Republic because the family was among the few institutions that West Germans could argue had survived National Socialism relatively unscathed, a storehouse of uniquely German values that could provide a solid basis for postwar recovery (1993:6). [38]
Furthermore, in the context of the Cold War and the growing tension between East and West in the immediate postwar years, the family and women's role became, and would continue to be, a crucial political tool in reinforcing the identity of the Federal Republic and differentiating it from the German Democratic Republic. [39] Moeller comments that "the family and women's status clearly emerged as symbols of the distance between the two Germanys" (1993:71), and that "marriage and the family became additional armament in the Cold War campaigns of Adenauer [41] and other postwar West Germans" (1993:104).
<13> This idealised view of the family, however, jarred with the reality of the immediate postwar German situation: "more than any other societal institution, the family had fallen into the whirlpool created by the collapse" (Moeller 1993:3). There was much talk of a "crisis of the family" (1993:2), as well as a crisis in gender relations with a "Frauenüberschuß" ("surplus of women") and "Männermangel" ("lack of men"). Millions of fathers and husbands had died, which resulted in radically different family constellations, often headed by women. There were heated popular debates about "half-families," "incomplete families," "mother-families" and women's "forced emancipation" (Moeller 1993:32). The rate of divorce greatly increased due to the tension of the postwar years and altered gender roles. Some women sold sex on the black market in order to feed their families. In the context of this crisis of the family, femininity and the nation, there emerged a strong hegemonic need to discipline and control women, and to uphold notions of the nuclear family and the ideal of woman as mother. Such chaos and disorder seemed to be violating the "natural" order of the family and the nation. This, combined with the way in which National Socialism had undermined the role of the family and the mother, is arguably why the German constitution stipulates "the guarantee of the state's particular protection of marriage, motherhood, and the family" (quoted in Moeller 1993:40).
<14> It is in the context of this symbolic and literal significance of motherhood and the family that the 1970s German media representations of Terroristinnen must be understood. Although the Federal Republic had certainly established itself as a state with economic weight by 1970, anxieties about gender roles, motherhood, the family and national identity were endemic. Furthermore, 1968 had seen the radically left-wing student movement, with its counter-ideological tendencies, out of which had evolved both the Red Army Faction and the second-wave women's movement: the twin threats to the hegemonic cultural order of the 1970s. The Spiegel "Baby-Bomb" image, discussed above, should perhaps be seen as encapsulating or condensing these twin threats by staging a female threat to the most sacred of German symbols - motherhood. [41]
<15> In the German media of the 1970s, the figure of the devoted and self-sacrificing Madonna is styled as the "natural" and proper role for women and serves as the most overt point of contrast with the abject Terroristin. After Rudi Dutschke, the charismatic student leader, was shot on 11 April 1968, Bild figured his wife, Gretchen Dutschke, as a Madonna-like self-sacrificing figure, arguably in an attempt to render this female student activist culturally intelligible and safe as a woman. Since Rudi Dutschke's attacker, Josef Bachmann, had been carrying aggressive Bild articles about the student leader when he attacked, [42] the myth of the Madonna was probably also invoked in the attempt for the tabloid to distance itself from the attacker and to hypocritically feign sympathy with the Dutschke family. An interesting image of Gretchen Dutschke was printed on page three of the tabloid two days later (" Der Attentäter klingelte" 1968:3). In the photograph, Gretchen's face and upper body can be seen in profile behind latticed window bars. With her head scarf and placid face looking upwards, Gretschen resembles classic images of the virgin Mary. Furthermore, the lattice which frames her face in the top half of the image forms a crucifix in the foreground, towards which Gretchen's gaze is directed. The expression of her face is also reminiscent of Käthe Kollwitz's [43] sketches of mother and child and mourning Madonnas. The second half of the caption underneath the photograph draws attention to Gretchen's status as devoted mother: "She only left the ward once: She had to breast feed her small son Hosea Che" [44] (" Der Attentäter klingelte" 1968:3). The balance of clauses in this sentence seems to be reinforcing the "naturalness" of such a devoted, motherly action. In the text, the image of a devoted Gretchen [45] passively waiting for news of her husband is vividly evoked which also serves to heighten the empathy of the reader and the drama of the article.
<16> Another reason why Bild may be portraying Gretchen Dutschke positively is that since her husband is near death he no longer poses such a threat to the hegemonic order and there is no longer such a need to demonise him and his wife. A similar approach is applied by Bild to Ulrike Meinhof, perhaps the most notorious RAF Terroristin, after her death in May, 1976. Having styled Meinhof as an abject, perverse and "unnatural" woman up until her supposed suicide, she is suddenly portrayed with what is nearing sympathy. This is arguably because Meinhof no longer constitutes a threat and because, through highlighting her supposed maternal side, she can be rendered culturally intelligible and safe. The reversal in approach is even acknowledged by Bild: "Perhaps we must see everything that has been written about Ulrike Meinhof's life in a slightly different way in the light of her death" [46] ("Die Wahrheit über" 1976:3). The article describes in detail Meinhof's "Lonely death on Mother's day" [47] and emphasizes the fact that the death would have been fast and painless, using euphemisms such as "to pass away." [48] The first suggested reason for Meinhof's suicide, stated in bold print, is "worry about her children." [49] The article details that it was mother's day and that Meinhof had waited in vain for a letter or visit from her twin daughters. Meinhof's suicide is thus figured as motivated by her awareness of failure as a mother. Having dramatically changed from a devoted "wife and mother" [50] to a "terrorist boss" [51] with "hatred for Germany," [52] the ultimate motherly sacrifice is for her to kill herself. The suggestion is that suicide is the only way that harmony can be restored to Meinhof's "unnatural" life and to the natural order, hence the largely positive article. In an unsubtle and incongruously descriptive attempt at pathetic fallacy, Bild even describes the sun's approval of Meinhof's action: "The sun slanted in from above onto the dead body" [53] ("Die Wahrheit über" 1976:3).
<17> The most frequent way that the trajectory of Meinhof's life is made culturally intelligible by the German media is though describing a dramatic and radical event, or series of events, in her life which actively changed Meinhof from the bourgeois, Marian devoted mother, wife and darling of the establishment, to an abject violent terrorist. [54] In this discourse, the binary between good, "natural" mother and "unnatural" abject other is being imposed on two artificially differentiated stages of Meinhof's life. This dramatic "before-and-after-strategy" is only deemed necessary with regard to the trajectory of the female terrorist, however. [55] The male terrorist's progression to enemy of the state is invariably described as a linear and logical progression with him functioning as rational, active agent, as is the case in reports of Andreas Baader's life. Contrasting photographs of Meinhof are often used to support this dramatic "before-and-after" narrative. For example, Der Spiegel juxtaposed two such photographs of Meinhof after her death. The first image shows a bourgeois, relaxed-looking Meinhof with long, flowing brown hair. The second image depicts a short, choppy-haired Meinhof on her arrest, grimacing as her head is forced up by one of the policemen ("Meinhof 'Wer" 1976:16). Representations of Meinhof "before" her "dramatic event" are invariably those of a devoted mother to her two children, contrasting with the negligent and cold mother into whom she is "transformed." An article in Stern published just after the violent liberation of Andreas Baader in 1970, when Ulrike Meinhof first went "underground," juxtaposes a happy, yet deeply bourgeois, family photograph of Meinhof, Röhl and their two children with a reproduction of the famous "wanted" poster. The article then quotes Röhl's assertions of the brutalisation of his former wife whom he remembers as "tender and in need of support" [56]- typical feminine qualities ("Steckbrief Ulrike" 1970:58). The article also states: "When he visited his twin daughters in Berlin, it sent 'chills down his spine': Ulrike Meinhof was bringing them up in an extremely liberal manner. The children were fed infrequently and could go to bed when they wanted" [57] (1970:58).
<18> As is the case with Meinhof before she became a Terroristin and after her death, the wives of high-profile victims of the 1970s German terrorism are frequently styled as devoted mothers and wives, and contrasted with the abject, threatening Terroristin. After the Chief Federal Prosecutor, Siegfried Buback's, murder on April 7 1977, his widow Inge is figured as the devoted and sacrificing mother by Bild. The headline on page three is "Mummy, do you think I'll be shot dead as well?" [58] ("Mutti" 1977:3), and it is reported that the married couple referred to each other as "Mutti" and "Vati" ("Mummy" and "Daddy"). The article states that Siegfried had bought his wife a Madonna - something that she had really wanted - two weeks previously, and "every day she stands in front of the Madonna and prays. For Siegfried..." [59] (1977:3). The dramatic and redundant full stop and new sentence between "prays" and "For" emphasises Inge Buback's devotion all the more, as does the pseudo-respectful pause, suggested by the three dots.
<19> A similar picture is painted of Marianne Lorenz, the wife of Peter Lorenz, the CDU politician who was kidnapped and then freed in 1975. As with Gretchen Dutschke, the image of a devoted, self-sacrificing wife and mother, passively waiting at home for news is evoked. On page two of Bild, we read: "This is where his wife Marianne will now be sitting, staring at the telephone. She too will remember the lovely hours that she spent with her husband here" [60] ("Mit einer Spritze" 1975:2). This is pure speculation for dramatic effect. Equally sensational is the subheading on the front page, with its dramatic irony "'See you tonight darling,' said Peter Lorenz," [61] together with the image of Lorenz and his wife, Marianne, looking lovingly into each other's eyes ("Bis heute" 1975:1). Marianne Lorenz' status as a proper wife and woman is emphasized, here, through the juxtaposition of this photograph with a photograph of a grimacing Angela Luther at the top of the page. Luther was one of Peter Lorenz' kidnappers, and it is no coincidence that Bild chooses to publish an image of one of the female terrorists on its front page.
<20> This strategy of juxtaposing the Terroristin with the innocent wife of a terrorist victim is very effective, and most overt in Bild reports about the murder of Jürgen Ponto in his own home. Ponto's wife, Ines, is strikingly contrasted with Susanne Albrecht who was able to gain entry to the well-guarded villa due to the fact that she was Ponto's goddaughter and the daughter of a family friend. Page two of Bild, published on 1 August 1977, visually juxtaposes Albrecht and two other Terroristinnen, Silke Maier-Watt and Sigrid Sternebeck, with Ponto's wife, Ines, and daughter, Corinna ("Ponto: Heute" 1977:2). The page includes ten photographs in total, and five of these photographs are of the women. It is no coincidence that the photographs of the women are all the same size and shape and situated on the left hand side of the page, thereby compelling the reader to juxtapose the terrorists with the Ponto females to their right. Ines Ponto is described as "a pretty girl" [62] whom Ponto married and transformed into an all-sacrificing mother and wife ("Ponto: Heute" 1977:2). On page two of Bild, Ponto is quoted as saying: "The people who have helped me the most in my career are my wife and my last school teacher." [63] This same woman who has seemingly sacrificed her life to her husband's career is also, we learn, a proficient composer. This fact is added at the end of the article, suggesting that composing is Ines Ponto's hobby, of little consequence compared to her very significant role as Ponto's wife and the mother of their two children.
<21> In contrast to the model, healthy child-bearing wife and woman in Ines Ponto, Albrecht is figured as a sickly young girl - "the scrawny, hollow cheeked girl" [64]- with an unhealthy, threatening body ("Ponto:Heute" 1977:2). Albrecht's living arrangements are described to be in line with her abject status, despite the fact that she comes from a privileged background and was brought up in one of the finest parts of Hamburg:
Susanne Albrecht, though, lived on the third floor of a murky tenement in St Pauli. Together with seven young people, she shared a tiny flat with two and a half rooms, but without bath or shower: a commune. "All of them slept on mattresses without even a bedding," said a neighbour. Another: "the electricity man got sick on one occasion. There was so much dirt and filth around" [65] ("Ponto:Heute" 1977:2).
The dirt, squalor and depravity of Albrecht's communal living are emphasized here in order to undermine improper, alternative living constellations and alternative families: what Der Spiegel describes as living "in absolute incest" [66] ("Die Täter" 1977:28). This cramped commune with seven dirty and unwashed louts who don't even have beds to sleep on contrast with the idyllic bourgeois household and family life of the Pontos. The photograph on the front page of Bild nicely encapsulates this idyll and the Pontos' roles as perfect husband and wife. It depicts the happy couple sitting contentedly in front of a roaring fire ("Ponto: Seine Mörder" 1977:1). The caption underneath the picture reads: "A cosy evening in front of the blazing fire" [67] which sets up the sacred private life of the Pontos as a family idyll of "Heim und Herd" ("Hearth and Home"), captured by the camera, the recorder of happy occasions. Page two of Bild then goes on to describe their home, in novella-like terms, as "an idyllic world. Ponies grazed on the lawn, delphiniums and dahlias bloomed in abundance. The 55 year old head of the household played Mozart records to relax" [68] ("Ponto: Heute" 1977:2).
<22> Not only is Albrecht staged as starkly contrasting with the Ponto family idyll and model wife, she also figures as a direct threat to this female space. Albrecht penetrates the sacred private domain, showing up at the door with red roses and entering with her call over the intercom: "Hi, it's Susanne." [69] Albrecht's audacity at penetrating the private domain provoked much indignation in Die Welt: "The thought that Jürgen Ponto innocently, without warning, opened the door to his killers is also unbearable" [70] ("Der Kanzler" 1977:1). The way in which Albrecht penetrates and attacks the female space of "Hearth and Home" recalls, of course, the "Baby-Bomb" image where another female space is being penetrated and attacked by Terroristinnen. This representation of Albrecht is similar to filmic representations of the dangerous femme fatale figure as "homewrecker" who disrupts the happy idyll of the film hero's life by phallically penetrating his home, as is the case in Fatal Attraction (1987). [71] Furthermore, as in classic film noir, Albrecht has her foil, the tame, domesticated wife. As goddaughter, Albrecht is also attacking and undermining the sanctity of the family. And this constitutes her truly "unnatural" threat to the hegemonic cultural order and the German nation. Die Welt reports: "All the more horrifying is the way in which trust between family members was exploited for the murder of the banker Ponto, in such an outrageously cold blooded manner" [72] ("Der Kanzler" 1977:1). Bild displays similar indignation at this "unnatural" attack on the sacred female spaces of motherhood, the family and the private realm in its front page "BILD-Commentary":
Horror, consternation - How weak are words in the face of this insane escalation of terror, the murder of Jürgen Ponto. When terrorists feigned pregnancy with cushions so as to plant fatal bombs.... we thought that the peak of treachery must have been reached. But now they've thought up something even worse: The suspected murderer of Ponto belonged to his family, was a sort of godchild.... It can't get any worse. One hardly dare talk about it [73] ("BILD - Kommentar" 1977:1).
The self-righteous repetition of emphatic words such as "horror" and "consternation" belies a prurient pleasure in reporting the "unnaturalness" of these Terroristinnen who have the audacity to feign pregnancy and to undermine the most sacred of German institutions. This is a pleasure derived from the fascination of fear and of death - the ultimate taboo - and fascination with the female body and objectifying this body. This pleasure also derives from the way in which the group or the hegemonic order is consolidated through the creation of an abject, threatening other. The final sentence of the commentary almost seems to be defying and provoking the terrorists to do worse, or at the very least, intentionally heightening the reader's alarm. Indeed, Bild seems to delight in making the reader anxious about the depths to which these "unnatural" Terroristinnen might stoop.
"Doing" Gender: [74] "Feeling like a Natural Woman"
<23> Exploring the ways in which the Terroristin is staged as "unnaturally" attacking the institution of the family and motherhood brings us to discourses of the "natural," specifically with regard to gender roles. Ideas about motherhood and the family as universal and "natural" abound in postwar West Germany. The Civil Code, [75] which was in effect from 1900 until 1958, when new family law was eventually passed, influenced the writing of many of the articles of the German constitution and, by extension, greatly influenced and is indicative of the postwar West German imagination. Significant here is the fact that the Civil Code stipulates that its provisions originate in the "natural order of relationships" (quoted in Moeller 1993:47) and it sees the family as a "moral institution" and the "organic basis of state and society" (1993:48). Here, the family is being figured as a natural and eternal microcosm of the state. Yuval-Davis is critical of the fact that according to hegemonic understandings, "nations not only are eternal and universal but also constitute a natural extension of family and kinship relations" (1997:15). Female politicians from both sides of the political spectrum also regarded motherhood and the family as natural and universal. ElisabethSelbert, an active SPD politician who played a role in drafting the German constitution, spoke of the "natural obligation [of women] as mothers" (quoted in Moeller 1993:60). Similarly, Helene Weber, a CDU politician, described the family in the following way: "The family belongs to the natural forms of association ... the family is the basis of all associations, of the existence of the nation and the state" (quoted in Moeller 1993:65).
<24> This need to assert the "naturalness" of what are clearly historically contingent roles and family constellations finds its echo in similar discourse about the "naturalness" of nation. Tamar Mayer discusses the performative nature - in Judith Butler's terms [76]- of both gender identity and the nation, as well as the interdependence of national and gendered identity. She claims that
because nation, gender and sexuality are always in the process of becoming, because they evolve continuously, associating "masculinity" with men and "femininity" with women in a national context could eventually change if either the discourse of the nation or that of gender and sexuality changes (2000:4).
According to Mayer, in order for national identity to appear as stable and "natural," so gender identity must also be naturalised and stable. Arguably, one crucial function of the myth of the Terroristin as an "unnatural" threat is to make proper and pure German womanhood, German families and the nation appear as "natural," stable and eternal, through juxtaposition. In Gender Trouble, Butler discusses Aretha Franklin's iconic song, "You make me feel like a natural woman," and the way in which "feeling like a natural woman" "requires a differentiation from the opposite gender" (1999:30). In the case of the 1970s German media, however, it is the "pure" and "proper" German woman's foil, the Terroristin, who is required to make woman and nation "feel like a natural woman." The Terroristin is both feared and desperately needed as the abject other against which the self of German womanhood and the nation can be consolidated. And the fact that feeling "natural" depends upon being "made" to feel this way, exposes the fact that there is nothing "natural" about being a "woman" or a "nation."
<25> The "unnaturalness" or artificiality of the threatening Terroristin is emphasized in 1970s German media. In the "BILD-Commentary," quoted above, the notions of masquerade and disguise are emphasized twice in one sentence: "When terrorists feigned pregnancy with cushions so as to plant fatal bombs, or pretended to be delivering flowers in order to murder the judge, Drenkmann" [77] ("Ponto: Seine Mörder" 1977:1); (my italics). Much of the indignation about Susanne Albrecht is centred on the fact that she masqueraded as the friendly, loving goddaughter in order to gain entry to Ponto's home. Indeed, the Terroristin is viewed as so threatening precisely because she is able to disguise herself as a "proper" bourgeois German woman and mother, and, in Butler's terms, to "do" rather than "be" gender. [78] After Ponto's murder, an article in Die Welt explains "the women were leading a 'double life': outwardly they were living and working 'legally' whilst in reality they were preparing militant attacks" [79] ("Die 'Gruppe Croissant'" 1977:1). In 1972, upon the arrest of Ulrike Meinhof, Die Welt also talked about the "two faces of a female terrorist," [80] along with contrasting photographs of Meinhof to illustrate this ("Widersprüche um" 1972:2).
<26> The way in which the Terroristin is styled as "doing gender" is encapsulated in the "Baby-Bomb" image with which we started, as well as in a second photograph published on the same page of Spiegel. It depicts a leather handbag and its contents - a gun, two bullet capsules, a purse and sunglasses - spread out on table ("Frauen im Untergrund" 1977:29). The handbag, which usually contains typically "feminine" items such as lipstick and perfume, contains dangerous weapons. This signifier of femininity is therefore concealing the Terroristin identity of its owner. The juxtaposition of handbag or cosmetic bag and weapons was a favourite of the 1970s German media. When Ulrike Meinhof was arrested in June 1972, Der Spiegel was keen to report that she was, witchlike, "all in black" [81] and "with a vanity case of weapons" [82] ("Meinhof: 'Wer" 1972:15). The handbag containing weapons rather than make-up is, of course, a good metaphor for the phallic "unnatural" woman - a favoured media representation of the Terroristin. It also takes us close to Butler's ideas on "doing" gender in different, potentially subversive ways through a sort of female drag (1999).
<27> Of course, it is imperative for terrorists to be able to disguise themselves. However, the media emphasizes this masquerading much more with regard to the female terrorist, in order to expose the way in which she is "doing" rather than "being" gender and therefore to construct her as an "unnatural" and threatening failed woman. Media discourses were eager to associate the wearing of masks primarily with the Terroristin, as the Bild front page printed after the freeing of Andreas Baader in 1970 reveals. The headline reads that "WITH MASKS AND PISTOLS / 2 Women/ (and 2 men)/ freed/ a prisoner" [83] (1970:1). The "2 Women" is printed much larger than the bracketed, and therefore comparatively insignificant, "(and 2 men)." Furthermore, the "freed a prisoner" lettering is the same size as that of the "2 Women" which visually highlights the wording "2 Women freed a prisoner." It is also significant that the first element of the sentence "With masks and pistols" is emphatically capitalised and placed directly above the line "2 Women," compelling the reader to associate the masks and pistols with the women rather than the men ("MIT MASKEN" 1970:1). On page two of the same edition of Bild is the subheading: "A red wig found at the scene of the crime" [84] ("MIT MASKEN" 1970:2). The article explains that this red wig, "which one of the female kidnappers was wearing," [85] was found in the library from where Baader was freed. Interestingly, other newspapers claim ignorance of the gender of the red wig wearer. Bild, on the other hand, seems to be staging this action as a Butlerian female drag act. The artificiality of the Terroristin and her gender is emphasized by the fact that the terrorist's wig is unnaturally coloured - red - and this contrasts with the blond, domesticated and "natural" woman in an advert directly above the article. The advert depicts a pretty blond woman sitting on a suitcase with her gaze coyly cast downwards. Next to her is a middle-aged man who has one hand on the suitcase and whose gaze answers and directly addresses the viewer. The caption under the advert reads: "On his way home with a small item of luggage: the sweet blond 'cargo' is sadly not included - even if Helmut Haller keeps smiling so seductively" [86] ("Mit kleinem" 1970:2). Not only is this woman presented as "natural," she also has a heteronormative sexuality and easily succumbs to Haller's "seductive" charms. In contrast to this sweet, demure woman, with naturalised gender, even the female drag act of the Terroristin isn't successful - the red wig has fallen off during the action, showing that the Terroristin cannot even perform or maintain femininity as drag, let alone as "natural." In the German media, the wig and the mask almost seem to become fetish items, described on countless occasions in association with the Terroristin and her "unnatural," or artificial, appearance and nature.
Conclusion
<28> This paper has explored the way in which the myth of the Terroristin is styled by the 1970s German media as the abject and threatening "unnatural" other of the proper and "natural" German woman and nation, through juxtaposition. It has discussed the significance of the mother and the family in the postwar West German context and imaginary, and why these are, both literally and symbolically, so crucial. 1970s German media seeks to emphasize the "naturalness" of motherhood, the family and the nation. Crucial to this endeavour is the myth of the threateningly "unnatural" Terroristin who is not even able to "do" gender through drag successfully. The myth of the Terroristin and her threateningly abject body is required to "naturalise" the German woman and nation. She is the much feared and yet needed abject "other," against which the German woman and nation can define themselves, or be defined. Without such an "other," neither German womanhood nor the German nation would be able to understand themselves nor be understood as they are. [87] In Butler's terms, the threatening Terroristin makes nation and mother "feel like a natural woman." However, the fact that the Terroristin is required for this belies the notion that nation, motherhood, the family and gender per se are "natural" or eternal. Furthermore, the hysterical compulsion to police the boundaries, to impose order on disorder through the ritualised act of abjecting the Terroristin, exposes a sort of hegemonic anxiety - a "gender trouble" - at the heart of ideas about national and gendered identity. Perhaps unwittingly through its staged and sometimes contrived juxtapostions, the German media of the 1970s is even exposing the performative nature of gender and nation, and "undoing" [88] them both in the process (Butler 2004). Both gender and nation masquerade as "natural" and inherent when really they are fictions, naturalised through the ritualised repetition of the acts which constitute them. The media, with its relentless repetition of discourses which naturalise these fictions, plays a fundamental role here. It is the major site from which these performative speech acts about gender and nation are enunciated and where the German female subject and nation is interpellated. [89]
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Notes
[1] "Female Terrorist." [^]
[2] In referring to German media in this article I am referring to West German media. [^]
[3] "Terroristinnen: Frauen und Gewalt." All translations into English are by the author. [^]
[4] At the bottom of this page, Der Spiegel also published a photograph of a women's handbag along with its contents - largely weapons. As shall subsequently be discussed, this is typical of another way in which the female terrorist is staged as undermining femininity. [^]
[5] "Rote Armee Fraktion." [^]
[6] The "Red Army Faction" grew out of the radical student movement of the late 1960s and, controversially, involved a disproportionately large number of women. [^]
[7] The term "terrorist" is deeply contentious. Although the Red Army Faction and other such anti-capitalist political groups certainly did not understand themselves as "terrorists," this is how they were understood by the bourgeois mass media and the hegemonic cultural order. I understand the concept of the "terrorist" as a Foucauldian "object of knowledge," as set out in The Archaeology of Knowledge (2002). According to Foucault, "objects of knowledge" such as mental illness were "constituted by all that was said in all the statements that named it, divided it up, described it, and possibly gave it speech by articulating, in its name, discourses that were taken as its own" (35). "Objects of knowledge," such as the 1970s German "terrorist," then, are constructed discursively, primarily through media and political discourses. [^]
[8] According to the same Spiegel article, almost two thirds of the terrorists sought by the police were women ("Frauen im Untergrund" 1977:22). [^]
[9] She explains this in the context of a discussion of the feminised character of the nation, and the fact that it is in need of protection from men: "women are figured as the biological and cultural reproducers of the nation and as 'pure' and 'modest,' and men defend the national image and protect the nation's territory, women's 'purity' and 'modesty,' and the 'moral code.' Thus women are represented as the nation's social and biological womb and the men as its protectors" (2000:10). [^]
[10] Such words as "pure" and "natural" in association with womanhood and motherhood take us dangerously close to the discourse of Nazism. However, this was one of the inherent tensions of the Federal Republic's postwar reverence of motherhood and the family. [^]
[11] (West)German second-wave feminism is generally understood to have grown out of the radical student movement of 1967/68. Although the majority of (male) 68ers espoused radical politics with regard to conceptions of the self, sexuality and male/female relations, women became increasingly aware and frustrated that they were still performing typically female roles and duties. After reaching the peak of its power in May 1968, the student movement in Germany splintered into different, and often rival, groups and factions. It was during this time that women's groups started to form. Indeed, according to Ute Kätzel, many people maintain that it was because of such female rebellion that the movement of 68 came to an end (2002: 10). German second-wave feminists are generally understood to have been active in the seventies and eighties. The "phenomenon" of female terrorism was often conflated with second-wave feminism by the media in order to undermine and demonise the women's movement. For example, in Der Spiegel special feature on "Women and Violence," it is suggested that female terrorism is attributable to an "Excess of emancipation" ("Exzeß der Emanzipation") ("Frauen in Untergrund" 1977:22).
For fascinating insights into West German second-wave feminism and its origins see Kätzel (2002) and Schwarzer (2004). [^][12] See Douglas 1970 and, Kristeva 1982. [^]
[13] Roland Barthes sets out his ideas about "myth" in Mythologies (1993), first published in French in 1957. [^]
[14] Foucault discusses the way in which the body is disciplined and punished in his work Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1979). He speaks of the way in which, up until the abolition of capital punishment in France, the tortured and punished body on the scaffold functioned as spectacle, disciplining and punishing the viewers of this spectacle. Mass media is functioning in a similar way here. [^]
[15] I am drawing on Ulrike Hanna Meinhof's ideas about the myth of the "Terroristin." Meinhof states that "as the image of the woman terrorist became increasingly powerful, it lost all connection with socio-political reality and became a transhistorical, transcultural myth in the Barthesian sense" (1986:141). Although, I do not agree with Meinhof that the myth of the "Terroristin" becomes transhistorical and transcultural, I do believe that the "Terroristin" becomes a myth, particular to the 1970s Germn context, albeit one which evolves and takes on different resonances over the decade. [^]
[16] This phrase comes from the latin, divide et impere. [^]
[17] "Female Terrorists." [^]
[18] I shall discuss media representations of this incident, particularly those in Bild, more fully later. [^]
[19] "Frauen und Terror." [^]
[20] A good example of this would be Cinderella and her ugly sisters. [^]
[21] See Lombroso-Ferrero (1911). [^]
[22] The Swiss pastor, Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741-1801), a friend of the German writer, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, was a leading figure in modern physiognomy. [^]
[23] As my later discussion of Bild representations of Susanne Albrecht will show, the Terroristin is often styled as unfit, unwell and dirty. [^]
[24] Of course, some Terroristinnen were mothers, most notably Gudrun Ensslin and Ulrike Meinhof. Media discourses struggle with this seemingly incongruous fact, and usually deal with it by imposing a "Jekyll and Hyde Transformation" ("Jekyll-Hyde-Verwandlung") ("Meinhof 'Wer" 1976:14) on these women, according to which something dramatic has occurred in the passive Terroristin's life to transform her from a good, "natural" mother to an abject "unnatural" deviant. This strategy will be discussed later with relation to Meinhof. [^]
[25] "Frauen über Frauen." [^]
[26] "Was treibt Mädchen in den Terror?" [^]
[27] "diese Mädchen müssen absolut verklemmt sein." [^]
[28] "sicher spielen auch sexuelle Momente mit." [^]
[29] "vielleicht aus einer Art Amazonenkomplex." [^]
[30] "vielleicht aus einer Art Amazonenkomplex." [^]
[31] "Die weiblichen Anarchisten zeigen Emanzipationsbestrebungen auf falschem Gebiet." [^]
[32] "Ich habe mit meinen beiden Kindern früher sehr viel politisch diskutiert. Sie haben gelernt zu differenzieren." [^]
[33] "Diese grauenhafte und für ein weibliches Wesen geradezu unwürdige Tat zeigt jeder Mutter, wie sehr und vor allem wie früh sie sich um den Umgang ihrer Töchter kümmern muß." [^]
[34] "daß so etwas ausgerechnet junge Mädchen tun." [^]
[35] "aus einem emotional gesteuerten Fanatismus heraus. Frauen können ja leider besonders fanatisch sein." [^]
[36] "aus einer gewissen Hörigkeit einem Manne gegenüber." A Bild article published after the supposed "suicide" of Ensslin, Baader and Raspe supports this view by declaring: "Den Frauen verdankte" Andreas Baader "seine Macht" ("Raspe röchelte" 1977:4). [^]
[37] I am indebted to Sarah Colvin for the idea that the media imposes the virgin and whore dichotomy on German female terrorists. [^]
[38] Of course, Nazi discourses about motherhood and the family meant that there was tension in mobilising ideas about the family again. [^]
[39] After the Allied defeat of Germany in 1945, the country was divided into four zones of occupation, with France, Germany, Russia and Britain each administering their own zone. The French, British and American zones with their capitalist ideology gradually coalesced to become the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) in 1949. The Russian zone, however, was integrated into the Soviet block and became the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik). [^]
[40] The Christian Democrat, Konrad Adenauer, was the first postwar Chancellor of the Federal Republic, in office from 1949 until 1963. [^]
[41] Terrorists themselves were aware of and exploited the cultural meaning and significance of motherhood and the family. For example, a pram was pushed onto the road in order to stop the car carrying Hans Martin Schleyer, the president of the German federation of employers, who would be murdered by the RAF in October, 1977. [^]
[42] Bild 's coverage of student activism was notoriously polemical. As a result of this and the fact that the Springerhaus, which owned Bild, had a monopoly on German media, student activists protested with their "Enteignet Springer" ("expropriate Springer") campaign. Unsurprisingly, Bachmann's attack would provoke a new wave of student activism against the Springerhaus and the Federal Republic in general. [^]
[43] Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945), a committed socialist, was a realist artist who designed anti-war posters during the First World War. Her Pietà, "Mother and Dead Son," can be found in Berlin's Neue Wache; a memorial to the dead of both World Wars. [^]
[44] "Nur einmal verläßt sie die Station: Sie muß ihren kleinen Sohn Hosea Che stillen." This is an interesting choice of word in the German. "Station" means hospital ward, but it can also mean a stage or phase in one's life and is suggestive of the "Stations of the Cross." [^]
[45] The name "Gretchen" is also interesting as it stands for wholesome German femininity, such as that of Gretchen in Goethe's Faust. [^]
[46] "Vielleicht muß man alles, was über Ulrike Meinhofs Leben geschrieben worden ist, nach ihrem Tode ein bißchen anders sehen." [^]
[47] "einsame[n] Tod am Muttertag." [^]
[48] "einschlafen." [^]
[49] "die Angst um ihre Kinder." [^]
[50] "Ehefrau und Mutter." [^]
[51] "Terroristenchefin." [^]
[52] "Haß auf Deutschland." [^]
[53] "Die Sonne schien schräg von oben auf die Tote." [^]
[54] Many reasons are given for this "transformation," for example, the fact that her ex-husband, Klaus Rainer Röhl, is alleged to have been promiscuous during their marriage, and the fact that Meinhof had to have a brain tumour removed after the birth of their twin children. Significantly, all of these mooted explanations posit Meinhof as the passive vessel upon which such dramatic events actively exert influence. [^]
[55] A Bild subheading after the alleged suicide of Gudrun Ensslin pithily demonstrates this strategy by describing Ensslin as, "first pious then brutal" ("erst fromm, dann brutal") ("Raspe röchelte" 1977:4). [^]
[56] "zärtlich und anlehnungsbedürftig." [^]
[57] "Als er seine Zwillingstöchter in Berlin besuchte, lief es ihm 'eiskalt den Rücken herunter': Ulrike Meinhof praktizierte eine extreme freizügige Erziehung. Die Kinder bekamen unregelmäßig zu essen und gingen ins Bett, wenn sie wollten." [^]
[58] "Mutti, denkst du denn auch, daß ich erschossen werde?" [^]
[59] "Jeden Tag steht sie vor der Madonna und betet. Für Siegfried ... " [^]
[60] "Hier wird jetzt seine Frau, Marianne sitzen und das Telefon anstarren. Auch sie wird sich zurückerinnern an die schönen Stunden, die sie hier mit ihrem Mann ... verlebt haben [sic]." [^]
[61] "'Bis heute abend, Schatz,' sagte Peter Lorenz." [^]
[62] "ein hübsches Mädchen." [^]
[63] "Am meisten haben mir bei meiner Karriere meine Frau und mein letzter Klassenlehrer geholfen." [^]
[64] "das dürre hohlwangige Mädchen." [^]
[65] "Susanne Albrecht aber hauste im dritten Stock eines düsteren Mietshauses auf St. Pauli. Sie teilte eine winzige Zweieinhalb-Zimmer-Wohnung ohne Bad, ohne Dusche mit sieben jungen Leuten: eine Kommune. 'Alle schliefen auf Matratzen, nicht einmal Bettzeug war da,' sagt ein Nachbar. Ein anderer: 'Dem Stromableser ist einmal übel geworden. Soviel Schmutz und Dreck lag da hierum.'" [^]
[66] "in absoluter Inzucht." [^]
[67] "Ein gemütlicher Abend am lodernden Kamin." [^]
[68] "eine idyllische Welt: Ponys grasten auf der Wiese, Rittersporn und Dahlien blühten üppig. Der 55jährige Hausherr legt Mozart-Platten auf, um sich zu entspannen." [^]
[69] "Hier ist die Susanne." Much inflammatory media discourse was also provoked when, in 1968, Ulrike Meinhof with fellow demonstrators penetrated the sacred private domain, entering her old villa in Blankenese, Hamburg, which she had shared with Röhl and her twins. Furthermore, one of the demonstrators committed the ultimate of abjecting acts by urinating on the marital bed." [^]
[70] "Unerträglich ist auch der Gedanke, dass Jürgen Ponto seinen Killern arglos, also offenbar ungewarnt, die Tür öffnete." [^]
[71] Fatal Attraction , a film that typifies the feminist backlash of the Reagan era, was directed by Adrian Lyne and released in 1987. [^]
[72] "Um so größer ist das Entsetzen darüber, mit welch kaltblütiger Infamie das Vertrauen familiärer Bande für den Mord an dem Bankier Ponto ausgenützt wurde." [^]
[73] "Entsetzen, Bestürzung - wie schwach sind Worte angesichts dieser irrsinnigen Eskalation des Terrors, der Ermordung von Jürgen Ponto. Als Terroristen mit Kissen eine Schwangerschaft vortäuschten, um todbringende Bomben zu legen ... da dachten wir, der Gipfel der Heimtücke sei erreicht. Aber nun haben sie sich noch Schlimmeres einfallen lassen: Die mutmaßliche Mörderin von Ponto gehörte zur Familie, war eine Art Patenkind ... Schlimmeres ist unmöglich. Man wagt es nicht zu sagen." [^]
[74] In her latest book, Undoing Gender (2004), Judith Butler asserts that gender "is a kind of doing, an incessant activity performed, in part, without one's knowing and without one's willing" but that "it is not for that reason automatic or mechanical. On the contrary, it is a practice of improvisation within a scene of constraint" (1). I am using her definition quite loosely here and in a way that is closer to Butler's ideas about drag (see Gender Trouble 1999). [^]
[75] Provisions of this civil code included men's patriarchal rights over their children and wives, the requirement of women's permission from their husbands to enter waged labour. From 1948 until 1958, the civil code provoked much heated debate. The fact that it was not until 1958 that family law was eventually changed says a lot about the postwar German imagination. [^]
[76] Butler sets out her ideas on the performative nature of gender identity in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1999), first published in 1990. In this she describes how gender is a fiction imposed on the body through the repetition of ritualised and naturalised acts which interpellate the subject. [^]
[77] "Als Terroristen mit Kissen eine Schwangerschaft vortäuschten, um todbringende Bomben zu legen, oder sich als Blumenboten tarnten, um den Richter Drenkmann zu ermordern." [^]
[78] It is interesting, but not unsurprising, that media discourses tie themselves in knots regarding the gendered identity of the Terroristin. Whereas here the terrorists are styled as having an evil "unnatural" essence which they disguise through masquerading as bourgeois females, so, on other occasions, their status as terrorists is seen as masking their "natural" essence as "normal" women. For example, an article in Die Welt talks about the fact that the Terroristinnen "fight not just against the 'class enemy' but also against the voice of their inner nature" ("kämpften nicht nur gegen 'Klassenfeind,' sondern auch gegen die Stimme ihrer inneren Natur") ("Der Tod" 1977:6). [^]
[79] "Die Frauen führten ein 'Doppelleben' - nach außen hin 'legal' lebend und arbeitend, in Wirklichkeit militante Aktionen vorbereitend." [^]
[80] "zwei Gesichter einer Terroristin." [^]
[81] "ganz im Schwarz." [^]
[82] "mit einem Kosmetikkoffer voller Waffen." [^]
[83] "Mit Masken und Pistolen/ 2 Frauen/ (und 2 Männer)/ befreiten/ einen Häftling." [^]
[84] "Eine rote Perücke am Tatort." [^]
[85] "die eine der Entführerinnen getragen hatte." [^]
[86] "Mit kleinem Gepäck auf Heimreise: die süße blonde 'Fracht' gehört leider nicht dazu - auch wenn Helmut Haller noch so verführerisch lächelt." [^]
[87] There is no sense of an "us" without a "them." The Terroristin is not the only abject other in the 1970s but she is one of the more prominent others. [^]
[88] In Undoing Gender (2004), Butler ponders upon "what it might mean to undo restrictively normative conceptions of sexual and gendered life" (1) and sets this out as the main aim of her academic endeavour. [^]
[89] "Interpellation" is a term coined by the French philosopher, Louis Althusser, and set out in his essay "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes towards an Investigation." In this essay, he describes how the subject is called into subjecthood (interpellated as a subject) by the Law. He uses the example of a Policeman shouting "hey you," where the subject must turn round and obey this command, becoming a subject of the Law in the process (1971). [^]
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