Final Question on German Culture

Throughout the class we learned a lot about German culture and the influences that the country's history had on it's current shape. My question though is does America have a military influence in Germany anymore, as it did after WWII during the occupation of Germany? I was born in Germany on an American base that I know is not there anymore, but I hear about troops there still. I want to know why they are there and how that impacts the German culture/politics/economy.

Rote Armee Facktion (Red Army Faction)

The RAF was created sometime after the second world war in response to lack of change within the government in Germany from Nazi control. Eventually the group turned towards anti-imperialism, anti-war and against police brutality. The RAF was fairly popular is their cause having the support of ¼ of the German public. The RAF was run by three main generations of activists. The original founding member are the ones who gave the group the nickname of the Baader-Meinhof group. The founding members were Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Horst Mahler, and Ulrike Meinhof. The second generation operated in the mid to late 70s after most of the original members were caught and jailed. The third generation operated in the 80s and 90s and as pointed out in the movie, the Baader Meinhof Complex, many of the third generation had never met the founding members and even operated under false ideals. Throughout the generations, an escalation in violence occurred that drifted from the first generation’s anti-violence towards civilians. The RAF finally dissolved as late as 1998 probably since the group lost track of all the ideals and lost so much public interest and support. I think the fate of the RAF, in that new member lose the original ideals and escalate the violence, is similar to today’s terrorists. Terrorist attacks all over the world occur from people as young as teenagers who have little to nothing to do with the wars happening across the world. Terrorist actions such as this surprises both government officials and communities from where the attacks come from. I doubt anyone can know what people who are in control of real terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda think of the random attacks around the globe.

The Baader-Meinof Complex

In our German culture class, we watched The Baader Meinhof complex which is a movie about a terroristic group in Germany during the 1970s. The group was called the Rote Armee Facktion. I thought the movie was very interesting and stimulating throughout the entire plot. When the class was asked if it was easy to watch, most people responded in the negative. I thought otherwise though. I think because I thought of the whole movie as a fiction story, even though it is non-fiction based. It is hard to believe that so many of the things that happened in the movie were actually true. The main thing that I found interesting about the film was that it was that is started out talking about the American involvement in other parts of the world, such as the war in Vietnam and the influence in Israel. It is interesting as an American because it shows how the topics are viewed from other parts of the world since the movie is from Germany and we only learn things from American textbooks. Another interesting point that our professor pointed out was that new generations of people claiming to be in the same group would arise without even knowing who the original members where. At one point in the movie, one of the government leaders in-charge of the case asked what could be motivating people to keep the RAF going, and another leader answered “an idea.” I think that could be the reason for a lot of the smaller terroristic acts that have been accumulating lately. An idea drives people to do things that they think they support and identify with even though they don’t know personally who had the idea to begin with.