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.