'Murderer's House' - University of Victoria

Die Gewaltakte kleiner, festgeschlossener Terroristengruppen in der
Bundesrepublik und die Gegenwelle der Sympathisantenjagd haben lediglich die
Funktion eines Auslösers, der latente Bruchstellen mit einem Ruck ins Offene
bringt und für alle Welt sichtbar macht. Die Gründe für die Brüchigkeit der
westdeutschen Gesellschaft gehen weiter zürück. (734) 12
Moreover, Elias suggests that the crimes of Germany under Hitler differed
qualitatively from the crimes of other nations by their sheer senselessness, a feature he
claims also characterizes the terrorist acts of Autumn 1977 (744). Building on Elias‟
argument, Kaes maintains that the senselessness of the RAF terrorist acts stemmed from
the collective trauma the post-war generation experienced when it found out the truth
about the atrocities committed by its parents‟ generation. Kaes writes:
It was only a matter of time before [the post-war generation‟s] repressed trauma
would coalesce with [its] frustration about the “petrified conditions” of the
Federal Republic. The memory of the Nazi reign of terror had been excluded
from public discussion during the entire reconstruction phase of German postwar
history; Germans had thus been denied the chance to work through the past and
come to terms with it. This omission now seemed to be taking its revenge in the
terrorism of the younger generation. (25)
Alexander Kluge, writing in 1979, also associated the RAF violence of 1977 and
the West German government‟s ensuing suppression of civil liberties with the Hitler
regime. Kluge proposed that the events of 1977 jolted many people out of their historical
amnesia:
Die tödliche Katastrophe hat bei vielen Menschen eine Durchbrechung der
Erinnerungslosigkeit ausgelöst. Die Ereignisse hatten unmittelbar nicht zuviel mit
Krieg zu tun, aber es wird »1945«, »Krieg« assoziiert. Es ist kein Zufall, daß eine
Bewegung in den Gefühlen entstanden ist, die nach Deutschland und nach der
Geschichte fragt, die in dieser Form der Erscheinung tritt. Der verdrängte Schock
bricht hier an einer Stelle heraus, der für eine wirkliche Verarbeitung des bisher
12 “The violent acts of small, hermitic groups of terrorists in the Federal Republic and the reaction of
declaring open season on sympathizers have only the function of a trigger: they suddenly brought to light
the latent fissures that exist in West German society and make them visible to the whole world. The
reasons for these fissures go further back” (Elias 734).
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