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Terror Through Time

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Fergal Keane uncovers the roots of modern terrorism

Terror Through Time: Six Against Sixty Million

Six Against Sixty Million

24/10/2013

BBC Radio 4 - Terror Through Time, Six Against Sixty Million

Fergal Keane asks what made the Baader Meinhof Gang turn to terror in 1970s Germany.

Fergal Keane travels to Germany to tell the story of the Baader Meinhof Gang, a tiny group of Marxist students and intellectuals who waged war on the state in the 1970s and 80s.

Throughout the 1970s a small group of young people, mostly from comfortable middle class backgrounds, waged a campaign of violence against the German state, designed to change the course of national, even international, politics.

In this edition of "Terror Through Time", Fergal Keane tells the story of the Baader Meinhof Gang, whose brand of glamorised violence earned them an enduring place in popular culture. He travels to Stuttgart, to the prison where the founder members of the gang committed suicide in 1977, after their attempt to blackmail the government into setting them free spectacularly failed.

He visits their graves and discovers that their struggle still divides opinion in Germany today. He meets Jorg Schleyer, the son of their most famous victim, the industrialist Hans Martin Schleyer. With Bommi Baumann, former member of the anarchist group June 2nd Movement, and Dr. Kay Schiller of Durham University.

Producer: Isobel Eaton.

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