Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the pe Kenyanas Show. Thomas,
how are you done?
Speaker 2: I'm well. I've been recuperating from being on the road
in the Old Glory Club event, which was fantastic. You know,
I just the road kind of wears me out, but
the event was great. But I've I've been trying to
catch up on some I got some things in the can,
even if it doesn't seem like I'm busy, like I'm
always working on stuff, you know. So yeah, things are well, man,
I appreciate you hosting me as always awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to start something new tonight, and why
don't you introduce it? I think I think this one,
maybe more than anything we've ever done, people are going
to have questions about, especially if they do not know
the subject, because, let's face it, these are this is
a group of people that from the outside looking in,
you'd be why are you talking about them? Yeah, you'd
ask the question, why are you talking about them?
Speaker 2: Well, it's a huge topic. That's why I needed extra
time to prep for it. Then I still it's going
to take a few episodes to fully flesh it out,
and it touches and concerns things that far supersede and
transcend typical Cold War intrigues and you know, violence between
the superpowers, sort of open war. It wasn't typical ledgered
main of the sort that you know characterized the dynamic,
especially in the final phase of the Cold War, from
you know, the America's defeats and Vietnam until until the
Wall came down. We're talking, of course about the bider
Minehoff Gang or colloquially the Red Army faction. They called
themselves the Roads Army fraction, and that was deliberate. It
was somewhat mistranslated, but also newspeople and law enforcement and
security state types the thought of the typo. But those
are deliberate. You know. The idea is that there was
an organic whole that constituted the dialectical process as regards communism,
and what the botder Minehoff Gang or group or army
represented was this fractious element that was the vanguard of
the dialectical process as well as something that was organically
developing in real time. You know, now on the surface,
these kids were just and most of our kids, and
there's three iterations the boder Minehoff slash Red Army Faction
and we'll get into that at a glance. And the
way it was presented in Western media was basically that
these were these were just radicalized youth from the nineteen
sixty eight or student movement who were kind of like
the Weatherman, but you know, much more violent and much
more well organized operationally. That's not true at all. They
were both a proxy of the Minister for Stought Security
the Stazi, as well as very much, in my opinion,
a European liberationist element. Now what do I mean by that?
One of the founders of the Bottom minehoff Gang Slash
wrotees army frauction was horse to Mahler like people in
the right, probably no maler because in the two thousands
he went to prison for quote Holocaust denial or smaller
as a national socialist okay, he always was, you know.
And the Spiegel as well as as well as these
internal security types the represented model, or rather as some
crazy old man for clicking up with the NPD and
and beginning to advocate you know, these national solis ideas
or some kind of cynic He's neither of those things, okay.
If you were interested in liberating, in European liberation, if
you viewed America slash NATO as like you're op as
like you're the enemy of your people, you know, which
many many many Germans did on the right. Your only
path to liberation is some kind of alliance with the
Soviet Union, you know, during the Cold War, just as
now in geostrategic terms, the only path to German liberation
is is complexentd it depends with Russia. Okay, So like
why would got like mol or be advocating communism? People
don't if people have to understand that, especially during the
Cold War and especially in Germany, you know, the dialectical
process is a real thing. Like whether you believe it's
like the hand of providence or the cutting of reason,
you know, some kind of invisible hand in man's affairs
that is the prime moent of history, or do you
believe it's just you know, man's kind of owned dialectic
and discursive interaction with others that kind of like creates
this almost like feedback loop of intellectual production. Like whatever
you believe that it is, it's a real thing, okay.
And in nineteen seventy two, there were concept people's conceptual
horizon was was was confined to the Cold War you
couldn't think outside that box. Okay, there were like there
were one off societies like Iran, you know that, and
arguably you know, like Parn's Argentina, but I ran obviously
as like a more ideologically pure example that carved out
like truly third position regimes. But that's exactly the where
they were outliers, okay. And it was it wasn't just
a matter of it wasn't just a matter of optics
or like a people like Molars saying like well we
shouldn't we shouldn't advocate national socialisms that will make people upset.
It's like that wasn't even possible, you know. It wasn't
just a matter of like making people upset or or
being with the times. It's like it wouldn't have a
context or make any sense, you know. And and again
for context, you know the d DR that the bottom
mine off action were all West Germans. But for context,
the d d R. Again we covered this in one
of our earlier episodes, and I'll be reave some of
these things. Now they were literally at war with Israel, okay,
as was the USSR. But the d d R, not
only are there a spear point kind of like a
share punked of of warsaw pack power you know, by proxy,
especially in the Third World. But there was, there was,
There wasn't. There was, in fact, like an East German
like foreign policy into itself. And they despised Israel and
they viewed them not only as a bastion of you know,
imperialism in the Leninist sense, you know, they viewed them
as an obstacle to the proletarian revolution in the Near East,
which was key, you know, owing the geo strategic factors
and other things. But the like, like the East Germans
were anti Zionists and like anti Jewish at the point
that it's superseded pragmatic decisions relating to high politics and
and and and and dialectical conclusions. You know, this this
was this was payback for World War Two. Okay, you
can you can tell me that it wasn't. But I
don't accept that. Okay. The Communist party line anyway, with
the Soviets would say, particularly when they were under pressure,
you know in the nineteen eighties, uh supposedly for you know,
anti Semitic legislation, like they said that, you know, it's
not like Jews, like they're like, why would we why
would we emphasize Jewish stuffering in the Wor War too,
we lost twenty five million people, you know, like we
we vanquished the Third Reich. Like why we're not gonna
We're not gonna count how to some reactionary Jewish identity,
They just like refuse to acknowledge it, you know, so again,
you know, I refer people to pulp Godfreid, especially people
who weren't alive during the Cold War, Like the left
won the Cold War, but the warsaw packed left lost. Okay,
Like we're not we're not talking about wocism. We're not
talking about you know, guys who were sitting around reading
full co and marcusa. We're not talking about you know,
people who thought feminism was important. Then you know, we
need to make the races kind of blend together. Like
that was not remotely within like Stalin's contemplation. That's like
not at all. What like Marcus Lenni's priorities are you know,
like like, uh like Marxist Lenin is the of the
sort that uh, you know, ragined and warsaw packed. They
might they might look at like the really between the
sexes in the West is being you know, colored by
like productive force determinism. They might look at like blacks.
It's like a hyper exploited like you know, like proletary
like lumping cast. But they didn't. But that's that, that's
like where it stopped, Like it wouldn't occur to them
to say, like, oh, you need you know, people's people's
only path to fulfillment is like sexual expression. You know,
we need we need to do away with with public
morals and you know it's wrong for you know, men
and women to find different roles in life like that.
That's not then that wasn't just like an an East
block and seat, Like I said, that's not the way
Marxists think about things. That's why I object to when
people claim everything that like its Marxism, you know, like
like Kamala Harris is the quote Marxist. That doesn't make
any sense. Okay, Now that's not to say like Marxists
don't have fucked up ideas. They do, but it's it's
a different thing entirely. But now the Pozson conducts, I'm
going to kind of start from the end the end
of the Cold War because again, like what I partially
my hypothesis, if you will, is that a like the
Bottom Minehoff Gang and its three iterations was at base
a European liberationist tendency. That you know, it was fundamentally
anti American, anti NATO for liberationist reasons. There were aspects
of it and elements within it, particularly Horse Mahler, who
wasn't just a founding personage. He was he was their lawyer.
He was very much like kind of like the court
philosopher of Bottom Minehoff. He was a national socialist. And finally,
the final piece of my claim is that the uh,
the Growth Army fraction, it was very much like an
organ of the d d R. Okay, it was not
this kind of like spontaneous organization of radicalized students like
there there were such organizations, don't get me wrong. And
you know, the the Bottom Minehoff Gang also began like
in in in prison, okay. And as we'll see, there's
there's a there was a strong situationist element too, and
one of their key operators actually became radicalized in a
psychiatric hospital. So these these were not conventional like college
student radicals. But beyond that, again you'll see by their
choice of targets, by their operational sophistication by their the
overall pattern of of of their violence. They were equipped, trained, directed,
schooled by a highly sophisticated revolutionary military actor, and that
that actor was the d DR.
Speaker 1: Were you aware that Mahler is still alive. Yeah, yeah,
he's eighty eight years old. Yeah, he's a fascinating guy.
If he was if he was younger, and it was
and my my German was better, I'd reach out to
him and then try to try to take some of
his testimony. But in any event, like why why am
I saying we're gonna start at the end, Because the
conclusion of the Cold War, it it brings the light
things that relating to my hypothesis. You know that in fact,
you know, the wrote Army fraction was was in fact
like a direct action element to the d d R.
Okay in April nineteen ninety two, and not for context,
you know this the Soviet Union no longer existed, you know,
this was there the kind of independent states. But the
group of Soviet forces in Germany are finally like leaving now,
like you know, put there the withdrawals like complete, okay,
and that and in in some kind of concrete terms,
you know, regardless of the fact that you know, the
Cold War was over now like about you know, two
over two and a half years. You know that that
final withdrawal of of a Soviet the Soviet military element
was was kind of like where the rubber me's the road,
like truly the end, you know, at least and formerly
divided Germany.
Speaker 2: This UH, this twenty three hundred word communicate in April
ninety two was UH was sent to the UH, the French,
the French press agency and interestingly, like the RIF, the
bottle minehoff Gang, they they they they'd write their community
case and all all lowercase type of letters which have
zoom was you know, in order to clarify that you know,
these these communications were legitimate, you know, because that wasn't
generally released, okay, but this communicate was sent to the
French Press office and BOND, which of course you know
was the in during the the days of a partition
Germany was the capital of the bundest Republic. It stated
that it was issued forth from the quote commandal level
of RAF the RIF to organize itself into four different levels.
There's the commando level, there was the prisoners, the resistance
and the sympathized the political supporters like the command over
the direct action element okay, like the prisoners or former
command whos have been take former commanders who've been taken
out of action, but whose interests and rights had had
to be guarded. And this became a big aspect of
rif direct to action was you know, pressuring release of
the prisoners or or you know, taking hostages and order
to bargain the freedom of their people. The uh, the
the quote resistance or people like Horse to malor you
know who are like above above board people you know,
who were presenting the the that the Marxist Lennon his case,
and the and the revolutionary and and and the revolutionary
paradigm that was you know, demanding the liberation of Europe,
among other things. And obviously the sympathizers are are people
who you know aren't in a position you know, owing
to you know, owing to social or professional station or
or health or age you know, to participate directly. Okay.
So in other words, uh, the fact that issued forth
from commandal level means that you know, these this is this,
this is serious, Okay. These are people who who've been bloodied. Uh.
At that time, At that time, it had been about
a year since there was any activity by RAF. But
as we'll get into when we get done, the list
of like some of their direct action operations. Uh even
even at the very end they were hitting high profile targets. Okay.
This communication was basically divided into two sections. The first
was basically like an elaborate, an elaborate but not you know,
like but not overly worthy description of like why like
the RAF's like arms struggle failed and admission that, you know,
like the unarmed struggle like under the banner of Marcis
Leninism is done. It can't you know, is impossible for
anything like that to endure or re emerge. The second
section stated because of that, because you know, the historical
process won't abide you know, an ongoing revolutionary paradigm that
uh you know, the RF like what wants a unilateral
they they're declaring a unilateral ceasefire. Okay. The implication being
that if you leave us alone, like will basically will
basically disappear, you know, like don't don't hunt our people
down or still wanted for outstanding violence. Like basically you know,
they basically like let the past from the past, you know,
like nobody's no nobody. Nobody believes that you know, Marcist
Leninist revolution is is as possible in West Germany. And
there's there's not even like a d d R anymore
to like, you know, unify with so it uh in
uh their own words quote it said, we ourselves were
confronted with the fact that the policy we pursued in
years before nineteen eighty nine did not strengthen us politically,
but weakened us. We were faced with the fact that
we had failed to accomplish our objective, namely to achieve
a breakthrough in the joint international struggle for liberation now
interestingly too like as well as we'll see as the
series goes on. There were instances and I know some
people in the Commerce are going to pull out, like
early on, especially you know, people affiliated with the original
like wrote to army fraction or supporters, you know, they
they pull out typical like boilerplate like anti fascist bullshit
and claim that like you know ed now or was
it Nazi or that you know the you know the
you know, the communists, if the Boodas Republic will throw
a communists and concentration camps, you know, like and like
references to the Holocaust as well as as well as
the kind of token suggestion that you know, the ARIF
was a Maoist organization, okay, because post sixty eight that
was like very chic okay, but very quickly it's all
kind of abated, you know, and the language, if not
the optics of of the Rote Army fraction became very
orthodox Marcus Lenists, okay. And this kind of this kind
of this kind of letter declaring like the end of
the arm campaign like very much like reflects that, you know,
like it's not there just there's no there's none of
this crazy you know, kind of post Marxist language, you know,
about about how like the fight will go on, or
about like alternative means of achieving liberation, you know, for
the class is most affected. It's saying like, look, like
the historical process like what it didn't develop how we
thought it would, and like it's it's no longer, it
can no longer facilitate what we were trying to accomplish,
you know, so this is out of our hands to
it would be few that look continue not as feud
out with self defeating. The ARIF admitted that, uh, the
nineteen eighty nine revolutions like basically like crushed them. And
again if they if they were not like an appendage
of Warsaw Pack specifically the d d R and in
some way the g RU and kg B, though not
as much as people might think, like they they wouldn't
have been talking this way, you know it Uh, you know,
it's uh like it goes I won't, I won't, I
won't bore you, and and the subs with you know,
uh like a a Falon like reading of the of
the statement. But you know, basically it says like when
when the when the eighty nine revolutions like swept through,
you know, and we realized that, you know, the the
political core just like evaporated, and like even the vanguard
what have been the vanguard at least in officialdom, you know,
not just in the Soviet Union, but in the satellite
regimes like lack the will to act as a vanguard
and and crust the resistance, you know, and see through
you know, the process of history. You know, like we
we realized that we had to like kind of like
redefine our our situation politically. And again, as we'll get
into despite the fact that just said that this is
a very orthodox Marxist, Leninist even Stalinist movement or or actor.
They they very much run the cusp of you know,
kind of like developmental ideas. You know, they were they
they were very aware of like the situationist perspective of
the capitals, you know, and they believe that to inform
the process of history in like an immediate sense. Okay,
so this isn't this, this isn't like a cope or whatever.
In fact, it's it's very much Uh, it's really kind
of like a savage like self criticism, okay, like saying
like our entire are are our entire like constellation of
motives and the way we perceived, you know, the historical
environment like you know past and and in and in
the moment in which we were actively you know, killing people,
and and and and we're fighting this war. You know,
where we were, we were grossly mistaken, you know. And
that uh, especially in somebody who's who's good. I mean
that that that it doesn't just require when to put
on is ego aside to make such an admission. But
if your entire like rithmon tetro is like dialectical materialism,
and uh, it's kind of like this kind of like bassardized,
he gaily in view of historical determinism, you know, and
it's and suggesting that you know, you were totally you're
totally wrong. And the way you read the proverbial indicators,
you know, that's that's that that that that's big okay,
I uh, you know, and and it indicates it suggests,
like uh, it's a kind of self reflection that's kind
of rare among gorillas, okay, because the direct action element generally,
that's that's not to say like guys who actually put
in you know, who do dirt and put into work
or stupid point the contrary, but it it's it's it
requires their own kind of man and they and generally
they're not particularly reflective on the historical situation, regardless of
their ideological persuasion. But you know, this is a like
a story begins here again too because if the road
Army fraction, and as the series continues, you'll see what
I mean by this. If they were in fact, again,
this this kind of nineteen sixty eight or radical student
movement that that that you know, somehow became habituated to
direct the action and violence and maybe received some assistance
you know, after it had already you know, developed the
kind of ideological and social infrastructure required, you know from
the Warsaw Pact. Official them like they this this sort
of this this sort of like what like self surrender
letter like or self pretique and formal kind of ending
to the arm campaign that would not have been forthcoming.
You know, why why wouldn't have they have just continued
into perpetuity, especially when these were like wanted men and
women in large part. You know, it's not as if
they could go back just having like a normal life
above board the uh. And it goes out to say too,
like in loves of what I just said, it said
that it said that the the commando level of the
organization was afforded too much of a leading role. You know,
their operational philosophy had always been to favor the direct
action element. Okay, it's the advent guarde Okay, not just
as a kind of self policing elitism, but also because
obviously that's something that set them apart. As we'll see,
like the era killed a lot of people. They killed
a lot of high profile people. It killed CEOs, they
killed top diplomats, they killed uh, it killed national political figures.
You know, Okay, these are not guys throwing pipe bombs
at at the outside the local beer garden or you know,
like beating up on uh, you know, people they decided
were fascist or something. You know, this was this, this,
this this was very very serious. But at the same time,
it's you know, the men were actually are fighting a war,
whether you're talking about you know, like where you're talking
about like comed infantry and in a conventional war situation,
or whether you're talking about a gorilla vanguard involved in you know,
and in killing people incident to a political struggle. You know,
you can't you can't walk through the force of the tree,
like just by virtue of where you're situated. You know,
it's uh, it's like being pressed up against an obelisk
and trying to get like a feel for like what
its dimensions are. You know, you've got to be able
to step back to what you ares and like see
how it's shaped and then kind of like contemplated. But
if you're if you're killing people and you're fighting GSG
nine and you know you're in you know, American Army
Intelligence and you know brittishaw My five, and you know
you're you're you're living by the by the by the
barrel of your of your agent k machine pistol. You
know you're not You're not you're not thinking deeply about
you know, Marxist Larninist dialectics, and you know whether or not,
you know, the things predicted or augured they're in are
actually coming to fruition. You know, that's just a fact.
It's you know, the uh. What also is interesting is
that it without it doesn't stray anything approaching like vocus
language or like outright nationalism or like nationalism with the
lower his end, you know, like nationalism the type of
the Evan type is dead obviously, but they talk about
how the time has come we you know, they need
to look out for the German people like and anybody
politically engaged must because these these are critical times, you know,
and any anybody who would be interested in following them,
you know, it's they It would be a mistake for
to try and seek out opportunity targets to you know,
as as this time of transition is underway, you know,
because it's not it wasn't clear like what the parameters
were yet, as well as like what the objective would
be you know, and divided Germany was it was a
unique situation that was like neither war nor peace, you know,
Like I made the point people on the inner German border,
like particularly where tactical nuclear forces were based. And then
the folding gap you know where which which would have
been you know, the the fall the gab in the
Returman plane is where like wars, the bank armor would
have absolutely assaulted evental war like he visited. It was
like it was like some some alternative reality where like
World War three was already on. You know, it wasn't war,
but it wasn't peace time either, you know. And and
Berlin was the city full of intrigues, you know, you know,
full of full of spies, you know, full of them,
you know, full of political assass and it's quite literally,
you know, full of ideological intriguers of all stripes. You know.
It was that they don't went away after the wall
came down, you know. And uh in in some ways
there was quite a bit more uncertainty obviously, you know
when the truly you know, like and the and the
Unified like truly like peacetime Germany, and I mean I
mean it should this should be obvious but it's you know,
the people even even though my sense of people, they
I think they they overemphasize the the significance of violence politically,
you know, like it like like direct action doesn't even
up self accomplish anything. You know, it's got to be targeted.
It's got to be situationally devised, you know. And uh
even then like it's it's gotta the way it the
way it indexes with the kind of conceptual horizon. The
body politic is key, you know, all this stuff, and
you know that this this sounds like this might sound obvious,
but it's really it's not obvious when you're when when
you like the royal you was like is insinuated into them,
you know, a political uh an our and political struggle
the uh and mhm beginning uh beginning of ninety seven.
It doesn't jumping around a lot, but one of the Congress. Again,
like I said, there's a few aspects of my hypothesis. Okay,
you know that being the national socialist element or tendency
within the road Army fraction. That's not to say that
they were a national solvices grouping, but the element was there. Secondly,
the you know, their uh, their status as a their
de facto status is a true you know, like Oregon
slash element of of the Warsaw Pact and not just
a spontaneous rebel grouping, you know, and and and an
incident to that very much, especially during the middle phase
of their campaign or on ninety seventy eight, they put
a premium on on opportunities to negotiate, you know, with
with the Bond government in the United States and and
and the British government as well as other as well
as the Netherlands in Belgium where they had carried out
you know, homicides and terrorist acts as we'll see. But
the Road Army fraction, they started to emphasize this policy
of of of negotiating release of their prisoners as well
as try to piggyback negotiations and release of those people
with it they considered to be like adjacent and allied elements,
like people people from the Popular Front for Liberation of
Palestine General Command, like people from the POO, who in
those days was dominated by FATA, which contra Hamas was
you know, at the secular wing and the the RAF
trained with the POO under FATA, which is one of
the ways they learned to use weapons, they learned basic
infantry tactics. You know, you can't you can't just like
teach yourself these things. You know, something that that that
basic question too. If if the Road Army Fraction was
just these these crazy sixty ter college kids like what
they were like they just they were just like drilling
and infantry tactics like out in the woods for fun.
I mean no, but you know, the uh, we'll get
into that too. But the this, this, this, this gave
the World Army Fraction an international profile. And we'll get
into this in the second episode. But you know, this
led to the establishment in a Japanese wrote Army fraction.
The Japanese Communist Party was very active, had a lot
of clout and was very very very radical, and some
people may know that he might not figure the tangent,
but the Japanese Route Army Fraction carried out this assault
at at Jeda Airport in Israel and killed like twenty
six people. But again too, you know, borrowing, it's I mean,
think about that. Okay, there's there's this, there's this, there's
this hardcore German and uh Japanese armed groupings under the
same banner. You know when they're and they're slaughtering people
in Israel under the under the banner of you know,
anti imperialism. But if you don't, if if you don't
see the relationship the history there, like, I don't know
what to tell you. Okay, this is not accidental, it's
not just you know, it's not just splendidly kind of
like ironic optics or something. But oh, Germans and Japanese
taking the fight to a Jewish state. I mean again
it should be obvious. But people counter signal be on
this all the time, which is I mean, they're all
going to do that, but I I don't just say things.
I can back this up and I will. That's what
we're doing here. But the this uh they called uh,
the rotary paction, called this process like collating you know,
between themselves like the Japanese particularly you know, the PLO
as well as Popular Front deliveries in Palestine, which is
primarily a Syrian outfit, and the East Germans and Syria
were thick as thieves, you know. And I've made the
point again and again the Syria should have an outside
significance to people on the right in a way, not
unlike Franco's spanded that's a subject from another episode. But
the the UH, the d the d d R military
establishment was very insanely into Syria. Heinz Hoffman, who was
UH the UH the d d R Defense Minister, he
personally knew Asade. They were very close. He assisted him
in modernizing the Syrian er of army. And you know, incidentally,
the so as you have you have East Berlin indexing
very tightly with with Damascus, and then you have the
Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine General Command, which was
a very Syrian outfit, you know, indexing with the Road
Army fraction, and both are technically you know, like these
these these independent non state actors. I mean this again
to the kind of the interdependence here and the relationship
of of of state officialdom to these to these organizations
like should should be clear to anybody, but you know,
truly up to person who's blind to kind of political realities.
The the that UH and it's also too like one
of the reasons why you know, there's you could tell
too that I the Rotary Refraction was taking some of
their cues from the provisional IRA, like not in terms
of ideology or anything. But you know, the the provos
were fixated. I mean, I don't mean that dismissively. I
mean it was it was a correct emphasis. They they
were strongly oriented towards there are people being who were
locked down being recognized as political prisoners and not criminals. Okay,
because a few things happened there that obviously the legitimized
that your struggle and your people, you know, come to
be viewed as soldiers and thus be entitled, if not
the full protection of the Jeeva Convention. You know, they're
they're they're there at least you know, afforded protection as
as ah as enemy combatants you know, which prior to
the Bush administration is gonna making hashed with that. You
know they did, uh, they did. They were afforded some
some degree of protection you know where I mean obviously
obviously because like, were they not they they would have
just been taken on shot. But also it's you know, uh,
there's a it opens the door to negotiation, okay. And
the negotiation is I mean, despite mistards the Lenski might claim,
or despite what these Raeleis claim about terrorists, or despite
what despite what America claims about you know, whoever it's
it's angry with at any given day, you if you
just if you just claim you refuse to negotiate with
OP four like you're you're pissing under the wind. You know,
you can't just you can't just sit about to resolve
all all political questions like militarily or by like threat
of force. That's ass nine. But there has to there
there has to be some sort of equality of status,
you know, if not full equality, there's you know there
there's you've got to be treated as existing, if not
on sovereign footing, at least on legitimate at least on
legitimate terms as a political actor. Okay, you know, and
again this this removes what would otherwise be you know,
criminal behavior, you know, non privileged homicide, you know, things
like this, you know, from from a from a category
of a pure criminality. So this, this is fundamentally important.
And this and this also isn't obvious. I mean, like
the this is somewhat uncharted territory, you know, I mean
it's we obviously I mean gorillas or result as literally
as old as Christ, you know, that's what like the
Zealots were, but in in the in like the in
like the post Westphalian system, like how we how we
I'm talking about you know, like like the twenty twenty
per century people who are representatives of of of of
sovereign states, you know, how how we treat partisans? This
was this was this is an issue of the First
Impression in large parts. That's why it's such a huge
part of of Schmid's book almost of the Earth, because
he's saying, you know, he's writing in the you know,
in in at the peak of the Cold War, and
he's saying like, look like this is going to become
like the face of warfare. You know, how how are
you going to respond to this? You know, it's there.
There's got to be some sort of mechanism whereby you know,
there there there's some kind of not moral like at
least pragmatic, you know, consensus about you know, how we
how we deal with these situations, how we deal with
these actors, you know, and what what like the path
the pieces when you know, uh, when when a national
state is like so engaged against such an element. But
you know, I so I mean again, obviously I I
don't see like nineteen to twenty five year old kids
just like devising this, Okay, I know a lot of
brilliant guys that age, don't get me wrong, but it's
just not it's this is something that very much came
from somebody like Marcus Wolf was, you know, the kind
of like the man behind He was like the real
brains of the Shazi, you know. Eric Milka was a
it was was it was just it was you know,
he wasn't a figurehead. He was very hands on, but
he was. He was basically just like a thug cop.
Wolf was really the He wasn't just like the spymaster,
but he was. He was of the d d R.
He was uh, you know, he was he was kind
of he was kind of like there uh, there's there's
shining prints of all things really to deplit it warfare
and a fascinating guy. I highly recommend his autobiography. Whatever
anybody thinks of them, he's he was probably was. He
was about the best. He was one of the best
men in the worst out back for those but it's uh,
now they get for context here and let me just
see how long we're been going. Okay, for context here again,
let's let's break down someone with the Roade Army fraction.
It's first and and this first errat first and second iterations,
what kinds of activities was engaged and what kinds of
targets it was hitting? Okay, twenty second October and now
he's seventy one World Army Fraction members frem Guard Bowler
and Gerhard muller Uh. They attempted to rescue their comrade,
leading Margaret Schiller. She was in the process of being
arrested by the police after shooting it out with them,
after she'd been identified as you know, an an RAF member.
A police sergeant named the Heinz Lemke was shot and wounded.
The sergeant on the scene when Norbert Schmidt was killed.
I mean, killing a cop obviously is a huge thing.
I mean it's really a point in overturn and in
absolute in an absolute sense. But that doesn't prove that
like the RIF will just get down, okay, I mean
they they thought nothing of shooting it out with them
with the German federal police. Two months later, December nineteen
seventy one, the another cop, another another boons for public cop,
was shot by Worte Army Faction members in the process
of a bank robbery. He lived, but the the heist
crew made off of one hundred and thirty four thousand
Deutsche marks, which was a fortune in ninety seventies money.
You know that the deutsch mark was you know, the
like the euro before the euro. You know, so they go,
that's like, that's like seven hundred thousand dollars and like
today's money. Okay for like a one off score. That's
freaking insane. Now check this out. As time goes on,
these targets don't has become more and more brazen, but
like the ambition here is crazy. May eleventh of nineteen
seventy two, at the Frankfurt Main, the US Army five
Core Headquarters, which is located in the IG Farban Building,
the Roade Army for Action blew up the Officers Club.
They wounded thirteen soldiers. They killed Lieutenant Colonel Paul Bloomquist.
Bloomquos was a war hero. He was an Army aviator.
He was he was a you know, a helicop oppera pilot.
He held four Distinguished Flying crosses, Silver Star, purple Heart.
I mean this guy, this guy was like, uh like
Audie Murphy, you know, and uh they killed him and
attacking like the I G. I G. Farban's you know
that just wasn't just a symbol of like West German
kind of you know, national manufacturing capitalism, but again this
was this is the headquarters of of of an army corps,
you know, striking that killing a lieutenant colonel and and
like a celebrated war hero with that. I mean, that's
that's one of than it's a shot fright across the bow.
That's real war. That same month, at UH in Augsburg,
the Royal Army for Action bombed a police station specifically
targeting the Bavarian State Criminal Investigation Agency. Fives were wounded.
For the first time, there's a formal accept this responsibility.
The UH the the team called itself the Tommy Weissbacker Commando.
They named themselves after either prisoners of the like their
people who've been taking prisoner of k I, A like
k I in their mind. So like when are too
responsibility always like the Tommy Weissbacker Commando or you know,
like the whatever, like the the like the horse Boller Commando,
you know which is which is again that's like a
callback to like Spanish civil war stuff and like right
October days, you know, as I'm sure people picked up
into the lore again in May, the U A federal
judges car was bombed. In addition, they bombed the headquarters
the actual Springer of Verlad Corporation and wounding seventeen. The
Heidelberg the US Army in Europe Officers Club in Heidelberg
was bombed followed moments later. I guess people ran out
across the street was the Army Security Agency and they
planned a bomb there too, So like these people were
fleeing the officers club, they got blown up, and then
three American soldiers were killed and three more wounded. I mean,
since this was, I mean, think about that was happening today,
Like that's totally insane.
Speaker 3: You know, it's you know, my dad was stationed there.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, that's nuts.
Speaker 3: That's where I was born.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, no, yeah, I know, I know you're a
wounded republic native but which which is actually got awesome?
But yeah, what happened your path wasn't so awesome. But like, yeah,
the now this was what kind of see the real escalation.
In nineteen seventy four, the first UH, the first Rotar
Army for Action action of A seventy four, the West
German Embassy and UH in Sweden a hit team or
assault team calling themselves the Commando Holger Mines Holger Minds
with a rogue arm refaction member who died on a
hunger strike in prison. And this is another thing too,
like again like like talking about the provos like these,
there were a number of them that that that didn't
Bobby Sands didn't just star themselves at death like these
guys were. I mean, they were crazy, you know, and
and in in a parisan sense, you know, they incredibly
dangerous people. They uh, they carried out, they carried out
this assault on again. This is the German Embassy, the
West German Embassy in Stockholm. You know this this this
uh this this RIF team stormed it, demanding the release
of a RIF prisoners as well as a list of
you know of adjacent comrades, you know, Palestinians, Japanese others.
They they stated that if the police moved in, they said,
they wired the building with fifteen keels at TNT and
if the police moved on them, they blow it, They
blow themselves and everybody up. The police decided they were bluffing. Well,
I mean, the groups are just six members. It was
a most significant of clomb was a guy named Siegfried
Hausener and I'll get into that in a minute. But
it was, uh, it was there's five men and one
woman byandered the embassy took thirteen official hostage, including the
uh the ambassador like a German ambassador. Uh. I believe
the ambassador Heinz Deatrich Stalker. I believe they took him
up to the the window so that you know, the
police could see him, and then blew him away. They
did it to somebody, I think it was Stalker. And
again they weren't the police to back off, but they
said that they'd killed him. They said they'd kill a
hostage every hour if the police didn't lift the uh
you know, they didn't didn't retreat from the primity established
And again they threatened to blow it the entire embassy
up if the police moved to storm them. But I
don't know it was actually it was one of the
hostages killed. Was This is fascinating. Baron Andreas von Mirbach,
who was the he was the German military at the
Shade of Sweden. He's the guy who's marched out under
the landing and shot dead. This is macab but fascinating.
In nineteen eighteen, his ancestor, Veilhelm von Murbach, had been
assassinated the German MC in Moscow by those revolutionaries who
stormed the freaking embassy. Like how like how how fucking
insane is that? Like I don't know, maybe think of
that scene in Hannibal. You ever seen that movie where
he kills the he kills the Italian policeman and he's like, yeah,
then when your ancestors get get like vivisected by the
by the Borgias and he's like, yeah, how'd you know that?
I think, like, but only in Europe Man, but Helmut
Schmidt was a new chancellor. It was very much I mean,
West Germany in the seventies was really kind of a mess.
And the some people believe that the government you know,
you know that's one of Philly Brandt, who is the
long time mirror of West Berlin subdue him is a
fifth columnist. Oh my, no, it's kind of friendly. Uh,
it is overly friendly past or towards the d d R.
That's all the other story, Like there's whole Espionize Scannell
to him. But point being, the Federal Republic was kind
of paralyzed owing to the situation Visavis the executive as
it as it happened, uh as the sweetest police payers,
the storm in the building, the UH that the road
time refraction blew up, you know, killing everybody. Now, the
reason why, the reason why I raised uh, Siegfried Hausner.
This is Housner's background, and I'll wrap it up in
a minute. But I when I said before that much
as the d DR itself and the World Army fraction,
if you accept my hypothesis, and even if you don't,
as regards the Red Army as regardless, the d d R,
that the Road Army fraction was very much like an
appendage of a worse peg officialdom. You know, despite their
kind of orthodox Marxist in this posture, they borrowed very
much from you know, secondary like like dialectical lawsuits of
a you know kind of socialist discourse and revolutionary discourses
generally security house or had been in a mental hospital,
a psychiatric hospital. That's something want emphasize too. You know
how these days all you hear about is like, oh,
we didn't know about mental illness in the old days.
That's a weird take. Okay, I think mental illness is
definitely over diagnosed today. People definitely over medicated. But psychiatry
was at his zenith in the seventies. Okay, it was.
It was like like there was a push for like
mental mental health to be addressed. Okay, it was definitely
in people's radar. Now, the situationist movement as well as
UH student like Frankfurt school type people, which the Rotimy
fraction definitely acolytes of for limited purposes. Gramtyin Adorno featured
very large in their kind of ideological horizon. But anyway,
sacred House and there he was part of what was
called UH translates to the Socialist Patients Collective or the SPK. Okay,
the core of the SPK uh It's idiot, it's it's
slogan was literally turned illness into a weapon. Now, what
their notion was was that mentalness is very real. You know,
it's not UH, it's not a misinterpretation of a of
a a psychic phenomenon under stress or something, but that
you know, basically quite literally capitalism and capitalist structures, you know,
our first and foremost psychically oppressive and are literally breeding
mental illness. So the the idea being that somebody who's
self consciously mentally ill they're aware of what the capitalist
structure is doing to them, and the only the way
the way to be cured is to reconfigure social conditions
such that the alienation that bred their mental illness in
the first place goes away. I mean this, this is
like literally like the ideology, okay, And that's uh, that's
where a Houser came from, you know, and he uh,
presumably he was a very eager volunteer for direct action
because you know, somebody, somebody tortured by mental illness if
they come to believe rightly or wrongly, or they come
to sincerely believe that you know, some kind of superstructural
tendencies of you know, the world historical process is quite
literally making them crazy. You would you would die to
remedy that.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I find this fascinating. But you know, I bring that,
I bring up how or not just because he died
in the service of a throat refractions idea, but in
a very high profile in a very high profile terrorist operation.
But you know, he like I said, uh, there there's
there was there was There's an ideological complexity here that
is both the product of the times from which it
was emergent, but also like supersedes it's the uh and
I think that gives I'm gonna We're gonna pick up
next time with with what I think of as the rofractions,
Morgan's NATO, what we've addressed so far released there there
wargans the boot is Republic, but I I think this
is you know, I think this is an appropriate stopping place,
and Frank we like I'm in a lot of pain
from sitting, so if that's yeah, I think we've been
going about an hour of this pool, but you will
we'll take this up in a couple of days.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that sounds good.
Speaker 1: I want to take the chance to remind everyone about
our our movie reviews and how you know, we have
this gum road page set up and on my website
Freeman Beyond the Wall Forward slash movies you get you
can access I have links to all of it. And yeah,
there's uh, we're gonna record another movie next week. We
won't tell anybody what it is right now.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so we got it's like Mystery Science the
year three thousand men.
Speaker 1: Hopefully, hopefully we can share some uh, some cultural and
historical facts that are relevant to a lot of the
you know, a few of the things we're watching.
Speaker 2: No, man, I I uh, I mean I I'm literally
like a movie junkie man, like I meanline and inject
movies and like I since I was a kid and
being able to like mouth off about movies and that
people actually be interested in hearing that. That's that's freaking wonderful, man.
Like that's uh like like legit, man, that's like free
bubble gum like all day every day. So yeah, I
really appreciate people like being interested enough to subscribe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, me too. Do you want to do plugs and
get out of here?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Man, you know it is always the best place.
I mean, like one stop place to find me is
in my website. It's Thomas seven seven seven dot com
number seven. Each of me is seven seven seven dot com.
I'm on X, which is doing all sorts of like
weird fucking stuff to like tweak their platform. But I
actually think it's getting better. But I mean it's what
we got, whether it's getting better or worse. But I'm
at real at kevil r e a L underscore number
seven hm as seven seven seven, like the real like
the read the real stuff is on my sub stick.
It's including the pod it's a real Thomas seven seven
seven at subsec dot com. There's like a bunch of
other ship man, Like I'm on t gram on Instagram.
Like just like go to my website or like seek
that ship out and you shall find you're on like
a Google search for me. Man. Like I I'm not
saying I'm I'm like now cools to Coos, but like
I just like there's a lot of there's like a
lot of shit out there, like with me in it.
You know. Like so if you just like google me, like,
you will find stuff. I find stuff that like I
forgot that I did. I mean, I I'd like to
think it's because I do a lot of content because
I'm going Cenil Belu fuck knows.
Speaker 1: All right, Thomas, So the next time, thank you very much.
I want to welcome everyone back to the Pea Show
here with Thomas hate On.
Speaker 3: Thomas.
Speaker 2: I'm doing well, man. What I wanted to emphasize today.
I assume people are getting something out of this. I'm
nothing up twos. I mean, I the bottom Minehoff phenomenon.
You've got to understand there's two things that I think
are keep understanding it. Okay, firstus that there was there.
Truly were three iterations of it. This armed grouping that
had a common lineage existed from nineteen seventy to nineteen
ninety eight and every five to seven years because their
operators got got got killed, ended up incarcerated, or disappeared underground,
some of whom didn't like re emerge for decades despite
being you know, hunted by by by the Buddhist Republic,
you know, counter terrorists and the offer what they what
they euphemistically called the Awese section of the Constitution, which
is no joke. These people have limitless resources. But you know,
the original boder Miinhoff grouping they really were. They really
were a product of a peculiar time in place, and
that was adan Auer's Buddhist Republic and their parentage. A
lot of these guys fathers had died in the war
or just never come home. You know, there was like
lost generation of people as well. Seeks we're gonna get
into their biographies, and they had kind of a confused
understanding of what they wanted to do. Like Horse and Mahler,
I maintain was always something of an ideological pole star
for the group, and I believe he was always a
national socialist, but he was diferent than the rest of
him and he wasn't a direct action operator. However, by
the last iteration of the RhoD Army fraction, they were
totally indexed with the Stazi and they were basic they
were running operations for the DDR, you know, like it
had totally changed into something different, you know, and it
had becomes solidly in the Stalinist Warsaw packed Camp, you know,
which was a huge coup for Marcus Wolf and the
administer first Starts Secure to be able to do that
in America, you know, the Soviets. True, after the Common
Turn was like ceased to exist formally, okay, what replaced
it was this aggregation above ground, you know. It was
common form which was basically uh kind of like the
communist version of the G seven you know, or the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization maybe is more correct analogy, but you know,
the the communist part of the Soviet Union, the other
tentacles and many things. And they were constantly trying to
flip leftists in the UK and America like to the
Warsaw Pact camp like away from this schismatic post sixty
eight ideology, you know, and they had some success with
that in the UK, but in America, like it was
always hitting the wall, you know, like Gus Hall, I mean,
nice thing. There were some guys on the right, especially
in the earlier phase of the Cold War, like James
Hartzung Medal, who I believe were signaling to some of
these warsaw pack type agents in America, their notion being
this is similar to what Girbel's notion of clicking up
with the KPD, you know, during like the years of
struggle to smash the social democrats. You know, there is
an internal logic there. But my point is, uh, you know,
the uh the Stazi managed to would basically totally completely
flip the bottom mine off tendency, you know, and make
it literally like an organ of a of the ddr
UH violence apparatus. And I find that fascinating. So I
wanted to get into the first iteration, the first iteration,
the literal botder mine Off faction and talk a bit
about these personalities that constitute it and what their backgrounds were.
I think that is essentially as essential understanding the German situation,
and it's essential understanding why these people did what they did.
I mean, the point again and again, you know, zeitgeist
is very real. That's not just some conceptual prejudice I have,
Like what is possible in you know, the political realm
with its own sphere of activity? Okay? And if you're
talking about radical partisan action, like what is going to
have resonance, what's going to index with the culture and
the historical moment as it then exists, is uh, is
very historically contingent. You know, German young people who wanted
to strike out at regime authority really the only way
they could conform that tendency was some sort of communism. Okay,
German it had literally literally been annihilated and was partitioned
and under hostile occupation to prevent a fascist going tendency
from ever re emerging, you know. And even those that
were emergent obviously early on, we're we're uh, we're entirely
adjacent to the Soviet Union, you know, not in terms
of the deep values or anything, but in terms of
you know, geostrategic realities as well as you know, certain
ideological interdependencies that were just essential in a in a
in a bipolar world with a Soviet superpower as the
as as as the as the lesser enemy of Europe
than the truth full of Europe, which was America. So
I want to get into that a bit. The uh,
the the rohod Army faction came into existence in May
nineteen seventy, and it was when there's an obvious Botter
was sprung from prison. The batter had been locked up
in nineteen sixty eight him and is a girlfriend of
his at the time, he'd set fire to this department store,
you know, the strike back at capitalism, you know, and
he said that he did it because the Buddhas Republic
there's an apathy about what was happening in Vietnam, you know.
And it's interesting that at first these guys and ladies
were taking their cues very much from kind of like
the American radical left, and that's why like Nam was
kind of their conceptual focus. That changed very much, and
the Palestine very much became their like the share punk
in their view of revolutionary activity abroad and kind of
like the key battleground against you know, uh, the uh
the capitalist uh global structure, which I think reading between
the lines, it's pretty clear why that is okay. But
in any event, you know, as of nineteen sixty eight,
Botter was still very very very much kind of a
rebel without a cause. You know, he drew up custodial
sentence because Germany was very very draconian in these days,
you know, and at an Hour who was kind of
hated by both the right and the left, but he
was in purely objective terms, he was a pretty remarkable executive,
you know, and he managed going to insinuate himself as
all things to all people, you know, outside of the
outside of the national Socialist right would remained of it,
and and and the you know, the far left. But
he he realized a certain kind of conformity had to
be imposed. You know, Germany was very much re arming
and reconstituting to fight World War three, and ad made
it clear that, you know, nuclear arms are going to
be based in Germany. The Bundesbega was going to participate
in their deployment and use when war day came. This
is incredibly controversial for all kinds of reasons, you know,
some prosaic, some rather complicated, but in any event, that's
the context. So young Andrea has bought her at this point.
I believe it was just kind of acting out to
act out, Okay, A lot of young people inn Now,
well those were rather gifted intelligence. It's you know, you
have to you have to live life like literally just
in terms of duration to get a true perspective on
the historical situation. Interestingly, while he was incarcerated, obviously, I
say May fourteen seventy is the day when kind of
the the roode Army fraction came into existence. That'sn't even
sprung out of prison. Okay, now for whatever reason, and
we'll get into the Bouders like background in a minute.
Like his upbringing, he was an incredibly contentious, violent person.
He wasn't traditionally charismatic, but uh, people apparently would would
would would would gravitate to him and and treat him
as a natural leader. Okay he uh, within his orbit
was very much a quarter of young outsiders as it were,
all right, And despite his kind of like his nature
won't be onond cantagorous, he was like a violent person.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: He if people disagreed with them, he would attack them
like physically. They became his ops, you know, like and
some degree of that like has to live in kind
of like the heart and mind every partisan, but in
his case it was it was truly extreme that uh
the primary architect that's springing him out of prison was
uh Ulrika Meinhoff, who was is sometimes girlfriend but more
of kind of an what kind of an ideological fellow traveler.
One thing that was unusual about the bottom Minehoff grouping
they always had women with them. Now at first it
was probably I mean, not to be crass about it,
but they were, you know, because they were young and horny,
and like young guys want women around and vice versa.
You know, young women gravitate towards guys and their age open.
But there was a there was an odd ideological dimension
to it too. Like when I say an odd ideological dimension,
I mean it was shaved by the conditions of of
the immediate post war years. You know, it wasn't it wasn't.
It wasn't dummy feminism, And dummy feminists don't like lock
and load and and and and and start knocking over
banks and and springing and springing their people out of
prison and and and shooting cops. Okay, obviously you know
this caused some odd challenges for them later, especially as
they came to index with Islamic resistance fighters. Obviously, not
because it's like mos Loas have no problem training women
to fight, and they do, but they can't have men
and women cohabitating and sleeping in common quarters, and they
can't have women and men's barracks and vice versa. We'll
get into that later, but the one of their is
in America at least, the World Army Faction. I think
this kind of fascination developed around him. It is because
there was like these good looking like European broads always
like clicked up with them, you know, and kind of
like the Petty Hurst thing, you know, like it people
like really like like Americans are always like really fascinated
by like women handling weapons. It was like literally like
a quasi like pornographic genre of like of like half
naked girls like like ripping rounds through you know, like
like assault weapons. You know, like like like it's a thing,
you know, and it's not I'm not being some like
corny academic to say it's like obviously like very sexual.
You know, like it's this to be clear to anybody,
but you know, under his body, he gets sprung from
this high security prison, you know, by by you know,
a masked man and these two young women, you know,
and as the police opened fire on Andrew's body. He
leaped out a window like literally, you know, like it's
some it's and you know they uh, they're uh they're
they're they're real. Man. Uh was able to snag him
street side, you know and get away, you know, and
like this kind of thing just didn't this kind of
thing that didn't happen. And you know, and like in
post war Germany, you know, Germany's orderly place, you know,
it's not just a cliche. You know, during uh, during
the struggle, uh Elrique Meinhoff who to disguise herself with
like this long like like like wig. Like one of
the police who tried to grab her by the hair
like snatches wi go off, you know, revealing that she
had like you know, like a military style like blonde haircut,
you know. And there was something confusion as to whether
she was like a man or a woman too, like
an initial identification.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: So this was a very this was a crazy situation,
you know, and this made uh, this didn't just make
this didn't just make you know, national headlines in the
Bunas Republic, but it was something like the police aren't
prepared to deal with this, I guess we'll get into
The police had agents insinuated into all the major trade unions,
and especially for some reason like the transferred hation and
like railroad Workers Union was shot through with communists like
pro Warsaw Pact, you know, like Marxist Leninists, So they
viewed them as their ops. Okay, like the police did,
like these kinds of crazy guys who are getting like
sprung out of out of the joint, you know, by
gun toting females, you know, and are are are pulling off,
you know, wild operations at least if to that point,
not particularly organized well thought out, you know, like the
firebombing department stores and you know, sloganeering, revolutionary stuff. You know,
this that this weren't prepared for it, you know, like
it was an issue of first impression and it wasn't traditional.
It wasn't traditional street volatility by the kind of Europe's
used to, you know, like something very like almost kind
of like American about that. You know, those kinds of
those kinds are outlaw actions, you know. So who who
is Andrea's Bought Her? Andrea's Bad is born in nineteen
forty three in May. He was born in Munich. His
father was a historian, archivist and like a real intellectual.
He'd been conscripted into Wehrmacht, you know, like like all
evil bodied men. He was taken prisoner by the by
the Russians in forty five and just was never seen again.
He just never came home, you know, and bought his
mother never remarried, so Andrea's baughter. As a boy, he
lived with his widowed mom. You know, uh who kind
of you know, continued to pine from that. Someday you know,
dad was gonna come home, you know, a grandmother and
like various you know, aunts and uncles, but he basically
lived in this like female household without a father, you know.
And there were there's millions of men who just never
came home, you know, because and and one hundreds of
thousands of their fate was unknown. You know. They were
either they were taking prisoner and died in some gulag,
you know, they they were cut to pieces you know
as small arms fire and died in the snow and
during you know, the desperate retreat they they were their
body was never recovered or identified, you know. So it's
some I'm telling you that that impacted the perspective of
these boys when they became you know, young men. You know,
this like generation of fatherless boys who grew up in
this authoritarian society, yet that didn't really index with them culturally.
There's armed men everywhere who are there to police them,
who aren't of their culture, who they can kind of
relate to, you know, racially and linguistically, you know, at
least like the White troops. You know that this had
to be an incredibly confusing situation, you know, and pretty
much not exception the early bottom mine off grouping, they
all had some kind of background.
Speaker 1: Like this, well nobody, nobody thinks of West Germany, what
is what what was to be called West Germany as
actually being under occupation. They saw West Germany as the
free democracy, western democracy as opposed to East Germany.
Speaker 2: Which is crazy too because yeah, no, you're absolutely right.
You know, like if you look at just you know,
West Germany, like a quarter of Germany was you know,
the DDR historical Germany. So you have West Germany. The
occupation forces from forty nine and to ninety one were
three hundred thousand men Americans. Another content, there's a quarter
million contingent of British French and Bentelugs troops too. Half
a million men in a country smaller than Wyoming, you know,
armed to the teeth, you know, ready for war at
a moment's notice, you know, and at at checkpoint Charlie.
You know, it was things were fairly civilized. But when
you went to the true like inner German border, like
my dad told me, and this track that William Odom said,
and with what you know, enlisted men who served this,
it it felt like a war.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: They were getting buzzed constantly by DDR aircraft sappers would
uh would would screw with the concertina lire and like
probe their uh you know, the hardness of their other
fixed defenses. This was not remotely normal, you know. And
so and on top of that, like I said, basically,
you know, Germany lost five and a half million men.
You know, there was the country was full of like
little kids, like old people and women and and like
nobody had a father, you know, Like David Irving talked
about that because he said in England it wasn't really
as bad, but he's like, you know, Irving's dad didn't die,
but he just kind of like went nuts and like
left the family he was like a Royal Navy event
who like couldn't adjusted civilian life and everything's that he
went to school with a bunch of guys who had
no dad. You know that that that completely that that
creates weird pathologies, you know, and especially the Germans like
they were you know, the kind of the kind of
like soft pedal and Morgenthele plan that became their constitution.
That's totally bizarre. I mean, aside the fact it's not
like the moral aspects, and aside from the fact that
you know it's it's it's it's tailored to kind of
destroy the will of people to perpetuate itself. Like that's bizarre.
You know. You're like you're going to school and some
guy or some lady is like reading off a lesson
book that came from the Department of the Army, like
written by some crazy Zionists, educating you about how like
educating you about how like you're part of this like
murderous race of people, you know, who must atone to
the Jews because your history from meister eck Art until
Adolf Hitler is about anti Semitism. Like that's literally insane,
you know, like it's and that kind of thing made
it impossible for people to trust an authority, you know,
and uh, Germany, more than most societies, was was in
his one based on social capital, you know, like that
that that that made people act really screwed, you know,
and I that, in my opinion, the later iterations of
the bottom mine off faction are more complicated. It's something
that's more simple, it's just more complicated.
Speaker 1: Just to inject this, my my mom would go My
dad told me that my mom would go to East
East Berlin, so she'd go through she'd go through Charlie.
And he made it sound like, you know, because he
was a cold water. He made it sound like, you know,
she was being you know, she would have to do
strip searches and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: No, I asked my mom. My mom's like I had.
Speaker 1: I was treated much worse coming back into West Germany
by people who.
Speaker 3: Look like me and sounded like me.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, no, I'm sure that the museums over.
Speaker 1: There, people don't realize they had amazing museums and like
East Berlin.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and it's the it's the traditional I mean,
that was the traditional government district. Among other things too,
you know what I mean like there's reasons, the reason
why the Soviets wanted Berlin and why East Berlin became
the capital. You know, I mean that's that was. That
wasn't just a mark on a map, you know, it
was it was just like a prestige objective, you know,
I mean, that's europe Central, you know, quite literally, and yeah,
it's it's an incredible place, and you know, but yeah,
the as apparently uh bodery reputation even as a even
as a little kid, as being highly volatile, extraordinarily strong willed,
he apparently resisted all authority sort of instinctively. I don't
I don't, I don't trust these uh official psychological takes
on people, you know in uh in America or Western
Europe that that declare you know, operational defiance, oppositional defiance disorder.
But bout her, even some of his uh even some
of his comrades and like Rapis basically attracted what they
said about him, and uh apparently apparently he he can't
strongly resent religious instruction. He refused to celebrate holidays, He
refused even celebrate Christmas or observe his own birthday, you know,
and it and and again he even as uh. His
people had grown up with them, were emphatic that even
as a little kid he was, he was like a
kid that others followed, you know they uh. But as
he was sprung from prison on May fourteen, nineteen seventy,
his comrades didn't they did they didn't have a plan,
like they literally had no plan. Olriki Minoff she she
literally had a friend, who's this actress who lived a
few streets away from the Central Institute of Social Research.
Alriqi Minoff was was an academic, you know, like like
social science type, and therefore she worked so her big,
her big her in the in the guys. Big plan
was well, well, we'll go to your friend's house and
demand it. You know. She let us, you know, like
use it as a safe house until we figure out
what to do, you know. And I mean they traded
shots with police, you know, one of whom was seriously injured,
you know, which which again I mean rarely rarely happened
in Germany, you know that. Or no, this friend of
uh Riky Minoff probably under some degree duress, you know.
They they simply rang the doorbell and said, we need
your solidarity. You know, the revolution is started this poor
was effecting a woman then got like, you know, she
was housing these fugitives. And this was this was one
of the biggest manhunts of of of post war hines,
you know, and almost uh, almost everybody they were looking
for was like sitting in this poor like randomly the's apartment.
But when this really kind of becomes when this really
kind of becomes interesting, is is their their next plan
to move? And this this also represented the change in
the ideological disposition of the of the fraction and all.
But it also, you know, like I said, it indexed
with a basic German tendency towards revolutionary action, and that
was authentically German. Whoever sort of couched it was in
Marxist Leninists pseudoscience or you know, gobbledegook or however much
it was kind of framed in these like liberationist narratives
of the nineteen sixties. They agreed the next move would
they had to leave Berlin as soon as possible, obviously,
and they uniformly agreed they'd go to the Middle East
and uh, you know, the Palestinian resistance would would provide
them like aid and comfort as fellow revolutionaries. Somehow, either
El Riki Minoff Bottr or both. They made the acquaintance
of a man named Said Dudin. Sai Dudin is still alive.
He he was a Jordanian emigrat. He was the son
of a Jordanian emmigrate to West Berlin. And he was
a political scientist. And his father was this big shot
like like social researcher and like regional studies expert on
like Arab societies and political cultures. Sai Dudin's never been committed,
convicted of a crime, always be en hanceled by the police,
you know, over decades for various reasons, said Dudden contacted
UH his people in Jordan. He arranged tickets with UH
East German inter Fluge Airline, which was the DDRS National Airline.
He booked them nine rooms in UH East Berlin under
assume names, and he arranged for people to transport them
to East Berlin. You know. About three weeks subsequent, so
on June eighth, nineteen seventy, the first group of U
of RIF operators departed Stonefield Airport in East Berlin for Palestine. Interestingly,
and I believe this and I have to describe, was
all horse to Mahler before they departed for the Middle
East and in the immediate A man, I've been talking
several days of uh, the prison break, an anonymous phone
call was made to Michelle Ray. She was a former
channel model when and she was a big jot like
lady journalist in French media. I'm trying to think of,
you know, back that this was back in the day
when you had like, you know, true like celebrity like newspeople.
She was a super glamorous like like figure like personage.
Ol Ricky Manoff undoubtedly told Horst Mahler whoever plays this call,
And I'm telling you, I'm certain it was Horse Mahler
who orchestrated this about like name like named Michelle Ray.
Because they'd very slightly known each other from this magazine
called Concrete, which was kind of like it was kind
of like Vanity Fair but more serious and uh olrik
min Off, you know, being this kind of university type
like mingle in some high society circles. You know, she'd
come across Michelle Ray. And undoubtedly, because like women are
going to recognize these things, she's like, look, if you want,
if you want, if you want to capture cheap clout
and you want like rapid the headlines. You know, we
got to contact her because if we talked to a
German journalists or whatever they're they're going to try and
suppress this. So Michelle Ray was told that if she
came to Berlin, she get you know, a quote big
story about like the you know, the the new resistance,
you know, from the radical left. In a combination of
curiosity and maybe naivete, she agreed to meet them. Uh uh.
She arrived in Berlin a few days before the departure
to the Palestine on June fourth, and she she first
met Andre's Botter. Andre's bought her escorted her back to
an apartment's safe house where Ulriki Minoff, himself and a
woman named Gudrin Ensulin lived. Gudrin Enslin was, Uh, it's
hard to tell because of the kind of these more
really polyamorous hit these like that's what some people try
to characterize it as does Andrew's bought her like like
like having sex with a lot of girls who was
also like doing dirt with in the street and like
carrying out terrorist activities with It's like Gudrin Enslin and
Lriki Minoff like they were both like his girlfriends at
various times, you know, like get uh, depending on what
was going on. And Gudrin and Ensulin is very much
more of like a doer like Gudrin Enslin. As we'll see,
she kind of seems like the kind of broad who
like could be your wheelman if you're like knocking over
a bank like Oricky Minoff was definitely down. I mean,
she handled a gun to help spring Botter, but she
was very much kind of like a public intellectual type
who could do things like getting this French glamorous news
lady to show up. Okay, So it's pretty obvious Botter
like Manson. And I'm not saying I actually hold Manson
is on a steem. I'm not saying this is a
cast shade on Botter. He was very good at identifying
certain talents and women and getting women to do things
that he wanted, okay, and certain kinds of men that's
like their hustle. Okay. It's not just that they're only
in like girls a lot, although that's part of it.
Women have certain skill sets, women can gonna fly under
the radar there. That is an effective strategy depending on
what you're trying to do, you know it is. You know,
that's why I tell guys not to be like down
on women and talking about revolutionary conditions, because that's very wrong. Head.
But that's kind of the way to understand it. Like,
it's not like I said, you you'll read these kinds
of cd uh deliberately lurid kind of American or British accounts,
and it's they they presented like, oh, these were a
bunch of hippie degenerates, just him and some big orgy.
It's not what was going on. And I think that's
important to understanding the kind of dynamic here, you know,
but all three of them were disguised. Michelle ray annoy
you who they were really Apparently she didn't even recognize
l Ricky mine Off, even though they thevery vaguely knew
each other. And most importantly, of course, Mallard was there, okay,
and Mahler was going who basically engaged her, you know,
And like I said, my who remains remain an important
figure into the twenty first century and dissident quarters. I
believe he truly was like the the the ideologue behind
this whole enterprise. He was older, he was a lawyer,
you know he was. He wasn't a hot head like Botter,
you know. He it just attracts I if you you know,
index it with with with with similar groupings of people
under revolutionary revolutionary conditions or conditions they believe are eminently revolutionary. Okay,
it's that he represents a type. Okay. They told Michelle
Ray that you know, they kicked off the revolution that
you know, the Buddhists Republic, the Center could not hold that.
You know, they were leaving Berlin, uh to go to
Palestine and fight as fitting and and and possibly murdered themselves,
you know. Michelle Ray, she passed a copy of the
tape she made to their Spiegel, which went nuts and
blew it up, you know, and uh, the Roade Army
faction overnight became this internationally known mob of dangerous terrorists,
you know. And of course you know in America, the
claim was like, oh, this is this is the Ivans
like these these these people are you know, like kg
B or g or U. You know, the Uh, the
Buddhist Republic was convinced that you know, there was there's
hundreds of people and cells that were about to become active.
You know it Uh like the the like the European
Secure Internal Security Apparatus, you know, like like completely ships
pants in other words, so Miller knew exactly what he
was doing. Later, when asked why they'd sprung Botter from custody,
Alriki Minoff said, well, there were three reasons, she said.
First quote she said quote. First, of course, because Andrea's
Botty is A is a cadre, the road arm refraction.
They've got their own vocabulary. When they say cadre, they
use the word in a singular noun and denoting a
like a squad leader, you know, or like a cell commander,
you know, or or like platoon leader, you know. And
that's also why A until ninety eight when they ceased operations,
they'd always they'd always name like the action group that
was engaged, you know, after either somebody who was either
somebody had been like deceased in action or somebody was imprisoned,
you know, like from their organization. You know, it had
its own culture. That was kind of interesting because nobody
else did that. It was very much its own thing,
you know. And their symbol was the red star with
a with a heckler and and coke SMG, you know,
not like an not a class and a call, not
a hammer and sickle. You know it was it's interesting,
but you know, and she said, second, you know we
we we had we had he said, we free to prisoner,
you know, his identity being incidental because you know, the people,
we need to show people what politics is all about
today and politics polop politics today is about smashing the
ability of the state too to impost course of measures. Okay.
And if that if that means killing policemen, you know,
extreme and durante, that might sound that people need to
get habituated to that, you know, and you can only
habituate people that by by by doing over and over
and over again. And he hope becomes normal. Okay. And
finally she said, if you can free somebody from state custody,
it's quite clear that you mean business and you're a
serious military actor. Okay, which as ragnag as they were
at first, that is somewhat true. Springing a man out
of close custody is not a small thing, okay. And
again that might sound kind of basic, but it's really not.
It's it's sophisticated from what they were trying to do.
And again I believe it's all horse Demoler. I'm sure
he had input from the others, but that's exactly kind
of the program he should have been pursuing, you know,
for what living about a rationality of what they were
trying to accomplish, you know, which was basically this credit
the Buddhist Republic and in so doing, you know, create revolutionary,
revolutionary conditions on the ground, whereby the extant structure, including
its ability to wage war as a key component of NATO,
is no longer possible, Okay. And when you consider it
in that context, I think my whole kind of hypothesis
of the matter becomes a little bit more persuasive. But
we're kind of getting ahead of ours. Who was Ulric
Manoff or Ulriki Minoff. She was older than the rest
of them. She was born in the thirties. She was
born in nineteen thirty four in Oldenburg. Her dad came
from a long line of Protestant theologians. And again something
you'll notice here, these kids, these people, these young people,
they were basically, without exception, all from the Protestant heartland
of Germany. The National socialst Herland in Germany was the
Protestant northeast. Like it was not these guys like Goldhagen
who in the nineties were obsessed with claiming like you know,
VENSDP was some like Catholic organization or it was not
at all, and even that aside, like literally the National
soulci's heartland was rural and suburban Northeast Germany Protestant literally
Protestant pious Germany. Okay, and especially especially this first uh iteration,
you know this, this kind of deeply felt Protestant Pietism
was like an essential part of their upbring as well
as other strange things. Now, Riki Manoff also grew up
without a father. Basically, her father died when she was
very young of pancreatic cancer. Her dad had been curator
of the Jenna Museum, which was prestigious but not well paid.
So when he died, uh Olrik's mother and her and
her sister were in somewhat dire straits. You know, she
was at five and a half years old, you know,
she went over at a father in the picture her
mother and it's not clear her mother took to having
borders live in the house, you know, to for money,
and this uh young woman from the university moved in
named uh, we're not a remix, and it's not people
obvious today which would would speculate or that uh Olriki's
mother and we're out a remake, you know, we're like lesbians.
I don't think it's necessarily like necessarily the case at all.
But they ended up like moving in together and like
raising the girls together, you know, so well Rique live
in this kind of heavily like Protestant household with no father,
you know, just like her male counterparts, you know, raised
by these two kind of somewhat you know, kind of
a kind of dour Protestant women. She she her primary
school was an all girls school run by like nuns.
So this is this is again this is a totally
abnormal environment, you know, like in an environment to avoid
of kind of like normal male authority figures. You know,
that's that's not accidental. I don't think at uh b'nada
raimc After Olriki's mom died when she was a teenager
kind of became her surrogate mom, and she she convinced
Olrici to joined the Social Democrats and at this time
Billy Brandt. Hilly Brandt later became the mayor of West
Berlin and West Berlin was really kind of like a
culture into itself in all kinds of ways. You know.
It wasn't like the rest of the Bunus Republic. But
Billy Brandt, he a conciliatory posture with the East and
with the Soviet Union was as big a policy coup.
He became counselor, he went down in flames. His constant
companion and personal assistant, Gunter Gillam, who's a Behrmach veteran
who became a Stazi agent deep cover agent. Gunter Guillam
stole the uh NATO nuclear codes from uh the secured
location in in UH and then the consular is private
safe And I mean this was the UH It's it
was reporting, Like William Odoms said, like we we never
were like we meaning military and tell Us never recovered
from that intelligence breach. You know, They're like the Warsaw
Pack just had our number after that in terms of
UH you know, the uh O, our our ideas on
strategic escalation and everything else. You know. So but Billy
brand at this time was like it was like a
rising star, you know. And so we're not a remick
and and and young uh Riki mine off you know,
joined the Social Democrats and you know, all all kind
of like progressive people at that time. You know, they
they they opposed ad now or you know who who who?
Who do the Social Democrats was you know a fascist
aid whether than a fascistoid resurgence, you know, ULRIKEI became
insinuated into academ because they were not a remake who
was a professor at the Velber against a like educational institute. Okay,
and this was more so than America especially you know,
Germans kind of like invented the public education system. You
found a lot of radicals, especially female radicals, who came
out of this academic culture, including a Honaker's wife. Okay.
That's why, like I said, I think very much, had
uh Elrick mine Off not clicked up with Andrew's Botter,
she probablyould have been some like SPD organizer who you know,
like married some guy who was you know, some kind
of like milk toast, you know, social democrat. You know,
I uh I, I really believe that, you know, but
she did have you know, it was her her her it.
It was it was her kind of respectability that allowed
them to index with the media. You know. Again, she
was the one who identified you know, Michelle Ray as
the journalist they should see out. You know this, this
was an essential part of their of the propaganda aspect
of the campaign. Now, who is Gudrian Ensulin. Gudrian Enslin
was Swabian. She grew up in a village called Bartholoma,
which was which was not and is not in the
prost and of Heartland. We talked about it a minute ago,
but her father was literally a Protestant minister. Okay. Her
folks uh had been big in the vander Vogel movement
when and like then, you know that the pre national
Socialist days and a little bit beyond this. This was
kind of like a naturalist movement, you know, vonder Vogel
means like migrating birds. It was very it was very
part of like the focused culture, Okay. In nineteen fifty eight,
Gudran visited the USA, where she learned to speak English.
She was an exchange student for a year. She stayed
in Pennsylvania with this Methodist community and she liked the
Americans and they liked her. But she reported back to
her friends and like her you know, her Swabian village
and her parents that like well, you know, the the
Americans aren't pious enough, you know, they they they're there.
There's something superficial about you know, like the way the
way they're practicing protimism Inowers America. You know, she had
that kind of like radical pious perspective, you know that
I think indexed with national socialism in a basic way.
When she came back, she started studying English language and
uh German educational theory. But she quickly, but she quickly.
Uh well, it's interested in that when she met the
son of uh the gil Vesper. Bill Vesper was a
focused poet and a kid national socialist, okay, and his
son was very much in that vein, you know, and
he was this kind of like passionate wild guy was
like a poet himself, and he traveled to Spain a
lot because in those days, obviously Spain was friendly to
people like him and his father. Okay. Gudrian's parents were
upset by the kind of passion they saw with this
kind of like wild guy, and her father was trying
to throw him out of the house when he'd catch
him there. They were mollified when the couple uh got married,
but you know it uh again this uh this uh
burnwall the Vestper was the son of Villa. Apparently the
father and the son. There was there was huge tension
between them, beyond the kind of ordinary you know, difficult
between fathers and sons. But nevertheless, again you know, he
was still marinated in that Blood and Soil ethos and
he was making regular pilgramage to Spain. You know, this
is the first trip he took around was to Spain.
And I mean, even if, even if in a critical capacity,
you know, the son Burnvard was uh, it was kind
of like rejecting, you know, like the faith of the father.
I mean, you can't, you can't truly like escape like
your your heritage theologically or politically. Okay, so this is
the other one's first love, which was this incredibly passionate affair,
was with the son of a national socialist poet who
himself wrote like Blood and Soil Poets, where he took
her to Franco Spain. You know, I mean, I I
can't believe that Gudrian Elson simply like shed all sensibilities
of that, you know, and and and then spent their
maide of her life, you know, like staying up late
reading Communist Manifesto with her new comrades, you know, hers
capital but that and like I said, she by the
time she'd uh, by the time she connected up with
who wrote army fraction, comrade, she'd become kind of a
she she was kind of drifting in life. But that
that was basically the core of the first iteration of
the Roue army fraction. And for context, you know, to
distinguished to kind of like the German youth movement from
you know, kind of the American SDS movement its liberty nature.
You know, Germany was not a free society at our
successor as consular was Ludwig Erhard. Ludwig Erhard. He basically
banned the public they're like the like the playing of
music publicly unless it was like an official sanctioned performance.
Like the reasoning being, you know, stuff that stirs the
passion in is whether it's art or music or any
any kind of evocative things that can easily be transposed
into in the nationalist sentiments. And this will be a
return to Weimar. So kids, uh, who'd convene for spontaneous
music festivals or even guys just plugging into an amp
and you know, while wanting to play. Uh, that kind
of spontaneous set in their college courtyard. They'd literally be
broken up by the police, you know, and told to
cease and desist. In the summer sixty two, this this,
this became a storically known as as the Schabing riots, okay,
and then referring to the Schabing district where most of
these you know, disturbing the peace incidents were you know,
kind of most enforcing the most kind of heavy handed
way to ethinically speaking, you know. So it's not I
want to disabuse people this idea again, that these these
were like sds hippie kids were kind of with the
same couch from the same cloth as like non draft
dodgers or like you know, fools following Abbie Hoffman and
having like a chip on their shoulder about ship. Like
it wasn't like that. You know, I probably got more.
I probably got somebody for the double in a way
that many people don't. But I think this is important,
not because of my own feelings on the matter or
private passions, but I mean because the historical record in
this regard is not it's not it's not correct. I
don't uh, I don't mean to be a propt, but
I gotta I'm in a lot of pain right now.
If we could pick this up, if we could pick
this up with a final episode, I can go for
ninety minutes or so and wrap it up.
Speaker 3: Sure, Sure is that okay?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, knock out a couple of plugs and we'll
get out here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Man. I'm h I'm busially updating my
sub stack and we're well into season two of the pod.
You can find both at Real Thomas seven seven seven
number seven hm A S seven seven seven dot substec
dot com. I'm on uh Instagram, I'm on UH, I'm
on t Gram. I remain on Twitter. There's still some
productive discussion there, I believe, or I wouldn't still be there,
and a way to poach new contacts. I'm at UH
Capital R E A L Underscore number seven h O
A S seven seven seven. It's the Real Thomas and yeah,
I'm uh. I'm busily uh trying to get this manuscript
banged out by uh by fall. And that's where yeah,
and again, forgive me if I entered this abruptly the problem,
that's okay.
Speaker 1: And head over to my website where I have a
page that's dedicated just to Thomas and my movie reviews
and links to all of it, and we'll probably have
to talk about setting up the next one.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, man, Yeah, Mystery Science Theater. Yeah, I've
been very much enjoying it, man, and we've been we've
been getting a lot of like really great feedback from people.
It makes me feel good.
Speaker 3: Yeah all right, Thomas, thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man.
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to the peat Cononas show.
Thomas is here and uh going to wrap up the
Rhode Army fraction.
Speaker 2: Huh yeah, that's what I was thinking.
Speaker 3: All right, well, uh, where are we going with this?
Speaker 2: I mean, I wanted to drop a little bit of
biographical information about horse tomal Or because I think he's
kind of the key under standing not just kind of
like like the post war ideological culture and divided Germany,
but it's sort of the key to understanding the German
right as it exists today. And I I'm very I
I support Alternative for deutsch Land entirely. I think they're
doing great things. I'm not like putting shade on them,
but the fact is, if they continue to gain ground,
they're just gonna they're just gonna be banned. Okay, like
any any truly like right wing tendency in the Buddhist
Republic just just gets unceremoniously damned. Okay, So considering that
there was there, there's a radicalism just kind of intrinsic
to any any kind of like right wing tendancy, you know,
during the Cold War as well as today. But during
the Cold War, you know, whether you were on the
right of the left, there was there was there were
situations in places like Italy, into a lesser degree in
France where the true like hard right was tolerated some
that owed uh Operation Gladio type intrigues, which is a
whole like other topic that you know, we could devote
three episodes to. Part of that go to the fact
that some of these EU states what became EU states,
what I mean then it was just you know, the
the e C and adjacent countries. You know, they had
to trend somewhat lightly, like you didn't want to come
down too hard on anti communist elements, you know, lest
you lest you kind of offer the appearance of ingress
of uh of enemy dialectics into into into the political discussion.
West Germany was it was in a strange position, you know,
like we talked in the first episode. I think about
why Andres Botterer especially, but uh Elriki Mainhoff and some
of the other kind of core personalities of the first
uh Rote Army fraction were so fixated on Vietnam. Like
It's not just because this was the this was the
television era when you know, for the first time this
civilized world was was truly kind of plugged into like
a common visual experience. But the Bunis Republic, it really
was this like occupied, you know, client state of America
in a way that no other country was, like not
even Japan was owing to the kind of the the
cultural barriers there. So you know, and when you consider
too that the Bondis Republic was literally like the front
line of the Cold War, and it was clear that
they were basically going to storb the the brunt of
Warsaw Pact assault, including nuclear weapons, you know, if when
war came, and in those days, it seemed very probable
that war would arrive. Like this is why I think,
this is why, like Vietnam was so much on their mind. Okay,
like they weren't they weren't just being like virtual signaling
fools or something, or they weren't just trying to score
points with you know, kind of the the international peace movement, Like,
they weren't done that tip at all. Like, especially the
Rotimi fraction types, they had almost like Sourellian sort of
enthusiasm for violence. Okay, So that's important to understand. And secondly,
you know, I I'm not saying this to repeat myself
for its own sake, but the degree to which any
sort of radical or revolutionary or dynamic tendency, especially you know,
in among young people under youth cultures, you know, things
like that, tendencies like that, they're always kind of confined
to the zeitgeist okay, and the security age. All right,
So it wasn't just that, it wasn't it wasn't even
that people you know, I mean academic types would think
this way. But it's not like it's not like guys
and girls like prone to prone to radical director action.
And it's not even like they were thinking like, oh,
you know, national socialism and fascism was a disaster and
it's evil, so we we we've got some moral obligation
to kind of take up the red banner. Yeah, there
were some people who thought that way, but by and
large the only really conceivable modality of revolt or revolutionary
activity was either you know, Marxist Leninist or adjacent to that,
you know, like the degree to which uh uh, you know,
an above board if you know, very much outside the law,
you know, Gorilla tendency, Like it wasn't really conceivable for
such a tendency on the right to emerge. Okay, it
just wasn't. You know. I can't emphasize that enough. You know,
I realize, I'm I realize I'm very much a Hegelian
and and and some people disagree with that, but I
but you know, examples of this phenomenon legion, you know,
not just in the Budus Republic of the Cold War,
but obviously that's kind of the most striking and pure
like example of that. And I come back to the
persons of course Tomler again and again, not just I
think he's an interesting guy, but he's kind of like
the distilled essence of that tendency. It's the Malay's background.
He was older than his comrades, you know, he was
born in nineteen thirty six in Celesia. His father had
been a dentist and it dedicated national socialist. He attended
the Free University of Berlin, and then he immediately joined
at Thuringy Association, which was an old school right wing
like student fraternity. You know, this is the kind of
fraternity that guys like Colin Runner joined, Okay, you know,
but then immediately after, amazingly after graduation, he you know,
in his grad student immediately after taking as you know,
with the equillment of his undergrad degree, he joined the
member he joined the socialist student body, you know, and
he started participating in these protests against you know, nuclear
weapon men's being based in the Bunis Republic. You know.
Now this led to some people that say, like, oh
he was he was some sort of intelligent spook. I
don't think that's the case at all, and there's not
really any evidence of that. Like what Mahler was doing
was you know, like I said, it's my belief the
guy was always a national socialist. He was looking at
like what's possible you know, within the political culture that
he was situated, Okay, and everybody everybody in the on
the real right wing in the Buddhist Republic, you know,
whether you're talking about Otto Reimer or whether you're talking
about Hans Rudel, you know, or any of these or
any of these guys who constituted the early you know,
like Socialist Rights Party, Socialist Rights Party which became like
the NPD later, Like these guys all favored like a
demilitarized Germany for obvious reasons gay you know, not just
because that would spare Germany from destruction an event of
of of of war, but of war between the United
States and and Warsaw Pact, but also it would liberate
the political culture from from from the from these confining parameters,
you know. And as I'm sure people know, you know, Stalin,
the famous Stalin Memo, which you know, the American State
Department wouldn't even entertain. You know, Stalin proposed a totally
demilitarized Germany, you know that, and and and a constitution
that that guaranteed, you know, absolute neutrality. But of course
that would have allowed, if not facilitated, you know, complex
and independence with the Soviet Union, you know. And and
the position has always been of the American regime that
that's got to be prevented at all costs. I mean,
look at that, that's what under that's that's in a
large part of what underlies like this, this war against
Russia with Ukraine as a proxy. I mean, look at
look at the terrorist attack on a European energy infrastructure
and you know, the destruction of the North Stream pipeline. Okay,
So I don't think. I think if one understands kind
of the variables and the ideological tendencies that you know,
underlie what one's priorities are, a Fairey a you know,
either a national socialist or or any kind of right
wing partisan in the Buddhist Republic, that is now, I
don't think Mahler's trajectory is that conspiratorial. In nineteen sixty three,
Mahler he took his law degree. He set up a
legal practice in Berlin, and is uh his specialty was basically, uh,
industrial and labor law, you know, and he was he
was very successful with that. Okay, it's and he he
he continued to immerse himself and kind of student radicalism
obviously because he was older. Now I'm a professional man.
Like it's sort of like a sponsorship and mentoring capacity,
you know, Like he see he began providing like legal
advice to a lot of these people, you know, providing
them funding that a lot of them desperately needed because
you know, these these kinds are n g os. I
mean not just student organizations, but any any kind of
ng os, particularly in those days that weren't adjacent the
bond regime er you know, always like start of cash
and and things of this sort. I mean that was uh,
you know that that's that this was a consistent activity
that he was, that he was Immerston. And when we
last left off, and then we were talking about how
the core of uh, the of them, the Rode Army fraction,
you know, they ended up after after au Andreas Botter
was sprung from jail, you know, uh, they they ended
up they ended up traveling to the Middle East, you know,
through by way of East Berlin, and you know, owing
to their contact on the ground, said who'd been a
who was the son of a of a political science
professor of some of some prestige, you know, like I said,
like it's never been clear exact kind of like what
Sayid's like a resume is, but he's been harassed by
security forces for decades. I believe he's still alive. But
I believe that Horse tom all are like facilitated these
these sort of contexts. Okay, and in those days. In
those days, FATA was the dominant element of the PLO.
It's an imperfect analogy, but the PLO is a well
I mean this. They they fought a war with each
other about a decade ago, but it was always a
tense alliance between Hamas and Fata, and FATA traditionally was
was a secularist, you know, Marxist Leninist adjacent non state actor.
An imperfect analogy would be what became combined loyalists and
military command in Northern Ireland between the UVF and the
uda u f f okay. But in those days, you know,
fata I was definitely like the dominant element, and their
competitor was the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine, which
had been founded by a Greek Orthodox Christian. The PFLP
enjoyed a lot of support from the East Bloc and
they're tactical and strategic orientation. We're both very much oriented
towards a global kind of a military politique. What I
mean by that is they were very very active in Africa,
they were very very active in Europe. You know, they
were very very active in Indonesia for a time. You know,
they're they they said that you know, we've got a
we've got to treat this as an international struggle, you know. Yeah,
so the liberation of Palestine obviously first and foremost is
you know, it's got to be our the kind of
share punk of our of our of our military activity.
But this has to be international in character, you know.
And uh, for those who remember or those who are
students of Cold War history, the bombing of the Discotheque
in West Berlin that you know, uh killed three American
soldiers and wounded a few dozen people. You know, the
label Discothech, which was a which was a known hangout
for US occupation, for USS it was the popular front
for the liberation at Palestine. General command that pulled that off,
you know, very much handing glove with the Stazi. Okay,
but but fata plo. You know, they felt they felt
like they had something to prove in this regard. Okay,
they felt comparatively like very provincial, you know, they felt
like they were kind of like losing the uh, the
propaganda battle and in the court of world opinion. Okay.
So the guy like I'm speculating here, but I think
the facts of one kind of reads me the lines.
The man like horse Tomaler you know who by this time,
again he wasn't the kid. He was in his thirties,
you know, he was. He was a He was a
well off attorney, you know, with a with a law
practice in Berlin. I believe he spoke a few languages,
you know, him approaching Fata and saying, you know, I
have these like young people and they very much committed
to the revolution, and you know they they you know,
they they they want to learn basically, uh, they basically
want to learn like real warfare from you. I think
that would have been like very appealing to them. You know.
Now this first the first iteration of the road attorney Fraction,
Like as we've talked about, it had many problems. Botter himself,
Andrea's Bodder I think was something of a crazy person.
He was a he was a thrill seeker. He was
probably a psychopath, you know. Gundrd Enslin I think was
actually very committed. And you know, men and women are different,
like we've talked about, but female revolutionaries are important. They
serve an important role and people shouldn't be down on
them because many of them are very very very committed. Okay,
Like it's not like women aren't weaker than men like uh,
I mean physically obviously there's you know, a disparity there.
But I think Gundrian Enslin, especially going to a kind
of pied his background was uh was was was probably
kind of like the most stable of that Coterie el
Riqui mine off was kind of a it was kind
of a cliche, you know, like a middle class lady
who you know, kind of was easily misled. I believe
you know, this was not the best mentioned material around
which to build a revolutionary codery. And later that changed.
Later iterations of the root Army fraction I were incredibly
effective and like as we talked about, as we'll talk
about some more. I by that by the nineteen eighties,
the third iteration of the RIF had become very much
like a like an implement of the Stazi. Okay, you
know they were the kind of ops they were pulling
off then, was they were trying to murder Alexander Haig
and things like this. Okay, like this're you're talking about
an entire lady caliber of people and an entirely an
entirely more ambitious operational sense of building of the But
when the road Timmy fraction arrived in Jordan's horse Tomler
was already there and their their hosts, uh, the the
their their PLO hosts were originally pretty suspicious of them,
like not because they thought that they might be ops
who were you know, they're as double agents or something.
But they just weren't convinced they were serious. So initially, uh,
they kind of treated them like they were tourists, you know,
uh basically you know, took them around and kind of
filled them with with political propaganda about you know, Israeli
atrocities and which which were true. I mean, they weren't
you know that this this wasn't being confabulated. You know,
they take them to their rifle range and things like this.
They you know, they'd let it sitting on classes about
you know, you know where they they where they they
study things like you know Mao's uh Red Book. This
soon caught the fair amount of hostility, but when Botter
insisted on being treated like any other revolutionary cadre, he
started he kind of started showing as uh showing his
bourgeoisie colors like he uh, he started he he'd refused
to wear BDU's and caps, you know, he'd wear like Uh,
he'd wear like civilian pants, like jeans or like bekinds,
like velvet trousers that like hipster types like in those
days were like even during like training maneuvers. You know,
so you got this guy like, you know, wriggling under
barbed wire like on the train around like uh, you know,
wearing his like designer jeans and stuff. The as I
think I mentioned before, the uh, the FATA had no
they had no problem with then, they had no problem
with like training women to fight, you know, because because
they had to, you know, and in any revolutionary circumstance
that's uh essential anyway. But you know they obviously like
sleeping quarters and stuff were segregated, as were facilities and
body and Minehoff like refused to accept this. You know,
they presented them their auspices of you know, equality between
the sexes. But you know, uh, like for context, a
lot of these young uh, a lot of these young
Arab fighters, you know, we're like we were more than kids.
Like they they've never even seen like a naked woman before.
You can imagine like how disruptive this was. And this
uh almost led to the camp commandant, who was an Algerian.
You know, almost the almost you know, like like like
banning them from the from the camp and uh, you know,
putting them on a plane back to back to Berlin.
But Mahler was uh was able to kind of like
finesse things at least in the short term. And like
apparently one of the uh, one of the student types
who the Rotimi fraction it brought along as a recruit,
like uh asked why there was no Coca Cola machines
like in camp, Like you know, like these people are
completely completely uh, disengaged from reality. So this was not
I emphasized this because like this was not like an
auspicious start to the Rogue Army fraction. Then it it's
important to consider that because like again a lot of
what you'll read, particularly in the era I mean really
from really from the eighties, from like later Cold War,
when the Iraf, when the third iteration it was still active,
Like we'll talk about it as if it was this Stazi,
the kind of squad of terrorists that you know from
inception was it was a sort of highly effective, you know,
cadre element. Like it's not the case at all. It
was a very spontaneous development. It was very much an
organic uh development of the uh the kind of Berliner
like student culture. Like the fact that the Stazi and
in my opinion specifically Marcus Wolf was able to was
able to uh, you know, kind of molded into something
highly effective, is is a credit to Stazi operational sophistication
as well as uh, you know, the kind of like
learning curve that emerged as these kinds of asymmetrical conflicts
of which, you know, like Vietnam. I mean, the Vietnam
was was many things, including like a very very much
a conventional war, but there was also an asymmetrical aspect
to it. But as these kinds of conflicts you know,
sort of jumped off in earnest, you know, people with
partisan leaning, it came kind of like more and more
habituated to the reality of these things. But this this
is very early on in that and that kind of
conflict cycle. You know, in these these Palestinians, I mean
for years, you know, they've been they've been living on
canned meat, you know, like military rations, you know, stuff
from uh like canned canned goods from United Nations relief organizations.
You know, they uh, the the you know, like I
like fresh and meat was and and vegetables and fruit
was I mean like a you know, it was was
a luxury to them, you know, So I mean this
this brit a fair amount of resentment too. And there
was a there's an anecdote of apparently uh oh ricky
meinhoff on uh on the firing range an instructor uh
handed or uh a Soviet grenade, which we're like unlike
the uh unlike the old Vermont potato mash or grenades.
The these are the ones, uh that they look kind
of egg like, you know, and uh, you unscrew the
cap to free up the ring, you know, and then
like you pull up you'd pull you pull a ring
to pull the pin to pull The instructor showed ol
Rike how to like you know, under scree the cap,
you know, to liberate the ring. And then she pulled
it and like held it as like the grenade band
of hass And they asked, like what do I do now?
And uh, just throw it, throw it like ran forever.
But this is the kind of stuff, uh, this is
the kind of stuff they were dealing with the Palestinians.
I mean like uh kind of a kind of a
crazy man. And in the person of bot Her and uh,
most of the others, Uh, you know, a lot of
a lot of balls and no common sense whatsoever. I do.
But what what, however, what something that did do? I
think those who, including Andrew's Botter himself, the experience in
Jordans None of these, none of these people except uh
l Riki mine Off had been a little kid during
the war years, and so I had Mahler, although Mahler
was obviously as you know we just discussed, had kind
of a more sophisticated sensibility all kinds of ways. But
the rest of them had no experience of war or combat.
Speaker 3: The uh.
Speaker 2: And in this in this Fetiine camp where they were training,
you know, Israeli bombers were regularly circle the sky. Jordanian
troops were at a stabs the main line of resistance
only a few kilometers away from the camp. Everybody was
issued live ammunition at all time. Is because at any time,
you know, and the idea of consult you know. So whatever,
however however cringe some of these antics might have been,
it did. Uh. It did prepare these people for for
real comic situations, you know, in a way that ordinary
training could not. And I think that that's significant too,
because uh, this uh, this this, this, this training lark
is a lot of court of Storian is right about
it if it was just a sort of like fiasco
and and kind of like comedy of errors. But yeah,
I disagree, man, Like, yeah, there was that aspect of it.
But you have you situate anybody in a combat zone
like that, you know, uh, while they're undergoing an intense
kind of regiment of you know, it's only just like
great basic you know, kind of like imagery skills and things,
and like you know how to read a map and
a compass, and you know how to keep your clash
tack off clean and how to you know how to
load it and how to use iron sights and things.
You know, that learning these practical skills when you're quite
literally in a combat zone, even if you're not taking
hostile fire every day or something. And I I I
think that that, I think that confers a certain benefit
that they can't easily be quantified by traditional metrics. But uh,
also too, because Palestine was very much it wasn't just
the front line of of the Arab and Islamic struggle
against Israel, but you know, the the Algerian war was
Uh was still fresh in everybody's mind, and it was
still underway in some ways. You know, the there was
a certain prestige factor two to making contact UH with
the with the camp commandant and other personages around him
like Abu Hassan, who Uh the Palestinians were on very
good terms with. And you know the fact that the
fact that these are effort fruits and in particular horse Tomolars. Again,
like I said, he was, he wasn't is basically a
political animal, you know, degenerated, enduring channels and communication, you know,
And like I said, I I I write a lot
about Johann Vondeliers as well as UH some other third
right personages like quite literally during the Cold War, like
joined the Arab camp. You know, von Leers himself. He
he converted to his Lamb to the name Omar mean
certing the court of Nasser. You know, he viewed is
lam as as the dialectrical antithesis of Judaism. And thus
you know, the perfect UH sort of principal like rallying
principle in order to defeat, in order to defeat what
he perceived as a then triumphant Jewish dialectic. UH in
the zeitgeist. Okay, I'm not saying that like Mahler was,
you know it was was was thinking these sorts of
things like von Leers was. But instinctively, I I think
that he very much was within that, you know, like
engaged in that paradigm psychologically such as it was to
the UH really kind of the the zenith of UH,
of the first UH. The first iteration of the RAF
was the hydro I think of Lufthansa flight. This was
after most of the key personages of the roote army fraction,
the bottom of minehunt iteration of it, I did have
been killed or captured, you know, arrested. The UH, the
security elements of the of the Buddhist Republic had gotten
a tremendous boone owing to you know, the the the
these terrorist activities that were under way, and specifically, you know,
the the Munich situation in nineteen seventy two or the
the Israeli athletes were were slaughtered. But lufthans A flight
on October thirteenth, seventy seven and the summer of seventy
seven colloquially became known as the German Autumn owing to
the an epidemic of political of violence, and this is
considered to be you know, kind of one of the
most what one of the one of the most brazen
instances of it. For operators from the Popular Front Fliberation
at Palestine hijacked liftions of Flight one eighty one, and
their specific objective was to secure the release of the
imprisoned Ruth Army faction. Okay, and again I this is
what I was getting at when I was talking about
Horse to Maler and what I believe is is, you know,
rather profound ability to index with other revolutionary elements. And
like we talked about before, the Popular Front Filiberation of
Palestine kind of their whole, part of their whole grand
strategy was to demonstrate an ability to project power globally,
you know. In this this endured until the end of
the Cold War. Interestingly, the Popular Front Liberation of Palestine
still exists. I don't know to what degree they still
abide a Marxist Leninist program, but they fought on the
side of Asad against Isis, and I believe that they're
active in the Yemen Civil War, and they there's a
militia also under arms in Yemen. They called itself, Uh
you know, something like the the UH like the Armed
Grouping of South Yemen or something like that. Now South
Yemen was, of course, uh, it was a Soviet client state.
It no longer exists, but it was the only it
was the only Marxist Leninist Arab state. So it was
kind of like a feather in the cap of Warsaw pact.
But I speculate very strongly that the sudden emergence of
these guys like fight riding under the banner of South
Yemen and clicking up with the PFLP like that's they
they they were very much into a Russian patronage. I
think that should be clear. I find that kind of fascinating.
But be as it may. The UH there's this UH,
there's this spectacular UH raid the free the hostages on
flight Loot on the flight one one they played it
ultimately landed in Mogadishu, Somalia, and the Somali Army they uh,
they provided a distraction and they detonated this ordinance on
the runway in front of the nose of the aircraft.
So the hijackers rushed the front to see was underway.
And then these these commandos from GSG nine, you know
which is the like special Operations Element, and these British
sas guys, you know, they then uh they then blew
open the passenger door and uh and and and took
out the terrorists. But it uh pretty much immediately after uh,
like after the like I was talking, like, you know,
days after the the incident, the UH, A bunch of
the imprisoned ARIF members UH died supposedly by suicide, including
Andrea's batter, Gudrun Insulin, John Carl Rasp and Ingrid Moeller
who UH supposedly attempted suicide but survived her injuries. But
the believe, the claim of Mahler as well as others,
was that you know, these these people were murdered by
by the guards and uh it was in the immediate
uh aftermath. Helmut Schmidt, who was the consular uh the
Buddhist Republic, he uh, he was hailed as a hero
in the Western world for you know, for his decision
to storm the air craft and refuse to negotiate, and
you know he uh and interesting in West Germany and
Somalia like became very tight after this, like going to
their operational integration militarily and obviously like Somalia, you know,
having a substantial Mauslim population. This was like good pr
but it it was believed again by people like course
Mahler and others like some some sympathetic to the Royal
Army Fractions, some not that you know that uh you
know Schmidt's uh, people like had had these Rotarmy Fraction
prisoners murdered as part of their Basically they're saying like,
look like you're not no, nobody's gonna nobody's gonna hijack
our planes and hurt our people like to try and
you know, spring motherfuckers like this, We're just gonna. We're
just not We're gonna, We're gonna kill them. I think
that's and I mean that's that kind of thing probably
seems like I'm thinkable today, not because the brutality or something,
but I mean within the Cold War, the context of it,
I mean, it was like certain things like certain things
are acceptable, but they just weren't discussed. You know. There
was kind of like a hotshots wink wink like aspect
to it. And I think that's I think that's I
think that's pretty clearly what happens also too, It's you
know the something that what changed to in the later
iterations of the butter of the of the Rode Armity Fraction.
First of all, they became very adept at a striking
you know, like prestige targets, you know, like businessman, industrialists,
bank presidents. You know, like I said, what was going
to be kind of like the feather and the cap.
I'm not trying to be crashed by, you know, discussing
an attempt at homicide and flipping terms, but kind of
like their big their big coup was going to be,
you know, blowing up General l Hague when he was
Supreme Commander of NATO. It's like their operational focus very
much shifted towards you know, kind of proceeding as the
vanguard of an occupied country. And that was very different
than what the bottom Minhaw Federation of the Rose Army
Fraction was doing.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I mean, not only was the initial organization kind of
scattered shot in their priorities, but they were very much
trying to index with you know, kind of like the
global like proletarian revolutionary liberation movement, you know, and like
I said, I horse de Mahler and outsized impact on
their strategic operational priorities and him kind of viewing Israel
as like the primary adversary of a revolutionary German armed
grouping made perfect sense. But the fact that later, you know,
the legacy what was what? What was the self an
unfired like legacy organizations or success organizations, you know, their
targets became you know, the economic the high financial economic infrastructure,
the bud Is Republic and NATO, you know, I mean,
and that's very I think that very much indexes with
an understanding of them being you know, a DDR client
regime like the Chazi's notion always was. And this was
proper if your ambition is to discredit the bundes Republic
was two you know, first last, and always portray the
bond regime as this this militaristic like American client regime
that had no real legitimacy and had no real support
from the body politic, you know, and that in and
of it, like whose existence itself preserved, you know, an
elevated state of arousal for lack of a better term,
of arn't forces in theater because its very existence was
dangerously provocative, you know. And don't get me wrong, like
Warsaw Pack definitely was at war with Israel. They were
literally actively at war with Israel. But you know a
H a West German UH non state actor element that
warsaw packed UH was aiding and at betting and you know,
providing operational priorities to the way, Like it makes perfect
sense that you know there their their targets would be
the NATO officers and and and and key personages and
the West German infrastructure. We can, UH, that's about all
I got on like the bottom Minehoff iteration. We can
get into the subsequent manifestations of this phenomenon if you
want to, or if you want to change direction and
getting a different topic, we can come back to it.
But it's it's like it's a huge topic, like the
UH I've got, Like i'mpowering my way through to refreshment recollection,
like these two volumes on like the entire history about
like half way through. But I don't I don't want
to spend too much time on one discrete topic. So
I will if you want to. But that's.
Speaker 1: Something we can come back to if we have a
one off episode we wanted to do. We're already doing
that one up. We're already planning a one off episode
coming up later this week and then I figure we
just probably after that, just started on a new topic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's great. And yeah, also as we get
into yeah, when it when it's when it's topically appropriate,
like to uh get into like able arch or ara
cold war. I'll come back to it. But I don't
want people to, uh, I mean people, people are free
to criticize me like whoever they want, but I mean,
like I I don't want people think, Okay, what the hell,
like you didn't you know you're only covering you know,
like basically like one third of the subject. It's like
and it's it's not because I'm like lacking or because
I can't realize that there's like a lot more to cover.
And also I think for at least for our purposes
or for my purposes rather like I said, I think
the percentage of horse and Molleler is very important. And
he's presented some kind of crank or some kind of
opportunists or uh, some people accuse him of being, you know,
some sort of intelligence agent who you know, simply it
took on the role of a turn coat because you know,
his uh, his agency's ops became you know, like neo
Nazis and lieu of communists if the what that's that's
complete nonsense. And I don't I don't see how old
man that is going to sing the man went to
prison for like five years, you know, for for a
quote unquote Holocaust denial. But yeah, I hope, uh, I
hope people this series is been getting a lot of
praise and I'm very like honored and humbled by that.
I I hope people, uh continue to get a lot
out of this series, but with with this episode. So
I'm very I'm very fortunate you're willing to invite me
on to cover these topics, man, and uh, I want to.
I want to thank everybody very much for their their
kind words and constructive feedback.
Speaker 3: Of course it doo quick plugs and we'll get out of.
Speaker 2: Here, yes sir, Oh yeah too, we got we We
also got to get back to our mystery science year
three thousand. Seriously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we'll do We'll do that next week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Man. The best place to find like the
kind of the one stop uh site for like all
my content is my it's just my website. It's Thomas
seven seven seven dot com number seven h M A
S seven seven seven dot com. You find everything there.
My sub stick that's where I do long form stuff.
That's where the podcast is at. It's real Thomas seven
seven seven dot subsec dot com. You can find me
on x formally Twitter at real Capital r E L
underscore number seven ho An seven seven seven. I'm on
a t gram. It's a mind Phaser, is my t gram.
It's named after the pod. But if you just if
you just look for Thomas seven seven seven and t gram,
like you'll find it. I'm not. I'm I'm active on
there every couple of days. I'm not super active because
I'm not a big fan of t gram. Back in
the days when I literally could not like get a
social media account without a big nuke in minutes, I
relied heavily on it. But I am on there and
yeah that's I'm on Instagram, and yeah, seeking you find
Speaker 3: All right, Thomas, So the next time, thank you,