Leon Botstein
GERMAN TERRORISM FROM AFAR
The kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro by the Italian
"Red Brigade" terrorists temporarily dwarfed public interest in the
phenomenon of terrorism in Germany. German terrorism, through the
events of the fall of 1977, the kidnap-murder of Martin Schleyer, the
hijacking of a Lufthansa plane
to
Magadishu, and its rescue, and last,
the suicides of the terrorists in Stammheim prison, was the focus of
intense international discussion well into the winter of 1978. Despite
the turn of our attention to Italy, German terrorism continues to affect
German politics and to mystify foreign observers.
In
the spring of 1978,
four German terrorists were captured in Yugoslavia and, almost
simultaneously, in June, significant anti-terrorist legislation was
passed.
Anti-terrorist legislation in Germany and the prospect of further
legislation, including proposals which would increase border and
airport surveillance, telephone surveillance, and search and identifica–
tion procedures, have been the focus of most foreign discussion. The
anti-terrorist measures most recently passed by the West German
parliament involved extension of the power
to
tap telephones and open
mail. They also called for more stringent identification procedures in
hotels and at campsites. Perhaps most ominous is the measure which
allows judges
to
reject "manifestly superfluous" defense motions in
trials of alleged terrorists. As Italian events show, such preventative
measures against terrorism in a democracy with large cities may well be
impossible to implement and perhaps illusory. Enactment of legisla–
tion purporting to prevent and locate terrorism can pose a direct threat
to the maintenance of the civil liberties of a democracy and can play
into one possible scheme of the terrorists and their sympathizers. Such
restrictions of liberty and freedom could force democracy to shed a
benign facade as a free and just system, and force it to display its
genuinely harsh character, its support of gro s social and economic
inequality. Preventative measures of a repressive character might, in
theory, enhance the attractiveness of radical political revolution among
the citizenry.
