The Baader Meinhof Complex - Stefan Aust

This is briiiilliant.  Firstly because the Baader-Meinhof group was a name I'd heard, but didn't really know anything about (so it filled in a lot of gaps I didn't know I had in my head), but secondly, and more importantly, there's such a huge, barely concealed tension in the book.

It's an attempt at an objective history of this gang of pretty well intentioned, moralistic students who were part of the worldwide student protests in outrage at the US war in Vietnam, the nuclear arms race, and growing tensions between east and west.  From West Germany, protesting in the late 60's student movements, they developed through the 70's into a proper terrorist organisation, one step following another, from protesting at a student demo, to the final act, the hijacking of an airliner alongside a Palestinian terrorist organisation.  As they say, "from protest, to resistance

But Aust doesn't manage to be entirely objective - this is his passion, he seethes with angst over the events, because - as is revealed at the start of the book - he very nearly fell into the gang.  Events transpired that he left them early, before things really took off, but there is a definite sense of "there but for the Grace of God, go I..."

Its an amazing story, especially reading it now in the anti-septic surroundings of South Bank university in the early 21st century.  These were students who wanted to change the world, and felt (quite correctly as it turned out) that they really could.  It didn't go as they'd hoped, but their impact was enormous.  The context in which it all happened was staggering in its difference to today... the university they were at, on the entrance to the main building, was draped with a 20ft high banner, in massive red letters saying "revolution or death!" or something... people fought with the police on the streets, human rights were worth taking a beating for.  What would get people on to the streets now?  Its hard not to agree with a certain amount of what these people said and did - a lot of it was total crap, and they became entirely corrupted by the struggle they found themselves in (threatening to blow up an airliner full of innocent tourists is NOT something to emulate), but as Aust puts it, they had a certain style, its like reading the script of Hollywood movie (which in fact, it now is...)

The self confidence, the drive, the seemingly inescapable logic of protest to resistance to retaliation and to offensive that they employed, was incredible.  Read it, in a bit of a dry way (from his attempt at a clinical analysis of events) at points, its brilliant.