ALTHOUGH THE ROTE ARMEE FRAKTION, or Red Army Faction (RAF), disbanded more than a decade ago, the recent Mohnhaupt-Klar debate, the media's celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the German Autumn, the success of Bernd Eichinger's Der Baader Meinhof Komplex (2008; The Baader Meinhof Complex) and the numerous films on the RAF currently in production indicate that it has not lost its appeal. An analysis of the reappropriation of visual representations of the RAF by a generation of younger German filmmakers, the so-called “1989ers,” shows that iconic images of politically motivated violence are being used to question the RAF's pivotal role in West German history. They present the RAF's contradictory symbolic value and evaluate what remains of the 1968ers’ political agendas, ideals, and social experiments. Films like Christian Petzold's Die innere Sicherheit (2000; The State I Am In), Christopher Roth's Baader (2002) and Hans Weingartner's Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei (2004; The Edukators) reveal a generational gap between 1968ers and 1989ers that has developed into what Habbo Knoch has called a Tradierungskrise (crisis of transmission). Such crises of transmission occur during periods of generational transition, triggering a reassessment of historic events, for example, the student movement and armed struggle, both of which were crucial to identity formation in previous generations. Much as the 1968ers reappropriated images and iconography of the Holocaust to distance themselves from the atrocities their parents’ generation had committed, twenty- and thirty-somethings today are reappropriating symbolic tags of the 1968ers. In doing so, the 1989ers challenge the significance and meaning of historic events, organizations, and narratives, while positioning themselves within a political and social context and exploring new forms of political activism both locally and globally.

RAF Goes Pop: The Resurrection of the RAF

Terrorism has been omnipresent in the German media since the 1970s — inspiring artists, authors, and filmmakers to explore its origins and impact. The RAF's resurrection in the realm of popular culture around the turn of the century, however, took many by surprise. In spring 2001 the German feature pages were up in arms when one of Hamburg's hipster boutiques, Maegde und Knechte, marketed a series of “Prada-Meinhof” T-shirts. Shortly thereafter, the lifestyle magazines Tussi Deluxe and Max asked the question: “Is Terror Cool?” and included feature articles on the new “terrorist chic.”