The gripping insider account by the investigator leading the Federal Criminal Police special commission into the Baader Meinhof gang. In the Federal Criminal Police Office he was the man for problem cases, known as the top man in the fight against the escalating Red Army Faction terror campaign. Frequently questioned and often quoted, for the first time Alfred Klaus now gives his version in context of the years from 1971 to the ‚German Autumn’ of 1977. Commissioner in Chief Klaus developed highly unconventional investigative techniques while on the Special Commission into the Baader Meinhof activities. In order to understand what was going on in the minds of the young people who had banded together to form the Red Army Faction he would visit the relatives of the activists and studied the texts that inspired them. He knew the terrorists and their mindset better than any other officer. This earned him the nickname ‚Chief ideas man of the Red Army Faction’ from his colleagues, while Ulrike Meinhof called him the‚Family Cop’. He was the only ‚cop’ Baader, Ensslin and Raspe talked to before committing suicide – and the only one with the right idea of how to rescue Schleyer. Only no one listened to him...
About the author:
Alfred Klaus, born 1919 in Königsberg, apprenticeship in shipping and machine engineering, then wireless operator in the navy. After the war, switched to the police, first in the Lübeck Criminal Investigation Department and then in the Federal Criminal Police Office, at the security department in Bonn. Worked in State Security, in the department responsible for internal and external security. From 1971 onwards deployed to the anti-terror campaign as leading investigator in the special commission on the Baader Meinhof gang. Gabriele Droste art and German studies. Cultural Department of the German Embassy in Paris. Worked for 13 years as editor at Burda Publishing. Now freelance fiction and non-fiction author. |
