Former Terrorist Silke Maier-Witt, now 75, finds it incomprehensible that some left-wing circles continue to romanticize the long-underground RAF members Daniela Klette, Wolfgang Staub and Burghard Garweg.
“They lived for years like ordinary criminals and they put themselves in the same league as all the great revolutionaries of the world” Maier-Witt said in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, discussing her book “I thought I was dead until then.” The conversation with Jörg Schleyer, the youngest son of Hanns Martin Schleyer, who was murdered by the RAF in 1977, touched on the solidarity demonstrations that took place after Klette’s arrest, which Maier-Witt described as a painful blow.
Maier-Witt, who issued a statement on behalf of the RAF after Schleyer’s murder, is the only former member to have apologized, according to Schleyer. He finds this remarkable, which is why he is speaking with her. However, he does not believe the past is forgotten: “Forgive, forgive and forget are not the same thing.”
In the book and the interview, Maier-Witt discusses her path into terrorism, her life under a false identity in the DDR after leaving the RAF and the difficulties of starting anew afterwards – as well as the futility of political violence. “When you kill people, you only change your own world, burden it with guilt. But you improve nothing.