ABSTRACT
Susan Stern published her personal journal of a Weatherwoman in 1976, a year before she died from an overdose at the age of 33. Her memoir is rarely mentioned among the books of the New Left and the Weathermen. Together with her then husband, Robby Stern, Susan became a member of the SDS in August 1967; she was 24 years old. When the SDS splits in June 1969, Susan follows the Weatherman. She feels galvanized by the charismatic Bernardine Dohrn, although she misses the “big family” of the SDS and the feeling of belonging it gave her. Susan Stern’s activist and terrorist trajectory seems paradigmatic of the youthful appetence for the excitement of extremism and the swift passage to the act.
