ABSTRACT
In an earlier essay devoted to the Red Army Faction (RAF) and Germany’s Hot Autumn, I identified and discussed in detail a number of interrelated narratives: the student protest and political activism, notably in West Berlin and Frankfurt; the “return of the repressed” in Germany’s recent past; and a younger generation’s search for a viable national identity, while divided about the use of violence for political ends. 1 These narratives evolved in the films made in the wake of the events of 1977—films like Germany In Autumn (1978), Knife In The Head (1978), The German Sisters (1981)—before the different strands became fused, consolidated and hardened into clichés. The narratives, in turn, were modified somewhat in the films and television programs since the 1990s, often restaging and reenacting key episodes: for instance, the focus shifted to the leading figures on both sides of the divide, rather than concentrating on the bystanders or sympathizers, as had been the case in the films of the late 1970s.
