Heroes or Villains

In reading the reviews posted on this site, I've been surprised and appalled by how many express sympathy with the politics of the Baader-Meinhof group. While it is unquestionably true that protests about what was happening in Germany and elsewhere in the world were justified, even laudable, the murders, bank robberies and kidnappings committed by this gang of deluded youngsters cannot be excused or applauded on any moral or ethical basis. They knew exactly what they were doing and, if the film is as accurate as friends and foes alike concede, they gloried in it. Baader is portrayed as egotistical, flamboyant and uncontrollably angry, Ulrich as thoroughly selfish and unstable, and Ennslin as driven by an ideological fervor that borders on insanity. Treating them as idealists, which some reviewers do, is to regard terrorism as innocent when it is, in fact, deliberate murder, often of bystanders. Treating criminals, which is what they people were, as "political activists" demonstrates an inability to recognize the difference between legitimate protest and actions that are far beyond the pale. The political position taken by the German Government at the time the Baader-Meinhof people were in full cry might not have been to the liking of the German left, but Germany was no longer a dictatorship. There were plenty of channels available to the government's critics including the path followed by those like Willy Brandt who ultimately defeated the ruling party.