Jean-Paul Sartre Visits Andreas Baader In Stammheim Prison, Stuttgart | December 1974

Описание: Wednesday, December 4th 1974.

Footage of Jean-Paul Sartre, the existentialist philosopher, visiting Andreas Baader, the leader of the West German left-wing urban guerrilla group the Red Army Faction (RAF), while Baader was incarcerated in Stammheim Maximum Security Prison in Stuttgart.

The RAF came to be better known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

Sartre, who at the time was 69-years-old, said that he wanted to learn Baader's political views. Baader was a convicted arsonist who was being held at Stammheim Prison pending pre-trial proceedings for other criminal charges.

Ulrike Meinhof, who had recently been transferred to the same prison, was serving an 8-year sentence for attempted murder.

After meeting Baader, Sartre told newsmen that the conditions in which Baader and other urtan guerrillas in West Germany were being incarcerated were such as to make them unable to defend themselves, drive them mad or lead to their deaths. He said that Baader -who had been on hunger strike for 84 days looked like " a tortured man spoiled by hunger."

Footage: Reuters News Archive.

Note:

1. Sartre's visit was very controversial as many saw it as a public figure giving succour to a violent, misguided terrorist. Others understood his visit as being rooted in his existentialist thinking which argued that the existence of violent dissent in society was evidence that society had not sunk to a grovelling, prostrate form that was beholden to the grip of bourgeois society - as he had experienced while living under the Vichy government during the Second World War.

2. Still others were confused as to why Sartre chose to visit the "anti-intellectual" Baader and not the more coherent Meinhoff. They were also surprised that Sartre remained silent after Meinhoff and Baader died in mysterious circumstances that the authorities attributed to suicide.

3. A transcript of the meeting which surfaced in 2013, appeared to show Sartre trying to convince Baader not to continue murdering people. Also an official of the Baden-Württemberg State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA) claimed that Baader "appeared dejected and disappointed that Sartre didn't unreservedly approve of the actions of the Baader-Meinhof Gang."

See "When Sartre Met RAF Leader Andreas Baader", By Felix Bohr and Klaus Wiegrefe. Der Spiegel (SpiegelOnline), February 6th 2013. https://www.spiegel.de/international/...

4. Sartre is alleged to have privately referred to Baader after their meeting as a "twat" ("Quel con!")

5. Satre was accompanied on his visit by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the French-German student leader during the civil unrest in France in May 1968.