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A Radical Rethinks Terrorist Violence after the Murder of Federal Prosecutor Siegfried Buback (April 25, 1977)

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We just have to open a newspaper and follow the daily headlines: the strategy of liquidation, this is one of the strategies of the powers that be. Why do we have to copy it? It frightens people (“The People”!). They have had their own experiences with this, as with incarceration and work camps. Whatever we do, it throws a light onto our goals. We will not liquidate our enemies. We will not lock them up in prisons and work camps but nonetheless we are not going to treat them gently.

Our goal of a society without terror and violence (even if there is still going to be aggression and militancy), a society without forced labor (even if there still will be grind), a society without a judiciary, prisons, and institutions (even if there are still rules and regulations, or better: recommendations), this goal justifies not any means, just some of them. Our road to socialism (or if you like: anarchy) cannot be paved with bodies.

Why liquidate? Ridicule can also kill, for example, in the long run. Our weapons are not simply imitations of military weapons, but ones they cannot shoot out of our hands. Our strength therefore does not have to lie in a phrase (such as “solidarity”). Our violence, finally, cannot be that of Al Capone, a copy of open street terror and daily terror. Not authoritarian, but anti-authoritarian and for that reason all the more effective. For the sake of the power issue (oh my God!), leftists cannot be killers or brutes or rapists; but certainly also not saints or innocent lambs. To develop a strategy and practice of violence and militancy that is happy and to have the blessing of the participating masses: that is (turning to the practical conclusion) the task before us today. So the leftists who so act do not assume the same killer faces as the Bubacks.

A little hefty, isn’t it? But written in all honesty….

A Mescalero from Göttingen



Source: Anonymous [actually Klaus Hülbrock], “Buback – Ein Nachruf” [“Buback – An Obituary”], Göttinger Studentenzeitung, April 25, 1977.

Translation: Allison Brown

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